The Twist in the Branch

by Melanie Smith

  He stops walking. Lines make their away across his brow; deep creases that eat into his dark skin. He looks down at the ground, then out towards the horizon. Then he continues. ‘I could taste the ground in my dreams, feel the trees roots winding around my body. In the end I decided to look. I thought that maybe if I dug him up, took him somewhere else, buried him somewhere else, it might all stop.’

  ‘But it didn’t?’

  ‘No – if anything it got worse, like I’d woken him up.’

  ‘Why did you leave when we arrived if that was the case?’ I ask, though something in me already knows the answer.

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it now Seph, I’m done with it all today.’ His fingers scratch at his head again, eyes on the ground, desperate to avoid my eyes and the question.

  ‘Course,’ I say, trying to save him from having to go there. ‘Are they still in the barn?’

  ‘Yeah, I brought them back when things didn’t go as I’d expected, thought it might have calmed things down. Even considered putting them back where they’d come from.’

  ‘Let’s get back,’ I say, in an attempt at some normality. He walks slightly ahead of me, his head still down, and I can feel the shame dripping off him.

  But still the questions keep coming.

  ‘Why us? Why now?’

  ‘Dunno’

  ‘Why does he keep coming back?’

  ‘I suppose darkness never goes away Seph. It’s always there, covered over, enough walls built around it, but it’s still there.’

  ‘But why us? Why do we have to see it?’

  ‘Just as well someone does.’

  54

  THE BARN SEEMS ALIVE with his presence tonight, as my name swirls out of there, through the cracks in the stone and the wood, out onto the cold winter air, and up through my window.

  I hear it loud and clear.

  I hear it and I breathe slow and deep to help my racing heart.

  I wonder if Gabe can hear it too from across the hallway, or if he hears his own name being whispered into the dark. A flash of fear tells me to lock my bedroom door, but I don’t listen.

  Not now.

  I drift off. Off into another world – into one of many, where voices and footsteps and the new whispers of an old voice, crawl out from the darkness.

  55

  EVAN’S ARMS WRAP AROUND my shoulders as we stand at the top of the hill, looking out onto the village below.

  ‘You’re bloody mad – d’you know that? – coming up ’ere all the time.’

  I let out a small laugh, as his cold gloveless hands dig into my scarf, no doubt trying to find some body heat.

  ‘I know, but it’s nice and quiet.’

  A tight burst of air is expelled from his lips. He’s not convinced. He moves closer, holding me from behind, and I sink back into his embrace, away from the edge.

  ‘So we’re ok then – after the other night?’ He asks the question, even though the answer is obvious by now.

  ‘Yeah, if you are?’

  ‘Yeah – it’s done.’

  ‘I’m sorry, I know you all must’ve been worried.’

  ‘And there’s no-one else?’

  ‘No, please don’t drag that up again.’

  Silence.

  ‘I haven’t been up ’ere since we were kids. We used to bring Badger up ’ere on a Sunday most weekends,’ he says, changing the subject.

  ‘Badger?’

  ‘Our dog. Dead dog.’

  ‘You had a dog called Badger?’

  ‘Yeah.’

  ‘And you brought him up here when he was dead?’

  ‘Don’t be funny.’

  ‘And you say I’m mad?’

  He pulls me back playfully, tipping my head back and leans over my shoulder, placing his cold lips on mine.

  He doesn’t want to stop, and I don’t want to, not really, except something else is tugging at me, and until that stops I can’t be here – not fully – even with Evan. Caught between two worlds.

  ‘Come on, let’s get you back before you freeze your precious arse off,’ I joke.

  ‘Now you’re pushing it.’

  ‘Thought you Valley boys could handle a bit of cold weather.’

  I make off down the hill as fast as I can, my feet used to the feel of the ground after all this time, but still he catches me.

  ‘There’s a lotta things us Valley boys can handle.’

  ‘Good, you can tell me about it over something hot to drink. You’re buying.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘I do.’

  The car is parked in a small lay-by at the bottom of the hill, and we get in, blast the heaters, and make our way into town, where we spend another hour wrapped up in each other’s company.

  ‘We’d better go if you need to take your brother to training,’ I remind him as the time rolls on.

  ‘Yeah, I know.’

  A text from my mum comes through and I reply straight away so she knows I’ve received it. She’s going out, but Gabe will be in.

  I never thought I’d say it, but I’m glad. We can get some time alone to talk. I need to talk to him.

  Evan drops me at the bottom of the lane, as usual, and I traipse up to the house. The car is outside but Gabe’s van isn’t, so I go around the back to the yard, where the van is parked, and the sound of banging comes from inside the barn.

  ‘Gabe. Gabe!’

  The door opens and he’s there.

  ‘Hiya, I’m back. Is she still here – the car’s outside?’

  ‘She had a lift, she’s gone out with Rhian tonight.’

  ‘Oh, so can we talk, now that we’re by ourselves?’ This still feels so alien to me, seeking out my uncle, building this new relationship. A relationship that has been created by the strangest of circumstances.

