by Jeff Wheeler
Mama was dead. All because of me.
* * *
I didn’t want to go to the funeral. The tree had been her executioner. When Papa told me where she was to be buried, I realized it was also her tombstone.
“Don’t make me go! Please,” I begged.
“Don’t you want to say good-bye to your mama?” Papa asked. “That’s why people have funerals. To say good-bye, ni?” His voice was like a tired old man’s. His cheeks were sunken, and his eyes aged with worry lines.
If they had buried Mama in the cemetery in the churchyard like anyone else, I wouldn’t have minded. But the minister wouldn’t allow it. I was too young to understand why, only that it had something to do with hallowed ground and her not being baptized. Instead, they buried her under the immense apple tree.
I didn’t know my mother had so many friends until the funeral. Women showed up in elegant black dresses and pillbox hats, looking like ghosts of another era. Men shuffled around, as tall as trees and just as silent.
Even with the heavy stink of roses and ladies’ perfume, the damp earth and decaying fruit couldn’t be drowned out. I tucked my chin down under the collar of my coat and hid my face to keep the bad air out. An apple plopped onto the fallen leaves next to my foot and burst into mush.
I hugged Papa’s legs. During the entire service, the air felt so thick I thought I would suffocate. Every time I blinked, I saw the startled look on Mama’s face when I’d broken the spell of magic. Every pink apple on the ground, bruised and marred, reminded me of her arm not quite covered by her cloak, covered in blood and bruises.
As soon as they lowered her coffin into the ground, the air changed. The out-of-season perfume of roses faded under the autumn scent of decaying leaves and decomposing apples. The shadows thickened, and trees creaked around us despite the lack of wind. I wasn’t the only one who heard it. Townsfolk looked around.
Another apple plopped to the ground and then another. A nervous laugh erupted out of the crowd.
An immense crack echoed through the air, and a branch snapped in half. People dived out of the way as it fell. But the minister’s wife was struck on the head and died on the spot.
The tree had been my mother’s executioner. Then it became her tombstone. Now it wanted to kill others.
* * *
A few months later it was poor Mrs. Monroe, who died of food poisoning from the apples she picked, then after another year, it was the minister’s sons. With the two teenage boys, their death was caused by falling out of the tree. That’s what the sheriff surmised from the torn sweater in the tree and both boys concussed on the ground. They might have lived if not for the internal hemorrhaging.
The summer I turned eight, it was an old man ravaged by wolves. At least, that’s what they said. I thought it more likely it had been the tree. The winter after that, someone was stabbed by an icicle falling from the apple tree.
“It must be a coincidence,” Papa said. “Your mother loved those woods. I can’t believe her leshii are hurting people.”
He hadn’t seen what I had.
* * *
When I turned twelve, my world changed. At first it was small things like seeing lights dancing on cloudy, moonless lights. Then it was the whispering trees that I could almost understand. Under the surface of my skin, my nerves felt on fire. My palms burned with energy. I had to wear two pairs of socks inside my boots to keep my feet from feeling the vibrations of music coming up from the mud-caked earth that made me want to dance. By the time I was fifteen, it was all I could do not to let my feet carry me into the woods on the way to and from school.
Every day I fought the urge. This day was no different.
I stared at my hands in the dishwater, opening and closing my fists in the hope the tingle would go away. Fleeting wisps of relief washed over my skin when I plunged my hands into the sudsy water. The water grew tepid as I stood there, lost in my own world. I closed my eyes and willed myself not to think about the lure of the lush shadows, of the trees whispering my name, or of the tugging under my breastbone.
“It’s the vila in you,” Papa said with a wink. I knew he was going to talk about Mama before the words escaped his mouth from the way his eyes lit up. “Your mama had it in her too. Anthousa was special. Different. People didn’t understand her. But I did.”
I rolled my eyes. I was tired of his fairy stories from the old country that didn’t fit into the American world we lived in. I pretended I didn’t believe them. And if I kept on pretending, I might be able to make them not true.
