Snake Ropes

by Jess Richards

  I say, ‘Does a cracked mirror really bring bad luck?’

  The man says, ‘Why ‘ent you scared?’

  A huge creak from the ceiling. They all glance upwards. I step sideways so I have a clear run at the door.

  The girl frowns at me and says, ‘Small ones dun get sent here. I’m the youngest. All over a hand. My Mam’s bloody hand, right enough, but it were her or me. What’ve you done then?’

  The man says, ‘You got the main land speak. Are them sending thems wrong ‘uns all the way over here now?’

  A creak from inside the wall.

  ‘What are these noises?’ I ask.

  He says, ‘It wants to thrash you, love. It’s just gettin’ itself trunked up.’ He grins, his toothless mouth a wide hole in his face.

  ‘Thrash me – with what?’

  A branch falls from the ceiling, crashes on the floor across the middle of the room. I leap back. Another branch grows out, spreads from the base of a wooden archway.

  ‘With what it’s made of. Its own truth,’ says the girl, frowning. ‘You’re not afeart?’

  ‘Of branches?’ I shake my head.

  Another branch peels from a high archway, creaks and thwacks down on the floorboards. Leaves scatter across the floor.

  ‘Is this real?’ I pick up a leaf and hold it out to the woman.

  She turns away and walks into the shadows.

  I turn and face the girl, shake the leaf at her. ‘Is it?’

  She touches my hair, whispers, ‘Give me your colour …’ and disappears.

  I can feel the girl’s fingers in my hair like tangled cobwebs.

  The man mutters, ‘Not like the others, you’re not. Other folk what came in through that same door as you, them saw other things. Get yourself out an’ just be. You got us, ‘cause we got things to be saying, an’ you could’ve listened. Not if you’ll not do it, but. This place is full.’

  There are faint faces around the edges of the room, like distant candle flames in the shadows. A whole army of ghosts. ‘Who are they?’

  A branch crashes down on the other side of the room. The pale faces flicker and fade away.

  He says, ‘The dead must be buried.’

  ‘That’s what I’ve always been told. My father—’

  He interrupts, ‘We weren’t. Buried, see. So you get what’s happened. We’re stuck here.’

  A branch thumps down, scatters twigs across the middle of the floor.

  I ask him, ‘Why weren’t you—’

  ‘Anyone put in here dun have anything left to bury, ‘ent it.’

  ‘What is this place?’

  ‘Tree growed into this. Needed to protect itself, dun it. All trees cut down, some for the houses, barns, for weaving rooms, others for the platform and hanging pole. Punishing by death, that were. Folks liked to watch them twitch.’ He cringes. ‘Punished all kinds of folks for not that much wrongdoing. Dun think this tree wanted to see the wood from the others used that way. And it saw the other trees drop, get sliced, hammered, bolted. It twisted, grew itself into this place.’

  A huge branch crashes, not far from where we stand.

  ‘It’s angry,’ I whisper.

  He glances upwards and back at me. ‘Calls what’s needed, gets rid of what’s not. Listen, whatever you’ve come here for, you’ll not be finding young boys. Get yourself out. An’ quick. Dun know if it’ll open a door for you. Opened one for the tall man, but.’ He fades into the wall. He’s gone.

  A branch swooshes down. Twigs scatter across the floor. I back away, towards the door. A huge bough creaks, swishes, cracks down. Branches and twigs tear at each other over my head. I stumble over branches into the middle of the room, a muscular bough hurtles down. It’s blocked the door and the key away from me.

  I’m in a forest of trees being felled. Another branch thwacks down. I leap forwards and a sharp twig scratches my leg. It’s bleeding.

  The creaks and cracks are so loud I can’t hear my footsteps as I jump over branches strewn across the floor, some still attached to the curving walls and archways. I call up into the ceiling but my voice is lost in cracks and creaks. Leaves grow from archways, branches push out of walls and pillars, extend between the small windows, tangled twigs spread from thick boughs that lean from the walls.

