And the Trees Crept In(38)

“Numpany!”

I nudge him. “Shove off! You’re nice company, okay?”

We laugh for a long time, until I’ve almost wet myself, and then Gowan’s laughter dies suddenly and he sighs.

He takes a drink. “Unless I get through those trees in the garden… you may be stuck with me for a while.”

“I… don’t mind.”

We talk for a while, back and forth, until the talking becomes a question game.

“Would you rather live alone or in a commune?”

“Alone. Easy.” I think for a moment. “Would you rather have four hands or four feet?”

“Oh, come on,” he says, laughing. “Four hands would totally win. Think of everything you could get done.”

“Yeah, but you’d fracture your wrist bones if you tried to walk on them for very long.”

He snorts. “I still vote hands. Okay…” He takes a drink from the bottle. “What is the craziest thing you’ve ever done?”

My turn to drink. I can feel the wine swimming in my head like floppy fizzy fish. “Once, when I first came here, I woke up on the roof. I used to sleepwalk really badly, so I guess I sleepwalked up there. Anyway, I woke up around midnight or so, and decided it was so beautiful, I just stayed there. Only in the morning, I was back in my bed. Craziest thing ever.”

Gowan grins. “I remember.”

“What?”

“Nori told me that one already.”

I frown. “How?”

“She’s a very good writer. Terrible speller. R-U-F-E I took to mean roof.”

I laugh. “She’s a nut, that one. Okay, well, then have this one: When I was four, my mother told me about La Baume. I was so obsessed with it that I spent six years trying to get her to draw me a picture of it. When she finally gave it to me, it became a sort of talisman of hope, and now I keep it hidden in my pocket at all times. To remind me what a goddamn idiot I was and still am.”

Silence.

I fill it by drinking.

“You’re not an idiot for wanting a better life.”

I snort. “What the hell would you know about my life? It’s stupid. I’m stupid.”

“You should stop doing that.”

“What?”

“Calling yourself stupid. You’re not.”

I shrug. “I guess I just got used to hearing it.”

He’s quiet for a while, and it begins to feel heavy. Then he asks, “Would you rather punch a toad or a slug?”

I feel a surge of affection. “Toad.”

Back and forth, we play, until the room is spinning and I start laughing again, and then Gowan is laughing and we are rolling on the floor, howling, the night nothing but a backdrop to our forgetting. Forgetting the curse, forgetting this messed-up situation, forgetting that none of this can possibly be real.

I lean forward and the floor leans, too. “Did you know,” I say, dangling the bottle between two long fingers, “that most artists and most scientists are technically insane?”

Gowan takes the bottle and I topple forward, landing on my forehead with a dull bonk!

“Is that a statistic of convenience?” he asks.

I manage to untangle myself from the floor and my own limbs and sit swaying. “Fact is fact. Insanity is common. And I am starting to think I might be insane.”

“Define insane.”

“It’s a state of mind. Contrary to normal people. Unstable. Unusual. Seeing things that can’t be real.”

“Then, by definition, I could be insane, too.”

I snort, and a little wine goes up my nose. I laugh until I’m rolling on the floor, and then I snort again.

By the time I’ve clawed my way back to sitting, using Gowan’s shirt as a rope, he’s grinning at me with his eyebrows up. His eyes say, Oh, yeah?

“You,” I say, taking back the bottle and waving it at him, “are not insane.”

The wine s s s s l l l o s h h h h e s s s s.

“How would you know?”

He means it a certain way, playfully maybe, but it comes out like: You don’t know me.

It stops me, that. I’ve been telling him as much for weeks and he’s never said it back. But it’s true. I don’t. Except, I do. I know how kind he is. I know he has anger, like me. I know he has a wound. I do know him.

My heart cries—danger. I buy time by drinking, and ridiculous hiccups ensue.

“I’d know crazy if I saw it.” I fear it.

And he laughs. And I laugh. And we laugh and laugh together. Gowan’s laughs turn into coughs, and when I go to take another sip from the bottle, I find it empty.

We giggle and open another bottle.

This is nice. So nice.

It feels almost normal. I’ve forgotten all about—

[DARK

CREEPING

TREES

MOVING]

… well, almost.

“My turn,” I say. “Would you rather kill yourself or kill someone else?”

His face changes, cheeks pale. It’s like watching a car crash in slow motion, and I think: Oh, no. What did I say? For ages, I think he won’t answer. Then, quietly, he says: “Myself.”

He gets up, and I think he is going to leave, so I get up, too. This was too good to be true to begin with. But then he spins and grabs me and holds me firmly against his body and he is trembling and my arms are going around him and my heart is racing and I want him to let go