The Ghost Tree

by Christina Henry

  The way Miller, too, had needed reminding that he’d puked his guts out at the crime scene the day before.

  Yes, there was something very wrong in Smiths Hollow. And Alex needed to find out what it was before it disappeared from his memory, too.

  Before he forgot about the girls who’d called to him in dead voices.

  Before whoever—or whatever—cut those girls to pieces did it again.

  3

  Lauren went out after lunch, leaving her bike at home. She could cut into the woods from the cul-de-sac at the end of the road. Mrs. Schneider, of course, never let anyone through her yard—not even a raccoon—but pretty much everyone else expected the neighborhood kids to use their yards as access points and didn’t mind.

  She only needed her bike if she was going straight to the ghost tree, and she didn’t want to start at the ghost tree today.

  Lauren had a small green canvas duffel bag that used to belong to her father slung over her shoulder. She had carefully packed this bag with all the things she thought she would need if she actually came across the crime scene.

  It was easier for her to think of it that way, to consider it in a distant and scientific manner. If she didn’t, then she might remember that two girls were murdered in the woods she had loved since she was a child and that those two girls had died screaming and terrified.

  But you’re going to help them. You’re going to find evidence that will help identify them and catch their killer.

  It was a noble mission that she was embarking on, actually. It wasn’t really about proving she’d had a vision.

  In the bag she had a pair of leather gloves (also her father’s, taken from his dresser while her mother was downstairs making sandwiches for lunch), a flashlight (because sometimes the tree cover made the interior of the forest as dark as twilight), and two large black trash bags (for evidence, if she found it). She also had a sleeve of Fig Newtons, a bottle of water, an extra Stayfree maxi pad, and a packet of tissues. These last two were Just in Case of a Period Emergency, although she really didn’t know what that might entail—uncontrollable hemorrhaging? Was such a thing possible? And if it came down to it, would she have the guts to change her pad right there in the middle of the woods where anyone might see her?

  Of all the days for my body to finally start catching up to everyone else.

  Lauren had prepared her bag of necessities and then dashed outside and hidden it behind a pile of beach chairs stacked on the side of the house. Mom was still acting very sympathetic and Lauren didn’t want her asking questions about the bag or getting annoyed that Lauren was going into the woods. She seemed keen on the idea that a little walk would help Lauren feel better, but Lauren didn’t think her mom would agree to a long hike.

  Up until a couple of years ago (when she discovered Ray Bradbury and Stephen King), Lauren had loved reading the Trixie Belden mysteries and at the moment she felt a lot like Trixie, off investigating a crime.

  Don’t have my beautiful best friend Honey with me, though.

  Miranda used to read those books too, before she’d discovered Jackie Collins and Rosemary Rogers. Back then Lauren and Miranda had played Trixie and Honey in the woods, solving innocuous crimes like the theft of the Hostess apple pie and the case of the missing terrier (a worn stuffed toy of Miranda’s substituting for an actual barking dog).

  If you’re going to solve a crime, then think like a crime solver. Don’t reminisce about things you used to play with your best friend.

  Lauren frowned. There were two things that she knew for sure—that the girls’ bodies had ended up in Mrs. Schneider’s fortress of a backyard, and that the person (monster?) had touched her bike seat with his (its?) bloody hand.

  The murders had occurred somewhere between the yard and the ghost tree. So she would start from the woods behind Mrs. Schneider’s house and hope that she picked up a trail from there.

  Lauren walked on the edge of the road—there were no sidewalks in her development—thinking about what she’d seen in the throes of her migraine two days before, and about the floating book, and also about David and his sudden predictions.

  Her abdomen felt puffy and twisted at the same time, and she’d put on jeans instead of shorts even though it was hot out. She was afraid—and she knew it was an irrational fear—that her period might leak out of the side of her underpants and then the blood would run down her legs and if she wore shorts then everyone would see.

  Her jeans felt tight in the waist and she wished she’d put on sweatpants instead, but her mom didn’t think sweatpants were appropriate for anything except school gym class. Some of the girls in Lauren’s class had started wearing stirrup leggings to school in the spring, but like so many other trends, her mom had said they couldn’t afford it and that Lauren’s jeans were fine for schoolwear.

  As soon as I get into the woods I’m going to unbutton the top button. It actually felt like her pants were squeezing all of the blood out of her body and it was pouring into the maxi pad that she’d carefully applied to her underwear.

  I might actually have to change it in the woods, even if I don’t want to.

  She was so preoccupied with her bloated, pulsing body—that was how it felt, like her body was an alien thing attached to her head—that she almost missed the bright flash in the corner of her eye.

  The orange Gremlin that had cruised slowly by her house the night before was parked in the Hansons’ driveway.

  So it’s Jake’s car, then, she thought. And he’s still in there, visiting his parents. He must have stayed overnight.

  She hurried past the house, suddenly worried that he would see her from a window and come out to talk. Lauren did not want to talk to anyone at the moment.

