Beyond the Tree House

by Gudrun Frerichs

  “Where can he be?”

  My question falls into an empty silence.

  “Here is something.”

  An officer shouts and opens a door. We all rush to him. Behind the door is a stairway leading upward. The sound of pounding steps tells us someone is racing up the stairs. The police officers are bolting up the stairs too, followed by Scott and me.

  “What’s up there?” Scott stops, breathless from climbing the stairs.

  “I have no idea, I’ve never been up there. From the road, it looks like a clock tower.”

  “Stop, police. You are surrounded, man. There is no escape. Don’t make it more difficult for yourself than it already is.”

  For a moment while DS Fisher shouts, it seems as if the fleeing person stops, but then the ruckus continues. The officer sends a curse after the fugitive. Whoever is the runaway has locked the door at the top of the stairs from the other side.

  “Open the door!”

  DS Fisher tries his best rattling the door but with little result. He waves two officers to charge at the door with their shoulders. It takes them several attempts, but then the door splinters and hangs half torn in its hinges.

  We push onto what seems to be a platform of an observation tower you’d find in castles complete with battlements to protect against enemies. The view over the valley from up here is stunning. The high mountains to the East are giving the perfect, romantic background for the small Swiss village that stretches out on the opposite side of the park.

  Raymond Feldman stands on a ledge, waving a gun in our direction, his eyes cold and menacing in an expressionless face. He takes a glance down to where a growing number of people are watching. Then he looks back at me.

  “Stay where you are or I’ll shoot.”

  “You can’t shoot us all, the police will disarm you before you fire your second shot.”

  Scott tried the hardest to convince Raymond, but looking at his devilish grin, I don’t think he’s succeeding. Raymond doesn’t care. Whatever ate at him and caused him to become the monster he is, it might have tipped him over the edge of sanity.

  “Drop your gun, Feldman. You have no chance.”

  DS Fisher isn’t successful either. Raymond Feldman looks at him with so much contempt, it should have killed the police officer.

  “Do you think I care? I’ll take her with me,” he points at me with his gun, “and erase the last stinking Wright from the face of the earth.”

  “What have the Wrights ever done to you?” I take a small step forward towards him. I never thought his vendetta against me was personal but it looks very much like it is.

  “Ask your mother.”

  “How can I, she’s dead?”

  I take another small step. I recognize some of myself in him … a person at the end of what he can endure, losing grip on reality. I know that place well from years ago, the sense of complete emptiness when nothing matters and death is becoming a welcome option to end all pain.

  “So will you be if you don’t stay where you are.”

  He gazed at me and I see a fleeting sense of pity in his eyes.

  “You think you’ve won, but you haven’t. You too carry Eduard and Eugene’s evil core inside you. There’s no escaping it.”

  Without thinking I’m taking another step forward. He sounds so tortured, so lost. There is a part of me who feels a wave of compassion for this man on the ledge.

  He fires a shot at my feet.

  “Stay where you are or I jump.” He grins diabolically. “You don’t want that on your conscience, don’t you?”

  No, I don’t want that on anybody’s conscience. What a horrible thing to live with, knowing you’ve driven someone to their death.

  An elderly woman with white hair twisted into a tight bun calls from the ground, “August Raymond Feldman. You come down this minute.”

  He positions himself between the battlements and turns to see who’s calling out to him. It doesn’t look like he’s mellowed by the call. An ugly grin breaks free as he stares at me.

  “I underestimated you. You’ve managed to mobilize the police, how did you do that? Ah, don’t tell me. I don’t want to know. It doesn’t matter anymore. I should have killed you when I had the chance. Then you would rot with your aunt in that damned cellar of yours.”

  DS Fisher puts his gun down and moves a few steps closer to Raymond.

  “Come on, man, step down from there. There’s no need to take a risk.”

  “Stop right there or I jump. I have nothing to lose.”

  He knows about auntie and the cellar. What …?

