The Twist in the Branch

by Melanie Smith

  Her room is smaller than mine, though the large double wooden bed makes it seem smaller than it is. The window is small, and is covered by a pair of dark red velvet curtains. A dark wood dressing table sits in front of it with a large oval mirror. Bits and bobs of make-up and cosmetics are scattered about on it, as well as a small silver picture frame that displays a photograph of the three of us. How old am I there – six, seven maybe?

  Bedside tables sit either side of the bed. They are both covered with lace cloths. On her side, is a small glass lamp that throws out some amber light. Next to it is another picture frame that contains a photo of her and my dad on their wedding day. A small stack of books takes up the last bit of space on the table. The table on my side is empty.

  A large dark wardrobe stands against the wall by the bedroom door. There are two doors that lock. I hate most of the old stuff in this house, but for some reason I find myself intrigued by this item of furniture. There is delicate scroll work around the edges, and the small key in the lock is also scrolled.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ are the first inevitable words out of my mouth.

  ‘I don’t need you to be sorry Seph, I need to know what that was all about,’ she replies gently.

  ‘I know, but I just need you to know that I am sorry,’ I say, choking back the tears.

  The quiet time we’ve just had has allowed me to step out of myself, and I begin to see it from her point of view. She must be worried, confused, probably even a bit beaten down by what I’ve just thrown at her. Despite it all she’s doing her best at staying calm. Trying to bring the emotion down a notch.

  ‘I was with the girls – and Alex – at the café in town. We were – they were talking about some of the things that happened here over the years. They mentioned the Red Lady.’

  I can sense her smile knowingly at the name; she recognises it like it’s an old childhood friend. I press on.

  ‘They thought I would know about it; but I didn’t, and they were confused about that, cos they thought that I would.’ I can feel myself rambling, getting drawn back into the drama of previous events. ‘They thought I would know given what went on here – all those years ago – with Gabe.’

  It’s out.

  Her energy shifts. Now she gets it.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me Mum?’ I plead with her.

  ‘Look love, I’m sorry that you found out like that, it never occurred to me to tell you before, just because it wasn’t that relevant. But now that we’re here I suppose – yes – I should’ve mentioned it to you. Thinking about it now, you were bound to find out. I know what it’s like here, everyone knows everyone else’s business… or at least they think they do.’

  ‘Not relevant?’ I turn to her. ‘He’s my uncle – I live in his house!’ I can feel myself getting worked up.

  ‘You should’ve told me!’ My tone is firm, and she bristles.

  ‘You have to remember that your uncle – my brother – was completely innocent in the whole affair. Whatever happened to Kathryn was nothing to do with him. He was devastated Seph, completely devastated by it all. I was so worried that we might have lost him as well. It absolutely floored him.’ I can sense the emotion in her voice as she recalls the memories of those events, and as I turn to look at her I catch her wipe a few stray tears from her eyes.

  ‘But how do you-?’

  ‘Don’t you dare even think it Sephone Griffiths!’

  The bite in her words and her tone shock me. She’s like an angry wolf protecting her cub. ‘Gabe did nothing wrong – and it’s bad enough that some people around here stuck the knife in then and still carry on with their stupid remarks, but don’t you even go there – you hear me!’

  ‘I’m sorry – yes,’ I say, still shocked at how protective and defensive she has become.

  ‘Is that what all of this is about tonight?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I reply, and it’s sort of the truth, but how can she know what I actually mean, when she has no idea what really plagues the corners of my mind.

  14

  I TRY NOT TO think about him. Flicking from channel to channel on TV; trying not to think about him.

  It’s not working.

  He’s been in my head all day, swirling around in there, moving through my body in a way that makes me feel uncomfortable.

  I don’t want him to be so close to my thoughts, but he refuses to go away. I push him to the back of my mind. I push him away all day with my stand-offish behaviour. I don’t look at him. Ignore his looks. Turn away from the attention that he throws my way. He should get the message soon. He should see that I’m not interested in him, but it just seems to draw him in closer.

