And the Trees Crept In(12)

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.