Papa went back to clearing off the table. He stooped like an old man and shuffled along without energy. I doubted his eyes would have been so dull or his cheeks so sunken if Mama had still been alive. I submerged my hands in the water and slumped against the sink. The tingle was still there.
Twigs from outside tapped on the windowpane, the rhythm more enticing than the songs on the radio other teenagers danced to.
Papa leaned against the counter beside me. He spoke in Ukrainian, the words lilting over the percussion on the glass.
I gritted my teeth. “Speak English. We live in America.”
“Yes, my little flower.” He stroked my dark hair away from my eyes. “You have her eyes and hair. Every day that passes, you’re more like your mama.”
I thought of the tree and her last moments. All my sorrow and melancholy swelled up inside me and exploded into rage.
“I’m not like her!” I shouted. “I’m not going to be like her.”
I left the kitchen and slammed the porch door behind me. I meant to cool off in the balmy night, but my feet kept going down the steps and past the driveway. I crunched over dried clods of dirt.
I didn’t know where I was going when I set out, but as I passed our field and the neighbor’s, the forest loomed closer. I forced myself to slow.
The trees shushed lullabies in the wind. “Closer. Come closer. Closer,” they said.
My heart felt as though it were being pulled by a string. I would not go to the woods. I would stop when I reached the edge and turn back. I just needed to cool off. It wasn’t right to take out my anger on my father. He was trying to share the only bits of happiness left in him that hadn’t yet melted away.
When I reached the edge of the trees, I found my way barred by hazard tape. A sign nailed to a tree warned me to keep out. I stepped back, but pain stabbed into my heart and made my breath come out in a gasp. When I eased forward, I felt well again.
I pushed aside the tape and squeezed through.
I didn’t doubt that the tree called me here to kill me. I could hear him speaking in his foreign tongue of snaps and pops. The words reminded me of the Ukrainian language my father spoke, yet this was rougher, more gravelly. The tone was sharp and full of sinister intent. Ferns brushed against my bare ankles, and overgrown weeds caressed my arms. A chill shivered down my spine despite the balmy air. I would be like the child who had died last season. I would not be like my mother.
* * *
Old Mr. Shevchenko had once owned the land, before his house had been foreclosed. For years there had been talk of bulldozing the woods or selling the land to a rich developer from out of town. It would have made my mother sad, but I wasn’t my mother. It didn’t make me sad. I was disappointed the bank didn’t follow through and sell the land. Sure, bad things happened to loggers who tried to cut down the trees, and it made people afraid to go in to bulldoze. It made me angry when they let the trees spook them away.
Especially now that I was about to be the next victim.
Turn away, I told myself. I wanted to run back, but my feet weren’t my own. My heart thumped in my chest, a beating drum to accompany the melody of creaking wood and rustling leaves all around me. My throat itched, and I cleared it. All around me the trees hummed, and I wanted to join in. I wanted to sing. With all my will, I pressed my lips together.
The song of the apple tree grew louder as I approached. The words sounded more Ukrainian than ever. With eac
h step, the meaning became clearer.
“With their life blood I will fill,
For each one of them I kill.
Help me rise in power.
I need you, my flower.”
The tree serenaded me as though I were a long-lost lover. I stared, mesmerized. It was all true. My mother had been a witch from the old country with a gift for speaking with nature. I couldn’t deny what I’d seen in my youth had been real.
A leaf brushed against my cheek, and I slapped it away.
Brown apples from six months before quivered on the ground. Each joined in a high-pitched chorus calling out to me. White blossoms shifted and rained down like snow. The intoxicating aroma of magic and the apple vanenyky my mother used to make coaxed me closer. It lulled me into complacency. I brushed my fingers against the map of crevices in the tree’s bark.
Is this what it had been like for my mother the night she died? I yanked my hand back. I wouldn’t let myself fall under the leshii’s spell.
