And the Trees Crept In(19)

[THE TREES ARE COMING CLOSER.]

Yes.

I’m certain now. They are closer. They are. By several yards. And they may be taller… I can’t tell. They watch me. Their gaze is a touch on my back. Physical.

Something I can’t explain sets my teeth on edge. Nori is running for the trees. Again. The plate in my hand shatters on the floor, shards scattering like milk teeth.

“For God’s sake, Eleanor.”

By the time I reach her, she’s standing in front of Gowan at the very edge of Python Wood. I’m out of breath, startled and annoyed. But mostly, I’m… relieved. It’s so good to see him. To see anyone.

He looks up from where he kneels. “Hello.”

I nod, feeling the frosty air behind him.

“I brought some apples.”

And I can see them, bulging in his pockets. They are the green of neon, rich with color I haven’t seen in so long. A bag of garden tools dangles from his other hand. He really is going to work in the garden. Good luck.

Nori bounces on the balls of her feet, her hand making quick work of the signs. Can I have an apple?

“He doesn’t understand,” I tell her. “She’s asking for an apple,” I explain.

Gowan grins, and roots in his pocket for the biggest, juiciest-looking one, and then throws it high up into the sky. Nori opens her mouth in a hideous gaping grin, turning from doll to gargoyle as she runs back and forth, trying to see where it will land.

Gowan doesn’t flinch at the sight of her mouth, wide open and rotten. He smiles, and I stare at him. He didn’t flinch. He’s smiling… I smile a tiny smile in return and turn back to Nori.

The apple falls a few feet away from her reaching hands, and she runs to get it, laughing silent laughs.

“It’s good to see you,” Gowan says, watching Nori.

[LIAR.]

I want to believe him. He’s still laughing, throwing apples for Nori to run and catch. He isn’t paying attention to me. In that moment, I wish I could be like them. I wish I could ignore what’s happening at La Baume and Python Wood and the dead garden. But this house, this land, is just… wrong. Not in any small way either, but in the very makeup of it. It’s like the garden is dying because the manor has a kind of scar or cancer or something. I should have known it the second it got Aunt Cath. I want to be able to talk to her about it, but those days are gone. Besides, I tried and look what happened. Crazy talk and a lifetime of hate. Even if she talked to me again, why would I be stupid enough to think that she would make any more sense than she did last time?

hopeless.

Such a pretty word, for what it means.

h o p e l e s s n e s s.

I let the word drift in my mind, like an unmanned canoe on a slow-running river.

[LEAVE THEM TO THEIR PLAY,] the cynical me thinks. [USELESS, POINTLESS PLAY.]

I come to my senses as Gowan throws an apple for me. I miss, my hands slow and languid, and it falls into the dead-ash dirt.

“Never mind,” Gowan says, picking it up and dusting it off before handing it to me. “For you.”

Cursed. Tainted. Spoiled. Ruined. Defective. Wrong. No.

I take the apple, but the cavity in my tooth beats in painful little pulses. I don’t want to put anything in my mouth. Don’t want to mention the cavity because what can they do except drag me kicking and screaming through the woods and to a dentist?

No. I’ll knock the thing out myself if I have to. After what I saw… think I saw…

Nori skips over. Try it! Oh, Silla, try it! It’s so good, so sweet, I love apples!

I raise the thing to my lips—No, I Don’t Want To—and open my mouth. The apple hovers there in front of my teeth, and Nori claps her hands. I get the strongest notion that this is a Snow White kind of moment, life-and-death curse and all, and I let the apple drop.

[HUNGRY. I AM SO HUNGRY.]

Poison. Sleep. Death. Curse. Wrong. Stop.

“Not hungry,” I say, smiling so that the horrible expression of confusion will just get off Gowan’s face and he’ll go back to focusing on Nori.

He shrugs. “No problem. More for us!”

Nori squeals silently. He can’t tell, but I can, and for once I’m glad of her silence, but her hands blare joy and I shudder.

Then I despise myself.





UNNOTICED BY ALL




The floorboards crack and splinter. I hear them from high up here in the attic, through the planks of wood under my feet. I stop my pacing to listen. They break and fracture, bending down and inward. Tiny screams as the fibers shatter. A plank bends inward, and then another, splitting and falling away.

I can’t hear its impact, and I know it is back. This house… this evil old house.

A small, insignificant hole appears in the entrance hall.

It goes unnoticed by all, except for me.

And I don’t say a word.





Silla Daniels. Presilla Mae Daniels. This is my name. It is real, and so am I.

Silla Mae Daniels? Present!

I don’t say La Baume.

What’s the point?

La Baume is a shadow, a cage, a sketch, a lie.



I tear the piece of paper off and burn it in the candle. Then I catch my reflection in the mirror.

“What are you looking at?”