The Twist in the Branch

by Melanie Smith

  I have to cross to the other side.

  It moves at a steady pace – not too fast – and I pick up a large stick from the trees to test its depth.

  I step in.

  It covers my boots, rising up to my knees and the warm red liquid stains my grey clothes. I wade further in until I get to its centre and then stop, close my eyes and take long slow deep breaths. As I do, I can feel the life flowing into me, around me, swirling up through my feet, my legs, pulsing away, and it feels like I am alive and strong and as if I belong to it all – the forest, each tree, each leaf, the snow that falls, the river of red that I stand in – all of it. The most alive I’ve ever felt, and I can feel myself growing or returning, I’m not quite sure, as I bask in this thing that I’ve always waited for – that’s waited for me. As it covers me, rising and growing up my legs, spreading to my waist and abdomen, I finally feel like I am home.

  But I have to move on, and I can sense the darkness dripping from the other side of the forest.

  The red drips from me as I climb the river-bank, leaving scarlet spatter and footprints on the white carpet of the woods. They become paler with each step forward that I take, until they fade, back to white.

  As I turn to see the marks that I have left, a shrill squawk pricks my senses, making them stand on edge, and suddenly the strange silence that filled the forest has died, as the call of crows builds and builds, sending me into a panic. Then, rushing blood and pumping veins and the stab of adrenalin.

  The trees get thicker, darker and I can feel sharp talons grabbing at my legs and as I run – the darkness now robbing me of sight – I’m sure I can see hands grabbing at my legs and ankles – clawing at me, making me stumble – but I keep going.

  Pump. Pump. The panic. The clawing at my neck to catch some air. The knotting of my stomach. I frantically look around to see where I am, as I fall out of the other side of the forest and into an open space.

  There, up ahead in the distance I see that building. I can hear the screaming and those heavy metal locks, and the jangle of keys and stepping into the small circular clearing with a black tree at its centre I see him – and he sees me.

  64

  I FINALLY SEE YOU.

  His smile is as vile as it is beguiling. Everything about him is dark. Drips dark, feels dark, looks dark. Black eyes. Dark hair. Dark clothes – from another time, old and worn, leather maybe – a large hood over his head, and falling over his shoulders. A belt around his waist that holds a large ring of keys, and a knife.

  His voice is real now. Rotten and infectious.

  ‘Sephone.’

  ‘I’ve found you,’ I say to him, to myself.

  ‘So you have.’ More dark.

  ‘Did you think I would find you?’

  ‘Maybe it is me that found you.’

  ‘Maybe.’

  As we speak we walk slowly in a circle towards and away from each other. His head is tilted down but our eyes never lose contact. The screaming gets louder. His smile gets wider.

  ‘I’m not going back to that place, that room. I’m not going with you.’

  ‘Oh Sephone, I didn’t take you there – I found you there – as I found the others.’

  Something about the truth in those words angers me yet shocks me awake. He didn’t take me there. He found me there, like an animal with its leg caught in a trap.

  ‘And Gabriel? What did you do to my uncle?’

  ‘Gabriel should have listened to me, then maybe the rope would not be so tight around his neck.’

  Fear for my uncle courses through me.

  ‘It was Gabriel who dug me up.’

  Once again I realise what he is saying to me – that I was right to have trusted my instincts when it came to Gabe – because this creature has managed to get inside his head, whispered and clawed its way in. I’d felt that shame that he’s carried around as he battled with those thoughts. But they weren’t his thoughts. They were put there, and somehow Gabe was able to fight them.

  ‘No – Gabe is not like you – and you can’t make him like you.’

  A low disgusting laugh spews out of him.

  ‘You need to leave me and my family alone now.’

  ‘Come now Sephone, you know that cannot be – we are tied together.’

  My head spins, and I feel the same wave of sickness that hit me the first time that I came to that realisation, when Gabe and I spoke about this disgusting creature.

  I open my mouth to retaliate, but it’s too late.

  In a flash he is in front of me, his hands are around my throat and I feel the ground crack open beneath us, and I am pulled from every direction, pulled and torn at.

  Down.

  Down.

  Falling …

  The force presses against me, making it hard for me to breathe as the weight crushes my chest and stifles my face.

  Then she is there.

  I see the red face up against mine – then another and another until once again, the same as the night on the roadside, my own is looking back at me with the same expression and colour as theirs.

  Red.

  Eyes pinned open. Terrified.

  The screaming starts and I don’t know if it’s me or the other me, but it feels like it could split open my head with its force.

  The disorientation gives rise to panic as finally I sense it all coming to a standstill.

  No more shrieking, no more pulling or falling.

  Just my feet on the floor in a dark room, and the sound of his voice in my ear.

  ‘Welcome Sephone.’

  65

  IT FEELS FAMILIAR.

  A place that I know, but have never been. Like that building. Only it is harder to breathe here, as if the walls are a mile thick and two miles under the ground.

  My body is heavy. My arms and legs a dead weight. My chest heaves, striving to push back against the force that is pulling the life out of me.

  I can feel him there; like I’ve always felt him there. His hot stale breath, pressing against the skin on my neck. His fingers hovering at my throat. He stalks around me, drinking me in like I am his. Like he owns me.

