Gina Ranalli - House of Fallen Trees

“No,” she said. “But I will anyway.” She closed her eyes, searching for a single grain of courage. A minute ticked by, the wind howling with rage and she said, “I saw Sean.”

Rory stopped his pacing and stared at her.

Quickly, she added, “Not the real Sean, but some…I don’t know…apparition of him I guess.”

“You’re saying you saw his ghost?” Rory asked, unable to keep the skepticism out of his voice.

“I guess. I don’t know. Maybe I saw what the house wanted me to see.”

Rolling his eyes, Rory tossed his hands into the air. “Here we go again.”

Saul said, “You’re not helping anything, Rory.”

“No? Well, that’s probably because I’m not trying to help anything. She’s basically accusing me of killing my partner of five years!”

“She is not!”

“Are you blind? That’s been her purpose all along! She came here already thinking I’d done something to Sean! Why can’t you see that?”

“That’s not true,” Karen said. “But you can believe whatever you want to believe.”

“Oh, you think I want to believe my partner’s sister thinks I’m a fucking murderer? Are you fucking kidding me?”

“She didn’t say that,” Saul said, standing up.

“She may as well have.”

“What the fuck is your problem, man?” Saul asked, stepping closer to Rory, fists clenched.

Karen saw where this was going and spoke up quickly. “I think I want that bath now,” she said. “Saul, would you mind staying in here while I take it?”

It took him a few seconds to stop staring down Rory, but when he did, he said, “Yeah, no problem. I won’t go anywhere.”

Karen got up and went to the bathroom, closing the door and praying those two didn’t start beating the crap out of each other. She ran the tub and stripped out of her damp, urine-smelling clothes, much more comfortable being alone now the lights were back on. But, judging by the sound of the wind, they wouldn’t remain on for much longer, so she had to make her bath a quick one.

With the water running, she couldn’t tell what the guys were saying in the bedroom, but she could hear them talking, which meant they weren’t shouting. That, at least, was a good sign.

She lowered herself into the tub and washed quickly, not wanting to be naked when the electricity failed again. She was in and out in five minutes, not bothering to wash her hair.

Breathing a sigh of relief once she’d toweled off and stepped into her robe, she opened the door just as a tremendous cracking sound came from outside.

Saul, alone in the room now, leapt from the bed, hand held up to her in a stop gesture.

“Tree falling,” he said, head cocked, listening.

What seemed like a long time later, a loud thud shook the house as Karen’s eyes widened in alarm. “Yep,” he said, as if she’d spoken. “Close by too.”

“Fuck,” she said.

He looked at her, vaguely amused. “It happens. We’re in the woods.”

“But why does it have to happen now?”

Saul went to the porthole, looked out. “It’ll be dawn soon. We can try hiking down out of here, but I don’t know.”

“You don’t know what?”

“If it’ll be too dangerous. These winds must be at least sixty miles an hour, which is a pretty serious thing around here. Not to mention, it’s the first wind storm of the season.”

“So?”

“So, that means that a lot of branches will be coming down and, as you just heard, some trees too.”

“I don’t care about that,” she said impatiently. “I just want to get the hell out of here.”

Saul ran a hand over his stubbled cheeks. “You don’t get it. A tree falls on you, you’re dead.”

She scoffed. “I think I can get out of the way of a falling tree, Saul. You think I’d just stand there? Hell, I’ll run the entire way back to the truck if I have to.”

“It’s just not a good idea,” he said.

“And staying here is?”

Evidently thinking this conversation was just going in circles, he changed the subject. “Why don’t you tell me what you saw in Rory’s office?”

She shook her head. “I told you. I saw Sean.”

“You saw Sean?”

“Yes.”

“And what was he doing? Did he speak to you?”

She crossed the room and sat on the bed, pulling her robe tighter around her body. “No, he didn’t say anything.”

“Well, what was happening? What was he doing?”

She wanted to shout at him for badgering her, for forcing her to say things she didn’t want to say, but found she didn’t have the strength for yelling anymore. “I think…I think he was being raped.”

“Raped? By who?”

“By…himself.”

Saul raised his eyebrows. “How does that work?”

“Look, it’s what I saw, okay? Don’t ask me to explain it!”

“Okay, okay. Calm down.” He sat on the bed beside her. “It just doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, that’s all.”

“Does any of this make sense? Saul, in case you haven’t noticed, this is one fucked up house we’re in and I’m starting to wonder if we’re gonna make it out of here alive.”

Taken aback, Saul draped an arm around her shoulders. “Don’t say that. Of course we’re gonna make it out alive.”

Karen made a face, clearly not believing him.

“Unless a tree falls on us, of course,” he joked.

She didn’t laugh. “I want to get out of here.”

“We will. As soon as the sun comes up.”

“You said it would be up soon. Let’s just leave now. We can travel a little ways in the dark and then the sun will be up and we’ll already be halfway there.” The longer she spoke, the more this plan sounded logical to her. “We can take flashlights. We’ll be fine!”

“I think it would probably be better if we just wait. Maybe get a little shuteye first. I know I could use it.”

She felt her heart sink. “For fuck’s sake, Saul. You can sleep when you get home!”

He sighed and it had to be the weariest sound she’d ever heard in her life. “It’s too dangerous,” he said firmly.

She scowled, crossed her arms like a petulant child. “Maybe I’ll just go by myself then.”

“You know I can’t let you do that.”

“You can’t let me do that? I’m sorry — did I miss the part where you’re in charge of what I do and don’t do?”

“I’m not going to keep arguing with you about this, Karen.” As if in agreement with him, a huge gust of wind slammed the house and what could only be a branch — a big one — crashed down on the roof. Karen flinched. Sympathetically, Saul said, “Keep in mind that we’re on the second floor and it sounded that loud. Imagine if we were upstairs.”

“Seems to me we might be safer outside,” she said dryly.

“Sure, until one of those things clocks you in the head. Then you won’t be able to fight with me any more.”

“Wouldn’t that be a shame.”

Karen emerged from the hot shower feeling refreshed and awake. She wrapped a fresh towel around herself and began to wipe condensation off the mirror above the sink with her hand.

The moment her hand came into contact with the glass, it cracked beneath her fingers.

She gasped in surprise and yanked her hand away. Her first thought was that she’d put too much pressure on the old mirror — a thought which she quickly dismissed as being absurd. It wasn’t as if she’d punched the damn thing…

Studying the crack, which ran from the upper left corner of the small mirror to lower right, she raised her hand to touch it again, but even before she made physical contact with it another crack appeared, crisscrossing the first.

“Holy shit.”