House of Fallen Trees

by Gina Ranalli

The words snapped Karen back to the present like a hard slap to the face.

  “What?”

  “Umm…Sean and I were partners.”

  “Partners,” she repeated, as though she were unsure of the word’s definition. “What does that mean exactly?”

  Rory didn’t answer the question, but instead said, “I was going through some of his stuff and I found an old shoebox full of papers. I don’t know how much you knew about your brother’s life here in Washington, but we’d just bought an old place out in Fallen Trees that we were planning to renovate into a bed and breakfast.”

  Karen’s mind was racing. A bed and breakfast? “My parents went out there…to Washington, I mean. Did you talk to them?”

  “No. We never met, but I knew they were here. The police asked me if I wanted to meet them, but given how they felt about Sean’s lifestyle, I figured it was probably best that we keep our distance.”

  “His lifestyle,” Karen murmured thoughtfully.

  There was an awkward silence for a long moment on the other end of the line. Finally, Rory Luden broke it by saying, “You did know he was gay, didn’t you?”

  Is this part of the bizarre dream?

  “I…I kind of knew, I guess,” she said at last.

  “Well, the reason I’m calling is that in that shoebox I just mentioned, there was a handwritten will. Sean’s. In it he wrote that if anything should happen to him, he wanted his half of the bed and breakfast to go to you. Now, I know you’re probably not going to be interested in it, but I thought it was only fair to let you know about it.”

  “My parents never said anything about a bed and breakfast.”

  “Sean didn’t want them to know. He said they would try to fuck me over if anything happened to him. You know how laws are in regards to gay couples, I’m sure. Parents swoop in all the time and steal everything out from under the partner left behind, even when they wanted nothing to do with their own child when he was alive.”

  Head reeling, Karen had no idea how to respond to this news.

  “Okay,” she said, lamely. It was the only thing she could think of.

  “Anyway, like I was saying, I know you’re probably not interested, but I wanted to be fair and at least let you know about it. I’m perfectly willing to buy out your half of the B&B. It would actually make my life a lot easier.”

  “I own half of a B&B?”

  The young man on the other end of the line sighed impatiently, as if this conversation was taking all of his energy and he didn’t have much left for inane questions. “That’s right. But it would probably be best for everyone involved if you didn’t mention any of it to your parents. Sean was pretty adamant that they not know too many details about his life when he was alive and I think we should respect his feelings in death as well.”

  “Okay,” she said again. The words “alive” and “death” were echoing in her head like shrill church bells.

  “So…if you want I can have the papers drawn up and overnight them to you. How’s Monday sound?”

  “I think it sounds…fast. Maybe I should give this some thought before committing to anything.”

  “You can’t be serious.” Rory scoffed. “What’s to think about? It’s not like…” He trailed off and Karen could tell he was trying to keep his temper in check. “How much time would you like?”

  “I don’t know. I mean, I’m just hearing all this for the first time. Do you think you can give me a few days to register what you’re telling me? I don’t even know what the hell is going on here. This is completely out of the blue.”

  “I understand. It took me by surprise too. Frankly, I don’t understand why Sean did it this way. Why he didn’t just will his half to me. But whatever. Like I said, this will, if you can even call it that, is just handwritten on notebook paper. I’m pretty sure it’s not legally binding. But, I’m trying to do the right thing here and respect his wishes.”

  “I appreciate that,” Karen’s voice softened, thinking of Sean. “I’d like to respect his wishes too.”

  Another pause, then, “So, you want to think about it then?”

  “I’d like to, yes. What did you say the name of the town was again?”

  “Fallen Trees. It’s a tiny town in northern Washington. Impossible to find on a map, but it’s quaint.”

  Karen began digging around in the stuff on the end table, searching for a pen. She finally found one and began to frantically scribble information in margins of an old issue of TV Guide.

  “Fallen Trees,” she repeated. “And your name again?”

  “Rory Luden,” he replied, not sounding particularly happy.

  When she finished writing it down she asked him for a phone number and address where he could be reached and he gave her both, somehow managing to contain his grumbles.

  “Okay,” she said. “I guess I’ll give you a call in the next day or two.”

  “Sounds good,” he replied.

  But before he had a chance to hang up on her, Karen blurted, “How long were you and my brother together?”

  She could sense him debating on answering the question, mulling it over, but at last he said, “About five years.”

  Karen let out her amazement in a low whistle. “Wow.”

  “Yeah,” he repeated. “Wow.”

  A good ten seconds passed with neither of them saying anything.

  “Well,” Rory said eventually. “Thanks for taking my call. It was…uh…nice talking to you.”

  “Yeah. Likewise.”

  Rory said goodbye and Karen remained on the line, listening to nothing, feeling dazed and half asleep, wondering what had just transpired. She stood that way for a long time, until the phone began to bleat in her ear and then she hung up, wondering what to do with herself.

  After chewing her lip for an unknowable amount of time, she decided it was time for a drink. There was a bottle of red in the refrigerator that had been begging for attention for quite some time and she was going to rectify that situation right now.

