And the Trees Crept In

by Dawn Kurtagich

  He takes my chin and he forces me to look at the thing that is Nori.

  “I can’t!” I scream. “I can’t!”

  Gowan’s own cry does not block out my own; I hear him nonetheless. “You have to remember!”

  But it is too late.

  And I am falling.

  BOOK 6:

  Flaming Stone

  The truth of the tale

  reads between lines

  what can you see

  within those vines?

  the manor is tall

  the manor is wide

  the Creeper Man is

  the only divide.

  Do you know what grief feels like?

  Really feels like?

  Like this.

  28

  do you see?

  He knows when you slumber

  because that’s his domain

  he feels your fearful blunder

  in darkness he remains.

  BROKEN BOOK ENTRY

  The one thing I cling to now is the memory. The truth in memory. Doesn’t that mean something? Like, a memory will hold the truth even when everything else fails? While you wait for something that may not happen? It’s because of that memory, that truth, that I’ll wait forever. Mam’s voice. Circling the loom, dearie, is also a memory, and also the truth. Except she never called me “dearie.” Did she? Don’t think about it. You’ll get all turned around. Who does my mother think I am now? That is a question that might scare me if I think too hard about it. What does your memory do for you? What does your mother think of you?

  1980: “Where is she, Pammy? Tell me, now!”

  Pamela shakes her head, her lips quivering. They part and a stuttering of sound staggers out. “I—I—I—I—”

  Catherine grabs her shoulders roughly. “Pamela, where is Anne?”

  Her voice rings through the room and down the hall, louder than the storm outside. Papa left her in charge, and look what she has allowed to happen.

  “Sh-she said s-something about the woods, about her biggest fear—”

  “The woods? She went to the woods?”

  “I think so!”

  “Pamela, why did you let her go?”

  “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!”

  Pammy keeps screaming her sorrys but Catherine is already running down the stairs, out the front door, and into the storm.

  It’s bright. So bright that everything is white and painful.

  I blink, blink, blink—slowly the light fades.

  W h e r e a m I?

  I know this ceiling. I know the crumbling paint and the cobwebs and the patterns in the dried drips. I’m in bed. In my bed.

  Oh. I remember.

  It’s at least an hour before dawn, and I know they’ll be sleeping downstairs. She will have placed a blanket over him and put him into the recovery position, draping herself over him for warmth or comfort. Maybe she wants to try to remember the man he used to be, long ago when she was a girl and his lies were dreams she still believed in.

  I’m very quiet, because I’m not wearing my shoes. I hid them under my pillow for later, but forgot. I tiptoe over to Nori’s bed and quietly rouse her—just enough to sign that she has to be Quiet as a mouse.

  Squeak! she signs back, and then closes her eyes again.

  I lift her onto my hip and her head lolls on my shoulder.

  “Come on, bug,” I whisper, and carry her downstairs.

  I have to pass them to get to the door, but when I round the corner, I see Mam is awake. She is alone in the room, bent over her sewing, her aged hair falling in scratchy waves over her face.

  “Mam? Where’s Dad?”

  She looks up at me and smiles. “There you are. We were wondering when you’d come looking.”

  “What do you…” My voice trails off as I take in what she is doing. My body grows cold and I hug Nori tighter to me.

  Mam isn’t sewing her dress. And she’s not using cotton thread. It’s her hair. She’s sewing her hair into her leg.

  “Mam! What are you doing?”

  “War is coming, my girl.” Her eyes are full of sympathy. “Something very hard is coming.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  She keeps sewing, sewing, sewing. Her hands are bloody. It is slippery work.

  “You’ll have to be strong.”

  “Mam, stop this—”

  “Cathy is crazy, after all,” she says, smiling vacantly. “Just like you.”

  “I’m your daughter.” I choke on the word. “Why don’t you care about me?”

  She looks up from her terrible work, and her eyes are shining with moisture and light. “Oh, Silla… How could you have forgotten?”

