“I see a manipulator, a traitor, and someone trying to force my hand. Just get out of our lives. I will never go into those woods with you! Never!”
He nods. “Okay.” He shakes his head. “Okay.”
He walks to the kitchen door and turns the handle, hesitating only a moment.
“It’s been months,” he says, his voice low. “Not weeks.”
And then he leaves.
The sickness I feel when he walks out is enough to make me double over, breathless.
“No… no, no, no. Gowan…”
This book is consuming me. I carry it everywhere.
It’s broken, like me. It’s hardened over time.
The once-leather is more like stone now.
Calcified. The pages crinkle, some tear.
There is a symbol on the front,
I remember it from school.
The Greek alphabet. It’s called omega.
Omega means… I forget. The end?
Like alpha and omega.
Beginning and end?
It’s like it was left for me to find.
It feels like a secret worth having.
I wonder who left it behind.
I burn the note.
12
the sane never come, the crazy always do
Hush little baby,
you’re to blame
to give your heart
for lies and shame.
BROKEN BOOK ENTRY
I wish she would be a bit more coherent. She said this was a curse, her exact words, but is there or was there a point to telling me that stupid story? All that about the house, and the color… is it just to rile me up? A bit of fun for her? What? She is acting like a ghost. Like she’s not even really here anymore. Is that how she is helping us? How she’s loving us? I couldn’t think of a better joke. She lied. She’s a liar. She’s the lie.
Tears, like the rain, have all dried up.
On the day Gowan didn’t come, I felt it like a sickness. That day, Nori hid.
I spent hours searching room after room, calling and then yelling. And as the panic rose and the day wore on and the sickness grew: screaming.
Nori came out laughing, and I pulled her by the arm, yanking hard. Too hard.
“You can’t hide!” I screamed into the little face. “We talked about this already! Don’t you ever listen? You can’t disappear, Nori! Not you! Can’t you see that you couldn’t cry for help if you fell? You couldn’t call me if something crashed down on top of you! You would be trapped and you would suffocate and you would die screaming screams I couldn’t hear!”
I tugged even harder and fell to my knees before her.
“Do you understand me?”
Nori nodded fiercely, too stunned to cry, and when I released her, she stood frozen.
LEAVE THIS HOUSE AND YOU WILL DIE.
HE WON’T LET YOU LEAVE.
THE CREEPER MAN IS WAITING.
COME AGAIN, OH PLEASE DO. YOU CAN COME STAY IN MY PETTING ZOO.…
I saw him in the woods.
I wander the house like a specter. Like a wraith. A shadow. Everything seems… empty. When did this happen? Was it the first night he snuck into the library? Was it his sunny greeting every day? Was it his stupid apples that I can’t even eat? I only realized this morning, when I woke and came to the door, waiting, that I’ve become… used to him. He is the start to my every day.
It is incomprehensible.
It is impossible.
It is ridiculous.
But when he doesn’t come, something inside me moves. Like a book falling off a table; it hits, deep down, with a low thud.
Nori, too, is silent. Her hands don’t flap. There are no words on her fingers, no laughs in her smiles. There are question marks in her eyes, though.
There are accusations.
You sent him away.
He liked us but you made him angry.
This is your fault.
They are little blows and I have to look away. I am to blame. Why was I so resistant? When he comes back… if he comes back… then I will try. I will try to take Nori and Cath and I will try to go into the woods.
I catch my reflection in the window.
I will not be a coward and die in this house because of moving trees. [BUT THERE’S MORE TO IT.]
LEAVE THIS HOUSE AND YOU WILL DIE.
It was just a dream. [YOU’RE FOOLING YOURSELF.]
HE WON’T LET YOU LEAVE.
Cath is crazy. Why should I listen to her? [SOMETHING IS WRONG WITH THIS PLACE.]
If you leave the house, I will get you. And I will get her.
When [IF] Gowan comes back, I will go with him. I won’t be afraid. [YOU WILL DIE.]
I will go anywhere with him, something inside me declares. [HAHAHA!]
“I don’t know what to do!” I cry, and I hold my head until the thoughts all die.
SILLA DANIELS’S GUIDE TO DELUDING YOURSELF
1. Imagine you are a doll, sewn together with twine.
2. Fill yourself up with straw, crunchy and dry (no heart allowed).
3. Use lies mantras to get by (you will eventually believe them).
? Mantra, option 1: This is not real.
? Mantra, option 2: You are not circling the loom.
? Mantra, option 3: You do not feel anything.