by Page, Ayla
She smacked Rowan on the side of her head, hard, causing Rowan’s head to hit the oven tower with a bang. Peyton sat bolt upright, teeth bared, but made no sound. He knew not to make a sound when the big woman was about; or else he’d get a kicking.
Rowan bit her lip on the inside, and fought back tears. She could feel herself getting angry, and her chest rose and fell hard and fast as she kept her anger inside her. She forced her gaze to remain on the floor; she’d be called obstinate if she dared look her maman in the face. She didn’t know the meaning of all these strange words her maman used, but the tone in the old tree’s face gave it away that they were not nice words, that they were words meant to hurt her.
At that moment the outside door clicked open, and in walked Rowan’s daddy-long-legs. He took one look at her and smiled a lopsided smile that did not reach his eyes, before looking at her mother. Rowan’s maman’s face had changed as soon as the door had clicked, changed from fire-breathing venom-dripping dragon to the perfect portrait of the sweet little woman who ran the household. Rowan hadn’t noticed the change; she’d been looking at the inside of the oven door and trying to compose herself.
“I’ve jus’ bin showin’ ar Rowin’ ‘ow to look afta th’ house like ah do. ‘Ow to keep i’ nice an’ clean.”
Rowan smiled inwardly. Much as the walking wrinkle had changed her expression, she couldn’t keep the bitterness out of her voice; there was a trace of her accent, which she very rarely used around the tall man.
Her maman seemed to have noticed her slip up. “How has it been at work today dear?”
Daddy-long-legs removed his coat and scarf and threw them onto the back of the chair Rowan had just been using and followed the tree with feet from the room, but not before pinching Rowan’s bottom as she leaned into the oven to continue cleaning it.
*****
His footsteps were soft on the carpeted landing, but they echoed like a gong in a cave to Rowan, who heard him coming as she did every night. He’d wait until he suspected she was asleep, and would then come into her room at night, apparently to check on her and make sure she was sleeping soundly. Once he reached her door at the end of the landing, he paused outside it a moment. Rowan wondered what it was he was thinking; if he’d decide to leave her in her apparent peaceful state of sleep, and go back downstairs.
Rowan’s door creaked open and he stood there in the doorway holding onto the handle tightly, making sure, as she did whenever she tried to sneak to the bathroom in the night, that it wouldn’t creak it’s loud squeal on the way back up. The light from the landing shone into her room around him, making it impossible for Rowan to see his face. She didn’t like that she could see his face; though her eyes were open only tiny slits she could see him in his entirety, from his slippered feet to his fuzzy gelled hair. His shoulders and head were aglow with the light from behind him; to Rowan he looked like the saints pictured in the books she’d read at school, but she knew that no saint would have done what he was here to do.
He stepped into her room, and asked her if she was awake. Though Rowan knew her being awake didn’t matter to him, and that he’d continue what he’d come into her room to do anyway, she feigned sleep. She hoped that this time things would be different, and that he’d see her sleeping and leave her be.
He knelt down by the bed and stroked her face, moving a hair away from her mouth in the process. Rowan’s eyes struggled to remain closed; she hated anyone but Peyton touching her face. She tried hard to imagine her beloved puppy was licking her and kissing her, and that that was the sensation she could feel. As always during his nightly visits, her imagination failed her and she was left to feel him stroking her face and licking his lips hungrily, like a spoiled dog before its favourite meal of beef and gravy.
She knew better than to cry out. She knew he’d only hold his hand over her mouth and nose so hard she’d see spots. And she knew that no one would come in response to her calls. No one ever came. That upset her more than what he did to her when he was in her room on a night time.
It upset her more than when he would remove her teddies from the bed before he touched her; like he knew that they were eyes who could see what he’d be doing. Like he knew that they were souls who could tell if they knew what he was doing.
He put the teddies to one side, face down and facing away from him, and climbed over her, where he lay on the bed beside her and cuddled her like she was his own personal teddy. His body touched hers all the way down and through the many layers between them she could feel his boy bits growing.
