The Tree Beasts Page 5

  It was said that twenty years ago when some tourists snapped photos of two trees, the pictures came out like the ghostly faces of two little girls, like double exposures. All Christmas tree-cutting on Blackthorn ceased after that.

  Today Victoria noticed that one tree in particular appeared like a boy with branches for arms. Katie had hinted that Paul’s spirit lived on in their house, not in the black forest, where that late autumn afternoon he had vanished among the great oak trees with gnarled boughs.

  Victoria searched the tree’s bark for Nat’s face, Paul’s face, the same face that had been plastered on billboards across the state until the images yellowed and they were removed.

  In some way, it was as though the forest had taken his life, gobbled him right up. But Victoria insisted to Katie and Nat that the long-standing myth of the forest having a life of its own was just that, a legend, and that the fabled sightings of a boy living in Blackthorn’s woods in a cave among the tree beasts was just another one of the island’s folk stories. There was no such thing as the wild boy. And there was certainly no truth in some townspeople’s belief that the boy was Paul.

  But she had never given up hope of finding him. Victoria called out, “Paul”, just to see if he would answer. A burst of wind shook the wet leaves and dripped rainwater on her head. His name echoed. That was all.

  Sam hadn’t talked much about Paul after his disappearance except to wonder how Nat and Katie were handling Paul’s absence. Nat had said he wouldn’t celebrate their shared October birthday until Paul returned and they could celebrate together. Victoria wondered if Sam had ever come to the forest to search for Paul, like she sometimes did, but didn’t tell her.

  She still loved Sam. She had met him when she was in college and had been working as an usher at a planetarium in the city. He had been in town for two days on a job done as a favor to his uncle. Sam had said he wouldn’t give her his ticket and had refused to walk on through to his seat unless she gave him her phone number or took his. He had been lucky she didn’t dial security. It had helped that he had been handsome. His mother was from Latin America, and he’d gotten his dark good looks from her and his blue eyes from his father.

  Victoria loved Sam but she didn’t love always having to worry about money. She’d come from a family who had once been well-off but because of bad business decisions, her parents had gone through bankruptcy. She and Sam did all right when he got extra work, but that was becoming less frequent. Victoria considered applying for a part-time position with a catering business that was listed on the college’s online jobs bulletin. It was intended for a student, but if she was desperate enough, she would apply anyway.

  Victoria walked back to where she had parked the car and finished her drive to work. In order to advance in her career, Victoria had to publish research related to her Ph.D., but she often delayed writing. She’d started working toward her Ph.D. even before Paul went missing, and now she suspected she delayed finishing it on purpose because that would mean her life had really gone on without him.

  A large, old brick fireplace that could no longer be used was built into one wall in her office and was home to a somewhat feral cat she named Jest. He followed her around everywhere she went inside the building.

  Victoria stepped into the teachers’ lounge down the hall and took some milk from the communal fridge and poured it into a dish for Jest. The soft, warm cat curled up next to her feet.

  “Aren’t I nice to you?” she said. “Not that I would ever know you’re grateful,” she teased.

  She took a woven placemat out of the cupboard and placed the chipped enamel dish on the mat for Jest. He stretched his paws out rigidly in front of him, in a sphinx pose. She swore he winked at her. He began cleaning his paws with his delicate pink tongue. Finally he rose, stretched, sniffed and licked up some of the milk.

  Because it was summer and most of the students were home for the break, there wasn’t much noise coming from the walking and bicycling paths that ran under her office, so Victoria opened her window. There was a funeral today, and quite a few cars were parked in the chapel’s lot. Bagpipers were setting up on the sidewalk.

  She eavesdropped on the funeral hymn and the priest’s voice intoning from inside the chapel. Later on the organist quietly played the congregation’s exit music. Victoria watched as pallbearers, clasping a slender rosewood casket, descended the church’s stone steps. The funeral was for Miss O’Malley.

