The God of the Woods

The God of the Woods Plot Summary

Introduction

# When the Forest Keeps Its Secrets The morning mist clings to Lake Joan like a shroud, and the empty bunk in Balsam cabin tells its own terrible story. Barbara Van Laar, thirteen years old and fierce as winter wind, has vanished into the Adirondack wilderness that surrounds her family's sprawling preserve. Her counselor Louise Donnadieu stares at the rumpled sheets, counting sleeping girls—eight bodies in nine beds—and feels the weight of history pressing down like storm clouds. This is 1975, and the Van Laar family has walked this path before. Fourteen years ago, another child disappeared into these same ancient woods. Bear Van Laar, Barbara's older brother, was eight when he vanished during a family gathering, swallowed by forests that seemed to hunger for Van Laar blood. Now Barbara has followed him into the darkness, leaving behind only questions and a bloody uniform hidden in her boyfriend's car. As state investigators descend upon the preserve and family secrets surface like bodies in still water, the truth about both disappearances threatens to destroy a dynasty built on lies, money, and the kind of silence that only wealth can buy.

Chapter 1: The Second Vanishing: Barbara Disappears into Familiar Shadows

The emergency horn cuts through pre-dawn silence like a blade through silk. Louise Donnadieu jolts awake in the counselors' quarters, her heart hammering against her ribs as the sound echoes across Camp Emerson. Emergency signals never come at four in the morning unless something has gone terribly wrong. She stumbles through darkness toward Balsam cabin, where nine girls should be sleeping in their narrow bunks. The beam of her flashlight sweeps across eight peaceful faces before landing on the empty bed by the window. Barbara Van Laar's sheets are cold to the touch, the window cracked open just enough for a slim girl to slip through into the night. Tracy Jewell, Barbara's bunkmate, sits up clutching her pillow like armor. Her red hair catches the flashlight beam as she points toward the vacant bunk with a trembling finger. Barbara had been there at lights-out, whispering jokes and sharing contraband candy. Now she has evaporated like morning mist, leaving behind only the faint scent of her stolen perfume. T.J. Hewitt arrives within minutes, her weathered face grim in the artificial light. The camp director has served the Van Laar family for decades, maintaining their wilderness kingdom with the devotion of a medieval vassal. She knows these woods better than anyone, every trail and hiding place, every cave where a frightened girl might seek shelter. But as she surveys the empty bunk and open window, a terrible certainty settles in her chest. Barbara Van Laar hasn't run away. Someone has taken her from the heart of her family's domain, from the one place she should have been safe. The Adirondack Mountains have claimed another Van Laar child, and this time there may be no one left to mourn.

Chapter 2: Echoes Across Time: Bear's Ghost and Family Lies

Fourteen years earlier, eight-year-old Peter "Bear" Van Laar had been the golden prince of a golden kingdom. Bright and curious, with downy hair that caught sunlight like spun gold, he possessed the kind of natural charm that made adults stop and smile. His mother Alice doted on him with fierce intensity, finding in her son the purpose her privileged life had always lacked. The day Bear disappeared began like any other summer afternoon at the preserve. Storm clouds gathered over Hunt Mountain as the boy begged his grandfather to take him hiking, his enthusiasm infectious despite the threatening weather. They set off together down a familiar trail, Bear chattering about the pocketknife he'd forgotten and needed to retrieve from the house. That was the last time anyone saw him alive. The search consumed the entire region like wildfire. Hundreds of volunteers combed every inch of wilderness while the Van Laar family watched their perfect world crumble. Alice suffered a complete breakdown, her grip on reality loosening with each passing day her son remained missing. The investigation eventually focused on Carl Stoddard, a gentle groundskeeper who had been teaching Bear to whittle wooden animals. When Stoddard died of a heart attack in police custody before formal charges could be filed, the case effectively closed. The family accepted the official narrative that he had killed Bear and hidden the body somewhere in the vast wilderness. But doubt lingered like smoke in mountain air, and those who knew Stoddard refused to believe the quiet craftsman capable of such evil. The tragedy transformed the Van Laars from a vibrant family into something hollow and brittle. Alice never recovered, retreating into pills and delusions that blurred the edges of unbearable reality. Peter III buried himself in work and rigid control. When Barbara was born two years later, she entered a house still haunted by her brother's ghost—a replacement child trying to fill a void that could never be filled.

