The Tree Beasts Read online

  “I’ve never really been this serious with anyone before. I think I was scared. Does that make sense? And what your mom does doesn’t matter to me. I’m proud to be with you.”

  “I didn’t know you heard me say that.”

  “Yeah, you were shouting.”

  Katie laughed and nearly choked on the scent of the honeysuckle on the trellis. Julian took her by surprise when he kissed her. “I love you,” she said. It just slipped out then Katie couldn’t look at him because she didn’t know what she was going to do if his face showed he didn’t feel the same way.

  “Me too. I love you.” Julian took her in his arms and kissed her again, and she hugged him back and kissed him. He reached into his pocket. “I got something for you.” He handed her a black velvet box wrapped with a piece of crimson ribbon. Julian’s eyes crinkled as he watched the box in her hand, and he smiled without showing his teeth. He never did, although from the glimpses she’d gotten of them, they were beautiful.

  Katie untied the ribbon and it fell to the ground. She opened the box and took out a delicate jade and turquoise stone necklace, with a small black jewel hanging from it.

  “Thank you,” she said, holding it up to the sunlight. “It’s so beautiful. Is it an antique?”

  “My mom gave it to me to keep until I found the right girl to give it to. Her mother – my grandmother – gave it to my mom’s older brother to give to a girl, which he did. But when she died unexpectedly, he gave it to my mom to keep for me someday.”

  The revelation chilled her but she didn’t want to seem ungrateful. “How did she die?”

  “I don’t really know.” Julian reached behind her, placed the jewel around her neck and closed the clasp.

  Katie touched the cold black stone. “What is it?”

  “Cut onyx.”

  “I’ll never take it off.”

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  “I want to. I’ll wear it forever.” She hugged him once more, said goodbye, then headed back to her house.

  Katie went inside and stopped in her tracks when she saw that her mother was home early.

  Her mom stared at her neck. “Where did you get that necklace?”

  “It’s a present.” Katie put her hand protectively on the necklace.

  “Who bought it for you?”

  “Julian.”

  “You shouldn’t let him just buy you things.”

  “He didn’t buy it. It was his mother’s.”

  “Does she know he gave it to you?”

  “Why does that matter?” Katie carefully asked. “Why are you home so early anyway?”

  “One of my classes was cancelled today because of an event at the college.” Her mom sat down on the small wooden bench below the large, oval antique mirror her dad had hooked up on the wall in the entrance hall. She folded her hands in her lap. “I’ve been thinking about saying something ever since I saw you with him at the Willoughbys’ party. It will upset you, but I have to tell you.” She met Katie’s gaze with directness. “There’s a connection between Julian and your brother,” she said gently.

  “Yeah, they’ve met.”

  James walked over and put his head in her mom’s lap and she patted him. “I’m afraid this isn’t about Nat, sweetheart. It has something to do with Paul.”

  Katie’s neck tingled, her pulse quickened and she felt as though she needed to sit down on the bench too. She held out her hand and steadied herself against the wall. “Don’t you mean Paul’s death?” she said, immediately regretting it. Death – the word sounded violent – came out too fast for her to take it back and claim she meant to say something else. Her mother didn’t cry. Still, Katie searched for an escape – maybe the back door in the kitchen.

  “He was at the playground the day Paul disappeared,” Victoria said slowly.

  Katie remembered Julian was the boy who had smiled at her and tried to touch her hand at the park where Paul went missing. That was why Julian had acted strangely around her.

  Victoria’s face filled with anticipation.

  Katie straightened. “A lot of kids were there at the park that day. I’ve spent a lot of time with Julian. He’s a good guy and a wonderful artist. You don’t know what he’s been through. His mother …” Katie paused.

  “She …?”

  It didn’t seem right to tell even her own mother the secret that Alex had made her promise not to tell anyone. When Julian was a boy, he’d found his mother after she’d attempted suicide. “Nothing,” Katie said. “His mother didn’t do anything.”

