And the Trees Crept In

by Dawn Kurtagich

  “… I did. I ran. I ran away while my father killed her, and now I have a part in her death. I’m the reason! If I hadn’t told her I needed to take Nori away, she wouldn’t be dead. I’m a killer. I killed her. I watched her die! I let her die! I killed her!”

  Gowan is holding me now, rocking back and forth, stroking my hair. “No, no, you’re not. You saved Nori. You honored your mother by doing that. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

  It takes a long time for me to cry my grief into exhaustion. When I do, I’m empty.

  “I’m just like him.”

  “Never,” Gowan whispers, kissing my thin skin, what’s left of my hair, my cracked lips.

  “And now I’ve lost Nori, too.”

  “We’re going to get her back.”

  “And then,” I say, turning to him, “I’ll lose you, too.”

  “Stop this. You’re not going to lose any more people. Come on, let’s get searching again. I’m sure we’re going to find her, Sill. You have to believe it.”

  “Believe a lie?”

  “Have hope.”

  I swallow. “I can believe a lie.” [YOU ARE A LIE.]

  And I trudge on.

  21

  young and stupid

  Careful, my dear,

  when you enter his lair

  you may not hear

  if he follows you there.

  We walk in a straight line for a long time, but then the corridor breaks down and other paths fork off from it. We have to make a choice. I choose the one closest to straight and keep walking, looking through the branches for any sign of Nori’s dress flashing past.

  Something Cath said has been running around my head. I couldn’t put my finger on it for the longest time, until…

  “Nori’s voice.”

  Gowan looks at me. “Huh?”

  I stop. “Nori can talk. I… it was her voice.”

  “You lost me.”

  “I thought I was going nuts.… I kept hearing a child’s voice at night, echoing through the house. Giggling. I thought it was haunted. I thought there was a ghost or, you know… nutso Silla. But it was Nori. She’s been talking and she never told me. Cath said I was missing things. She said I wasn’t listening. She knew. She knew Nori was talking—probably to that thing.…”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I think so. Like it matters. Cath was insane. And Nori’s gone.” [YOU LET HER GO.] “It was just something I realized. Something I had missed.”

  I keep walking.

  Nori… talking. Nori, laughing! And I hadn’t known. She hadn’t told me.

  The trees grow denser, and I don’t know which way Nori and… that thing went. The forest, so like Python, yet so unlike Python, is the most peculiar place I have ever seen. Roots have twined themselves around the tapestries, which hang off-kilter from places that used to be walls and are now just more trees. The wall sconces flicker ominously, as though they are still, somehow, connected to our joke of a generator, except now they grow from trunks and branches.

  “This is insane,” I keep muttering. “This is not bloody Alice in Wonderland.”

  “More like Alice in CreeperManland,” Gowan mutters, and I can tell that this eerie stillness is getting to him, too.

  “Nori!” I yell. “Nori! Answer me!”

  She loves to hide. But she promised she wouldn’t hide from me again. Still. She did walk off with that thing. She willfully went with it. Maybe he promised food. Maybe she thought he was her friend. Maybe he’s some creepy pervert and I have lost her forever.

  “Stop it.”

  I start, and look at Gowan. “What?”

  “I can tell you’re thinking the worst. Stop that. We’re going to get her.”

  He raises a hand to touch my cheek and I can’t help it, I instinctively draw away.

  His hand freezes in midair. “What is it?”

  “Don’t fall in love with me,” I whisper. “I’m…”

  “Not ready?”

  “I’m crazy.”

  He laughs. “Crazy? Silla, that’s crazy.”

  “I don’t know anymore! I mean—is any of this real? Are you? And if I am crazy, then you can’t fall in love with me. It’s too dangerous.”

  “Too late.” He says it simply. “I love you.”

  Stop. Please, stop. “Shut up.”

  “I love you, Silla.”

  “You don’t know anything. You don’t even know me.”

  “And I will love you forever.” He says it like I’m not really even meant to listen. Like I’m not really the one he’s saying it for.

