The Man In the Forest Part 2

Her mother and sister (who was a full eight years younger than she, and much like their father had been, which is to say, rather more romantic than was good for her) only saw Laknir Lodge once after she moved in. She went to great trouble to cook a large meal for the three of them, and dragged the table outside so they could enjoy the forest in all its beauty. Mother complimented the repairs which had been done so beautifully and efficiently, and remarked that the house was both comfortable and well-cared for. Heather complained endlessly about the journey, and how she’d developed a sore from sitting in front of Mother on the saddle. But she also noted that Flora was a most excellent cow, and spent most of the afternoon petting her and telling her what a good cow she was and a pretty cow, and that she must look after her sister who was a bit of a dope sometimes.

Ryan liked being with her family, even when she and Mother were not getting along, but their visit felt almost like a violation of her much sought after solitude; so, whenever a visit was suggested, she forever after contrived to meet them in town. She made certain to visit often enough to keep Mother from remarking on this, hoping that she would only believe her daughter was homesick.

Her days were spent in a state of perpetual motion. It was rare that she had a moment to sit and reflect; which suited her just fine. First thing in the morning, the sun barely in the sky, she would feed the chickens and let Flora and Ichibod out of the barn and into the fenced area where they could graze without the danger of wandering too far into the forest. Flora was not producing milk yet. She was purchased (at a very reasonable price) as a very young heifer, and had not yet been bred. An arrangement to breed her to a bull from one of the farms just outside town had been made with the provision that the farm would have the calf for free once it was weaned. This had seemed a fair deal at the time, but it meant leading Flora on a two hour tramp through the woods and most of town to reach the farm, and then leaving her for several days with the bull, only to lead her on the same treacherous hike back to Laknir Lodge. It would also mean that Flora would have to give birth to her first calf on her own, and with no way to fetch the vet if something went wrong. Goodness knows, her human keeper would be no help in such matters. Ryan had had the process explained to her by the same farmer who offered to breed Flora, as well as various worst-case scenarios and what to do if they occurred, but that in no way made her an expert. As a young girl, she’d watched her neighbor’s dog give birth to puppies, but she rather thought the process would be more complicated in a large animal, and so kept putting off the whole thing, and simply went without milk.

While the chickens were eating, she collected their eggs from the coop, and went inside to have her own breakfast. Once or twice a month she went into town for those things she could not produce herself, such as grain, flour, sugar, coffee, etc. There was a garden in which she grew tomatoes, peas, squash, potatoes, green beans, spinach, and a handful of herbs, as well as an orchard of apple, plum, and peach trees. Sometimes she set out traps for small game, but she was no hunter, and never caught anything larger than a plump rabbit. She saw deer occasionally, and she did have a shot gun in case one of the larger predators came too close, but the deer were such graceful beings she didn’t have the heart to shoot them. Besides, she could only eat so much, and she did not like to waste food. As it was, in the height of summer her garden produced more than she could consume, and she would take baskets of produce into town to sell. Curiously, her crop was much sought after by the townspeople despite the number of large farms who could afford fancy fertilizer and pesticides to grow large healthy produce, and could further afford to offer their harvest at lower prices. A rumor began that because the land her garden occupied was so isolated it was somehow unspoiled by human interference, and therefore much purer and sweeter tasting. Whatever the reason, she never returned home with unsold goods, and always made a fair profit.

Her only other source of income was through the sale of her paintings and the occasional dowry chest. Even as a child she’d had a gift for drawing, but good materials were expensive, and after Father died leaving an eight year old daughter and expecting wife, they could barely afford food let alone canvas and paints. And so she learned to make her own materials. At eight, she knew little of such things, and spent hours mixing various ingredients and testing them, then tweaking the recipe and testing them again, over and over. It felt good, this methodical experimentation. It kept her from missing her father (though it had been he who had always encouraged her art) and from worrying about Mother and the baby, and who would take care of them. When Heather was born, the lost feeling that had plagued Ryan since her father’s death suddenly went away. Heather was a bright, happy baby right from the start, but she was also incredibly destructive once she learned to crawl and needed to be watched carefully. Everything seemed to fascinate her, especially animals, and she could hardly be made to sit still for five minutes at a time. Mother had been greatly shaken by the death of her husband, coming, as it did, just three months before she was to give birth to their second (rather late) child.

