Skeleton Trees

by Adelise M Cullens

  Had I lost the plot? Had everything that had happened over the past eight months, made my brain just snap?

  I didn’t care too much, it was real to me.

  My eyes felt heavy. I didn’t want to close them. I feared sleep. Although, I also feared being awake.

  I saw things as my eyes closed. Flashes of dreams.

  My daughter Gabby. She runs from me. Her hand slips out of my own.

  My eyes opened. Lightning flashed, making the windows glow blue. Mrs Porter stirred next to me.

  I fought my heavy lids again.

  I see her smiling face, lit up with delight.

  I forced my eyes open in the darkness. Is seeing things that are not real (but only seem it) better than seeing things that used to be real and are no longer?

  My body took over and my eyes closed again.

  The delight on Gabby’s face is gone. The light is gone. She is gone. My husband has also gone. I am alone. Surrounded by white.

  I feel something at my foot. It is the pale ginger cat. It rubs itself on my leg and then jumps straight up into my arms. It looks at me with unbelievably green eyes. Its apple shaped tag is facing up, revealing the name to me again.Scabbers.

  It stares at me with the same superiority as it had on the patio. It opens its mouth and says in a deep man’s voice. “The key.”

  Part 3

  “The key, you say? No my dear, I am terribly sorry, I don’t know what that could mean,” Mrs Porter said, blowing the steam off her tea. Her cheeks rosy and her face was glowing.

  I sipped my own brew and thought about the strange dream. The rest of the night had gone without so much as a Boo, thank goodness.

  “I think I’m going to leave today. I really don’t know if it is going to be good for me here. Not just because of any paranormal, heebie-jeebie, ghost hunter stuff, I’m just not relaxed or writing.” I sipped my tea. “Yes. Maybe it is best if I just go home,” I said.

  The wind blew hard and the rain came down.

  “Aaww, are you sure, maybe just give the house another chance? Did you thank Mary for the apple, like I suggested, hhhmmm?” Mrs Porter said.

  “No! I wouldn’t know how to thank a ghost!” I laughed.

  “Just thank her, she is obviously trying to connect with you,” Mrs Porter said.

  “Regardless, I am going to pack my bags today and head off, I don’t mind still paying for the full week, I just want to go home.”

  “Whatever you need my dear,” she said sweetly.

  She finished her tea and put the cup into the kitchen sink. “If you need a hand packing or if you change your mind, especially if you change your mind, let me know,” Mrs Porter said, before walking out the door and getting into her car.

  She drove away, with her tires fanning water out to the sides. The rain pooled everywhere — In potholes, in large muddy puddles, on the sides of the road where it flowed fast.

  My daughter used to love it, when the weather was like that. She would have rushed to get her gumboots and raincoat on, hurried to pick out her favourite, rainbow umbrella, and she would have splashed around in the rain until I couldn’t stand it any longer.

  I tided up the house in peace, not a sound out of place, not a cat, nor a jingling of keys, nor a scratch, to make me jump. It was almost nice enough to change my mind and stay. Almost.

  The house was roughly in the same way I had left it. I went to my room to get my things. My suitcase sat, open, on the bed. Clothes neatly folded, toiletries in place, laptop tucked carefully in a side pocket for easy access. I zipped it up and lugged it to the foyer. As I went out the door, borrowing one of the black house umbrellas, I checked my pockets for the keys, but they weren’t there.

  I thought backwards, I remembered distinctly putting them in my jacket pocket when I came across them, while I was cleaning up.

  I sighed and looked back into the house. I was out! I didn’t want to go back in. But I had to.

  I left the luggage out on the front porch and went back inside to hunt for the keys. I searched. I looked in the kitchen and out on the patio; I looked in, under and around the sofa bed, and in the bedroom.

  As I came back out into the hall, I saw something flash past the back door. I stopped and looked at the glass. I remembered what I had seen there yesterday. Mary standing there, ghostly white, mist forming around here as if she was the source of it, pouring off her like out of a freezer on a humid day. Her deep, melancholy eyes, distant and hollow.