Chapter 3: The Investigation Deepens: Planted Evidence and False Leads

State Police Investigator Judyta Luptack arrives at the preserve as dawn breaks over Lake Joan, her unmarked car crunching across gravel that has witnessed too much tragedy. At twenty-six, she is the only female investigator in the Bureau of Criminal Investigation, having fought through skepticism and crude jokes to earn her badge. Now she faces her first major case, and the weight of expectation presses down like the humid August air. The Van Laar family closes ranks with practiced efficiency. Peter Van Laar III, Barbara's father, speaks in clipped legal phrases while his wife Alice drifts through their grand house like a medicated ghost. They describe Barbara as troubled and rebellious, a problem child who brought chaos wherever she went. Their coldness toward their missing daughter shocks even hardened investigators. The breakthrough comes when police search the car belonging to John Paul McLellan Jr., a twenty-two-year-old law student and family friend who has been staying near the preserve all summer. Hidden in his trunk, investigators discover Barbara's bloodstained camp uniform along with enough marijuana to charge him with felony possession. McLellan claims innocence, insisting that Louise Donnadieu asked him to dispose of the evidence. But the story feels orchestrated, too convenient and neat. McLellan's fingerprints cover beer bottles found at an abandoned fire tower on Hunt Mountain, where Barbara had been meeting her mysterious older boyfriend throughout the summer. The age gap between the college graduate and thirteen-year-old girl transforms what seemed like teenage romance into something far more sinister. Judy studies the evidence with growing unease. The Van Laars move with the precision of people who have managed scandals before, their expensive lawyers spinning narratives and controlling damage with surgical skill. She begins to understand that this family has practice at making inconvenient truths disappear, just as they did fourteen years ago when another child vanished from their perfect world.

Chapter 4: Buried Truth Unearthed: The Real Story of Bear's Death

The name emerges from shadows like a whisper from hell itself: Jacob Sluiter, the notorious serial killer whose family once owned the land that became the Van Laar preserve. Captured after escaping from prison, Sluiter agrees to speak with Judy in exchange for small privileges. His pale eyes study her face as if memorizing it for later use, and when he finally talks, his words chill her blood. Sluiter describes hiding in caves across Lake Joan in 1961, living like a wild animal while police hunted him through the wilderness. From his rocky perch, he watched the Van Laar preserve like theater, observing wealthy families at play on what had once been his family's land. On that August afternoon when Bear disappeared, he witnessed something that would haunt him for decades. A man emerged from the woods carrying a small, lifeless form. Not Carl Stoddard, the craftsman who would be blamed for the crime, but someone else entirely—someone who belonged on the preserve, someone the family trusted. Sluiter watched as the man dug a grave in rocky soil, weeping as he worked, then marked the spot with a careful arrangement of stones. Following Sluiter's directions, investigators find Bear's remains exactly where he said they would be, the skeleton intact and dental records providing perfect identification. But the location raises terrible questions. Why hadn't the original searchers found this spot? Why had the family been so quick to accept Carl Stoddard's guilt? And who had really killed an eight-year-old boy and buried him like a shameful secret? The truth, when it finally surfaces, proves both simpler and more devastating than anyone imagined. Bear Van Laar had drowned in a boating accident, trapped under an overturned rowboat while his intoxicated mother struggled to save him. But instead of facing scandal, the family chose to hide the truth, letting an innocent man take the blame while they maintained their pristine reputation.

