And the Trees Crept In

by Dawn Kurtagich

  eerie

  indoor

  mist.

  “Eleanor!”

  I scream, rushing on, but the trees are growing and before I can even think, she is in that thing’s arms, her own

  around

  his

  neck

  and he has carried her off into the depths of La Baume, which is now the thickest part of Python Wood.

  I step forward—get her back, get her back!—right into the yawning black hole.

  BOOK 5:

  Rooted Fire

  Three little girls

  knelt by an alder

  to summon a man

  to be their protector.

  the little girls found

  their game hard to bear

  when their protector turned

  and gave them a scare!

  20

  kansas

  Hold on tight

  we’re going for a ride

  toward a light

  on the other side!

  BROKEN BOOK ENTRY

  Okay, fine. I’m a little afraid. So? I’m even angry. But anger and fear aren’t going to feed her. To clothe her. I could even argue that he’s the one who might kill her. But relying on someone—anyone—is useless. I know that now. It’s one of the many mistakes I’ve made. Day turns into night turns into day, and still I wait. Waiting is pointless. And it’s too late to go now.

  Memories come.

  I am five, wearing a yellow skirt that I will love fiercely and keep until it becomes so short that Mam calls it obscene and burns it.

  A straw doll at seven, which I pretend to love to please her.

  A sunset on my eighth birthday when Father locked me out of the house.

  Nori’s birth when I am ten.

  My pride.

  My terror.

  Some things pass with a storm, loud and vexing. Full of drama. They are delightfully, dramatically disruptive. They blunder past like shouts of thunder and shrieks of lightning, and are always a brilliant spectacle.

  Other things whisper by.

  So it is that Gowan saves me from the Stygian pit.

  I wither in his arms, like a wilted flower. And I shudder.

  “I lost her. I lost her.”

  Maybe he knows I am falling away from him, because he holds me firmly and kisses me fervently, trying to rouse me from the haze Nori’s abduction has left me in.

  He got her.

  I shake my head, squeezing my eyes shut against the awful afterglow of that image. Nori, her hand in his, walking away with him.

  She went with him.

  It’s over.

  Everything is over.

  All over.

  All gone.

  I lost her.

  I close my eyes and lose myself.

  I wake to a new world.

  My head aches, and as Gowan helps me up, I can’t, at first, recall why I feel so scared.

  “What happened?”

  “You nearly walked into that hole. I pulled you back but you were freaking out a bit and you knocked your head.”

  I can feel the bump.

  And then it comes back.

  “Nori, oh God—”

  “She’s gone. He took her into the… woods.”

  “What do you mean into the woods—they were down the corridor, just there—”

  I point and then freeze. Because the corridor is not a corridor. La Baume is utterly changed. The trees that were holding us under siege have now penetrated the walls entirely, growing in from I don’t know where, twisting and tangling like those roots upstairs that stole Cathy away. They are growing through the house, out of the walls, through the floors, up to the ceiling, draped in thick moss.

  We are invaded.

  The entire manor is an eerie forest, too still to be real, fallen leaves landing on wooden floorboards and Persian rugs, trunks towering up into and through the ceilings, branches skimming paintings.

  La Baume is laughing at me. But the laughter is silent, slow, and eerie. I am on the ground floor, facing the corridor that Nori vanished down. Only now it is a forest path, carpeted and surreal. I recognize the paintings that hang from the branches as those that were on the walls.

  “This… isn’t happening.”

  The floor—the wooden floorboards—are now draped with roots thicker than my arm. I take a step into this strange manor-wood and feel my breath catch. I turn to Gowan.

  “This can’t be… real.”

  Gowan stares into the trees. “I don’t think we’re exactly in Kansas anymore.”

  “I have to get Nori back. I have to.… He’s got her.”

  For a moment, the world closes in—too overwhelming to live in—but then Gowan’s hands are wrapped around mine and I know I can do this.

  “I’m going to find her. Find the answer. This is some kind of family… thing. A debt, maybe. A curse. So, basically, it’s all connected to Cath, to Nori. And me.”

