The Twist in the Branch

by Melanie Smith

  I’ve made my decision. I have to know.

  Pulling my dressing gown on over my pyjamas I step as quietly as I can on the stairs. My feet are cold and bare. The house is cold and dark. The heavy living room curtains are neatly pulled together.

  It’s hard to see.

  The floor bites at my skin. The old clock ticks on the mantelpiece.

  In the kitchen the fridge hums. The back-door key is in the pot on the windowsill. I remove it, place it in the lock and open the door as slowly and quietly as I can.

  The cold that rushes over me makes my chest hurt, threatens to take my breath away, but I don’t let it.

  It’s not light, and it’s not dark.

  The snow is trackless, pristine.

  From the back door, I look over to the barn. It nearly kills me, but I don’t stop for too long, aware that I could change my mind if it gets too much. I don’t want that to happen. I step out into the cold. No shoes.

  The slope seems steeper because of the snow. The bottom of my trousers stick to me, cold and wet, and I leave awkward tracks as I pull myself through. Finally, I reach the barns. Any evidence that he was here has been covered by fresh snow.

  I stand in front of the buildings.

  The sky is becoming lighter, but the moon still hangs there, full and low above me, a strange mixture of night and day.

  A large padlock stares at me from the barn door. I look around for something – a piece of wood or a brick – but everything’s covered in white. I traipse around to the side of the barn.

  I can hardly feel my feet now.

  A pile of wood is stacked against the wall. I grab a length to try it against the lock, but it only snaps. The frustration doesn’t stop me.

  I’m going to find a way in.

  And then I see it.

  As I move closer to the shuttered window I see that the wooden boards are old and rotting, and so with the snapped wood still in my hand I hammer and prise my way in, until there is a gap big enough for me to climb through.

  In I go, clumsily but with determination, ignoring the cuts and scrapes, as the splintered wood tears in to my feet and ankles.

  The barn is dark, though a thick shaft of light now makes its way in through the shutter-less window. I stand in it, waiting for my eyes to adjust. There’s an odd smell. I can pick out engine oil through the mustiness, mixed with damp and rot.

  I begin to see the shapes that occupy this building. Mainly engine parts and machinery. There’s also a workbench covered in junk against the wall. It intrigues me, I step closer. Dirty cups, pens and pencils, scraps of paper, old maps – they all mix nonsensically on the old, pot-marked table. Propped up against it is a shovel and what looks like a pick-axe.

  It’s hard to see, there’s not much light.

  Other than the bench and the machinery, there is little else in here, except for a few boxes that are stacked next to the table, at the right-hand side. I battle with myself about whether I should look inside them, and whether I should even be in here.

  It turns about in me, rooting me to the spot for a few minutes as I move between the need to know why Gabe was here last night, so secretly, and the thought that this is his space, these are his things. Am I intruding?

  The need to know wins out, as I peel back the flaps of the box on top of the pile. Nothing much in here. A few pieces of documentation, stuff to do with motor and machine repairs.

  I move to the next one, underneath. It’s been folded shut, so I pull at it, and peek in. More junk. Clothes, overalls and work boots. They smell musty, as though they’ve been here for a while.

  I take down the third box. This one has been taped up heavily. It takes a while for my cold hands to pick away at the edges, but I get there in the end.

  The smell hits me as I open it, it’s like earth and rot and something old.

  Inside is a brown sack, tied tightly with rope to keep the contents from spilling out. The rope burns my already sore fingers.

  My heart races now, and I want to cry with the frustration of all of this. Pulling the sack out of the box I move back into the light that filters in through the window, so that I can see a bit more clearly. As I do, I can hear the items inside clunk against each other, rattling away.

  A few angry tears burn my cheeks as I finally free the sack from the rope, letting it drop to the floor as I open the brown material.

  There in the light, I look down upon a tangle of bones, as the eyeless sockets of a human skull stare back up at me.

  18

  MY TORN FEET BLEED into the freezing white, leaving a crimson trail behind that leads from the barn to the back door. The flakes fall large and heavy, covering it over conspiratorially.

  Even the snow keeps secrets here.

  19

  THE ROOM HAS BEEN torn apart.

  Clothes. Shoes. Trinkets – just the important stuff. Some of it has been stuffed into bags hastily, not secured properly. Shoved in as quickly as possible.

  What else do I need?

  The photos …

  Where are the – ?

  My head is bursting. Too much input. Too many thoughts; a barrage of instructions, fears, and ‘what-if’s’.

  The noise is unbearable. I try to drown it out by playing music full blast. But it doesn’t stop.

  I can still hear them. I know them well, old acquaintances that I don’t want to acknowledge.

  The slamming of doors.

  Old keys turning in their locks.

  The screaming. Always so much screaming.

  Footsteps along stone corridors.

  They all travel through my veins, and they are winning.

  The mansion. That building flashes into my mind. On and off. It won’t stop. That building.

  Gotta leave now. Gotta get out of here. Got. To get. Out…

  20

  ‘OK, I SEE.Yes, thank you doctor.’

  She’s sat next to me, on the bed. Her eyes widen when she sees me looking at her, and she hangs up the phone, grabbing my hand with both of hers.

