And the Trees Crept In

by Dawn Kurtagich

  There is a lengthy silence.

  “I can see we’re not going to spend much time talking.”

  I don’t bother with a reply.

  “Do you love anything?” he asks me suddenly. Unexpectedly. “Anything at all?”

  He waits for a long time. Patience must be his forte.

  “Humor me,” he says at last. “It’s a simple question, and a long night. But it has to be honest.”

  I glance at the old clock and see that it’s only ten p.m. I sigh and sit down beside him on the rug, and consider the question. Irritability rises steadily until, finally, at exactly twenty to eleven, I have a truthful answer.

  “I love my sister. That’s all.”

  Once upon a time, when I was three, Mam told a whispered bedtime story about a manor lost in the woods, where a crazy old lady lived in an enchanted place. A place that was full of magic, surrounded by enchanted woodland, and where things out of the ordinary happened.

  Her weak moment became my dream.

  I was four when I started begging for a sketch.

  And ten when she finally complied.

  A ring of woods, denser and blacker than her sketch revealed, and inside it: a ring of fields sloping downward. Inside that, a tiny fence slung around a ring of garden, and there, at the center like a jewel, La Baume. Paradise. Perfect. A secret. How magical it all seemed. I watched Mam’s hands as she sketched, but I should have paid more attention to her face.

  I was fourteen when I dragged Nori by the arm to La Baume’s front door. Fifteen when Cath baked me a birthday cake with two tiers, big raspberries and cream decorating the edges. I had eaten three huge pieces before I noticed she had put worms in the batter.

  Looking back, I know that’s when things started to change. An endless procession of years leading to this.

  I was just too stupid to see.

  The man is in the corner again. His head touches the ceiling, and he still has to bend! Even though it is very dark, I see him because he’s darker. It’s much less lonely now that he’s come to play. Oh, the games we play! But we have to play at night, in the dark. But that’s okay because I’m not scared anymore. He told me the secret. But I’m scared of making Silla angry.

  I push back the bedcovers late at night when the man calls. He calls with his long index finger, smiling wide—oh, how fun! I giggle. Quick, quick!

  Silla paces in her room.

  Auntie Cathy paces hiiiiigh up in the roof.

  I run on my toes to the corridor and then I go down, down, down into the basement.

  My friend follows.

  And we play.

  5

  edge of reason

  Children made him

  and children call

  children play

  like flies on the wall.

  BROKEN BOOK ENTRY

  Most people will tell you that he doesn’t exist. Might be a bad feeling, or a trick of the light. Most people will say that he’s a scary bedtime story to terrify the little children. They say that he is an urban legend or folktale, or a shadow on the wall. And if you believe in him, well, ain’t you just the peach? But I know in my bones he’s real because of what I saw that day. Some of it’s fuzzy because of the crazy crowding out the truth. But I know he is real. I know it because I’ve seen him at the edge of Python Wood, watching, bent and gnarly, tall as a tree, thin as a reed. Of course he watches. The reason is so simple, so primal, so necessary. He wants us all, and that is something I have to live with. I’m the only one who knows. Or maybe she does, too. He’s hungry, and we’re the only ones left. He’s getting desperate. I wonder how long it will be before he leaves his cover of trees and slithers closer.… He is watching me right now, waiting for the day when I am stupid enough to go wandering again, wanting it more than anything. And me? I just sit and watch. Because why would I go? Do I want to end up dead?

  It’s a tree.

  I tell myself this for the first hour.

  Just a tree.

  A boring, stupid tree.

  I’ve got cabin fever, and it’s making me imagine strange things. [JUST LIKE THAT ONE TIME IN THE WOODS.]

  A tree, thrashing out there in the wind, far back in the wood. Or it’s a splash of rain on the windowpane. A bat flying past—

  It is not what it looks like.

  After a second hour, I have convinced myself of all of this. Dawn is almost here, and my feet are aching. I might sit down. I might just… stop looking.

  After all, it’s just a tree.