  As I watch, her eyes change. They widen, then darken—the whites turning pink, then red, then vessels bursting as she stares at me. She is shaking—vibrating and swelling—as her eyes get darker and darker. Her mouth opens, and she mouths one word. Go.

  “Mam?”

  I am fourteen. Nori is in my arms, half-asleep. I am sneaking out of the house—running away to live with Auntie Cath, a woman we have never met, but have been told about. We are going to La Baume, a magical manor full of love and light. I am rescuing us from this house.

  Dad is asleep on the floor. The room smells like vomit and whiskey and beer. There are cans littered all over the room. Mam stirs beside him, raising her head. She sees what I am doing. Sees the bag in my trembling hand.

  She looks at me, right in the eye, and there is a profound connection, I think. Then she lowers her head slowly, careful not to wake the beast sleeping beside her, and I realize everything she is saying in that one motion.

  It’s okay. You can go. Leave me here with him. I forgive you.

  I head for the door, but I forget about the cans and I kick one. It spins over the carpet and hits the wall with a tinny sound, too loud. Far too loud.

  Dad groans, moves, raises his head. Sees us.

  Nori stirs.

  “Where the bloody hell do you think you’re going?” he says. His voice is loose gravel covered with phlegm.

  I freeze, clutching Nori to me tightly. She lifts her head, but I push it back down onto my shoulder. “Go to sleep.”

  Dad gets to his feet, revealing his bruised but muscled torso. He was in a bar fight again. There is dried blood on the side of his head and his left eye is swelling shut. Mam scrambles up and puts her hand on his arm.

  “Stan,” she says, forcing a gentle smile. “Come back to bed.”

  His hand is so fast. It whips out to grab her arm and he squeezes. She cries out and bends as he twists. “Stan!”

  “You’re in on this?” His head snaps to me again. “Is it a boy? Running off to be with some goddamn teenage runt?”

  I shake my head but it’s useless. He’s still drunk—I can hear it in his words. All I can think is, Nori. Hide Nori. Protect Nori. The last time he got like this, he broke Nori’s arm and collarbone. She spent weeks in agony until finally it is almost set, crooked and useless.

  Dad throws Mam away from him and a tiny oof escapes her. Then he rounds on me. I spin and put Nori down, standing in front of her.

  “Daddy, please—”

  I wince before the blow comes, knowing the look in his eyes. But it doesn’t come. I open my eyes to a sight I have never seen. Mam is on top of him, on his back, hitting his head with her tiny fists, growling and yelling and pulling on his hair. He spins, trying to get her off, this pesky feline creature. Her head whips back and forth, but she doesn’t stop hitting and tearing. She is wild.

  “Leave my babies alone!”

  But he is stronger.

  And he is bigger.

  I watch it almost in slow-motion, wanting to stop it. Wanting to change what is coming.

  He flips her off, and she crashes onto the floor with a sound louder than should be possible. Her back has shattered one of the beer bottles. Then he is on top of her, his hands around her neck, pressing, squeezing, his eyes wild and manic.

  �
�Stupid bitch!” he growls through his teeth.

  I spin and pick up Nori in her blanket again, pressing her head against my shoulder so she can’t see or hear. She is crying softly, shaking in my arms.

  Mam writhes under Dad, clutching at his hands and yanking desperately, her legs kicking out uselessly from underneath him. But she is so small and weak, yet brave and strong, too. Her movements grow weaker, fainter, and then her eyes swivel sideways, and meet mine.

  I am frozen—body lurching forward, then back to keep Nori safe, then forward to do—what?

  I watch the grotesque changes in color. Pink, red, purple shattered with blood vessels. Her whole face is changing.

  And then her lips move, and I see it. “Help.”

  This woman, who had seemed too weak and small and useless to me as I grew into a young woman, was strong. She had always been strong. The only one capable of holding us together for so long.