  I make up some story about having a boyfriend back home who I really loved, until it ended suddenly, leaving me heartbroken and not in the least bit interested in getting involved with anyone else.

  Even you Evan.

  Even you, who has seared himself into my head.

  I flick through the channels over and over, but it doesn’t work. He’s in there no matter what, and I can’t seem to change that channel.

  ***

  The wind outside has died down, leaving a cold chill in the air. It smells of winter.

  Mum hurries around the house doing her best to keep herself warm, pulling on another layer of clothes plus her coat to go out to the small storage area at the side of the house, where the wood for the fire is kept. It’s the only outdoor building that is intact enough to keep the firewood dry.

  ‘I’ll get it,’ I offer, but she’s already dressed for the occasion, so she tells me not to worry and to arrange the fire for the wood that she brings in.

  I’m glad to put down the remote control and stop flicking the bloody thing over and over, and so do as I’m asked, poking about at the remains of the fire and looking forward to warming this room up a bit.

  The thought of winter in this house feels black and depressing. The dark nights. The cold. It is relentless.

  Mum comes back in with the wood. Her face is red from the chill in the air. She brings the logs over, placing them on the floor in front of the fire. She puts some in the log-basket at the fireside and hands the rest to me.

  ‘How’s your hand now?’ she asks as she notices me flinch when I take it from her.

  ‘It’s fine,’ I say, I don’t tell her that the bruise that has darkened is stinging like a bitch, and that I took some painkillers for it earlier.

  ‘Go on then love, you do it,’ she says encouraging me. She’s always trying me out with this stuff recently. Our fire at home was stylish and easy – gas, glass and chrome – you just had to flick a switch. Everything’s an ordeal here. Even the damn fire.

  ‘They’ll probably find us here dead of hypothermia by January,’ I moan. She just laughs.

  ‘I think we’ll be alright drama queen. After all, I survived a few winters here, and I made it to adulthood.’

  It’s strange thinking about her here as a child, but her familiarity with everything is evident. She knows where things are and just what to do. It’s no surprise, given that nothing has probably changed here for forty years; except for the stuff that we brought with us. I look over at the high-spec TV that I’ve been sat in front of for the last two hours, not thinking about Evan. It looks ridiculous alongside the rest of the relics in this house.

  We both kneel in front of the fire, placing and rearranging wood and embers, trying to build something that will chase the cold away, and keep us warm. Poking away with quiet, deliberate, determination.

  An hour or so later and the fire is alive and kicking, throwing out heat in a way that I didn’t really expect. The smell permeates the room. Mum comments on how much she loves it, how she always missed the smell of a wood burning fire in winter since she left home. I just look at her. I don’t get it.

  She’s stripped down to a single layer now, but has a red check blanket covering her legs and feet, which are tucked up on the sofa beside her. As usual she’s buried in a book, and looking over at he
r curled up on that tatty piece of furniture she looks calm – serene even – and it pulls at my heart to see her this way, almost like a happy child.

  I can feel the emotion start to build up from behind my eyes, turning my head slightly so that she doesn’t catch a glimpse of it. Reaching for my iPod on the table beside me I choke back the tears. In go my earphones, and the music takes me off into another world.

  I resist the temptation to start flicking through that too, and so settle on a playlist and let it play through. It’s a welcome distraction, and before I know it Mum’s tapping me on the shoulder and telling me that it’s nearly eleven and that I need to go to bed, because I’ve been asleep for the last half hour.

  She’s probably right.

  I pull the earphones out, they’ve been in for too long, and now my ears are throbbing, especially the one that I’ve been leaning on. I feel a bit out of it, as I stumble out of the chair. Saying goodnight to my mother I practically crawl up the stairs. The heat from the living room all but disappears as I plod up them, moving from warm and toasty to bone chillingly cold.