  A thickening branch splits away from the tallest archway, a branch thick enough to break all my bones with one thwack. It creaks as it bends. The branch tilts, sways. It’s seeking me out, creaking, twisting, the leaves churn, build up force, a storm, trapped inside it.

  Along one of the walls are small curved doors. One is open. I clamber over broken branches, kick fallen twigs away, yank the door, squeeze into the small space behind it. A branch thwacks down, bashes the door shut. I’m locked in. Again.

  In this tiny cramped space behind the door there’s a slight glow, but I can’t see where it’s coming from. The wooden floor underneath me is rotten and branches smash and crash outside. I run my fingertips along the floor away from the door. The floor disappears. There’s a hole right behind where I crouch. I can’t see how far down it goes. The smell of dank earth seeps up from it into this tiny space. I hang on to the doorframe.

  The room outside this door crashes. Twigs rip, branches tear. This building remembers the ghosts of the other trees. It wants to punish.

  It’s silent out there.

  I push at the small door. It sticks against a pile of branches. I shove it, hard, and it opens.

  I crawl out into the room and stand up.

  The room stretches into high arches up above, the light coming in has faded – outside it must be getting dark. There’s a strange light in this room: I can see all around me, where pillars stretch and curve around the high ceiling, the walls are wooden, solid, with curves instead of corners. The wood is moulded, and I can’t see where any part of it has been joined together. No nails, screws or any kind of join. Nothing creaks or crashes, no boughs or leaves grow from the walls. The floor is hidden under a felled forest: ripped boughs, torn branches, fallen leaves. Insects fill the air; moths flicker, dragonflies flit, a hoverfly vibrates, held by wings that move so fast they blur.

  Nothing falls, nothing crashes, everything is still. Whatever this building needs to do, when its branches churn, thwack and beat whoever comes in, it has finished. The only sounds left are the sounds of vibrating insect wings.

  Mary lied. Her brother isn’t in here.

  I extract a strong branch and gather up a bundle of twigs. My hair falls over my face. That ghost who touched it has turned it white. So that’s what she meant when she said, Give me your colour.

  But right now I’m going to do the thing I know how to do the best.

  I’m going to clean up this mess.

  Using the thinnest twigs to bind larger ones to the branch, I make a witch’s broom. I sweep the leaves into one pile and it feels like a dance. Sweeping the twigs into another pile, I realise that some choices lead into danger, and some lead out of it. I can sweep this floor, clear my mind and see stillness in a building that seemed full of danger. Danger is something that thrashes and beats and breaks itself down, and leaves calm in the air when it’s gone.

  I sweep the cobwebs that the spiders are spinning just over my head. The insects hover in the air. This whole room is full of green smells. I sweep up clumps of moss and bark.

  My white hair glows in the dark, and that’s why I can see. Dragonflies dance around my white hair as I sit on the floor and break up some twigs and use them to make letters. Three choices:

  Go home.

  Look for Mary the liar.

  Wait for boats.

  Why should I only have three? I think up some more:

  Open up the door and turn the Thrashing House into a school where I can teach all the boys and men to read.

  Build my own raft out of the branches in this room and set off out to sea.

  Knock on every single door on this island till I find someone to fall in love with.

  Go to the
Weaving Rooms and weave a great big web to live in.

  Reinvent myself as a wise witch, sit in a cave and have people come to visit so I can hear lots of stories. Hand out magical potions that are really just seawater.

  Capture all the insects in this room and make an insect circus. Charge a fortune for each showing, and become rich.

  All these choices would be the best thing in the world to do. So why am I sitting on this floor not moving?

  Because I’m still thinking of Mary.

  This was meant to be escape. Freedom, the mainland. My real home. And even if Mary’s a liar, maybe because she’s a liar, I want to find her.

  Right now I hate her.

  I walk towards the mountain of branches still blocking the front door as I rummage in my coat pockets for Annie’s letter.

  It’s not there.

  It must have fallen out of my pocket behind the small door. I crawl halfway into the dark space behind the door, the light from my hair shines on the hole at the back, wide enough to fall down. I feel with my fingertips for the rough paper of the letter. I crawl further in, my hands are on the edge of the rotten wooden floor, the smell of dank earth … I stop.

