The Mulberry Tree

by Allison Rushby

  Then, in the blink of an eye, she was gone.

  As Immy looked around, the room began to steadily lighten. It took Immy a moment or two to realize what was happening — the day was moving forward quickly, as if someone had pressed fast-forward on a recording.

  “Tree! What’s happening?” Immy asked.

  But she received no answer.

  She watched as people entered and exited the room several times in a blur until, suddenly, the dizzy feeling that had come over her as her eyes struggled to keep up stopped. Now a man and a woman entered the room at a normal pace. Immy guessed they were Elizabeth’s aunt and uncle — the people Jean had told her Elizabeth had lived with. They were older. Gray streaks ran through the woman’s hair, which was pulled back in a bun, and the man was balding on top.

  “I don’t understand it.” The woman moved over to the bed and smoothed the bedclothes. “Where could she have gotten to? I’ve checked with Jean’s family. She hasn’t been there at all. It simply doesn’t make any sense.”

  Immy noted the woman looked more annoyed than worried.

  “Ah, she’ll turn up. I keep telling you,” the man said. He turned and left the room with a shrug. “She’s probably outside somewhere. Running up and down the street in her nightgown,” he called back over his shoulder. “She’s excited, is all.”

  After a moment or two, the woman followed him out. Immy decided to leave the room as well. She could see that the front door was open at the bottom of the stairs, and, as she made her way down, she could hear bells starting to peal from what must have been the village church down the road.

  The man and the woman turned right, veering toward the kitchen, but Immy — hearing other voices — walked straight out the front door.

  And then she stood stock-still as she attempted to take in the scene before her.

  The usually quiet street had been closed down and turned into a sea of red, white, and blue — the colors of the Union Jack on the British flag, which was prominently displayed everywhere. Flags rippled in the breeze; large and small, they hung from windows, were stuck into gates and hedges, and fluttered on bunting. All along the middle of the street were tables, each sporting a different tablecloth and set with different crockery. And everywhere — everywhere — were people. People laughing, people shouting, people dancing. There were men in uniform or trousers and shirts with the sleeves rolled up, and women in uniform or wool skirts and fancy blouses, their hair set in perfect waves atop their heads, scarlet lipstick on their lips. There were girls with tight braids and summer dresses, and boys in funny shorts, long socks, and buttoned shirts with vests over the top. Everyone from young to old wore paper party hats.

  Immy couldn’t believe her eyes as she looked around. She’d always thought that many people in this village seemed miserable. But these people were anything but miserable. A conga line danced around at one end of the table, another group was singing, and a couple of older men sat at a table with handkerchiefs on their heads to keep the sun off. She even saw one man dancing with a little dog.

  It was then that she remembered the photograph she’d seen on the wall at the library. This was VE Day — the day of the biggest party Great Britain had ever seen, or probably would see. The war was over. She remembered something else, too. It was Elizabeth’s birthday. Jean had told her so. Elizabeth had disappeared on VE Day, which also happened to be her eleventh birthday.

  The people suddenly began to blur, and Immy realized time was moving on once more, in a swirl of red, white, and blue.

  When the scene slowed for a second time, the shadows were starting to lengthen. Immy guessed it was midafternoon.

  A booming voice came from a loudspeaker that had been set up in someone’s front window. It sounded like a speech was being broadcast. It was obviously an important one that they’d been waiting to hear — maybe by the prime minister — but as she looked around, Immy began to notice that people weren’t really listening. Instead, they were standing in small groups and talking. And looking worried.

  Not far from Lavender Cottage’s front gate, the man and woman whom Immy had seen in Elizabeth’s bedroom were talking to a policeman. A girl was there as well. Immy ran over so she could listen in to what they were all saying.

  The woman definitely looked far more anxious than before. She was twisting her hands worriedly now as she spoke. “She’s gone. Simply gone! Something’s wrong, I know it is. All her things are there. Even her clothes. It’s not right.”