  I shuddered. I wanted to run for the front door. Forget the keys, I could just tell Mrs Porter that they were in the house somewhere, and she could find them herself. But, I couldn’t. I had to see.

  I slowly began walking down the cold corridor. Eyes wide, taking in everything.

  Something jumped up onto the glass. I jumped backwards, catching my breath before it turned into a scream. That pale ginger cat pawed at the back door. It meowed at me from behind the glass. Staring and meowing. It jumped back down and then back up again. Meowing and meowing.

  I moved slowly towards the door. The ginger moggy got off the glass and backed away from the door. It sat just off the doormat, its eyes half closed and blinking.

  I opened the door.

  On the doormat sat the keys.

  A hard lump gathered in my throat, and I tried to swallow it back. Tears prickled at the backs of my eyes. I remembered what Mrs Porter had said. “Th … Th … Thank you,” I whispered. The cat got up and padded off into the hedge.

  I snatched the keys and ran for the front door. I heard it slam before I got to there. But as I ran up the hall, I saw my bedroom door swing open. My luggage bag sat on the bed.

  “Hello?” I yelled out. “Who is there?”

  There was no answer.

  “Look, whoever you are, I don’t want any trouble, ok?” My voice sounded shaky, not like my own at all. “I just, I just want to go home. Thank you for letting me stay but, I just want to go …” I trailed off into a half sob.

  There was still no answer.

  I took that as my cue. I ran for my room and grabbed my bag. I then headed back to the front door. I opened it.

  On the front step sat an umbrella, not the one I picked, but a rainbow one, just like my daughter used to have. I gasped and almost dropped my baggage. All I could think was that I had to get out!

  I ran through the rain, leaving the open umbrella there on the step. It rolled back and forth in the rain.

  I dived into my car and tossed the luggage into the passenger seat.

  I half expected that my car wouldn’t start. But it did. I took off down the driveway and skidded out on to the street. I turned on my lights and my window wipers. Between the fog and the rain, I could barely see anything.

  I drove. Away from that farm, away from the house, away from Mary White.

  It was a good twenty minutes, or so, drive down the mountain and into the more suburban parts of the Hawkesbury. I wiped away tears that had burnt my cheeks — hot tears of fear and frustration.

  The water, by the roadside, got heavier and thicker as I drove on. It became less like runoff and more like small rivers, rushing along the gutters. The roads were quiet. Minimal people gathered at the small set of shops in North Richmond.

  Then, I saw the barricades closing the bridge. Water ran freely over the top of the Hawkesbury River Bridge, carrying debris with it. I pulled over on the side of the road and just looked at it. I felt so alone and hopeless, I did not know what to do.

  I looked at the bag on the passenger seat. Big ring of keys thrown next to it. A thought touched my mind for a moment. “Mary doesn’t want me to go.”

  It was crazy. No one could control the weather, even from the afterlife. It was not just crazy, it was stupid. I felt ridiculous for believing what I had seen.

  Maybe, I could just go online and look up a local hotel or motel, on this side of the river. Somewhere I could stay until the river went down, perhaps? I went to open my computer’s little
niche in my bag, but the zipper was open and the computer was gone.

  My heart sunk. Nothing was going well. At all. My computer might have been the only thing I would go back up to that house for. Not only did it have all my writing, all my stories but it also had family photos, photos of Gabby.

  I turned the car around and tore back up the mountain.

  After pulling into the drive way and grabbing the keys, I ran back through the rain. I got to the top of the stairs where the rainbow umbrella still rocked. I looked at all the keys. The front door key had been modern, brass and club shaped at the top. It had been the only one like it.

  I sifted through them one by one, wiping the rain and tears from my face. I grabbed at the key next in line. A big old one, blackened and gnarled, it had not been there before.