  “Are you ready?”

  I nod.

  He lifts a hand and points down the corridor. Into the woodland path that stretches into… I don’t know where.

  “That way.”

  I have no choice. No more running. It is no longer an option. I’ve hidden in this damned house for too long, afraid of the trees and of… him. Well, now the trees are here, and he’s got Nori, and hiding is not a choice. I am Silla Mae Daniels. I am sane. I am afraid.

  I get to my feet.

  And when I take my first step into the void, Gowan takes one beside me.

  The house all but disappears into this eerie wood. It is too still to be any conventional forest, too creepily silent. There are no birds here. There is no breeze. No real life. Here and there, I spot a wall sconce protruding from one of the trunks and I know that I am in La Baume and maybe this is all just a messed-up delusion. Did I take some kind of drug—LSD maybe? Am I still back in London, hallucinating the hell out of my mind?

  We walk for a long time, looking for signs, searching the carpet and bracken for footsteps, but there is nothing.

  Cath is gone. And still I hear the creaking.

  Only now, it’s the boughs above us. The floorboards beneath us. My stomach even creeeaaaks as it growls. It’s like I’m turning to wood along with everything else.

  And the mold is still growing on me. And I still smell rotting meat.

  “The smell,” I say on the third day. “It’s getting stronger.”

  He nods. “Yeah. I can smell it now.” He glances over at me. “Wait. Sit down. You’re practically falling over.”

  I shake my head.

  “I want to ask you something. I’ve wanted to ask you something.”

  I’m so tired.

  “Tell me about your mother.”

  I bite my tongue and sit down on the mossy, stinky carpet.

  After a pause, Gowan sighs. “You always do that.”

  “What?”

  “Whenever I mention your mother, your face changes. I know you lied to me before. I know that wasn’t the whole story. What are you hiding, Silla? Why won’t you talk to me?”

  “Because you’re… I don’t know.” Too good.

  “You can’t call me unimportant or a stranger or whatever line you have in your head. Not after everything we’ve been through.”

  I stare at him. “It’s just the opposite.… You’re just another thing to hurt me.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Just leave me alone.”

  I struggle to my feet and walk away.

  “No! No, I won’t skulk off this time.” He takes my shoulders into his hands. “You have to talk to me. You can’t keep running away from me!”

  “Why not?” I yell, my voice barely carrying beyond my face.

  “Because I’m in here with you and I’m helping you and I love you!”

  I try to shake him off with some violence. “Then so much the worse for you!”

  He holds me tighter. “What happened to make you so cold? Cold as stone! Your
heart is like a rock in there, drumming against your body and breaking everything inside!”

  “Yes!” I shriek. “Yes, it is! I got that from my father, my wonderful, abusive father—happy now?”

  “No, I’m not, because you’re still hiding!” Gowan takes a breath. “All of this,” he says, gesturing around us. “It’s to do with you. Cath is gone. If she was to blame, then surely this would have stopped. It would be over, right?”

  “Firstly,” I snap, “what logic are you using here? Is this something you have prior experience with? Are you following the cursed-mansion-haunted-woods-child-stealing-creature handbook?”

  He gives me a pained expression.

  “Second,” I say, talking louder when it looks like he’ll try to interrupt. “How do you know that Cath vanishing wouldn’t just leave everything like this forever? How do you know that her”—death death death—“disappearance isn’t part of the puzzle?”

  His eyes burn me. “I don’t. We don’t know anything.”

  “Exactly.” Our lips are close now. So close.

  “But I do know this,” he persists, his breath caressing my lips. “I know you’re hiding something. You’re carrying around a secret, Silla Daniels, and it’s eating you alive.”

  His words stop me in my tracks. Suspicion pulses inside me. Howdoesheknow? Howdoesheknow?

  It’s eating you alive.

  “What are you talking about?”