  CHAPTER THREE

  She had learned long ago that when companionship is lacking—you have no lover, no friend, no dog, no cat, no canary—a candle flame makes for better company than some might think.

  Every flame, she’d discovered, has its own unique personality. Some are wild and strong, anxious to take over the world if you let them. Others are shy, barely wanting to make themselves known, quick to extinguish their own lives the moment your back is turned. But most are somewhere in the middle—content, lazy and relaxed, flickering brightly now and then, like a dog lifting its head to listen to a far off siren, or a cat, tail slowly thumping in an absentminded half-doze.

  Her laptop open on the bed beside her, completely forgotten, Karen stared into the candle flame on her night table, wineglass in hand, corked bottle standing stoically on the floor, three quarters empty.

  She drained the last of her glass, contemplating what she had learned about the town of Fallen Trees, Washington. After spending nearly an hour searching the Internet for information, she wasn’t left with much. The town, established in 1899, had been built in the middle of a vast forest, in a clearing most probably caused by a forest fire speculated to have occurred at least a century prior to the first settlers coming upon it.

  Though the town population had never grown much beyond a few hundred occupants, those few made a good living mining the nearby hills for copper and silver, a rarity in the Northwest. The locals were intensely secretive about the location of said mines, refusing to allow outsiders in on their profits and keeping the discovery of the mines among the initial settling families, said to number only in single digits.

  Nowadays, Fallen Trees wasn’t much larger than it had been in those first decades of inhabitance. Getting to and from the town proved to be a more difficult task than most cared to endure, as it was hard miles over a mountain pass and for not much reward upon arrival.

  From what Karen could gather, there was a bar in town that served as a meeting hall when
the single church was in use. A doctor’s office (with one doctor), a general store, which doubled as a post office, and a small radio station with only enough bandwidth to reach the town borders on each side. As far as she could tell, Fallen Trees didn’t have a single motel, nor was there any mention of a school of any type. But surely there must be a school. Every town had children. Unless, of course, they bussed their kids to the next biggest town, which was called Indigo Bend and had a whopping thousand residents.

  That was it. The end result of all her web digging, which, given the town and its lack of a library, was more than one would expect to find on such a flyspeck on a map.

  Leaning over the side of the bed, Karen retrieved the wine bottle, yanked the cork out with her teeth, and poured herself another glass.

  Once the bottle was safely back on the floor, she reclined against the propped up pillows and took a long satisfying swallow.

  Sean.

  Her baby brother, two years her junior, missing and almost certainly dead at twenty-seven.

  For the thousandth time, she wondered what had become of him. Had he been murdered and if so, why? Was it one of those gay-bashing things? Had he simply wandered off to get lost in the woods and die of exposure? Before he’d gone missing, had he been happy? She had to assume so, since he’d had a longtime lover with whom he’d planned to start a business.

  “More than you can say, Lewis,” she slurred, raising her glass to give herself a toast. “At least he had someone.”

  Slurping more wine, she thought back to her conversation with Rory. It would be impossible to tell what a person was really like from a short telephone conversation, but she still tried to imagine him. What he looked like, the kind of person he was. Was he kind and gentle or rough and unemotional?

  She had to give him credit for even calling her. If everything he said was true, he could have gone about his merry business, building up his B&B and she’d never have been the wiser.

  So, he had honesty going for him, at least. Doing what Sean would have wanted, evidently. Which was strange in itself. Why would Sean will her his half of a business? Why not just will it to Rory?

  It wasn’t like she needed the money. She already had plenty. Not to mention, she had absolutely no idea whatsoever about running a B&B. The thought had never even occurred to her. She could barely keep her checkbook balanced and that was something she was sure Sean knew about her. Hell…back when they were kids, she used to bribe him to do her math homework for her.

  Beside her, the candle flame danced joyfully. She glanced at it, brow furrowed. “What are you so happy about? You don’t have much longer to live.”

  But maybe that was worth dancing about. Not the dying, but the living. Dance while you have the chance.

  She chuckled, the rhyme so unlike her. She was not an optimist by nature, though she didn’t exactly consider herself a pessimist either. She just was. “Too deep,” she croaked. “I just might need another bottle if I keep up all this deep thinking. Can’t have any deep thinking.”

  She killed the contents of her glass, as if it were the same as killing the contents of her mind. She didn’t want to think about this stuff anymore. Didn’t want to dwell on Sean and what had become of him. Lord knew, she’d already done enough of that and it had gotten her nowhere except in a plush chair opposite a fucking shrink. “Definitely need more wine.”

  She leaned over and poured the remains of the bottle into her glass, knowing perfectly well what they said about people who drank alone. Though what choice did she have? She was a loner; always had been, always would be. An anti-social hermit who liked it that way. People were so bothersome…so demanding of her time and energy. Time and energy she didn’t care to share. All she needed was her words, her characters. They gave her trouble sometimes, sure, but all-in-all they made for better company than anyone in the real world ever had.

  She’d always lived inside her head best and saw no reason to change. Sean had been the lively one. The vivacious one, outgoing and funny. Smart and handsome. The two of them had been like night and day, yin and yang. She had to laugh now, bitterly, wondering not for the first time if her parents wished it had been her who’d disappeared. “Sorry, Mom,” she said loudly, her own voice startling her. “Sorry Daddy-O.”

