We are so alone here. We’re beginning to feel it. I don’t know if Nori does. But I do. All the time. What’s happening? Is there a quarantine? Did the war start, like they said? Did they bomb away the world? Are we all that’s left? Why doesn’t Mam write to us? We are her only daughters, who she let go, and nothing. Did she forget about us as soon as we left? Did she try to visit us already? Have the trees trapped her? Has he got her? My mind can’t stop turning. This can’t go on forever.
Gowan brings apples again. Nori is at the boundary to the woods before he even clears the trees. I’m too slow to stop her from running off, but when I get there, I pull her back and wrap my arms around her. She holds on to my arms and waits.
We both wait.
I scan the ground for the root that I stuck into the ground yesterday. I tied a ribbon around it to make sure I could find it again. But it’s gone. Maybe the wind, the storm, maybe the trees themselves— And then I spot it. Twenty paces deep into the woods.
They are moving.
Oh, God. They are.
“A welcoming committee!” Gowan calls when he sees us.
Nori calls his name with her hands, and he grins at her and winks. Then he puts down a sack of apples. There have to be twenty in there at least. My stomach roils but I force a smile anyway.
The woods are moving.
Gowan leaves Nori with the fruit and then wanders over to me.
He folds his hands behind his back. “Hello.”
“Hello.”
“Would you like an apple, Miss Daniels?” he says, presenting one to me, deftly produced from his pocket.
“Maybe later,” I offer, a little weakly, eyes flickering to the woods and back. My stomach is doing backflips and I really would rather not vomit on Gowan if I can help it. “Want to go inside? Looks like rain.”
He stares at the sky for a few moments, briefly closes his eyes, and then looks back down at me. A nod. I try to see what he saw up there, but it’s just another overcast day. It always looks like rain will come. None ever does. The sky is as ashen as the dirt, and once again I wonder about London and the government—their wars and their bombs and their threats—and whether there’s anyone left at all.
Gowan grabs the bag of apples, lifts Nori onto his back, and we head to the manor.
“You know, I never see you eat,” Gowan says when we’re inside.
I send Nori off to drop three apples at the foot of Cathy’s stairs, and then I sit down at the kitchen table and watch as Gowan stacks the green balls of fruit flesh in the center.
“So? Just because you don’t see me do it doesn’t mean I don’t.”
My stomach answers for me, a rumbling growl to rival Nori’s.
“Point proven,” Gowan says, the edges of his eyebrows hiked up with satisfaction.
“I have to feed her first. There isn’t much, and it’s my job to make sure she gets food.”
“Well, I’ve brought food. So take some. Please, Silla. You’re wasting away.”
I reach for an apple. Poison. Dirt. Disgusting. Toxic. Snow White. Sleeping Beauty. Sleep. Die. Don’t. No.
I lift it to my lips. Open them. I shiver as I bite down, the sound a crack and a creak as I chew.
Chew. Chew. Chew.
Swallow.
Swallow.
Silla, my brain commands. Swallow.
I can’t.
I swallow. It scrapes its way down my esophagus like paper, no pleasure at all, and lands like lead in my stomach. It is a stone in the cavity, and I want to get it out.
“It’s wonderful,” I lie. “Thank you.”
He looks so proud of me. For this one, stupid thing. But then that look fades as he watches me get up and put the rest of it down on a plate to save for Nori later.
“Will you come and visit me?”
“Not that again.”
“Please, Silla.” And he takes my hand.
His flesh on mine.
Someone touching me.
No one has touched me, except Nori, in months. Maybe years.
I’m so distracted by it that I just stare at our hands, missing half of what Gowan is saying.
“… and you might be right. It might be too late. But gardens can lie barren for years and recover. Humans can’t. You and Nori and Cath have to leave. It’s not healthy here. It’s…” He looks around. “Not what I remember.”
And I suddenly wonder what he does remember. How does he see La Baume? Is it very different from what it was then? In what ways? So many curiosities, but that’s the trick, isn’t it? That’s how it happens. An investment. An intrigue. And then a trap. Friendship is a trap. Family is a trap.
Love is a trap.
And it’s all lies, anyway.
I decide to tell him a truth, which is far more brutal than a lie. Because he should know what he is trying to get himself into. With me. And with this place.
“The trees are moving.”
That stops him short. “What?”
“The trees are moving. Coming closer.”