Chapter 5: The Van Laar Machine: Wealth, Power, and Corruption Exposed

The Van Laar empire moves with mechanical precision once Bear's body is discovered and the cover-up begins to unravel. Lawyers descend like carrion birds, spinning narratives and managing damage with the skill of people who have been burying scandals for generations. Peter Van Laar II and III face arrest on conspiracy charges, but their bail remains low and their freedom secure through connections that run deep into the state's power structure. John Paul McLellan finds salvation in the form of Annabel Southworth, the seventeen-year-old counselor who provides him with an alibi for the night of Barbara's disappearance. The two families, longtime friends and business partners, quickly bless the relationship despite Annabel's youth. They are compatible, her mother declares with practiced composure, as if teenage romance could wash away the stain of suspected murder. Louise Donnadieu watches the proceedings from her jail cell with bitter recognition. The working-class counselor has been framed for disposing of Barbara's bloody clothes, abandoned by everyone except her own stubborn integrity. She has seen this before—the way money and influence reshape reality, turning victims into villains while protecting the guilty behind walls of privilege. The discovery of Bear's remains cracks the family's facade beyond repair. Their carefully maintained image of tragic nobility crumbles as details of the fourteen-year cover-up leak to hungry reporters. The Van Laars built their empire on the principle that money could solve any problem, that influence could bury any inconvenient truth. Now they face the one thing their wealth cannot purchase: consequences for their choices, coming due after years of compound interest. Judy feels the weight of institutional corruption pressing down like the humid mountain air. Every lead dead-ends in a maze of family connections and mutual favors. Even some fellow investigators seem reluctant to push too hard against such powerful suspects. But the truth has momentum now, rolling downhill like an avalanche, gathering speed and debris as it destroys everything in its path.

Chapter 6: Jacob Sluiter's Testimony: A Killer's Unexpected Witness

The interrogation room at Ray Brook Correctional Facility feels like a tomb, all concrete walls and fluorescent lighting that leaches color from everything it touches. Jacob Sluiter sits across from Judy with predatory patience, his pale eyes studying her face as if memorizing every detail. He has agreed to discuss Bear Van Laar's death, but only with her, only with the young female investigator who treated him like a human being instead of a monster. Sluiter's revelation about witnessing the burial shatters everything investigators thought they knew about Bear's disappearance. If he is telling the truth—and the discovery of the body exactly where he indicated suggests he is—then the Van Laars orchestrated a deception that destroyed an innocent man's reputation and left his family in ruins. Carl Stoddard died in custody, his heart giving out under the stress of false accusations, while the real story remained buried beneath Adirondack stone. The pieces click into place with sickening clarity. The Van Laars hadn't just been protecting themselves from scandal—they had been shielding someone whose loyalty was so valuable they were willing to sacrifice a stranger's life to preserve it. The family's wealth and influence had allowed them to control the narrative, directing suspicion away from the truth and toward a convenient scapegoat. Judy realizes she is looking at a pattern of behavior that spans generations. The Van Laars have been using their money and connections to escape consequences for decades, leaving destruction in their wake while maintaining their pristine public image. Carl Stoddard was just the first casualty in a war between truth and power that continues to claim victims. The question that haunts her is simple and terrible: if they covered up Bear's death with such ruthless efficiency, orchestrating a complex deception that fooled investigators for fourteen years, what are they willing to do to hide the truth about Barbara's disappearance? The family has already demonstrated they will destroy innocent lives to protect their secrets. Now, with their reputation crumbling and their crimes exposed, they may be capable of anything.