  He leans even closer to me and the shadow of a thick branch falls over his face like a shroud. “I can see it in your face. It’s like a weight pulling down your features. It’s dragging you into the earth.”

  I snort. “Melodramatic much?”

  He lets go of my shoulder and touches my cheek, and his words are soft. “Come off it, Silla. Let me help you.”

  “Gowan,” I whisper, our lips touching ever so slightly. “Let me go.”

  “Silla, please,” he breathes, closing his eyes. “Please don’t do this to me.”

  “Let me go. Let me go, let me go—”

  And he does. He lets me go, even though I can see in his face everything inside him is bursting to keep me. Love and hope are warring with despair, all on his beautiful face. He wants to help me, to love me, and to save me. I recall his words on those green pages; I hate what I’m doing to him. But he’s an idiot because you can’t save someone from herself.

  “Stop trying!” I yell at him, as though he knows what I mean.

  I walk some feet away from him and then collapse into a puddle because my legs can’t hold me anymore and the weight on my shoulders is too heavy to carry much farther.

  I’m just another rock on a forest floor.

  “I can’t,” I say at last.

  He stays still, breathing heavily. Waiting.

  “It’s too hard.”

  “Too hard to keep inside of you, Sill. It’s going to break you if you don’t let it go.”

  “My mother… my… she…” I pause. Wipe my face. “When we first got here, Nori had a broken collarbone and arm. It’d been healing for a few weeks, a month maybe, and…” I squeeze my eyes shut. Can’tdothiswon’tdothis—

  I feel his hand on my fist, warm and sturdy.

  “I told Cath it was a birth defect.”

  “So you left Nori’s arm to heal askew.”

  “Yes. Her teeth, too. I… I left her to be a cripple with messed-up teeth and now I’m paying for it.”

  To prove it, I bite down on the loose tooth in the back of my mouth and spit it out, blood and drool on my chin.

  Gowan swallows. “Why lie? Why protect your father?”

  “I didn’t want to, but telling the truth would have meant accepting the other truth. I was safe for the first time in forever, and I didn’t want to leave. Didn’t want to admit—”

  I shake my head, and my body retches as my mind skims the edge of the truth.

  He’s still standing behind me, some way off. “Tell me,” he says.

  “When we first got here and Cath asked me what happened, I… I told her a story. But… I can’t, Gowan. I can’t.”

  “Tell it to me. Tell it to me like a story, just like you did to Cath.”

  A Story

  Cause and Effect

  Silla Daniels learns about cause and effect in school.

  Cause: The blush of blue on Nori’s cheek. The shock of red on her lips. The snap of her collarbone when the father pushed. Her silent cry.

  Effect: A plan, over time. The stashed bag.

  Cause: Nori’s silent laugh, so full of sound. The sparkle in her eyes that, somehow, remains. The silent plea of the mother. Go. The teeth, broken and askew.

  Effect: The attempted escape.

  Nori is already awake when Silla removes their bag from its hiding place behind the loose boards in the wall. She watches, expectant, as Silla adds the good blanket to the bundle.

  Ready?

  Silla’s hands seem worried, so Nori smiles. Nods. Everything is going to be okay.

  Quiet as a mouse, Silla signs.

  Squeak! Nori signs. Smiles.

  Silla nods.

  The sisters tiptoe into the living room on the balls of their feet, shoes in Silla’s bag. Like a bird, Silla signs. Like air. Sssssshhhhhhh. Mam and Dad are sleeping in the middle of the floor again, a thin blanket tossed across his torso, hers draped close to his. Not too close. Just out of reach.

  Silla hesitates a moment. If this goes wrong… if she fails…

  One glance at Nori is enough to push her forward. The bruise, the cut lip, the way she holds her arm askew, shoulder raised. The terrible bend in her tiny collarbone, unnatural and awkward. So tiny—too tiny—to be so broken.

  Silla moves, her hand wrapped around Nori’s. They are traversing a minefield just as hazardous as the rumored ones out there in the war zone.

  Step.

  Stop. Listen.

  Step.

