The Twisted Tree

by Rachel Burge

  Next to my picture is a photo of Mormor, laughing at something off-camera. She looks flushed, as if she’s been dancing. Her long blonde hair hangs in plaits and she’s wearing her bunad, a traditional Norwegian costume, embroidered with flowers. I lift the frame and run my finger across her face. You can tell from her cheekbones that she must have been stunning in her youth. Even in her seventies she radiated beauty and warmth.

  As I put the picture back, three old photos drop out. Black and white, each one shows a different woman, all with long blonde hair. One is posed stiffly at a spinning wheel, scowling. Her wavy hair is parted in the centre, there are dark circles under her eyes and her childlike mouth is pursed. Despite the scowl, you can see the family resemblance to Mormor. Another shows a tiny old woman wearing a cloak of dark feathers. She sits in the branches of a tree, her eyes as black and shiny as a bird’s. In the third, a woman hunches over a steaming cauldron, bundles of wool on the ground.

  I’m sure I’ve seen these women before, and then I realise. The photos show the women from Mormor’s tales: my great-grandmother Karina who muttered spells at the spinning wheel, Gerd who stitched a cloak of feathers so that she could fly, and vain Trine with her cauldron of dyed wool. But they were just fairy tales. They can’t be true.

  Mormor would never tell me what the women in my family had really been like. When I asked, she would laugh and say I already knew their stories. Once I asked her about her life as a child. I could sense her excitement as she described how her mother, my great-grandmother Karina, had taught her to stitch as soon as she was old enough to hold a needle. Mormor handed me a half-done embroidery and several lengths of thread, but then Mum came in and the air turned to ice.

  I examine the painting above the stove. There are so many shades of light and dark in the sky, Mum has captured the bay perfectly. She hasn’t painted anything for so long, I’d forgotten how talented she is.

  Looking at the painting makes me think about all the summers we’ve spent playing and walking on the beach here. The last few holidays started off sunny, but within days I would sense an argument brewing between Mum and Mormor, hanging over us like an impending storm. After Mum and Dad got divorced, Mormor wanted Mum and me to move to Skjebne permanently. She asked so many times, and it always ended in a row.

  I know Mormor and Mum kept secrets from me. They passed them back and forth to one another, like a stitch made over and over, until they became fastened into the fabric of our lives. I turn my back to the painting and sigh, annoyed at myself for not making them tell me. But I loved coming to the island, and the more questions I asked, the angrier Mum got. It became easier not to ask.

  Mormor’s cashmere shawl is folded on the side of the armchair. Perhaps it’s not too late to unpick the truth.

  I step towards it and reach out my hand. Taking a deep breath, I clear my mind, ready for whatever emotions come. My fingers graze the soft material and my heart races. Despair, guilt, fear. Mormor grabbing Yrsa’s hand, begging and pleading.

  I cry out and pull away. Yrsa lied to me! Mormor didn’t die peacefully. She died in anguish.

  I rush to the door and snatch it open, desperate for air.

  ‘Hey, look at this!’ Stig points towards the sea, but he doesn’t have to – I see it: a massive wall of fog as high as a cliff. I watch, unable to believe my eyes, as streams of mist cascade down like a waterfall.

  When the fog rises, run for home, Marta, my child. Dead men rise with the mist!

  I shiver at the memory of Mormor’s words. I know her stories were harmless – a way to ensure a little girl who liked to roam didn’t get lost in the fog, but I was always afraid, as if she could make the impossible happen just by saying it.

  I close my eyes, wishing I had never touched her shawl. What could have made her so upset? Maybe she was begging Yrsa to get Mum, only she wouldn’t come.

  I grab my coat and go out. The fog must be at least a mile away, but I can feel its clammy chill on my face. The axe drops from Stig’s hand and lands with a dull thump. ‘Å faen … It’s getting closer!’

  We stand side by side and watch the tsunami of cloud move insidiously towards us. We could be the only two people left on Earth, waiting for the apocalypse to come. ‘Stig, maybe we should get inside.’ I scan the horizon. ‘Where’s Gandalf?’

  Stig picks up his clothes and shrugs back into them. ‘He was here just now, sniffing that old tree.’