  She’s trying not to cry.

  I can’t speak, my whole body feels weighed-down, numb. We sit looking at each other.

  ‘I’m going to get you something to eat – just some toast,’ she finally says, ‘the snow is so bad that the out of hours doctors can’t make their call outs yet.’

  A doctor is not going to help me.

  ‘I’m not sure what’s wrong Seph, whether it’s a virus, or stress or something. Your temperature was pretty high earlier but seems a bit calmer now, and your hands and feet were like ice. What happened to your feet love, they’re torn to bits?’ She gets up, trying to compose herself, like she doesn’t really want to hear the answer anyway – like it doesn’t matter. Not yet.

  I can’t get the words out anyway, and if I could I have no idea what they would be. No idea where to start. What to say. If any of this would make sense. I’m not even sure if what I saw in the barn was real.

  How could it possibly be happening?

  Once she’s satisfied that I’m awake and ok for now she goes downstairs to get my toast. I lay there in the strange welcome numbness that has taken hold. No racing mind. No feelings. Hollow.

  She’s back.

  I don’t want to but I sit up resting against the headboard, and eat the toast, drink the tea, because if I don’t it will cause more drama, and I want to be alone. I tell her this once I’m done, but she’s reluctant to let me be.

  ‘I’m really tired, I just want to sleep,’ I protest, until finally she gives in and leaves me alone in my room.

  It’s been put back together again. The clothes are back on hangers, and the bags have been emptied and stashed neatly away. My desk is almost as it was before, except a lot tidier. Next to it sits Beth’s bag and the school stuff that she left here.

  I drift in and out of sleep for most of the afternoon, not getting up from my bed at all. Every now and again I’m aware that Mum comes in to check on me, sometimes feeling her hand on my f
orehead as she checks my temperature.

  Images poke at my awareness, but they’re cloudy and seem far away.

  But the eyes I always see. Sometimes dark and alive. Sometimes the empty sockets. I don’t know which are worse. I just know that they are there.

  Even so, the lapse into unconsciousness is still comforting. I wake up at about 4pm, and for some reason get out of bed. Still groggy, I’m unsteady on my feet. The broken skin stings – I had no idea how much I’d hurt myself in the panic.

  I look out of the window. The snow has piled high. It sickens me to think about being snowed-in here. The barn calls out to me. I feel those eyes watching.

  I get into bed and throw myself back into the dark unconscious where I can escape from it all.

  21

  ROADS ARE CLOSED.School is closed. The doctor may be able to get to me sometime this afternoon, if need be. Mum says that I seem to be a lot better and so we’ll make a routine appointment when the weather improves, just as a precaution. This is a small relief.

  The snow shows no sign of melting. It’s stopped falling but the cold temperatures keep it where it is, icing it over so that it is even harder to make your way through it, not that I’ve tried.

  Mum fusses over me relentlessly – have I eaten enough? Am I cold? How am I feeling? Is there anything I need? – though I try to reassure her that I’m ok. We haven’t really spoken about that morning though, both of us probably trying to deny the real truth of what happened.

  What did happen?

  I feel as if I’m in some kind of limbo. Here, but not here. Confusing and strange. I haven’t got dressed for days, living in my pyjamas and dressing gown, feeling the icy-white outside pressing down on me, as it keeps us trapped in here. I think that’s why I go off to that in-between place, because if it didn’t, I would lose it completely, once and for all.

  Maybe this is a good place.

  Somehow, I manage small conversations. Eating. Drinking. Going to bed and getting up. As if it is somebody else going through the motions.

  I’m coping. I’m ok. It is ok.

  Most of my time is spent in my room, where I can go about this uninterrupted, to a point. Where I can stare into space. Look out of the window. Lay on the bed, without it being questioned or seen as a sign that something is wrong with me.

  I try to draw as little attention to myself as possible now. It seems the right thing to do. In and out I go. Back and forth, like my life depends on it.

  I sit on the bed holding a book but not reading. Mum comes upstairs and says his name. Something painful surges through my entire body. For the first time in days I feel something strongly.

  It’s fear, plain and simple.

  ‘Obviously, he’ll have to wait a few days and go from there,’ she says, oblivious to the terror shooting through me.

  ‘I think we’ll be ok, because the roads are being cleared slowly – lucky we’ve got that big freezer really.’

  I wonder if he’s where he says he is.

  She collects some mugs from the bedside table and leaves, wrapped up in thinking about whether we can manage without our usual weekly shop.

  I breathe slow, long, deep breaths to try and calm myself down. It’s difficult – I don’t think I can control it.

  Focus on something in the room. The items on my desk – one by one. I run my eyes over them. The brush. The small pile of books. The mirror. The mug containing pens.

  Not the window though … Not the window.

  The chair. Beth’s bag. Beth’s bag.

  Close my eyes. Breathe deeply.

  ***

  Morning after morning, for nearly a week, we wake up to a carpet of white. Everything has ground to a standstill – the roads, the services, the schools, just a constant question that hangs on people’s lips – when is it going to come to an end?

  Mum panics about when we can get out to the shops because we’re running low on most things.