  “How can you be so sure? How can you know that you’ll love me forever?”

  He smiles. “I do, Silla. I just know it. I will love you forever.”

  He is so young. So naïve. There’s no way he can promise me that. No one can, unless he is a fool. Did Dad say that to my mother? I will love you forever? God, what bullshit.

  “I couldn’t promise that. I just couldn’t. I don’t know who I’ll be in ten, twenty—fifty years. So how could I promise for my future? I just can’t tell. And neither can you.”

  He smiles again. “I just know I will.”

  I force a smile, but he is young and stupid and he has no idea what life is like. I know what it’s like. I know that love is a weakness that gets under your skin and chips away at your rock until all that’s left is a bleeding mess.

  I don’t have time for love.

  I love Nori.

  Look where that got me.

  “Besides. I’m seeing this, too. I’m right here, with you, in this forest—thing. So either we’re not crazy and this is really happening, or we’re both totally bonkers.”

  I sit down, feeling the weight of the trees around me. “I don’t know how to find her.”

  Gowan takes my hand. “We keep going. We keep searching.”

  “For how long? This is impossible. We’ve walked beyond the length of La Baume, and still…”

  “I don’t understand this either. But what else is there to do?”

  “Something. Anything else. There has to be an answer. Maybe in the library. Something about this curse.”

  Gowan looks behind us. “I don’t know if we could even find our way back.”

  “I have to try. I want to go back. Cathy is gone, fine. But her library is back there, full of answers.”

  “Half the books are in French—”

  “I can’t keep wandering this place like a maze! We could be getting farther away and that madman has Nori—he has Nori!”

  Gowan gathers me into his arms. “Please, Silla. We have to keep going, keep trying.”

  I pull away from him and get to my feet again, leaning on one of the cursed trees. “Keep trying what? Walking in circles? There is a reason for all of this, and it’s somewhere in Cathy’s past, I know it!”

  I’m running before he can stop me. I’m tired of talking. Tired of reasoning, of waiting. Nori is out there with a crazy man—a thing—and for all I know he could be doing anything to her. I’m going back to the library and I will rip every single book out of the bookcases if I have to. I will burn each of those volumes page by page if that’s what it takes.

  I run until I can’t.

  Until my lungs are bubbling and my legs are hissing with lactic acid.

  I am lost.

  And the library is nowhere. The house is one giant wood. A maze.

  I am trapped.

  I growl in frustration and then sit down in a heap.

  “NORI!” My screams echo back.

  Something has buoyancy, after all.

  And then I hear a sound. Nori’s tiny bell… tinkling through the trees.

  Nori…

  “Yes! Good girl! Good girl!”

  I jump to my feet, listening, and then I follow the tendrils of sound deeper into the not-wood of La Baume.

  22

  between trees, a tinkle

  Boys and girls

  have their parts

  but beware of
<
br />   losing hearts.

  I look behind me. The terrain is unfamiliar and uniform. Arched doorways have sprung up between trees in the distance—four at least that I can count—and I have no idea which leads back to the entrance hall.

  I hold my breath and listen for my father’s voice. Maybe he will guide me if I listen hard enough. Lead me back to that black pit of nothing. But he is silent once more.

  “Useless,” I mutter.

  All of a sudden it is too much. I can’t bear any more loss, any more suffering, and the hollow pain in my stomach has become so intense that I cough with the pain of it. I double over, breathing in deeply, but still the pain rises and expands.

  Behind me, I hear Gowan’s heavy footfalls.

  “Silla!” he calls. “There you are. Don’t do that again—please.”

  “I’m… sorry.” I gag again, and feel another of my teeth loose in my mouth.

  I begin to laugh. I am falling apart. This is suddenly hilarious and my laughter becomes raucous shrieks until the pain takes hold again and I’m gasping for air.

  “You need to eat,” Gowan says. “I’ve got one. One left.”

  An apple. In his pocket. Small. Tiny, actually. Perfectly green.

  “No!”