  Remember.

  I put the letter outside on the doorstep when I was unlocking the front door. And didn’t pick it up. So that woman reaching out from the fog at the door might have found it.

  The sound of footsteps behind me and a sharp shove. The door crashes against my feet. The sound of a girl, laughing. My hair has stopped glowing. I’m hurtling through darkness, my empty hands grasp at air,

  falling

  down

  down

  down.

  I read of the underworld in the mythology book, but this underworld has no fire or dark pronged creatures. Here, the underworld is a tiny hole buried deep beneath the ground. And I’m stuck in it.

  The underworld is made of compressed soil, and there’s no way out.

  Drifting in and out …

  IN

  a hole the earth is thick and the sky is so far away I can’t breathe

  OUT

  of the world disappeared. Light. Sight. Gone.

  IN

  this place my lungs are insistent, demanding, persistent, my heart, a clock that will stop when the air is all gone and I’ll tick myself

  OUT

  of hope. Under soil, more soil. Below soil is rock, under rock, more rock, then gasses, through to a fire in the centre. It pulls me

  IN

  two directions, backwards is upwards, lost in memories, trapped. Wind them around myself, spiders’ silk and sleep

  OUT

  my years before now. This impossible now: no one in the world above knows I am below

  IN

  the earth beneath me, I plant my fingers like roots of a tree

  OUT

  down down down, this relentless pull of gravity.

  I scratch cold, dank soil with my fingernails. How long will this sense of touch last, or like sight, will my senses fall away …

  Sound.

  Above me. A creak, a faint low groan. The sound of something growing. Is this movement in my mind … a trapped place for hope to grow in, before the gravity pulls too hard.

  Smell of earth and something green … something growing, spreading … the Thrashing House has roots.

  Roots split the soil above me. They could push through me, tangle me in them … so, is this what I have to do, dig further down, rather than up? How deep can I bury myself, when I’m not dead? The roots above me, solid and coiled, tendrils spin down from them, twist in my hands, light as fine hair, the soil falls away. Above me, the space that must lead back up, but up is too high, too dangerous, too steep. I walk the palms of my hands around the hole I’m in, search for a way out, some weakness in the soil. This tiny chamber, a pocket of air in a lung. Alveoli, deep underground, so the roots can breathe. The soil feels looser here. Someone’s already dug at this patch and the soil feels cold and damp in my hands. I make a small hole, push my hand into it. Air moves on my fingertips. This must be a way out.

  Two choices. Stay buried. Dig.

  I’m a blind mole, digging deeper, digging down … But between my fingertips, in my palm, on my wrist, my forearm, I can feel air. My hands are tunnelling and this hole is nearly wide enough. The smell of dank air, and a faint other smell: the sea, the salt air of the outside. Escape.

  Shift this dirt … scrabble, move the earth … I push soil through and make the hole wider, deeper. I shift my feet, sit on the edge of the hole, nudge myself forwards, drop through it and

  land

  not far below. There’s enough room to stand. I’m in a tunnel of earth and roots. A way out. I move forwards in the direction that the air is coming in. My white hair lights up and gently glows, so I can see.

  The sound of waves. I edge forwards, the tunnel is wider. I round a curve, and there are smashed rocks under my feet.

  The tunnel has led into a cave. I move towards the direction of cold air. Salt air blows in, the sound resonates: the wind plays the cave like a discordant instrument. Rounding the next rock face, there is the mouth of the cave; the rocks are dark around the edges like enormous broken teeth. The mouth of the cave holds the whole outside world in its jaws.

  The shore, the sea. Thick dark clouds in the distance over a tiny rocky island on the horizon. I slip and slide over jagged rocks. There are traces of some gleaming mineral on the rocks; here is a shore, the sea, the stars. I fall out of the cave, my body hits broken stones. I roll over, lie gazing upwards, flood air in and out of my lungs.