  The Key, an echo of a voice said in my mind.

  “Henrietta!”

  I jumped at the sound, turning towards the rear of the house. The veranda stretched right around the sides of the house, meeting up at the back patio. A cat’s tail disappeared around the corner as I looked.

  I picked up the rainbow umbrella and ran around the side of the house.

  I froze in place at a sound that flowed up from the orchard. Laughter, little girls’ laughter, like in my dream. “Gabby?” I whispered. I picked up my pace and ran to the back yard, just in time to see two little girls disappear into the misty skeleton trees.

  Part 4

  I ran into the apple trees after the two little girls. Getting the rainbow umbrella stuck on the outstretched branches, I dropped it were I was, not caring. The rain pelted down, but it didn’t mask the sound of my daughter’s laughter. “Gabby!” I called out. I ran after them.

  “Henrietta!” I heard a call behind me. I looked back, but I could see nothing, not even the house. Everything was white. I turned around and around. I couldn’t even work out which way I had been heading. I felt confused. I didn’t know what I was doing.

  I heard something else then — a scream that turned my blood to ice. Gabby’s scream rang in my ears, in my head, all around me.

  “Gabby! Where are you?”

  I kept turning and turning. And then there she was, just like in my dream. Mary stood in her white dress, but she was not looking at me. She was looking around, the same way I was.

  “Henrietta! Where are you?” she cried. And with that she ran off into the mist.

  I followed her. Catching only glimpses of her ebony hair, trailing behind her like a cape of darkness.

  Suddenly, I was in a clearing. A small area, where the apple trees did not grow and the mist had receded. The cat sat in the middle of the clearing, on top of what looked like an old well. Made of bricks, it domed out of the earth, it was topped with a wooden paling doors.

  Mary was transparent and kneeling by the well. I could see the bricks through her white dress. “No, no, no,” she cried. “Henrietta!” She bowed down on the well’s lid and cried, screaming her daughter’s name.

  “I’m so sorry. It’s all my fault,” she said. And like that it was all gone. The apple farm, the well, Mary, all of it.

  ***

  I stood in the rain, but my hand held a smaller hand tightly. I looked down at Gabby. She looked up at me with those big bright eyes, so full of love and happiness. She wore her big blue gumboots and her pink and yellow raincoat. I held her rainbow umbrella above us, protecting us from the downpour. “I love you mummy,” she said.

  “Thank you, Gabriella,” I said.

  “Mummy, when we get back home can we make cupcakes?” she asked as she jumped into a puddle; it was not an odd request, Gabby loved to bake.

  “We will see Gabby, Mummy has lots of work to do.” My deadline was fast approaching and I knew I was stuck on the ending for my next book. It just wasn’t coming to me. I just couldn’t see it.

  A twinkling bell sounded and a pale ginger cat jumped up into my daughter’s arms.

  “Scabbers! What are you doing here you silly cat?” She pet the cat gently, and held it close. “You’re getting all wet.”

  We had bought the cat for Gabby on her fourth birthday, just when I had been reading Harry Potter to her at bedtime. When we had asked her what she wanted to call the cat, ‘Scabbers’ is what she picked. At the time, I had tried to dissuade her, after all, it was a rat’s name, but she wouldn’t have it any other way.

  “But that’s his name Mummy,” she had said. “I can’t control his name!”

  I gave Scabbers a little scratch behind the ear as we walked around the block, looking for more good puddles. The water rushed past in the gutter. Little dams of gum leaves sat in the gutter, creating obstacles for the water. Everything shimmered and sparkled, as the sun showed itself for the briefest of moments, making the afternoon seem magical.

  The cat jumped out of Gabby’s arms and ran off ahead. “Scabbers! Scabbers, come back!” Gabriella called in her sweet little voice. She jogged just ahead of me. I smiled and walked a bit faster. The cat sped up, racing down the footpath. Gabby also ran faster.

