Lewyn got up. Outside, the light had become something mottled and a bit strange, as if rain clouds were gathering and dispersing at the same time. “Are you coming?” he asked Mark and Rochelle, who had remained seated.
“To be honest,” said Mark, “I’m thinking not. I’m not feeling good about this. I can’t really explain it. I mean, not in a way you’d understand.”
Lewyn frowned. “Rochelle?”
She shook her head.
“Okay,” Lewyn said. “I mean, I would like to see that Sacred Grove. Since we’re here.”
So Lewyn left them together, an odd couple united by their very different aversions, and he walked with the other pilgrims down past the Smith family’s home, and into the woods. He felt the first drop of rain and turned up his face to an unaccountably glowing sky. It was not unpleasant, though the family in front of him instantly produced umbrellas. Everyone, apart from himself, was in a group or holding hands with somebody else. It was deep green, and it all got quiet once they entered the trees.
In the woods, to his confusion, he saw no signs or guideposts pointing the way. People dispersed along a web of paths, as if they knew where to go, which frustrated Lewyn more and more with each turn he took. Surely these faithful had some piece of information not available to him, and all were congregating at the Sacred Grove, the corner of this forest where their mystery had taken place, while he himself meandered. He walked for a good while, occasionally passing others, sometimes hearing the sounds of people on other pathways through the woods, as the rain gently came and then halted. He wasn’t warm and he wasn’t cold. The ground underfoot was soft. He could have gone on forever if not for the awful feeling that he was still in the wrong place, and everyone else had already arrived, experienced the magical thing, and then departed, and also that Rochelle was waiting for him and growing more disgusted with every passing moment. Finally, he found that he had come around to the lane again, and he could see the farm buildings beyond. A wave of deep disappointment went through him.
On the path not far ahead was an elderly couple, the man drawing a windbreaker hood tighter around his face, the woman waiting under her plastic umbrella. He didn’t realize he was going to speak to them until he heard his own voice, embarrassingly reedy.
“Excuse me, I’m trying to find the Sacred Grove.”
The woman turned to him. She had thin hair, crossing the border from blond to gray. The man frowned.
“I’m sorry?”
“The Sacred Grove. I’ve been walking around but I can’t find it.”
“But,” said the man, “you’re in it. This is the Sacred Grove.”
Lewyn looked around himself. Something about not seeing the forest for the trees occurred to him, but that wasn’t quite right. “Isn’t … I mean, I thought it was a place in the forest. Like, a particular place.”
“Well, there is a particular place,” said the man with admirable restraint. “Not many people know the exact location. President Hinckley does, of course, but the church believes that everyone should have a personal experience of the Grove.”
“So … I can’t find it?” Lewyn asked.
“Well, you can’t find it if you don’t know you’re in it,” the man said, not unkindly. “Are you a member of our church?” he asked.
“Uh, no. No.” It was the first time anyone had actually asked him that, he realized.
Outside the visitor center he found Mark on a bench beside the parking lot looking deeply unhappy. Rochelle was in the car, making use of the air-conditioning.
“I’m sorry I took so long,” he said as they walked across the lot. “I kind of got lost.”
“I think all these people are lost,” said Mark.