He buried his face in her hair and kissed her head repeatedly, while slipping his hand under the covers. Finding the waistband of her jama bottoms he slid his finger underneath them, and tickled Rowan’s bum at the very top. Rowan held perfectly still as he snuck his whole hand under her jamas, where he squeezed her bottom so hard she was forced to bite her lip to keep from crying. He shoved his hand in further and pushed his finger between her legs.
“You like this, don’t you? Open up for daddy.” He whispered into her ear, sounding almost as though he was a good daddy, doing the aeroplane routine while feeding his beloved baby.
Rowan squeezed her eyes tight shut, and remained stock still. On receiving no desirable response to his demand, he stood up and pulled the covers from the bed in one swift movement. He climbed back onto the bed and straddled Rowan; pinning her calves down. He tugged hard on her jamas, pulling them down towards her knees, and sat a moment.
Rowan failed to hope this time. Silent tears slid down her cheeks as she gave in to what he’d come to her room to do. Roughly, he lifted her hips up, so her bottom stuck up in the air, and proceeded to touch her girly parts, parts she’d been too terrified to discover for herself yet.
Maintaining her silence, she cried harder as she heard his zip being pulled. She knew the worst was yet to come, and she knew what it would be. Her sobs shook her whole body as she cried into her pillow while he burned her from the inside out and made her red raw with pain. She took a full mouthful of her pillow and chomped down hard as he seared her insides one last time before collapsing on top of her.
*****
Hours after he’d gone and left her to her tears of solitude, Rowan lay there in the black, watching the shadows of leaves play on her ceiling as the trees behind her house danced in the darkness. The moonlight gave her room a faint blue hue as it crept in through the gap in her curtains. In an attempt to get herself to sleep, Rowan tried to count each individual leaf as its shadow fell on the pale blue backdrop above her bed.
As she began to doze off, Rowan imagined the patterns in the leaves made pictures, and that she had her own secret cinema. She watched as a little girl played in a field with her dog and his ball, and smiled as they ran through the long grass. She could smell the meadow flowers as each was disturbed, and could hear the delight in the little girl’s voice as she and her dog neared the edge of the field, where a man who could only be her father was waiting.
Rowan sat bolt upright in bed, fully awake and fully alert. If the little girl ran free in the meadow with her dog to her father, she could run away with Peyton and be free; run away through the peeling blue gate at the end of the garden and into the woods behind her house. She knew that on the other side of those woods was the place her aunt lived, and beyond that place, her own father.
She grinned with glee, and would have bounded out of bed to pack her most important possessions straight away, had there not been a creaky floorboard right by the side of her bed that would give her away.
Slowly, she lay back down and covered herself up again, pulling the covers up to her chin. She smiled, and for the first time in years, fell into a peaceful sleep filled with dreams of Peyton and her daddy.
*****
The following morning passed in a slow-motion blur for Rowan, and she barely noticed the blood on her bed sheets as she stripped them from her mattress. She barely noticed her maman shouting, so usual was it, and so full of dreams of running away wa
s she.
She didn’t notice at all when she was hit so hard that she fell into the dining table and hit her head, cutting it in the process. She didn’t register her maman’s instant change in demeanour as she picked Rowan up and sat her on a dining chair so she could wipe away the blood and put a plaster on.
The first thing she saw properly that day with her dream-filled eyes, were the eyes of her honey-coloured hound. Peyton looked happy; his brown eyes shone and his tongue hung out of his smiling jaws. He knew his little madam was happy, and he wagged his tail furiously, beating his cushion into a pulp.
When the big woman had gone, Peyton cautiously but eagerly came out from behind the door, head tucked down and bobbing, his tail wagging and his tongue lolling. He knew his little madam was happy, and wanted to know why, but first he needed to go outside.
