And the Trees Crept In(47)

I choke on the blow. “How? How is this my fault? What did I do?”

“All… your… fault.”

“I didn’t bring the Creeper Man here. You did that, didn’t you? When you were a girl. Tell me the truth!”

“He was our protector… but we were wrong.” She gives a tiny squeak as the roots tighten.

“We have to get her out of there,” Gowan tells me, and he runs from the room. I hear his feet thudding down the steps and I hate that he’s left me here alone.

“Tell me about the Creeper Man. Tell me what you and Mam did when you were girls. Please, Cath, please!”

“We… made a man. From clay and twine and shadow. We… made him in the woods. We summoned a p-protector.”

“But he wasn’t a protector, was he? Was he?”

The slightest shake of her head, and another tiny intake of breath. “Not a protector. A demon. A curse. Anne…”

“Anne? Who’s Anne?”

“Sister. Died. In the woods. Not a protector. A”—another gasp for air—“tormentor.”

“How is that my fault? If you summoned him when you were children, how could I be to blame?”

A tear squeezes out of her eye as the roots, once again, tighten, pulling her toward them like a monster with many arms drawing her into its chest. I hear her ribs crack, and she winces, coughs.

“Silla… it’s going to happen soon. This is all for you.”

Gowan’s feet thunder toward us, and he has brought the ax. He doesn’t even pause, just roars, the ax high, and then brings it down full-strength on the roots holding Cath’s body.

She looks up at him with increasingly vacant eyes. “I know you,” she wheezes. “Don’t… I? But… different. Is… it… different…?”

“Yes,” he says, and somehow that one word calms her.

“Good,” she wheezes. “Oh, good.”

She fades off and her gaze slides to the side.

Cath smiles at me suddenly then, as Gowan chops, and the roots pull her ever farther from us, tangling around her body like some twisted version of a Grimm fairy tale.

“Cathy!” I cry, reaching out for her.

Her fingers are almost gone now, but I can still see a sliver of her face.

“Oh, Silla,” she whispers, and for the first time in years, she sounds like the aunt I came to when I was fourteen. “I’m so sorry.”

And then she is gone.

Nothing but a curling mass of chipped-at roots remains.





There is no sign of Cath now, not even a hair tangled in the roots. I should be horrified to see them moving and bending like no root should do, but instead I am furious.

I spin on my heel and head for the stairs, the flame on my candle nearly going out with the force of my turn. Gowan grabs my free hand.

“Where are you going?”

“If my own family won’t help me,” I snap, “then I’ll deal with the devil.”

I rip my hand from his and rush down the stairs, heading for the entrance hall. To hell with this. To hell with this house, this curse, this nightmare.

I stand at the very edge of the hole, my hands balled into fists at my sides. “Tell me what’s going on!” I yell into the depths. My voice travels into the space but doesn’t return.

Eerie.

“Tell me what this is!” My father’s voice is silent. “You son of a bitch!” I throw the lit candle into the hole and never hear it land. “Tell me!”

Gowan is behind me then, taking my shoulders. “Silla…”

It is very, very dark.

“You torture me night after night with your damn words and now you’re silent?” I yell.

“Silla—”

“What?”

“Where’s Nori?”

“What do you mean? She’s—”

I turn, looking for her, but there is no light in the house now. The black is so complete that I dare not move my foot even an inch in case I stumble into the hole. I hear Gowan rustle beside me, and then he has a flame in his fist. A lighter.

I peer around for Nori. She’s not with us. Something inside me makes a tiny click, like a piece of a wooden puzzle falling into place. And I feel sick.

Gowan’s lighter goes out, and he flips it on again. He lights another candle—the one sitting in the sconce on the wall, and I’m grateful for the tiny orange bubble of light.

I walk to the kitchen, very calmly, but it is empty.

“Nori?”

We check the scullery and then I head for the stairs. The roots have spilled into the halls now and I don’t want to think about being crushed alive by evil trees, but I can’t help it. Gowan heads back toward the entrance hall and I turn for the stairs.

“Silla!”

His voice is alarm.

I run toward the hole, and see her. She’s at the other end of the corridor, only now it’s more like a tunnel of trees, impossibly long, and she is impossibly small—impossibly far away. And her hand is in the hand of a TALL, thin man with no eyes

and

a w i d e, w i d e mouth.

Vanishing

down the woods

the also disappearing hall, is into that the

eerie