Dead Willow (5 page)

“Thanks,” she said lamely. She had forgotten about the pain in her hand. “I’m Jess.”

“Well, Jess, you really should get that looked at,” he cautioned, glancing at the bloody handkerchief. “I’d feel really bad if your finger fell off on account of me.”

Jess grinned. “I don’t suppose you’re a doctor?” She had never met a doctor who wore coveralls.

“No, sorry,” he said, stuffing his hands in his pockets. “Not unless you’ve got a sick car.”

“I’ll see what I can do.”

Patrick grinned and then looked passed her, up the long stone path that led to that other
Rusty Gate
. Patrick’s face darkened as he looked at the people milling about the inn.

“We should probably head back. They’re most likely watching us.”

“They watch you around here?” she asked, with a curious frown.

He took her by the arm and started with her up the path.

“Doesn’t everybody?”

Annabel drummed her fingers on the rented
Camry’s
steering wheel and kept one eye on the dashboard clock.

It said 8:30, just like the last five times she had checked. She had been on the road for well over an hour, which was already an hour longer than she had ever driven at one time. The little jaunts to
Ferguson’s Market
and the
Hardware Hut
hadn’t prepared her for the endless black corridor that was US State Road 35.

Signs with names of other towns and other highways all blurred passed her at an intoxicating speed. By the time they appeared in her headlights, they were gone, leaving Annabel to wonder if she had missed her exit and was destined to end up lost on this Mobius strip of black asphalt.

Maybe she shouldn’t have had that last
Code Red Mountain Dew
.

That was the part that was most intoxicating, the sense of freedom. The freedom to do things she wanted, out from under the watchful eye of Willow Tree. She knew some of that was just her paranoia talking. She knew she wasn’t going to be reclaimed just for chugging one soda pop.

But, she always had to be mindful of the rules.

Drink too many soda pops and suddenly you weren’t setting a good example for the newcomers. You weren’t supporting local businesses with their teas and lemonades. You weren’t acting in the best interests of the community. You weren’t treating your body with the proper respect, and your body, well …

As she watched the mile markers disappear into the past, she began to think that maybe it was time to think some more.

You will wish to stay longer, and you will think you can. You cannot
.

Annabel was never quite sure if that was a caution or a threat.

No, of course she couldn’t stay. She knew that even as she toyed with the idea. She confessed to not really understanding the process that always brought them back to Willow Tree. It was ingrained in them since the first day, part of their instinct to survive. She herself had only ever gone over a couple of times, and never for more than a day. One of them was part of her rebellious phase, and she had paid the price.

The council’s only punishment was to let her walk around in public for a few days as an example to the others. It was humiliating, the stares and the whispers and the shunning. After it was over, she had been told that she would save many lives through her example, and she had been welcomed back with kisses and hugs.

That was the worst part. They always let you know how much it had hurt them to see you stray. It was enough to make her swear she would never do it again.

But, she had.

This was different. This time, it hadn’t been out of rebellion or mule-headedness. This time, it had been out of friendship.

Juni Talbot had tried to steal a branch of the willow tree for herself.

Taking branches of the willow tree was a crime unthinkable to the residents of Willow Tree. There wasn’t even a law on the books prohibiting it because it was something one simply
did not do!

But, Juni Talbot did.

To be fair, Juni wasn’t like the others. She did not think the way others thought. She did not reason the way others reasoned. She did not react the way others reacted. She was an island in the sea that was Willow Tree.

There were those on the council, even those from her own clan, who believed that Juni’s existence was not in the best interest of Willow Tree. Reclamation had come up for a vote on more than one occasion, but was always voted down.

Until the orchard.

Annabel and Juni had been picking apples in Ferguson’s orchard on a perfect autumn day. An unusually warm westerly breeze swept through the orchard, tickling the sweat under their collars. Juni was dribbling cider down her freckled chin and grinning like a crazy person. This was not altogether odd, except that Juni had a hand in her pocket and was fumbling with something. Annabel thought maybe Juni had gotten hold of some marbles, or maybe a cat skull, like the one she had found once near the
Weeping Gardens
fence. Annabel normally didn't bother her as long as she was behaving herself.

Now, Annabel wasn’t solely responsible for Juni’s welfare; the town had accepted that burden when it turned out that Juni was special. But, when you were with her, you dared not take your eyes away for long. Juni was not as mature as her years would suggest, and she had a way of slipping through a person’s fingers when least expected.

That’s how it had been that warm autumn day, and Annabel would probably never forgive herself for looking away.

The orchard boasted the best Red Delicious apple trees in Jackson county, and they weren’t wrong. Silas Ferguson had brought them back from the
Hamilton Nursery
. He was Bellwether, and had taken the truck to Chillicothe probably thirty times or more. The first autumn that some of the trees blossomed, he had given out bushels for free. The people of Willow Tree sang songs in his honor.

The next autumn, he charged them. By that time, they were hooked.

Annabel looked up from her apple and Juni was gone.

The apple was the reddest thing she had ever seen, and it hung just above her head, too high for her to grab. There was lower hanging fruit on the tree that she could easily have plucked. Why it had to be
this
apple, she didn’t know, but that was just like life, wasn’t it? The thing you wanted most was just out of your reach. Well, not today, she decided.

Her foot went into the fork of the tree and she climbed. She couldn’t remember having climbed a tree before, her childhood having faded from her memory long ago. But apparently, she had, for in no time she was snaking out along the branch that held her obsession.

She reached down and wrapped her slender brown fingers around the object of her desire and yanked it from the tree. As she held it in her hand in anticipation of how sweet it was going to taste, she glanced down through the brightly colored leaves below and saw … nothing.

Her
eyes raced, scanning the ground around the tree, as she began inching her way back down the branches.