Rowan wriggled her way off the high dining chair and stood, knees bent, arms wide, inviting Peyton for a cuddle. Peyton obliged, and ran up to his little madam, putting his head between her knees as he wagged his tail so hard Rowan thought it might fall off.
Rowan reached down and scratched the soft head of her one and only friend, before patting her chest with both hands, inviting Peyton up for what Rowan called an ‘up-cuddle’. Within seconds Peyton’s forepaws were on her shoulder, and he stood at his full height in front of her to lick her face, tail still wagging back and forth madly.
He stopped licking her a moment and looked at her plaster, before nuzzling it on her temple and looking into her eyes. At times like this, Rowan imagined Peyton was talking to her, and she understood each word he said.
She looked over her furry friend’s fuzzy shoulder, out of the kitchen window. The sun was shining, the trees were dry and still. It was going to be a beautiful day.
Peyton noticed the shift in her attention as she paused her affections to look outside. He was pleased to see her smiling; showing her teeth in a grimace any other animal would have found threatening. Peyton thought it good that outside excited her and he dropped back onto all fours before making his way to the door. He wanted outside too, and what better time than now, when his little madam was obviously eager to be out in the sun.
Rowan went to the hall door to listen to what her maman was doing, causing Peyton to flop in a hump by the outside door. On hearing her maman’s snores, she stifled a chuckle and made for the pantry, where she’d hidden the runaway bag she’d packed that morning before maman and daddy-long-legs were awake.
She moved the sack of potatoes as quietly as she could, and pulled her bag from its hiding place. Shutting the pantry door again, she grinned at Peyton. The smile shook all the muscles in her face and she could hear them ring in her ears, so unfamiliar to her was it.
Peyton, on seeing her beaming, jumped from his forlorn sitting position, and nudged the handle of the door excitedly while Rowan put her bag on her back.
After slipping the shoulder straps on slowly and carefully so nothing shook inside and disturbed the tree’s slumber, she made her way to the door, moving Peyton out of the way by putting her hand on his head. He bowed out of the way, ever his little madam’s gentleman, and she opened the door with a click she thought would deafen her, though really it was inaudible.
Once outside in the glorious sunshine, Peyton ran down the garden, jumping over flower beds and through the branches of the baby apple tree in the middle of the lawn, and stopped with a lurch at his spot. His little madam’s good mood was infectious, and her having the bag with her to him meant treats or a trip, neither of which he’d had in a while.
Watching him with a smile, Rowan closed the door with another deafening click that no one heard. She took hold of both shoulder straps of her bag and pulled them tightly down before skipping down the garden in pursuit of Peyton.
Patting her leg, she summoned him, and they walked side by side to the gate at the end of the garden. The gate was old and overgrown with ivy and weeds, and would be very hard to open, she decided. Putting her back to the gate and her hands on top, she pushed herself up and sat on it. Saying goodbye to the garden, she swung her legs over and called Peyton; patting her thigh as she walked away across the clearing.
Peyton needed no encouragement and bounded over the gate after his beloved little madam, catching up with her just as she reached the edge of the trees.
*****
Peyton nudged Rowan's hand with his soft wet nose as they walked along through between the trees side by side, he hadn't been taken out for a walk since he'd arrived with the family, when his little madam was all sticky fingers and nonsensical noises and would grab and pull with her little paws.
Rowan smiled at him reassuringly, and patted his head, overjoyed to have him with her as her companion. She looked behind them and was pleased to find she could no longer see the houses for the trees, bushes and brambles. They'd entered the woods on a clear wide path, one well used by the older kids who would play in their dens and hideouts in the trees, by parents who would build tree houses for their children, and by the bigger animals she knew lived in the woods, the badgers she'd read about, and the dogs she could hear on a night from the darkness of her room.
Though she was in unfamiliar territory, she felt safer in the woods and away from her home. She knew what dangers lurked in the woods, but had decided that Peyton's presence would deter any animals from coming too close.
