a magnolia tree in my name. Told me how she felt competitive with Kate because Kate was my “favorite.” I eyed her warily, but then she pulled out a piece of paper from her pocket and sang me a new song, a cappella. She’d written it especially for me. My heart melted a little and I berated myself for being so suspicious.
But my suspicions were back. I knew I should fight the urge to go to the woods, but I needed to see with my own eyes, see that the earth hadn’t been disturbed. I couldn’t lie still, couldn’t sleep after hearing their whispers last night. Had they found something? Had they snooped around the grounds? They had offered to cut up logs from fallen tree trunks and branches and tidy the forest floor. I explained that creatures and other trees thrived on rotting matter, and I made the triplets promise to leave it well alone. That the detritus, the decomposition of leaves, wood, bark and stems was an integral part of the forest’s ecosystem. For the biodiversity of flora and fauna. God forbid the triplets should start raking around.
I hadn’t been near the dreaded spot for over seven months. Too paranoid about those electronic eyes and ears. Didn’t want to be caught with my hand in the cookie jar. They could put spyware just about anywhere. Up close and personal, too. In trees, with infrared cameras, like they do for nature documentaries to spot leopards at night.
I’d played it safe so far. But things were taking an unexpected turn, and I couldn’t control my impulse.
It was just after dawn. An early fog had rolled in, hanging over the bluff, mingling with the salty air. I could taste its whiteness on my tongue. It was only after I’d been walking awhile that I realized I was barefoot. This was the kind of thing that was happening to me lately. Scatty thoughts. Not thinking things through. My mind whirring with too many ideas and problems and solutions, through lack of sleep and bouts of melancholy. Why hadn’t I put shoes on? Especially with my dodgy ankle still playing up.
I padded from the garden towards the woods, crushing the peaty piney earth beneath my feet, twigs scrapping at my heels, poking through the gaps between my toes. Starlings tweeted in pine branches overhead, rattling dewdrops down from above. A dollop of water landed on my nose, and I let it ride down and caught it with the tip of my tongue. Creatures scuttled about in the undergrowth, perhaps hunting for mice or voles, or wondering where they would hibernate this winter.
My ears rang with piercing silence, the silence of my own white noise judging me for the choices I’d made.
I’d done it for love. I did it all for love.
The house. She watched me now with her big, square, glass eyes, wondering what I’d do next as I scampered towards the woods. And then I saw a figure staring at me from inside, peering from the kitchen window: a black, willowy silhouette, still and wary.
It was Jen. I was almost sure.
I couldn’t risk her scrutiny, questions, wondering why I was outside so early. I was not dressed for a hike. An oversight on my part; I should’ve planned ahead.
I made my way back immediately, falling over myself as I stumbled to my room, praying Jen, like the house, had not slipped inside my mind with telepathic powers. Because clever people can do that sometimes. They can hear what you’re thinking. Beautiful, cool Jen. The three of them like a triptych in a modern museum. Their value priceless, their presence unfaltering.
They might be onto me.
Eighteen
Paralyzed with wavering vacillation about what to do next, I scurried back to my room and ran a hot bath. I had nicked my calves on broken sticks outside, and a thorn had poked its way into the hard flesh of my right heel. My ankle throbbed. Had I twisted it again? I doused the bath water with orange blossom oil and submerged myself, wishing I could soothe away my predicament the way I would now soothe away my wound.
After a good ten minutes of soaking myself, I dug at my foot with some tweezers and finally eased the culprit out. A thorn. Just a little black dot, that’s all it was. Amazing how such a tiny thing could throb so badly, impinge your freedom, make you limp. Just like my situation now. A little secret holding me ransom,