Ellenís second choice was Tower Grove Park. She had wanted to walk elsewhere, but the elsewhere she had in mind was charging an admittance fee. So she came to the park, found a place for her car near the central fountain and began her march. It had rained recently. The sky was overcast, the ground was damp. Her shoes sank at every step. Mosquitoes, she thought. I should have remembered there would be mosquitoes. It was still early in the morningóthough not as early as she would have preferredóthat was her fault for not dawdling, not the earthís fault for turning. The wet grass, the muck of it, made the journey a trudge. She reached a path and resolved to stay with it.
Ellen stopped briefly at the fountain, the pool of shallow water nearest the path, looking in at rocks and candy wrappers and a glass bottle standing upright. The bottleís neck stood above the water like the arm of the Lady of the Lake. She wondered if a message might be inside. But the trophy was too far to reach, and anyway shallow pools are breeding grounds for mosquitoes. She walked on.
She was headed east. The sun flickered occasionally behind clouds, behind the trees in full green summer leaf. The path was a wide avenue of streaked asphalt. Regularly spaced in that Victorian sense of order were wrought-iron benches, painted drinking fountains, stone bridges over drainage ditches. Ellen was trying to think of nothing in particular. On some visits she could contemplate her past history with the park or imbibe its atmosphere or release herself from a bad mood by constant motion. The plan today was simple recreation, being awake, aware, taking no distraction from present circumstance.
A car slowed down on the parallel road. Quick anxiety flashed through her but then she remembered the speed bumps. The wheels complained over the obstacle and then the car sped off.
Ellen caught a scent and with it a mood. Both the scent and the mood she found difficult to name. They had to do with a mystery about this park, what it was really beneath its seasonal faces. Sheíd come here for yearsóto bike, to picnic, to writeóhad been drawn to this orderly forest again and again, had perhaps always sensed its strange energy but had rarely attempted to name it. She struggled with the question now. She knew she had to try to pin some fragment of it down in her mind if she ever hoped to describe it to another. As she walked down the corridor with its overhang of Osage orange and maple and sweetgum, she fixed the sight of the pathís absolute, unswerving forward sweep in her memory. What word could she give this? Gothic, maybe, and autumnal, even if it was still high summer. The wild part that did not fit a rational view of the world, even if her path had been laid with fanatically geometric precision.
Something new hereóa small pond to the left with cattails and other bog plants, brown, green, high-stalked, chaotic. Beyond this another bridge, another drainage ditch. No water flowed here though, just rich textured soil at the bottom of a cut running across what had been flat landscape.
Ellen veered from the path. Sometimes, coming to this park, she followed rules. They were older or wilder or part of some private conception of a quest. They were like the rules you meet in fairy talesóyou have to go into the woods, ask directions from those you meet, be kind to the old woman who asks you for something. In turn she may give you a gift. Going into the woods seems to be an important step. Once there, you have to keep your eyes open for anything out of the ordinary. You also have to be careful when you stray off the path.
Ellen examined the banks and the course where the stream had once run. Something copper caught her eye. It was the size and shape of a scouring pad. Fairy tales didnít provide a guide for possibilities like these. Ellen in similar situations had made up her own rules. Yes, they were arbitrary, but once she decided on them she followed them. She decided the rule here was that she could not step into the place where the stream had been. (This was a convenient rule because it was likely muddy.) She looked for a stick she could use to prod the copper thingóit seemed to have some kind of tag that she couldnít see at this angle. Perhaps if the copper thing was interesting enough, she could fish it out with the stick and get some treasure out of this quest. She found a stick. Poked with it. The tag said ìCopper scouring pad.î Ellen wrinkled her brow, puzzled by the padís presence but not fascinated enough to rescue it from the ditch.
The rules said she should follow the course of the stream to the north. She had to keep jumping from one bank to the other to do this because bushes and trees kept blocking her way. It was against the rules to walk around these obstacles on the far side. Ellen traveled nearly all the way to another park path and road before she found something else sufficiently out of the ordinary. It was a tree with jade green, broadleafed ivy covering the trunk completely to the height of a man. She moved away from the bank for a closer lookóthis was permissibleóand discovered the tree was a cypress. In fact she now stood in a grove of cypresses. Another strange mood flickered just beyond her grasp. Tall, solemn trees, each removed from the othersóa grove of solitary forms. Green light, the color of spring growth, fell through the tracery of lace-soft needles. She stared, turned, blinked, listened. On another path a young man was walking a large dog. She wondered if she should try to tell him about the cypress. Was he part of this journey too? The chances were slim, she decided. Besides, she still lacked the words.
Robins were all aroundóan elderly one on the ground a few paces away, others flying from tree to tree. One piped a note and another quickly echoed it. She got out a piece of paper and wrote:
ìThe things robins say begin with one bird, travel to another, and on from bird to bird until a whole thought is expressed. No one robin owns the whole message. Sometimes a contradiction comes right in the middle, but that is all right. Rarely does a dissenting voice lead to argument.î
She could set a story here, maybe. Ellen headed back to the path. It was no longer necessary to follow the stream. Sheíd gotten what sheíd come for.