The Family Tree

by John Everson

  “Could you release my arm this time, so that I can hug you? Pretty soon, I guess, I won’t be able to ever move my arms again. That scares the hell out of me. And I want to feel you that way again.”

  Caroline kissed him. “It would be nice to feel you holding me again,” she said. “Hang on.”

  She slipped away for a moment, and then was back, the click of her key releasing his right arm again. It felt as if he was pulling away from Velcro when he lifted the arm; the threads of the tree grew faster and burrowed deeper every hour. He didn’t have much time, of that much he was sure.

  The key clinked as she dropped it on the table behind her and then Caroline’s arms were around him again. “Is that better?” she asked.

  He ran his fingers down her back, feeling the silky ridges of her spine, and then stroking the curve of her waist. The sensation of touching her was strange; his fingers bent more slowly than usual, and the tips felt nearly numb; maybe because he hadn’t felt anything but his utensils for the past two weeks.

  Or maybe because the tree was changing him.

  After all, he had just dreamed the dream of a tree…staring for hours into the sky as the day turned to night…was he channeling the consciousness of the tree? Imagining it? What would he become if he stayed here another two weeks? Or two months?

  He hated that it had to be her, but he had to make this plan work.

  Caroline slipped an arm behind his neck, and he drew his free arm around her, enjoying the hug. With one hand she reached between them and guided him quickly inside her. No foreplay at all, yet she was slick already, hungry for him.

  He knew he should stop her somehow; he didn’t want the knife to slide out of its hiding spot, but he also didn’t want her to stop. He moaned at the sensation as he enjoyed the inner heat of her, and she echoed his sounds of pleasure. “Mama said I had to share you with the other girls, but I really didn’t want to,” she confided. Her hips began to churn as she said it. “I want to have you all for my own.”

  “Why would you…have to…share?” he asked, already panting with their mutual motion.

  “So there can be…ohhh…more…mmmm…Belvedere babies.”

  Scott’s eyes widened. In a flash, he finally understood why so many women here had been so interested in bedding him. It wasn’t because of his heretofore unrealized Yankee charms. “You’ve just been…breeding me?”

  “They have,” she said, refusing to stop her rhythm. She drew him in and out of her, easily, rocking him. Every word was accompanied by a moan or a gasp. “Not me. I…already have…your baby. I think you gave it to me…on…our very first time. I just want you now.”

  “You already…” he began but then found his own orgasm. It came in a rush and for a few seconds he didn’t care about plans or progeny. He cried out in passion, and Caroline took that as a cue to speed up, yelping with each thrust as she took him deeper until her voice crested just short of a scream. Finally, she collapsed against him, head on his chest.

  He was running out of time but his mind was spinning. He slid his free arm down her back, pulling her tight. But then he let his fingers trail across her ribs and down to his own, until he could slip his hand behind his own back. His fingers poked and prodded, working their way past and below his rib cage until he felt the hard shaft of the knife. He slipped his fingers around the metal and slowly eased it forward, until he could get his fingers all the way around it. He couldn’t drop it. Not now. He’d never get this chance again.

  “You are pregnant?” he asked, trying to keep his voice calm. “You told me you were protected. I thought you were on the Pill. Are you sure?”

  She raised her face to his and smiled. “Yes,” she said. “I told you I had all the protection I needed. I didn’t need any!”

  Scott moaned. This complicated things. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I was going to tell you when I was a little farther along but…yes, you’re going to be a daddy!”

  “And if it’s a boy, you’re going to eventually chain him here to this tree, to take my place?” he said.

  “Well,” she said. Her face suddenly looked troubled. “I guess, well…hopefully the next Belvedere here will be Sherrilyn’s or Rocky’s boy…”

  “Why Rocky?” he asked, confused. “She’s not part of the family.”

  “Sure she is,” Caroline said. “She just don’t live here year-round. But she’s one of my cousins.”

  Scott made his move. He took a breath and then flipped his arm around her neck, pinning the back of her head to his chest. He shifted his fist so that the silver blade of the knife was visible at the edge of her eye. So she could see the danger of struggling against him. “No son of mine is going to be tied to a tree just so a bunch of old ladies can stop getting wrinkles.”

  Caroline shrieked and tried to pull away despite the threat of the knife, but he tightened his grip until she choked. She grabbed at his arm, trying to pull it away from her neck, and then slammed her elbow backwards, hitting him in the chest. Scott’s eyes bugged at the spike of pain, but he didn’t let go.

  “Stop moving now or I’m going to cut you,” he warned, pressing the metal to her neck. Her skin creased; he was close to breaking the skin.

  She stopped. He could feel her heart beating hard against his arm. Her entire body shook.

  “I want you to reach out to the table and get the key,” he said. “And then I want you to release my other arm. But we’re going to do this very slowly. If you make a sudden move, I’m going to stab you in the neck. You will die before the tree can heal you.”

  “You’d really kill me?” she whispered.

  “Isn’t that what you’re doing to me?”

  “I told you, if I let you go…”

  “If you don’t let me go, I’m taking you with me—we will both die,” he said. His voice was deadly serious.

  His arm was suddenly wet. Caroline was crying.

