The Ghost Tree

by Christina Henry

  “Hey, what the—” she said, crossing her right ankle over her left knee so she could see the sole. There was something dark and sticky like thick syrup all over the rubber bottom.

  A pool of the dark stuff was seeping out of the shadows between the tent and the haunted house. Jake crouched down to try to get a closer look and Lauren joined him. She got a whiff of it then and stood up quickly, backing away.

  “Hey, what’s the matter?” he said.

  “It’s blood,” she said. “Can’t you smell it?”

  “No, my nose is stuffed up from the animals,” he said, standing up just as fast.

  “Something wrong?”

  Lauren spun around and saw Officers Lopez and Miller approaching from the direction she and Jake had just come from.

  “There’s blood,” Lauren said, pointing. “A great big pool of blood.”

  Officer Miller looked indulgent. “Nah, it’s probably not blood. I bet it’s some trick to do with the haunted house.”

  “Let’s have a look,” Officer Lopez said, taking his flashlight off his belt.

  He clicked it on and all four of them peered into the little alleyway between the tent and the haunted house.

  At first Lauren wasn’t really sure what she was looking at, because it was all in bits and pieces and her brain did not want to make sense of it. She thought maybe someone had slaughtered an animal for a sick joke.

  Then she saw the yellow dress, or what was left of it. And the yellow hair, stained in red.

  And Miranda’s head, not attached to the rest of her, her eyes wide and her mouth open in a scream.

  “Miranda,” she said, and felt her legs turn to water underneath her.

  Jake grabbed her before she fell down into the pool of Miranda’s blood, and she clutched at his shirt, unable to support herself.

  “Oh, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph,” Miller said. He made a choking sound.

  “Don’t puke in the crime scene,” Officer Lopez said. “You two, back away but don’t go anywhere, all right? I’m going to need a statement from you.”

  Lauren was amazed at how calm he sounded. He got on his radio and called Chief Christie, and his voice didn’t waver for an instant. He lowered the flashlight and Lauren was relieved not to see Miranda’s eyes.

  Why you? I was going to call you tomorrow. I was going to tell you I was sorry.

  Miranda, I’m so sorry.

  Miller ran in front of the haunted house and began to retch.

  “It’s the same as my sister,” Jake said. “The same as those girls in Mrs. Schneider’s yard.”

  Officer Lopez gave Jake a sharp look. “What do you know about that?”

  “The same as all the girls,” Lauren said. Blood was roaring in her ears. She spoke without really noticing what she said. “Except not. This isn’t how it’s supposed to happen.”

  “How what’s supposed to happen? Lauren, do you know something? Do you know who’s doing this?” Officer Lopez came closer to them, his voice an undertone like he didn’t want Miller to hear.

  “There’s something wrong in this town,” Lauren said. “Something very wrong.”

  “What’s all the fuss over here?” Mayor Touhy’s voice—too hearty, completely unwelcome—came from the entrance of the acrobat tent. He had just exited and walked over to join them.

  Touhy glanced sharply from Miller’s bent form to Lopez’s somber face to Lauren and Jake, who were holding on to each other for dear life. “Has something happened?”

  “Hey, what’s that?” Jake asked, pointing at a shadow on the side of the tent just above Miranda.

  Officer Lopez raised his flashlight. It swept past Miranda’s head and Touhy sucked in a breath. “Not another one,” he said, so low that Lauren barely heard him. “It’s not time.”

  The beam of the flashlight touched the tent wall where Jake pointed. Something was written there—something in large, streaky red letters.

  ONLY YOU LAUREN

  Lauren felt her blood rush to her head and her chest turn ice-cold. The last thing she heard was Jake saying, “Lauren? Lauren?” and then there was nothing else.

  24

  Karen wasn’t surprised that David wanted to go to bed early that night. It sounded like he and Lauren had done every single thing at the fair—“’cept the haunted house,” he’d said in his most serious voice. “Because Lauren doesn’t like them.”

  He was a good sleeper anyway—had been since he was a baby. David had never been one of those children who fussed and fought at bedtime. He didn’t mind taking a bath, either—the exact opposite of Lauren as a toddler, who would scream if her hair got wet and have to be wrestled down to rinse out the shampoo.

  He’d nodded off at the dinner table, just in the middle of telling her about Lauren winning the stuffed frog from the water-gun game. His voice drifted away and his eyes closed and his head lolled forward.

  She’d gently shaken him awake. “Do you want to go to bed now?”

  “Okeh,” he said.

  She’d picked him up, thinking He’s so big now, I can hardly carry him at all. He snuggled his head onto her shoulder.

  “Do you think you can take a bath?” she asked. She hated to put him into bed all covered in dust and funnel cake sugar from the fair.

  “Okeh,” he said sleepily.

  He stood, swaying gently, while she ran a warm bath. She quickly washed him and got him into his pajamas and led him to his bedroom. He climbed in and pulled his top sheet up to his chin. The sheets were white with scenes from the Peanuts cartoon all over them.

  “Good night, David,” she said, kissing his forehead.

  “Good night, Mommy,” he murmured. His eyes were already closed.

