The God of the Woods

by Liz Moore

Many a pedestrian on reaching these woods is incredulous of the danger which he is told will menace him if he ventures out alone to indulge in his favorite pastime. But let him rest assured that there is no question as to the reality of this danger—the danger of losing himself in the forest. That is the only thing to be dreaded in the Adirondack woods!

How quickly, I reflected, peril could be followed by beauty in the wilderness, each forming a part of the other.

She closes her eyes. She imagines herself returning, for the rest of her life, to this place and this moment: a lonely time traveler, a ghost, haunting the cabin called Balsam, willing a body to appear where there is none.

Three rules were given to the campers upon their arrival. The first concerned food in the cabins, and the way it was to be consumed and stored (neatly; tightly). The second pertained to swimming: an activity that was not, under any circumstances, to be undertaken solo. The third—the most important, as evidenced by its display, in capital letters, in several communal locations—was WHEN LOST SIT DOWN AND YELL.

Her father once told her casually that she was built like a plum on toothpicks, and the phrase was at once so cruel and so poetic that it clicked into place around her like a harness.

Her voice, it seemed, had been continuously decrescendoing since birth, so that by age twelve, she could scarcely be heard.

“Sixty-five percent of people,” said Calvin, “are less than twenty feet from a trail when they first begin to feel disoriented.”

There was a particular brand of humor employed by twelve- and thirteen-year-old girls, especially when they weren’t in the presence of boys: it was at once disgusting and innocent, bawdy and naive. When it wasn’t being used for ill—when no one was its target—this type of humor delighted Louise. From the wall, she watched them quietly, fondly, recalling what it was like to be in this moment of life that was like a breath before speech, a last sweet pause before some great unveiling.

To panic, said T.J., was to make an enemy of the forest. To stay calm was to be its friend.