  Mam would howl with laughter if she could see me now. But then, she would have laughed when I went into the woods that one time. I can hear her laughing, all the way from London.

  I close my eyes for a moment, half falling asleep. And when I open them, I realize: it’s not a tree, not a trick of the light, not the rain on the windowpane, not a bat flying past.

  A tree. It’s a tree. I convince myself of this, almost fully. Until the thing steps forward, his head turning a fraction in my direction. I can almost hear the tiny creeeeeeeeeeeeeak as his head rotates. It is a tall, long-limbed, bulbous-headed shadow.

  I blink again.

  Closer.

  And again.

  Closer.

  Closer each time. Like the trees. Tall, thin. Eerily still. Still and watchful. A man. Something like a man.

  But he has no eyes.

  I notice that right away. He has no face. Wait… is that… is it—

  There’s a mouth.

  A long gash of a mouth, thin and smiling. A jagged line. Until it falls open, revealing teeth and an endless blackness.

  Grinnnnnnnnnning.

  And then it falls forward on all fours, long and thin and impossible, scuttling back into the woods, head cocked up to me, until he is nothing but tree and shadow and I don’t know if I’ve seen it at all.

  The Creeper Man.

  Of all the things that thing could have been, a man is not it.

  Cath’s voice gurgles up out of my head. “The Creeper Man. He’s not a protector at all.…”

  Crazy old witch.

  The Creeper Man is here, dearie, says a voice inside.

  She doesn’t know what she’s talking about.

  It’s too late.

  No. That’s not true.

  You’ve seen him now.

  It was a tree.

  He’s seen you see.

  If I end up like Cath, remind me to kill myself.

  I rest my heart in anger to keep away my fear.

  SILLA DANIELS’S GUIDE TO KEEPING SANE

  1. Don’t believe the things you see.

  2. Trust that your mind is lying.

  3. Ignore, ignore, ignore.

  4. Sleep.

  5. Accept, with a rational mind, that sanity is a rock. And rocks can be eroded.

  6. Don’t let yourself believe that the thing you saw in the woods was a man. Don’t let yourself believe that he was watching you.

  I watch Nori play in the garden from behind the pane of glass as I dry the dishes. There is no food. I must find some food. The garden is dying—no. Dead. The garden is dead. The only things that grow now are the roots. Impossible roots from trees too far away.

  [THE TREES ARE COMING CLOSER.]

  Yes.

  I’m certain now. They are closer. They are. By several yards. And they may be taller… I can’t tell. They watch me. Their gaze is a touch on my back. Physical.

  Something I can’t explain sets my teeth on edge. Nori is running for the trees. Again. The plate in my hand shatters on the floor, shards scattering like milk teeth.

  “For God’s sake, Eleanor.”

  By the time I reach her, she’s standing in front of Gowan at the very edge of Python Wood. I’m out of breath, startled and annoyed. But mostly, I’m… relieved. It’s so good to see him. To see anyone.

  He looks up from where he kneels. “Hello.”

  I nod, feeling the frosty air behind him.

  “I brought some apples.”

 
; And I can see them, bulging in his pockets. They are the green of neon, rich with color I haven’t seen in so long. A bag of garden tools dangles from his other hand. He really is going to work in the garden. Good luck.

  Nori bounces on the balls of her feet, her hand making quick work of the signs. Can I have an apple?

  “He doesn’t understand,” I tell her. “She’s asking for an apple,” I explain.

  Gowan grins, and roots in his pocket for the biggest, juiciest-looking one, and then throws it high up into the sky. Nori opens her mouth in a hideous gaping grin, turning from doll to gargoyle as she runs back and forth, trying to see where it will land.

  Gowan doesn’t flinch at the sight of her mouth, wide open and rotten. He smiles, and I stare at him. He didn’t flinch. He’s smiling… I smile a tiny smile in return and turn back to Nori.

  The apple falls a few feet away from her reaching hands, and she runs to get it, laughing silent laughs.

