And the Trees Crept In(65)

Why? Nori signs. I want it!

“No more,” he repeats, and gathers up my plate, too. He strides to the kitchen, gesturing at Cath and pointing at the plates.

She simply rolls off the wall, goes inside, and Gowan, agitated, follows her.

We don’t see either of them all night.

It is the early hours of the morning when Gowan slides into bed next to me.

“You were right. Something is wrong with her.”





The next day Cath goes up to the attic.

And never comes down.





1980: The woods are waterlogged, and Catherine has trouble finding her way. She screams for Anne as she runs, searching, but the trees all around her move and whisper, thrashing in the storm, and it is many hours later that she sees.

And the wood echoes with screams.


It was her job to be carer… to protect Anne. To protect them both. She was the eldest and the wisest. Anne tried to tell her about their protector, but Catherine, growing up fast, had not quite believed. At twelve, she fancied herself grown, and so her childhood faith in stories had started to fade.

And now look.

Anne is gone.

Shredded up on the forest floor.

And it is all her fault.





“You never came back. You left us that day. You went for help, but you never came back.”

I r e m e m b e r him.

Gowan’s face has fallen a lot since then. “That’s not true.”

Behind me, I can hear La Baume sighing and shifting and changing.

“You abandoned us.” Nothing. There is nothing alive inside me right now. My heart died a long time ago. He left us. He left us all alone. He left me.

I don’t wait for his reply. I just turn and drag myself back to the now root-infested manor, ready for the shadows to take me. Inside, the walls flake and peel away as I pass, which gives me intense satisfaction. Everything breaks down as I wander by; the roots bend and twist behind me, cutting him off, locking him out. And I know that it is me doing this to La Baume.

I am the infection.

I am the decay.





29


anne



Children are sponges, yes

we soak up everything!

including all your blackness, yes

we do it just by breathing.





BROKEN BOOK ENTRY


I miss someone. I wish I knew who. I feel abandoned, which is silly. But I can’t shake this feeling that I’m never going to see this person again. Nothing I do helps. Who do I miss?? I tried to get Cathy to come down again last night, but she just stared at me with this weird, empty expression, and then after a while she started screaming and tearing at her hair. I hurried to leave because I didn’t want Nori to hear and I knew she’d stop if I left. But she started calling, “Pammy! Pammy come back!” and I lost it. I ran from there as fast as I could and locked myself in my room. Anything to get away. After a while, Nori knocked. She’s looking worse. We curled up together in the huge closet and fell asleep. When I woke up it was morning, and it was more sleep than I’d had in ages. Need to find some food.





The other me steps out of the kitchen. She is following the sound that has plagued me for so long.

Creak.

Creak.

Creak.

Endless. Unendurable. Futile.

I follow her as she, frowning, searches.

“Nori? Auntie Cath?”

Her voice is so young! So innocent. Is this really me?

Eventually she finds the stairs leading to the attic. Cath, she knows, has not come down for at least two weeks; she has been leaving trays at the door. But maybe it’s longer than two weeks now. It must be, since she went up there the day Gowan left.

Gowan…

The other me climbs the stairs slowly. “Cathy?”

I don’t want to follow, but I do anyway. I need to remember this piece.

At the top of the stairs, she knocks on the door. She calls Cath’s name once more, tentatively, and then she walks in. She is probably worried about invading privacy, or seeing a weak moment, but that is gone the moment the door swings open, banging the wall on the other side.

I fall to my knees at the same moment the other me does. Our eyes are level with Cath’s feet.

Creak

Her face

Creak

is a vicious

Creak

purple.

Creak

The rope

Creak

is cruelly

Creak

tight.

Creak

Her neck

Creak

is definitely

Creak

broken.

“C-C-Cathy…”

The other me screams, scrambles forward, tries to hoist Cath up. She jumps onto the window seat, where Cath placed a chair to jump from, and scrabbles to free the rope. All she does is make it tighter and break the skin at Cath’s neck. There are

c r a c k s

as she tugs.

She falls off the chair, landing heavily on her hip. She is sobbing. On the wall, words: I CAN’T DO IT. And then: THE CREEPER MAN IS COMING.

A little bell tinkles behind us, and then we hear Nori’s hurried footsteps. She is coming up the stairs—she must have heard the scream, the crash. Other me struggles to her feet, wipes her face furiously on her dress, and backs away, shaking her head in horror. She stares for one more moment, then closes the door on the scene and hurries to meet Nori farther down the stairs.