Gina Ranalli - House of Fallen Trees

A dervish of pine needles, dead leaves, and small branches whipped past them and they both raised their hands to shield their eyes, but not before they saw what was out there.

Trees.

So many trees had encroached upon the house, effectively surrounding them, close enough to touch, snuggled right up to the porch. A wall of trees, impossibly close to each other, in a way they could never have survived in nature, their branches and roots entwined with each other so it was impossible to tell which of the low hanging branches belonged to which tree.

Wind pounded them back from the doorway, still spewing all manner of debris at them and, squinting against the assault, she clearly saw something moving out there, winding its way around the trunks of the pines, barely able to squeeze past them. A flash of red moving forward, towards them, towards the porch, the open door.

Barking hysterically, the dog bolted up the steps, over the threshold and past them. Karen and Saul, once they realized what it was, barely gave the animal a passing glance, too entranced by the trees.

The front door slammed closed, Rory panting with the effort, shoving his shoulder against it and then all was still again.

The three of them stood looking around at the mess all over the floor and on the furniture.

“It’s not the house that doesn’t want us to leave,” Rory said. “It’s the forest.”

Karen pulled strands of hair out of her mouth. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that.”

The men looked at her.

“Why would an entire forest be angry at us?” she explained. “You said yourself that that dog has lived in the woods for how long? A year? Two years? How could that be possible if the forest was haunted or pissed off or whatever the hell you think it is?”

“What then?” Saul asked.

“I don’t know. The house itself? Maybe its energy is strong enough to control the woods around us.”

“I thought we agreed the house was only making us see things that aren’t real.” She shook her head, unable to answer. She had to admit she was just grasping at straws and had no idea what she was talking about. It was the writer in her trying to come up with a motive for something she knew nothing about. Addressing Rory, she asked, “What do you know about Frank Storm?”

For the first time since she’d met him, Rory looked guilty of something. “Only what I’ve managed to dig up on the guy since I bought this place, which isn’t much. I’ve already told Saul most of it.”

“So?” she asked. “What? Was he a murderer or anything like that?”

“No!” Rory actually sounded offended at the idea. “He was just a sailor. He had a family. A wife and a daughter. This was after his sailing days. He built this house to look as much like a ship as he could, missing his sailing days I guess. This was before any of the rest of the town was erected. He was one of the forefathers.”

Saul, having heard all this before, focused on looking out the front portholes, his face ashen, presumably at the sight of all those trees crowding up against the house.

“Go on,” Karen said.

Shaking his head, clearly not seeing the point in getting into all this ancient history, Rory said, “Apparently, the girl got sick and died. Something called typhus. Supposedly it shouldn’t have killed her, but since they were out here in the middle of nowhere, they couldn’t get the kid to a doctor. It just got worse and worse. And apparently, it was during a terrible wind storm.” He said this last sentence slowly, as if he was really listening to himself instead of just relating a story he’d told a dozen times before. He cleared his throat nervously before adding, “I’ve researched typhus a little. The article said it was caused by lice and…uh…fleas and another name for it was ‘Ship Fever’.”

Karen’s jaw dropped and Saul spun away from the window. “You never told me that.”

Rory shrugged. “I guess I didn’t think anything of it. Once they realized the kid was so sick, storm or no storm, she was probably gonna die. There was no place to take her. There was no town at all. The closest place was Indigo Bend.”

“What happened after that?” Karen asked.

“His wife died of the same thing a couple months later. That’s pretty much all I know.”

“He must have been devastated.”

“Probably. What difference does it make?”

“I don’t know,” she admitted. For whatever reason though, the story made her less embarrassed about the horrible things she’d seen in Rory’s office and she told them about seeing Sean and about the little girl who’d sprouted branches from her shoulders.

The two men gaped at her. “You should have told us this before,” Saul said.

She went over and sat on the couch, rubbing her face with her hands. Her voice was muffled when she spoke. “I still wasn’t convinced it was the house. I mean, I thought it was partly the house, but mostly I figured I was just losing my mind.”

Rory stared at Saul, his eyes traveling up and down the other man’s scratched arms. “Typhus must cause itching.”

Saul looked down at himself, the color draining from his face. “You think that’s what I have?”

By now Karen had dropped her hands, watching them as they stood by the front door. There was something tickling at the corners of her mind, some answer not quite within reach yet.

The coffins in the basement.

The fleas. Saul’s mysterious all-over itch. The little girl.

Sean.

“What happened to Storm?” she asked suddenly. “After his wife died, I mean.”

Rory didn’t seem particularly eager to answer the question but did nonetheless. “He killed himself in the basement.”

“Really.” It was a statement, not a question. Karen chewed her lower lip, thinking hard. Finally, she asked, “How do you know the wife really had typhus?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, how do you know ? They were out here all alone. Could he have killed her?”

He gave her a mildly disgusted look. “Why the fuck would he have done that?”

She shrugged. “Happens all the time. Some men would rather kill their wives than have them leave.”

“I’m pretty sure she just got sick and died,” Rory said.

“Hmm.”

“Jesus. This isn’t one of your books, Karen. Not everything is a diabolical murder mystery.”

“I don’t write mysteries,” she said absently. But there was a mystery here, some answer, a puzzle piece that continued to elude her.

“Maybe we should have a séance,” Rory suggested sarcastically. “Then you can talk to the Captain yourself and ask him if he killed his wife.”

Karen’s eyes narrowed to slits. She wished he would stop talking for a minute so she could think. If she had been writing this story…then what? What would the characters’ motives be? What would be the theme? Something more than death or even an afterlife? From somewhere in the house, the dog began barking again. All three of them looked towards the sound, which was coming from the back. Probably the kitchen.

More pine needles and twigs began rolling along the floor, pushed by a wind also coming from that direction.

“Shit,” Rory said. “The back door must have blown open.”

The three of them ran in that direction and as soon as they hit the kitchen, sure enough, the door was open to the storm. Dusty stood under the table, barking wildly, peeking out from between the legs of the chairs.

Smart dog, Karen thought as Rory started to close the door, his blond hair being blown off his face, the tails of his shirt flapping loosely. Outside, someone screamed and this time, Karen knew it wasn’t just the house playing tricks on them. The trio all looked at each other, shocked and amazed.