The Tree Beasts Read online

  Katie walked back and carefully touched the tablecloth with her elbow since she was still holding her breakfast stuff. The cloth was warm. She ran to a corner at the opposite end of the room and waited there.

  “Is something wrong? I thought I heard James barking,” her mom said as she came into the room. “Why are you standing up like that with your food and juice?” She stood at the counter and took out what she needed from the cupboard to make toast.

  “When Paul was in my room, he pointed to the side of his face, then to my face,” Katie said in a small voice. From the side her mother seemed as though she was trying not to cry. Katie went on. “Aunt Diane had the same thing on her face as me, and I wonder what it means.” Diane had died from metastasised lymphoma a year ago.

  Her mom turned around and spoke to her. “Please don’t do this. Don’t talk about him in that way.” Her words rang through the room.

  “I just want to ask you about—”

  “I can’t talk about him now. Please.”

  Her mom had promised to take Katie to get her ears pierced at the new shopping mall, but now Katie wasn’t so sure it would happen. James stared up at her breakfast and whined as his drool puddled on the kitchen floor.

  Katie slowly sat back down and waited for her mother to join her at the table. When she didn’t, Katie fed James the rest of her sugary corn cereal and he slobbered all over her hand. Katie wiped her hand on her jeans.

  Her mom dried her eyes and finally sat down with her plate. She spread raspberry jam on her toast. Her dad called goodbye from the hall as he left for work.

  “Yesterday the clock struck twelve even though it hasn’t been working,” her mom said after a while. “What’s even stranger is that the hands hadn’t moved from the twelve o’clock mark when I walked by it this morning, as though it still isn’t working.”

  The room was getting unbearably warm and not gradually but all at once. Katie took off her sweatshirt.

  “Is the heat going on? I put the air conditioning on when I got out of bed. I don’t know why the heat would go on in the summer,” her mom said. “I’ll check the thermostat.” She got up and went into the hall.

  Katie petted James as she waited for her mother to come back into the kitchen.

  “Someone turned the heat on high,” her mom said as she returned. “How has that happened? It wasn’t you, right?”

  Katie shook her head. “Maybe dad should check it when he gets home.” She got up and put her dishes in the sink. Katie sat down again and waited for the right moment to ask her mother her question. “Can I still get my ears pierced?” Maybe she could buy small presents for Alex and Julian, who she was interested in, at the department store where the ear piercing place was.

  “Yes. First, I’m going to take James outside.” Victoria took his lead from off the back of her chair and whistled for him.

  Nat appeared in the doorway while they were out, wearing his nightclothes. He rubbed his eyes. “It’s so hot. What’s going on?” he asked Katie groggily.

  She started to tell him Paul must have somehow made it warm, when her mother and James came back inside.

  ***

  A strong breeze pushed the tree boughs sharply, exposing the undersides of the leaves. Katie walked past a statue of Blackthorn’s founder, a squat Puritan man with curls peeking out from under a Pilgrim’s hat, on a pedestal in the main village.

  A few street vendors insisted on peddling saltwater taffy, even though Blackthorn wasn’t much of a boardwalk town. Mr. Hollingsworth, the bewhiskered hardware store owner, was placing watering cans on display shelves on the sidewalk outside his store. Katie bumped into a shelf and knocked some of the cans over.

  Mr. Hollingsworth, who was not much older than her father and a known curmudgeon, didn’t ask if she was all right but merely shook his head. He put the watering cans back on the shelf, muttering ‘dumb girl’, and went back inside.

  Katie did a sort of two-step with a pretty blonde woman who reminded her of Victoria, and who was going back and forth from one of the shops and loading grocery bags into the open trunk of a new station wagon.

  The woman paused to ask if she was okay. “I heard what that grouch who owns the hardware shop said to you.”

  “I’m all right, thanks.”

  The woman didn’t seem to mind being slowed down. Katie gradually recognized that she had a small black mark on her temple that was like hers. She was Julian’s mother, Elvina. Katie had never seen her up close before and had certainly never seen her driving a station wagon instead of her white sports car with the license plate BLIVED.