  “Are you saying you killed my aunt?”

  “Your aunt, my aunt, who cares, you stupid woman. Who else do you think ditched her car and threw her into her cellar? She found that piece of torn brake and threatened me. Me! Arrested for the murder of Eugene and Sarah? I didn’t have a choice, did I? Good riddance, she was a lousy aunt anyhow.”

  I try to comprehend what he’s telling me.

  “You killed my parents and Aunt Amanda?”

  He cackled. It sounded like the laugh of the Joker in the Batman movies, chillingly crazy and eerie at the same time.

  “You didn’t know? Did you really think our family is so clumsy that they all die accidentally?”

  “You intended to kill me when—you are a monster.”

  I step toward him but Scottie pulls me back.

  Raymond laughs hard.

  “Finally! You are not the brightest mind, are you? You never were. And still, mother kept you while I had to live with the Feldmans.”

  Mother kept me and not him? What does that mean? Raymond is my brother? August? It can’t be. An avalanche of images and emotions washes over me. My heart is exploding with feelings of anger, regret, pity, and deep sadness. My brother?

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t know they hurt you so much.”

  I take another step and offer him my hand.

  He scowls and hisses like a rattlesnake and leans away from me as if the compassion I’m offering is poisonous.

  “Nobody can hurt me.”

  I shriek in horror as he loses his balance and swirls his arms through the air. His eyes full of surprise, he doesn’t even make a single sound as he tumbles the fifteen yards to the ground.

  I race to the battlement as if I could pull him back. All I see is Raymond lying lifeless on the ground, surrounded by his stunned followers. The lady with the white hair at his side, weeping. I turn around and land on Scott’s chest, sobbing.

  “Scott, he’s dead and it’s my fault.”

  “Never say that. He always had the choice to step away from the ledge.”

  “Look after her.”

  DS Fisher calls out to Scottie and hurries down the stairs.

  “I need to see him. Maybe…” I don’t finish my sentence and rush after the police officer.

  On the pathway below the tower, a small group of people has gathered staring at the lifeless body of Raymond. DS Fisher calls for the ambulance but I know there is no help. The paramedic kneels at Raymond’s side and shakes his head.

  “I’m sorry, he’s gone. Nothing we can do here.”

  A middle-aged woman in the uniform of the kitchen-crew of the Community hall pushes through the crowd and falls to the ground next to Raymond.

  “August, Gustl, darling, oh no!” Her wailing doesn’t stop even when two men lead her away.

  Raymond’s head lies in a pool of blood, his eyes lifeless. His face has lost the grooves of evil he wore before he fell. I like to think that in death, he paid for his sins and reconciled with his maker.

  Sitting on the steps of the ambulance, I shiver, unable to decide whether to cry or be relieved that the ordeal is over. I can’t take my eyes off the paramedics who put Raymond’s body on a stretcher and cover him up. Scottie puts a blanket over my shoulders.

  “You are in shock, darling.”

  “I can’t believe this nightmare is over.”

  “Trust me, it is.” He pulls the
blanket tighter. He might be right but I know that my mind will replay the scene on top of the tower over and over again looking for ways of how it could have ended differently.

  “He was my brother, Scottie. My brother. I can’t imagine what he’s been through that turned him into this twisted being.”

  Tears are running down my cheeks.

  “Do you think he killed your parents, your aunt, and would have destroyed you if he could, all because your parents gave him up to Sebastian Feldman?”

  “I don’t know. Perhaps. I guess we’ll never know for sure. He sounded bitter about it. Who knows what his childhood was like growing up in this perverted cult.”

  We watch the families being led to the buses. There was no further resistance. The moment their leader was dead, the will to fight—if there was any—had left Gateway’s people.

  Rena is running toward me and throws herself into my arms.

  “I was so scared he would hurt you.”

  “You don’t have to be scared anymore, sweetie, all will be well and we have to thank you for it.”

  She looks at me, skeptical as if she’s unsure what to say next.