Stepping away was like walking through mud. My heart clenched with pain. I drew in a shaky breath and made myself back up another step.
“No, no, no! Do not go!” the rotten apples cried. A shriveled one rolled toward my foot.
I kicked at it and stumbled a few paces back. I choked on the overly sweet stench of fruit.
It was easier to breathe once I dragged myself out of woods.
I ran back home and vowed I would never return to the forest no matter how much it called to me. It was time to put a stop to the dark magic that dwelled there.
* * *
The trees had to go.
I was only a kid, but I knew something had to be done. I went to the town hall meetings and talked to people. The adults discussed stupid things like the need for new heating in the school or the problem the pesticides from the farms caused in the water table. Every time I stood up to talk about the woods and how dangerous they were, people exchanged nervous glances and whispered.
Finally the minister approached me privately and suggested I start a petition. His face was a stiff mask, like he didn’t want me to see what was beneath, but I read the tortured anguish in his gray eyes even if he wouldn’t meet my gaze. If anyone had suffered as much as my father and me, it would be him with the loss of his wife and then twin sons.
I was seventeen, nearly through my senior year of high school, when I collected signatures for my petition. When I presented them to the city council, the elderly group of men and women shook their heads like I was crazy.
“Those trees are dangerous. This is a public safety hazard,” I said. “I’ve compiled a list of all the people who have died there in the last eleven years. A total of thirteen since my mother’s death.”
The minister’s spine stiffened at the mention of my mother.
“We have signs up,” the mayor said.
“We warned your mother not to go there,” someone in the audience said.
I lifted my chin. “I’m not the only one who thinks we should flatten that land and get rid of the danger. I have three hundred and forty-six signatures of people who also would like us to get rid of the woods.”
“We appreciate your concern, but we can’t bulldoze it anymore,” said Mayor Horobets.
“Why not?” I asked.
The mayor’s stiff smile turned to ice. “The problem, you see, is that it isn’t public land anymore. We just sold it. The new owner won’t let us bulldoze.”
“Yeah?” I imagined some big corporation must have snatched up the land. Wouldn’t they want to flatten it so they could build a McDonalds and make this a real American town? “Who owns it now?” I asked.
The minister crossed his arms. His mouth flattened into a grim line. “Your father.”
* * *
“You let me humiliate myself, collecting signatures for a petition while you bought up the property out from under my nose?” I shouted. “You made me look like a . . .” I stammered, trying to think of the right word. One of his Ukrainian ones came to mind. “Like a duren.”
Papa sat in his chair facing the television. Intermittent static punctuated the I Love Lucy rerun. He took a slow sip of homemade samogon. “I told you to leave the trees be.”
“How could you afford that land? You can’t even buy the new tractor we need.”
He waved a hand in the air, the gesture floppy from the strong drink. “Tak, tak. Forget about the tractor. Jak skazaty . . . ? I have already sold our farm.” His words slurred together. He wove in and out of Ukrainian like his words were made of thread. “Vybačte. Soon we will move into a trailer on new property. Ja tebe kohaju.”
“And you planned to tell me this when?” I threw up my hands in exasperation. “Why do you have to ruin my life?”
He stood up, taking me by the shoulders and stooping to look me in the face. His breath smelled like sour jam, the samogon heavy on his breath. “I’m not ruining your life. I’m saving it. Jak skazaty . . . ? Your mother wouldn’t have wanted her trees destroyed, ni?”
I pulled away from him. “What do those stupid trees have to do with me? I’m not my mother.”
“You will be like her someday. Hmm? You must make peace with the trees.”
“No. I won’t. I saw the trees the night she died. They murdered her.” All because of me. Because I’d interrupted their magic.
“Ni! I don’t believe that.” Papa crossed his arms and returned to his easy chair. “I visit her grave, and the leshii don’t hurt me.” He waved a hand at his drink. “I collect the apples, and I am not poisoned.”