  Feel, stealth, shallow breath.

  Five more steps.

  Four.

  Nori is being careful, even with her shoulder.

  Three. Silla can see the door.

  Two.

  Something stirs.

  One.

  “What the bloody hell do you think you’re doing?”

  She slaps Silla.

  “Your father would beat you blue if he knew you were running off to be with some boy.”

  Silla’s cheek burns. It sings. “I’m going away from here. From you. And not for some boy.”

  Mam’s contempt drips like acid from a mouth stretched with age. She is grotesque, Silla suddenly realizes, because she was once beautiful. Beauty faded and embittered, marred by wounds so fierce that no scars remain, is the birthplace of the grotesque.

  “I’m taking Nori.”

  “And where do you imagine you’ll go? To Cath?” She dances a crazy singsong. “Crayyyy-zee Sil-la to crayyyy-zee Cath-ee.”

  “I should have taken her away a long time ago.”

  Mama moves very fast. Before Silla can blink, she has swooped down and lifted Nori into her arms.

  “To hell with you, then,” she whispers. “You’re fourteen. You can take care of yourself. Two peas in a pod you and Cath will be. But you leave my baby here.”

  Nori’s shoulder and collarbone bend at an awkward angle.

  “Look at your daughter!” Silla hisses. “Look at what he did to her arm. She can’t even use it properly! And you wouldn’t even take her to the hospital. You’re poison, both of you. And maybe Cath is crazy, and maybe I am, too, but if that’s true, then you’re to blame. You’re crazy if I ever saw madness, Mama. I love you, but you’re killing us!”

  And then, there she is.

  Silla’s mother. The real mother. The mother who loves her. The mother who wants to save her.

  Silla can see it in her eyes, which are shining with tears.

  “Take her,” Mam says, handing a pale Nori over. “Take her away. Now. Quickly—before he wakes. Before I forget, and change my mind! Go! Go!”
/>   Silla turns and runs, grabbing the bags on the way out.

  At the door she hear Mam’s whisper.

  “Take care of her like she was your own.”

  Silla and Nori run through the morning smog, directly for the train station.

  Cause: An unlikely ally.

  Effect: A successful escape.

  Gowan is sitting beside me on the forest floor now, holding my hand. He lets the silence grow for a moment, and then reins it in.

  “Okay. Now tell me the truth.”

  I open my mouth, and then I’m sobbing, shoulders heaving with each gasp. “Gowan, I—” The sobs take over.

  “You can,” he says, telling me a truth. “You can do it.”

  “I can’t open this again—”

  He kisses me on the cheek and whispers, “Slowly. Piece by little piece.”

  I suck in a breath, squeeze my eyes shut, and say it. “My mother… was carrying the getaway bag. She was coming with us. I was carrying Nori. We had to be quiet, more than quiet, or he’d wake up. We got as far as the living room, almost to the front door…”

  “And then he woke.”

  “… yes…”

  “And he was angry?”

  “Drunk and angry, but different, too… He was out of control. Seeing us trying to leave him was enough to push him over. Mam confronted him. She told him, ‘Stan, we’re going.’ And he grabbed her wrist. She threw me the bag, but before that she pulled free a hammer. One of Dad’s hammers. She raised it and told him to let her go. But he wouldn’t. She hit him on the head—over his eye, but she was small and frail—he grabbed the hammer from her and knocked her down. Nori was wedged in my arms, clinging to me. I just couldn’t move. I just stood there and stared as my mother fell.

  “Then Dad was on top of her, his hands… his hands around her neck. He was choking her. And then I did move, I ran forward to try to help—but she gurgled, ‘No!’ I saw what that cost her. I could see her eyes turning red—” I break off, retching, and the rest of my words are garbled together with my grief and my chokes and my sickness at myself, rushing from me in a tide. “He was killing her! She used her last breath to stop me from saving her, and her cry was so desperate. I looked her in the eyes and I saw her plea there: Run. She was telling me to take Nori and to run, and…