  Her mother’s face lost its hope. Katie tucked the necklace under her shirt.

  That night Katie noticed something different about the lighthouse painting hanging in its usual place above the fireplace. The lighthouse-keeper gazed out a window, fatherly and warm, with a mariner’s cap and an old pipe dangling from his mouth. To his right was a boy wearing a blue ski parka with the hood up.

  She went to get her father and found him still in the kitchen with her mother, chatting quietly as they loaded the dishwasher together. “She told me he’s an artist,” her mom said to her dad, and Katie knew they were discussing Julian.

  “You have to come see this,” Katie said, grabbing her father’s hand. “Where’s Nat?”

  “In his room.”

  “We have to get him too.”

  Her mom stopped wiping the counter. Katie tugged on her dad’s sleeve and watched her mom’s face. “Come see,” she said to her dad, and began leading him out of the kitchen. Her mother put the dishcloth on the counter and followed them. Katie shouted for Nat to come downstairs.

  In the living room, her dad’s mouth hung open as he closely studied the canvas above the fireplace. “How …?”

  Her mom glanced at it then wouldn’t look up at it again. “This can’t … That can’t be. It can’t be him. It’s some sort of cruel joke. Someone must have painted that boy into the picture somehow.” She stared right at Katie.

  “Are you saying you think Julian did this?” Katie turned to her dad for his support.

  He looked away.

  “You’re going to take her side?” Katie said.

  “You did mention he’s an artist,” her father said quietly.

  “He’s never been in the house,” Katie said to him. “You have to believe me. You’re more reasonable than she is.” Katie gave her mother a sidelong glance.

  “Well, then, who did it if he didn’t?” Katie’s dad said to her.

  Nat ran into the living room with James behind him. “What’s going on? Why were you guys shouting?”

  Katie’s dad’s face reddened in anger, his dimpled chin quivered and he shook his finger at her. “You’re upsetting your mom. Tell us the truth. Was it him?”

  James started barking. Katie forgot herself and was about to say, “You seem pretty upset too,” but instead stared down at her father’s shoes.

  “Was it who?” Nat gazed at the painting and his face crumpled.

  Katie put a hand on his back.

  “Put it somewhere,” her mother said to her father.

  “Don’t throw it away,” Nat said.

  “I meant for him to move it into the garage,” her mum said.

  Her father stepped closer to the painting and put his forefinger on the boy in the blue parka. “He looks just like him.”

  “Sam, please, I can’t look at it anymore,” her mom said.

  Her father took his finger away and lifted the painting off the nail in the wall and stared at the back.

  “Sam, what is it?” Victoria said.

  “J.B.,” he whispered.

  “What?” Nat asked.

  “I just never noticed it before,” her dad said quietly.

  Katie’s mother grabbed the painting from him, turned it over and stared at the back. She moved next to Katie and put her finger under the artist’s initials. “Wasn’t he some kind of boy wonder?” Katie’s mother glanced at her for her reaction.

  “It can’t be him. You’v
e had it forever. The artist must have the same initials.”

  “I’ll take care of it.” Her father took the painting from her mother and took it to the garage.

  On the wall, there was a faint outline where the canvas had been.

  A few days later, Katie’s dad left to drive Nat to orientation and his first semester of college, nearly two hours away from Blackthorn. It would be the first time he lived off-island, and it would be Katie’s first night being the only child in the house.

  She went to bed that night with the house very quiet. Her parents and James were just down the hall, but she missed hearing Nat going into his room for the night. He was always the last to go to bed.

  Katie breathed in a fresh, tangy aroma. She sat up, rubbed her eyes and focused on the dark corners in her room. “Paul.”