  “Silla—”

  “What I need is to find my sister before this thing does something to her! She’s my responsibility!”

  He grabs me roughly, and I am so surprised that I forget my pain. And then he is hugging me, so tight that it almost hurts, and his whole body is vibrating—shaking. He is shaking like a leaf.

  “Silla,” he breathes. “Silla…”

  I am so stunned that I stand there for a full three seconds before my own arms lift, seemingly of their own accord, and wrap themselves around him. He feels so warm and alive and real in my arms, and he smells like something sweet. Something I want to smell forever.

  “You’re going to destroy me,” I whisper.

  And then he is shaking even more, and I realize it’s because he is crying. Not just crying, but the kind of bone-deep crying that only comes from grief. From the deepest sorrow. The kind of crying that tears deep down into the soul from some wound that time can never touch.

  I let him cry, and we hold each other, and though I am bewildered, I feel his pain. I stroke his hair, and it is the most wonderful thing I have ever done. It feels so right.

  “I’m sorry you’re in pain,” I whisper, before I can stop myself.

  He pulls away from me, his eyes so dark they look black, rimmed with red that the tears have caused, staring at me with a look of wonder on his face, and I kiss him. I kiss him deeply, and it is so much better than the first, drunken kiss. It is so much more true and vital and worthy.

  He kisses me and holds me tightly, pressing me into his body, firm against my own, and I grapple with his shirt as he grapples with mine. The light is fading, it will be dark soon, but I don’t care because all I need, right now, is here.

  My bare skin is a relief, even though I am exposed, and I am glad to be rid of the moldy dress, and then his arms are around me, naked and strong, and he is pulling me toward him and I want this.

  It is a desperate meeting of mouths and bodies; we move together among the cursed trees—we are the only things moving. It is heat and breath and touch and dance—it is full of life. It gets faster near the end: a wave building inside me until Gowan cries out and holds me tighter, and we fall into each other like I never knew was possible.

  I love you.

  Treacherous mind. Treacherous heart.

  Gowan clings to me, and he is still shaking. There are tears on his cheeks.

  “I love you,” he tells me again. “I’m so sorry.”

  He doesn’t expect anything from me. I know it in the moment he falls asleep before I’ve had a chance to reply.

  He loves me, without expecting anything from me in return.

  “You’re so stupid,” I tell him, and then I hold his head, because I can’t ignore what has happened, even though I’d like to try.

  It’s brighter in the morning, which is weird, because there’s no sun. There is no dawn and no daylight. There is no sky. I gather my green-speckled dress and slip it over my head, wincing with the coldness and the damp smell of the fabric, and then I turn to look at Gowan.

  He is frowning in his sleep, and there are dark circles beneath his eyes. When did that happen? I bend down, curling my hand into a fist, and pretend to iron his forehead. Iron away his worries. Still asleep, he half smiles and the knot in his brow loosens. I grin, my lips traveling over his naked body.

  Nice.

  I reach for his shirt, intending to fold it neatly, when something occurs to me in the second before I touch it.

  His shirt.

  His trousers.

  I lift both from where they have become tangled in roots that grew overnight. Both items are beautiful. Blue jeans and a green shirt. So new. So clean. So dry.

  And not a dot of green mold anywhere on them.

  I raise his shirt to my nose and inhale. The same sweet scent. No mildew, no rot. No damp—nothing.

  I glance down at Gowan and realize that I have never seen mold growing on him the way I found it on Nori and me. I have never seen him looking less than perfect.

  What is this? [HE FOOLED YOU SO EASILY.]

  It can’t be.… [SILLY SILLA. HE’S BEEN SO CLOSE ALL THIS TIME.]

  Gowan can’t be—[THE CREEPER MAN THE CREEPER MAN THE CREEPER MAN!]

  I drop the clothes and back away, but the movement wakes him and he smiles up at me.

  “G’morning,” he says, sleepy-eyed and dopey-smiled.

  I can’t look at him. I can’t stay. He’s been lying.