  The policeman didn’t look too concerned. “These evacuees often don’t settle well, and VE Day will have stirred everything up. My guess is she’s run back to London.”

  The man and woman glanced at each other as the girl looked on. “No. No, I don’t think so,” the woman answered. “We’re not strangers. We’re family. She was very happy here. She had her friends. Her school. And she wouldn’t go to London in her nightgown, would she?”

  “You’ve got a point there, love,” her husband said.

  “It’s the excitement of the day. Lots of the children will be up to high jinks.” The policeman smiled kindly. “She’ll be back before dark or will telephone before then. You’ll see.”

  As he spoke, the girl standing with them began to look angrier and angrier. It was on closer inspection that Immy realized it was someone she knew.

  It was Jean. The girl was Jean.

  As soon as the policeman had finished speaking, Jean spoke up. “You don’t understand,” she said to him, her voice insistent. “Elizabeth wouldn’t just run off. She told me everything. Everything! She was excited about today. It’s her birthday. I have a present for her, and there’s to be a cake later and everything. She was looking forward to that.”

  “Yes,” her aunt said. “We managed a cake, even with the rationing. We’ve been saving our sugar up for some time.”

  A group of several men approached. “We’re going to send out a few groups walking along the river. Just to look.”

  “Oh, thank you. Thank you,” Elizabeth’s aunt told them, her hand coming to her chest. “That would ease my mind. All I can think about is what if she’s fallen and broken her leg? Or something’s toppled upon her and she’s trapped? Anything could have happened. Anything! We’ve all been so distracted today.”

  “You stay here, love,” her husband told her. “Hopefully it’s just that time’s gotten away from her and she’ll simply come back.”

  As the men walked off, the scene began to blur once more, and day moved on into night. Immy found herself standing alone on the now quiet street, the tables gone, the party packed up. Small groups of people still milled about, however, talking, whispering.

  It was obvious that Elizabeth hadn’t turned up.

  And then a bloodcurdling scream cut through the quiet of the night.

  Everyone ran in the direction of it, heading straight for the back garden of Lavender Cottage.

  Immy, who had been standing just outside the house itself, was the first to reach the scene.

  The first to see where the scream had come from.

  It had come from Jean.

  Jean, who stood, terrified, her hands splayed upon the brand-new knot on the mulberry tree.

  “It’s happened,” she cried. “It’s happened again.”

  Immy jolted awake, her whole body stiffening. She took a ragged breath.

  A dream. It had all been a dream.

  In the moonlight that shone through the window, she brought her hands to her sweaty face.

  And froze when she saw the fingers on her right hand.

  They were stained a deep blue-red.

  She couldn’t take her eyes off them and stared at her fingers for what felt like forever, trying to process what she’d seen. What she now knew.

  Immy threw back her covers and flew from the bed. She ran to the open window, furious with the tree.

  “You took her!” she hissed at the tree, wanting to scream but not wanting to wake her parents. “You really did it. That’s
what Elizabeth saw. What she told Jean about. It wasn’t a person, or an animal. It was you all along. You took her! How could you? How could you do that? Where is she? Where have you put her?”

  The tree drooped further, as if ashamed of itself.

  “And what about Bridget? I bet you did exactly the same thing to her, didn’t you? Show me! Show me what you did!”

  The tree was all silence.

  Immy braced herself, ready to ask her next question.

  “And me! What have you got planned for me?”

  She waited.

  But no more explanation came.

  Exhausted, Immy finally managed to get to sleep in the early hours of the morning, despite her feverish brain. She jolted awake once more when her mother called out her name.

  “Immy, come on! This is the fifth time I’ve called you! It’s Friday. It’s not the weekend yet!” her mum yelled up the stairs.

  She threw her school uniform on, washed her face, and headed down to the kitchen. Her eyes felt dry and scratchy and her heart was heavy as she thought about what had happened last night. She couldn’t stop looking at her fingers, which were still stained despite the vigorous scrubbing she’d just given them in the bathroom.