  The heating oil from the tank out the back is running very low, and the smaller roads that run along the lanes where we live are still virtually impassable for the lorries that deliver. One of the local farmers who owns a JCB is helping to clear them, but it’s taking a while.

  The phone rings constantly with updates about the situation – who’s managed to get out of where, and how. Beth rings at least twice a day. Sometimes I pretend to be asleep or busy, but I usually manage one phone call a day. I go through the motions. Still.

  It’s an unusual agony, being holed up in here. Mum won’t let me go outside after my distressing episode the other day. In a way I think she’s pleased that there is no school so that she can keep an eye on me night and day. I continue to spend as much time as I can alone in my room. Hanging here in the strange void that I’ve been thrown into since that night.

  Oddly enough, I find the main thoughts that wander in and out belong not to the barn, but to bits and pieces from the past that somehow have been relegated to more hidden areas of my mind.

  The dreams that seemed to be dreams.

  The nightmares that never really went away.

  The places that seemed to be real, but can’t be. Can they?

  They all float around, pressing at places. Poking. Stirring. Waking up new places inside.

  Remembering all of this is a surprise. How it was forgotten, even more so – because here, now, they seem to be important, like something unlocking inside me. I don’t force it or turn away from it, just let it happen. Dark places that live inside of me. I’ve been to them. Seen them. Smelt them. Touched them. Way before Dad died. They’ve been there since I was very young. A part of me knows that I can’t simply put all of my experience over the last few months just down to losing him. Missing him. It’s more than that. It always has been.

  But the weight of what may or may not be stored in a box in the barn, presses down on me.

  What has happened here – on this farm, in this family? Am I going to have to tell her? Break my mum’s heart once again? Or am I straight up losing my mind. Gabe, Mum, me – it could run in the family. What am I going to do?

  My chest is tight.

  Can’t breathe. What’s going to happen?

  Hot tears start to warm my face. Mum hears my uncontrollable sobs, that have been dammed up for days. She comes quickly.

  ‘What is it Seph?’ Her voice carries a touch of panic.

  ‘What’s happening to me Mum, am I going mad? I am, I know it. What’s going to happen to me? I can’t take it anymore – I need to know?’

  She holds me tight as I cry. Tears blur my vision, and all I can see through my bedroom window is the white, dead sky, staring back at me.

  ***

  The bed is warm, but I’ve been dozing for long enough now. I uncross my legs, stretch them out. A blanket is wrapped around my shoulders. My eyes feel puffy and swollen, and my head aches.

  I notice Beth’s bag, which still sits at the side of my desk at the window. Everything, apart from some of her books, has been packed away in it. There must be quite a lot of stuff in there, it bulges awkwardly as the zip across the top stretches to hold it closed. A small triangle of white pokes out from the front pocket, and I can’t help looking at it.

  It pulls me in gently.

  I’m off the bed walking towards it – freeing it from the pocket flap.

  The printout is folded twice into quarters so I open it out. It contains a picture of a strange old painting, and some accompanying text that attempts to analyse or explain its potential meanings. Probably something to do with Beth’s art projects. I flick over the words and over the picture – back and forth – for a few moments, as the image tugs at me.

  Dark colours. Deep red. Browns, and black. All except for the woman who is draped across a bed in her long white gown, with golden hair that drops to the floor along with her head and arm.

  Staring back at me from the page, sat on top of her chest is a hideous creature that seems to see right inside me, speaking to me in a disturbing and uncomforta
ble way.

  I feel the weight of it on my own chest – vile and heavy.

  The text tells me that the painting is Fuseli’s, The Nightmare.

  Heavy words and phrases leap out at me.

  Demonic. Erotic. Evil.

  I don’t know about any of that, all I know is that it’s pressing so hard at me I can’t look away.

  That creature, looking at me like I have no right to look at him, as if I should be as asleep, as unconscious, as the woman that he sits on.

  The room around me changes to dark red.

  Heavy material hangs and drapes. The bed is empty. A collection of bottles sits on the table next to it. I can almost smell him and my stomach heaves.

  It’s as if I’ve stepped into the painting.

  As I pull back the thick material I see that I’m in the old locked room that I’ve visited so many times before, except this time it feels real, not dreamlike.

  This is real?

  Darkness.

  My heart pumps furiously in my chest, the pulse in my ears is almost deafening.

  Something hangs on the wall. I move closer. It’s the painting – the same one – held in a gold frame with delicate carvings at its corners.

  Again, the image pours into me, travelling around looking for a place to settle. It doesn’t know where to land, and so it swirls through me, making me squirm against the pleasure and discomfort that it creates.

  Wake up!

  I want to scream at the woman in the painting to wake up, to stop lying there so oblivious to that disgusting creature, and whatever vile intentions occupy his head.

  As this urge – this realisation – suddenly drops within me, the painting slides down the wall, crashing against the cold concrete, smashing the corners of the frame and landing face-down on the floor.

  On the back of the canvas is the small sketch of a tree.

  Leafless, black gnarled knotty branches twine upwards and outwards, and one particularly familiar image registers within me – the twisted branch.

  It’s the tree from our field.

  22

  IT MELTS AWAY.All of it.