all over the toys, which isn’t very hygienic. At least we can just replace leaves and twigs every time she goes to the bathroom.”
“Let’s go now and get some,” Gaia said eagerly.
I glanced over at Coco, who was pulling herself to her feet by the playroom table and using the chairs to steady herself as she took careful sidesteps, babbling happily to herself. It wouldn’t be long until she started walking. “We can’t go now, Gaia.”
“Why not?”
I consulted the laminated schedule pinned to the board opposite. “Because it’s almost time for spellings . . . I mean, phonograms.”
Gaia rolled her eyes. “Show me the card,” she deadpanned.
We were on ir. Gaia looked at it.
“Girl fir stir dirt first skirt bird—ha!” she said. “Can we go now?”
“You have to be able to write them, too,” I said. Another eye roll. She marched over to a chair, plonked down, and started writing. A few moments later she held up a sheet with all the words written correctly.
“Now can we go?”
“OK,” I said, quite astonished that she’d managed to get all the spellings correct. I was no expert on childhood development, but I’d have put good money on Gaia being some kind of miniature genius.
I put the girls in their rain suits and wellies—it had rained for three days solid—and we headed outside with a bucket to gather “forest treasure” with which to refurnish Dora’s bedroom. The ravens were back, an army of black sails circling the house and piercing the air with their angry cawing.
Outside we kept to the thickest part of the forest, where the dense branches of fir trees funneled the sheeting rain to a drizzle. Gaia jumped in every puddle she could find, holding tightly on to my hand as she stomped in the muddy water with a squeal of glee. Far from gathering up whatever foliage she could find, Gaia selected her items carefully, inspecting each twig and tossing whatever specimen failed to live up to her requirements. When I finally begged her to let us return to the house—a good hour later—her basket contained only a few sticks, a handful of pine needles, and some pretty red leaves.
“Come on, Gaia,” I called when she lagged behind. I was carrying Coco now and simultaneously wrestling a twig out of her mouth. Coco liked to experience the world, twigs included, through her teeth. When Gaia remained rooted to the spot, staring down at a patch on the ground, I finally begged her to hurry up. I was tired and freezing cold on account of possessing only a woefully inadequate jacket and boots. I was on the verge of offering her unlimited Netflix time when she looked up and shouted:
“No! You need to come and see!”
I reluctantly turned back and squelched across the muddy forest floor toward her.
“What is it?” I said wearily. She was still staring down at something by her feet. My vision was blurry on account of the heavy rain, but all I could make out was mud and branches.
“An elk has been here,” Gaia explained. She looked around as though expecting to see whatever had left the prints nearby. I squinted down and the print came into view: two devil horns imprinted in black mud and filling quickly with rain. I recognized the print, too—it looked identical to the marks I’d spotted on my bedroom floor.
“Let’s go inside,” I told Gaia, tugging her away, but she kept glancing back across the trees, hoping to see the elk.
“How did you know an elk left the prints?” I asked Gaia as we shook off our coats.
“I’ve seen one,” she said. “Mummy taught me how to spot its prints. Come, I’ll show you.”
I followed her into the hallway, where she stopped and pointed up to the wall.
“There,” she said.
Up until this point I hadn’t paid much attention to the photographs on the walls of the house. They were dreamlike, at once old-fashioned and modern. It took me almost two months to identify Gaia in several of them, because she was just a detail in an otherwise wide frame. In one of the photos, a line of trees appeared as odd black shapes against a white sky, and in the darkness of the lower part of the frame I saw a blurred image. It was Gaia, running, or spinning with her arms held out.
The picture she showed me, though, revealed something I hadn’t noticed before—the faint outline of an elk among the narrow birch trees on the other side of