  She found her parents both standing by the open French doors, staring outside at the tree.

  “What is it?” she said quickly, running over to them.

  Her dad glanced at her before turning back to the tree. “There really is something wrong with the tree,” he said.

  Immy pushed past them in order to get a better look. She was surprised to see that the tree looked even worse than it had last night. It truly did seem to be wilting now. Weakening. Dying.

  “Well, we can’t say anything about it now.” Immy’s mum shrugged. “Not after all that fuss from the owners. We’ll wait until Monday. After the party.”

  “I think we can wait,” Immy’s dad said. “It’s sturdy enough. It’s not going to fall on the house or anything.”

  Immy kept staring at the tree, hoping it could hear her every thought. To think she’d given it the benefit of the doubt. That she didn’t believe it had taken Elizabeth and probably Bridget, too. And it had! She narrowed her eyes as she looked at it, wanting it to know she wouldn’t let it take anyone else ever again.

  She wouldn’t be the third girl, and she’d make sure no one else ever became the third girl either.

  At school that day, there was still no Caitlyn. Immy decided she’d ask Erin where Caitlyn lived. She kept thinking about those strange changes in Caitlyn. What if the tree was doing something to her? Getting ready to steal her away even though she wasn’t living in Lavender Cottage? She had to see for herself what was going on with Caitlyn. Would she look different again? Maybe she’d had dreams, too?

  But Erin arrived at school with news: Caitlyn’s parents had taken her away. They thought she was stressed about the tree. About Immy’s party. They’d gone to Norfolk for the weekend. Caitlyn wouldn’t be back at school until next week.

  During her lessons, Immy couldn’t pay attention. All she could do was go over and over again in her head what she’d seen last night. She tried desperately to make sense of it all, but she simply couldn’t. Elizabeth had disappeared when she ate the berry. Is that what had happened to Bridget, too? So why hadn’t it happened to her as well? Why had the tree allowed her to come back? Why did the tree look so sick? Should she tell Jean what had happened? Her parents? The more she thought about it all, the more questions swirled around in her mind. They seemed to gather speed as they went, creating a confusing whirlwind.

  Immy managed to struggle through the day and even went to allotment club in the afternoon. She hadn’t planned on going, but when she got home, she saw the tree and decided she needed to get out of the house.

  It was Mrs. Garland who noticed something was up. Immy had paused in between picking runner beans, and Mrs. Garland came over to squat down beside her. “Everything okay?” she asked her. “You seem a bit distracted today.”

  “Everything’s fine,” Immy said quickly. “Just, you know . . . thinking about the party.”

  Mrs. Garland nodded knowingly. “Don’t you worry. I’m sure you’ll have a good turnout and the village will be able to put all this behind us.”

  Immy doubted it but smiled and nodded and began picking runner beans once more.

  She went through the front door when she got home again, not wanting to make her way around the back of the house near the tree. She couldn’t bear to look at it. To be near it. She busied herself inside instead, feeding Cloud, Marshmallow, and Scramble and cleaning out their cage. That evening, in her bedroom, she kept the window closed and locked, despite the fact that it was a warm night.

  She could barely sleep, wondering if the tree would wake her again. If it would try to take her. If she’d be able to resist the berry.

  She needn’t have been worried, because nothing happened.

  No rhyme entered her head, and there was no eerie scratching at the window. No dream.

  If anything, the tree was too silent as it waited. Waited and watched.

  On Saturday morning, Immy’s mum went to do her rounds at the hospital. Immy and her father fed the hoglets and then got ready to go grocery shopping. They had a long list of everything they needed to buy for the party.

  As they approached the gardening section in front of the huge grocery store, Immy’s dad paused, looking thoughtful.

  “Let’s just duck in for a minute,” he said.

