The boy shifts on his feet and glances over his shoulder. “I, um, well… I’ve obviously said or done something wrong. I’m sorry for that.” He hesitates. “I’ll go.”
He turns to leave, to go back into the woods—the woods!—but I cry out a wordless plea, my arm reaching forward before I’m aware I’ve done it. He turns toward me.
I don’t understand myself.
His eyes question me.
“What are you looking at?” I growl, folding my arms over my chest.
“I—you looked like you wanted to ask me something.”
Nori stares up at me, sucking on the hem of her dress. Damn.
I clear my throat. “Do you… do you have food? Some pears? Or radishes? Anything?”
He laughs. “Radishes?”
“We don’t have much. The land is… off.”
“What do you mean?”
“Are you blind?” I snap, though I regret it when he steps away from me. “Look around you. The garden’s dying. Everything is dead. The threat of war…”
“Threat of war?”
“World War Three, some say. They were saying that when we left.”
“Left?”
“London.”
“Oh.”
The boy, Gowan, looks down at Nori, who is staring up at him, still munching on the hem of her dress. “I have to go now. I’m sorry.”
I hesitate, wanting him to stay, wanting him to leave—regretting my abrasive nature, my stony heart. I hate my need, my loneliness. I stand silent as the first visitor in so long leaves us behind.
Idiot.
I retreat from the edge of Python Wood as the boy vanishes from view, once again certain that the trees have been watching the exchange. Now, though only minutes have passed, the woods look like they are greeting an early dusk. Weird stuff like this is enough to give Cath’s warning more weight.
I scowl at them. “Piss off.”
You ruined the game! Nori signs, then she stomps away from me, back to La Baume, which sits eerie and alone, a large ruby in the center of three rings. Wood, field, garden: the blood manor.
I scan the trees again, the eerie stillness of it so wrong, but I don’t see the boy anymore. Maybe he was a hopeless wish. Or a desperate delusion.
I scowl, staring for long minutes into the murk.
For a moment, I’m frozen where I stand, acutely aware that I’m alone at the boundary with Python. Python damned Wood.
“You let me think this was paradise,” I whisper at my mother. “You let me believe this… this lie.”
At last, I turn away. I’ve seen too much to let trees scare me. I walk back to the manor, which sits under a dank midday sky, while the woods behind me greet a rising moon.
Mam used to write down the things that scared her, or the things she wished for. Fear. Hope. Two edges of the same knife if you ask me. I would see her scribbling on tiny pieces of paper or the margins of books. She’d tear them off and then burn them in the candle, locked forever as a perfect truth.
This is mine: We are alone. I am alone. La Baume is wrong and Python Wood is watching. A boy came today, but I scared him away. He might have been my only chance. But I know what cause and effect are. Cause: Python delivers a boy. Effect: A girl stays away. I’m going to burn you now, tiny, perfect truth.
Creak. Creak. Creak.
I grind my jaw.
Creak.
Creak.
Creeeeeeaaak.
Always the same. Never ends. The floorboards squeak and move above us as (crazy) Aunt Cath paces. Cause, effect, step, squeak.
Hungry, Nori signs. Is there jam?
Creak. Creak. Thump.
I flinch with the sound, but Nori doesn’t seem to mind it, and she dances around the filthy kitchen, utterly unaware. It is an agonizing symphony that I alone must endure.
No bread left in the cupboard. No jam. Tins, oats, some peanuts; that will do. I shake peanuts out into the mortar and grind them into a dusty paste with the pestle. Add sugar, a little butter. Grind some more. I’m almost manic with stirring before I feel Nori tug on my sleeve.
I hand the bowl over. Eat.
Nori doesn’t complain, but the mess is gone in under three seconds. It isn’t enough. It has to be enough. Need to save the rest—make it last as long as I can.
How different things are now. I still remember when we first came to La Baume. Fully stocked pantry with bread, jams, and more. We had potatoes, turnips, and squash grown in the garden; it was a place of hope even with rumors about another war. There was a tomato plant and a cucumber plant and Auntie Cath would sing while she baked, and there seemed to be endless sunshine.
Whatever: I’m probably exaggerating the memory. Curse of hard times, I suppose. The only thing streaming through the window now is a vaguely foggy gray. I’ve come to hate October.
I glance through the glass.
The trees are closer.
The thought manifests without warning.
I resist. No. No, they aren’t.
They are. The trees are closer than they were yesterday.
Impossible.
Yes, look. And you found that root in the garden this morning, like an old crone’s finger, pointing right at you, remember? It was sticking out of the ashen soil—accusing. A root in a garden that has no trees. Face it, doll.
I shut my eyes. Shut up.
Go into the garden, I sign at Nori, pushing away useless memories and crazy theories. Go and look for strawberries. I hide behind sign language because my voice can’t crack and give me away when the words come from my hands. Nori looks at me, the corner of her mouth bunched up. Go on, I sign again, and then give in. “Strawberries.”
Maybe. Just maybe there’ll be some left. Some life in the ashes. Please. Oh, please…
Who am I asking?