  Think I’d prefer to have slept downstairs by the fire.

  My room is a mess. My school uniform is scattered over my bed, while my bags and books are slung over the floor. The small desk under the window is covered with junk – hair accessories, bottles of deodorant and perfume, a tangle of wires that belong to various devices – phone, iPod, netbook, speakers.

  Clothes are thrown over the back of the desk chair; some clean, others dirty, just a general heap of items that I can’t be bothered to do anything with.

  It’s depressing coming in here, the mess making me feel like I can’t think properly, getting in my way, blocking things up. Having just the lamp on shuts out some of the chaos, at least.

  The room is freezing cold as usual. There’s an old radiator under the window behind the desk, but it’s next to useless and the window lets in so much draught that it cancels it out anyway. I quickly throw my uniform over the rest of the clothes on the chair, picking it back up as it tips over with the weight of everything that’s slung over it. I get into bed to warm myself back up, turning off my bedside lamp and try to lose myself in sleep.

  ***

  The screaming wakes me at 2:02am.

  It’s so loud that it doesn’t take me too much time to come around into full consciousness.

  It’s so loud.

  Oh god it’s my mother!

  My heart is in my mouth as I jump out of bed not thinking about anything other than getting to her. I’m terrified but don’t care.

  It’s pitch-black and I can feel myself stepping on debris that clutters the floor, but the pain doesn’t register as I kick stuff out of the way and reach for the latch on the bedroom door, pulling it open against whatever junk might be up against it.

  It’s coming from her room.

  What the hell-?

  The door is closed tight, and I throw it open, slamming on the light switch. It’s a strange relief to see her there in her bed, but that soon disappears as I move over to her and see how terrified she is.

  She’s having a nightmare, and even though her eyes are now open she’s still there in the grip of it.

  The screaming has stopped, but her eyes – they are huge and wild – it’s terrifying to see her this way – she’s shouting now.

  ‘No! No! Sephone! No!’

  I don’t know what else to do other than to shake her. She’s lying on the bed on her back and so I stand over, grab her firmly by the arms and shake her fiercely until she seems to come around.

  I look to her for some reassurance now – please be ok? – and as I do she returns to me. Lying there, beads of sweat covering her brow she reaches out to me as she starts to cry.

  ‘I thought you were gone forever,’ she says and sobs so ferociously that I know she believes it.

  15

  THE COLD DECEMBER WIND whips through my hair, lashing it against my face so hard that it stings.

  I look out from across the top of the hill, as winter starts to work its way over the fields, through the trees, and down into the valley beneath me. A strange new feeling swells in me looking down at the village and the scattered buildings below. Plumes of smoke make their way into the air from many of the homes – the rows of terraces and the farmhouses that live nestled amongst the hills. The smoky ghosts inhabit the sky like they own it.

  I think of the people down there running around, getting on with stuff, filling their days with the usual activities that make up a life. I think of the girls – wonder what they might be doing without me – though I still want to be alone.

  I think of Evan – it’s inevitable – he’s always there. Even more so when I don’t want him to be.

  It’s quiet up here, save for the howl of the wind, and the occasional sheep noise that travels along it. Now that autumn has started to fade, the sky has changed, no longer as grey and lifeless as it used to be. It’s darker, angry, heavy with something.

  I see the ghost that makes its way out from our chimney down below, and a chill runs along my spine. When I first used to come up here, looking down at that place used to make me feel hollow, lost.

  Now as I stand here I realise that this has changed to something darker.

  I hate this place.

  I’m scared.

  The hills on the other side of the valley seem to have disappeared now. This happens a lot here, the landscape constantly changing, rearranging itself. The mist, the rain, they all play with you. Those hills are so thick with pines, they’re almost intimidating – towering uninviting giants that guard the forest; hidden for now.