They were off the beaten track now, which even though Rowan had read that this wasn't a good idea, she felt was the right thing to do, as she was more likely to be able to keep going in a straight line, and would surely reach her daddy before night time.
The sun dappled through the trees and set Peyton's fur aflame with light, his honey colouring shone ablaze with oranges and yellows. He'd started to walk ahead of Rowan a little as the gaps between the trees grew smaller and smaller as the wood grew denser around them and she watched as the sun's rays shone through the trees like a light from the heavens and onto her pretty puppy's back.
The sun and its lovely warming rays began to disappear before long; thick yellow clouds had blocked it from sight.
“There’s snow in them there clouds, arr lad.” Rowan told Peyton, imitating her maman’s deep, husky tones.
As they walked along, hurrying now in a hope to find shelter for the air had an ice chill to it, and the snow was falling fast, though few flakes were falling around Rowan and Peyton where they were under the trees.
Slowly the tall trees began to thin out and smaller trees and bushes replaced them.
The snow flurried fast and hard into Rowan's face and chest and soon the front of her coat was covered, a snowman was she, with sodden trousers and cold ears.
Peyton was tucked in behind her, his head down against the wind, using Rowan's legs to hide from the cold white stuff attacking his face.
Suddenly Rowan stopped, and Peyton crashed into her legs, causing Rowan to pitch forward onto her toes and nearly off-balance.
Rowan looked left then right at the place where she'd stopped. The bushes they'd been walking between stopped their abundance abruptly, for here was a dirty road. The road was made of mud and sand, and had been sprinkled with snow, like icing sugar on a cake. Rowan had known there was a road in the woods; there was a quarry at one end of it, and at the other, the entrance. The ring road.
Knowing her house was behind her, and that the main road lay downhill from her home, she knew that the left direction would be pointless to take, as it would only take her straight home.
Turning right, she headed away from the main road with its police station filled with scary officials and up the hill farther into the woods. She knew she'd wind up going back on herself eventually, but in order to cross the woods safely and avoid the main road, where surely she'd be seen and returned to her living nightmare, she had to skirt around the old quarry.
With Peyton in tow, she walked up the slight hill until the ground began to disappear on her left, revealing the biggest hole she'd ever seen. As she walked along, she told her ha
iry hound of her trip to the seaside when she was very small, of how she'd dug a hole in the sand with her plastic spade and filled it full of water. She told Peyton of how a giant had dug this huge hole with his huge plastic spade, looking for gold.
She had no idea when the quarry was made, when work there ended, or what was dug for there, but to tell her tall tale to Peyton made her feel less lonely and alone.
As they continued to walk the left side of the road no longer dropped away slowly but disappeared completely. Rowan and Peyton walked along the road, the cliff top a few feet away to one side, the tree line thick and course with holly bushes and brambles on the other. The road they were on continued right around the quarry before entering it, and vaguely through the silent snowfall Rowan could make out the other side of the quarry.
Peyton padded beside her as they made their way around the edge, being careful not to walk too close to the left for fear of falling. Through the fast falling flakes loomed a dark shadow, and it grew as they continued to walk along. It grew taller and taller and turned a dark green hue as they neared it; the grey gloom cast by the snow was disappearing as they drew closer.
Rowan was not afraid for she knew that the great green growth was merely a tree. The Oak Tree. It was famous for being the biggest tree in the woods. It stood with its roots in the quarry, and a very strong looking branch stretched towards the road on which they walked. The story was that it took one boy and his father one whole day to build the giant tree house that sat in the middle of it, where the branches split the trunk in three and went off in all different directions. Looking at the magnificent old tree and its tired and worn yet vast and beautiful tree house, Rowan had an idea.
The weather was worsening and she knew she and Peyton needed to get out of the storm before they got too cold to move. Her socks were damp and her toes numb with cold because of the holes in the soles of her trainers. Her hands tingling with the cold inside her thin woollen gloves and she squeezed the straps on her rucksack tighter, thinking it would help.