Nori goes outside, carrying the bell she will ring if she gets into any trouble. It’s tied to the ribbon around her waist; I breathe easier hearing the sweet tinkling of metal on metal as she skips away.
I make more of the peanut paste and walk through the kitchen, the lower hallway, the entrance hall, up the first, second, and third flights of stairs, and pause in front of the attic staircase, thin, narrow, and menacing in the near-darkness of this part of the house.
“Catherine?” I call up.
As usual, she has no reply for me.
“Auntie Cath. I have some food for you down here. Okay? Catherine, okay?”
Nothing.
I place the bowl at the bottom of the ancient staircase and hurry away, trying not to rush like someone is behind me, but failing.
A beat more of silence, and then (crazy) Aunt Cath resumes her pacing in the attic:
up
and up.
down and
down
It never ends.
That night, the creaking still filters down to my bedroom, grinding through my head and bones like a tiny drill.
Nori sleeps through it, and I vow to protect that innocence. The innocence of complete and utter, stupid ignorance. I hear music in the night. Endless creaking, on and on. I no longer sleep very much. The bedsprings poke the flesh of my back. The shadows seem to move. I sigh. I stir.
Creak.
I clench my jaw as the night sings on.
Creak.
I wish the horrible percussion away.
Creeeeaaaaak.
The walls begin ticking. La Baume is old. The noises from the attic—(crazy) Aunt Cath pacing back and forth, up
and
down
—are inevitable in
a place like this. There’s too much wood in this house. Were the walls built from Python trees? I wrap my arms around my torso; the idea of being inside a box of Python planks is horrifying. Cursed planks.
Creak.
La Baume is cursed.
Creak.
I didn’t expect to think it, but that’s kind of what it feels like.
Creeeeeaaaaak.
CURSED.
> I force the thought of screaming trees away. Trees don’t scream. Trees don’t sing.
Yeah, right. Trees also don’t move.
I meander to the window on the balls of my feet, peering out through the strangling vines at the trees. They thrash and moan through the lightning and thunder like inmates in an asylum.
Creak.
It is going to drive me mad.
Creak…
I am going to lose my mind.
SILLA DANIELS’S GUIDE TO LOSING YOUR MIND
1. Notice things.
2. Notice the things that no one else does.
3. Notice everything. Too much. All the time.
4. Sense the wrongness in things.
5. But don’t feel them.
6. Feel alone.
7. But never be alone.
2
crazy is just a word
A bit of dirt and soil and bone
and blood pricked from a thumb
the Creeper Man so little known
is come, oh yes! He’s come.
Silla is very upset today, so I sit in the corner very quiet and I wait. Maybe if I am very, very still, she will notice that I am not moving. Maybe she will stop long enough to hear my tummy rrrrraaawwwwrrrrrr like a monster. I know what it means—it means Feed me—but Silla doesn’t always know that.
It is dark today, darker than yesterday, and I think maybe a storm is coming. Maybe it will blow a path for us to follow to a big garden full of strawberries and gooseberries and potatoes! They can’t all have died? They might just be deep, deep down or far, far away.
I like that boy. That boy, Gowan. He was nice and he played with me when Silla was angry, and I forgot about the monster in my tummy for a bit. But the monster is back now and Silla still hasn’t noticed.
Hungry, I sign.
She doesn’t see me. I tug on her sleeve.
Hungry.
There is a flash of a different monster in her eyes and I shrink back. I don’t like it when she looks like Daddy. I look over at the tall, smiling man in the corner, but Silla doesn’t seem to mind him staring at us, even though he has no eyes, so I just go back to being very, very still.
He’s nice, Nori signs.
I know she means that boy from yesterday. “I don’t trust him. Why was he here?”
He’s come to look after the garden! Said he used to live here.
“With Cathy?” I force my nature down and think. “She’d remember him, then, I suppose, back from her younger days. Maybe I should try to ask her.”
Nori, at seven, looks doubtful. Okay…
“She could have told me she asked someone to come. I didn’t even see her leave the attic.”
Nori shrugs.
She might have bloody well brought back some food.
I shake my head and continue to fold the laundry, which is still damp, though it has hung outside all day. Nothing ever dries anymore in this damn climate. Our clothes are all slightly moist, and they have the smell of it, too—of mold, of wet, of rotting material. Even my skin smells mildewy.
God, I need a proper shower. Hot, running water. Stupid bloody generator. It broke a few months ago. I fixed it, and it works… some of the time. But the water pressure sucks the farther up the house you go. And the shower is on the third floor—in the abandoned hallway.
I can’t get my thoughts off that boy. Gowan. If he really did live here once, why come back? There’s nothing left. It’s so isolated—not a single neighbor now for thirteen or fourteen miles. Unless you count him. Three miles from town. Three miles from us. But this land is poisoned, infected, dying, and I doubt he can fix that. I doubt anyone can. So why come? What’s the point?
“Have you seen him before?”
No.
“He seemed familiar.”
He’s fun. We should go visit him.
“No!” I spin, grab my sister’s tiny shoulders, and give them a shake. “We are never entering the woods, do you understand me?”
Nori blinks at me and then begins to cry. She tries to wriggle free from my hands, her bad arm bent and useless.