  While Stig watches the fog, I walk around the cabin to the garden. Not that you can call it a garden – more a few acres of grass less tall than the surrounding heath. I often saw Mormor scrubbing dirt from her nails at the kitchen sink, yet there are no flower beds or vegetable patches. Once when I woke early, she was on her knees weeding around the roots of the twisted tree.

  I pause before it now, my heart pounding. It stands on its own grassy mound, like it was planted there deliberately. Three times the height of the cabin, its enormous grey trunk is a mass of bulges and knots, and so big it would take seven of me with arms outstretched to encircle it. Thick green moss coats the base of its trunk: a plush velvet skirt covering the rough, scaly bark. The wind has died to nothing and for once its mighty branches barely stir.

  It looks so different to when I came in summer. Menacing almost. Keeping my distance, I walk around it, stepping over knobbly roots that protrude from the earth like the veins on a hand. One of the huge roots contains a deep pool of water. Mormor said it holds a natural spring, and that’s why it never dries up.

  Where is that dog? ‘Gandalf!’ I scan the dark edge of the forest. The fir trees crowd together like soldiers in battle formation, their trunks forming a hard drawn line. We should have kept Gandalf on a long rope. What if he’s wandered off and there really is a wolf?

  I trudge through orange spiky bracken, shouting now.

  ‘Hey, wait!’ Stig yells behind me.

  I turn to see a looming mountain of fog. It smothers the light, giving the world an eerie feel. Water glistens in Stig’s hair, like dew on a spiderweb.

  ‘Gandalf – where exactly did you see him last?’ I call, my voice breathless.

  Stig points. ‘He was digging there, by the tree.’

  I clamber back over the bracken. ‘And you didn’t call him back?’

  Stig’s eyes are wide with worry.

  ‘Gandalf!’ we shout together.

  ‘Is that him?’ I point at the twisted tree. ‘There! I thought I saw something move.’

  We jog to the tree then stop, both at the same time, as if we’ve hit an invisible wall.

  Inside its huge gnarled trunk are several hollow chambers, formed by the weird way the tree has grown. As a child I used to love playing in the dark spaces, but I would often have bad dreams about them too. Sometimes I think the tree has always been on the edge of my nightmares, waiting to trip my feet and snatch at my hair.

  When I was younger I could easily stand up in the largest chamber, but now I have to bend almost double. I peer inside and the back of my neck prickles. There’s a black hole three times the size of a rabbit hole, the wood around it scored as if someone has cut it with a knife. I blink against the gloom, unable to believe what I’m seeing. Blackness emanates from it, growing bigger and then smaller. A dark, pulsating heart.

  Buzzing fills the air, like a swarm of flies or the rush of water but higher pitched – the sound of an electrical current almost. A stench of decay sends a wave of revulsion through my stomach. It feels like we’ve stumbled across a decomposing body covered in rotten leaves. We shouldn’t be here. I want to move, but I can’t.

  A loud bark breaks the spell. Gandalf is on the porch, growling ferociously as if we are the ones who need saving. He jumps in circles, barking madly. Warning us to run.

  7

  I slam the door and drag the bolt across. Stig is doubled over, palms on his knees, panting hard. Droplets of water cling to his hair and clothes ‘You OK?’ he asks. I shake my head, unable to speak. ‘You’re fast! I couldn’t keep up,
’ he laughs.

  My lips twitch upward but I don’t feel like smiling. There’s something wrong with that tree. Unnatural. I inhale deeply through my nose but my stomach won’t stop churning. Just the memory of that putrid smell makes me want to heave. The hole can’t have been there when I came last summer, I would have noticed. It seemed too big to have been dug by an animal, yet the grooves in the wood looked like claw marks.

  Stig peers out the window. ‘The fog is right on top of us!’ He wipes his breath from the glass and gestures for me to look. The world outside is gone, replaced by a dense uniform grey. Mist swirls over the porch, wrapping itself around the balustrades like a scarf looking for a neck to strangle. The room darkens as fog drifts across the window, devouring us whole. The cabin is freezing, colder than I’ve ever known. I look at the stove, expecting to see a pile of ash, but the embers glow orange.

  ‘Did you notice anything funny – I mean, odd? Just now, outside?’