  “Gabby, slow down, you’ll slip,” I called out. It all happened so fast, too fast for my mind to register what was happening.

  Scabbers ran out, onto the road and then ducked into a stormwater drain.

  “Gabby, No,” I said, as she went to follow him.

  Gabby splashed down into the puddles and knelt onto the grate. Water washed into the drain in torrents. I could hear the loud gurgling and slushing of the water, surging through the pipes below Gabby.

  “Scabbers! Come back!” She cried out, leaning on the wet grate and peering down inside the hole.

  She was so little. So thin and fine. Smaller than the other six year olds in her class. And the grate was so wet, slippery.

  As I ran for Gabby, her hand slipped. She disappeared into the hole, like little rabbit jumping into its warren. I heard her scream.

  I dived onto the road side. Knelt down in the water.

  Four little fingers held onto the black grate.

  I grabbed at her frantically.

  “Mummy!” she cried. Her eyes, still visible in the darkness, pleaded with me to save her.

  “I got you Gabby, everything is going to fine, don’t worry, Mummy’s got you,” I lied. I felt her slipping. I looked into those trusting eyes, watched them as I felt her little fingers slip from mine, disappearing into the darkness.

  My love, my life, my light, gone … just like that.

  ***

  I found myself kneeling, tears and rain running down my face. I looked up to see Mary beside me, her expression — my mirror. She turned to look at me this time.

  “By the time I got here, I … she … so then I …” Mary said softly.

  I looked at the well she knelt at, it’s door had been latched and locked. The pad lock was large and corroded.

  I looked down at my lap and opened my hand. I still held the ring of keys, with the old, gnarled black key — it matched the pad lock.

  I did not ask. I simply lent forward and stuck the key in the lock. The cat jumped off the door as the padlock easily opened. I swung the big old door apart.

  The well was not deep, and upon opening it, I was not even sure that it was a well. There was no water at the bottom, only earth and one other thing. Henrietta’s bones glistened at the bottom. I looked up at Mary.

  “When I found her,” she said. “I was so ashamed of myself, of my failure. So I locked it. Hoping no one would ever find her, but I could not leave after that. I could not leave the orchard.”

  “It was not your fault,” I whispered. “It was just an accident, out of your control.” I looked back down to the bones.

  “Mother?” I heard a small voice say. I looked up and to our right, just in the fog, stood a young girl, mid-night hair hung around her shoulders. She smiled brightly. “Mother!”

  “Henrietta!” The little girl ran to her mother and as they embraced one another, the pair dissipated. Like a candle being blown out.

&
nbsp; They were gone, the cat was gone and I was alone.

  “It was not your fault,” I whispered. “It was just an accident, out of your control.”

  ***

  Mrs Porter’s face beamed at me. “Don’t you worry yourself, my dear,” she said, helping me into her own large jacket and then rubbing my back. “You just get going. The police said they don’t need you anymore. Perhaps get on the road now, while the rain has let up.”

  She hugged me then. A long hug. I still didn’t real know this woman, and yet she had been so lovely.

  I got in my car and drove. The orchard glistened brightly in sunlight. It looked new and fresh. The dark apple trees, that sprouted from the greenest grass, now glowed with life from the weeklong down pour.

  I crossed the North Richmond Bridge without a drama. The Hawkesbury River still ran dauntingly high. I drove the long way back to the city, but I did not go home.

  I pulled into the cemetery. It was the first time I had been there since the funeral. I parked my car and walked to my daughter’s gravesite.

  It took the police two days to find her body.

  It took my husband two months to leave me.

  It took me twelve minutes to find the right grave.

  I pulled Mrs Porter’s big coat tight around me as I walked along the soft grass, being careful to not step on any other graves. When I saw Gabby’s head stone, I fell down on my knees in front of it and began to weep. I wept for my little girl, for my lost life. And because someone had been to the cemetery before me.

  On top of her gravestone sat a bright, red, shiny apple.