  Swallowed back into the world, I laugh it in, cry it out, fill my mouth and eyes with sky.

  Escape is possible, even from the darkest places.

  I can choose to feel anything, do anything, walk away or stay. Get completely trapped, and still escape. I don’t want to run away any more. I want to find something to run towards. I pick up a sharp stone and carve a word into a rock:

  HOME

  Mary

  The stairs creak on my way up to the ground floor. I’ve got the keys to all three doors from the basement in my bag.

  I open the door at the top of the stairs. The kitchen door is open, it’s dark in there.

  Morgan’s Da steps out of shadows. ‘This story you wrote—’

  ‘Dun spook me like that.’ I breathe, hard.

  ‘—how real is it?’

  ‘What she said. It thrashes out the truth. Now you know. I need to get out. You going to open the gate for me then?’

  ‘My wife has … misplaced the padlock key. She wishes the gate to remain locked.’

  ‘She’s skittering in madness, for all her clever drawings. What if Morgan wants—’

  ‘Now, how would you know the name of my daughter?’ Him folds hims arms.

  I clench my hands.

  ‘So, where is she?’ Him leans towards me.

  I knock back into the wall. The keys in my bag clunk. ‘She dun want you to find her.’

  ‘Was she all right?’

  ‘Well, I think she can take care of herself. If she hasn’t got enough food she’ll just steal some.’

  ‘When you saw her. Was she—’

  ‘She’s fine.’

  Him smiles. ‘Good. That’s good.’

  I say, ‘You’re not going after her then?’

  ‘No, but I’m certain she’ll be back. My wife is, however, less certain. She’s decided she wants you to stay, to do her bedspread and help—’

  ‘I’ve got to get gone. Tonight. So, you going to let me out then, or have I got to smash your fence up?’

  Morgan’s Mam steps out of the kitchen. Them both take my arms, bluster me along the corridor, through a door and up the stairs. It all blurs, for thems hands grip too hard.

  I’m pushed into the room with the small bed and folded bedspread.

  The door is pushed shut behind me, a key clacks in the lock.

  I bang on the door with my palms, shout, kick and screech
but … I stop. I’m just fighting a locked door with no sound on the other side of it. I yell, ‘No wonder Morgan’s took off!’

  I try to open the window but it’s been painted shut with thick lilac paint, and the panes are too small to get through even if I did smash them up and find some way down to the ground what isn’t falling.

  Throwing my bag on the bed, I slump myself down beside it.

  The bedspread lies there, folded, blank, waiting for my flowers. On a shelf are books. Morgan told me about these. All shapes and sizes. These have pages full of tiny neat words. I lick my thumb and rub at them. Them dun smudge.

  Stories and stories and stories. I get some of them down off the shelf and put them on the bed. I sit down and look at the pictures in them: a girl with a mirror, another of a wise old woman and one of a jug and a blue cornflower what’s crying. Maps, apples and plants. Girls in flouncy dresses, all crowns and red lips. Some pictures are crammed so full of colours, them look real. Not made of stitches at all, but of real things, squashed flat.

  But them’re just some place to get lost in.

  I listen at the door. Silent. I rattle the door handle. Listen. Nothing. I kick it hard, and behind me I hear a quiet, slow tune being hummed.

  I spin round.

  Shadow Mary sits on the bed, all dark and grey.

  In shadows under her hair, her eyes gleam.

  She sings a slow song I’ve never heard before:

  ‘Blank dark in you

  a place you never cross to.’

  I say, ‘Get back in the moppet.’

  She keeps singing.

  ‘Stop it.’ I put my hands over my ears but I still hear her inside my head.

  She sings, ‘You take the sun down, burn it out

  bring night, right into me

  but night frays

  rips away

  shadows rumple and tear …’

  Stopping singing, she says, ‘When Barney were born—’

  ‘Dun you get in my head.’

  ‘Not just your head. My head. Your head’s full of blanks. I’ve got the rememberings.’

  I put my hands over my ears. ‘No no no no no.’

  She reaches under the bed and picks up a pair of small scissors.