  He does not own me.

  A low growl of a laugh ruptures the silence, as if he has read my thoughts. It hits the back of my head, then scurries down my spine insect-like, before sending its message to the nerve endings throughout my body.

  I turn, like the prey that I am, as the sound of something shifting breaks at my feet, and again, as I instinctively kick out against the debris on the floor.

  He does not own me.

  My body says different. It is heavy and still and electrifyingly alive all at once.

  He does not own me.

  Light creeps in. A small orange glow.

  He does not own me.

  It gets brighter, opening up the space before me. He occupies the space like he owns that too.

  I do not belong to you.

  Brighter. A candle glows on a table beside me and somehow reaching for it makes me feel stronger. But as welcome as this light is, it brings new information.

  He is there. I see him, plain as day. The energy drips. It ebbs and flows. Ebbs and flows.

  I see you.

  The walls scream at me. They are alive and syrupy with dark liquid. Red. Black. Congealed. Oozing, like gaping putrid wounds. My chest explodes, my own blood pumping with a force that I have never felt before.

  I sweep the candle along the ground. The floor is littered – no – piled with bones. Bones on top of bones on top of skulls – it never ends. Most are stripped bare, blackened as the years have played with them. Others are more intact, the filthy gowns bearing witness to the horror that must have befallen them. Long, straw-like clumps of hair cling to skulls.

  I see you.

  He crouches, like an imp on its haunches, and pulls his fingers through the hair of one of these poor women. It reminds me of the creature in the painting all those weeks ago, and my stomach turns in disgust. Strands of hair come off in
to his hands, and he smiles as he brings it to his nose, savouring its essence before letting it fall to the ground.

  ‘A gift for your uncle,’ he says, standing and smiling.

  ‘Kathryn…’ My words trail off, but the voice inside knows. ‘You bastard!’

  Hate is a strong word. Hate is one of those words that you are told not to use, not to feel. In this moment, hate wins.

  I hate this thing.

  He likes it. It makes him strong, the energy pulsating, pressing at my skin. Drawing out my breath and giving it back, heavy and black.

  The rattle of bone against bone as he moves.

  The cracking of skulls as he steps over them, feet like iron, pushing himself towards me.

  The stench of decay rising up into my nostrils, as once again, it is dark and I look into his eyes, his face pressed against mine.

  I can’t move, where is …

  Black.

  66

  IT IS THE PAIN. The stinging in my chest that wakes me.

  Jesus Christ what is that?

  I try to move my hands to where the pain is. They won’t budge, but as I look to see what is holding them there I’m stunned to find that there are no bindings. Pinned down. I feel the trickle and tickle of warm liquid snaking down my chest and belly.

  I am still here. I am bleeding! It is my turn.

  A cold, rough hand strokes my cheek. Then my forehead. It moves through my hair. It picks some up. It takes my hand and raises it. The sound of a deep inhalation as my palm is pressed against cold, damp skin. Then he is up close – those black eyes clawing into me. His skin is marked with deep crevices, like the bark of a tree.

  Why? Why me?

  ‘You tell me Sephone. You tell me why you.’ There he is. In my head again.

  Always in the way girl. Always so sorry. That old woman’s voice sounds like a ghost creeping in. Always in the way. Always so sorry.

  I will not tell you.

  I try to move my hand again – this time I do it – I pull it from his clutch and he roars as I close my eyes, trying not to cry, feeling his mouth against my ear.

  ‘Look around you Sephone. It’s not just you. It is them. It will always be them. You are just one of them, and there will always be plenty more.’ His words are powerful as they hit parts of me and light them up. The bones that fill this room should not be such a surprise to me.

  ‘But I’ve seen them.’ I say it aloud. Then louder still, ‘I have seen them!’

  His hand grips the hair at the nape of my neck, as he pulls my head closer to his mouth.

  ‘Then you should know what is coming.’

  I always knew what was coming. Deep down. Further down than I ever knew existed. I’ve seen their faces. I’ve tasted their blood. I’ve seen my own lifeless face stare back at me. But maybe they never saw him coming, whereas I have felt it since I was ten-years old.

  ‘No!’ There is a way out, I know it.

  He laughs. ‘There is no way out.’ The keys around his waist clink together, I’ve heard that noise so many times.

  There is a way out.

  His grip loosens and I turn my head to meet his eyes.

  ‘I am not yours.’

  Use the key. Use the key.

  The words come softly. Use the key. I can almost smell her – like earth and air and night and day. Use the key. Louder now. Louder. Until they are pounding in my head.

  He smiles, as his grip around the ring of keys tightens.

  But she doesn’t give up.

  Use the key.

  Her words are getting louder and louder, and she’s becoming as strong as him, but I don’t understand – I have no key.

  But I’ll find it – I don’t belong here.

  I heave myself onto the floor, causing a sharp pain to burst from my shoulder and run down my arm but I keep going, and something is happening on the floor as the piles of bones move away from my feet to help me pass and start to swallow him up.

  He’s roaring, as I move and I turn to see that his path is blocked by the sickening heap that he has created.

