Of the Trees(62)

It was degrading and horrifying, puking on the floor with her hands tied down. Cassie couldn’t wipe the vomit from her lips, and it made it all the more disgusting. She threw up more than perhaps she would have if she had the use of her hands.

“It’s okay, honey,” her mother had soothed, pulling Cassie’s hair back. “Someone get in here now!”

Her nurse voice, that’s what her father always called it, got people moving. She demanded Cassie’s hands be released, and it took a moment, but she felt the straps loosen. She yanked her wrists free and jumped from the bed. She looked around the room, her head swiveling in a manic fashion, spotting the door to what she hoped was a bathroom behind her father. She pushed past him and fell to her knees, not even bothering to switch on the light.

She got sick once more in the toilet.

The light flicked on overhead, a whine of electricity filling the room. After the eerie silence of the forest, it felt almost intrusive. Her hands were splayed on the cold, white side of the toilet. The bowl was pristine compared to her fingers. Brown and black with dirt creased in every delicate fold of her skin. Her nails were chipped; one broken so far down that blood had stained the tip of her finger. She felt sick staring at it.

It was real. It had to be because why else would her fingers be torn up and bloody.

“Oh, God,” she whispered. It wasn’t a curse; it was a prayer.

“Cassie?” her mother’s voice, gentle and calm, as though she was approaching an injured animal, floated around her in the pristine space of the hospital bathroom. She let her mother help her up. Cathy coaxed her daughter toward the sink where she gently washed out her mouth, urging her to take a sip of water after, and then ran her fingers under warm water. Swirls of black and brown and rust swam in Cassie’s vision, fixing her to the spot. A burst of manic energy flew through her, and suddenly she was scrubbing, lathering the bar of soap into her skin and ripping another nail as she tried to rid herself of the dirt.

Cassie could smell it. Smell the rot and stink of the churning soil, like she had brought it with her, like it followed her still. She brought her fingers to her mouth and bit at the nails, spitting into the sink in the process and ignoring the growing audience behind her. Her mother blocked most of them anyway, standing straight next to her, her hand rubbing soft circles on her back.

She was led back to bed once her nails were completely bitten down and every trace of dirt and blood was washed down the drain. Cassie tried, over and over for the next few hours to repeat her story, to stop them from whispering, to not sound like a raving lunatic, but it didn’t come out right. When she heard the nurses talking about sending her to Barnes Eight, which she knew from her mother was the psych ward, she stopped trying to tell them.

She changed the story. She said it was a man, that she had been scared, that she ran, that she left her best friend to some lunatic in the woods, which wasn’t true, but would save her from the psych ward, at least.

“I want to go home,” Cassie whispered to her mother. She was spent. The scratches and cuts she earned from running top speed through the woods ached, so did her shoulders, from the exertion she spent trying to fruitlessly yank Laney from the churning soil. Her head throbbed and despite all the tears, her eyes felt dry. She wanted her own room, space to think; she wanted people not to stare at her and most of all she wanted a shower.

“I’ll get them to rush the paperwork,” her mother said softly, glancing over at her father with a silent look that screamed “watch her.”





Officer Gibbons was waiting for her on the porch. He stood as their car pulled into the driveway. Cassie looked up at the twitching window curtain in Laney’s living room. The Blake’s front door flew open a moment later.

“Cassie!” Mrs. Blake called out, “Cassie, where is my daughter?”

Patrick stepped forward, his arm held out across the lawn and, to Cassie’s surprise, so did Officer Gibbons.

“Why don’t we let the girl get inside, okay, Mrs. Blake?” Officer Gibbons said. “I have some questions for her, and I’ll come over your place after.”

Cassie felt her mother stiffen at his words, but she didn’t care. She was expecting it. The officer at the hospital had been nervous, almost timid, as though he thought Cassie was going to leap off the bed and attack him, which, considering the state of her hair and nails and the way dirt still clung to her skin, Cassie could understand. Mrs. Blake stared at Cassie, her eyes pleading. Mr. Blake stepped down to the lawn now too, and the Sheridan’s little boy, Randall, stared across his lawn with his jaw gaping. Old Mrs. Casey peered from her window, and the Cooper family ushered their niece inside, the door slamming with an audible crash that Cassie could hear from her lawn. She winced.

“Mrs. Blake, I—”

“Inside, please, Cassie,” Officer Gibbons interrupted, nodding toward her front door. Patrick hurried up the porch steps, unlocking the door and letting it swing inside. Her mother’s hand was a firm pressure on her lower back and without a backward glance, Cassie was swept through the doorway.

The house was dark. Her father went around, flipping on the lights and pulling the shades. Cassie’s heart gave a little lurch when she noticed the earbuds left on the coffee table. They were Laney’s.

“Please, sit.” Her mother gestured to the living room, and Officer Gibbons nodded his thanks, sitting on the stiff, wooden Hitchcock chair her mother kept mostly for decoration in the corner. He cleared his throat and looked to Patrick.