The Tree Beasts Page 4

  Sam and Victoria had let Nat and her adopt a whippet dog from the animal shelter. Nat named him James. Katie’s fifteenth birthday came and went, and she became close friends with tall, blonde Alexandra Willoughby while visiting one of Sam’s landscaping worksites with him. Alex was a year older than Katie and the only child of the Willoughbys. Her father came from a family who were builders and operators of ferryboats, which brought imports into Blackthorn’s harbor, so they had a certain amount of power.

  Victoria still worked as an adjunct literature professor at the island’s only college. And now she was recognized in the village not just because she was Paul Gold’s mother but also because she was a talented baker who sold her homemade pies to local restaurants.

  One night in early July, Katie turned in bed, and when she saw over her shoulder there was Paul, a shadow in a corner of her room.

  Katie sat up. “Where have you been?”

  He moved out from the wall to the foot of her bed, in his opened blue parka. It was the way he stared at her – his boy eyes never leaving hers while his still heart shone bright red through his clear body, a body formed of ice – that made her quietly cry for him.

  Katie leaned in a little closer. He pointed at her temple and dissolved into the small glass bubble with a brightness inside.

  In the morning Katie’s bedroom door opened by itself and she heard her mom downstairs humming in the kitchen as she set out breakfast.

  Reflections of light began to appear everywhere in the house on that day, even in the rooms without any mirrors or crystal objects. The swaying gold disc of her mother’s grandfather clock’s pendulum stilled that night, remaining stuck at just before midnight.

  And a few weeks later, Katie’s bedroom became terribly hot.

  Katie woke up, pushed the blanket off her body and rubbed her eyes. She searched every corner of the room for Paul’s shadow. She even whispered, “Paul? Did you break mom’s clock?” Victoria had asked two clockmakers to fix it but neither of them could.

  Katie stopped talking when it was clear no one was there with her. She struggled to fall back into a peaceful sleep, fidgeting and sweating between bursts of rest.

  In the morning her blanket was on the floor and there was a small scratch on her left arm. She touched it and winced.

  Downstairs the rest of the house was strangely warm as well. Katie showed the scratch to her mother, who said she must have just injured herself as she slept.

  “I couldn’t have done this on my own,” Katie insisted, pointing at the slender red stripe on her arm.

  “It can happen, you know. Scratching yourself in the middle of the night is something you can do by accident. I bet it happens to a lot of people,” her mom said, with a half-smile.

  “Has it been this hot the whole night?”

  “It was so hot your dad and I couldn’t sleep.” Her mom shifted uncomfortably and started to walk away.

  Katie followed her into the hallway. “Maybe it was Paul.”

  Her mom reached for the thermostat. She whirled around and watched Katie pointedly. “I don’t understand.”

  “He’s still here with us,” Katie said. “He visits me,” she added softly.

  Her mother’s eyes brimmed over with tears. “Where?”

  Katie turned away. “In my room.” She stared at the floor.

  “I understand you want it to be him, but it can’t be him. It’s okay. I talk to him, too, in my mind, like how some people tell their thoughts to God.”

  That night, Katie was in bed with her eyes closed and pretending to sleep when her mother came in and checked to make sure the window was locked.

  Chapter Six

  As a boy, Julian Bloomfield had dug up a small, twisty and clean bone with his hands while he was playing in his backyard, but he reburied the bone he was sure was an animal’s.

  Now seventeen, he was home from boarding school and staying with his parents on Blackthorn. The small island was crab-claw shaped with creeks, inlets and lakes tucked in the claw, out in the bay all by itself and connected to the mainland by a drawbridge.

  One weeknight his mother, Elvina, ushered his father, Ben, out of the house to an evening of card games hosted by another lawyer. Julian watched his father pluck his jacket from the hall stand that was shaped like a tree with leafless branches and slip his arms into the sleeves.