  It’s getting too cold now, and the nights are getting darker, so I decide to make my way down to the road and back home. Just a quick walk along the top of the track first though. Even this wind is better than going back home. The bitterness bites at my ears and my cheeks making my head ache, and my ears throb.

  I wander across the hills, and the space makes me feel a little less trapped. The openness feels inviting, a welcome and unfamiliar feeling. That’s why I stay, for as long as I can bear it.

  I stay up here, looking down at the people and places that have now entered my life. Trying to make some sense of it all, but never quite getting there.

  Once I get as far as I can, I move downhill. I’m used to this now. I know how to navigate the grass, the tumps, the potholes. I stop, as I usually do to take one last look from above, which allows me to see the lane that I need to walk along. It’s a narrow road, not too busy with cars, but well used, connecting one end of the village to the town. The artery that serves as an escape from this place.

  There are no cars that I can see moving along it, but for a split-second I think I see the back of Gabe’s van on the road further up, like the flash of a deer’s tail as it disappears quickly back through the trees.

  He’s back.

  It sends a sense of panic through my body. But I don’t see any vehicles coming out of the other side of the copse, so I tell myself that number one, he’s not due back this weekend as far as I know, and two, I’m probably just imagining it given the lack of vehicle on the other side, and three, I’m definitely nervy at the moment so it probably is my imagination.

  It is.

  It is.

  The road at the bottom is already frosted white, and stretches ahead of me treacherously. The potholes at the side of the tarmac are still frozen over, having not thawed out during the day, so I try and avoid them as best I can.

  It’s an unusually cold winter that has begun early. I’m not used to being so cold; it must be a good few degrees colder here in the valleys than it is further out towards the city. Yet another way that makes this place seem a world away from my previous life.

  I hear a car coming along the lane, and so stop to move close to the edge of the road, as it is icy, and the thick muted daylight is fading away.

  As I do, I put my foot through ice that covers a puddle of freezing brown water. Swear w
ords pour out of my mouth. Looking up I see the car approaching and slowing down. I’m mortified.

  Kill me now.

  Evan opens his passenger window, and looks out with eyes that seem pleased to see me. He’s still dressed in his school uniform, as am I, along with his dark grey wool jacket with its stand-up collar and black cord patches on the shoulders. ‘You ok?’

  ‘Yeah, fine.’

  ‘Jump in, I’ll give you a lift – I’m just on my way to pick my brother up from rugby practice. That’s how I’ve got the car.’

  ‘No, it’s alright, honestly, it’s not far, and anyway-’

  I hold out my foot, ‘Don’t suppose your parents will be happy with me messing up their car.’

  ‘Really? – they’ve got two boys – I’ll blame it on Aaron. He’ll be a right mess when I pick him up.’ He smiles, and it pulls at me, and even though I don’t want to, I still get in, with my wet muddy foot, and all of my embarrassment clinging clumsily to my shoulders.

  ‘Yeah, I suppose it’s your fault anyway,’ I return, and he grins to himself, pulling off slowly down the road, and under the leafless trees that arch over it like a tunnel of bones, picked clean of their flesh.

  It’s literally a minute down the road, but I’m grateful for the car, with its blasting heaters, and to be in Evan’s company, if I’m honest.

  ‘What you up to anyway?’ he asks.

  ‘Just walking along the top of the hills, I do it quite a lot – it’s nice and quiet up there.’

  ‘What – in this weather – you must be crazy.’

  A smile. If only you knew.

  He drives slowly and sensibly – not like Alex – until we reach the small crossroads at my house. Pulling over, out of the way of any other vehicles, he turns to me with a smile that seems to have lost its sparkle.

  ‘Home, sweet home.’ I layer on the sarcasm.

  ‘Why do you seem to hate it here so much?’

  I don’t know how to answer without offending him.

  ‘It’s not here – it’s not the village or school or you lot or – of course not you guys – I mean the house yes, but ….’ I stutter and stumble erratically.