My grandmother surrounded herself with beautiful things. She was a production designer in Old Hollywood, and her little house looked the part — silks, crystal, a grand staircase fit for the stars. She died when I was young, so I got to know her through her movies — big, melodramatic romances from the golden era. I loved them all. I could trace her touch in every scene.

Always, the women in her movies glowed, like they carried their own light. She carried that light, raising my mother on her own, far from home, far from the life she made in California. It’s no wonder I grew up wanting to work in film.

My mother laughed when I said I wanted to move to Los Angeles. My grandmother never liked to talk about the old days, but she always warned: “There’s nothing good waiting for you in Hollywood.”

Before I left, my mother gave me a box of my grandmother’s things from her movie days — stolen props, marked up scripts, photos from lavish parties, stacks of letters.

It was the letters.

I put off reading them, unsure whether my grandmother would want them read. But as the honeymoon of LA faded and the loneliness set in, I wondered whether she struggled the same way. So I opened them.

I found something much stranger inside.

The following are letters from a woman named Vera, apparently a close friend of my grandmother. I asked my mother about her, but she’s never heard the name. From what I can tell, she was an architect living in Hollywood during the golden era. She was married to a successful film director. I can’t find any records of her after the dates on these letters.

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March 23, 1947

Mae,

The site is even more beautiful in the spring, the wildflowers all abloom. The main house rises out of the treetops like a cathedral. I doubted Hugh when he suggested we move so far from the city, but now I see this place for the Eden it is. Even the incessant hammering of the workers cannot detract from the tranquility.

Hugh returns tomorrow from his yearly pilgrimage home. One day I will convince him: no amount of drunken Irish carousing could scare me off at this point. He’s certainly seen the trouble you and I get into. Yet he insists he must go alone to “recharge his creativity.” Truly I think he leaves in case the reviews are unfavorable. But as always, the picture is a triumph. Every soul in the theater was positively enchanted. If he loves me half as much as people love his films, I’m a lucky woman indeed.

We must have you out to the house soon. We want this place to be a destination for all lovers of beauty. I will need your magic in turning these bare halls into Shangri-La.

Your friend,

Vera

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March 29, 1947

Dearest Mae,

I’m afraid we will have to postpone your visit, there has been an accident. A dreadful thing: one of the young workers was found behind the guest house, battered and terribly concussed. Poor boy looked like he had wandered the woods all night, covered in burs and bristling with thorns. He’s in hospital in town, but a shadow remains over the site. A visit should wait for brighter times. We certainly hope to see you for our party on the 12th!

A strange thought: I know I saw the boy leaving with the other workers the evening before. He must have come back in the dark and fell into the site. It’s strange living on such large and untamed land — all I heard last night was the wind in the trees. He’s lucky we found him when we did. I insist the workers slow down, proceed more carefully, but they seem eager to complete the build. A very superstitious bunch. I only hope they aren’t so hasty the roof falls in when they leave! We plan on staying here a long, long time.

Throw a pinch of salt for me,

Vera

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April 6, 1947

Darling Mae,

I am at wit’s end. Construction is nearly complete, and today I walk onto the site to find the workers tearing down my gazebo! They insist Hugh changed the plans overnight. He has some mad idea about a centerpiece for the garden, an enormous moon-gate. It makes no sense, aesthetically or practically. You ought to see, he scribbled over my blueprints like a man possessed.

I’ve never met someone both so erratic and so particular. He was hoisting the lumber himself, shouting at workers to move stones here and there. If this is how he operates on his pictures, be glad you’ve not had the misfortune of working with him! Even as I’m writing this, I see him out in the garden, tying flowers and vines to his haphazard structure, as if foliage will improve that monstrosity.

I can’t say how thrilled I am to see you next weekend. This house needs a dose of sanity.

All my love from the pagan wilds,

Vera

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April 14, 1947

Mae,

What more can be said? I can’t tell you how I much I relished having you out for the weekend. As ever, you leave me revitalized.

Such a shame the party ended the way it did. I was so grateful to have you to help with the aftermath. I only hope it does not darken your memory of this place.

The young starlet is recovering at Queen of Angeles Hospital. We were able to send word to the poor girl’s family back East, and her escort from the party seemed well committed to her care.

I did not know the extent of the damage, but I spoke to a surgeon at the hospital. He referred us to a specialist who helps men disfigured from the war. A mask maker. Can you imagine? I am sick with guilt. I fear her career in pictures may be over before it began. Such a beauty.

How did it happen? I must blame myself as host. I should have been watching the girl, counting her drinks. Hugh insisted we keep the lights low so we could see the stars, but that only made it easier for her to slip away. Did she get lost? Fall into glass? I searched the ghastly scene, but saw nothing that could cause such wounds.

I feel uneasy in this house. All our guests were accounted for, and the girl will not speak about the accident. Did a stranger slip into the parlor? The police cleared the workers, but our presence here is no secret. We are the only lights for miles. I fear being this far in the wilderness. I shall check the locks again tonight.

Thinking of you,

Vera

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April 19, 1947

My Mae,

I so appreciate your last letter. I keep it in my pocket throughout the day, a little totem of strength in a strange land.

I fear I have been too hard on Hugh. It’s easy — comforting, even — to believe in his stony stoicism, but I know he’s troubled. There has been a specter over us since the party.

He was in the garden last night. I woke in the dark and found him missing. I thought it was a stranger at first, standing under the moon-gate. Watching him from the window, I had the strangest sensation: I knew it was Hugh, his broad frame, his pajamas… but it was like looking at something completely foreign.

He was sleepwalking, the poor baby. He must have been there for hours. He was shivering, his clothes soaked with dew. I led him back to the house, where he finally woke up. He clung to me like I pulled him off a sinking ship.