  Elvina took and squeezed her hand. “I’m sorry about your brother, dear.”

  The woman’s hand was very cold, and Katie pulled away.

  “Have a good day.” Elvina smiled and slipped into her car.

  A few minutes later, Katie ran into Alex on the sidewalk.

  “I went to your house to see if you were home,” Alex said. “Your mom said you had walked into town. What’ve you been doing?”

  “I just ran into Julian’s mom.”

  “Elvina? Isn’t she beautiful? You look really good with earrings. Julian’s going to like them on you.”

  “You two talk about me?”

  “All the time. I think he really likes you. There’s something I need to tell you—” Alex cut herself short. She stopped and pointed to farther down the street where a woman was waiting to cross the road.

  “Mrs. Eastman,” Katie said.

  The woman stepped back and began walking their way.

  “I dare you to walk up to her and ask her why she’s always dressed like that,” Alex said.

  “What will you give me if I do it?”

  Alex took off her bracelet, on which hung plump beads made of blue and green sea glass, one Katie had always liked. “This.”

  Mrs. Eastman, a widow who volunteered as the college church’s organist, was never without a wide-brimmed red church hat with a delicate, glitter-brushed black veil. She was rumored to have been the pale, dark-haired child of wanderers, and the rumors said she had once healed a white pigeon shot through the heart with a rifle by drunken teenage boys.

  Mrs. Eastman was holding a shopping bag from a haberdasher. She bought men’s clothes but her husband wasn’t alive. She stopped in front of Alex and Katie, smiled, and was about to tip her hat but then seemed to remember the veil was attached. She had the heady scent of fresh roses. The combination of her dress, a black background with big white daisies contrasting with the red hat, was striking. The short-cropped hair that slipped out from under her hat was set in curls like a vortex of flowers. Some island folks called her a bag lady because she was always walking around the streets with shopping bags, but she was far too glamorous to have been that.

  Katie started to turn away when Alex kicked her foot.

  “You want the bracelet?” Alex said.

  Katie looked back at Mrs. Eastman and said softly, “Why are you wearing a veil?”

  Mrs. Eastman’s eyes moved behind the veil. She glanced at Alex and spoke to Katie. “I’m mourning my husband.” Her tone was serious.

  “Do you wear the veil to bed?” Alex asked, and Katie could see her trying not to laugh.

  Katie wished she had just run off after she’d asked Mrs. Eastman the first question. “Let’s go,” she muttered to Alex.

  Mrs. Eastman tossed her head back, showed her teeth and let out a roaring laugh. Alex sneezed.

  “Care to borrow this, dear?” Mrs. Eastman held out a frilly hanky to Alex. Her voice didn’t match the full, round face behind the gauzy veil. It was small and high-pitched, like a shy young girl’s. The veil blew forward when she turned. She had a small black dot on her temple, just like Katie’s. Just like Elvina’s.

  Katie smiled at Mrs. Eastman and started to ask about her birthmark, but Alex pulled Katie away and they fled.

  “She kind of makes me nervous,” Katie said.

  “Why? I’m not afraid of her.”

/>   “Yeah right.” Katie smirked. “It’s just that she seems to have the same birthmark as me. I think Julian’s mom has one too.”

  Alex held Katie’s hair back as Katie leaned down and took in a gulp of cold water from the town drinking fountain. Alex touched the side of Katie’s face. “You know, it does kind of seem similar. You should ask someone about it.”

  Katie straightened. “Who?”

  “How about your mom?”

  “I already tried asking her about it – her sister had one like it.” They strode in another direction just as Mrs. Eastman shouted to someone behind them.

  “Is she talking to us?” Alex asked.

  Katie glanced. Mrs. Eastman was shouting to a tall and slender bedraggled figure under the village’s clock tower. It sounded as though she were scolding the person as she hastened toward him. “I told you to never leave.”

  The girls ran into the road, and Katie held Alex’s arm as they crossed to the opposite sidewalk.

  “I kind of hope I never see her again,” Katie said.

