Jake watches one of the groundskeepers reach into the hot tub with a pool skimmer and scoop out a tree frog from the steamy water. Even at a distance, she can tell that the chlorine has bleached the once-emerald frog to a pale pea green, and the sight of it makes her feel sick. Just as she’s preparing to head back, a group of black-clad Rangers swoops in and surrounds a member of the grounds crew who had been smoking a hand-rolled cigarette, a violation of the Cathedral’s strict fire protocols. The man’s companions bow their heads and surrender their tools as the Rangers point their snub-nosed guns and pat them all down for contraband. Fearful of being questioned about the scientific equipment she’s carrying, Jake slips unnoticed back to the trail, while the Rangers roughly drag the offender off to put him on the next barge back to the Mainland.
It’s dark by the time she returns to her cabin to find Corbyn Gallant waiting near her door, his chin glued to his chest as he stares deep into the talisman of his phone. He’s left his cheeks unshaven and replaced his Leafskin jacket with an expensively rugged chambray button-up. Minus the sunglasses and hat, his facial structure is impossible not to admire.
“Are you lost, sir?” Jake asks as she approaches.
He looks up from his phone, childlike for a moment as his eyes refocus. “If it isn’t the Lady of the Trees,” he says as though they’re old friends. “I’ve got a few more important questions that I’d like you to answer.”
“I’m not supposed to meet with Pilgrims after hours,” she says, glancing around for a Ranger patrol. “How about tomorrow, same time, at the trailhead? We can discuss all the old-growth lumber I’ll sell you at ridiculous prices.”
“Actually, I was hoping we could talk over a drink at your place, except I doubt that we’ll both fit in there at the same time,” he says, examining the row of tiny staff cabins. They’re glorified sheds really, the shabbiness of which the resort seeks to conceal from the Pilgrims by hiding them on the less majestic half of the island, where the trees are comparatively young and spindly. “But I will say that these trees look like they’re closer to my price range than the ones you showed me earlier.”
“It’s not in the brochures,” Jake says in a lowered voice, “but this half of Greenwood Island burned to the ground in 1934. The fire left a single charred ring in the trees that edge the area—which means, I’m sorry to report, only half of the Cathedral is authentic old-growth.” It feels good to risk a bit of truth, a small relief after a day of speaking from the script.
“I won’t tell a soul,” he says, placing his palm to his heart. “Then how about my Villa?”
Jake feels her spine stiffen. Forest Guides are prohibited from visiting the Villas, especially after hours. But Corbyn must be the private that Davidoff told her about earlier. And even if he’s not, at the very least Jake can plead ignorance and wriggle out of punishment if she’s caught. But going anywhere near the Villas after hours while wearing her Forest Guide uniform would be begging for a run-in with the Rangers.
“Give me a minute,” she blurts, ducking inside her cabin to change out of her uniform—a Boy Scout outfit crossed with the technical apparel of a fitness instructor—and into the green Prada dress she took from the lost and found and had been looking for an excuse to wear. She pulls on her Cathedral-issue Leafskin jacket overtop to complete her Pilgrim disguise. After rejoining Corbyn, she takes a deep breath and quickly scans the path for Rangers before they set off for his side of the island.
With its fine timber-frame construction and unobstructed ocean view, Villa Twelve is the most luxurious and coveted accommodation on the island, and is always fully booked years in advance. The Canadian prime minister, now widely regarded as the most powerful human being on the planet, stayed here last year with her family.
“Lately, I’ve been considering a permanent relocation,” Corbyn says as he unlocks the intricately woodworked door with his phone before shoving it open. “So I thought I’d give Canada a little test run.”
Jake follows him inside, remembering Knut’s rant about how much the U.S. elite used to talk about immigrating to Canada, especially after an election didn’t go their way. But since the Withering, and after America’s once-mighty aquifers were tapped out like fraternity kegs, many actually went through with it, leaving the immobile and the poor to wallow and retch in the dust. Given Russia’s penchant for totalitarianism and the recent coup in New Zealand, water- and tree-rich Canada has become the global elite’s panic room. Now it’s all movie stars, tech giants, and investment bankers on the streets of such previously ignored places as Moose Jaw, Vernon, Thunder Bay, Chicoutimi, and Dartmouth. “And that’s how America’s polite and homely sibling,” Knut said, “once regarded merely as a country-sized storehouse of natural resources, like some great, unlimited supply chest tucked away in America’s attic, became the most sought-after address on Earth.”
As Corbyn offers her a quick tour, Jake struggles to conceal her awe. Everywhere she looks is the finest furniture of Danish teak, and there’s a real woodstove with an actual fire burning inside, and on the north wall is a giant bookshelf that displays what must be a thousand genuine paperbooks—all surrounded by beautifully intricate old-growth post and beam construction that’s surely priceless. There seems to be no end to the luxuries that the Villa contains, but it’s the paperbooks that impress her most. Almost all of them appear to be pre-Withering, and they range over every subject imaginable. After the majority of the world’s books were pulped for wood fibre to produce such essentials as dust masks, air filters, and currency, the value of the remaining ones spiked. For her birthday five years ago, Jake nearly splurged half her savings on a gorgeously illustrated botany paperbook, but reconsidered at the last moment. Today, the book is worth triple what she would have paid.
“It’s got a great retro feel to it, doesn’t it?” Corbyn says while he pours two bourbons at the butcher-block island—Basil Hayden’s, neat, the brand she’d buy if she ever had money. During the Withering’s early days, while catastrophic dendrological data from all corners of the world seeped into her laptop, Jake could do nothing except drink Old Fashioneds and watch pirated video files of BBC’s Planet Earth series over and over. Those time-lapse shots from space of the once-great deciduous forests rolling through their colours—green to red-gold to brown to green—would push shuddering sobs through her whole body until she eventually passed out, whether from dehydration, inebriation, or despair she couldn’t say.
Corbyn feeds a few fir logs into the stove and they settle onto the wool sofa and clink glasses as the fire warms their shins. The heat is different than the electric heat she’s used to, fuller, deeper-penetrating. “Oh, and I’ll need to ask you to power down your phone,” he says.
She pats the non-existent pockets of her dress. “Don’t have one,” she says, nearly adding: With my credit rating, they won’t give me a flip-phone.
At this, a theatrical expression overtakes him, the kind that could carry the final shot of some sappy movie. “Now that is absolutely charming,” he says, as though she’s a precocious child who’s inadvertently said something wise. Then he gestures to the shelves. “You would probably still rather read paperbooks, too, wouldn’t you?”