And the Trees Crept In(18)

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.