  Miss O’Malley had been a sympathetic face, someone who had offered to hear Victoria’s tragedies and was genuinely interested in listening. Victoria had read of the schoolteacher’s death in the town newspaper and wondered if the case might somehow be connected to Paul’s. According to the frequent updates in the paper, detectives hadn’t established any suspects in Miss O’Malley’s case, although they had determined she had been strangled.

  Victoria thought of all the little idiosyncrasies on the island and recalled the time it hailed over just their house when Katie was a baby.

  On the edge of the sidewalk there were bagpipers. The pallbearers were trailed by Miss O’Malley’s stoic father and howling mother, and even through the mother’s dark, frilled veil, Victoria made out the sheen of tears against a pale face. Three young women wearing large black hats exited the church right behind them. Miss O’Malley’s sisters.

  A teenage boy with scraggly dark hair and light eyes, dressed in rags, peered out from the shaded wooded area behind the church. Victoria couldn’t make out his face.

  She called through the open window, “Wait, stop.”

  He fled before she could ring the college’s security guard. The funeral-goers looked away from the coffin being paraded down the church’s steps and up at her, leaning out with her elbows resting on the window ledge.

  “Can I help you?” one of the pallbearers in dark suits asked.

  “I thought I saw a ghost.”

  After Victoria said it, she couldn’t take it back. She realised how inappropriate it sounded.

  He turned to her in disgust. “Excuse me?”

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, then ducked back inside.

  ***

  The next day in the early evening, Victoria headed toward the college’s small church. She stood within the nave, softly calling, “Father? Father?”

  The organist, a woman Victoria recalled was named Mrs. Eastman, gathered her sheet music and came down from the choir to help. She wore a red church hat with dark facial netting. “Father Aloysius is inside the community room, dear.” Mrs. Eastman gave Victoria directions.

  The end of the day darkened the corridor, but light entered from an outside post through the stained-glass windows and spread colourful lines on the floor in front of her. From a distance Victoria assumed the priest was an older man, but up close, his face was smooth and his hair thick and dark. In the background, people, mostly college students, practiced on acoustic guitars, managing to sustain only a few notes that weren’t off-key.

  “Have you come to buy a ticket?” the Father asked in a charming Irish brogue.

  “A ticket?”

  “For the church’s annual clambake.” When she didn’t answer, he gestured to the students practicing around them. “Or are you here to audition for our musical group? You’re a singer, maybe?” His dark eyes brightened when he smiled.

  Victoria didn’t consider herself to be religious, and once, as a child, she had stolen coins from a church collection basket on a dare from a schoolmate. Unlike Katie, she wasn’t very good at music either. “No, I’m not here to audition. I’m not a singer. I’m here because …” She told the priest about Paul, and about the boy she’d seen at the edge of the forest.

  Father Aloysius consoled her and offered to call a family member or a close friend to take her home, which she declined.

  “I can see your church from my office and just decided to drop in,” she said.

  “Certainly, after what’s happened to your son, it’s not surprising you’d be distraught.
We’re a small community. I remember reading about your son in the college newsletter some time ago.”

  Victoria recalled the article that a journalism student had done on the nearly one-decade anniversary of Paul’s vanishing. “I can’t stay much longer. I have to get back to work. Can I ask you something? I’m sure it’s going to sound a bit strange.”

  “Please, ask.”

  “Do you believe in ghosts?”

  He didn’t laugh at her. “I believe we leave pieces of us behind when we depart from this world, yes, but I don’t believe in the idea of evil ghouls haunting old houses simply out of spite, if that’s what you mean.”

  “But do you believe it’s possible for, say … children to be stuck in between life and death?”

  “In limbo?”

  Victoria nodded.

  “Was your son baptized?” the Father asked.

  “How do you know I’m talking about my son?”

  He smiled with concern. She recognised that kind of smile. The officers at the police station used it with her whenever she stopped in to ask if there were any new leads on Paul’s case.

