The Forest Lover by Susan Vreeland

sleepy now? Rest.” She indicated a sunny patch of grass alongside Ancestor. Tommy stepped through the gap in the fence, and curled onto his side next to the figure.
    â€œIt’s a perfect picture. Would it be all right if I painted that figure?”
    â€œAncestor would make a good picture.”
    â€œAnd with Tommy there?”
    Sophie’s eyes opened wider and her lips formed an O before they sprang into a proud smile. “Yes, I share him with you.”
    They approached the Ancestor, and Emily began by sketching with charcoal to get it bold enough for the stark figure. Annie Marie crept up behind her to watch. Emily liked her small, quiet presence. She did two sketches from different angles, and then two watercolors. She showed them to Sophie. When Sophie whooshed air out of pursed lips, Emily felt happiness bubble up her throat.
    â€œNow Ancestor will not forget him,” Sophie said.
    â€¢ • •
    At the little two-room house Sophie made tea. “Juniper berry. Good for . . .” Sophie patted her hands over her belly. She poured the tea into a chipped china teacup. Emily held it up to examine it. Queen Victoria’s insignia was stamped on the side.
    â€œShe was my Queen too,” Sophie said, seeing her surprise.
    â€œYes, I . . . Yes. We share her.”
    Sophie nodded definitively.
    The tea would take some getting used to.
    Tommy played, wistful and sneezing on his blanket at her feet.Emily reached into her pocket for her handkerchief and offered it to him. He raised his face to her. “Blow,” she said softly, and it gave her pleasure when he did.
    He climbed onto the settee next to her. She lifted her arm and he nestled against her, leaning his head against her bosom.
    â€œYou fit me,” he said.
    She smiled and sat still so the moment would last. Out the open door, she watched Annie Marie squatting near the salal bush with her knees wide apart. She patted the dirt smooth, picked out stones, and began to draw with a stick. When she was dissatisfied, she rubbed it flat and started again, concentrating, hope freshening her face each time. When Tommy moved away, Emily picked one of the watercolor studies of him with the Ancestor and offered it to Sophie.
    Sophie’s hands shot up to cover her mouth. Her head turned from side to side.
    â€œYes, Sophie. It’s for you.”
    Slowly, Sophie lowered her hands to reveal a proud, high-cheeked smile, her eyebrows arching, even her ears lifting. She made a small, careful hole in the paper with the sharpened tip of a reed and hung it on a nail opposite the Virgin Mary.

6: Muskrat
    The fur trader’s wooden boats were as ticklesome as she remembered them. From where she stood on the bluff above the cove, the red pilot’s cabin on the larger boat looked much too tall and narrow. The crooked stovepipe had so many angles it didn’t know where it wanted to go. And to have it topped with a tilted tin coolie hat! That stern pole had no purpose other than hoisting aloft a French flag and a foxtail. The boat gazed back at her through its sleepy animal eye, a faded black circle painted on its prow surrounded by the same almond shape as the carved saint’s eye in Sophie’s church, painted in red and black. As for the skiff tied alongside, it was a creature, really, not a boat at all. Its bow had sprouted red whiskers and an impressive set of white pointy teeth stretching back half its length, and near its stern, red flippers.
    Even the man’s tent had character—taller on one side than the other, patched in places, foxtails hanging from the tent poles, and a furry little head attached to the tent peak. Two pairs of long johns hanging from driftwood drying racks flapped in the breeze like nervous specters frantic to find their bodies. It would be a dilly of a painting. “Oui, mesdemoiselles,” she said and wagged her head. If she were going to get any decent sketches for a