  “It’s good to see you,” Gowan says, watching Nori.

  [LIAR.]

  I want to believe him. He’s still laughing, throwing apples for Nori to run and catch. He isn’t paying attention to me. In that moment, I wish I could be like them. I wish I could ignore what’s happening at La Baume and Python Wood and the dead garden. But this house, this land, is just… wrong. Not in any small way either, but in the very makeup of it. It’s like the garden is dying because the manor has a kind of scar or cancer or something. I should have known it the second it got Aunt Cath. I want to be able to talk to her about it, but those days are gone. Besides, I tried and look what happened. Crazy talk and a lifetime of hate. Even if she talked to me again, why would I be stupid enough to think that she would make any more sense than she did last time?

  hopeless.

  Such a pretty word, for what it means.

  h o p e l e s s n e s s.

  I let the word drift in my mind, like an unmanned canoe on a slow-running river.

  [LEAVE THEM TO THEIR PLAY,] the cynical me thinks. [USELESS, POINTLESS PLAY.]

  I come to my senses as Gowan throws an apple for me. I miss, my hands slow and languid, and it falls into the dead-ash dirt.

  “Never mind,” Gowan says, picking it up and dusting it off before handing it to me. “For you.”

  Cursed. Tainted. Spoiled. Ruined. Defective. Wrong. No.

  I take the apple, but the cavity in my tooth beats in painful little pulses. I don’t want to put anything in my mouth. Don’t want to mention the cavity because what can they do except drag me kicking and screaming through the woods and to a dentist?

  No. I’ll knock the thing out myself if I have to. After what I saw… think I saw…

  Nori skips over. Try it! Oh, Silla, try it! It’s so good, so sweet, I love apples!

  I raise the thing to my lips—No, I Don’t Want To—and open my mouth. The apple hovers there in front of my teeth, and Nori claps her hands. I get the strongest notion that this is a Snow White kind of moment, life-and-death curse and all, and I let the apple drop.

  [HUNGRY. I AM SO HUNGRY.]

  Poison. Sleep. Death. Curse. Wrong. Stop.

  “Not hungry,” I say, smiling so that the horrible expression of confusion will just get off Gowan’s face and he’ll go back to focusing on Nori.

  He shrugs. “No problem. More for us!”

  Nori squeals silently. He can’t tell, but I can, and for once I’m glad of her silence, but her hands blare joy and I shudder.

  Then I despise myself.

  UNNOTICED BY ALL

  The floorboards crack and splinter. I hear them from high up here in the attic, through the planks of wood under my feet. I stop my pacing to listen. They break and fracture, bending down and inward. Tiny screams as the fibers shatter. A plank bends inward, and then another, splitting and falling away.

  I can’t hear its impact, and I know it is back. This house… this evil old house.

  A small, insignificant hole appears in the entrance hall.

  It goes unnoticed by all, except for me.

  And I don’t say a word.

  Silla Daniels. Presilla Mae Daniels. This is my name. It is real, and so am I.

  Silla Mae Daniels? Present!

  I don’t say La Baume.

  What’s the point?

  La Baume is a shadow, a cage, a sketch, a lie.

  I tear the piece of paper off and burn it in the candle. Then I catch my reflection in the mirror.

  “What are you looking at?”

  6

  i had loved her

  One, two, three, four

  will you open up the door?

  five, six, seven, eight

  he wants you to feed your hate.

  It’s wrong that Gowan isn’t baking in the sun. Instead, the misty gray of the day settles around us as he tills the ash with a long garden fork and I watch him do it.

  “You were right about the garden,” he comments, wiping nonexistent sweat from his brow. “It’s not been cared for in a while.”

  I bite back a retort, since I’ve been trying to tend to it for months. He’ll see soon enough. Idiot.

  “Soil’s dry,” he adds. “Not been much rain, I suppose.”

  I shake my head.

  He stares at me all the time. Ever since he started coming every day. It’s like having a constant flame at my back. His eyes are full of impossible context, and I keep thinking: You don’t know me. And then I think: You are beautiful. So achingly beautiful. It hurts to look at you.