That was debatable. The samogon would kill him eventually.
“Dig your own grave, then.” I stuck my nose in the air. “I have nothing more to say to you.”
* * *
The next few weeks were intolerable. Every day, the trees beckoned. The minister went missing. He was eventually found dead under the tree. A can of gasoline lay next to him. A soggy book of matches remained in his pocket.
I lived in the same house with my father, but we never spoke. Or I didn’t speak to him anyway. The day I graduated from high school I left and decided I would never go back.
* * *
I left for a college town two hours away. The moment I stepped off the bus I felt like I was in a different world. There were new cars and paved streets with sidewalks. People talked on cell phones, and there was even a Walmart. It was all so . . . American. The buzz of people drowned out the whispers of the plants next to buildings.
I’d found the youth hostel online using the school computer and planned to stay there until I could afford an apartment. I needed a job and applied for thirteen different positions: cashier at the grocery store, clerk in the library, and so on. It was the Christian bookstore that hired me.
I smiled at the irony of that. My mother hadn’t even been allowed to be buried in hallowed ground. Would my mother have disapproved? I didn’t know and I didn’t care.
Margie, my new boss, helped me find a closet-sized studio that someone at her church rented out to college kids. A month after being hired, Margie asked if I’d like to go to church with her on Sundays. I wasn’t sure I wanted to go, but I didn’t know how to say no. Outside the building, people smiled and introduced themselves. They weren’t like the folk back home. These people were friendly.
Going to church, I felt like an imposter. Yet, I didn’t burst into flames when I stepped inside, and the minister didn’t scowl at me. I liked how quiet it was inside during the service. People sang with normal human voices. I didn’t trust myself to sing and kept my lips sealed together.
After church services, Margie and her husband introduced me to young people my age. There were so many in her church, it was almost the size of my old town. Every week she introduced me to someone new.
“You should join the youth group. There’s so many people your age,” she said in that Pollyanna way of hers.
“People my age,” I repeated. Yeah, I had plenty of experience with them. They were nicer when adults wer
e around. And then they whispered about you and called you, “devil girl” or “suka” to your face.
After my first week of classes in September, Margie steered me over to a cute college-aged boy with dark hair that fell into his eyes. “Have you met Lucas yet?” she asked.
“Um, no,” I said.
“Yes,” he said.
Margie flipped her silver-blond hair over her shoulder. “Oh? When?”
“Biology 101.” He toed the ground with a sneaker.
“That’s a big class. Where do you sit?” I asked.
“In the back. You sit in the front. Not that I was staring or anything.”
Another young man slapped him on the back. “Foot in mouth much, bro?” The boy laughed, and Lucas’s face turned red.
I didn’t know why I kept going back to church. I supposed it was peaceful there, like that one moment I had felt in the woods before everything had gone wrong. And maybe a small part of me—a big part of me?—wanted to prove I wasn’t weird. I wasn’t going to die a horrible death by an evil magical tree. My life could be peaceful and boring and normal.
I was not my mother.
Only, I suspected I was. Margie told me I had a magic touch with the displays. I jumped when she said it.
“I think you mean a talent,” I corrected. “Not magic.”
“Silly goose, you know what I mean! Look at how you draw people to look at those pretty arrangements you make.” She nodded to the window where I’d set up the books on top of a table. A fake branch of autumn leaves poked out of a vase with a giant cross on it. I didn’t mind the plastic branches. They didn’t vibrate with energy in the same way real trees did. They didn’t speak to me like when I walked by the towering alders that lined the sidewalks on campus.
Margie’s husband, Rick, strolled by and heard us talking. “Not saying you don’t do a swell job decorating the place, hon, but I have a feeling it ain’t your book displays that are bringing them in.” He nodded to a young man watching us through the window.
It was Lucas. He blushed when he caught my eye and hurriedly walked away.