“Juni?” she shouted, panic starting to sprout in her gut. “Juni, you come back here now!”

When she came down out of the canopy and stood looking between the other trees, her panic took root. The apple fell from her hand as she took off down the rows, searching, one after the other, but there was no little white girl in the grove.

“Juni! Goddamn it!”

Wherever Juni was, she was hiding and didn’t want to be found.

Or, she wasn’t hiding.

An awful notion crept into Annabel’s mind. What if they had come for her? What if a decision had been made, and Annabel hadn’t been told? Or worse, they had used Annabel as a lure to get Juni into the orchard?

Suddenly, she wasn’t quite sure she felt afraid anymore. She thought that maybe she was feeling angry instead, and that if she didn’t find Juni in the next few minutes, then she was going to find someone else, and give them a piece of her fucking mind!

“Juni!” she called out again.

“Mmmmm … ”

The moan rippled through the orchard, and it didn’t exactly sound human. She had sometimes heard sounds like this in the cemetery, but never here. If she didn’t know better, she would’ve sworn …

“Mmmmm … ” The moan drifted on the warm breeze, and it was coming from behind her, from the center of the grove, from the tree where her perfect apple had hung waiting. Was this another part of the snare? The part meant to trap her, and then Juni?

She started back down the long row to her magic tree. The poison apple still lay there where she had dropped it, under the shade, near the root, … and the root moved. Annabel froze, not sure what she was seeing. The root coming from the bottom of the trunk had shifted, and then again.

“Mmmmm … ” She forced herself to put one foot in front of the other, fighting the creeping shock that threatened to shut her down, until she got close enough to see that the root had a shoe at the end … and the shoe was Juni’s. She broke into a sprint.

“Juni! Juni, baby!”

Annabel got close enough, close enough to see it … and then she dropped to her hands and knees and pushed herself away. She stared down at the ground, her eyes clamped shut, refusing to look again. She couldn’t see this, not
this!
This was worse than the council, worse than reclamation! This was …

Annabel took a shuddering breath and fought the urge to look away. She forced her head to turn toward her friend, toward the spectacle she had glimpsed, her wide eyes trembling, as she came face to face with the unthinkable.

Juni had made herself part of the tree. Or the tree had swallowed her up until nothing remained but parts of Juni; Annabel couldn’t be sure. Somewhere in the rough bark, one ended and the other began, and it was seamless. What could have been a knot looked at her with Juni’s eyes. What could have been a gnarled root took on the shape of a young girl’s leg. Part of her foot and shoe remained.

The root moved again.

Annabel jerked back, her eyes riveted to the shoe. It looked like it had been carved out of wood.

“
Juni?
” she whispered softly.

Her gazed traced the leg back to the trunk, until she caught sight of something that could have been a wayward branch sprouting from the bottom of the tree. Within the curled fingers of the branch came a faint glow, and Annabel recognized that glow. It was the glow of another tree, a tree that everyone knew, a tree that had no place in this orchard. Juni had brought it with her, in her pocket, and now she was gone.

Annabel sat there with her friend, until someone finally came and led her away.

After the orchard, there was never another Juni; the council had voted on it. Annabel always thought she should have been punished for what had happened, but the council said nothing. They just gave her the requisite kisses and hugs, and never spoke of it. After a time, she had begun to wonder if it had ever happened at all.

But, she had always been on time after that.

It was 12:42 when Annabel pulled up to the gates of
Whispering Pines
.

Eunice had been adamant about her arriving at midnight, but then again, Eunice always was a bit melodramatic. If she had been able to, she most likely would have provided a creeping fog and a lone wolf’s howl.
Whispering Pines
was creepy enough as it was.

Annabel’s right hand had caressed the cherry wood box on the seat next to her since having left Jackson county. The box was warm to the touch and tingled slightly under her fingertips. As she exited the car, she picked up the box mindfully, cradling it in her arms like a bundled up infant.

Time to lay this infant to rest.

If she didn’t know better, she would’ve thought that Eunice had some kind of ‘creepy old cemetery’ app on
on her phone. There were memories, not her own, of course, but of similarly deserted burial grounds on the outskirts of other towns throughout the midwest. This one was just outside of Xenia, Ohio.

The old hollowed out church with the shattered windows on the edge of the cemetery grounds would ensure that no one would be coming by to lay flowers or a tear on any of these graves. Whomever had known these people in life had forgotten about them in death. There were countless family plots and deserted family gardens dotting the landscape in this part of the country. No one would notice a strong, new willow tree growing where there had been none before. By the time anyone did notice, there would be a thriving new community.

The iron fence that girded the cemetery property had not been tended to in likely fifty years. Rust had displaced the paint in most places, and would need to be refurbished. Come back in a year and this fence would be sporting a shiny new coat of
Rustoleum,
as well as a brand new gate. Annabel walked through the open entrance and made her way cautiously between the crooked rows of headstones.

Henderson Edgers

Loving Husband

Devoted Father

called home too soon

1893 - 1941

Most displayed dates ending in the early forties, making this resting place nearly three quarters of a century old. Annabel looked over the thirty or forty crumbling stone markers strewn haphazardly among the weeds and tall grass.

She had seen worse.

She saw a small clear spot just up ahead. The grass was patchy and the soil rocky and parched. This would do. She set the box gingerly on the ledge of the nearest headstone. Then, kneeling down on the hard earth, she curled her delicate fingers into beastly claws, and began to dig.

Soil and sand was driven up under her fingernails with every thrust. Her nails broke and began to bleed on the gravel and stone as she ripped handfuls of lifeless soil from the ground. The numbing cold stabbed at her hands, but the hole grew deeper and wider, stained by her blood and her tears.