When the feds come to town, MJ joined that boutique yoga studio in McCall.
“Enjoy!” Aunt K calls out the Subaru window. She jets away so fast she’s practically turning into the Raley’s Supermarket parking lot already.
Although Aunt K landed her a golden exception from paying back the university, the interrogation and her missing parents—MJ closes eyes, she must stop focusing on it—rattles her for real. Aunt K’s doctor recommended meds and counseling, agreeing yoga might help. He didn’t even ask about the (mostly healed) scar on her wrist.
MJ lowers her head to climb the steps into the cute little renovated house behind the Mountain Pantry. She stows shoes and her bag in the cubby. When she enters the main room—the cavernous space she snuck into last autumn while avoiding Amber and Co., which she’d already, secretly, attempted to meditate in—the studio owner eyes her.
Everyone knows who MJ Kirsch is. Especially since Angel and Red made National News. Who cares? People go missing all the time. But the incongruous facts of Red’s disappearance and the grossness of Angel’s remains… They took black lights into the house, which they demanded could not be leveled by Aunt K, and said it looked like a murder scene thrice over. So much strife and body fluids over years. They couldn’t tell what was connected to the time of Angel’s disappearance. Sheriff made MJ admit to the feds just how bad Red treated her. That was hard.
“How was this week, MJ?” The teacher’s outfit floats somewhere between a monk’s robes and lingerie.
MJ clears her throat. “Fine, if only I can get my brain to stop working.”
A gentle laugh. “That would be radical. We’re doing seated meditation tonight. Maybe just work on calming the monkey mind?”
MJ shows teeth in an attempted smile. Monkey mind was explained, at the beginning of the series, as the voice inside that doesn’t stop—the voice that grows louder when you ask it to quiet.
Well, MJ’s hearing voices all right, even if they aren’t monkeys. Voices of worry and doubt, voices of accusation, voices of the dead. The tiny voice of a girl once named Mary Jane: Please just get me through this!
Among a group of yoga mothers, retired engineers, and a few braids, dreads, and the charmed, MJ drops in.
The teacher talks them through it. “Allow your eyes to soften. Bring your attention to this moment, this space. Now go inside.”
They sit for some time in silence. Eventually MJ finds it: The feeling of acceptance and spaciness she once learned in Angel’s hippie commune. The fires, the drum circles, the people all come back like memories holding her then gently setting her back down in McCall, Idaho, on a meditation pillow.
“Lengthen your spine. Stay with it,” the teacher instructs. MJ feels like the teacher is speaking directly to her.
For the briefest moment: Silence. Then MJ experiences a waking dream. She’s floating on an ice-cold lake far from shore. Sharlie, McCall’s Loch Ness Monster, appears as a silhouette in the distance. Really it’s mountains and a sunset. It’s beautiful. No wait, the monster is actually swimming closer. Sharlie takes her time. There’s a black spot where her mouth should be.
“Come back to presence. We are safe here.”
MJ slumps with a sharp exhalation. This is the hardest thing, so that’s why she committed to it. Meditation. She deserves waking dreams of monsters, doesn’t she? She’s the murderer!!! Isn’t she…?
The teacher dings a bell. “That was 3o minutes. Start coming back. We’re returning now. If your eyes are closed, let them flutter open.”
MJ’s eyes never closed. Visions of Red attacking her and Angel sinking in Blue Lake in the truck are still too fresh.
The teacher sits in front and smiles at each student. “How’d we do?”
MJ glances around. Other students look radiant. A 60-year-old man responds, “So peaceful, I could hear snow falling.”
“Yes!” One of the mothers interrupts joyously. “There was this moment when I was so close, but so far away, I could feel the coldness of the snowflakes and simultaneously imagine the crystalline structure of just one.”
MJ sighs, rolling her eyes.
The teacher turns to MJ. Other students glance at her.
“I didn’t feel those things,” MJ presses.
“Sometimes it’s harder than other times.”
The teacher watches her with those caring eyes and then smiles at the class. Her hair swings as she looks around. “We’ll keep working like this for the next few weeks. Have a good evening. Namaste.”
Resigned, MJ puts away her props. Maybe she should try one of those super-hot, super-hard yoga classes that make newbies puke.
The teacher comes up to her. “How are you doing, MJ?”
“Is it so obvious I failed?”
The teacher smiles softly. “In what way did you fail?”
“I can’t find peace. I don’t feel much of anything.” She tips her head. “Well, there was a vision of Sharlie. But it was, like, a second.”