  She thought he would be able to tell that she had her period if he talked to her, that he could divine the knowledge from the way she stood or held her head or some such thing. Of course every girl got their period and Lauren never knew if Miranda had hers unless Miranda actually said so, but still. It was like something intensely private was somehow now happening out in the open just because Lauren had left the house. The last person she wanted to see was Jake.

  And the second-to-last person is Miranda. Nope. I’d much rather go on this adventure without her. They’d never gone a whole day without seeing or speaking to each other, at least not that Lauren could recall. But Miranda had never called Lauren the day before, after their missed meeting, and she hadn’t called that morning, either.

  She must really be angry that I ditched her.

  Lauren didn’t feel as guilty about this as she supposed she ought to, and that made her feel bad about not feeling guilty.

  It could be the beginning, though, of the quiet-drifting-away that she’d secretly hoped would happen. It could mean that Miranda had found someone else to be with, someone who would be more interested in Aqua Net and boys in Camaros.

  Lauren cut through the Arakawas’ yard—Mr. Arakawa was almost always traveling for business, and Mrs. Arakawa spent most of the day cleaning their house until it gleamed. They had a grown-up son away at Stanford University and they liked to see the kids around the neighborhood now that their nest was empty. They never minded if Lauren or anyone else used their grass as a pathway to the forest.

  Mrs. Arakawa was in the front room vacuuming—Lauren could see her through the picture window—and she waved as Lauren went by. Lauren waved back but didn’t knock on the door to say hello, the way she sometimes did. If she knocked then Mrs. Arakawa would offer her tea and a snack, but Lauren had a mission and she didn’t want to be interrupted.

  The Arakawas’ backyard was as neat as their house—the patio furniture wiped down every morning and free of spiderwebs and bird droppings, the water hose coiled neatly and hung on the side of the house. The diMucci yard always needed trimming, and there was inevitably a toy or bike or folding chair to trip over.

 
Lauren disappeared into the cover of the trees, and as always she felt that she was returning to a safe place, a place where she belonged. She didn’t understand why she felt this, and why she still felt it despite everything bad that had happened here in the last year—her father’s death, the runaway girls.

  And if Nana is to be believed, then something terrible happens here every year, though nobody knows about it except her.

  And one other, she said. I wonder who that is? I wonder why I didn’t think to ask at the time. Who else could possibly know, or why? That is, assuming it’s all real to begin with, which I’m not sure I believe anyway.

  Lauren made sure she was far enough back into the trees that nobody would be able to see her at a casual glance, but not so far back that she couldn’t see the rear yards of the houses that went around the cul-de-sac. From the Arakawa yard Mrs. Schneider’s house was three houses to the left. Lauren definitely did not want to get caught by Mrs. Schneider, although the old lady was usually watching out the front window and not the back one. She thought she could get close without Mrs. Schneider seeing her—and anyway, if her feet never touched the grass then she was technically not in the yard.

  That might work in a court of law but probably not if Mrs. Schneider catches you. And the old lady was mean as anything. She’d probably scream the neighborhood down if she found Lauren within ten feet of her property.

  So Lauren would be careful—so, so careful. All she needed was a little bit of a trail to follow anyway. If there were obvious signs leading away from the Schneider place, then she wouldn’t need to go close.

  In some parts of the woods the forest floor was mostly clear around the bases of the tree, enough so that a person could walk freely even where there wasn’t an actual path. But here, behind the houses, there were lots of scrubby little bushes, some of which had thorns and a few that were covered in poison ivy leaves.

  Lauren was very allergic to poison ivy. Due to her habit of roaming around the woods in shorts, she inevitably ended up with a rash several times each summer and was subjected to the indignity of oatmeal baths and calamine lotion. She was glad for her long pants now despite the heat, but she’d be careful not to rub her bare arms or hands against the leaves.

  The sun pushed through the trees, making little patches of light. Lauren heard the Lopez kids (their house was almost directly across the cul-de-sac from Mrs. Schneider) squealing and laughing. They must be playing in the backyard. I didn’t see them out in the front.

  Lauren liked all three kids, but she didn’t want to bump into them now. They would be curious about what she was up to. She hoped that they didn’t roam in the woods behind their place.

  Once she was positioned with Mrs. Schneider’s yard in view (and no sign of the old woman), Lauren searched the ground for signs of anyone’s passage.

  There’s got to be footprints.

  Or blood.

  This thought emerged unbidden from the place in her brain where she saw the person (monster?) putting what was left of the girls in a bag, when she had the vision by the ghost tree. She distinctly recalled that the bag was dripping as he (it?) walked away.

  If what she saw in her head wasn’t a lie, there would be a blood trail leading up to the Schneider yard. And certainly footprints of some kind—there was no way someone could cross through all of the scrub without leaving signs of their passage.

  Broken branches, or leaves on the ground. Shoe prints in the dirt.

  There wasn’t quite enough light to see everything on the ground clearly, but there was too much to use the flashlight. She crouched down, but not too low. She definitely didn’t want to crawl through the brush and end up covered in thorn scratches and ivy rash.

  She didn’t see any obvious signs of passage, which was annoying. Surely someone walking through this rarely crossed area would leave a trail behind them?

