The Tree Goddess

by Tom Raimbault

  Terri suffered from a lack of sleep, lost her appetite and remained obsessed with the horrific paintings. The final two were much too disturbing to mention; but it can be said that they reflected her pain and loss of life that had been brought on by the legendary, historic house. With her realization, she escaped and never returned to the town of Mapleview.

  As for Loraine Trivelli, it was just one of many tenants lost. For years she rented the house out to people, needing a quiet place to do their art or write their novels. These were usually people from out of state and unaware of the terrible legend of the Trivelli house. After some time, these renters would become outraged that they rented a stigmatized property and terminated their rental agreement with Loraine.

  Upon inheriting the home to herself at the death of her father, Loraine thought that using the house as a pricey rental property would be an excellent source of income. But since the renters were far and few between, the house was more of a burden, so she decided to sell.

  * * *

  Loraine's niece, Mary, heard word of her aunt's plan to sell and immediately offered to purchase before it went on the market. She cashed in on some investments and paid for the house in full, as she did not want to lose the home she always wanted since a little girl. This, of course, disappointed the local Realtors who had already been talking to Loraine.

  Mary didn't care about the legend of the house. It was a beautiful, historic house and the perfect place to enjoy her soon-to-be husband and raise a family. Her wedding was two months away and she and her fiancé, Daren, decided that taking up residence in Mapleview would be a great idea. Daren traveled the country; demonstrating innovative, new medical equipment and could set up residence anywhere. His job only required quick access to the airport. Mary planned on getting her old job back at the flower shop in town.

  “Are you sure you're going to be happy here?” Loraine and her niece, Mary, came back to the Trivelli house after their closing in town. Mary now had full-ownership, and Loraine accompanied her niece back to her new home just to make sure she was happy. The house was fully furnished with beautiful, antique furniture that had been accumulated in the Trivelli family for over 150 years. It was a sweet deal for Mary; simply buy the house, settle in and get married.

  “Why wouldn't I be happy here? This has been my house ever since I could remember. I've always wanted this house.”

  “Well, it's stigmatized and might have some sort of curse. I'm actually glad to get it off my hands.”

  “It's a legend! And really it shouldn't be a legend. It was just a tragic accident!” For years, Mary believed her aunt had a neurotic obsession with the supposed curse of what was now Mary's beautiful home. And the last thing she wanted to hear on the day of the closing was that her dream home had such a stigmatism.

  But Loraine continued, feeling she needed to set her niece straight of the supposed legend of the Trivelli House. “Just a legend? I'm well aware of the legend. Grandma and Grandpa Trivelli built this house and lived here when Mapleview was just a half-block of stores about a mile away from here.”

  Considering that people of previous generations had married at 18 (or younger) and immediately had children, it was very possible to have five generations within a span of 100 years. For that matter, a long list of “greats” could prefix Grandma and Grandpa which could be redundant when mentioning them. To remedy this, Loraine, and anyone else who spoke of the tragedy, simply called the original owners of the Trivelli house from 1830, Grandma and Grandpa Trivelli.

  Aunt Loraine continued her story to Mary, “One winter, Grandpa came down with a life-threatening flu and was in bed with a very, high fever. Grandma went outside to get some firewood and according to Grandpa, his wife's voice could be heard, screaming, buried beneath the noise of a wild pack of wolves. In his words, they dragged her off into the woods! Grandpa was too weak and sick to get out of bed; so sick, in fact, that it wasn't until early spring when he reported the disappearance of his wife to police.

  And I'm sure the Mapleview police were just as slip-shoddy with their investigations, then, as they are now. According to their daughter who was young then, but sleeping during the supposed night that her mother was dragged off by wolves, her father was a binge drinker and had seasonal depressions. She said he would become violent and beat his wife in the night. I don't think wolves dragged Grandma Trivelli off as the legend claims; nor do I think that Grandpa was in bed with a fever.

