HERE was a deep bay on the largest of the nearby islands, and at the far end of this bay, the grass grew right in the sand, short and very green. Grass roots are extremely strong, they twist and tie themselves into a knotted mass that can stand up to the heaviest seas. Great ocean waves roll straight in over the sandy bottom, but once inside the bay, they meet the grass and flatten out. They dig away at the sand—they can do that much—but all that happens to the grass is that it sinks or rises, adjusting to new hills and gullies. A person could walk way out in the water and still feel the grass underfoot. Up toward shore, it grew out of the seaweed, and still farther up it made a jungle with the spiraea and the nettles and the vetch and all the other plants that like salt. This jungle was very thick and tall and lived mostly on dead seaweed and rotten fish. It grew as high as possible, and where it stopped it was met by sallow, rowan, and alder branches that bent down as far as they could reach. Walking between them with your arms outstretched was like swimming. Bird-cherry and rowan, especially rowan, smell like cat piss when they’re in bloom.

Sophia made a path through this jungle with a pair of shears. She worked at it patiently whenever she was in the mood, and no one else knew about it. First, the path circled the rosebush, which was large and famous and had a name, Rosa Rugosa. When it blossomed, with its huge, wild roses that could take a storm and fell only when they wanted to, people came from the village to look. Its roots were high, washed clean by the waves, and there was seaweed in its branches. Every seven years, Rosa Rugosa died from salt and exposure, but then her children sprang up in the sand all around, so nothing changed. She had only moved a little. The path led on through a nasty patch of nettles, through the spiraea and the currant bushes and the loosestrife under the alder trees, and up to the big bird-cherry at the edge of the woods. On the right day, and with the right wind, you could lie down under a bird-cherry and all the petals would fall at the same time, but you had to watch out for aphids. They held onto the tree if left alone, but if you shook the branches the least little bit they fell right off.After the bird-cherry, there are pine trees and moss, and the hill rises up from the beach, and every time, the cave is just as much of a surprise. It is so sudden. The cave is narrow and smells of rot, the walls are black and damp, and at the far end, there is a natural altar covered with green moss as fine and dense as plush.

“I know something you don’t know,” Sophia said. Grandmother put down her murder mystery and waited.

“Do you know what it is?” asked Sophia sternly.

“No,” Grandmother said.

They rowed over to the island in the dory and tied up to a rock. Then they crept around the rosebush. It was a good day for the secret path, because Grandmother was feeling dizzy and would really rather crawl than walk.

“These are nettles,” she said.

“I told you that,” Sophia said. “Crawl faster, it’s only a little ways.” They came to the spiraea and the loosestrife and the bird-cherry, and then Sophia turned around and said, “Now you can rest a while and smoke a cigarette.” But Grandmother had left her matches at home. They lay down under the bird-cherry and thought, and Sophia asked what went on an altar.

“Something elegant and unusual,” Grandmother said.

“Like what?”

“Oh, all sorts of things...”

“Say really!”

“I don’t know right now,” Grandmother said. She wasn’t feeling well.

“Maybe a bunch of gold,” Sophia suggested. “Though that’s not specially unusual.”

They crawled on through the pines, and Grandmother threw up in the moss.

“It could happen to anyone,” the child said. “Did you take your Lupatro?”

Her grandmother stretched out on the ground and didn’t answer.

After a while Sophia whispered, “I guess I can spare some time for you today.”

It was nice and cool under the pine trees and they weren’t in any hurry, so they slept for a while. When they woke up they crawled on to the cave, but Grandmother was too big to get in. “You’ll have to tell me what it’s like,” she said.

“It’s all green,” Sophia said. “And it smells like rot and it’s very pretty, and way at the back it’s holy because that’s where God lives, in a little box maybe.”

“Is that so?” said Grandmother and stuck her head in as far as it would go. “And what are those?”

“Some old toadstools,” Sophia said.

But Grandmother could see they were good mushrooms, and she took off her hat and sent her grandchild in to pick them, and they filled it up.

“Did you say He lived in a little box?” she said, and she took out the little sacred box, Lupatro, because it was empty now, and Sophia crawled back into the cave and put it on the altar.

They followed the path back around Rosa Rugosa and dug up one of her children to plant by the guest room steps. The roots came out easily for once, along with a lot of soil, and they packed the whole thing in a Gordon’s Gin crate that was sticking up out of the seaweed. A little farther on, they found an old Russian cap for the mushrooms, so Grandmother could have her hat back.

“Just look how everything works out,” Sophia said. “Is there anything else we need? Just say whatever you want!”

Grandmother said she was thirsty.

“Good,” Sophia said. “You wait right here.” She walked down the beach until she found a bottle in the sand, under water. It didn’t have any label. They opened it and it fizzed. But it wasn’t Vichy water, it was lemonade, which Grandmother much preferred.

“There, you see?” Sophia cried. “Everything works out! Now I’m going to find you a new watering can.”

But Grandmother said she liked the old one fine. Moreover, she had a feeling that they shouldn’t press their luck. They rowed home stern first. That sort of rowing is peaceful and pleasant, and it doesn’t upset the stomach. It was after four o’clock when they got home, and the mushrooms were enough for the whole family.