  Stig shushes the dog, who growls at the door as if Death itself were standing on the porch. ‘You mean Gandalf? Dogs can be affected by the weather. He’ll be fine.’

  I sit on the sofa and shiver as a ribbon of mist wisps in through the keyhole. I was sure Stig had felt it too – he must have noticed the awful smell and strange noise, but he wanders from the room, humming under his breath. Maybe it’s all in my head. Mum says I have a vivid imagination, just like Mormor.

  Gandalf snaps at his tail. I don’t know whether he’s afraid, excited or preparing to fight – and I don’t think he knows either.

  Stig reappears holding a towel. ‘Do you want to wash first? There might not be much hot water. It can take a while to heat up.’ He grins good-naturedly, but I don’t smile back. The more he makes himself at home, the more out of place I feel.

  ‘No, it’s fine. You go ahead.’

  Stig flashes me his dimples. ‘I can save you my bathwater if you like.’

  I frown, unsure whether he’s being serious. Sharing water with family is one thing, but not with a complete stranger.

  Stig grins. ‘Only joking! We Norwegians do that sometimes. Joke, I mean.’

  Ignoring him, I glance at the kitchen. It’s nearly three in the afternoon. The toast we had this morning has long gone. ‘I’ll start dinner, I guess.’

  ‘Great, I’m starving!’

  ‘Who said anything about making you dinner?’

  Stig looks hurt, and not play-acting hurt.

  ‘I thought you Norwegians liked a joke?’ I say, trying to sound upbeat.

  He raises his eyebrows, then turns on his heel with a grin.

  Bending down, I open a cupboard and grab an onion, a few potatoes and a cabbage. Yrsa was right, the place is well stocked. I take some bread from the freezer, ready for later, then start on dinner. I’m halfway through peeling a potato when I hear the water run. The cabin has never had good soundproofing – it didn’t seem a problem before, but now the idea of using the toilet knowing I can be heard in the next room makes me cringe.

  I hear singing. Badly and in Norwegian. I shake my head but can’t help smiling as Stig’s voice builds to a death-metal crescendo. I don’t know the song, but it sounds like he’s murdering it. Just when I think he’s finished, a series of wails assaults my ears. As he returns to the deep-throated chorus, I grab a knife and find myself chopping in time with the tune.

  Something darts past the window. The knife slips and I gasp as it slices my flesh. Sucking my finger, I wipe away the steam from the cooking and peer outside, but there’s only fog. It’s so dense I can’t have seen anything.

  Even though I’m unable to see the tree, I know it’s there – why do I feel like it’s watching me? I yank the curtain shut. There’s something rotten about that tree. I can feel it emanating in waves.

  I tear off a piece of kitchen roll and wrap it around my finger, pressing hard against the throb of pain. Blood oozes and spreads across the tissue, making it more red than white. Mormor must keep plasters around here somewhere. I open a drawer to find a stack of papers and riffle through them. Bills and shopping lists. No plasters, and no envelope with my name on it either.

  I pull open another drawer and start to rummage, when Stig strides into the room dripping water.

  ‘Vannet er iskaldt!’

  ‘Sorry, what?’

  He’s wearing a towel around his middle. His wet hair hangs over his shoulders and his smooth chest is covered with a film of tiny bubbles. I turn away, then glance back at his muscular legs. I may be half blind, but even I don’t need Kelly to tell me he’s hot.

  Stig seems unconcerned by the fact he’s almost naked, which only makes it more awkward. Resisting the temptation to look at him, I stare at my throbbing finger.

  ‘Helvete! What happened to you?’

  ‘Oh, nothing. Just slipped with the knife.’

  Stig gestures to a chair and I dutifully sit while he searches the dresser.

  ‘I think I saw … Wait, I remember.’ He pulls out a green box from behind a row of cookery books and I tut. Of course, I should have asked him to begin with.

  Stig reaches for my hand and heat floods every part of my body; this must be how it feels to blush down to your toes. I pull away, but he grabs my finger and inspects the damage, informing me of what I already know – it’s a deep cut – before smoothing on a plaster.

  ‘You OK? Maybe you should lie down.’