  She wasn’t alone after all.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Victoria could always tell at night if the deer were eating the garden. Instead of culling them on Blackthorn, the town found a way to spread an additive on the deer’s food sources that caused the animals to glow in the dark so they’d be easier to spot by drivers at night. On several nights James barreled through the dog door in the kitchen and barked outside in the backyard. At first Victoria thought he was acting out because Nat was away. But every time she rose from bed to put the porch light on to see if he was barking at a glowing deer or someone trespassing in the yard, she didn’t see anything.

  One afternoon Victoria walked across the street to retrieve the newspaper that was carelessly thrown by the paperboy when James bounded out of the partly open front door, darted across the front lawn and collided with a speeding car.

  He died at the veterinary hospital.

  “His spirit was so strong that I would have thought he could have survived it,” she told Sam.

  They buried James in the garden, near the cherry-vanilla roses.

  Victoria didn’t believe that she was really connected to nature, but after James’ death, the front porch was blanketed by dozens of small butterflies whose fluttering white and red wings seemed to whisper their sympathies. Then they flew up and over the roof.

  “Paul probably wants us to know James is with him,” Katie said about the butterflies.

  “It’s hard enough with the dog dying,” Victoria said. “Paul never knew him. We got him after Paul—”

  “All I said was Paul’s probably taking care of him for us. I guess I’m just sad about James.”

  “I am too.” Victoria stroked her daughter’s flowing hair. For the first time in months, Katie didn’t pull away from her touch.

  To cheer up Katie, with Nat away at college and James gone, Victoria took her out for lunch that weekend. She was glad things seemed to be getting better between them. Sam couldn’t come along because he was now tending the Bloomfields’ garden every weekend. “We could use the extra income with Nat in college,” he had said to Victoria.

  Victoria glanced at Katie sitting next to her on the drive home from their lunch. “How’s Julian? You haven’t mentioned him to me in a while. Have you two been seeing each other a lot? I know I can’t stop you from seeing him, so I might as well ask.”

  “I know how you feel about him,” Katie said from the passenger seat. “But since you asked, I think I really like him.”

  “You’re in love. Is that it?”

  Katie peered down at the car floor. “Maybe I am.”

  Victoria knew young love – hearts aflutter for the first time, holding hands, fingers intertwined as though for the last time, and all that came with it. She was almost breathless just thinking about it. But she said, “I really don’t know what to say. You know how you feel.”

  ***

  A few days later, Nat came home from college on his birthday. Victoria knew he liked to be alone on the day – he never wanted to mark the special day that he and Paul had once shared – but she had asked him to come home anyway.

  In the grey late morning, they sat at the kitchen table. Victoria got up to make coffee.

  “I know how hard this day is for you. All of us do.” She also knew he didn’t like talking about it so she changed the subject. “How are things with Rachel?” Nat’s new girlfriend, a tall and pretty brunette, was an art major in the same year as him.

  “We’re good.”

  “I’m so glad to hear that.”

  Nat refused to celebrate with presents and a cake with candles, but Sam’s mother was determined to send him something. And yesterday Nat’s grandmother had dropped off a plate of chocolate cupcakes with so much fluffy icing on top they appeared ready to topple over. Paul had told Katie when they were little that their grandmother’s cupcakes were magical. Katie had laughed and clapped her hands. The beautiful sweets always made Victoria sad now.

  “How is school, really?” Victoria sat down. She reached across the table and touched Nat’s forehead where a Band-Aid was stretched tightly across his skin.

  Nat bit into a cupcake. “Managing a soccer team is dangerous. You never know when a guy is going to get angry because the team lost and wallop you in the face since you’re the closest target. So that’s what happened. The guys who play for the team are twice as big as me, maybe three times bigger, so I guess that’s why I didn’t make the cut. But I’m doing fine as their manager,” he said, pronouncing “manager” sarcastically.

  “Being a manager isn’t a joke.” Victoria observed her tall, thin son. “And you’re a nice size for a young man.”

  Nat shrugged and blushed.

  “Will you still be the team’s manager next season?” she asked.

  Nat wiped some frosting from his lips. “I’m going to quit before then.”