  “That was so exciting. I can’t wait to run into her again,” Alex said. “Anyway, I have some bad news. I started to tell you earlier, before we ran into her.” She held her bracelet out to Katie.

  “You keep it. You always wear it.”

  Alex bowed her head.

  “Everything okay?” Katie asked.

  Alex looked over at Katie and her eyes twitched.

  Katie pulled Alex closer to her. “Are you crying?”

  “I’m about to start. You’re probably the only girl best friend I’ve ever had.”

  Katie stopped walking and Alex did too.

  “My dad’s been talking about me transferring to a boarding school,” Alex said.

  “He can’t.” Katie paused. “But what does your mom think?”

  “She’ll go along with what he says. Maybe it won’t happen. I think I can put him off for a while. I hope I can.”

  “We can still be friends if you leave, right?”

  “Forever, and in the afterlife.”

  Chapter Eleven

  When Julian came home to Blackthorn from London the next summer, he showed Katie the impressive drawings he had done of her in his sketchbook while at college, copying photos she had sent him. He always drew her as a dramatic beauty, and she never imagined herself like that. Katie had known him for almost a year.

  Nat and Katie got invited to a formal party on Friday night at Alex’s house, and their mother allowed them to go, giving them permission without the amount of reservation Katie had anticipated. Katie took a taxi to Alex’s house with Nat and planned to meet Julian there.

  Julian was waiting for Katie on the wraparound porch when they arrived. He hugged her while Nat leaned against one of the house’s stone columns. The garden in front of Katie smelled of burning citronella candles. Julian pulled away and Katie glanced down at her light-blue dress, which her mum had bought on sale, and hoped she would blend in.

  “How is everyone?” Alex’s mom said to them after they’d entered the house. “Alex has been looking for you guys.” She spoke to Katie. “You’re lovely tonight, Katherine.”

  They followed Mrs. Willoughby farther inside, through the hall and into the high-ceilinged living room, where Katie saw the piano she used to practice on. A polished mahogany table at the piano’s side held a tall crystal vase of colourful flowers.

  “All of you look fantastic,” Alex said as she hurried toward Katie. She was tipsy and gave each of them a hug, but kissed Nat’s cheek for such a long time that he blushed.

  “It’s good to see Alley-Kat in the same room,” Julian said.

  “Who are they?” Nat asked.

  “Alex and Katie. Alley-Kat, instead of alley cat,” Julian said.

  “I’m glad to know we remind you of stray animals, Jules.” Alex waved to a girl in a black party dress at the other end of the room. “I have to say hi to her.” Alex spoke to Nat. “You’ll like her. Come with me.” She led him away by the arm.

  “Alex likes your brother,” Julian said to Katie.

  “And he likes her. Trouble is, they don’t seem to be able to tell each other.”

  “I’ll go get us something to drink,” Julian said.

  Katie watched him walk off and standing among the Willoughbys’ guests, was transfixed by a small light at the top of a portrait of a yellow Labrador retriever with a mallard in his mouth, leaping out of a shining blue lake through a marsh’s reeds.

  “I’ve always liked that painting,” a man with a deep voice said from behind her.

  Katie turned around, and Alex’s dad, Steve, stood there, smiling in a fatherly way. “Hi,” she said.

  “Julian painted that.” He gestured at the dog portrait. “He’s very talented.”

  “He really is.”

  “How are you, Katie?” Steve eyed Julian across the room. “I hope that’s only lemonade he’s getting for you.” He smiled in such a way that it was obvious he was just teasing her. “Are your parents …” he began, and he glanced around the room, his eyes still once he reached the catering company’s servers, “… doing well?”

  “They are, sir.”

  Alex returned after Steve walked off. She held a flute of champagne behind her back.

  “Where’s my brother?” Katie asked. “I’m okay if you like him, you know.”

  “Really? That’s great,” Alex beamed. “My mom stole him. She always takes the best guys. They’re over there.” Alex pointed to where Nat and Mrs. Willoughby stood laughing.

