And the Trees Crept In(41)

It grows. And grows.

Until I am staring into the corners of the black room, waiting for some horror to rise up and engulf us whole.

And Nori sleeps on.





Cath has stopped screaming at night. And that is even worse.

I think the silence could deafen me.

There is no sound. None.

I go to the stairs that lead to the attic, making sure I keep to the middle of the hall—far enough away from the shadowy wallpaper. And then I make sure I am a pace or two away from the first step. I look up—so much darkness. But awareness, too.

“Cath?” I call in a half whisper. I don’t know why, since Nori will sleep through thunder.

Creeeeeeak.

“Aunt?”

Creeeeeeeeak.

Silence.

“Tell me about him,” I say, because I know she is right there, at the top of the stairs, two paces back like me, and waiting. “Tell me about the Creeper Man. Tell me now.”

Aunt Cath walks. Creak. Creak. Creak. Cath sits down. A rocking chair. Creeeeak, creak. Creeeak, creak. Rocking back and forth. Freaking creepy. I look right, down the third-floor hall, and convince myself that the door to the husk room is not open. That there is not someone standing at the end of it.

“The Creeper Man, Aunt.”

“He’s already here.” Her voices floats down the stairs like a moth, echoing and faint. She is at the back of the room.

“What does he want? Why has he come? Is he real? Or am I just as mad as you?”

Back and forth, back and forth. Creaking.

“He’s here because of you.”

“How? Why? Speak clearly!”

“He enjoys your fear. You deserve it.”

“I didn’t ask for this.”

“But you deserve it all the same. Heart of stone, just like I told you before.”

I could scream. “What did I ever do to you? What did I ever do to deserve this?”

“You’re mad, my girl. The mad are always punished. Some of us even deserve it.”

“Nori doesn’t deserve this.”

The creaking stops. Heavy footsteps across the floorboards. A sudden, leering white face out of the shadows, shaggy wheat-colored hair, wild around her face.

Cathy’s eyes are wild for a moment, staring at me, but then they focus, unglazed, and she looks… sane. “Keep her away from him, Silla. He will hurt you through her. Protect her.”

I blink and I shake my head, and this is all too hard. Crazy one moment, now lucid and terrified? I’m only seventeen. “I don’t know how.”

“You just have to reset. It will get worse before it gets better, my girl.”

I slump against the banister. “I don’t understand. I’m so tired.”

Cath is fading away again, her last look one of pity. Sympathy. Understanding.

“The mad always are,” she says.





WITHOUT WARNING




The hole grows larger without warning and without much sound.

I heard it in the night. S s s s p l i n t e r i n g.

Falling inward.

It should now be as big as the length of her spine. Silla will be sure, very soon, that the hole is definitely closer to sentient than not.


In the morning, I hear her put more chairs around the hole. Silly child. As if that could stop this!





BOOK 4:


Meat Prison



DON’T STOP NOW, IF YOU REALLY SEEK

SILLA’S TRUTHS, WHICH MAY BE BLEAK

BUT IF YOU FEAR THE CREEPER MAN’S GLANCE

BEST GO NOW; THIS IS YOUR LAST CHANCE.





17


no. no, no, no



Sudden darkness, sudden calm

means the woods are close

don’t you put up the alarm

you’re the one he chose.





BROKEN BOOK ENTRY


His voice is calling me at night. It’s like a presence I can’t escape. The others can’t hear him. Can’t hear any of the hurtful words he says to me. I wish I could argue back, deny the tall tales, heavy with lies and thin on truth. He is trying to torment me with his poison tongue. Shut up, shut up, shut up! I go downstairs to confront the thing but there is no form, only the endless creaking of the floor-boards under my feet and his voice. It is torture. Still seems like the dark might be endless.





The same, every night. When I sleep, for however few minutes at a time, I dream.

La Baume is crumbling in my dreams. Sunken and warped. The red paint is peeling away, revealing a gross curling of rainbow colors beneath. Red, blue, green, pink, orange… it’s a sick joke. And the house is choking underneath vines upon vines and roots upon roots. They rise out of dead ground to strangle the manor and I feel like I’m the one being choked. I feel like I’m the one who can’t breathe.

As I watch, the vines grow, thicken, tighten, and La Baume begins to crack and sink, straining to remain, and I choke and I gasp and I can’t breathe— and I wake.

I still can’t breathe.

I give up sleeping in my room for the night, and take to the second floor in the library, between the bookcases, where Gowan sleeps. We share a blanket and he kisses my forehead.