  “Have fun with your mom.” Julian’s dad grabbed his hat from the hall table. His tone wasn’t sarcastic, but he enjoyed giving Julian a hard time about spending more time with his mother than with him. He had started inviting Julian to the all-guys card games this summer.

  “Your father just thinks you’re a little too focused on your art,” Julian’s mom said to him after his dad had closed the front door. She left the room and came back clutching a thick book titled A Reader’s Sourcebook in gold cursive on the cracked leather binding.

  “I’m not too arty.”

  “You don’t dress the part, it’s true,” his mom said as though she were observing him. “I have some guests coming over shortly. It would be better if you didn’t mention anything about it to your dad.”

  “I never do.”

  “Thanks.” She patted his hand. “If he asks how you spent the night, just tell him you watched a film.”

  “Which one?”

  “You decide.”

  She motioned for him to give her his hand again.

  “No,” he said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because I don’t feel like it. Are you disappointed I don’t have the Mark?”

  “That’s what’s bothering you? What’s disappointing to me is that I have to show one young Reader the ropes, just as my mother taught my older brother and as he showed me, and since you don’t have the Mark, I can’t show you. I have to mentor someone, but I’m in no way disappointed you’re my son.” His mother walked into the living room and began rearranging the furniture.

  Julian followed her. “But how come you never tried to read me?”

  She didn’t face him. “Please answer the door when the guests arrive.” She walked upstairs.

  The first of Julian’s mother’s guests to arrive was a tiny-waisted woman in a short red and gold dress. She was very attractive and wore her long, silky black hair down.

  She greeted Julian by taking his hands in hers. Hers were cold, but he let her hold on for a while. “How are you?”

  He didn’t remember her name, and she didn’t offer it. He just smiled. “I’m doing well, thanks for asking.”

  “And where is your mother?”

  “She’s waiting in the living room.”

  The woman in the red and gold dress walked gracefully away as the doorbell rang a second time.

  Julian hurried to open the door to an older, refined man standing on the threshold and carrying a cane with a silver finial in the shape of a globe at the very top. His mother called the snowy-haired man the doctor because he had training in chemistry and worked at the island’s pharmacy.

  He entered and gave Julian his soft black leather bag to hold while he took off his camel-hair coat. He was wearing a crisp black suit with not a single wrinkle. Julian hung his coat on the hall stand.

  Julian waited until the doctor had left the hall, then he peeked into the living room.

  His mother and the woman in the red and gold dress were sitting on overstuffed armchairs and chatting below a chandelier that appeared like an upside-down tree, branches sticking out in all directions, with light bulbs for leaves.

  His mom sat with the sourcebook clutched to her chest. She placed it on the mahogany end-table beside her when the doctor joined them and sat down with his bag.

  There was a roaring fire going, and every so often the doctor jabbed at the logs with the fireplace poker, the one his dad was always in charge of when he, Julian and Julian’s mom sometimes sat in front of the fireplace at night when Julian was home from school.

  The doctor took a small white case out of his bag and shot Julian an u
npleasant look. Julian backed out, then quietly edged closer and listened.

  The doctor opened the case to reveal something that the woman in the red-and-gold dress marveled at.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “What I told you about the last time.” He turned to Julian’s mother. “I believe you are familiar with it.”

  She smiled sweetly. The doctor closed the little white case and put it back in his black bag.

  Elvina touched the sourcebook on the table next to her. “It’s quite outdated. Will you revise it?”

  “He’s the author. Why wouldn’t he?” the woman in the red and gold dress said.

  “I was asking him, Aditi.”

  “Calm down, ladies. I plan to publish an amended edition,” the doctor said. “It’s important to pass new knowledge on to our next generation.”

  Julian’s mom touched the doctor’s arm, and he blushed. She turned so that she also faced Aditi. “We might have something to worry about.”

  Aditi got up and settled on the crewelwork couch. “Go on.”

  “Do you know Miss O’Malley?”