  It was still light out so she went to the window and closed the blinds and pulled the curtains shut. She tiptoed toward the door, though she thought he was probably out cold already.

  He turned onto his side just as she reached the door and said, “Good-bye, Miranda.”

  Karen glanced back at him. He’d sounded so sad.

  He must be having a dream, she thought, and went downstairs.

  She cleaned up the dinner things, glancing at the clock. She hoped that Lauren was having a good time at the fair with Jake Hanson. That had been a surprise, and the age difference had given Karen pause, but in the end she decided to let Lauren go. Her daughter had been a little melancholy since the argument with Miranda.

  It was too hot to make tea or coffee, so Karen took a can of Tab out to the back porch and opened it there. She wouldn’t mind a glass of wine, she realized, but she didn’t have any in the house. It had become a very rare indulgence since Joe died.

  Lauren standing at the back door, tugging on the knob.

  There was that memory again. Karen sat in one of the lawn chairs and put her feet up on the porch railing, thinking. One of her neighbors was grilling. She smelled the smoke and the scent of cooking meat lingering in the heavy summer air. It was such a hot summer already. It made her feel languid and drifting. She closed her eyes against the glow of the setting sun.

  Lauren standing at the back door, tugging on the doorknob.

  “Lauren!” Joe was standing next to her, shaking their daughter’s shoulder, but she didn’t respond to his voice or his touch. “Lauren!”

  Her eyes were wide open, like she was sleepwalking, but she’d never sleepwalked before.

  Karen watched her daughter try to open the locked door and her husband try to stop Lauren from leaving. Karen had a sudden flash then, a kind of terrible knowledge that made her stagger and clutch the counter for support so she could stay upright.

  Joe ceased trying to stop Lauren and stared at his wife, and she saw the same terrible knowledge in his eyes.

  “We’re supposed to let her go,” Karen said. “Open the door for her, and lock it behind her.” />
  “And tomorrow she’ll be dead, found in the woods. But it’s all for the greater good,” Joe intoned, like he was reciting something he’d memorized. “And in time we’ll forget.”

  Forget, Karen thought, and shuddered. Forget her smart and beautiful and oh-so-difficult daughter. Forget Lauren had ever existed.

  (just like Nancy)

  But that memory was only a flash, a nearly subliminal image that flew past as she stared at Lauren and Joe standing by the door. Her husband’s mouth was twisted in disgust.

  “Does everybody do this? They open the door for their daughters to be murdered?”

  “They must,” Karen said. “They must, because it happens every year. But then we all forget about it, so that it can happen again.”

  “It’s not happening this time,” Joe said. “I’m not sending my child out into the night to die.”

  “But what will happen if we don’t?” Karen whispered. “Will we all die?”

  “No,” Joe said. “I’m going to stop it, whatever it is.”

  She thought she couldn’t possibly be more afraid than she was, but the idea of Joe going out to confront . . . well, she wasn’t certain what he would confront but she remembered at that very moment that all the girls had died in the woods, their heads torn from their bodies.

  “It will kill you,” she said, going to him then and grasping his arm. “It will tear you to pieces.”

  “No, it won’t,” he said. “I’m not some teenage girl blindly walking into its nest. The only way to stop this is if we resist.”

  “You don’t know that!” She was panicking, felt it rising in her throat and choking her. “I won’t send Lauren out, but I’m not letting you go, either.”

  “Listen, you take Lauren upstairs and lock her in her bedroom. Don’t let her out until morning, no matter what she says or does.”

  “Joe, no, I won’t let you—”

  “You can’t stop me,” he said, and he gave her that crooked smile, the one that had made her heart flutter on the day they first met.

  They hadn’t always been happy. Their marriage hadn’t been perfect. But she loved him, deep down in her bones. And she didn’t want him to die.

  “Promise me that you’ll keep Lauren safe,” he said. “Promise.”

  “Yes, I promise,” she said. She couldn’t stop him. Nothing she said or did had ever been able to move him once he’d decided on a thing. He and Lauren were the same that way.

  He pushed at Lauren’s shoulders, tried to steer her back to Karen. It’s like trying to move a mechanical soldier that only wants to march in one direction, Karen thought. Lauren’s feet kept moving toward the door, her upper body angled toward it like it was tugging on her. Her face was blank and her eyes were lifeless.

  Karen got in front of Lauren and tried to turn her around, but it was impossible. It wasn’t that Lauren was stronger than Karen, only that she could not be moved. The compulsion was forcing her in one direction only—toward her death.

  It was terrible to realize that her daughter would march willingly to the slaughter, and worse that she and Joe were expected to be complicit in Lauren’s death. And this happened all over town, every year. Every year some girl’s family let her out of the house in the middle of the night, knowing what would happen to her, and the next morning they would wake up with no memory of their actions, their daughter seemingly spirited away by fairies in the night.

  Karen pushed at Lauren’s shoulders and was able to shift her a few feet away from the door. As soon as there was clearance she heard Joe unlock the door behind her.

  “Wait!” she cried. They hadn’t really had a chance to say good-bye. Karen kept a firm grip on Lauren’s shoulders and glanced back at the door.

