And the Trees Crept In(27)

I sit up in bed and wrap my arms around my legs.

I wait.

And it comes again.

The hole in the entrance hall.

Presilla. Daughter.

I want to answer. I no longer know why I don’t.

I know you like no other.

The door to my room stands wider than when I went to bed, the black beyond it deepening farther along the corridor until I see nothing. Nothing at all.

Come and talk to me. I understand you.

No, you don’t, I think. No one understands this. [I WISH GOWAN WAS HERE.] The thought is unexpected, but urgent. Gowan, I need you.

The door is wider.

The black outside it is pregnant with presence, and I can’t tear my eyes away. Something is watching me.

And I left my door open.

An invitation.


LEAVE THIS HOUSE, AND YOU WILL DIE.

AND SHE’LL BE MINE.



Paralyzed, I stare at the space beyond the door, waiting. How is it possible to know—know with absolute certainty—that I am not alone? Know without knowing why, that the thing outside my door is still, too. Not still like me, but still like a predator. Something that had eyes fixed on me, pupils dilated. I remember the way the creature out there in the woods fell forward onto all fours and stared at me with cocked head. I remember the animals sinking into the quagmire, their terror, their demise.

I hear the bugs from that day, feasting on the pets’ carcasses, only the sound is real, here, right now. A quiet chewing, wriggling, smooshing sound. The sound of thousands of worms wriggling together, over and under and through one another. The sound of exoskeletons beating with paper wings, the crunching sound of mandibles eating the rotting wood around me.

My body bolts out of bed before my mind can catch up, running for the door. I feel the thing in the corridor bolt, too, a fraction of a second later.

But I shut the door, heart T - H - U - D - D - I - N - G in my chest, and then



nothing.





I hear my father laughing at me from downstairs.

Stupid girl! Kill yourself and get it over with!

I have to get out of here. I pull my blanket off the bed, wrapping it around myself before tiptoeing back to the door. I feel frail in my own skin—it feels like a membrane, about to tear should something blow hard enough. It isn’t enough protection.

I take a tentative peek into the corridor; it stretches away into gloom like a death-row march. I kick myself for being so damn foolish and hug my blanket closer. The library has only one entrance, and it’s downstairs. The upper floors are all reached from within the cocoon. Which means I have to walk along the corridor, left along the hall, down the stairs, past the whispering hole, through the entrance hall, past the basement door, and then, finally, to the library. It’s a lot of floor to cover. A lot of dark.

A lot of—

Stop. Stop. Just go.

I hesitate for only a moment, but it’s enough for the spearing ice of dread to puncture my chest. Enough for me to regret stepping beyond the confinement of my bedroom. Enough to make me trip over my own feet, or my blanket, and stumble into the wall. I ignore the chill of it, the way it seems almost soft, as though it weren’t the stone beside me, but something more like flesh.

My heart thuds in my ears so loudly I can’t even hear my footsteps. I hear my breath, jagged, because I caught movement from the corner of my eye as I righted myself and pushed off the flesh—the wall.

Something is behind me.

I break into another run, passing Nori’s room and noting the silence with relief, before flying down the stairs. I yank the blanket closer to me when it snags on the banister— it was the banister it was

—and pulls me back. It tears but I ignore it and hurry on.

Past the hole. Past the basement door— WHICH IS AJAR

—and into the library.

I slam the door behind me and gasp into the wood, keening animal sounds leaving me in terrible wheezes.

The basement door was open.

And something was behind me.

And the wall was flesh.

And my blanket didn’t get caught on the banister. It got caught on something else. Because when I checked—it was torn. Ragged as if claws [OR BRANCHES] had ripped the corner to shreds.

Circling, circling, circling the loom…

“Stop it. Please… stop it.”

From beyond the door, I hear a faint shuffffffling

like something dragging itself closer. I hear the thumping

of something meaty and heavy, like the sound of an object rolling

and

falling

down the stairs. One at a time.

Closer.

The sound changes.

Stops.

And then I hear a giggle.

I turn the lock on the door to the library, even though I know that means Nori is locked out, but this is crazy and I am terrified and she is safely asleep and so is (crazy) Aunt Cath.

It is only me, alone in the night, who needs this protection.

I don’t need it against the imaginary thing out there.

I need it against myself. Because, surely, this can’t be real. Please, please, don’t let this be real.

I turn, squaring my shoulders, and stride into the library. I am safe in here. Nothing can get through that door.

Just to be sure, I look over my shoulder.

And find the door wide open, a black, endless corridor yawning at me in greeting.