  “The key,” he prodded.

  She reached out and picked it up from the table.

  “Undo my other arm,” he said. He let her turn herself around to face him, while still keeping his arm around her neck.

  She reached up and jiggled the key until he felt the cuff drop away from his wrist. Only…he couldn’t move his arm from the tree.

  “Take my right hand in yours,” he instructed. “And pull.”

  She did as he directed, and slowly he felt the arm shift from the tree. It was like pulling taffy; the skin pulled and stretched, not wanting to sever from the bark of the tree. He felt as if a hundred bees were stinging his arm all at once.

  “Holy shit,” he moaned, and then in a last audible snap, the arm was free. A fire burned up and down its length. The pain made his whole body shake. What was it going to be like when he severed the strands that held his back?

  Scott pulled Caroline tighter to him, hugging her close. “I need your help,” he whispered to her.

  “I can’t,” she cried. “Please don’t do this to me. Don’t make me do this.”

  “Do you love me?” he asked.

  The look on her face was pure torture. Her eyes screwed up and tears instantly streamed down her cheeks. She nodded her head, fast. Affirmative.

  “If you have a boy, do you want our son to die here someday, when I’m gone? How long from now? When he’s just a ten-year-old kid? Or a twenty-year-old, just ready to start his life? How long will I last here, feeding the tree?”

  “Probably thirty or forty years,” she said, sniffling. “Maybe more.”

  “Are you going to be the one to chain our son up here when I finally die?”

  “Stop it!” she cried.

  “No, you stop it,” he said. “You can’t love me, and condemn me to death here. You can’t love our baby and say in the same breath that someday you’re going to chain him up here in my place. That’s crazy, Caroline
. It’s not right.”

  She burst into tears then and pressed her face to his chest. He let her cry for a moment, and hoped his words were really sinking in. She was truly his only hope. Her love was the only chance he had to live. But how strong were her feelings? They’d never even talked about love before.

  She raised her head, and her face looked inconsolable. Lost.

  “I don’t know what to do,” she whispered.

  “Help me. I can take you away from here, show you Chicago. Show you the world. We can raise our baby together. I could really be his father, not some freak in the basement.”

  Her eyes widened. “You’d want to be his daddy…I mean, really, to raise him and all?”

  He nodded. “I’d like to be your husband, if you’d have me.”

  Suddenly she was kissing him, hard and anxious, and his arms were around her waist, holding her tight.

  “Do you really mean it?” she asked, taking a breath. “You’re not just saying that so I’ll let you go?”

  He shook his head. “I would be honored if you would be my wife, Caroline. I’ve been in love with you since the moment I saw you.”

  “Even when I broke into your room?”

  “Especially then,” he laughed.

  “I meant what I said before,” she said. “I wanted you all for myself, but Mama said I had to share. I didn’t want to. I fell for you too, real fast.”

  “So you weren’t just using me?”

  Her arms tightened around him. “Maybe at first. Mama was clear about what I had to do before you ever got here. No matter what you were like. But then…”

  He pulled her up to look at him. Her cheeks were wet, but her eyes had grown bright. “If I stay here much longer, I will never be able to leave. I think it’s going to be difficult to leave now. If you care for me at all, you have to help me go. And if you care for our child, son or daughter, you’ll come with me. Your baby—our baby—deserves to have a life…just like I do.”

  “What do I have to do,” she whispered.

  “First, undo the things on my feet?”

  “Okay,” she said.

  “I can trust you?” he asked.

  She nodded. He saw a wanting in her eyes, a desire that was more than physical. He knew then that he could trust her, at least in this moment. She had never been an enemy.

  “This has to end,” he said. “It’s not fair that people have to die so that others can live longer. You understand that, right?”

  She nodded faintly, and then asked, “Is Chicago real pretty?”

  He smiled. “When you see the lakefront, and walk on Navy Pier in the summertime…it’s the one of the most amazing places in the world.”

  Caroline swallowed, and then bent down to begin to undo his ankle cuffs. He held one of her wrists as she did…but if he held her like that, she couldn’t get the key to go in one-handed.

  “You’re gonna to have to trust me,” she said. He considered that for a moment. What choice did he have?

  “I do,” he said, and let go of her hand.

  Scott held his breath. She could run now, and he would be screwed. He couldn’t free himself; he couldn’t do this without help. He was glued to the tree, and she was his only hope.

  Caroline got the key inserted and turned…and the cuff fell away. She worked on the other one then, and stood up.

  “There,” she said.

  “Thank you.”

  “I didn’t run away.”

  “I saw that. Thank you again.”

  “Now what?”

  Scott took a deep breath.

  Now was when he really needed to be able to trust her. There was only one way he could think of to finish this.

  He held out the knife to her. “I need you to cut me free.”

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Caroline looked at him like he was crazy. “What do you mean, cut you free?”

  “Slip the knife behind my back, and move it up and down. I need you to cut all of the little threads that connect me to the tree.”

  Caroline nodded, still looking uncertain. “If I do that, you’ll bleed,” she said. “You are part of the tree now.”

  Scott shrugged. “It’s the only way.”