I wish he had someone he felt he could talk to.

Yours,

Vera

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April 23, 1947

Mae,

It seems I spoke too soon. I have been trying with Hugh, and I thought we were making progress.

Imagine my surprise when I step into my kitchen last night for a glass of water and find that starlet from the party standing barefoot in the dark, staring at me.

I am at an utter loss. Her injuries must have been greatly exaggerated, as she looked perfectly radiant. You should have seen the way she looked at me, daring me to speak. She might as well have been laughing in my face.

I don’t know what to do, Mae. We all knew he had a penchant for young actresses, but this is beyond the pale. In our own house?

I’m only writing this to keep me from cracking up completely. I wish you were here. I’ve packed a bag. Hugh wasn’t in bed, not that I could bear to see him. No doubt he’s in the garden. The girl can fetch him, or let him freeze. I don’t care anymore.

I’m driving to you tonight.

Vera

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May 4, 1947

Dearest,

Where to begin? When I went back to the house, I didn’t expect it to be easy. You know Hugh. He would sooner pluck out his eyes than admit a mistake. But I at least expected a quiet house in which we could stew and fight and eventually make up, as always.

I came back to a midnight bacchanal.

The halls were packed, spilling out onto the lawn. Men and women I’d never seen, raucous and wine drunk. I could hear the roar of laughter before the house was in view. All the doors and windows were open, the rain pouring in.

This was a particularly libertine bunch, no doubt from Hugh’s underground days. Tattered suits, torn cocktail dresses, and masks. Oh, the masks. Wood and clay and wet leaves molded into monstrous faces, sneering and cackling. I wanted to tear them apart, the way they grabbed at me as I went through searching for Hugh.

I found him locked away in our bedroom, staring out at the chaos in the garden below. I was ready to kill him for this, for the girl, for everything.

Oh Mae, I just don’t know.

Something about him that night. As soon as he turned, I saw him — the man I met all those years ago. It was I had been living with his ghost, and here he was, resurrected. He was so tender, so human… I came ready to fight, but all that rage and resentment just melted away at his touch. I will spare you the details, but we were alive together last night in a way we had not been in years.

Love is a strange thing. Our house may be a mess, but for once my heart is clear.

Always your friend,

Vera

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May 8, 1947

My guiding light,

You were right. You are always right.

I’ve been alone these days since that hellish masquerade, trying to put our house back in order. The wilderness has taken a foothold, vines growing out of cracks in the plaster. Hugh had left the first morning, I thought to work in his ever-growing garden. After the second day I wondered if he had gone for good.

After missing for three days, he came shambling out of the woods, looking like all hell. He didn’t say a word, just went to the kitchen and ate like a starving beast. He looked just like that worker boy, covered in brambles and thorns. He didn’t even acknowledge me until I tried to call a doctor.

He won’t speak of where he went. Worse — he doesn’t remember the night of the bacchanal. He doesn’t remember our reconciliation. Worse yet, I believe him.

I will gather the rest of my things. There is nothing left for me here.

Vera

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May 11, 1947

Mae,

I hope by writing this, I can discover some shred of sanity in the past twenty-four hours. Or failing that — wake myself from this nightmare.

I fell asleep late after Hugh returned, exhausted from packing and fighting with my mute husband. I woke up with light in my eyes. Not from the sun, but from an enormous fire raging in the garden.

I saw Hugh. He was standing beneath the moon-gate, can of kerosene in hand. The gate was a blustering inferno, threatening to topple inward.

All around him were figures, just outside the fire. Mostly young women — the starlet among them — circling the gate, kept at bay by the flames. They looked like they wanted to eat him alive.

I saw him look to the house, to my window. I don’t know if he could see me with all the smoke in his eyes. But his gaze told me everything.

I did not hesitate. I grabbed only what I needed and ran from the house, slipped out the side door, out of view of the garden, onto the drive.

I found the car choked with vines, as if it had been rusting in the woods for decades. I went to try the door, but I saw something in the firelight.

There was something in the backseat. I say something, because while it cut the silhouette of a hulking man, it looked more like something you dig out of the earth. Something knotted and poisonous you dig out of the roots of a garden and throw away.

I ran through the woods. I don’t know how far. I ran until the pillar of smoke was just a faint trail over the moon. Then I rejoined the road. I walked all the way into town.

I’ve been staying with an elderly couple we met while moving in. The husband is a retired physician, the wife a schoolteacher. You would like them.

I wanted to leave, to run all the way to you, but I fell ill. Almost as soon as I left the grounds, something gripped me inside and wouldn’t let go. I barely remember knocking on doors in town, my head was swimming so.

The doctor tells me I am pregnant. A parting gift from Hugh. I have been in and out of sleep for a few days. I have had the strangest dreams.

They sent men to search for Hugh and the girls. There’s nothing there but the burned-out skeleton of our house, wildflowers already growing over the ash.

Please come get me. I want to come home.

Love,

Vera

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When I showed my mother these letters, she didn’t speak for a long time. Finally, she shared another memory about my grandmother, one nearly forgotten:

My mother was very sick as a baby. My grandmother took her everywhere, but nothing would help. They were sure they would lose her. Finally, according to my grandmother, “Auntie V” figured out what to do.

“Auntie V went back to the woods to make you better.”

My mother has no memory of “Auntie V.” She doesn’t like to talk about the letters, or that era of my grandmother’s life. Whenever I ask, she simply says, “Whatever happened, they did it for us. Let’s be grateful, and leave the rest behind.”

There’s some sense in that.

But it doesn’t help me much lately, as I find myself waking up with soil on my feet and brambles in my hair.

It doesn’t help as the dreams become more frequent.

Dreams of murmuring flowers and tangled skin, of muddy masks and stolen faces and a great gate rising in the woods…