  She was half-tempted to call them up right now, in the middle of the damn night to announce to them that their precious baby boy was a homosexual. Wouldn’t that stick in their craw nicely?

  Then she froze, wondering just what the hell had gotten into her. Why was she thinking all these ugly negative thoughts? Yes, her parents had favored Sean. Sadly, parents often cared for their sons over their daughters. It was a simple, though unfortunate, fact of life.

  But it was the wine, of course, bringing out the ugly in her. The sour bitch on wheels, who dutifully kept her mouth shut and resented them all the more because of it.

  “Put on a happy face!” she shouted abruptly, clambering off the bed, being careful not to spill her drink.

  Maybe what she needed was some fresh air. Perhaps she should go for a walk. Any fool knew women had long ago lost the privilege of enjoying a night walk alone, but Karen didn’t give a shit about that right now. She would pity the poor fool who dared to fuck with her tonight.

  Stumbling around her bedroom, she stepped into her favorite flip-flops and prepared to leave the condo, wineglass in hand. She was turning towards the doorway when the laptop on her bed bleated. She stopped, swaying slightly, and gazed down at the computer with curiosity. Someone had sent her an instant message.

  Ignore it, she thought. Go on your walk. Pretend you didn’t hear it.

  “That’s ridiculous,” she muttered. “It could be something important.” Though she couldn’t imagine what. Not many people had her screen name, but her publishers, agent, and editor were among those who did. As far as she could remember, her mom might have had it as well, though she was certain her parents were long since in bed by this time of night. Setting the glass on the bedside table, she sat on the edge of the bed and pulled the laptop to her, turning it so she could see the screen. The instant message was from someone calling themselves SeanL14. She gasped, clicking open the IM before she could think better of it. Her eyes widened as they scanned the words typed into the message box.

  Two men have the carcass.

  All she could do was stare at the words, suddenly completely sober, palms growing damp as her pulse thumped in her temple, her heart a tiny terrified bird in a cage of bones.

  Bing.

  New message.

  But not a new message. The same one, repeated.

  Two men have the carcass.

  She wanted to respond to whoever was doing this, ask them who the fuck they were and what they wanted, but she was paralyzed. Had her dream of the other night not been a dream at all? Had it actually happened? That distant, cracking voice on the other end of the line, repeating the phrase she was looking at right now? Had that episode been real?

  Bing.

  The same five words again. And then again.

  Bing. Bing. Bing.

  Rapid fire, the message kept repeating, over and over until she was sure she would scream. She bared her teeth at the laptop. “Stop it,” she cried. “Stop it!”

  And then it stopped.

  She didn’t dare blink, didn’t dare breathe. Frozen and staring, everything else forgotten in that moment. There was only her and the computer. After nearly a full minute had passed, she slowly moved her hand towards the laptop, intending to slam it shut when it bleated at her again.

  The message again, abbreviated this time, coming faster than she thought possible. Could anyone type that fast?

  TWOMEN.

  TWOMEN.

  TWOMENTWOMENTWOMENTWOMENTWOMENTWOMENTWOMEN.

  Over and over and over. Filling up the entirety of the message box. The computer’s beeping became a constant drone and then, finally, she found the strength to reach out and slam the thing closed.

  The beeping
stopped abruptly, casting her into complete silence, the candle flame still the only source of light in the room.

  She released her pent up breath in a long slow whoosh that tasted bitter on her tongue.

  Sometime later—maybe five minutes, maybe sixty—she stood, picked up the candle with its excited, happy flame and left the room, leaving the laptop behind, as well as the wine.

  She didn’t feel like drinking anymore. Or walking in the crisp night air. She didn’t know what she wanted now, if anything, except to sleep. She was suddenly very tired. Exhausted, really. And her head was beginning to hurt with the first twangs of a hangover.

  She had to sleep, though she had no intention of sleeping in that bedroom tonight. The couch would do just fine. She would sleep and then when she woke up, she would be clear-headed enough to figure out just what the hell was going on. Maybe figure out who was playing such an evil trick on her and why.

  But, sleep first. Sleep was her friend, almost a lover, and now she needed to mate with it, become one and just disappear for a time.

  Disappearing sounded perfect right now.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  It wasn’t until the next afternoon that it occurred to her she should perhaps call the police and tell them she was being harassed. It seemed like a good idea for exactly fifteen seconds and then the reality of it slammed home. The cops wouldn’t do shit. They never did. Even if someone was physically threatening her, they probably wouldn’t do anything about it. She had no faith in the system, which was only in place to protect the guilty and punish the innocent. No faith in cops, most of whom only became cops in order to bully people and make themselves feel superior.

  Karen was on her own but she didn’t think she was completely helpless. She didn’t have to take this harassment. She could try to figure out what was going on, try and make it stop, find out who was behind it and why.

  The more she thought about it though, the more she drew a blank. She could think of absolutely no one who would want to pull this kind of prank, couldn’t even think of a single motive for such a thing.