  “Are you going home now?”

  First I pull her onto my lap and wipe her hair out of her eyes. Then I nod.

  “Yes, Scottie and I are going home now. I thought you might like to come with us. What do you say?”

  “Me? With you? Forever and ever?”

  “Yes. Would you like to have Scott and me as your parents?”

  “I would like that very much.”

  “That’s very good because we always wanted to have a little girl like you.”

  I put another blanket around her. The evening air is chilly and damp and Rena only wears a light dress that doesn’t give her much warmth.

  A woman with a pin from social services comes toward me.

  “Thank you very much for risking your life. We have our work cut out for us in the near future. All these poor children.”

  “Rena here is an orphan. Her parents died a few years ago. We would like to have her stay with us. What do we need to do to put in motion the adoption papers?”

  “She’s a lucky girl to find such great parents. Would you like me to come to your home in two or three days? I can bring you the paperwork. There will have to be a check-up and other formalities. I don’t think you’ll have too many problems. It will be a huge task to find forever homes for all children.”

  “I can imagine. Some children’s parents might not even know that their kids are still alive. I don’t envy you the task of making sure everyone is looked after.”

  “We’ll do everything to reunite children and families and make sure they have the resources to deal with the trauma the children have experienced.”

  “That’s good to know. Thank you.”

  Even though I’m not sure whether I am as positive about the children’s future as the social worker is, I can’t take them all home.

  Rena at my side yawns. I hold her tight.

  “You’re tired, sweetie. Let’s go home.”

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Elise: 24 March, Dusk, Wright’s Homestead

  The strangest thing happened on our way back to the homestead. A plucky southern breeze had chased away the storm clouds from earlier today. I roll down the window on my side. The air is crisp and clean after the great downpour from this afternoon. Since then the clouds lifted and everything is lighter and brighter. As if nature needed to mimic the massive cleanup at Gateway.

  Just as Scott drives along the gravel road to the house, the last sun-rays of the day are kissing the tips of the trees and setting the sky on fire with orange, gold, and tangerine hues. Even though the light drains away and greens and purple of the foliage begin to melt into the grey tones of the approaching night, everything glows. This is a new beginning.

  Branches sway in the wind as the forest breathes and the bush comes alive again. As if it had to duck down to weather the storm, nature rises again and stretches ready for another phase of mysteries and miracles.

  My house, my home, is waiting for us. I open the door and a fresh breeze with a hint of lemon brushes tantalizingly past my nose. It feels as if a lifetime has passed since I’ve left the house with Scott and Simon Barker to check out Gateways. Just as Sleeping Beauty who wakes up after a hundred years, I step inside and appreciate my home as if I see it for the very first time.

  I shake off the thought. I have to stop thinking as if I’m in fairy tales and stories. This is my life now. I lean against Scott to my left and smile down at the child on my other side. He is real and Rena is real. They are not figments of my imagination. Fate has allowed me to have a family and be a mother, a hope and desire I had given up many years ago.

  Rena looks up to me with her beautiful blue eyes that remind me of the clear summer sky. She smiles.

  “I like your house. It looks like a doll’s house.”

  She doesn’t know how right she is. For a long time that’s what it was. For decades Raymond had manipulated the people living in this place like puppets on a string. With them he acted out his macabre desire, playing with their lives as if they meant nothing. And to him, they hadn’t.

  I can’t comprehend how his mind became mangled into the ugly twists and turns it fell into. Maddie would have a clue. And yet, Maddie is the example that even if bad things happen to you, you don’t have to become a bad person. We always come to crossroads and have a choice on which path we take.

  I’m so proud of my little girl who didn’t allow herself to fall into the cesspit of badness. I’m proud of myself because it was me. I was there, even if the memory of that time is encapsulated in Maddie. I wear the scars from that time on my body, and I will carry them proudly like badges of honor. Evil has not been able to conquer my soul.

