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Deep into the forest the trees abruptly cleared, and Naomi was standing at the edge of a steep white ravine. At the bottom snow stared blankly back up at her. The land beyond rose into dizzying mountains. Far across the way a frozen waterfall resembled a charging lion. The trees were shrouded in white, a vision of the heavens.
Naomi was constantly amazed at all the little worlds that exist outside our own.
Where are you, Madison Culver? Flying with the angels, a silver speck on a wing? Are you dreaming, buried under the snow? Or is it possible, after three years missing, you are still alive?
Snow was falling outside. She couldn’t see it, but she could feel it. It’s funny how you can hear something as soft as falling snow.
On the way up the steep mountain road, sentinels of packed snow on the sides, Naomi passed what looked like a failed effort at a hunting lodge. The lodge roof had collapsed; the windows were empty sores.
was the contradiction of her life, Naomi knew, that she was suspicious and trusting, afraid and fearless—and, most importantly, often at the same time.
She had been having the big dream, off and on, ever since she had been found. But in the last few weeks, since she had decided to come back to Oregon for this case, it had been recurring with terrifyingly vivid frequency.
As always, after having the dream, she tried to uncover the truth. What part was reality and what part was fantasy? Are the stories we tell ourselves true or based on what we dream them to be?
Her entire life she had been running from terrifying shadows she could no longer see—and in escape she ran straight into life. In the years since, she had discovered the sacrament of life did not demand memory. Like a leaf that drank from the morning dew, you didn’t question the morning sunrise or the sweet taste on your mouth. You just drank.
Naomi was beginning to enjoy her time in the forest, despite the sadness of her call.
The forest was alive. Bear hair on a tree. A sky like an upside-down gold pan raining sleet that left stars in her hair. A musky smell from afar: a skunk traveling fast—she could see his black-striped, humping form. Towards the end of the day, before the sky or her watch told her night was coming, the sound of wolves awakened the dusk.
Behind her the falling sun turned the white-capped trees into visions of gold. The snow reflected the sky above, the clouds rushing like tatters of heaven.
Outside a spring snow whipped and purred. The trees raised their very arms to feel it. The sun was very, very far away: a lemon drop that could not warm a thing.
The words echoed to Naomi as she drove back through the valley, crossing farmlands as the sun kissed the world good-bye. The gentle hills were covered in green velvet, the low fields gnarled with abandoned orchards. Pink clouds unfurled.
The mom-and-pop farms had been replaced by giant producers, their walking sprinklers crawling across a dirt sky.
Life for the thing called B was seen in flashes of light, like vivid color shots on lake water still frozen in the early days of summer. It was seen in the shape of clouds, or in a fir tree against the silver sky.
America was an iceberg shattered into a billion fragments, and on each stood a person, rotating like an ice floe in a storm.
The air was so clean and cold here it was like a drink of health. She felt the power in her legs, the sure purpose in her walk. Her skin tingled with energy.
asking for help from others was more dangerous than doing something alone. Part of the tug of her forgotten past was the danger of those who acted nice. You never knew who was safe, her mind told her, and that conviction formed a hard wall inside her.
She said it in a way that put a shiver through him—as if she was as nameless as the trees, as formless as the wind, as empty as the cave she had fallen into. As if she could vanish as easily as the children she sought.
No one ever told you what to do when love went away. It was always about capturing love, and keeping love. Not about watching it walk out the door to die alone rather than in your arms.
Each and every time Naomi found a child she told them it would be okay. She encouraged them to be whole with themselves, to never forget and yet look forward. She could not begin to imagine such peace for herself.
“Hope springs eternal. Just remember: so does evil. Sometimes they are impossible to tell apart.” “No one knows that like me.”
Everyone needs faith: faith that even though the world is full of evil, a suitor will come and kiss us awake; faith that the girl will escape the tower, the big bad wolf will die, and even those poisoned by malevolence can be reborn, as innocent as purity itself.
Naomi called Jerome that night outside the motel, watching the sun fall over the mountains. The white-capped summits turned purple, then lavender, and finally a deep mesmerizing gold.
This is why the people have said ever since: A man is not dead until he is forgotten.
It was funny how when it was time for tomorrow, some people stayed and some people left.
The moon, B had noticed, awakened the dawn, and so the two—like pale cousins—never saw each other. Even on the most hopeful of days the moon could only peep, from a distant sky, at the sun.
“Stop thinking that you have to know everything to understand it.” Naomi had tried to find peace in that. If what had happened to her was too horrifying to remember, then that was how God wanted it—He
Each child she found was a molecule, a part of herself still remaining in the scary world she had left behind. Eventually they would all come together and form one being, knitted together in triumph.
Naomi had loved Mrs. Cottle, and loved Jerome. But what was love without escape?
The deer and the elk lived passionately on this land, a tall square that snow girl drew on the walls of the cave. She knew the dimensions in her mind, from the limits of the trap lines she traveled with Mr. B. She carved the places on the map:
He didn’t blame Naomi. He admired her strength, her spirit. But he saw Naomi as the wind traveling over the field, always searching, never stopping, and never knowing that true peace is when you curl around one little piece of something. One little fern. One little frond. One person to love.
How could she find the future if she didn’t know her past?
Of the children she had found, the ones who did best over the long term were the ones who had found a way to play. They created fantasy worlds in which to hide.
Yes, the ones who did the best in the long run made a safe place inside their very own minds.
It is in the middle of nowhere where we often find someplace, Naomi thought, looking at a slate blue sky over a shattered landscape: trees poking up hills, crags that plummeted to dizzying drops.
The best kind of strength, says my therapist, is the one inside you.
This is something I know: no matter how far you have run, no matter how long you have been lost, it is never too late to be found.