  According to their daughter, earlier that day, her father came home smelling of booze and started a huge fight with his wife. Then he went down into the basement to get an axe. When he came upstairs, he proceeded to chop up the kitchen stove into tiny pieces while laughing. It was the most God-awful sight. And when there was nothing left, he looked at his wife and said he had an early Christmas present while raising the axe and implying she was next. But it was all in good fun for Grandpa Trivelli. The surprise was he had a brand, new stove for his terrified wife. Imagine chopping up a stove while laughing, just to surprise the one you love with a new one. And imagine doing all of that while deathly ill with the flu. Their daughter said she heard plenty of fighting and beatings on the night that her mother was supposedly dragged off by wolves."

  Mary was amazed and further convinced that her neurotic aunt grew steadily worse as the years progressed. For someone who wasn't alive when these supposed events took place, she knew everything!

  Aunt Loraine was completely absorbed in discovering family history and continued with the knowledge she had. “I believe Grandma Trivelli was murdered in this house because of a generational curse that was put on the women in this family. I've been researching the history of this curse, but it seems that many of the women in our family die horrific deaths throughout the centuries. And the husbands are all heavy drinkers… borderline psychotic…”

  Mary could tell what was coming next. She was going to get “the talk” about marrying Daren. It was almost as if her aunt's voice had increased a notch in volume to make a point.

  “It's why I have never been married. Are you sure that Daren is the right man for you? Seems like a nice man but…”

  Mary quickly cut her off. “He's fine Aunt Loraine! And yes, I'm sure I'm doing the right thing. I don't build my life around legends and family curses while dwelling in what happened before I was born.”

  “Well, I suppose you're right. I just want to make sure you're happy and want to clear my conscience of selling you a place that I feel is stigmatized. But as long as you are okay with it; welcome back home Mary.”

  One might think that Aunt Loraine is as Mary believes: obsessed to the point of neurosis and eagerly misconstruing of vague facts to mold reality. But in Aunt Loraine's mind, she firmly believed that there was something wrong with that house and simply needed to clear her conscience of selling it to her niece.

  * * *

  Mary sat out on the deck that overlooked the lake that night while talking to her fiancé on the phone. “It's so quiet here. You're going to love it. Daren I can't wait until you spend a night. It's the perfect house and town for us. You're still coming out here this weekend, right?” It was then that Mary noticed that Daren was not himself and finally voiced her concern, “What's wrong? I can tell something is wrong?”

  Daren finally broke the bad news to Mary. “Well, they're sending me out to Missouri, tomorrow, to demo a unit at a weekend convention. I'm not going to be able to come out this weekend. I'm sorry.”

  Needless to say, Mary was disappointed but remained understanding. It was, after all, Daren's job that made it possible to live in the beautiful, historic house and live in the town of Mapleview.

  There was much to do in the new house. Although fully furnished and in livable condition, it was necessary to sort through her smaller, personal belongings; put clothes away; and of course, stock up on food. When Daren finally moved in, the same would need to be done with his personal items. And of course she would be confronted with the challenge of explaining that not
everything needed to come with him!

  It's an interesting house when considering the construction. The initial building was a small dwelling for Mary's grandparents (from the 1830s), but had been added on throughout the 150-some years while owned by the family. Several additions along with modernized utilities helped the home grow into a rather large, historical house. And one of those modernized utilities that Mary looked forward to was the shower. She recalled enjoying it while staying at the house during her teen years.

  Mary finally stepped into the shower after her long, exhausting day. The shower was a drug for Mary that cleared her mind of everything, placing her mind at ease. She forgot about wolves dragging her grandmother into the forest. She forgot about husbands chopping up furniture in the house and murdering their wives. And she somehow found herself to be understanding that Daren had an important job which required his presence over the weekend.

