They stepped over fallen trees, now decomposing, their guts filled with ants, and wound around tall thin oak trees and squat ferns that all looked the same to Alice.
“Don’t you get lost out here?” she asked. There was no trail stamped between the trees, no cairns or ribbons tied to branches marking the path.
“The first thing you’ll learn from the forest: one step west and the terrain is born again.” Madeline bent down to pick up a felled branch and used it as a walking stick. “Every day I get lost on purpose. Turning right and left until I can’t tell one tree from another, until I’m convinced that today will be the day when I won’t find my way back. Every day, when I fear I’ll never find home again, I look up and there’s the chimney. That’s why I built it taller than all the trees that surround it. It will always guide me home.”
An image came to Alice swiftly. Madeline lost to the woods, her white hair grown long, a nightgown trailing her as she ran with no destination, unafraid. No. That wouldn’t do. It was an allegory Madeline had already fashioned for herself. Alice couldn’t steal it.
As they walked farther, the forest condensed, groves of sycamores tightening. They twisted and turned until Alice had no idea whether they were walking toward or away from the house. The arches of her feet began to ache, and the sun was high in the sky above them. She was famished. She drank from the canteen, hoping water would distract her from her hunger. The teal metal insulated the water, keeping it painfully cold. Her mouth grew numb, but that did nothing to quell her all-consuming desire for that croissant. Her brain was no good to her until she fed it again.
Just when Alice thought she could not walk another step, the chimney appeared in the distance. Madeline clapped in delight.
“See,” she said, “it’s so much more satisfying when you get a sign that it’s time to return rather than making an arbitrary decision.”
They followed the chimney until the redwood siding of Madeline’s house became the backdrop to the trunks.
When they returned to the patio, the sandwiches and carafe were still laid out on the table. Madeline poured each of them lemonade. The ice, somehow not melting in the day’s heat, clinked as it fell into the glass. The croissants were warm, as though they’d just been pulled from the oven, and the chicken salad sandwiched inside was perfectly chilled. Alice let the layers of croissant melt in her mouth. She shut her eyes, holding her face up so the sun could kiss her cheeks. The moment was calm and perfect. Alice felt completely at ease. This was it. She waited for an image to rise in her. The moment was ripe for it. Her body was ready to be inspired. But the blankness persisted, white and vast, thick as morning fog.
When Alice opened her eyes, Madeline was watching her. She waited for the old woman to ask if Alice had made any progress on her story. Madeline continued to observe her with an indecipherable expression.
“What?” Alice asked.
“I was just thinking how nice it is to have company. I love my solitude. I’ve cultivated it. When you spend so much time alone, it’s easy to forget that sharing time with others has its merits.”
“I spend a lot of time alone too,” Alice admitted. Since she began writing, she was spending even more time sequestered in her apartment. Only it never felt like she was alone because she had her stories, their imagery and characters, to keep her company. “It’s easier to appreciate spending time with people when you don’t need them to be happy.”
Madeline nodded pensively. “And are you happy, Alice?”
It was such a simple question, one Alice rarely stopped to ask herself.
“Of course.”
“Why of course? Is it so obvious?”
“I embrace the life I’ve chosen. Like you.”
“You say that as if we always make the best choices for ourselves.”
“And you,” Alice said, “are you happy?”
“There are as many ways to be happy as unhappy. They aren’t mutually exclusive.” Alice waited for Madeline to elaborate, but the woman sipped her lemonade, watching the shadows the trees cast on the ground. “I was thinking that perhaps you would like to visit my library? There’s nothing like a person’s books to let you see into their soul.”
With the offer, Alice understood. Madeline had not asked about Alice’s story because she knew that she had not volunteered enough of herself for Alice to begin writing.
“I’d like that very much.”
They left the remains of their lunch outside and slipped into the kitchen. Alice followed Madeline down the hall and upstairs, where the floorboards creaked with their weight. The grandfather clock that Alice had heard on her first visit grew louder with each step until they reached the second floor and Alice’s temples pulsed from the intensity of every tick.
The hall upstairs was painted white. There were three closed doors, white like the walls and paneled. Madeline explained that the one down the hall was to her bedroom, the one facing the woods behind the house to a guest room and the other to the library. The library door did not have a crystal knob like the others. Instead it had an elaborate brass doorplate with a heart-shaped metal knob, worn smooth from touch and glistening in the dim light.
Madeline reached into her pocket to retrieve an antique brass key. The bow was monogramed withMA, identical to the initials on the wax seal from the letter Alice had received in the mail. The doorplate did not appear to have a keyhole. A three-dimensional image of a woman in a voluminous dress and laced boots covered most of the plate. In profile, it was impossible to tell if the woman was young or old. She carried a parasol tucked under her arm, the tip of which pointed to a numbered dial with a filigreed heart at its center. The dial was currently set to sixty-seven although it went up to one hundred. Beneath it was a passage in cursive that Alice couldn’t quite read from behind Madeline’s shoulder.
Madeline pressed on one of the raised buttons on the bust of the woman’s dress, and her right leg kicked up, exposing a keyhole beneath. The key slid effortlessly into the hole with a satisfying click as the dial rotated clockwise, the tip of the parasol now pointing to sixty-eight. Madeline turned the heart-shaped knob and pushed the door open.
Inside the room was floor-to-ceiling shelves filled with hardback books, a fireplace already blazing, the ticking grandfather clock, and a small safe that broke up the space. Recessed lighting complemented the Tiffany lamps scattered around the room, lamps that added more atmosphere than light. Each of the two oversized chairs was draped with a cashmere throw, the floor covered in overlapping Persian rugs. Alice glanced at the clock to check the time. The pendulum swung back and forth, but there were no hands on the dial. It ticked at an even cadence, signifying that time was passing even if Alice could not be sure of how much. She stepped toward the shelves, prepared to look into the soul of Madeline Alger. Books had always been an inspiration to Alice. She read to understand herself. She read to understand the world around her. Surely she could look to Madeline’s books to understand her too.
As Alice surveyed the collection, she couldn’t make sense of what she was seeing. Several copies of the same book sat together, although they were not alphabetized or arranged by author.East of Edenwas nowhere nearThe Winter of Our Discontent. Sometimes, as withA Farewell to Arms, all the copies were of the same edition while the many copies ofLittle Womenall had different covers. Most titles had a single copy, including each of Shakespeare’s late romances, the only Shakespeare in the entire library. And every shelf had a copy ofWuthering Heights, Alice’s favorite book. In her cursory examination, she spotted no books that seemed out of character, no bodice rippers that would have been too scandalous for someone like Madeline, no books likeGravity’s RainboworThe Sound and the Furythat were displayed almost always for appearances. More peculiar still, despite having cats named Poirot and Ripley, Madeline had no works by Christie or Highsmith, no mysteries at all.
As Alice continued to walk around the room, scanning all the books she’d read, those she wanted to read, some she’d forgotten about and must read again as soon as possible, she thought, Where is he? It didn’t seem possible that Madeline could have loved a man who didn’t also love books.
