And the Trees Crept In(55)

My feet no longer obey me. They drag and flop with every floundering step. Am I walking up the hill to La Baume in a storm, dragging Nori through the mud? Is it three years ago? Even my arms hang loose and numb, fingertips tingling with fading sensation. [AM I DRAGGING NORI?]

For the first time in a long time, I could cry. But my body has no water to spare, and the ache inside me explodes into a dry sob.

“Nori, I’m sorry.”

All the times I wished she would stop with her ever-talking hands. I imagined tying them up behind her back… [CUTTING THEM OFF.] I was horrible. I would give anything to see them flopping about in excited animation. I would give anything to have her in my arms.

My fault. Myfaultmyfaultmyfault.





The thoughts break through again. Images mostly, in flashes. Painful.

I see the woods… the manor in front of me. Trees with moss hanging from branches. But then in a flash and a rumble of my stomach, they are full of maggots. I shake my head, even as I’m bending over to quell the horrible bone-deep pain in my gut, and the wood comes back into focus.

I stumble on.

Another flash, and the floor is rotten, organic mulch, moving and squelching beneath my feet. I gasp and cough as another bite of nausea and pain comes. When I fall to my knees, I land on the floorboards. Solid, hard.

“Stop it,” I whisper.

But it comes again.

Maggots.

Worms.

Mulch.

Rot.

Slime. Mold. Decay. Bugs. Food. Stink. On and on.

“STOP!”

I spit out another tooth. Feel more of my hair dropping away.

Voices ring in my head—dozens of them, laughing, cackling, hysterical.

Stopstopstopstop oh stop please stop poor me boohoo hahahahahahaha!!!!!

I retch into the floorboards, the pain in my gut like a gaping hole filling up with bile and nothingness.

Notttthingnessssssss, cajole the voices. Obscurantism…

“You’re not real,” I mutter, covering my ears and squeezing shut my eyes. “You’re nothing.”

And they blink off, like someone turning down the volume on my mind’s self-derision. I gasp, looking up tentatively, and there is a horrible empty

silent

still

ness…

all around me.





La Baume has started crying. I find the first bit of water coming from a hole in the wall—the first wall I have seen in… how long? The wall is collapsing, soft around the hole, like cottage cheese, and it is spilling slimy maggots onto the floor in a puddle of putrescent-looking water.

I fall to my knees and I drink, my lips pursed and willing. The maggots wriggle and contort near my eyes but I shut them and keep drinking, swallowing whatever comes into my mouth.

I am going to die if I don’t keep this down.

When my body begins to protest, my stomach to contract, I lean back and clench my jaw.

Keep it down. Keep it down.

I feel the maggots moving inside me.

I exert the last amount of will I have, but it’s not enough. I am sick, my stomach purging more than I have to offer.

I roll onto my back, looking up at the ceiling (an interlocking tapestry of branches and waxy leaves), and I think only one thought.

I’m empty as a husk.





Hunger.

It’s like a force of its own: a heavy, weighty feeling that you sort of forget about after a while, even though it’s always with you. At first it’s uncomfortable. A rumble, like stones, deep inside you. Then comes the choking, gagging nausea. Then come the daydreams. Roast ham. Gravy. Buttery potatoes. Peas soaked in butter and garlic. Then the imagining becomes torture. That food seems sickly. Disgusting. But it’s infected your mind, so you can’t stop.

GravySausageLimeTomatoBreadPeanutButterSquashRiceChicken— So you cough and gag and you throw up nothing. Eventually it fades into a dull, heavy ache. Your eyes droop. Your mouth bleeds dry. Your head pounds. Your tongue grows thick and heavy and you feel slow-headed and stupid. Clumsy.

Hunger.

It’s always with you.

I try the words on my furry tongue. “It’s… always… withoo…”

I remember the time Mam took me to the National Gallery of Art. It was before Nori, so maybe I was nine. Maybe ten. Was Mam pregnant? I can’t remember. We went out for a “girls’ day” together, and the museum was free, so it was the perfect choice.

I walked along the corridors, my hand in hers, and I could smell her vanilla oil, which she used like perfume, even though it was meant to be for potpourri, and I could hear the click, click, click of her heels.

This one particular section was all still life paintings. Huge pieces that stretched almost from the floor to the ceiling. To a seven-year-old, they looked enormous. Galaxy huge and impressive. And they were mostly food. I stared at these paintings in awe, thinking: People painted food! Actual food that existed all those years ago. Right here in front of me! Pears, apples, bread, cheese, meats—all of it laid out so neatly.

I remember wanting to pluck a giant pear from one of the bowls in the painting, imagining how it would taste and feel. Wondering how long it would take me to get through the whole thing. Thinking about how tiny I would be standing next to it. How I could eat myself a little corridor inside, live like James and his Giant Peach.