  “Since you asked, he was,” Victoria said.

  “I don’t think you have anything to worry about, then.”

  “Thank you for saying that.” She told him goodbye and was about to quietly slip away, but paused and turned back to him. “My daughter – Paul, my son’s, younger sister – says she’s been talking with him.”

  Father Aloysius touched his chin with his finger. “Children, particularly girls, are more able to be called upon by those in the afterlife, or so they say.”

  “And you believe this?”

  “I believe there is some truth in it.”

  Chapter Nine

  After work that night, Sam drove to The Sea Dog bar in town. At the dock across the street from the bar, a fisherman was returning with his catch. Sam parked his pickup truck next to a compact, fast-looking red car. When he stepped out, he gave the car a second glance. It was quite out of place in The Sea Dog’s parking lot. Was that Allison Willoughby stepping out of the red car and walking ahead of him, through the swinging double doors into The Sea Dog? Her Irish accent had always charmed Sam.

  He sat next to her at the bar inside. “Hi.”

  She didn’t say anything to him, but gave a sideways glance. Maybe she felt a little strange around him. She and her husband, Steve, used Sam’s gardening services, and once when he’d knocked on their front door to ask for some drinking water for himself and his crew, she’d said through the closed door, “I don’t know you personally, and I’m afraid I don’t open doors for men I don’t know. I’m sorry about that.” Sam guessed he should have gone to the back door to ask.

  Allison ordered a glass of pinot grigio from the tall young guy behind the bar. The guy asked her what kind of drink that was and laughed at her. Sam almost interjected and explained to him, but she picked up her purse from the bar and calmly left.

  The next night Sam came back and Allison was already seated at the bar, wearing jeans and a T-shirt. He mumbled hello and sat one seat down from her.

  She motioned for the bartender’s attention and ordered a gin and tonic with lime. “What kind of gin do you have?”

  Larry the bartender smirked. “We got one kind.”

  “Go easy on her, Larry,” Sam said.

  “Yeah, yeah,” Larry said.

  “Whatever you have is fine,” Allison said.

  Larry turned his back to them and fixed the drink.

  Allison waved to Sam. “Come join me?” Her voice was warm and rich.

  “Really?”

  She patted the empty seat next to her and Sam got up.

  “Usually this place gets a bunch of rough guys and maybe their wives coming here,” he said, sitting down.

  “Is that right?” Allison asked. Larry put her drink on a coaster on the bar and she took several big gulps.

  Behind them a group of college students played a game of pool. “I’ll have a beer, Larry. That is, in case you forgot to ask me what I want,” Sam called out.

  Larry chuckled as he dispensed beer out of a tap. He slid a foam-crowned mug down the smooth counter to Sam. Sam reached out and caught it.

  “Nice catch.” Allison smiled at him for the first time. She glanced at the food menu Larry had set in front of them as though he thought they were together, though Sam was pretty sure Larry knew he was married. Allison waved at Larry and ordered a second drink.

  “I have to ask. What are you doing in this dive anyway? Two nights in a row. The Sea Dog doesn’t exactly seem like your kind of place,” Sam said.

  “Hey, thanks a lot,” Larry said.

  “You know I didn’t mean it,” Sam said to him with a grin. “I saw your son working here last night. How’s he doing?”

  “You should’ve asked him that yourself last night,” Larry replied, and Sam laughed.

  Larry gave Allison her second drink with a thick wedge of lemon attached to the glass’s rim. She tugged off the fruit and set it on a bar napkin. “You know why I came here? I’m trying to live a little,” she said to Sam in a way that sounded like she was getting drunker.

  “I’ve forgiven you for basically slamming your front door in my face, by the way.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “Let me buy you a drink?”

  Sam smiled at her. “Accepted.” After Sam got another beer, he asked Allison what kinds of things interested her.

  “I stopped working when Alex was born. The only thing I have besides Steve and Alex is the small art studio in my house,” she said.

