Our Lady of the Forest Read Free

people not to believe in her. That bitch didn’t see the Virgin Mary. She was on an acid trip.
    Maybe she hallucinated a Madonna video.
    Yeah, Like a Virgin.
    No, Like a Sturgeon.
    Weird Al Yankovic I think sucks.
    So what are you doing after school today?
    I’m totally, completely tired for some reason.
    This freaks me out.
    Me, too.
    I’m totally freaked.
    That bitch. What a lez.
    She didn’t see anything.
    Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â Â 
    The first apparition—on November tenth at three in the afternoon, in the wake of Ann’s two disturbing dreams, which she characterized afterward not as dreams but as pregnant celestial visitations—occurred while Ann cleaned a mushroom. She had taken a bandanna from her jeans pocket, folded it into a sanitary pad, and nestled it into her panties. Then, climbing over a steep hill, she’d entered a thicket of salal and Oregon grape not conducive to mushroom picking. This she passed through in fifteen minutes before coming to a sea of moss. The forest here had a dank smell. There were chanterelles, but few in number. She picked them with no particular urgency; the cold she felt coming made her feel listless, and her bucket was nearly full.
    She was brushing dirt from the gills of a mushroom when she noticed a strange light in the forest. Later she described it as a ball of light hovering silently between two trees, also as a bright floating orb about the size of a basketball. It was lit from inside, not from without, not like a mirror, jewel, or prism but more like a halogen lightbulb. It didn’t waver or wax and wane like a candle and appeared, like a helium balloon, free of gravity, aloft and attached to nothing. A nimbus surrounded it like fog or gauze. She thought that perhaps it revolved in place like a small planet or a moon.
    When Ann felt confident it was not a mirage, a trick of the forest, or a problem with her vision, she picked up her bucket and ran. A number of mushrooms hopped out and spilled, and she lost a few dozen when she tripped on a nurse log, but she didn’t stop until her lungs forced her to; then she sprawled behind a tree, pulled free her rosary, made the sign of the cross, and recited, silently, the Apostles’ Creed. The light, she thought, hadn’t followed her, thankfully, so she said an Our Father and three Hail Marys, and when it appeared that she was safe where she lay, hidden between two clefting roots, she went on through the remainder of the rosary, whispering all of it at high speed.
    It was, she felt certain, not a fantasy or dream but more like something from a science-fiction movie, a UFO or a government experiment she wasn’t supposed to know about. She didn’t want to present herself out in the open and stayed behind the concealment of ferns where she could watch for it in pursuit of her and, if need be, flee again. But the woods, as always, were indifferently still; there was no sign of a traveling light. Ann clutched her rosary between her cold fingers. Perhaps, it occurred to her, troublingly, the light had something to do with Satan.
    When she saw it again, off to her left, it seemed to her that it was spinning violently, or vibrating and shimmering. It was closer this time, and lower too, and feeling now that she couldn’t outrun it she held up her rosary like a shield. Leave me alone, get out of here! she said. Just get out of here!
    Instead, as she told her inquisitors later, it glided toward her in a frightening arc, dropping first and then advancing. It loomed larger and more distinct until it was clearly a human figure—she could make out a spectral, wavering face and a pair of incandescent hands—levitating just off the forest floor thirty yards away. It was now too brilliant, too luminous, to behold, so still staving it off with the rosary, she used her free hand to cover her eyes and peeked, squinting, between her fingers. Don’t hurt me! she said, feeling at its