  Two hours into her night's rest, Mary was startled awake by a vivid and terrifying dream. Holding out her hands in defense; one was grabbed, held down on a table and quickly chopped off, yielding startling pain. Now awake, Mary could hear a violent storm outside while she quickly turned the light on to examine her hand, thinking she had injured it while sleeping. No injuries were noticed and it moved fine. Perhaps she bumped it on the nightstand in her sleep.

  Mary turned the light back off and laid in bed while listening to the storm. A woman must learn to hide like a frightened, little girl when trapped by an angered man. All her days and nights should be spent attentive to his moods and hoping that this morning, this afternoon or this evening won't be a sudden metamorphosis into an evil monster. And now he was coming for her, up the stairs, to punish panic-stricken Mary who could not escape.

  But Mary did nothing wrong! How could this man be angry with her?

  That's the point: such a man has no rationale for his change of mood!

  “Crash!” It was a starling noise downstairs that forced Mary to spring from her bed. It was best for her to hide! He was really angry this time and was prepared to hurt her. As Mary hid and crouched in the dark closet, a flood of speculations entered her mind. Most disturbing was the realization that when he finally found the intimidated, little girl; the punishment would be far harsher. Hiding was forbidden, and so was protecting the face or other parts of the body during beatings.

  Light: Mary needed to quickly flash on one of the lights. That would pull her out of whatever hallucination she was having. It must have been some half-awake / half-dreaming thing. There was no one living with her, and as a grown woman, she wasn't about to hide from any man who intended to punish her. A sobering flood of light and a few gentle smacks on the face pulled Mary out of the trance. But she still had the crashing noise downstairs to investigate. Hopefully a tree branch didn't blow through the window.

  Once downstairs, Mary found everything completely intact and undisturbed. But she wasn't about to go down into the basement at night. As Mary recalled, the basement was very scary for her when she visited the house as a little girl. She would wait until morning to go down and investigate.

  Perhaps she could have called Daren before going back to sleep. Mary was certainly in need of the welcome sound of his voice after the startling dream and sudden, unexplained hallucination of an angry man coming to deliver punishment. But what was this? Daren did not answer his phone. Where was he on that late, Thursday night that was now Friday morning? It was 1:20am on her clock which meant it would be 12:20am where he lived. Daren didn't have to leave for the airport until 8:00am that morning. At least that was what he told her on the phone when breaking the bad news about Missouri.

  She called his cell phone, but Daren still did not answer. She texted him. “Hello???? Where are you?????”

  But there was no reply.

  Attempting to call her fiancé certainly did help her forget about the frightening episode as she was now worried about Daren. Did he get in an accident? Was he out on a date with some woman? Now all she could do was lay awake and wonder why her fiancé wasn't answering his phone. She called two more times throughout the night but could not reach him. She finally fell asleep around 4:30am.

  Mary awoke the following morning with nauseating adrenaline, wondering if Daren was okay. She called his home and cell, but there was no answer. Where was he? She heard of this phenomenon before; a significant other moves away which spells the end of what appeared to be a beautiful love. Still, she had to give him the benefit of the doubt. There had to be a reasonable explanation for Daren being unreachable. But was he hurt?

  Since it was now morning, Mary felt safe to go downstairs in the basement and investigate anything broken. She was now fully convinced that the loud crash was only part of last night's hallucination. But still, it was best to ensure that all was well. If you've ever been in a basement of an old home, it's unlike the ones we see in modern dwellings. And really the basement of Mary's historic dream-home was not a basement at all. It was a cellar that provided just enough headroom to walk around in and seemed to be made for storage only. The floor was a collection of large, flat rocks joined together with cement. Although a crudely-finished area, the cellar did have 2 rooms that, as Mary remembered, were an old tool room and a canned goods room.

  As a little girl, Mary hated venturing past the cistern and deeper into the cellar where those two rooms were. And in the musty, dimly-lit place where she stood now; Mary still hated the idea, especially after the strange feelings of last night.

