Page 1 of Where the Rivers Merge

1908

The child stood in the enclosed garden as the sun lowered into a crimson sky.

The moss-draped oaks stood watch and the countless white camellias seemed to shimmer in the twilight as the world held its breath.

From the distance came the first, faint, nasal calls of ducks.

She imagined them coming in as a great cloud, their dark wings flapping against the sky, from the river to roost in the rice fields.

Fly away, her heart cried out.

In the next breath she heard the five-note artificial duck calls from her daddy and his friends sitting in the blinds, enticing the ducks closer, their guns poised.

In counterpoint, a burst of high-pitched laughter rang from the house behind her.

Looking over her shoulder, as great shafts of light shone from the tall windows, she could see her mother and friends standing in long gowns, their red lips moving.

The girl shivered in the twilight air.

She hated these parties and the way her mama acted when she drank from those long-stemmed glasses.

As the sky darkened and duck calls filled the sky, their number appeared as a shadowed cloud approaching the rice fields.

Suddenly the evening’s peace was rent by explosive shots.

Songbirds cried in the surrounding trees, and the girl’s heart fluttered with unspeakable sadness.

She started to run, her bare feet pattering over the brick walkway, escaping the confined garden walls to sprint across the manicured lawn that stretched far out toward the ancient rice ponds, surging now with the rising tide.

With each pump of her arms her mind called out,

Fly away . . .

She darted into the deep woods, farther from the dull cracking noises in the sky and the frenzied laughter.

Lightning flashed, urging her to push through the thick shrubs at the lawn’s border into the woods.

Branches scratched her face and arms and twigs tugged at her hair, pulling dark strands from the ribbon’s hold.

An inner voice scolded that she shouldn’t wander so far off the path.

Still, she ran as the night thickened and familiar signposts disappeared.

Never had she run so far.

When the sounds of guns changed to the soft rumble of thunder, the child stopped to listen, as still as a fawn, her ears cocked.

Once her breathing calmed, she heard the wind rustle the leaves and rattle palmetto fronds, heralding a storm.

A moment later came the soft thuds of a slow rain falling on the thick tree canopy overhead.

Then one drop hit her forehead, fat and wet.

She ran again, her bare feet skittering over the matted leaves of the forest floor.

She burst into a large clearing and stopped, hands on her chest, panting.

The meadow was unexpected and vast. A field of wild grasses swayed in the wind like waves across the ocean.

Standing in the middle of the meadow, like some regal queen, was a giant live oak tree.

The biggest she had ever seen.

The enormous outline was silhouetted against the purpling sky like a mountain.

She couldn’t count all the thick, muscled boughs that spread far out over the grass before gracefully drooping to the earth.

The limbs snaked along the ground and narrowed at the tips, where they curled like cragged fingers, beckoning.

At the great tree’s base, she spotted a large hollow.

A fierce crack of thunder spurred her on, instinct guiding her across the meadow toward the tree’s shelter.

Yet when she reached the hollow, she didn’t rush in.

She paused, as hesitant as any wild animal before entering the cavernous darkness.

“Shoo!”

she shouted and clapped her hands.

Silence from within.

The brown resurrection fern that grew thick along the jagged edges of the hollow was changing to a bright green right before her eyes.

She took a step closer then paused again, poised for flight.

Suddenly a cloudburst dumped a torrent of rain.

Its iciness stung her tender skin, sending her scurrying inside the belly of the majestic tree.

The darkness smelled of moldy leaves and mushrooms and earth.

The girl breathed deeply and was comforted.

Chilled to the bone, she curled her legs to her chest and wrapped her thin, scratched arms around her bony knees.

She tugged the hem of her wet nightgown to blanket her bare legs, but it offered scant warmth.

Inside the hollow, she heard the rain as the beating of a drum.

Gradually, her eyes acclimated to the dark and she could see the long, rough folds of the inner hollow.

She smiled as it dawned on her that she was sitting inside a tree.

The ridges of wood reached skyward like the arches of the church her mama brought her to on Sundays in Charleston.

In the corner a cluster of daddy longlegs were racing around in a panic.

“I won’t hurt you,”

she told them.

Her voice echoed in the cavernous space.

A sudden tickling across her toes caused her to start, then giggling, she brushed away a shiny green beetle.

There was nothing inside this old tree but a few bugs, she thought.

The girl yawned, feeling the pace of her run, then stretched out on the mossy ground, which was as soft as a feather bed.

She rested her head on her arm and breathed in the heavy fragrance of petrichor.

She was safe.

The rain had slowed to the gentle pattering of a lullaby.

Closing her eyes, the young girl fell into a deep sleep.