like flashes of lightning, snap, snap, snap!
I don’t want to be here. I want to be a normal seventeen-year-old girl, worried about graduation and prom and boys (like Gowan) and getting my own car and going to university and “getting a life.” Aren’t I supposed to be freaking out over my eyelashes, the new tattoo, this hot band, my next outfit like those kids out there? Or shouldn’t I be pondering my career, my path in life, the meaning behind everything for me, the future?
My head is a word cloud of turmoil, but all of it is silenced—frozen still—by what I see in the concrete of the basement floor.
A root.
A root has broken through the concrete, and is growing out of the floor.
Holy shit bastard shit.
I thought being trapped in La Baume with Python right outside was bad. But now it looks like not even solid stone will keep the trees away.
We’re infested.
We’re infected.
We can’t win.
When I finally come out of my hiding place, I feel my way through the house quietly and tentatively, realizing with an ache inside that I miss them… my family. I miss Nori. I miss Cath. And I miss Gowan.
I find them by following the glow. It’s a soft orange light, moving like the gentle pulse of a heartbeat, drawing me to it.
The library. They lit the fire.
I find them on the sheepskin rug in front of the grate, Nori lying against Gowan, the light of the flames dancing over their faces. In Nori, it has a softening effect, her eyes faraway and unseeing as she stares at the flames. In Gowan, the effect is one of hardness. The light sharpens his jaw and brow bone and sets a fire in his near-black eyes. His gaze is here, in the now, even as he watches the heat.
He senses me, standing still in the doorway, and turns. Ever so slightly.
I expect his jaw to clench, or his eyes to narrow, or his hand to tighten on Nori’s shoulder, protective.
But he smiles, and the tension in his eyes vanishes. He’s… relieved.
I hesitate, looking down at Nori, who, sensing the change in the room, sits up and turns to face me.
She doesn’t need to say my name for me to know that she thought it.
She gets to her feet and hurries over to me, burying her head in my torso. Shame, joy, relief, guilt, heartache, and love wash through me, and I hold her head, bending over it and covering it with kisses.
“I’m sorry,” I whisper. “I’m so sorry. I love you.”
I say these words over and over, and they become a mantra. When the frenzy has died, and Nori steps away to look up into my face, she is crying and smiling.
I cup her cheeks and connect my eyes to hers. “You are the whole world to me,” I tell her. “Did you know that?”
She sniffs and shakes her head. She really didn’t know that.
“I love you more than anything.” And then I close the walls and step away. “Now get out of here, you pest.”
She grins and skips off, settling back down in front of the fire.
Gowan smiles at her, and then looks over at me.
“We were worried.”
I shrug. “Why? Nowhere I could go.”
I know it’s not what he means, and he knows I know, but he lets it drop and I’m grateful. We leave Nori by the fire and go up to the second level.
“I found roots in the basement,” I tell him, when we are out of Nori’s earshot.
His mouth falls a little at that, but he tries to hide it behind a smile. “Oh.”
“I should have listened to you. I should have taken Nori and gone while we could. With or without Cath.”
I wait for him to tell me I’m right, that I was stupid to wait, to resist. Instead, he says, “I don’t think that would have helped. I finally realize that running was never the right choice. We need to face this problem, whatever it is. And we have to face it here.”
“The curse.”
“If that’s what it is.”
“I think Cath knows what’s going on. She has a long history with this house.”
“Has she told you everything? About… the Creeper Man?”
I catch Nori’s manic motioning with her good arm over the balcony. No eyes, Nori signs from below us, by the fire.
“No eyes,” I say for her. “No. I don’t think she has.”
Gowan swallows. “Well. Then we’ve got to go and talk to her.”
“I…” No, no, no, no. “I tried once. She didn’t make a whole lot of sense.”
“We have to try again. This is the last chance.”
“I…”
Gowan takes my hands. “She’s your aunt. You have to try.”
It’s not my aunt that terrifies me. It’s those stairs.
Silla is going to be very upset, but I know that I have to go. The Creeper Man is beside me, so tall he is like a mountain! I am scared, but I know nothing bad can happen, so I tell my tummy to stop shouting that I must be afraid and run very far and hide, quick!
The Creeper Man is my friend. He said there were still games to play.
I put my hand into his and we go away.
Bye, bye, Silla! See you soon!
19
we made a man
There was an old lady
who lived all alone,
until her nieces
came all the way home.