  ‘Yeah, I’ll be in in a minute, just finishing up here.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  I go in through the back door, through the kitchen and into the living room to warm up in front of the fire. It’s starting to get dark, and the living room is losing its light. Once I’m warm enough I take my coat off and go to hang it up by the front door, passing the window as I do, and that’s when I see her, standing in front of the tree, looking up at the house.

  At first, I think it’s my nan – but it can’t be as she’s gone, a few years back now, and Mum cried non-stop for weeks.

  That’s ridiculous Seph – get a grip.

  Her hair is longer anyway, flowing way past her shoulders, but just as grey. The light is dying outside, but I can still see her and she is looking up at the house, like she can see me too. My coat lands in a heap on the floor and I throw open the front door and go down to the tree – heart racing – but nothing.

  Just me and that tree, again.

  I don’t know if I’m scared or frustrated or even a bit disappointed as I kneel down next to it, wondering what that was, and when this is all going to end.

  The silence is broken by the shifting of earth around me as the ground pulses and vibrates and then something is grabbing at me. Crawling out of the ground, the roots of the tree – twining their way around my legs. They are arms, hands, gnarled knuckles wrapping around my wrists now, and then she’s there at the end of them, leaning over me.

  Long grey hair, a tangle of cobwebs. Skin wrinkled, eyes sunken, the hollow of her cheeks deep and shaded. Her gaunt face tight against mine as she pins me down with strength that defies her age, her eyes burn into mine, and in a voice that is more of a rasp she says, ‘Come with me,’ and I have no choice.

  She is stronger.

  56

  IT LOOKS LIKE A SHACK.

  Walls of wood, old and dark, and there is nothing apart from me, and the fire that I am sat in front of.

  My arms are tethered to a chair, my legs too, held down by those roots – the knotty fingers still wrapped around my wrists and pinning me down.

  I can’t see her, but I know she’s there. I feel her all around me as my senses
come alive, alert and ready. I hear her voice filling the room, feel it, like it is travelling through and around me, and even though it is not loud it has depth and strength – filling the space with her words and presence, from the floorboards beneath me to the very corners of the room.

  ‘Sometimes dreams are so real that they are real, and sometimes they are real, but not in this time and place.

  Once upon a time.

  Here.

  Not here.

  That is the way it has always been. But you know that now.’

  I drift off now, and as I’m sitting, listening to her words pour into me, she continues.

  ‘So let me begin. There was once a young girl who travelled everyday through the forest; she knew it well. She had played there as a child, foraged there, spent many hours in amongst those trees.

  But there was one thing that she still did not know. For once, when she had been around ten-years old, she had come across a small cabin in the woods. She looked inside through the small dusty window, where an old woman was sitting in a rocking chair, in front of a fire. Quite unexpectedly the door creaked open and the young girl went inside.

  The old woman rocked gently back and forth in the chair. Her long grey hair fell over her shoulders, and her fingers that gripped the arms of the chair were bony and gnarled, like the old knotty branches of a tree. When the girl walked over to her she looked into cloudy white eyes and could tell that the old woman was blind.

  “Why do you sit in front of a fire on such a day as this – for the sun is shining?” asked the girl.

  The woman laughed and said, “Come back another time and you shall find out.”

  So the girl went away, but could not sleep that night as she was eager to know the answer to her question. The very next day she went back out into the woods, but to her surprise could not find the cabin, for where it stood yesterday, nothing but an old oak stood tall and proud.

  Day after day she went back, but nothing did she find. And so she forgot about the old woman and the cabin, until one day, as she was making her way through the forest to collect wood, she stumbled across the shack that she had so longed to see again.

  Once again, the door creaked open and there inside was the old woman in her rocking chair. The fire still burned, but when the girl went in to speak to her she gasped in shock, for she was nothing but a skeleton. Her hair was grey and long and tumbled over her bones, her clothes hung in tatters. But to her surprise, there in her head were her eyes, though still glazed, and of little use as far as she could tell.

  “How is this so?” said the girl, quite shocked by the sudden appearance of the cabin and this strange creature.

  As she spoke, the old woman’s bones moved as she raised a fleshless finger and pointed to the fire. Scared and none-the-wiser, the girl left the cabin, and went on her way, and once again she could not sleep that night with so many questions running through her mind.

  As before, the very next day she set out to find the cabin, and as before it was not there.

  Several years later when she was older, a young woman now, she travelled through the forest. There in front of her was the cabin. For the third time she went in through the creaking door to seek out the old woman. But all that now remained were the tattered clothes that once hung from her body.

  This time, the young woman looked at the fire and asked, “How is this so?”

  To her great surprise the fire spoke back to her, as it grew and grew, until, from the orange flames out walked a beautiful woman. She was naked, and covered in blood, like a baby who had just come into the world. The woman took some of the rags that had belonged to the old lady and wiped her skin clean, then took the old woman’s blanket and placed it around her naked body. As she did, it turned into a silk cloak.

  She took the woman by the hand and led her through the forest, back to her home, giving her food and shelter for the night. But the next morning when she awoke the woman had disappeared, all except for the silk cloak that was now laid out as a gift.

