And the Trees Crept In(66)

Behind her, the creeeeeeeaking continues, and eventually slows to a stop.





I’m somewhere else. It’s dark, yes, but so much more. Movement, wind, rain on my skin, fresh air all around, sounds. I see a shape moving quickly through the woods and I back away instinctively, falling over a log in the process. I land hard just as the figure pauses near me, hands on her knees, panting.

Cathy. The same age, or close, to when I saw her sewing that horrible doll.

She straightens, peering through her hair and the rain. “Anne!” she yells. “ANNE!”

That name again. When she runs off into Python, I follow. We run for a long time, but I don’t seem to get tired. Cathy, though—she falls several times, covering herself in mud and cuts, and by the time we see the shape by a half-fallen tree—an alder tree—she has already been crying for a while.

Cathy pauses, and so do I, but I think I know what’s coming, and I don’t know how much more of this I can take. History really does repeat itself. Cathy moves over very slowly, her body taut like a stretched-out elastic band. She reaches the shape, and even I can’t pretend it isn’t what it is.

There is a torso. Of that I am sure. It has been shredded in parts, but I can make out the small rib cage, the almost-formation of small breasts. There is an arm, at least one, and I see two legs. I can’t see the head, but there is a tangle of hair.

It is, without a doubt, the body of a small child. A girl in a black dress.

Oh. No. Not black. It’s white. The black is…

Cathy stumbles, crashes in a staggering way to her knees, and then she throws up on the corpse before turning roughly away, trying to contain the vomit with her hands. It spews between her fingers and she gags, coughs, and cries.

When she turns back, her mouth is contorted and ugly. “Anne…”

I look at the legs, the arms, the hair, and the torso. Anne. The third sister.

“You did this,” Cathy whispers, looking out into the woods. “You tricked her. You lured her, wooed her, then you crept up and killed her. You’re a monster. A Creeper Man. You’re the Creeper Man.”

A legend born, right here.

I close my eyes for the aunt I never knew, for the pain I never realized Cath and my mother shared—for the darkness born that day. When I open them, we are inside, and Cathy is standing, drenched, in front of Pamela. My mother, but as a child. So strange.

“This is on you,” Cathy says. She slaps my mother before I even see it coming.

Pamela cries out and grabs her cheek. Starts to cry.

“This is all your fault,” Cath spits. “I will never forgive you.”

“Cathy—”

“Don’t talk to me again. You’re a killer. You let her go out there alone while you hid in the closet, and he killed her. The Creeper Man killed her! It should have been you.”

With that, she turns away, leaving my little mother sobbing behind her.

Oh, no. Is this what I am born of? Is this the pain that is passed on in my family?

We have no right to children if despair is all we bring with us.





30


s i n k i n g



Hush now, baby

don’t mind the roar

that’s just your tummy

asking for more.





BROKEN BOOK ENTRY


A man was in the woods today. Nori told me that she spent a long time talking to him. His coat was ripped and his face was blotchy with red sores, but she said she wasn’t afraid because he had a friendly smile. She even took his hand to prove she wasn’t afraid and drank some of his water. She is a stupid child sometimes. Do I teach her to be afraid, as Mam would have me do? To feel fear when something unfamiliar comes? Do I teach her to be defensive, as Dad would? Is that the right thing to do? Or do I bestow kindness, the way Cath might tell her? I’m just glad he’s gone.





I’m in the cave again. “You knew.”

Gowan looks tired. So tired. “Yes.”

“You weren’t just here to fix the garden.”

“No.”

“You were in my past. I just didn’t remember.”

“Yes.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I couldn’t. I can’t.”

“Why… where did you go? Why?”

“I came back.”

“I don’t remember.”

“I know.”

I close my eyes.

“Please,” Gowan says. “Keep going.”

I can’t hold on anymore. I am so tired.

When I open my eyes, I’m standing on the lip of the hole in the entrance hall. Only there is no entrance hall now, the hole has taken over the entire space. A chasm at my feet.

I understand, my father’s voice says. It is so warm. I understand, my daughter, about being tired. Rest now. Come with me and you can rest your head.

I sway. I want to. How easy it would be.

“Please, Silla…” Gowan whispers. “You’re strong. You’re so close.”

I look at him. “Why are you here?”

I recognize that tension in his face. It’s been there ever since he came to La Baume to “fix the garden.” It’s like he wants to say something to me, but he can’t.