  “You seem to have pixies,” he says wryly, and when I turn to look where he’s indicating, I see Nori skipping around at the other end of the garden, two twigs behind her ears, her body hunched over and her hands clawed. She has lifted up the back of her dress to hook over the twigs and she is doing a weird kind of hopping dance. For once, her arm suits her.

  I snort, the laughter bursting out of me unexpectedly. I blink with surprise, and test out my smile again. It still works.

  Gowan’s smile is bright and wide and his eyes turn from glass to crystal.

  I grin at him, but then the horrible feeling comes, like it always does, and I turn away, frowning.

  He looks surprised. “It’s okay to laugh, you know. Come on, Silla,” he adds when I don’t look at him, but move farther away. “It’s okay,” he says, and then I hear his spade slicing the earth.

  I don’t say anything because he’s got fire inside him for sure, and fire burns.

  Later, when we are gathered in the kitchen—me making the last of the oats for Nori (though she prefers the apples), and Gowan washing off the ash-soil with tight lips—the light begins to fade quickly.

  Gowan looks out the window and bows his head over the towel he’s drying his hands with. “I should go.”

  Nori signs, Let him stay, Silla! Let him stay!

  I sigh, and Gowan turns to me with a frown. “Everything okay?”

  Nori whips her head between us, her eyes as wide and manic as her smile.

  I sigh and pinch the bridge of my nose. “Nori wants you to stay,” I say. “For dinner,” I add quickly.

  He smiles at her and puts the tea towel back on the rack without looking. “Is that right? Well, I’d have to get permission from the lady of the house, wouldn’t I?”

  Nori grins at me, and then nods enthusiastically at him.

  I fold my arms. “That would be Cath, then, wouldn’t it?”

  “Well, she’s infirm. I’d say that leaves… you.” He nods at Nori in a two-person conspiracy against me. “Right?”

  She grins. Mutiny, more like.

  “Fine. Then stay. We have”—I check the remaining apples—“two apples and some god-awful oats that expired months ago. Gourmet meals, here.”

  He reacts to the hardness in my eyes with a sheepish smile, but Nori doesn’t notice.

  I’m full, she signs. Can I go play?

  I nod stiffly at her, and she runs off, grinning back at me. Gowan watches her go.

  “Was it something I said?”
>
  “She said she’s full and she wants to go play.”

  “More for us, then. How about it? An apple each, stale oats, and some water?”

  I sigh. “Does anything dampen your spirits?”

  He shrugs. “Not really, no.”

  I roll the apple around in my hand, listening to Gowan chew his. His oats are still waiting, and I don’t see how any of this is appetizing to him.

  “So, how long have you been here?” he asks around a cheek full of apple.

  “Around three years.” It feels much longer.

  “I never found out what ‘La Baume’ means,” he muses.

  “It’s an old word. It means something like ‘the grotto.’ Appropriate. It’s pretty grotty all right.”

  “So… what happened to Cath? She was, well, normal last time I checked.”

  I don’t bother to answer the question. Talking is tiring, and the subject is depressing.

  “I should go up to see her.” Surprisingly, he seems more alarmed by the prospect than I am. Is it because he remembers her one way—matronly, or motherly?—and doesn’t want to see how she’s changed? He must assume she has, given that she won’t leave the attic, and I’ve told him she’s lost it completely.

  “You should leave,” he says suddenly, putting his half-eaten apple down and breaking into my thoughts. “You should take Nori and just leave.”

  “That’s your professional gardening advice, is it?”

  “Silla, anyone could see you’ll starve unless you go. There’s no shop in town anymore. We could go to London—”

  “Never.”

  “Or north? Anywhere else.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Think of Nori.”

  “I do,” I snap, scraping my chair back as I stand. “I think of her every day. And we’re not leaving.”

  He sighs. “Just… think about it, Silla. I don’t understand what’s stopping you.”