  Julian returned with two glasses of lemonade. “Here you are,” he said smiling, handing one to Katie. He pointed to the flute in Alex’s hand. “I didn’t know there was champagne. Where’d you get it?”

  Alex took a sip then bit her lower lip. She glanced over her shoulder. Katie moved to see who she saw.

  Her mother, dressed in the same black pants and crisp white dress shirt as the rest of the catering staff, with her hair in braids, was serving champagne to the guests. It was too late for Katie to bolt. She hoped Alex would pretend she hadn’t noticed her. Katie prayed for anything, just as long as Julian never found out the server was her mother.

  Her mom made her way toward them, balancing a large silver tray of shrimp cocktails in martini glasses. She offered them their choice and smiled at Katie but didn’t speak. The tray seemed heavy.

  Alex smiled weakly. “Hello, Mrs. Gold.”

  Katie took one shrimp, which she usually liked, but now it tasted dry and unpleasant, and said nothing to her mother.

  “She’s your mother?” Julian said as Victoria headed away.

  Alex excused herself and Katie was left to explain. “That’s my mom all right.”

  Julian’s eyes widened. She reached for his sleeve, but he pulled back and waved goodbye to Alex.

  Alex looked over at Katie and mouthed, “What’s wrong?”

  Katie shrugged. She ran after Julian, but he’d already left and she couldn’t find him outside.

  Katie stayed overnight at Alex’s house, and in the morning Julian came over while Alex was still sleeping. They sat on a cast iron bench in the Willoughbys’ backyard. Birds chirped around them.

  Katie touched his shoulder. “Are you okay?”

  “Not really,” he mumbled.

  She took her hand off him. “You’re the one who ran off last night. What happened?”

  “Maybe we should take a break,” he said after a few moments.

  “Why?”

  “You wouldn’t understand—”

  “So tell me.”

  “I just can’t, all right?” Julian said. He stared at his hands and for a moment Katie thought he would give her some kind of reason. “Not now anyway. We should stay away from each other for a while. I’m really sorry.” He rose and walked around the trees on Alex’s lawn, through the hedges and back into his private world.

  “I can’t believe you’re ashamed to be seen with me because my mother’s a waitress,” Katie shouted at
his back.

  ***

  “Did you enjoy the party?” her mother asked when Katie came home from Alex’s. The house smelled of sweet, rising dough. Her mother had her blue cooking apron on, and when she’d wiped her hands on the front she’d left floury handprints.

  Katie’s stomach tightened and her shoulders shook.

  Her mom narrowed her gaze at Katie. “Are you crying? What’s the matter?” She walked closer.

  Katie wiped her tears with her shirtsleeve. “I think you know what’s wrong.”

  Her mom looked at the floor then up at her. “I embarrassed you last night. I didn’t know we were going to be doing the catering for the Willoughbys’ party until it was too late for me to back out. I’m sorry, Katie.”

  “Julian saw you. It was so obvious that you’re our mom.”

  “You know, it’s not shameful having a mother who works. A lot of moms on the island work more than one job. I work so you don’t have to.”

  “I’m sixteen.”

  Victoria reached out to touch Katie’s face. “I worked when I was your age.”

  She turned her head. “The other moms don’t serve their daughters’ friends.”

  Victoria stepped away. “I guess they’re luckier than we are,” she whispered.

  Chapter Twelve

  A few days later Julian showed up at Katie’s house after her mother had already gone to work. He got permission from Katie’s father to walk with her out to the garden at Julian’s family’s house to talk. It was an old-fashioned way of doing things but it got Katie curious.

  Julian tried to make small talk with her along the way, but she wouldn’t respond. On his lawn they sat inside a gazebo made of interwoven white birch branches. He reached for her hand, and she pulled away.

  “What do you want from me?” Katie asked.

  “I don’t want us to still be mad at each other. I missed seeing you. I missed hearing your voice,” he said. “I just want things to be how they were. I’m so sorry, Katie.”

  She faced him. His hair was messy and there were dark circles under his eyes but his skin was still smooth and golden. “You left me on Alex’s lawn. Why did you get so mad?”