  My hands move in huge sweeping motions against the walls. Wet. Sticky. Layer upon layer. My palms slip and slide but I don’t stop. I hear it slapping against the floor. I feel it spattering across my face, dripping down my arms. Pulling, wiping, screaming.

  Keep going!

  I tear at the walls. I don’t stop tearing at the walls.

  I feel it. There’s a door!

  My nails scratch at something hard beneath. My fingers become claws.

  He’s coming…

  The wood disappears. More layers. Keep going! A sharp pain stabs at my hand as my nail is torn from its bed as I claw and claw at the wood that reappears beneath my hands. I feel for the metal of the lock.

  It’s there … I’ve got it …

  But there’s no key. I push at it anyway, but nothing. I reach into my pocket, but it’s empty. I scream the words ‘Please open!’ in some vain hope that this might work. Nothing.

  He’s fighting against the current of the bones and he’s going to reach me. I’ve tried, but there’s no hope now.

  I sink down onto my knees.

  There is no way out.

  Clutching at my throat in panic I feel something cold in my fingers.

  My necklace.

  The chain is loose and broken and it comes off in my hand. I look down upon my name that is stained red with my own blood, and my warm tears hit it.

  At first I think it must be my eyes playing tricks on me, that maybe I’m hallucinating. But I can feel it now …

  It’s moving.

  The stained silver moves and twists, unravelling and twining through my fingers, serpent-like. It weaves and loops and wraps around, until I’m no longer looking at a necklace, or my name.

  A key.

  Beautiful. Heavy. Mine.

  I thrust in into the lock. It opens and I am through, slamming it behind me. Running. Pounding through the corridor as dirt and stone pelt my head and tree roots tear at my skin. I run, and keep running as the corridor narrows and the roots become dense now. Growing through the walls, twisting across the floor, and as my foot becomes entangled I am thrown to the ground, as I hear the door behind me open…

  You do not own me.

  I groan when the skin on my foot tears, as I rip it out from its knotty trap. The clinking of keys travels along the corridor, as I throw myself forward, squeezing through the tangle of roots, pulling myself through the web of woody knots, I crash against the wall. Screaming. Pleading.

  The corridor ends. Noooo!

  Clawing again. Tearing at dirt and stone.

  The sound of metal against metal. Footsteps.

  Looking up I see the roots. I climb. Up through the roots. They move and part, as I climb them like a ladder. One foot after another.

  A hand grabs at my ankle, pulling, dragging me down.

  I do not belong to you.

  I kick out and free myself from its grip. It loses its hold. I climb and climb, his voice calling my name. His smell rising up through the roots, as he pulls himself through to take me again. The roots twist and turn below me, enveloping him, but still he comes.

  Feeling lighter. My chest opens, as chinks of light stab at my eyes.

  Picking my way up through the roots, clawing at the dirt, pushing – and I am through, dragging myself up.

  Up.

  Up through the dirt.

  Up onto the earth.

  Out onto the cold wet grass.

  Scuttling across the ground on my hands and knees, chest pumping; lungs and heart fighting for air.

  My house stands above me in the background. Turning to sit, I see the tree before me, a dark gaping hole slowly closing at its base, swallowing whatever is under and beneath it.

  ‘Seph-on-ee,’ he calls as the hole narrows to a close.

  But it doesn’t stop.

  The branches move and twist, stretching and cracking like bones and sinew. The trunk expands and contract
s, as out of its body fingers and toes and backbone protrude. It looks like a snake swallowing and digesting its prey.

  His arms escape – reaching for me. I edge backwards taking in the horrific scene before me. He is coming again.

  Will he ever stop!

  Cracking.

  Stretching.

  The splitting of bark.

  The drip and splatter of blood. He fights. The tree fights back. Squirming. Twisting.

  And then he is there. Pulling himself through. His eyes finding mine. He reaches for me.

  ‘You can’t have me,’ I say. The words are as firmly rooted as the tree before me. He tries, but the branch – the twisted branch that for so long knotted my stomach – stretches out, encircling his neck. It coils and ensnares, pulling tighter and tighter.

  Now he is prey.

  His eyes bulge, arms and legs kicking furiously until he convulses to a stop, the tree once again claiming his neck.

  He hangs there. Still now.

  More lifeless with every breath that I take.

  I leave his body hanging there for the birds to pick at his bones, so that he can no longer pick at mine.

  67

  THE LIGHT DAZZLES MY eyes. The high-pitched buzz in my ears wins, over the low deep voice that says my name.

  ‘Sephone … Seph …’

  Once again, I am cold and waking up on the grass as Gabe leans over me. I can feel his still, steady presence as he kneels beside me, pushing the matted hair from my face.

  A few moments later and his voice becomes real. He is not panicked this time, but calm and firm.

  ‘We need to get you cleaned up before your mother sees you.’

  I can hardly find my voice, but it’s there, somewhere.

  ‘Does she know that I’ve been gone?’

  ‘No, but she was up in the night screaming – bad dreams. I went in – told her it was just a nightmare and that you were fine. She thinks you’re … never mind … I found the car – I tried to follow you but-’