Gina Ranalli - House of Fallen Trees

“You don’t believe in angels?”

She looked down at the dog still standing beside her, watching Saul with tense wariness.

“Actually,” she said, “I think I do.”

Rory had regained access to the B&B by breaking a window at the back of the house, unlocking it and crawling in among the broken glass. Somehow he had escaped this feat without sustaining a single scratch.

He sat moodily at the table, watching the dog lying at Karen’s feet. It had taken her nearly a whole hour and an entire package of hotdogs to coax the dog inside the house and even then, only if the men remained what the dog must have considered a safe distance away.

As it was, Karen had had to pull her chair to the other side of the room, sitting in front of the stove while the men remained at the table. It was awkward, but Dusty would not go any closer to them, so Karen made do, holding a bowl of canned chili on her lap.

She had no idea why the dog had chosen to trust her but supposed it might have had something to do with the event in the woods. Perhaps Dusty had sensed Karen’s vulnerability and therefore concluded they were kindred spirits. At least, this is what Karen wanted to believe, as she herself felt as though she and the dog were somehow linked now, after having been chased through the woods by God only knew what. If nothing else, she knew the dog knew the truth. She wasn’t crazy. These things really were happening, as impossible as that seemed. It also helped to know Saul wasn’t above questioning what could or couldn’t be real. Rory, on the other hand, was at a loss. He still didn’t want to quite believe a stranger was hidden away in the house somewhere, nor was he willing to acknowledge anything supernatural was going on.

“Well,” Saul said, licking chili sauce from his lips. “I think maybe we should just go back to town for a while. Settle our nerves a bit.”

“I don’t need to settle my nerves,” Rory said. “What I need is to figure out what the fuck is going on. Who defaced those photographs? They’re antiques, for Christ’s sake! Irreplaceable!”

Dusty growled low in her throat without bothering to lift her head from her paws. Rory scowled at the dog before continuing. “I have to get to the bottom of this.”

“How can you get to the bottom of something when you don’t even know what’s going on?” Karen asked.

“I’m starting to get an idea,” he replied.

Both Karen and Saul looked up from their bowls with surprise. Rory said, “I’ve never felt particularly welcomed in this town. The only reason The Lantern does as well as it does is because they have nowhere else to go. But, with this place…well, let’s just say that the townsfolk don’t really see the point. As far as they’re concerned, it’ll just be a nuisance, bringing strangers into their town. They don’t care very much for strangers. Not to mention, it’s probably crossed their minds that a fag will probably only attract more fags. Before they know it, Fallen Trees will be a great northern gay Mecca, like P-town is on the East Coast.”

Raising her eyebrows, Karen said, “You think this is about homophobia?”

“Why wouldn’t it be? Most things are.”

“That’s not true at all,” Saul protested. “There are plenty of people in Fallen Trees who like you and aren’t the slightest bit homophobic.”

Rory shook his head, pushing his bowl away from him. “No, they like you , Saul. They don’t like me. They tolerate me, but maybe the idea of this B&B is something they can no longer tolerate.”

“Okay, hold up,” Karen said. “I thought it would be rude to ask before but, Saul, are you gay?”

He playfully wiggled his eyebrows at her. “Why? You want to go on a date?”

“Very funny,” she replied.

“Actually,” he said. “I hate labels, but I suppose in order not to blow minds too much I just say I’m bi.”

She nodded, took another bite of her chili.

“That’s it?” Saul asked. “You’re not gonna say anything about it?”

Karen swallowed. “What’s to say?”

“I figured you might say, ‘I knew it all along’ or ‘I had no idea’. Something along those lines.”

“I didn’t know it all along,” she responded. “How could I have?”

“It’s because you’re so ‘straight-acting’,” Rory told him, actually smiling a little for a change.

“Screw you,” Saul said. To Karen he said, “Rory knows how much I hate that term. ‘Straight-acting.’ If there’s one thing that’ll turn me off about a guy, it’s when he calls another guy ‘straight-acting.’ It irks the shit outta me.”

With no idea how to respond to this, Karen thought it best to say nothing and took another bite of chili. She wondered vaguely if Sean had been ‘straight-acting’.

“Maybe we should get back to the issue at hand,” Rory said. “I don’t even know what we’re talking about anymore.”

“I thought we were talking about your persecution complex,” Saul said.

Rory wasn’t amused. After a long sigh, he said, “Okay. I think I’m just gonna go to bed now. I’m beat and frankly, I need some time away from you two ghost busters.”

Saul and Karen exchanged a glance.

“Who said anything about ghosts?” Saul asked as Rory stood up and brought his bowl to the sink.

“I heard you talking outside,” Rory replied. “Spirits and all that shit. Give me a break.”

The statement seemed to make Saul bristle. “You got another explanation?”

“No,” Rory said. “Not yet. But I will find out what’s going on and I can guarantee that it won’t have anything to do with spookies.”

“ Spookies ?” Saul asked.

Rory ran water into his bowl, wiped his hands on a dish towel. “Superstitions. Whatever you want to call them. You guys need to think about this. Think about how silly that sounds.”

“Given the things that are happening,” Karen piped in. “I don’t think it’s silly at all.”

“Well,” Rory told her. “That’s where you and I differ. There’s always a rational explanation, even if you don’t know what it is.”

Saul laughed, a jagged sound. “The house locking us out in seconds flat? You have a ‘rational explanation’ for that?”

Rory took several seconds to answer. “No,” he said finally. “I’ll admit that’s weird. And I guess maybe Karen was right all along. Someone was in the house.”

“I think I was wrong, actually,” Karen said, setting her bowl on the stovetop and reaching for her water glass. “I agree with your earlier assessment. No one could be in here without us being aware of their presence. No living person anyway.”

This time, Rory actually laughed and to Karen, it sounded like genuine amusement, which didn’t please her.

“Are you hearing yourself?” Rory asked. “‘No living person.’” He laughed again. “I have to keep reminding myself you’re a writer.”

“What does that mean?” she asked.

He shrugged. “You have an over-active imagination? That’s what Sean always said.”

Karen didn’t like where this was going. Not one bit. She rose to her feet and the dog abruptly stood up with her, on alert. “Sean said that? What else did he say?”

Rory shifted his weight uncomfortably, then lifted his chin. “He said that he sometimes worried about your… stability.”

“Is that so?” Karen couldn’t keep the anger out of her voice now. “My stability?”

“He said you’ve always been anti-social and he thought it wasn’t good for you. That you spent way too much time in your head and had forgotten how to be with people. How to relate to other humans.”