  Caroline’s lips pursed. She peered at the gap between him and the tree bark, first on his left side, and then frowning, moved to his right. Then she sighed, still obviously uncertain. Finally, she pushed gently at his ribs, easing him away from the tree as much as he could rotate to expose part of his shoulder blade. He felt the cool metal of the blade touching his skin, but a moment later that sensation was replaced by fire.

  “Can you lean forward at all?” she asked.

  He tried, and cried out instantly at the pain. It felt as if his skin was Crazy Glued to the tree…or frozen to a metal lamppost. Pulling it free was excruciating.

  Caroline slid the blade along the growing opening between his shoulder and the bark. Scott stifled a scream and she stopped, stepping away.

  “You’re bleeding a lot,” she said. “This isn’t going to work.”

  “It will work,” he insisted. “I’ll heal. I’m not staying here. Maybe work on my legs a bit.”

  She nodded, and bent down, slipping the knife behind his left ankle, while pulling his foot away from the tree at the same time. The tree-flesh gave way easier here, and Scott bit down on the back of his hand, struggling not to cry out. But after a couple minutes, his grimace of pain turned to an ecstatic grin as he bent his knee up and away from the tree. “Yes!” he said.

  “You’re bleeding all over,” Caroline complained, holding up her hands. They were covered in a reddish-orange slime.

  “Is it blood,” he asked. “Or sap?”

  She raised an eyebrow and put her tongue to the knuckle of her hand. “Both?”

  “Well, it hurts like hell coming out,” he said. “But it’s the only way. Just do it fast, don’t worry about me.”

  “I’m scared,” she said.

  “I know,” he said. “So am I.”

  She stood up and put her arms around him. “I don’t know if I can do this,” she whispered. “I love my mama.” She started to cry again.

  “Do you really want to stay in this treehouse for the rest of your life, never seeing any of the world? You might live longer here, but, really what’s the point?”

  “But if I really let you go…Mama will die.”

  Scott pulled her face up from his chest so that she could see his eyes. “Everybody dies eventually,” he said. “But I promise you, we will call your mama in a few weeks. In a few months. We’ll make sure that she’s okay. And if she really isn’t…and you want me to, I will come back here. Willingly.”

  “Really?” she whispered. Her eyes lit. “You would do that for me?”

  “I promise. I don’t want to kill your mama or anyone else. But I don’t want to die. So please, give me this chance. Let’s see what happens. I believe that a lot of this business about needing a Belvedere to feed the tree is bullshit. I know what they say happened before but…I just don’t buy it. I don’t believe in curses. Give me this chance to prove it, and have my own life. And if I do have to come back here to save the family, well…first…I want to show you a little of the world.”

  Caroline grinned. “Mama’s not going to be happy about that.” She leaned down and finished cutting his other leg free. Then she began hacking at the connections to his back. Scott bit his fist again and cried out, again and again in between the agonized moans. It felt like she was skinning him alive.

  “It’s a lot of blood,” she warned again. “Really a lot.”

  “It hurts like hell,” he cried, his face wet with tears. “Take my hands.”

  She did, and he closed his eyes. “On the count of three, pull like you’ve never pulled anything before. Yank as hard as you can. Get me off
of this damn thing.”

  Caroline bumped the table aside, and took his hands, gripping them hard. Scott counted, “One, two, three…”

  Caroline gave a sharp tug. He could feel the resistance in his elbows. Scott groaned, but his back didn’t budge. “Harder,” he said.

  She pulled again, and he yelled “Harder” through the pain. This time she didn’t stop, and he felt something shift and pull behind him; his shoulder shifted, but still…he remained trapped. “Harder!” he cried.

  Caroline grabbed him around the wrists and put all of the force she could muster into it. At the same time, Scott pushed against the trunk with one foot.

  And then suddenly something ripped, and Scott gave one horrified scream as he fell forward, bowling Caroline over. The table toppled behind them as Caroline’s leg swiped across it and they both tumbled uncontrolled across the short ledge. Scott saw the edge and for a fraction of a second scratched at the rock with his fingernails, trying to stop his fall, but to no avail; they rolled off the edge of the ledge together and fell three feet into the rocky crypt below filled with root-wound bones.

  Scott saw stars in his eyes as he hit the hard ground below, the screaming pain of his back now punctuated with sharp gouges on his front.

  Caroline lay beside him, her forehead on a rock. Scott blinked the tears from his eyes and tried to see her clearly. She wasn’t moving.

  “Caroline?” he called, reaching a bloodied arm to shake her. “Are you okay? Say something?”

  He pushed up on his elbows and rolled her over. She was unconscious. There was a deep red gash on across her temple. Blood was only just starting to seep out.

  “No,” he whispered, fearing the worst. He tapped her cheek with the flat of his hand and called her name. “Wake up,” he begged.

  And then Caroline opened her eyes and screwed up her mouth to cry.

  “Shit that hurts,” she moaned.

  Scott laughed, in spite of the pain. For a second, it had felt as if his world had ended. He realized in that horrible moment just how much he had fallen for Caroline, despite what she and her family had conspired to do to him. He knew that he would give himself up and return here for her, if she asked him to. Everything he’d said a few moments ago was true.