  And I do nothing.

  It seems to take forever, this moment. Something passes between us—infinite and universal. It is:

  Help me.

  I’m sorry.

  I forgive you.

  Save me.

  Don’t forget me.

  Remember.

  Remember.

  And now I do. I was fourteen when my father killed my mother, and I took my little sister and I ran. I remember it all.

  I stood.

  I saw.

  And I did—nothing.

  She asked me for help…

  and I did nothing.

  I’m so sorry.…

  I’m so sorry sorry sorry sorry useless coward useless sorry weak murderer killer coward weak sorry I’m sorry so sorry weak useless failure let you die never forgive hate myself useless weak coward stood there let it happen can’t bear this I’m broken I broke you you’re gone and broken and it’s my fault because I left you there I left you there I left—

  you to die.

  “Are you ready?” Gowan is beside me.

  My voice is a moth in a hurricane. “Ready for what?” I hug Nori tighter for comfort, but the blanket is empty in my arms. “What’s going on? Where’s Nori?”

  “You already know that. You’ll need to go somewhere very dark if you want to find her again.” The corners of his mouth fall, like he is trying not to cry for me. “Something very difficult is coming.”

  My mother’s words on his lips.

  What could be more difficult than this?

  SILLA DANIELS’S GUIDE TO THE DEMON’S LAIR

  1. Try not to look around.

  2. But if you must, look carefully.

  3. Watch out for tall, thin, creepy tree-men.

  4. Try to keep hold of your sister.

  5. If you lose your sister, follow the tinkling sounds.

  6. If you happen upon a cave

  7. DON’T GO INSIDE.

  8. Should you choose to ignore this advice, you are a very stupid person.

  9. You should probably go die now. You likely will by the end, anyway.

  Everything is dark. I don’t know where I am. I don’t care.

  My mind is full of cause and effect.

  Cause: A man beats his wife and his children.

  Effect: His children want to leave him.

  Cause: A mother loves her children.

  Effect: She dies to free them.

  Cause: A girl runs away, leaving her mother to be choked to death.

  Effect: A girl will hate herself forever.

  Cause: Memories are suppressed so the girl can survive.

  Effect: A girl grows a granite heart.

  Cause: A child summons a child demon.

  Effect: The next generation is haunted.

  Cause: The sins of the mother

  Effect: Are the sins of the daughter.

  “Something very hard is coming,” he says.

  The dark is so nice this time of day.

  Did you know I can draw?

  I could always draw, ever since I was a little kid.

  It’s my one talent, I guess. I used it to escape

  when Dad was bad or Mam was quiet.

  I used to draw these huge colorful pictures

  of gardens and flowers.

  I drew what I thought La Baume looked like,

  and then I would add a tiny version of me in a

  window somewhere, pretending I was there.

  Free.

  What a joke.

  Now all I use is black pen. It’s all I’ve got.

  But even if it wasn’t, it’s all I’m inclined to

  use. Black ink. Because even though it’s the

  most depressing thing to say, and even more

  depressing because it’s true—I don’t have any

  colors left in me. They’ve all been turned to mud. Color is like hope, you see.

  And I lost that a long time ago.

  La Baume

  Gowan crouches in the corner of the kitchen, counting shriveled, sprouting potatoes. He looks different somehow. Younger, maybe. Not as clean as usual. Cathy is standing nearby, her arms limp at her sides.

  “Gowan, what’s happening?”

  He doesn’t answer me. Doesn’t even look up. Instead, he looks at Cathy.

  “We need to get help,” he says, standing up. “This can’t go on.”

  This is La Baume. Another La Baume: Sunlight streaming into the kitchen, across the surfaces, warming the floor. The smell of flowers from a vase on the counter. That vase broke months ago.

  Cathy stares at nothing, her mouth hanging open.

  “Catherine,” Gowan snaps. “We. Need. Help.”

  She turns deadened eyes on him. “Why? We’re all dead, anyway.”