  “I’ve seen her around the island, sure, but I can’t say I know her. She’s a schoolteacher, right?”

  “She is. She stopped me while I was at the grocery store last week. She told me she’s been noticing the Mark on some islanders for years now, and that since I have one, she thought to ask me what it is.”

  The doctor asked, with worry in his eyes, “What did you tell her?”

  “I told her that while I can’t speak for the others, I can say mine is just a birthmark I’ve had my whole life.”

  They were quiet for a moment. Aditi asked, “Why isn’t Mr. Hollingsworth here tonight?”

  “I’ll send someone to talk to the teacher,” the doctor said. He turned to Aditi. “I’m not sure if he wants me to tell you this, but Hollingsworth has been spending time online, searching for possibilities. He showed me the websites.”

  “It’s not like one of us to not share,” Elvina said. “I’m happy to say I’ve been mentoring someone. I’ve already treated him to a few weekends at my country house. I would like to bring him here.”

  “When he’s ready,” the doctor said.

  Chapter Seven

  The night after his mother’s small gathering, Julian was doing his best to avoid the well-dressed people at one of his father and mother’s summer Friday night parties.

  Some classmates of Julian’s from boarding school who lived nearby were hosting a bonfire at one of the beaches and had invited him, but he didn’t feel like going out tonight. He already saw enough of his friends during the school year.

  Julian left the party and went outside to the garden to smoke a cigarette behind the privet hedges. He felt like a clown in his three-piece evening suit, and he hadn’t put in the collar stays the way Ben had instructed him, so the collar furled at the ends.

  He looked next door toward his lifelong friend Alexandra’s house and could see her new friend Katie’s figure behind the window. Katie was sitting on a bench, playing the Willoughbys’ piano. Even at that distance he found her appealing. Her eyes were downcast as she played. She had a sweater on and he couldn’t see her shape, but she had a pretty face and full red lips.

  Julian appreciated beauty. Though not trained traditionally in the arts, his paintings were showcased at Blackthorn’s small galleries. What had begun as a youthful fascination with a set of watercolours could surely develop into an actual livelihood if his parents would give him that option. So why was he even considering going to college to study business law? Because his mother’s father and grandfather had attended the London School of Economics and she had implied it was best he did too.

  Julian put out his cigarette and went back inside the house.

  His father, Ben, was a tall man whose skin was perpetually tan and glowed as though he were illuminated from within, even during the cold, dark winters. But as he sat on the brown leather armchair in the book-lined study, trying to convince Julian to forget about art school for good, he seemed stressed out.

  The party was over, but the smell of cigarette smoke and booze still lingered. Someone’s camel-hair coat had been left on the floor, as though its owner were too drunk to notice and had left without it.

  Julian’s dad’s face reddened as he told him, “You need to be careful not to let your dreams ruin you financially. Going to art school might be fun but it won’t help you make money.”

  “All I’m asking is that you give it some more thought,” Julian said.

  “I’ve thought about it enough already.”

  “I just want the chance to do something I’d like, for once.” Julian paused and judged the consequences of what he was about to say. “I think I want to be a real artist. Maybe I might like to paint professionally.”

  His dad put his elbows on his knees and leaned toward him. “You think you want to? Think about what you’re saying. It doesn’t sound very realistic. I don’t like that you even applied to that place without telling me first.” Ben sat up.

  Julian had paid the application fee with his allowance money. “I didn’t just apply. They let me in, dad.”

  “All right, congratulations. But to say you want to be an artist is easy. To actually make a living from it without my financial assistance is going to be a lot harder than you think. Even magazines aren’t hiring illustrators like they used to. Having a real career in art depends on trends more than on talent.”

  Julian had hoped his dad could understand his mind-set and see how hard it was to be different in a small place. “How do you know so much about careers in art?”