Those three months were perhaps the worst in both their lives, and neither mother nor daughter seemed to know how to comfort each other. But as it had for Ryan, when Heather was born, things seemed to change for Mother. She reverted to the ever-practical, strong-willed individual she’d always been, and took a job as a seamstress for the local dressmaker, working hard to provide for her girls. The work helped Mother regain her sense of self, just as experimenting with paints had for Ryan. One of the reasons they did not always get along was that they were so very much alike, and both were glad that Heather turned out like Father.

Mother excelled at her sewing, and by the time Heather was 2 years old, they no longer had to worry about money, and could again afford those precious paints. But by that time, Ryan had become somewhat pretentious about her paints and what went in them, and so she preferred to mix her own rather than rely on pre-mixed store bought paints. Besides, she had less time for painting then anyway, for with Mother working most of the day, and sometimes well into the night, it fell to her to look after Heather. It was during that time that she first saw the sad, wistful, guilt-stricken look cross her mother’s face when she looked at her. She called it Mother’s “too soon” look. She would see it when her mother came home late to find her washing dishes while singing a lullaby and rocking Heather’s cradle with her foot. Or when Mother woke to find her 10 year old daughter already cooking breakfast, with a pot of hot coffee ready on the stove. Ryan knew, even then, what the ‘too soon’ look meant. It meant Mother felt that her elder daughter had had to grow up too soon and too fast. Maybe she was right. Maybe that was why that same daughter had sought her independence so fiercely and completely that it drove her to the very edge of civilization.

By the time Heather was 4 years old, Mother could afford to pay a nanny, and insisted that Ryan go to proper school instead of studying out of books at home. She also encouraged her to spend more time on her painting, and to that end spoke to Mr. Cartwright, the local carpenter, about letting Ryan paint some of the detail on his dowry chests. It was the custom for a bride’s new husband to buy her a wooden trunk which would sit at the end of their marriage bed. These trunks were often painted all over with bright designs, usually of flowers, though the more intricate ones from wealthy families would sometimes depict the courtship of the newly married couple or some famous deed performed by one or the other's ancestor. Ryan could reliably paint beautifully delicate flowers by that time, and Mother thought it would provide her an opportunity to further her craft. Mr. Cartwright was a straight-forward, honest fellow, who much preferred woodcraft to painting dainty flowers, and was happy to take Ryan on as an apprentice. Her designs soon took on a life of their own, and she began painting more and more intricate murals. Brides began to insist on elaborate and unique paintings designed to outdo one another, and the joke went round that a man who did not buy a Ryan Chest for his bride, did not have a happy marriage ever after.

She learned a great deal from Mr. Cartwright, who was a fair hand at painting, even if he didn’t love it as he loved wood craft. She also met Tom, Mr. Cartwright’s son, who was a year older than she and much less serious. Tom loved nothing more than to drag Ryan from her work to run with him outside in the sun for a bit. He said he was afraid she was turning old before his eyes when she stayed indoors stooped over her work, squinting at the tiny lines she painted in the dim light all day. Before Tom, she hadn’t realized that she’d forgotten how to act like a child. She’d forgotten what it was like to run so fast she thought her body would fly apart at the seams, or how good it felt to lie on the grass and imagine she could see shapes in the clouds. She’d forgotten how to laugh.

The first time Tom imitated Mrs. Pennyweather, the retired deportment teacher at the ladies’ college who now spent her afternoons shouting instructions such as “don’t shuffle your feet” and “chin up, young man, you look like a great slouch” from her perch outside the tea house in the middle of town square, Ryan let out a belly laugh which nearly frightened her to death. She clapped her hand to her mouth in horror as she realized it was the first time she’d laughed like that in over 4 years. Tom, expecting her to be amused by his impression, found himself instead asking if she was all right, for her face had gone quite pale. She nearly began to cry, and could not explain that she was grieving for the loss of something she had only just realized was missing. She didn’t cry. She hadn’t cried even when her father died, and she certainly wasn’t about to start then. Instead, she took a steadying breath, looked up into Tom’s worried face and said, “Yes, I’m fine.”