And the Trees Crept In by Dawn Kurtagich
414B
∞
This is the way the world ends.
Not with a bang but a whimper.
—T. S. ELIOT
THERE IS A REASON FOR EVERYTHING
Three Little Girls in the Wood
1980: Catherine, the tallest and wisest of the girls, had the idea first, but that fact would soon be forgotten. Because the idea was a little like a drop of ink in water, it spread quickly, dissipating into each of the little girls in turn, until none of them could say for certain who had thought it up in the first place.
Anne, the youngest, was the keenest of the three, desperate for their idea to take shape and be made real.
Pamela was a little scared, and didn’t want to go into the woods at all, but she would never say so. She followed the eldest and the youngest, like she always did, and was a buffer between the two. She really ought to have stopped the whole palaver, but she was swept along with the tide, a pebble skidding along the bottom of the riverbed.
The three little girls gathered in the wood, knelt down in front of the biggest alder tree, and pulled from their baskets the things they would need to make a protector:
1. The basic materials for a rag doll. Really, it was just a stuffed head and a flap of material for the body. Genderless and featureless. (Anne was easily distracted.)
2. Twine
3. A needle
4. Strips of cloth (The only color left in Mother’s old store of material was black, so there was a lot of shadow in the basket.)
5. Buttons (for eyes)
6. Clay
7. Candles and a box of matches
It was Anne who took the lead, even though she was the youngest. She gripped her rag doll between her fingers and then lit the candle very carefully. She lifted the open body of the thing and stuffed it full of clay.
“God made Adam out of clay,” she said. “So this will give our protector life.”
It was messy work, but Catherine and Pammy were nodding their approval, so she kept stuffing and pushing until the doll was full. Then she sewed him up—rather clumsily, for she really did get bored very quickly in her sewing lessons—and put him down next to the candle. She had managed to sew him two very long, thin legs.
“Now his eyes,” Catherine said. “Give him eyes.” This seemed important.
Anne groaned, so easily bored of her own project. “I’m sick of sewing. Can’t we play hide-and-seek?”
“You have to put clothes on him, at least,” Pammy complained. “Otherwise he’ll be naked.”
“Fine, then. Clothes—quickly—but afterward I’m playing. This is dumb, anyway.”
Cath sighed. “You wanted to do it in the first place!”
Anne shrugged, and as she worked, Pammy said, “We summon a protector out of Python Wood. We summon thee! Let him be fiercely terrifying to any who try to harm us. Let him be tall, taller than the tallest tree. We summon thee! We—”
“Oh, shush!” Catherine said, scowling.
Anne gave their protector clothes of a kind, made from strips of black, kissed his head, then dropped him heedlessly in the mud, and dashed off, back to La Baume. Pammy followed.
Catherine was left to gather up the remnants of their half-finished ritual. When she picked up the doll, she was very disturbed, very disturbed indeed, to see that he had no eyes. And also that Anne’s clumsy needlework had made him look like he was scowling, and draped all in shadows. She pulled off the excess cloth, leaving only the clumsy black suit behind, but somehow that was even worse!
She peered closer, looking at his legs. His two long, gnarly legs…
They looked like roots.
BOOK 1:
Sanguinem Terrae
Two little girls ran away
from the dark and stormy city.
they happened upon a manor one day
and the lady inside took pity.
in they flew and perched quite fine
and ate all but one juicy berry.
the little girls slept and sang and smiled
and the memories: they vowed to bury.
THREE
PRETTY LITTLE TRAP
Nori keeps asking me where I’m going, what I’m doing, where Mam is.
It’s so dark, Silla.
Do you have a biscuit, Silla?
Where are we, Silla?
Why are you crying, Silla?
I want to tell her to shut that trap hole, but what bloody good would that do? Her words are in her hands and I can’t silence those.
I lift my hands and tell her. Quiet like a mouse, remember?
I wasn’t crying, I think.
She grins. Mousy, mousy, mouse. Squeak!
We trudge on.
After a while, she gets tired. I lift her onto my back. Her good arm strangles me, trying to hold tight. I grit my teeth and trudge on.
My feet will rot. Clean away, they will. The days of mud have started to waterlog the flesh, swelling it to twice the size it should be, cracking, soggy, raw.
My foot skin will flop off soon.
I can feel it.
I trudge on.
The manor is the color of blood.