The Red Tree

Set out about the circumference of those gnarled roots, I found many dozens of small glazed ceramic figurines, mostly of the exact sort one gets free inside boxes of Red Rose teabags [6].There were animals, circus performers, and characters from nursery rhymes, some balanced on the knotty wood, or tucked into crevices in the bark, others set out on the mossy ground surrounding the oak. It was an unexpected and startling sight, and I stood there for some time, studying the figurines. I did not take any of them away with me, or even touch them, thinking that, perhaps, they had been left here by the Blanchards’ grandchildren, who I understand frequently visit and have been known to wander as far as the Wight place. There was something reminiscent of a shrine or reliquary in the arrangement of the tiny ceramic animals, which are never mentioned in Sarah Crowe’s manuscript. I assume, therefore, that they were placed here following her death. I’d forgotten my camera that morning, so I am forced to rely on memory, but two of the figurines I recall quite clearly — a sepia-colored rabbit and a pinkish wild boar, both date back to the very first American series of animal figurines offered by Red Rose Tea (1983–1985). At any rate, dusk was coming on fast, and I still had to cross the rickety bridge and then navigate the rutted dirt path leading back to Barbs Hill Road and Moosup Valley. By the time I got to the Jeep, the air was filled with the eerie calls of owls and other night birds, and I was glad that I had not lingered longer at the red oak. I made it back to New York around ten-thirty that evening.

And that was my pilgrimage, the dues I felt that I should pay before the privilege of writing this preface. And, now, having written it down, the day seems even more unremarkable and underwhelming than before. The mystery posed by the final months of Sarah’s life, the red oak, and the manuscript she left behind are to be found in the pages that follow, not this account of my “legend-trip” to the Wight Farm.

I must also confess that I still do not fully understand the circumstances that led to that odd typescript landing on my desk, hardly a month after her funeral. It was wrapped in brown butcher’s paper and bore a Providence postmark, but no return address. In fact, it was accompanied by no cover letter, nor word of explanation whatsoever. Having served as her editor on two novels, and having considered Sarah — if not a close friend — at least a good acquaintance, part of me wished that the whole thing would quickly prove to be no more than an elaborate hoax.

But as I read it, I recognized her there on every page. Even if, for whatever reason, some other author had perfectly aped her voice, most of the pages bear notes and proofreader’s marks in Sarah’s own unmistakable handwriting. Regardless, I requested that it be examined by a graphologist certified by the American Board of Forensic Document Examiners, Inc., who concluded, without any reasonable doubt, that Sarah Crowe did, in fact, produce at least the handwritten portion of the manuscript. I also discovered several pages bearing distinct fingerprints, presumably made when a ribbon in the old typewriter was being changed, and submitted those for fingerprint analysis by a private investigator (name withheld by request). Again, the results were positive. So, regardless of whether or not she actually conceived and composed The Red Tree,there can be very little doubt that she did, in fact, frequently handle the typescript and make notations to it. Ergo, if this is an elaborate forgery, it’s one she literally had a hand in.

That last summer of her life, Sarah Crowe lived in a self-imposed seclusion, only infrequently reaching out to make contact with others. A few calls to her agent, a handful of emails to me, asking for more time on a long overdue and never completed novel. She had become, like the heroines of her novels, a haunted woman, drawing in upon herself, shutting away the world, wrapping herself ever more tightly in what I am forced to concede were shrouds of delusion and depression. A lifelong Southerner (who frequently claimed to loathe everything about the South), she abruptly fled to rural Rhode Island, seeking, perhaps, a new begi

As I’ve said, the same day I visited the Wight Farm and saw the red tree for myself, I stopped by the Tyler Free Library in Moosup Valley. The small white building is hardly a quarter mile northeast of the old farm, and I knew that Sarah had visited it several times in those final months. More than anything, I think I was curious to see if this modest country library had any of her books, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that they did have on their shelves a single copy of her second short-story collection, Silent Riots [10].I took it to a reading table and flipped through the pages, a little embarrassed that, though I was her present editor, I’d never read any of her short fiction. I made a mental note to get a copy of the book as soon as I got back to Manhattan, and was about to return it to the shelves when I noticed something scribbled (with blue ink) in Sarah’s hand on one of the otherwise-blank end pages. I sat there for maybe five or ten minutes, marveling at this scrap of graffiti, which read, simply, “Joke’s on you. But please do try not to take it too personally. — Signed, The Author (7/18/08).”

That day, it just seemed sort of odd and fu

One final word: the typescript I received was not broken up into chapters, but consisted, rather, of a single continuous narrative. I have made the chapter divisions myself, somewhat arbitrarily, for the sake of convention. Also, I have added a postscript, an excerpt from Sarah’s novel A Long Way to Morning. It strikes me as apt commentary on what follows, and almost as foreshadowing.

6

Manufactured by George Wade Pottery in Burslem, Staffordshire, England, Red Rose Tea has included these “whimsies” since 1967, begi

7

Sarah chose this pseudonym for her former lover, and I have chosen to respect her decision to do so by never using “Amanda’s” true name. However, it is not difficult to learn, if one is so disposed.

8

Atlanta Journal-Constitution,December 14, 2001.

9

Publishers Weekly,March 3, 1999.

10

HarperCollins, 1998