  Some say if you wander into the forest you may just find that cabin nestled amongst the trees, and if you are very lucky, the door may just open for you.’

  Some dreams are so real that they are real.

  The fire grows and a low rumble makes its way up from the ground, as the tethers unwrap themselves from my hands and ankles, whipping away from me. The walls start to shake and crack and the fire crawls higher and higher and the walls start tumbling to the floor, boards of wood catching the growing sparks and erupting into flame.

  My legs kick out to free themselves so that I can run but they catch something hard and the heat that was burning at my face is now gone. I cry out in pain as my knee hits the hard steering wheel, and as I look around, I realise I’m in our car, the only light coming from the headlights that pan out in front of me.

  I’m on the forest road. The deepest, darkest part.

  57

  I’M NOT SCARED.

  The road is dark and the tall forest of pine trees either side makes it feel like I’m about to be swallowed up.

  I’m not scared. I’m not.

  Fear stabs at my whole body, keeping my foot firmly on the pedal.

  I’m not scared. I’m fine …

  Mum would absolutely do her nut if she knew I was in the car and was driving alone in the dark through these lanes. It’s icy, and the small flurries of snow now fall blizzard-like, playing with my eyes as I drive through it. I’ve never driven in the snow before – it’s the weirdest thing – and I’m concentrating hard on the road ahead of me which is unlit, other than by my headlights, and is starting to turn white with snow.

  How did that happen so quickly?

  My driving skills are slowly coming back to me, but I’m not used to a car like this and keep crunching the gears, and stop-starting, causing me to panic further.

  I seem to be one of the few people on the road tonight, and it’s as if it’s my job to make sure the snow doesn’t settle – on this side of the road at least. I pass a few cars on the way, their headlights piercing my eyes and making me blink. But I carry on and I don’t know why, or where I’m going, but I drive and I drive and the fear wells and subsides and wells and subsides. I keep going until I find myself on a long straight stretch of road, with the trees still pressing down on me and there on the side of the road and then in the middle of the road I see her – just as she was before – red, red, red. My foot slams onto the brakes to stop myself from hitting her and as the car skids and comes to a stop she is gone, and I am left with the taste of her blood in my mouth.

  Every part of my body is screaming with fear as adrenalin pumps through me furiously. I take in a few long deep breaths to try and stop myself from losing it completely. I’m aware that I am stationary in the middle of the road, and so quickly restart the stalled engine and slowly make my way back along the road – still shaking, feeling sick – but I need to move on.

  I drive for only a few minutes, when up ahead the headlights catch something in the middle of the road. It looks as though an animal has been run over. Some blood is streaked along the side of the road, caught in the thin film of snow that has collected there. I have no choice but to come to a stop or run-over whatever is there. Slowly, I bring the car to a standstill. The full beams of the headlights stretch out across the road, like beacons, catching the white flakes as they tumble to the ground.

  Once again my heart starts racing at the thought of being alone on this deserted road, the trees pressing in on me, her red face etched in my consciousness like a stain that will not disappear. I sit staring at the road ahead for a few seconds to decide what to do, completely dreading the idea of having to unlock the car doors and get out, the tatty rusty steel being the only barrier between me and whatever is out there.

  My gaze travels to the floor in front and I realise my presumption – that this is an animal – has been just that. Out there on the cold hard tarmac is the body of a person, not an animal, and like something has tak
en over my body, and as if I have no control over the matter, my hands unlock the door so that I can step out onto the road.

  I step and step and step until I reach it.

  Her.

  The body has been torn limb from limb, all except the left arm, whose sinews seem to cling on in resistance. It lays across her in a deathly pose that seems to point to the woods. The eyes. The eyes are wide open. Tears stain the marked temples and disappear into the hairline.

  I stare into my own face as it looks back – dead and lifeless – at me.

  58

  MY FOOT IS PRESSED down full-throttle on the accelerator as I race through the lanes, until I notice headlights up ahead, bouncing off the road and through the hedges, and so I have no other option but to slow down, even though the thought of it terrifies me.

  I don’t want to stop, but these roads are too small to fit two cars through, so one of us is going to have to pull over to let the other pass.

  As the lights approach I dip my headlights from full beam and I recognise the vehicle that is approaching me. It stops, dead, in the middle of the road and my uncle flies out and towards the driver’s side of my car. He grabs at the handle but it is locked and as I release it the door snaps open, and he pulls me out.

  ‘What the hell are you playing at Sephone? What the bloody hell?’ His shouting only adds to the tension I’m feeling but I’ve never been more glad to see him.

  ‘I didn’t take the car – I went out to the tree and I …’ I’m struggling to find the words. ‘I left – I can’t explain it. Please, I want to go home now. Please can we go home?’

  Once he senses how upset I am he lets up a bit, even though it’s obvious he’s still furious at me.

  ‘It’s happening again, there was the forest and I saw the Red Lady again, but she … she disappeared and then there was a dead girl in the middle of the road, and it was me -’

  ‘Sephone calm down, calm down!’ he says grabbing both my shoulders firmly and shaking me. ‘It’s ok, we’re going home – you can tell me about it there.’