“Nori, I’m serious. He could be a spy or a hobo or some kind of terrorist! He could be looking for a place to set up some kind of military base—”
Stupid! Nori yells with her hands. I have to admit, I do feel kind of idiotic.
“It’s possible,” I insist. “Remember what they were saying on the news before we left? We could be the only ones left for all we know.”
She tugs away from me again. Go away, go away, go away!
“Nori, promise me you won’t go into the woods! They’re coming closer!”
I don’t mean to say it. It slips out. There is a pause, and then Nori jerks hard, manages to get free, and rushes from the room. At the doorway, she turns back, her face red and wet. Too late! The woods are coming! And he’s already here!
THE KIND MADE FROM LOVE
“Auntie?”
I am getting older now and creaking in all my bones. I turn; my eyes fall on the girl who stands at the bottom of the stairs. I know she’ll come no closer, so I linger in the doorway, looking down. How much the girl has changed.… She is not a child any longer; she is a younger version of me. Of little Pammy. Except for that dark hair.
When first the two children came, there was life in this house. Not much, but I managed to hold the dark at bay. He was confined to the woods. The children, my nieces, were innocent—or at least the young one was. The eldest, though—Silla, who stands before me now an almost-woman—had seen a sliver of darkness already. Still, she was innocent in that she was untouched by the madness that infects this house.
But that is gone now, too.
“He’s out there,” I say, turning back to the window. “Always watching. Getting stronger.”
The girl steps hesitantly onto the bottom step, eyes darting up and away like a skittish cat, and stands awkwardly on the very edge. “Who is?”
I sigh and curl my legs underneath me as I sit on the floor, shifting so that my back is now to the window and I am facing the girl looking up at me.
I don’t want to do this again.
“When I was a little girl, your mother and I used to love it here.”
The girl looks skeptical, and I expect no less.
“Back then the house was blue. It’s tradition that every new family head paints La Baume a different color, did you know that? Father started to paint it blue the day he married Momma. He never was very good at finishing anything. When I was four and Pammy was still a little baby, Father got it into his head that those few bits of green paint showing through were bad luck. We spent a whole summer running around the house, filling in the gaps. When we were finished, the house looked like the sky.” I smile and wrap thin arms around myself. They were good days. Good memories. “The soil was rich and fertile.”
“What happened?”
“I did.” I choke back a sob. “I came. I grew up, Father died, then Mother, Anne… and then Pammy moved away with that awful, hard man.” The man who is your father. I don’t say it, but I know the girl heard it. “I could see the stone in him clear as day… but your mother has an airy nature and was too flighty to see. Soon you were there with them, too, a little pebble yourself, and my hopes of having her back were dashed upon the rocks.” I pause, my lungs fighting to find purchase in the air.
I feel spite deep inside me as I watch the almost-woman, Silla, who is my niece and to blame. It is a curling thing I can’t suppress. “The day you were born, I began to paint the manor red. The new color for my rule. Red was blood and rage and passion.” I smile wanly. “It seemed fitting at the time.”
“I’m sorry.”
I laugh, cackles bounding along the walls. The girl is sorry.
“Ten years. Waiting. And still I hoped that Pammy would come home. I bought so much yellow paint, hoping against hope that she would join me and we could remake this house again. A giant sunflower, full of light and joy…” Oh, it was such a glorious d
ream! Such grand ideas! Such wonder in the darkness! “And then Eleanor came. Little Nori, so precious. Precious enough to tie your mother to him for longer. Little Nori, full of water, fluid—an easy survivor. She couldn’t be tainted by your father the way—”
“Say it.”
I look away.
“The way I am,” Silla finishes. “The way I have been.”
I nod. You have stone in your heart. I look on Silla. “When you came, things went bad again.”
“You’re blaming this on me? The townspeople leaving, the land dying, the woods—you’re blaming me?”
I shake my head. No. But I mean YES.
“Who is he?”
Does the girl know? Has she seen him? She doesn’t look afraid.…
“When I was a girl, I had stone in my heart, too; it was my fault. Or maybe it was Pammy. So hard to remember. Pammy was like water back then, before she evaporated for your father. For Stan.” My lips curl around the name with distaste. “She was like Nori.” I swallow. No. That’s wrong. It was always Anne. But things are so muddy now, and I can’t quite remember, and there is nothing left.
Too many secrets. Too much danger. Nothing to hold on to.
“Catherine.” The girl is standing now, her hands clenched like the rocks they are. She is so very hard. Granite, through and through.
The hardness I see there resolves me. Absolves me. After all, why should I care?
“He’s watching you,” I say. “He comes from the woods, lives in them. He’s drawn here, and when he comes, the land dies. People sense it and leave. It’s happened before.” I suck in a shudder of a breath. “The Creeper Man. He’s not a protector at all.…”
The girl seems warmer. Like fire coals, burning inside. “What are you on about, you crazy old witch? That was just a story.”
“This place is cursed.”
I can tell that the girl already knows this.
“Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you let us stay?” The girl is yelling now. “Why not warn us or send us away!”
“Because I was alone!”
And the Trees Crept In Page 4