  Now I understand the smirk on Sebastian Feldman’s face when he stood in the dock and was sentenced to spend the rest of his life in prison. He knew then his efforts had not been not in vain. He’d left a legacy Raymond would continue.

  “Mum?” Rena blushed and looked to the floor. “May I call you Mum?”

  “Of course you may. I would love nothing more.”

  I catch Scott’s smile as I look over to him and for a moment I feel my heart overflowing with happiness.

  “Mum, where is my room?”

  “Let’s see, hm, your room …”

  “I don’t need a room if you don’t have a spare one.” She appears anxious as if she asks for too much.

  “Of course we have space for you. It’s just not quite ready yet because we didn’t know we would find you. But we were hoping for a little peanut like you for a long time. How about we make up my room for you and I push Scottie to the outer side of his bed and snuggle in with him?”

  Rena clapped her hands. “That’s wonderful.” She skipped up the stairs and disappeared into my bedroom. “There is a doll laying on my bed. Is that doll for me?”

  She found Madeline. A tiny twitch in the vicinity of my heart tells me that there is still a connection between the doll and the Tribe. I don’t want to take the doll away from Maddie and listen inside for an objection. My mind is made up when I don’t hear anything. It’s time a child gets to play again with the doll.

  “Sure, darling. Her name is Madeline and I know for sure that she’s been waiting for you to come and play with her. She needs a friend who loves her and gives her lots of cuddles.”

  My bedroom has been my sanctuary for over a year. It’s strange to make the conscious decision to give it up and to let someone else take ownership of it. Sharing a room with Scottie will be a change for the Tribe. My room was our last bastion where we could retreat and be by ourselves. I’m surprised I get no objection from the Tribe. It’s shocking. I hadn’t noticed … where is everyone…?

  Where are my voices giving me a running commentary? It’s the strangest feeling to live with a quiet mind. It’s like being an astronaut floating effortlessly in space, grasping with his hands f
or things to hold on to, while gravity, what holds him down, is not there anymore.

  That’s what my parts are, the gravity that keeps me grounded in my life. Will I be able to do all that by myself? Keep myself steady, keep myself firmly in the here and now? I hear a faint whisper, of course, and a giggle that sounds like silver bells ringing.

  “I need coffee.” Scott comes from behind and puts his arms around me, leans his head on my shoulder. “What’s the matter?”

  “It’s quiet inside. It confuses me. Scott, who am I? Elise or Lilly? Because I can’t tell anymore.”

  My throat clogged when I saw the pity in his eyes.

  “I don’t know, darling, you always were the same to me. I could never tell the difference unless you spoke to me. Lately, even that became hard. If you can’t tell the difference, how would it be to find a new name that all of you can identify with?”

  We all like the name Lillybeth. It stands for the lily flower, for beauty, innocence, and Elizabeth. It wasn’t a voice that had said that it was more a thought that had the flavor of Sky.

  “Please, don’t go away, Sky. Stay with me.”

  For a moment I sense a hand on my shoulder, just as Sky has done in the past to reassure me. I reach for her hand, want to hang on to it, and refuse to accept that I might be alone. It can’t be. I won’t let it. I wipe away the tears running down my cheeks.

  Scott stands at the cooking range and makes a coffee for us. He turns to me, his glance scanning my face trying to read what is happening.

  “Are you okay? You are crying”

  “How do you like the name Lillybeth?”

  “It’s a beautiful name. It suits you.” He smiles and nods approvingly. “I like it.”

  I reach into the recesses of my mind and yes; I get a sense of the Tribe being content. Maddie, playing with her doll dancing in a meadow, happy and without fear. Luke is building a fort; his concentration is on the job, as it always is, not allowing anything to distract him. And Amadeus? He’s dashing onto the field on a white stallion, a sword in his hand, ready to fight any dragons that dare to threaten us. The others are there too, carefree and untroubled, they no longer hover in the dark, are no longer plagued by monsters of our past.