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I hold my breath, then put my hand in his. He’s warm and rough and even in this simple touch, I can feel his strength. My guts turn into a whirlpool.
Levi looks at our joined hands, then up at me.
“Actually, I was offering to take your mug,” he says, nodding at it, in front of me on the counter.
Duh. Fucking duh, and I would like very much right to turn into goo and simply melt into the cracks of his beautiful, hand-finished wood floor because of course he wanted the mug, obviously he wanted the mug, and here I am acting like we’re having some kind of moment.
We’re not having a moment. The only moment we’re having is me talking too much and him offering to take dirty dishes from his friend’s kid sister, to whom he is currently being very nice because, again, I am his best friend’s kid sister.
“Right. Sorry. Right. Here it is, be careful there’s still a little bit in the bottom, thanks!” I say, already laughing nervously.
He takes the mug, turns, places them gently in his (clean, empty) sink.
“I’m gonna go there,” I say, jerking my thumb over my shoulder. “Over there? I’ll be there.”
“I’ll call the power company again,” he says, and I hear the faint click of a telephone being lifted off a receiver.
I’ve already turned away and headed for the living room, thankful that it’s dim in here and Levi can’t see that I’m fire-engine red.“Vandalism, most likely,” Levi says, propping his feet on the coffee table. “Though I admit to being puzzled by the whole affair.”
We’re sitting in his living room, on two leather couches that are caddy-corner to one another, his slice-of-tree coffee table in the middle. Between that and the fireplace is Jedediah, his bear skin rug.
Levi had nothing to do with Jedediah’s death. If I remember correctly, he was killed by poachers and Levi didn’t see any point in letting something perfectly good go to waste.
I lean over the coffee table, a small camping lantern in my hand, scrutinizing the map of the Cumberland National Forest in front of me. There’s a dark green area shaped kind of like an eggplant labeled Otter Mountain Wilderness, and near the middle of it, two hand-drawn X’s.
“In a wilderness area?” I ask. “That seems pretty involved for something not many people are likely to see.”
“It’s the best explanation I’ve found,” Levi says. “Some people just want to watch the world burn. This all landed on my desk a week ago and I’ve not made heads nor tails of it.”
“Because you’re in charge of trees?” I ask, still looking at the map with the lantern.
Levi laughs.
“Madam, trees take charge of themselves,” he says.
I shoot him a puzzled look, then reach for another map.
More wilderness area — Hickory Trap Wilderness — more X’s.
“I have yet to induce a tree to listen to my advice,” Levi admits. “At best, I’m a caretaker of trees. Though a middling one, judging by all this.”
“You’re sure it was the same person?” I ask, looking from Otter Mountain to Hickory Trap and back. “How many are there?”
“No, and three,” he says.
“Three trees?”
“Three incidents, five trees,” he says, and then pauses.
He leans forward, elbows on his knees, his face lit by lantern and candle and I get that nervous rush again. I feel fourteen and new to crushes, or at least crushes who noticed me back.
“Can you keep a secret?” he asks, voice low.
“Sure,” I say.
He rubs his hands together, studying me for a moment.
“I’m not Silas,” I say, half-smiling.
“One of the trees they cut down in Hickory Trap was Girthy Glenda,” he says.
Then he pauses, as if he’s waiting for the news to shock me. He’s almost right, but I’m mostly shocked that there’s a tree named Girthy Glenda.
Girthy. Girthy.
“She was named in the 1920s,” he says, as if that explains anything. “And she’s the largest Northern Red Oak in the United States.”
Then he sighs.
“Was,” he corrects himself.
“Who’s the second largest?”
“That I don’t know.”
“Well, one, I can’t believe you don’t know that and call yourself an arborist, and two, that tree is your number one suspect,” I say. “Big Ol’ Bertha just wants to be the number one red oak in the U.S.”
“Northern Red Oak,” Levi corrects me, sitting back on the couch.
“Glenda wasn’t even the biggest overall red oak?” I tease, looking back at the maps.
“I’d prefer that no one find out she was a victim,” he says. “Honestly, I’d rather no one find out about this whole fiasco.”
“I think our nation deserves to mourn Glenda,” I say.
There’s a silence. I listen, and after a moment, I look up at Levi.
“When we visited the site we found out she was two hundred and sixty-seven years old,” he says quietly, his eyes on the maps. “She was alive when the Declaration of Independence was written. She was alive during the Civil War. She survived at least three forest fires and who knows how many droughts and blizzards and thunderstorms, just for someone to cut her down for no damn reason at all.”
