MARTIN

Haze was on tour again. Atlanta, Dallas, Chicago, San Francisco. Martin hated being left alone in the apartment. The large rooms echoed. He’d never liked the decor. Haze hired the decorator, Martin suspected, more for his looks than his talent. The rooms were overdone, cluttered. He spent most of his time in the kitchen, or the study filled with the simple oak furniture he preferred. One wall was floor to ceiling bookshelves. Several were filled with manila portfolios full of his music. A small piano stood off to one side of his desk. The concert grand Busendorfer was in the living room. He rarely played it anymore. They used to host elaborate dinner parties at least once a month. The apartment was full of music and conversation and laughter. Haze was a flamboyant host, Martin more reserved. The Brit in him, everyone said.

It was after the weekend with those ridiculous college girls in upstate New York that Haze became increasingly secretive and mean. There were whispered telephone calls and middle of the night hang-ups if Martin answered. Then another year in Brussels, as the troupe added one triumph after another, thanks to Martin’s music. The relationship soured until it became more of an armed truce than a love affair. When Martin came in, Haze went out, or avoided him, except when they were at the theater. There Haze managed to act as if they were still a couple, in love with each other and their art. On occasion, though, Martin caught the glances of some of the dancers and didn’t like what he thought he saw in their eyes. When they returned to New York, Martin shut the door to his study and concentrated on his music and his mushrooms.

Averill Island was a drumlin, a hump of fertile topsoil floating in a sea of river marsh. Three days of rain and a warm spell brought the fall fruiting to a glorious height. The woods brewed an earthy perfume, perfect conditions for a weekend foray. Usually Martin joined other amateur mycologists on their weekend walks closer by. But that weekend he wanted to get away from the empty apartment. So he booked a room at the bed and breakfast he and Haze frequented when they still relished their weekends together, took the car out of the garage where it had spent the summer unused, and headed north to Massachusetts.

His timing was perfect. Traffic was light along the Connecticut coast. Once he crossed into Massachusetts the fall color was at its peak. The reds, yellows and oranges intensified the farther north he drove. The sky was crystalline blue. By the time he pulled into the parking lot at the Ipswich River Refuge it was late in the day. He didn’t bother with his basket, or his books, just the refuge map. He’d have plenty of time to get serious the next day.

He shared the grassy path to the island trail with lazy bees, swooping butterflies, and iridescent dragonflies. The trail forked to the right, out onto the island, into the cool fragrant woods. Everywhere he looked there were mushrooms: some no bigger than a pea, others huge woody protuberances clamped to the bark of live trees. On a gentle rise he spied an enormous Russola standing alone, its cap reaching upward like an umbrella turned inside out. Backlit by the waning sun, it appeared to glow.

He almost walked past the trunk of the fallen tree until the dense growth of Clavicorona, one of the coral fungi, stopped him. It looked like a vast microcosmic city of delicate limestone towers inspired by Gaudi. It was then he saw the butter-colored mushrooms standing center stage on the ground in front of the supine oak. Could it be? He took a closer look. The clump was what he thought it was: a cluster of innocent-looking but deadly Amanita Phalloides, so easy to mistake for an edible. The shape of the cap was right. So was the stem: slender at the top, and broad at the bottom where it nestled into a papery bowl. Its pure white annulus hung below the cap like a peplum. He pulled a pencil out of his pants pocket and made notations on the refuge map. He drew over the path and marked the position of the fallen tree, oriented to some landmarks around it: a large lichen-covered boulder, a pine tree, still standing, split and charred by a lightning strike. Years of foraging had taught him how important it was to know how to map a habitat. If a mushroom grew in a particular place one year, it was likely to reappear in the same spot, the next, and the next, and the next.