  She gazed into the canned goods room and took notice of all the mason jars and antique cans of vegetables that were perhaps 50 or more years old. And there, on one of the shelves, sat the oversized mason jar of some dark, oily liquid that had been there ever since she could remember. As a child, she and her brother and sister often dared one another to open the jar, and drink some of the liquid. No one was brave enough to open it. But the jar sat there and looked just as nauseating as ever. Now that Mary owned the house, she was going to throw all this stuff out, including the oversized jar of dark, oily liquid.

  She gazed into the tool room, an area that had always intrigued Mary. The room contained a collection of antique tools that probably should have been sitting in a historical museum as many of them looked to be pre-20th century. Supposedly, Grandpa Trivelli built that tool room, the old bench, and stored his own tools in there. She walked in and studied the collection of antique equipment and took notice of a very, old axe that was hung on the wall along with shovels and hammers. Mary laughed to herself and spoke out loud. “Is this the axe that chopped up the stove?”

  And then she needed to explore the texture of the old workbench that her grandfather built. She ran her fingers across the dusty, old wood while realizing it would be necessary to wash her hands. That bench was dirty and had decades, nearly two centuries of dirt and grease on it. But running her fingers on the bench was not enough. She was compelled to study the workbench, examine any damage; hammer marks, or even gash marks from an axe. Then right at the edge of the bench she found an old gash that certainly resembled an axe blade. She was going to reach for the axe on the wall to compare the length of the cut against the blade, but heard the tool room door close behind her which shut her in the small, dark room.

  That wasn't an event Mary was welcome to at the moment. It brought her back to her childhood fears of being alone in that room. To make matters worse, the sounds of feet could be heard scuffing across the floor on the other side of the door. Fortunately the door didn't lock (why would it?) and Mary ran out of the room and back upstairs. She needed to get out of the house for a while and get her mind off things.

  * * *

  Mary spent the morning in town at the flower shop, visiting her old boss and friend who had agreed to hire her when she moved back to Mapleview. They went over some of the details of the new job which was very much like the old one, but had a few changes. Then they had lunch together and Mary agreed to start work on Monday morning.

  Her friend, and soon-to-b
e-boss, Shelly, was amazed with the fact that Mary had purchased the legendary Trivelli house and was living in it. “Your aunt just could not keep renters in that house. I guess the last woman who lived there quit a very, stressful management job at a biomedical manufacturing company. She moved out here and hoped to resume her long, lost love of art. But she wasn't able to paint because of how disturbing the house was.”

  Mary wanted to know more. “Did you know her? How did you find this out?”

  But then just like all the gossip and legends passed down about her home, Shelly could only speak of the hearsay as it applied to the desperate artist who was staying at the Trivelli house, and how the curse affected her painting.

  Mary continued to listen to Shelly's wild gossip about the Trivelli house (now Mary's house) while drinking her iced tea. She was very tired from the rough night which surely caused her mind to float back to the basement in the canned goods room. Mary looked at her glass of nearly finished iced tea and imagined that the dark, oily liquid was in that glass. Is that what was in the oversized Mason jar; tea from the 1950's? The thought of drinking the nauseating liquid made it difficult to finish her beverage.

  Mary finally spoke up, “You know Shelly, I'm glad I bought that house. I'm going to up and remove any item that was connected to any legend that house might have. Today I was downstairs in the basement and realized that there are probably canned goods from over a hundred years ago down there. Throw that stuff out, you know? Donate those old tools to the historical museum or something. I'm going to end the legend of that house. And if I need to get the place blessed, I will do it.”

  Shelly just drank her coffee and listened to her friend. If Mary really thought she could do it, then more power to her.

  * * *

  Nightmares are a very strange phenomenon as they happen during the first few hours of sleep. Experts tell us that everyone has horrific nightmares during the first half of the night; but because we are in a deep, paralyzed state we forget them. And it's a good thing we do because nightmares can be traumatic. But if you've ever woken up in the middle of one, then you realize how senseless and pointless one is, despite how traumatized you may be.