  He sees my thoughts on my face. “Silla?”

  “Stay away.”

  He sits up, panic in his eyes. “Whoa, what’s going on?”

  “You never have any mold on you.…”

  “What?”

  I swallow. Calm. But I back away from him. “Nori and I both had this green mold growing on us from the house. It’s like it was infected and getting us sick, too. But you… you never did. You never look less than perfect.”

  “Silla…”

  “The curse never touched you.” Away. I back away.

  “It’s not what you think.”

  “Who are you? Why are you here?” [LIAR. HE’S A LIAR.]

  “Silla, calm down.”

  “Tell the truth! Why did you come to La Baume that day?” [RUN! RUN AWAY!]

  “I told you—”

  “You told me you lived here once. But you’re hiding something.”

  He hesitates.

  “No lies! Tell me the truth!”

  “Okay. Yes, I’ve not told you everything about myself, about… but I care about you. I love you.”

  “You’re him. You’re him.…”

  He looks scared now. “Silla—”

  “Oh God. You are.”

  “Don’t do this. Let me come with you. Let me help.”

  “Get away. Get away from me.” [YOU FOOL. YOU FOOL!]

  “Please, wait—”

  I turn and I run, and though I can hear him scrambling up and getting dressed, hear him calling my name, panic lacing his words, I can’t stay.

  I run faster.

  I am a fool.

  I am a fool alone.

  23

  fool, alone

  Alone you must be

  to find your reprieve

  bet you can’t wait

  is it too late?

  I run because I can’t do anything else. The trees fly past, flashes of the fading wallpaper of this accursed La Baume winking at me in between, but I grit my teeth and push on.

  How could I have been so blind? How could I have missed it? Not to have seen his link to this… this, whatever it is.

  Gowan is the Creeper Man. He tricked me. All this time, he was just watching me. Gauging my reactions—torturing me.

  Nori, Nori, Nori. It is a chant
to the beat of my heart and I don’t falter because Gowan could be behind me—the Creeper Man could be behind me. But then where is Nori? Where did he put Nori? [YOU ARE BIG SISTER.]

  Her name floods my mind all at once. [YOU LET HER GO.] And I lose my footing and trip over crooked roots (or vines) and crash violently into the earth. Or is it a dusty hardwood floor? I don’t know.

  I lie there for a moment, defeated.

  I am fading away into a half sleep, washed over with despair and unbearable hunger when I hear a lilting tinkling through the trees like a ribbon of sound.

  Nori’s bell.

  “Good girl!” I whisper, scrambling to my feet. “Keep ringing it.…”

  And I follow the eerie tinkling between the trees, letting my ears lead me.

  I’m coming, Nori. I’m coming.

  I hear Gowan’s cries echoing as they drift through the eerily still trees.

  Ssssiiilllaaa.

  Ssssiiilllaaaa!

  I walk.

  How can it have changed so fast? How can this be happening? I think back to every Japanese horror film I have ever seen. Am I dreaming? And I remember that particularly weird South Korean film, Hansel and Gretel, the way this mysterious door leads them into another place entirely. Is that what’s happened here? [LSD? WHAT IS REALITY?]

  I walk.

  I feel as if the real world, the world where I lived, was normal 3-D and I was blissfully unaware of the dangers of reality. But now I’m somehow in a 63-D world and it’s full of all these terrible things I can’t understand. This is the ground-floor corridor of La Baume, but it is also Python Wood. But a really weird Python Wood because there is no noise. It is silent. And, also, none of the leaves are moving because there is no wind because we are INSIDE.

  I walk.

  “This is mad. Utterly mad. I am crazy. I have to be.”

  I walk.

  “What if he’s taken her to eat her or—” I shake my head. “Blah, blah, blah.”

  I walk.

  I’m aware of everything. Each sound is an attack. A possible enemy. I flinch often, but don’t laugh a breathless chuckle when I know no danger is present. Why, I wonder, have I become this bird, this mouse, this flea? When did that happen?