And the Trees Crept In(20)

6


i had loved her



One, two, three, four

will you open up the door?

five, six, seven, eight

he wants you to feed your hate.



It’s wrong that Gowan isn’t baking in the sun. Instead, the misty gray of the day settles around us as he tills the ash with a long garden fork and I watch him do it.

“You were right about the garden,” he comments, wiping nonexistent sweat from his brow. “It’s not been cared for in a while.”

I bite back a retort, since I’ve been trying to tend to it for months. He’ll see soon enough. Idiot.

“Soil’s dry,” he adds. “Not been much rain, I suppose.”

I shake my head.

He stares at me all the time. Ever since he started coming every day. It’s like having a constant flame at my back. His eyes are full of impossible context, and I keep thinking: You don’t know me. And then I think: You are beautiful. So achingly beautiful. It hurts to look at you.

“You seem to have pixies,” he says wryly, and when I turn to look where he’s indicating, I see Nori skipping around at the other end of the garden, two twigs behind her ears, her body hunched over and her hands clawed. She has lifted up the back of her dress to hook over the twigs and she is doing a weird kind of hopping dance. For once, her arm suits her.

I snort, the laughter bursting out of me unexpectedly. I blink with surprise, and test out my smile again. It still works.

Gowan’s smile is bright and wide and his eyes turn from glass to crystal.

I grin at him, but then the horrible feeling comes, like it always does, and I turn away, frowning.

He looks surprised. “It’s okay to laugh, you know. Come on, Silla,” he adds when I don’t look at him, but move farther away. “It’s okay,” he says, and then I hear his spade slicing the earth.

I don’t say anything because he’s got fire inside him for sure, and fire burns.





Later, when we are gathered in the kitchen—me making the last of the oats for Nori (though she prefers the apples), and Gowan washing off the ash-soil with tight lips—the light begins to fade quickly.

Gowan looks out the window and bows his head over the towel he’s drying his hands with. “I should go.”

Nori signs, Let him stay, Silla! Let him stay!

I sigh, and Gowan turns to me with a frown. “Everything okay?”

Nori whips her head between us, her eyes as wide and manic as her smile.

I sigh and pinch the bridge of my nose. “Nori wants you to stay,” I say. “For dinner,” I add quickly.

He smiles at her and puts the tea towel back on the rack without looking. “Is that right? Well, I’d have to get permission from the lady of the house, wouldn’t I?”

Nori grins at me, and then nods enthusiastically at him.

I fold my arms. “That would be Cath, then, wouldn’t it?”

“Well, she’s infirm. I’d say that leaves… you.” He nods at Nori in a two-person conspiracy against me. “Right?”

She grins. Mutiny, more like.

“Fine. Then stay. We have”—I check the remaining apples—“two apples and some god-awful oats that expired months ago. Gourmet meals, here.”

He reacts to the hardness in my eyes with a sheepish smile, but Nori doesn’t notice.

I’m full, she signs. Can I go play?

I nod stiffly at her, and she runs off, grinning back at me. Gowan watches her go.

“Was it something I said?”

“She said she’s full and she wants to go play.”

“More for us, then. How about it? An apple each, stale oats, and some water?”

I sigh. “Does anything dampen your spirits?”

He shrugs. “Not really, no.”





I roll the apple around in my hand, listening to Gowan chew his. His oats are still waiting, and I don’t see how any of this is appetizing to him.

“So, how long have you been here?” he asks around a cheek full of apple.

“Around three years.” It feels much longer.

“I never found out what ‘La Baume’ means,” he muses.

“It’s an old word. It means something like ‘the grotto.’ Appropriate. It’s pretty grotty all right.”

“So… what happened to Cath? She was, well, normal last time I checked.”

I don’t bother to answer the question. Talking is tiring, and the subject is depressing.

“I should go up to see her.” Surprisingly, he seems more alarmed by the prospect than I am. Is it because he remembers her one way—matronly, or motherly?—and doesn’t want to see how she’s changed? He must assume she has, given that she won’t leave the attic, and I’ve told him she’s lost it completely.

“You should leave,” he says suddenly, putting his half-eaten apple down and breaking into my thoughts. “You should take Nori and just leave.”

“That’s your professional gardening advice, is it?”

“Silla, anyone could see you’ll starve unless you go. There’s no shop in town anymore. We could go to London—”

“Never.”

“Or north? Anywhere else.”