And the Trees Crept In(34)

My heart goes from zero to a hundred in a second, and when I swallow, it’s LOUD. [GONNA RUN? GONNA HIDE?]

And then I hear that sound again. The sound of a ball—only not rubber or plastic. It sounds heavy and warm, like flesh. A flesh ball. The creaking turns into a rolling sound, and then I hear the flesh ball thump! against something. Wood. The first step.

Another roll.

Thump!

Another roll.

Thump!

It’s coming up the stairs.

KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK.

I suck back a scream and jump out of my bed, grabbing my comb as if that could somehow save me.

“Go away!” I yell.

There is a tiny shuffle, and then a sequence of knocks and scratches.

Scratch, scratch, knock.



ME.

I rush to the door and fling it open, pulling Nori, who still has her fist raised, inside. I slam the door behind me.

Nori signs: Something woke me.

[HE’S COMING.]

Roll.

Thump!

I grab her hand and rush out my door. Quick—quick! The flesh ball (if that’s what it is) is getting closer. (Roll, thump!) I rush toward the staircase, but instead of going down, we run up. Up to the silent third floor, where I would never go unless I had to, and never with Nori.

Nori resists my tugging—she’s terrified of this hall—but I pull harder and say, “Come on! We have to go up to go down!”

But she won’t stop tugging, so I pick her up and run with her to the end of the dark corridor. I open the door to the wasp-husk room and run (the husks CRUNCH under my bare feet) to the end and take the dodgy back stairs down, down, down, until we are on the ground floor. I can’t hear the flesh ball anymore, and that terrifies me.

And then I hear it. It rolls warmly (if sound can be warm) across the floor and thump, thump, thumps! down the stairs, faster and louder than before. We run to the basement, the only place left besides Python, and I lock the door behind me. I push Nori into the old cupboard in there and press my shaking fingers to her lips.

Keep quiet, I sign. Not a peep!

She is crying, but I shake my head. Like a mouse, okay?

She nods. A mouse. Squeak!

She couldn’t make a sound if she tried, and right now I envy that. There is an old, tattered penguin doll wearing a knitted red scarf in the cupboard, so I pick it up and shove it into her arms, then I close the doors.

I crawl out of the shadows and back along the wall. At the foot of the stairs, I look up, toward the dull light coming from somewhere else in the house. I closed the door. I did. I closed the door!

Auntie Cath.

We need you.

She is shut away in the attic. Walking, walking, pacing. Creaking.

She can’t help us now.

The thing is getting closer. Not rolling now, but walking. My heart alarms like a panic bell, a siren shrilling silently inside me.

Trapped! We’re trapped!

I hear something shuffling closer, on unsteady feet. Something big. I can feel the presence.

I see the shadow. His shadow, stretching impossibly high along the wall.

I back away, return to Nori in the cupboard, and squeeze in beside her.

Like a mouse, she signs. I shut my eyes and nod my head.

Gowan—where are you?

We wait.





I dream of my mother.

There’s something you’ve forgotten, sweetheart.

Stop it.

Did you think I would forget?

Shut up.

Well, I’ve got news for you.

Please…

I have a long memory.

… Mama…

The truth, my girl,

… go away.

is coming for you anyway.





I wake up alone in a cupboard with the vague notion that I had a dream. Then it comes back to me and I reach for Nori— Who isn’t there.

It’s like the breath is knocked out of me. I mean to scream her name, but it comes out a pathetic gasp.

“Nori!”

I race up to her room, and find her fast asleep in her bed, her grotesque little mouth hanging open and the air saturated with her stale breath. I swallow and then go to shake her awake.

She rubs her eyes and squints up at me.

“Are you okay? When did you go back to bed?”

She frowns at me, and shakes her head.

“Nori, why didn’t you stay in the cupboard?”

She sits up, still rubbing her eyes. What cupboard?

“We ran downstairs, remember? The basement? Hiding?”

Did you have a bad dream? she asks, and I can see she has no idea what I’m talking about.

“You never got up last night?”

No. I went to bed when you said, after I fell asleep by the fire, remember?

I do.

I shake my head and force a laugh. “Must have had a bad dream. Come on, up. I’ll get some peanut paste and an apple, okay?”

She nods and watches me. I know that when I go, she’ll be back to sleep in under a minute flat. I turn away, ready to forget this (crazy) nightmare, when I spot something under her bed.

A tattered penguin doll with a red knitted scarf around its neck.

I open my mouth to ask Nori about it, but she has already fallen asleep.





The nib of my pen flashes in the moonlight. Silence reigns, expectant.