  “I’ll come back,” he said.

  All she saw of him was his face framed in the closing door for a moment before he pulled it shut. She heard him locking it from the outside and noticed that he’d had the foresight to grab his keys from the hook by the door. Which was a very good thing, because her grip had slackened when she saw him leave, and as soon as it did Lauren pushed forward again.

  Karen dug her heels in, tried to stop her, but all she succeeded in doing was arresting the forward motion. Lauren still marched in place, her eyes locked on the door. Karen thought, almost hysterically, of a Dr. Seuss story that David thought was funny—one about creatures called Zax who only walked in one direction and would never step to one side for an obstacle.

  They stood there all night, Lauren pushing toward the door, Karen pushing back and growing increasingly exhausted. Then suddenly Lauren stopped, her legs buckling beneath her like her batteries had abruptly died.

  “Lauren!” Karen cried, catching her as she fell. Lauren’s head lolled backward, her eyes closed, her breath deep and even. She was asleep.

  Karen carefully lowered her to the ground, where Lauren turned onto her left side and tucked her hands underneath her face, like she always had since she was very small.

  Her mother sat beside her, stroking her hair, and let the tears she’d been suppressing fall. She knew that Joe was never coming home.

  Karen opened her eyes and was startled to discover that it was night. She’d fallen asleep on the porch. Her neck hurt from resting against the hard metal and nylon of the lawn chair.

  Strange dream, she thought, then, No, it wasn’t a dream. It was a memory.

  The truth of this and of everything else she now realized made her hunch forward in pain, clutching her middle. Joe had not been cheating on her. He hadn’t gone out that night to meet his mistress. He’d run out into the night to save their daughter, and he’d been killed by the monster instead.

  Joe hadn’t stopped paying the money on his life insurance. The insurance money had disappeared when they’d broken the rules, when they hadn’t let Lauren die as they were supposed to.

  But the charm or spell or curse had made Karen think things that weren’t true, had made her forget that Lauren had nearly died.

  “What is wrong with this town?” she gasped.

  Why did this happen here? And why did she remember all of a sudden? Why were things rushing back to her now, her childhood best friend and the truth about Joe? Why did she feel as if she could name every girl that had gone missing in the last twenty years?

  What was different now?

  The phone inside rang, startling her. She got up and rubbed her head, which was aching now. Just as she opened the screen door, David began to wail, crying like she’d never heard him cry before.

  Karen ran past the insistently trilling phone without stopping.

  25

  Mrs. Schneider looked around at the circle of expectant faces in her living room. Many people had come when she called—more than she’d thought. There were twenty of them squashed together on her sofa or perched on the armrests of the chairs

  (Mr. Schneider would not have liked that, no he would not, he would have thought it rude)

  and some of the younger ones sitting cross-legged on the floor like they were in kindergarten again.

  No one was talking. A sense of hushed resolve hung around the room, a feeling that they all knew their purpose and were willing to fulfill it.

  For the first time in a very long time her mind felt clear. No fog obscured her memories of Janey or of the other girls. If she tried she thought she could name off every one that had died in her lifetime.

  Not died. Murdered.

  No. Not murdered either. Sacrificed.

  A few of them were her own neighbors, and she saw the knowledge that they, too, had suppressed for so long on their faces.

  No, suppressed isn’t the right word. Hidden. It was hidden from us, hidden behind other things in our heads.

  And now all the hidden things had come into the light, and Mrs. Schneider knew why. It was because of the outsiders. If the outsiders went
away, then everything would go back to the way it was before.

  That means girls will die again, one every year.

  Well, it was better if it was one girl a year. Better than whatever was happening now. And before it had always been safely in the woods, not in her backyard.

  All she wanted was for everything to go back to the way it was. She didn’t want to think about Janey, didn’t want to hurt inside when she remembered her bright and beautiful daughter.

  “Thank you all for coming,” she began.

  She stopped, clearing her throat. Everyone had turned to look at her expectantly. There was an odd look in their eyes. A look that was almost like they were waiting to be told what to do.

  I don’t have to convince them, she realized. They already know.

  “I think it’s time we purged our town of these outsiders,” she said. “Once they’re gone everything will go back to the way it was before.”

  Heads were nodding all around, no voice of dissent.

  “I don’t think we should, eh, hurt them, though,” Mrs. Schneider said carefully. She did remember how that woman had been kind to her when they found the girls in her yard. And the outsiders had children

  (filthy Mexican children that would have more filthy Mexican children, but children nonetheless)

  and Mrs. Schneider did not want to be responsible for the death of children.

  “I think, perhaps, that we should just frighten them. Frighten them into leaving town forever.”

  Again, everyone in the room nodded. It was so strange. She felt a flutter of nervousness, a momentary hesitation. It was very much like they were under some kind of spell. But she, Mrs. Schneider, was not a witch. There was something in the air, something that had drawn all of them to her house and made them listen and obey.

  “The sooner we take care of this problem, the sooner our lives can return to normal. We will be able to forget again.”

  “Yes. Forget.”

  “Forget.”

  “Forget.”

  The word went all around the room from person to person like falling dominoes.