She laughs. “The Lock Ness Monster? That’s your first step, then.” The teacher touches her shoulder. “Maybe you’d like forest bathing. I’m still working out how to do it in wintertime, but it might hold your attention better. Wanna try?”
MJ smiles stiffly. “I’d try almost anything right now.”
In the lobby, MJ pulls snow boots over her consignment shop yoga pants and glances at the poster for forest bathing.
Admittedly, the people look totally zoned out. Blissful, even. It’s a summertime photo of them meditating in an old-growth forest somewhere outside of McCall. Probably a secret location known only to esoterics and forest rangers.
What would they wear in the winter? Vegan-fur robes? MJ laughs.
The teacher sees MJ’s smile. “We’d love to see you there, MJ. This one is on the house.”
“OK—I’ll see if I can get a ride.”
*
MJ and her counselor also agreed she should return to the Roseberry Historical Society. She hoped they take her back even though it had been a few months since she’d shown her face. But, the hot chocolate social went off without a hitch.
“Give 'em hell!” Aunt K speeds away without stopping.
The front door of the old white church creaks open. MJ stands there uncertainly. What if they think she was just there for the money? Aunt K had originally asked her to go, but still, people often think the worst.
“MJ!” Sarah Nash turns and calls. “Come in and close the door! It’s cold out there!”
MJ cautiously steps in.
MB eyes MJ from the podium. “Been a while. Thought you got a job!”
Sarah practically barks, “Mary Beth: Shut it.”
Most of the women eye her curiously, but Sarah keeps waving her in like groundcrew guiding a broken aircraft.
Their documentarian, Joy, smiles softly. “Glad to see you back.”
MJ struggles back tears and takes a seat by Sarah.
MB sucks in a breath and continues, “Fine. Per our new business,” she raises brows at MJ as if to highlight that MJ has no knowledge of the latest happenings, “We’ve been approached by the Long Valley Society about hosting their summer concert. But we lost our land trust bid due to… the recent sensation in the news media. Basically, our group has a vote of no confidence.”
MB sniffs. MJ gulps.
Another woman speaks up, “We’ll just have to get someone to host it privately. Until we can work out the details.”
Sarah nods rapidly. “So many in the community have space. Why, even MJ here…”
The ladies are quiet.
MJ’s eyes widen. “What?”
Sarah looks a little sorry, but MB clears her throat.
MB says loud and clear, “We need a space big enough for a stage. A barn will do. And fields to host around 500 people with booths. Kara and Red’s places combined would do.”
MJ sucks in a breath. “Oh, I don’t…”
“You own half of that now, don’t you?” MB’s glasses slide down her scaley nose.
Sarah breathes out, “Jesus, Mary Beth.”
MJ starts shaking. “I don’t know. Aunt K can’t… she can’t…” She meant to say, ‘Aunt K can’t level Red’s place, and it’s atrocious to think of strangers looking at the house I grew up in and knowing what went on there.’
Sarah grabs MJ’s hand and races her out front. The door slams.
Sarah says, “Shush, don’t worry about that old dragon. She doesn’t think.”
“MB hates me!” MJ sobs. “I only came back because I need so-some-something to do! I need to get started doing… something!”
“Of course you do. Don’t worry, I’ll talk to her.” Sarah embraces MJ using the strong arms of a mother. “Mary Beth is tactless, but not wrong. The Kirsch place could host, and it might be a reason to move on.”
MJ looks up at the older woman. “You think we can just—move on—after everything that’s happened? After everything that happened since Red?”
Sarah pauses, presses her lips together, then makes some kind of decision. “I believe it, and you must, too.” Sarah brushes back MJ’s hair almost like a child. “If there’s one lesson I’ve learned, life moves on. You can, too.”
MJ likes the sound of this almost as much as she likes the attention of a woman who is a supermom compared to Angel. But she doesn’t want to get sappy. Or, too attached.
MJ pulls away. “I’ll ask Aunt K what she thinks.”
Sarah nods. “Good. By the way, are you meditating?”
MJ’s head jerks. She’s super confused. “Not sure I’m really doing it yet. Why do you ask?”
“Lucky saw your name on the list for those participating in those forest bathing thingies. A Forest Service representative attends each first session to talk about forest safety. Otherwise, we get people burning love letters and whatnot.” Sarah laughs with a little grimace.
MJ tries to stop the sensation of tingling in her body. Don’t be ridiculous, MJ, she tells herself. Random chance in a small town is high. Doesn’t mean a thing.
“Bet he’d give you a ride.”
MJ is surprised. “I guess, if he wants to.”
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