  Gowan sighs, squeezes the bridge of his nose, and stalks into the garden.

  And…

  I’m in the garden. Some other me. I look… different. I look… fresh. Young. Maybe not happy, but closer to it than I am now. My hair is a bright, luminous chocolate brown; there are no shadows beneath my eyes. I seem to have all my teeth. No mold in sight.

  And Nori!

  I rush forward, unthinking, everything inside me roiling and shifting urgently. Nori is playing in the flower bed, oblivious to Gowan and the other me. She is smiling—no, laughing. Silent laughter I haven’t seen in so long. My heart breaks with yearning.

  I turn back to Gowan in time to see him smile at her—me—and take her—my—hands.

  “I have to get help,” he says. “This can’t go on. People are leaving in droves. All this talk of another world war… I don’t know what’s true. But we have to act now or it’ll be too late.”

  She nods, but her words are pleading. “You don’t have to go… or… I could come with you.”

  “Stay here and take care of Nori. God knows Cathy won’t.” He pulls her close, embraces her. Whispers in her ear. “I love you, Silla Daniels.”

  “I love you,” she whispers back, tears falling from her eyes like I’ve never cried. Genuine, simple tears. Not a storm, nor a crisis.

  “I will love you forever,” he says, and my heart drops because those are the words—the words—he spoke to me that night in the not-forest. He pulls back then, enough to kiss her. Their passion burns so bright I have to turn away.

  And I see Gowan—my Gowan, dimmed, less, sad—watching from the gate. In his eyes, a quiet storm rages. He looks at me, and all I hear is

  Do you see?

  The garden sparkles in orange hues of sunset, the old wooden table draped with a pale cloth and sprinkled with bundles of dusty-pink roses from the garden. I smile at them, even though I wish Cath had just left them in the earth.

  So pretty.

  Cath made a cake and I take a slice from Gowan’s offering hand.

  “I like your nail polish,” I tell Cath, noting how it matches the roses. Her smile is so wide that a jolt of pleasure jumps through me.

  “Thank you, Silla dear.”

  But the smile doesn’t reach her eyes.

  “Shall we?” G
owan asks, indicating the garden.

  I grin, and we walk off alone, away from the light of the kitchen.

  “Did you see her nails?” I ask him when I sit down.

  “Pink?”

  I shake my head. “No… they were all messy, painted over her cuticles.”

  “I guess she had shaky hands.”

  “Gowan. There was some in her hair.”

  He shrugs. “Maybe she’s tired.”

  “It’s more than that. Something’s wrong with her. Can’t you see it?”

  He glances back at Cath, who stands with Nori in the kitchen doorway, smiling at us.

  “Maybe. I’m not sure.” He smiles at me. “But tonight, you’re all I care about, birthday girl. How about you eat your cake and make a wish?”

  I lean closer to him. “What if my wish had already come true?”

  He leans closer, too, kisses me tenderly. “Then wish for the impossible.”

  I eat the cake while he watches, and offer him the last piece. He opens his mouth and I pop it inside. He licks my fingers on the way out, eyes sparkling with mischief.

  “Tease,” he says.

  I hand him the plate. “Another?”

  He kisses me on the cheek and I giggle. “That’s more like it.”

  When he comes back, there are three pieces on my plate. “Two more for you, one for me.”

  It’s amazing cake. Moist and subtle, vanilla and raspberry. I am done with my third when Nori skips over. She puts down her plate and shows us what she is holding.

  Something dangles from her fist, the one attached to the bad arm, so it shakes a little with the strain of lifting it up to show us. Her mouth is covered in pink icing. More pink.

  Look, she signs, one-handed. Look!

  The thing swings like a fatty bit of raw bacon covered in cake.

  “What is that?” Gowan says, laughing with a frown.

  Worms! She laughs and digs into her piece of cake for another, while she holds the first.

  Everything s l o w s down around me.