The House of Wood (25 page)

Nathan looked at her. “Is
he…?”

“He’s gone. Dead, along with
the house. It was the only thing keeping him around.”

“And the birds?”

Rachel looked around, her brow
furrowing deeper and deeper. There were no blackbirds circling
overhead and no bodies littering the ground. The embodiment of the
house had called them his children. Had they been connected to the
house too?

She looked down on her friend
with a smile. “They’re gone.”

“All of them?”

“Every single one.”

Nathan looked puzzled. “I don’t
understand it, Rach. H-how was Justin alive?”

She looked up at the house, her
eyes gazing in to the distance. The flames danced in them. “They
were all here. They were always here.”

“Oh,” he replied, letting the
night grow silent around them.

Then, they waited.

***

A long time after that, the
fire department, along with the sheriff, arrived. They just sat
there in silence, watching the house collapse in on itself, the
fire eating away at the old wooden beams. Nathan sat up on his own,
wincing every now and then with the pain. Rachel heard the blaring
sirens getting closer, long before the red trucks crested the hill.
She ignored the firemen, as they went about the dangerous business
of putting out the fire.

Paramedics charged towards
them. They asked questions like,
are you hurt?
Where is the pain? Can you move?
She gave them simple
answers, her eyes fixed on the burning timbers. She felt numb. The
shock settling in no doubt, she thought. Was it truly over? A part
of her believed she could have her life back. But another part, one
much bigger, doubted it.

A familiar voice broke her out
of her melancholy.

“Rachel, Nathan, thank God
you’re okay,” Becky said, dashing towards them. She flung her arms
around Nathan, almost bowling him over.

“Hey, easy there girl,” he
replied, hugging her back. “I don’t know about okay, but we’re
alive.”

Rachel said nothing. They would
be okay. She wasn’t so sure about herself.

“What the hell happened?” Becky
asked. “Where’s David?

“It’s a long story,” Rachel
replied.

She noticed her two friends
exchange worried glances, but neither said anything. The paramedics
lead her towards an ambulance, informing her that the doctors at
the hospital would want to give her the once over. Most of the
words went in one ear and out of the other.

As they got closer, she noticed
Sheriff Ross waiting there.

“Don’t go disappearin’
anywhere, Miss James,” he said, fixing his eyes on her. “We’re
goin’ to want some answers from you.”

Rachel nodded and climbed in to
the back. Becky sat next to her, taking hold of her hand. It was
small comfort. She could see Nathan exchanging heated words with
the sheriff, but couldn’t hear them. He climbed in and the
paramedic slammed the door shut.

Within seconds they were
speeding down the drive, the gravel crunching beneath the heavy
black tyres. She stared out of the small window in silence. The
house shrunk to a tiny dot as they moved away. The locket around
her neck felt cold.

To my high-school sweet heart:
Always and Forever.

She would be able to see the
orange smudge on the horizon from the hospital, the flames burning
all night long. It wouldn’t be until sleep caught up with her that
she could forget.

But even then it stood, forever
in her mind.

The house of wood.

Epilogue

Cold winter winds whipped up
around the hillside, dashing through the lifeless branches of the
woodlands. Gray, forlorn clouds swept across the sky casting long
shadows over the desolate town. The sun hardly ever shone anymore.
Or that's what the people had come to believe. Too much had
happened. Too much that couldn't be explained.

The sounds of crunching under
heavy feet filtered up into the cold air, as a female made her way
up the winding path. The remains of a house sat on top of the hill.
When asked about it later, people would have sworn that you could
still smell the wood-burning. It was the last time she ever wanted
to come back here. She didn’t want to ever see it again. But she
had to make sure it was still gone.

As Rachel crested the top of
the hill, the burnt out structure came into full view, the charred,
wooden timbers reaching out towards the sky like bones in a grave.
She bowed her head and thanked the Lord no one had rebuilt it.

The place had taken away
everything from her; her home, her friends, it had even almost
taken her life. There was an evil here. A darkness that had plagued
the nearby town for too long. She couldn't feel it anymore, but
something inside her wondered if it was over. A part of her
wondered if it would ever be over.

She made her way towards the
only tree that would have made up the garden of the house. It stood
there, alone and untouched by fire. A child's swing hung lifeless
on one of the branches, lacking a child to play with it. Next to
the tree was the object she had come to see. A small gravestone
with a single word on it. Lilly.

Rachel knelt down at the foot
of the tombstone. She placed a single red rose in front of it.

“Thank you for saving my life,
Lilly,” she said, resting her hand on the weathered stone surface.
“If it hadn't been for you, I would’ve died here just like all the
others. You watched over this place for all those years, trying as
hard as you could to protect anybody stupid enough to come up
here.” A single tear dripped down the lines of her face. She had
decided to do this a long time ago; during all the sleepless nights
she had spent at the asylum. No one believed her. Of course, Nathan
tried to defend her corner, but he had his own problems to deal
with. Even he had left town now, to start a new life somewhere
else. There was nothing left here except the stale smell of death.
“Well you can rest now. There's someone else that can do this for
you.”

Rachel stood up, her eyes fixed
on the burnt out structure. Even though it was completely gutted,
it still loomed large and foreboding. She'd never let anybody
suffer like she had.

Her right hand reached around
to the back pocket of her black denim jeans. Her other hand
clutched at a locket. She pulled out a handgun, softly cocking the
trigger, as she raised it to her temple. This was it. There was no
doubting, no fear, no ties to hold her back. We're all ghosts
waiting to die, she thought, as her finger tightened.

Townsfolk would later claim
that a clear shot rang out over the hillside at around four o'clock
in the afternoon, only a few hours after she had served her time
and was released from the state psychiatric hospital.

After the sound disbursed, the
swing slowly rocked back and forth. In the distance, five
blackbirds soared across the sky.

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