  “You paint?”

  “I sculpt. Using clay, mostly. It’s just a hobby.”

  “Don’t be so quick to dismiss your talents. What kind of things do you make?”

  “I like sculpting people’s faces. Take yours, for instance. You have a very nice face. You’d be good to sculpt.”

  “Oh, I don’t know about that.” Sam could feel his neck flushing.

  “Really, you would be perfect.”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Maybe I’ll show you my work sometime.” Allison gave him a hesitant smile. “I’ll actually let you in the house this time. I promise I won’t try to sculpt you.”

  Sam laughed. “All right, maybe. Cheers.” Their drinks touched. “Where’s your guy tonight?”

  “At his office.”

  She’d grown her blonde hair longer and had bangs cut in recently. “I like your hair,” Sam said.

  Allison touched her hair. “Thank you. Steve – that’s my husband’s name—”

  “I know Steve.”

  “Oh, right. He didn’t even notice I changed it. Do you always have a drink on your way home from work?”

  “I was doing a late job. The people didn’t want me to start working until they got home from work. I decided to stop by here for a nightcap – I’ve been doing that a lot – on my way home. Last night was the same too.”

  Allison glanced at the front door. “Your wife doesn’t like to come with you? Does she ever meet you here?” When he didn’t answer, she said, “When is she expecting you back?”

  “I told her I might be pretty late. She usually saves some dinner for me to reheat if I can’t eat with her and the kids.”

  Sam didn’t know Allison well, but he knew she, like everyone on Blackthorn, knew about Paul. Sam couldn’t see Victoria without thinking about Paul. He had gone through the darkest period of his life with Victoria, and they both had come out of it alive. Well, half-alive.

  “Your daughter hasn’t been practicing the piano as much at my house,” Allison said.

  “Her hobbies are changing now that she’s getting older.”

  “Alexandra’s current hobby seems to be boys. Katie is more serious than Alex.”

  Sam tapped the side of his glass to the music coming from a speaker on the wall.

  “I never told you how sorry I am about Paul,” Allison said.

  Sam didn’t know why she’d dug it u
p. It wasn’t like she knew him well enough to really care. “That was a long time ago.” He avoided her eyes.

  “I am sorry, though.”

  Sam ended up talking about Paul, anyway. “It’s easy for me to remember him because all I have to do is look at Nat and I know what he would’ve been like at any age. I just see Nat and in some way I get to watch Paul grow up too.”

  “They’re identical twins, right?”

  Sam nodded. He was unsure how far she would go to comfort him, but she patted his shoulder. He saw her hand on his shoulder then glanced at her. She took her hand away.

  “The crazy thing is Victoria thinks Paul’s still alive,” Sam said. “Like he was kidnapped and is being held somewhere.”

  “On the island?”

  “I don’t know if she thinks he’s on Blackthorn, but she doesn’t believe he’s passed on. It’s been almost ten years. Almost no one’s found alive after being missing for so much time.”

  Allison didn’t have to say anything. He liked that she really listened. Sam ordered another drink. Allison moved closer to the bar, leaned on her elbow and watched him. “You know, I almost feel like we’re finally at the same level,” he said, resting against the bar.

  “Sure we are. We’re getting drunk together.” Allison picked up a peanut and salted pretzel from the small wooden bowl in front of them and tossed them at Sam’s lap.

  He caught them before they landed and chuckled. It’d felt good to laugh. He’d had a hard time feeling good in front of Victoria lately.

  Chapter Ten

  Katie was eating her cereal in the morning when the tablecloth started to lift up as though a blast of hot air had hit it from below. James came in and sat next to her chair. His tail thwacked against the floor.

  She grabbed her juice glass and bowl just as the tablecloth quivered, as if unseen hands were shaking the crumbs out of it after supper. She shot up and ran to the other side of the room with the bowl and glass. James got up and barked at the tablecloth as it slowly floated down in place, perfectly draped over the table.