  I stand and turn back to the chopping board, doing my best not to look at his bare chest. ‘See. Perfectly fine,’ I say, snatching up the knife and stabbing an unsuspecting potato.

  I don’t know whether I’m irritated with him for wandering around half naked, or with myself for being bothered by it. As I bring the knife down, I can feel his eyes on the back of my head.

  I risk a glance over my shoulder. ‘Anyway, what’s up with you? Did you forget the words to the song?’

  Stig gives an awkward laugh. ‘Oh, you heard that? Sorry, I didn’t mean to be, er …’ He frowns as if he’s trying to think of the word. ‘Insensitive.’

  ‘It’s OK,’ I mumble. I liked hearing him sing. Though his voice sounded dreadful, it made the cabin feel less empty.

  ‘I got out because the water turned cold.’

  Strange. It shouldn’t run out that quickly. I put the dinner in the oven, then head to the bathroom. Stig follows me as I step into the steam and turn on the bath tap. The water warms my fingers instantly. ‘Feels hot to me.’

  Stig’s black socks drip water over the side of the deep wooden tub. Mum used to complain it was like showering in an oversized barrel, but I loved sitting in there as a child, pretending I was voyaging the high seas in my own little boat.

  Stig holds his finger under the tap and frowns. ‘The lights were flickering too, but they seem OK now.’ His face is so close to mine I don’t know where to look. For a horrible moment I think he’s staring at my eye – but he isn’t. He’s looking at my mouth. I turn the tap off and start to walk away, somehow managing to trip over my feet in the process.

  Stig grips the towel at his waist. ‘You must have a magic touch.’

  If only he knew. His black shirt and slashed jeans hang on the back of the door, and I can’t help wondering what they might tell me. I think back to his coat in the woodshed. How can he feel love and sadness and at the same time be consumed by such jealousy and hate? If I run my fingers over his jeans, maybe they’ll show me a memory. I want to touch them. The realisation gives me butterflies.

  I step towards his clothes, then stop. Wouldn’t it be nicer if he told me, if we just got to know each other the normal way?

  Stig coughs and looks at me expectantly. It takes me a moment to realise why. I glance at the floor. ‘Sorry, right, I’ll leave you to it,’ I mutter.

  As I turn to leave, I notice a blurred, misshapen face in the mirror. He must have drawn the sad hollow eyes and gaping mouth in the condensation. I think about remarking on his artwork, but when I look back the image has gone. The only monstrous face is
mine.

  I take my time in the shower, letting the warm water wash away the strangeness of the day, then change and towel my hair.

  Stig is kneeling by the stove, feeding a log to the fire. He’s brushed his hair and applied fresh eyeliner. Instead of the usual black, he’s wearing a white shirt with ruffles down the front. There are no creases in it, so I guess he must know where Mormor keeps the iron. The boy is either incredibly nosey and likes poking around other people’s houses, or he’s been here for longer than he said. The thought brings me out in goosebumps.

  Stig glances up with a grin and my fear evaporates. He hasn’t done anything to make me doubt him. I’m being overly suspicious. ‘Something smells good,’ he says. For a second I think he means me, then instantly feel stupid.

  I enter the kitchen to find the table set, complete with wine glasses, napkins and candles. He’s even used one of Mormor’s best tablecloths. Feeling underdressed in my grey jogging bottoms, I drag my fingers through my damp hair, wishing I had blow-dried it. Stop it, I tell myself. You can’t do anything about your face, so what’s the point of worrying about your hair?

  Gandalf is curled up in his basket, head on his paws. ‘Feeling better now, boy?’ His ears prick up at the sound of my voice. I kneel down and pat his head, and he licks my face in return. That’s the good thing about animals: they love you for who you are, not how you look. He stares at the door as if he’s trying to tell me something. ‘What is it?’ I whisper, but he only lowers his head with a sigh.

  Stig’s right, dinner does smell good. Grabbing a tea towel from the rail, I open the oven and take out the casserole. Mormor was the one who taught me to cook. Not that I made much in London; it was something we did together. Disappointment tugs at my heart as I remember that we’ll never do it again.

  Stig sees my face and gives me a sad, knowing smile. He grabs some oranges from the fruit bowl on the dresser, then starts to juggle. ‘What do you think? Good enough for the circus?’