Chapter 7: Self-Reliance Realized: Barbara's Choice and Judy's Decision

The map hangs on the wall of the abandoned Director's Cabin like a promise written in faded ink and colored pins. Judy studies it by flashlight, her beam dancing across notations that tell the story of the Hewitt family's long connection to these mountains. There, marked with a small pin and cryptic notation, she finds what she has been searching for: a remote island in an unnamed lake, labeled simply as "family cabin." The swim across frigid water nearly kills her, but Judy presses forward, driven by intuition that has been building for weeks. Barbara Van Laar wasn't murdered or kidnapped. She escaped, with help from T.J. Hewitt, the camp director who raised her like a daughter when her own parents proved incapable of love. The bloody uniform, the planted evidence, the carefully orchestrated frame-up—it was all designed to give Barbara time to disappear into wilderness she knew better than anyone. When Judy finally reaches the island, she finds Barbara exactly as she imagined: strong, self-reliant, at peace in ways she never was in her family's world of wealth and privilege. The girl has built herself a new life in the woods, far from the toxic influence of the Van Laars and their legacy of lies. She is safe, fed, and free—everything her family's money never provided. The choice Judy faces cuts to the bone of everything she believes about justice and duty. She could report her discovery, claim the career-making arrest that would establish her reputation forever. Or she could respect Barbara's decision to forge her own path, to escape the golden cage that trapped so many Van Laar women before her. Standing in cold water, looking at this fierce young woman who chose freedom over security, Judy makes her decision. Some secrets are worth keeping. Some disappearances are really escapes. Sometimes the greatest act of justice is knowing when not to act at all. Barbara Van Laar has found her own version of self-reliance, far from the corrupted version her family preached. She has earned the right to remain lost, to write her own story in wilderness that has always been her true home.

Summary

The Van Laar empire crumbles like a great tree rotting from within, its fall echoing through the Adirondack Mountains with the finality of thunder. Peter Van Laar II and III face trial for their roles in covering up Bear's death, their expensive lawyers fighting a losing battle against fourteen years of accumulated evidence. The bank's reputation suffers, clients flee, and the carefully maintained facade of respectability finally collapses under the weight of truth that money could not buy or bury forever. Alice Van Laar, freed at last from the lies that poisoned her mind for over a decade, begins the long journey toward something resembling peace. Louise Donnadieu walks free, vindicated but scarred by her encounter with a system that protects wealth over innocence. The preserve itself stands empty now, its grand buildings slowly surrendering to the wilderness that was always its true master. But in the deepest places of the forest, where ancient trees guard their secrets and morning mist rises from still water, justice has found its own way. Barbara Van Laar remains officially missing, her fate unknown to everyone except a young investigator who understood that some mysteries are meant to stay unsolved. The mountains have reclaimed one of their own, sheltering a girl who chose truth over comfort, freedom over family, and the honest dangers of wilderness over the corrupted safety of wealth. In those pristine waters and endless forests, where self-reliance means more than summer camp lessons, the forest keeps its greatest secret: that sometimes the lost are exactly where they need to be.

About Author

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Liz Moore

Moore delves into the intricate intersections of personal history and societal forces in her novels, crafting narratives that delve into themes of addiction, family dynamics, and the impacts of technology on personal lives. Her exploration is both compassionate and informed, offering readers layered storytelling that combines literary fiction with suspense. In her book "Long Bright River," Moore skillfully weaves a literary thriller that addresses the pressing issue of addiction, earning it a spot on the "New York Times" bestseller list and recognition by President Barack Obama as a favorite. Her debut, "The Words of Every Song," draws on her initial career as a musician, providing a rich, authentic backdrop that informs the novel's setting and character development.\n\nThrough her work, Moore also bridges the gap between academia and creative writing. As a professor at Temple University, she directs the MFA program in Creative Writing, thereby influencing a new generation of writers. This dual role as an educator and author enhances her narrative style, allowing her to integrate educational themes and social critique seamlessly. Meanwhile, her book "The Unseen World" reflects on personal identity and the mysteries of family relationships, showcasing her ability to create complex characters who navigate the uncertainties of their past. Such narratives not only engage but also encourage readers to reflect on their own experiences and the broader societal issues presented.\n\nMoreover, Moore’s work has gained significant recognition, underscoring her impact on contemporary literature. She has received awards such as the Rome Prize in Literature, affirming her role as a distinguished voice in the literary world. Her novels, selected for major book clubs and academic discussions, resonate with readers who appreciate deeply crafted narratives that challenge and enrich their understanding of the human condition. This concise bio highlights her contributions to literature and academia, emphasizing the breadth and depth of her storytelling capabilities.

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