Free The Color of Water in July by Nora Carroll Page B

each one beaded with a gossamer of moisture: perfect rose-colored globes.
    “They’re dwarf raspberries,” Daniel said. “It’s an endangered plant. You almost never find them.” Carefully, he disengaged his hand and left the berries to rest hidden under their leaf canopy. “The whitetails will certainly eat them soon, if the squirrels don’t get to them first.” He reached over and plucked a single berry from the plant, then, gently pressing on her chin, he dropped one sweet starburst into her mouth.
    Daniel led her farther down the path. “Here,” he said. “Tell me, what do you see?”
    Jess looked around and saw nothing but trees and more trees.
    “Lie flat on your back,” he said.
    They lay on their backs staring up at the canopy of leaves above them, dampness seeping through the back of her jeans. Jess noticed that there were a number of trees with long, straight trunks that appeared to leave the forest entirely and rise up into the sky.
    “This is it,” Daniel said. “The last stand of giant white pine hereabouts. The lake used to be ringed by them, but these are the only ones to survive.”
    “Survive?”
    “Lumbering. They chopped them all down to make planks from them. You know all that wood in our cottages? Number one white pine planks. Just lie here for a minute and get the feel for it.”
    Jess and Daniel lay side by side on the wet, mossy ground in silence. Jess felt uncomfortable and vaguely foolish. The ground was wet, and there were sticks poking into the small of her back. She really did not know what she was supposed to be looking for. She just kept staring upward at the ever-shifting patterns of branches and leaves. She stared until the long, straight shafts of the trees seemed to converge overhead.
    “Do you see it?” Daniel asked.
    “See what?”
    “If you look long enough, it looks like a vaulted ceiling.”
    Jess shivered as she murmured assent.
    “I call it the Cathedral of the Pines.”

    Cutting through the woods, they got to Daniel’s cottage in just a matter of moments. It was surprisingly close, straight through the forest, just on the other side.
    Daniel and Jess walked up the worn wooden steps of the small cottage; its weathered green shingles were just slightly paler than the surrounding woods. A cottage sign, T REETOPS , hung over the porch.
    “Is anybody home?” Jess asked, suddenly shy.
    “Nobody’s here but me,” Daniel said. “I’m staying here alone for the summer. I’m doing an independent project, photographing birds.”
    When Daniel pushed the warped cottage door open, the interior looked warm and inviting. Treetops, the Painter cottage, was cozy, decorated in dark reds and greens, with soft woolen Hudson’s Bay point blankets draped over corduroy sofas.
    Even inside, Jess was still shivering.
    “I’ll make a fire,” Daniel said. He took some logs from the hearth and stacked them on the grate in the large fieldstone fireplace that took up most of one wall. Jess curled up in the corner of one of the overstuffed sofas. She pulled a multicolored woolen blanket around her shoulders.
    “He should be arrested,” Daniel said. “You should press charges.”
    This was Daniel’s first reference to the events of the previous night. Lying in the woods, looking at the trees had calmed her. Now, her stomach started to churn. Jess did not disagree with him, but it had not occurred to her to do something like that. Already, Jess sensed that she would not know what to say the next time she saw Judge Whitmire, a tall, slightly stooped man with white hair, always elegant and courtly in a navy-blue blazer and white pants. Things came up at Wequetona from time to time. To call the police would be to turn it into a “townie” matter. Mamie would never want to handle it like that.
    “I just, I just don’t think I could . . . ” Jess pulled the soft blanket around her shoulders and moved a little closer to the fireplace as the flames began to shoot up. “You