  Lauren wished she knew exactly where the girls were found in the yard. It would be easier if she could focus on one section rather than try to scan every little thing.

  I wonder if Officer Hendricks would tell me.

  No, he wouldn’t tell her. She was just a kid, and there was no reason for her to ask that question. Besides, what was she going to do—go home and call the police department and then come back to the woods to continue her work?

  She was at it for at least a half hour before she found anything useful.

  At first she thought she hadn’t seen it at all. Her eyes were straining so hard, looking for a sign, and numerous times her overheated imagination interpreted a smashed berry or a bit of mud as a sinister bloodstain.

  But this time it was a bloodstain. A very clear splash of blood, not bright red anymore but a rusty brown, on one of the thick poison ivy leaves. It was too high to be a random bit of dirt, and there had been no rain in the last couple of days so it wasn’t mud.

  Lauren put her face as close to the stain as she dared. Yes, it’s definitely blood.

  She thought she could smell a sharp copper remnant underneath the scent of greenery. And there was something about the stain, too, something . . .

  Glittery? She scowled. No, that wasn’t right. It wasn’t like craft glitter or costume glitter or anything like that. But there was something that sparkled inside the bloodstain, or around it. A few small shining particles catching the sunlight.

  What could that be? Lauren had definitely paid attention in science class, and Mr. Higgins had never mentioned any quality in blood that would make it sparkle.

  “Well, okay, you found some blood so don’t worry about the sparkling. Just work backward,” she murmured.

  She walked a few steps farther into the woods. The scrub began thinning out pretty quickly away from the border.

  Probably because it’s less sunny here.

  Less sun meant less light, and that meant it was harder to see any tracks or stains. But Lauren found a second splash almost immediately. Even in the shadow of the trees she spotted the glittering particles, like a vein of fool’s gold inside a matrix of rock.

  Weird. Really weird. But helpful.

  She stopped searching for blood or tracks and instead scanned everywhere for more of the glittery particles. Once she did that she could see the path ahead of her clearly—one bloodstain followed by another and another, marked out like bread crumbs in the forest.

  This isn’t the blood, she thought suddenly. This is me. This is magic.

  (there’s no such thing as magic)

  Her pace quickened. Whether it was magic or some trick of the light, she’d discovered the trail and she was going to follow it back to its source.

  The trail led deep into the woods and soon Lauren realized she was heading in the direction of the old cabin in the woods.

  Her footsteps slowed, and then stopped.

  What if the killer is living out here? In the cabin? What if he sees you and comes after you?

  “Oh, Lauren, you dummy,” she moaned.

  She hadn’t thought this through at all. She’d only been thinking that two murders happened in the forest a few days ago, not that the murderer might be hanging around looking for more victims.

  If Miranda had been with her, she would have laughed her head off and told Lauren that in horror movies the killer always came back for more. But Lauren didn’t like the kind of horror movies Miranda liked. She didn’t mind being scared and she liked things with creepy atmosphere, but she didn’t like to see a bunch of girls getting cut up by a madman with a knife. At least that was what it seemed all those movies were about.

  And that’s what happened here, she thought. A madman with a knife cut two girls up into little pieces and what are you doing? Running off through the woods right to the place where he did it. You didn’t even tell anybody where you were going.

  If this were one of Miranda’s movies you’d be the next victim. And you’d deserve it.

&n
bsp; But what to do? Should she continue on? If she didn’t, would she be able to find the blood trail again?

  If she did, would she run into the killer?

  The woods, her woods, the place where she’d always felt safe and comforted now seemed to loom over her. The trees had eyes that followed and leaves that reached for her. They were going to smother her, take her into their bark and keep her there forever.

  Her heart pounded hard in her chest. Her eyes darted around at every little sound, every flutter of a bird’s wing, every rustle of branches with the wind.

  The song she’d been singing a couple of days earlier came back to her, suddenly sinister.

  “I always feel like somebody’s watching me . . .”

  Footsteps sounded behind her. The killer. He came around behind me. He’s here.

  She whirled around, saw the silent figure standing just a few feet away from her, and screamed.

  4

  Jesus, I think one of my eardrums is bleeding,” Jake said, holding his hand to his right ear.

  “What are you doing here?” Lauren asked.

  Her voice sounded shrill to her own ears. Her hands shook and she’d dropped the duffel bag when she’d spun around. She felt ready to dash away at the slightest provocation, a trembling little rabbit in sight of a fox.

  Jake reached back and rubbed the back of his head in a sheepish gesture. He’d gotten his hair cut, Lauren noticed now. It was short in the back and a little longer on top.

  Kind of like Matt Dillon in The Outsiders, she thought, and wondered if Miranda would agree.

  But Jake’s new haircut was not the point. The point was that he was standing there in her woods (my woods???) very close to a murder site—because she was close to it now, she felt it deep down in a way that wasn’t just a hunch. Her eyes widened. Is Jake here to hurt me?

  “What are you doing out here?” she repeated, and this time it was sharp, demanding an answer.