  Victoria held her breath then said, “That’s okay. Maybe you can see if they need your help somewhere else at the college.”

  “Do you think it’s weird that I still refuse to let you guys celebrate my birthday?” Nat asked.

  “Not if it comforts you in some way.” Victoria patted his arm and asked him about the swimsuit model magazine cut-outs that had hung on his wall before he’d taken them down in a rush. It was more like he had ripped them down when he’d returned home.

  Nat told her that the pictures bothered him because of the way the women in them were objectified, and since he was the older brother of a girl, he didn’t want to contribute to the problem.

  “You took them down out of respect for Katie?” she asked.

  “That’s right,” Nat said, his shoulders sloping. “Rachel and I have been taking a gender studies class together, and I figure I should put into practice what I’m learning.”

  “You’re a great brother.”

  “Paul would have been a good brother to her too.”

  Sometimes Victoria couldn’t look at Nat’s face without wanting to cry because he was so much like Paul. He was Paul. Nat was indecisive, and she worried about him. But the grown-up Paul wouldn’t be like Nat. He couldn’t be, because he was different. And would being different have actually made Paul stronger because he would have had to prove himself more?

  “I was supposed to watch him,” Nat whispered. He turned away.

  Victoria moved forward a little. “What did you say?”

  Nat looked at her. “That’s what you said to me that day in the park. I was supposed to watch him.” He got up and walked back and forth. “Do you wish I had disappeared instead? I was stronger, I might have been able to make it back home to you guys.” He turned to her.

  Victoria’s body shook and she stood up and reached toward him. “Nat …”

  “Did … do you wish that?” He walked closer, and she covered her face with her hands.

  “At one time I might have,” Victoria said quietly through her hands, and she felt like she had slapped Nat. “I don’t think that way anymore.”

  “You don’t blame me for what happened to Paul?”

  Victoria gradually took her hands away from her face. The area around Nat’s eyes crumpled, as though he were about to cry
. “All this time you probably thought it was your fault. It’s true that for a while I could only think about him.”

  “Could? Paul’s still all you think about. He was my twin.”

  “Is your twin.”

  “Was. There’s no way Paul’s coming back, mom. He’s not coming back. But I’m here, so look at me.”

  Victoria could feel her cheeks getting warmer, and her lips quivered with each sob. “It was my fault.”

  Nat moved closer, put his arm around her and rubbed her shoulder. “Don’t blame yourself. You didn’t take Paul from his family. It’s not our fault. Whoever took him, it’s their fault.”

  ***

  On the drive back to college, Nat was quiet. Victoria eased the car along the curb in front of his dormitory and parked. Rachel waited for Nat outside the building. Victoria waved to her.

  “Here we are.” Victoria waited for a goodbye from Nat.

  Nat stared down at his hands in the seat next to her. “I saw dad with a woman.”

  “Really? Who?”

  “Katie’s friend Alex’s mom Allison. Why would dad be having a drink with her?”

  “He works for them.” Victoria turned in the seat to look at Nat. “Maybe she wanted to say thank you for your dad’s work. You said they were having a drink. Where did you see them?”

  “The …” Nat paused. “… The Sea Dog.”

  Victoria sat up. “What were you doing at a bar?”

  “Some guys I know wanted to go there. I was supposed to meet them there last night.”

  “So that’s why you wanted to go out. Are these boys ones you knew before college? Do their parents know about this?”

  “They have fake IDs,” he mumbled. “I didn’t say anything to you before because I was afraid you’d be mad that I went to a bar. I didn’t go in all the way. I left when I saw dad. I don’t think he saw me.”

  “I’m not happy about what you did.”

  Nat gazed at the car floor.

  “But I can tell you that I did the same thing when I was your age,” Victoria said.

  Nat glanced up. “Really?”

  “I did.” She tried to smile. When she thought of Sam, her heart squeezed, and she tried her best not to cry in front of Nat.