Northwood. Maryse Meijer

      This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

      Copyright © 2018 by Maryse Meijer

      First published in the United States in 2018 by Black Balloon, an imprint of Catapult (catapult.co)

      All rights reserved

      Jacket and book design by Jonathan Yamakami

      Jacket illustrations by Rufus Newell

      ISBN: 978-1-948226-01-1

      eISBN: 978-1-948226-02-8

      Catapult titles are distributed to the trade by Publishers Group West

      Phone: 866-400-5351

      Library of Congress Control Number: 2018938765

      Printed in China

      10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

      For D.

      Because

      a fire

      THE WORLD

      I don’t draw you anymore.

      I want

      to see

      through the trees.

      The way the pen used

      to feel,

      a weapon, drawing blood from the page:

      not a hymn,

      not an homage—

      why are the best songs love songs I want

      to draw

      death but death doesn’t make

      music. On the page or

      elsewhere.

      The wood

      doesn’t care if you live

      or die. It

      is dying all the time. Living. Unsurprised.

      But I

      am not

      a wood, I am not a stream I mourn

      the branch that

      breaks from its body

      and I want

      to make a mark more than I want

      to make love

      but I was

      only

      ever good at this one

      fucking thing

      THE HIEROPHANT

      I’d only been away

      for a day no city no

      sky I recognized, how full it was,

      the hard stars so cold-shouldered

      blinking You are alone,

      Only not quite:

      there was the stream, after all, and the trees,

      and ants relentless over the counters,

      the foxes fucking their way through the evenings

      their screams so human it chilled me,

      high slaughterhouse sound

      whistling in every direction.

      I could not get the fire started and the floors had no carpets

      and the boots I brought had a hole in them and the dew

      came through.

      I went out to the porch and put my head against the post.

      I knew what a car was. I knew

      convenience stores and dollar hot dogs and coffee

      that appeared

      when my money appeared and the phone ready to ring

      and the traffic like the sea

      lapping the concrete coast of the sidewalk,

      24 hours, something always open.

      I wanted to get away and I was away

      and there was that sky that seemed to say, You know nothing.

      I took my pencils out, my paper, my ink.

      The rough table was short on one leg and when I drew

      it rocked from one side to the other.

      Moths flew from the cabinets.

      I had never been in love.

      KINDLING

      I saw the light on in the woodcutter’s hut and walked

      through the leaves and knocked on his door not knowing

      he was there on the porch sitting in the dark a blanket

      across his lap he said What. I said I’m alone I can’t start the

      fire. My nose dripped. I had no gloves. I thought it would be

      warm, my first month in the woods. I just stood there. He got

      up and I followed him into the cabin, my cabin, and he took

       the box of long matches from the mantel and showed me.

       How dry the wood had to be. Stacked just so. Blow. Smoke

      in my eyes. How it stung. Squatting side by side I sniffed the

      cold coming off him how long did he sit outside like that in

      the dark it was so dark. The fire swelled. After a moment he

      left. Sparkle.

      Snap.

      And the burn

      ORBIT

      I’ll speak just once, here,

      about my father.

      You were nothing like him:

      he was small, lean as a young tree

      and scared. He sat in corners

      and cleaned his glasses

      and tried to smile. He was almost never

      there. I mean in his head he wasn’t.

      He liked to see me

      with my pens, at the kitchen table:

      he said I would be

      a great artist

      though he was an insurance man

      who couldn’t name a single painting.

      He told me

      before he disappeared

      about the way he thought

      I should love.

      Don’t marry, he said,

      the one you like best.

      That’s the way to keep it, you know.

      Friction

      slows a thing down.

      Love him

      from a distance. And he’ll always

      be yours.

      I said, Yes Dad.

      I was ten and uncomprehending.

      A year later he left the house