  They ended up buying a pot of some sort of strange stuff her dad said was like food for the tree. “I’ve never seen a tree look so sorry for itself,” he said as they waited to pay. “It honestly looks like something’s eating it up from the inside.”

  “Maybe something is,” Immy said, thinking of the two knots and Bridget and Elizabeth.

  They began their grocery shopping after this. It wasn’t until they’d put everything into their cart and were lining up at the checkout that it finally came to Immy. She was putting a gigantic bottle of lemonade onto the conveyer belt when her eye caught a display of gift cards that read HAPPY BIRTHDAY. She almost dropped the lemonade on the floor but managed to catch it just in time.

  Happy birthday.

  Her birthday.

  That’s why the tree’s berry hadn’t taken her the other night. The tree had taken Bridget and Elizabeth on the eve of their birthdays.

  The tree hadn’t spared her at all.

  It had shown her what was coming.

  Immy’s mind flip-flopped all afternoon as to what she should do. Should she tell Jean what she’d seen? Should she tell her parents? Should they go away like Caitlyn’s family had done? Maybe back to the hotel they’d stayed at in Cambridge? She knew if she asked her parents if they could go there, they’d do it.

  But she didn’t want to ask.

  Something inside her wanted to get to the bottom of this. To see if the tree would show her more. Now more than ever she wanted to find out why it had done what it had done. What if she could help Elizabeth in some way? Maybe Bridget, too? And then there was the strange change she’d seen in Caitlyn’s behavior. In her eyes.

  She had to keep going, and she knew if she told the adults around her what had happened, she’d simply be stopped.

  Late in the day, Immy was sitting by the window in her room when she caught a glimpse of something moving in the back garden. She looked down to see Jean placing her white rose in the knot of the tree — the knot that had appeared when Elizabeth disappeared. When she was done, she glanced up at Immy’s room, as if hoping to see her. Immy waved and gestured to say she was coming down. She knew that her parents were both reading in the living room, so she walked down the stairs at a normal pace, as if heading for the kitchen. When she was out of view, she raced across the dining room and was out the French doors in a flash.

  “Ah,” Jean said, taking one of her hands when Immy got to her. “I was hoping to catch you.” She glanced up at the tree once more. �
�What do you make of this? There’s something terribly wrong with the tree, isn’t there?”

  Immy nodded, visions of what she had seen bubbling up inside her. She pushed them back down. She had to do this on her own. “Dad bought some special food for it, but I don’t think it’s done much good.”

  Jean nodded. “It’s strange timing.”

  “Yes.”

  Jean’s gaze moved back down to meet Immy’s. She paused for a moment. “I just wanted to tell you I’m very much looking forward to your party tomorrow. . . .” She trailed off.

  “And you’re worried about tonight,” Immy added for her.

  “Well, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t. I certainly don’t think I’ll be getting much sleep.” She looked up into the branches of the tree. “I can’t stop thinking about Elizabeth. I keep wondering what she might have become. What she would have looked like. Where she would have lived. Who she might have married. About her children and grandchildren.”

  Immy couldn’t think of anything to say.

  Jean sighed. “Maybe . . . maybe she has those things. Somewhere. Somehow. I hope she does. I hope she’s happy.” Her hand that held Immy’s trembled. “Goodness, but this has all brought everything back up again. . . .”

  “Sorry,” Immy said, remembering what she’d seen — the terror on the young Jean’s face as she’d touched the newly formed knot in the tree. The horror as she realized she’d lost her friend.

  “Oh, no.” Jean shook her head. “Don’t be sorry. It’s been so refreshing to have you here. And I think a lovely party on your eleventh birthday is just what we need to start anew. To put this behind us once and for all.”

  Immy gulped and gave her a small nod. Jean was right. A party on her eleventh birthday would be perfect. At least, it would be as long as she didn’t disappear the night before.

  “Well, this is it,” Immy’s dad said that evening as she lay reading in bed. He crossed her room, closed the window and locked it, and shut the curtains tight.