  “From your mother. She grew up around a European art circle. Not that I cared for them. Your mother’s family seemed to think it was strange I ended up not doing badly. All I’m saying is, make sure you’re registered for London by the fall.”

  His father reached down and picked up the camel-hair coat. “Whose is this?”

  “Don’t know,” Julian said.

  His father took the coat with him and left the study.

  Julian would have to work his way through college if he opted to focus on art, which didn’t seem horrible until he thought about it a little longer. Even if he could work and pay the school tuition fees on his own – which he was willing to do – his mother would be heartbroken he hadn’t gone to her family’s college.

  Julian constantly fretted over her moods. More than once he had heard her crying softly in her bedroom when his dad was at work. He couldn’t convince himself it wouldn’t happen again. It. The sleeping pills. He remembered the steam rising from her hot bath and Agostina escorting him back inside the house as the ambulance had taken his mother away. He’d thought she had died.

  Chapter Eight

  On Saturday morning, a week after his parents’ party, Julian glanced out his bedroom window and Katie was standing outside Alex’s house alone. He went downstairs and walked across the lawn toward her.

  Katie was watching the lawn sprinklers move from side to side. The top of her shorts landed just below her belly button and she wore a blue bathing-suit top. Julian thought she was beautiful.

  “Where’s Alex?” he asked.

  The wind caught Katie’s dark hair and he could see she had a small scar on her temple, like a chickenpox scar but darker, just like his mother and her friends, and barely covered by her long hair.

  She ignored him at first. She was petite with gentle, rounded curves. She was so tiny he wanted to protect her. He suspected she wasn’t too shy, though, because one night he had overheard her giggling with Alex outside. Maybe they were giggling about him. He hoped so.

  “So where’s Alex?” he asked again.

  “She’s inside getting beers,” Katie finally said. Her tanned and smooth stomach caught the sunlight.

  Julian moved so that he was closer to her. “You two drink?” Katie was nothing like the rich girls he was raised with, and he liked that.

  “Not really.” She had
searing, honey-coloured eyes. “Well, sometimes, I guess.”

  “Katie, is it?” he asked, even though he already knew she was called Katie.

  “Katherine, but you can call me Katie.”

  “You go to school with Alex? I didn’t notice you around till this summer.” After he’d spoken, he wished he hadn’t. He didn’t want her to find out he’d been watching her closely.

  “Alex’s a year ahead of me, but she and I are in a lot of the same classes.”

  “You either must be really smart or poor Alex is dumb. You’re a freshman, right?” he said, not wanting to seem like he was cross-examining her but wanting to find out.

  “Yep, but I’ll be a sophomore in less than two months.”

  “Alex is sixteen. So you’re fifteen then?”

  “That’s right. For now, at least. You’re older, right? You went to boarding school in London or somewhere?”

  “How did you know that? I’m Julian, just so you know.”

  “I know. Alex told me. You’re going to college soon?”

  “Yeah, in the fall.”

  “Which school?”

  “I’ll be enrolled at university in London.”

  “Right, because your mom’s from there.”

  “You’ve met her?”

  She had a small, upturned nose. It made her seem at once both snooty and exotic, a foreign nose. He’d never been infatuated with a girl’s nose. “No, but Alex told me, remember? That’s too bad, you attending college far away,” she said.

  “Now that I’ve met you, it really is too bad.” Julian watched her blush from her neck to her face.

  ***

  Victoria drove to the edge of Blackthorn’s immense forest, as she sometimes did in the morning on her way to work. To her left was a tall pine tree that was like a snake with a bear’s head and the long fangs of a lion. And to her right was a tree like the huge body of a whale but with a peacock’s tail.

  She parked the car on the side of the road and walked in a little way to look at the other trees. Their leaves were strangely colourful – vivid oranges, soft creams and deep blues. One short oak tree had branches that extended out from its trunk like an ostrich’s feathers, and its bark was pliable like skin when she touched it. Even the evergreens had needles of a strange color.