Only … only he had never actuallysaid that, I now realized. He’d deflected. Introduced himself, without saying a word.
“So maybe I found the guardian,” I said to the journal entry. “But whatnow
, Grandma? You didn’t tell me what to do after that. I’ve got nothing to go on. How do I retie this bond?”
The journal was silent and unhelpful, of course. Just like my phone. Nobody wanted to be around to help me when I needed it most.
At least I knew what I was going to do next. I had to find Lincoln and corner him. Get him to answer me firmly about whether he was the guardian, and then explain what the hell that meant. Was he just part of some silly religion with my grandmother?
Even as I thought it, I knew that wasn’t the truth. My grandmother had been obsessed with the forest for a reason. Not insanity.
I looked out the window and across the yard at the forest. Watching it. Was Lincoln out there, waiting for me among the mighty trunks? Stalking me, like he had that first time?
A rumble filled the sky and gently rattled the house.
Frowning, I leaned closer to the window to look up at the clear sky, curious where the thunder had come from. No storms were called for.
At that moment, dark clouds boiled up out of nowhere to occlude the sun and bring darkness to the forest. Thick and black, they blocked all the light. The shadows fell over the house as well, and I shied back away from the window, uncertain as the absolute inky pitch black doused any light source.
“Well, that’s not natural.”
Any other words were drowned out as a massive flash of light stabbed down from the sky in a single bolt. I screamed and fell back from the window as the unimaginably loud thunderclap followed, shaking the old house badly enough I heard crashes from within. Some books spilled form the bookcase as well, hitting the floor with heavy thumps.
I hid in a ball until silence reigned and the light returned.
A minute or so later, when nothing absolutely dire happened, I slowly uncurled and got to my feet.
“Oh my god,” I gasped, finally looking out the window.
In the yard where the great oak tree had once stood, now was only a blackened and dead remnant.
Sylvie
I stared for the longest time, waiting for something else to happen, but it never did. The tree just stood there, dead-from alive to gone in a split second. No fire flickered in its core, no ash blew away in the wind.
The tire swing was nowhere to be seen. Stretching out from the tree were long lines of black-scorched grass. The lightning had come from nowhere and struck the one tree not part of the forest. Then it was gone, disappearing back into the clear blue sky as fast as it had come.
I stared at the maze of blackened lines etched into the ground, all leading back to the tree itself.
“That’s some coincidence.”
I searched my gut for any warning signs, any fears of danger, but I got nothing. Was it really a freak accident?
It couldn’t be. The clouds had bathed the house in darkness. It had been so pitch black that I hadn’t been able to see my handin front of my face. For a split second only, perhaps, but I hadn’t imagined it. I wasn’t crazy.
I picked up the journal and looked at the last entry once more, where my grandmother had said that I would think her crazy.
“Was this your way of proving that you aren’t?” I asked the book, looking between it and the window. “Because that was too much, Grandma. Way too much.”
Putting the book down, I headed to the back porch. Still not even so much as a shiver down my spine. No indications of danger. There was no smell of burning in the air, and as I tiptoed across the grass to get closer to the tree, I couldn’t feel any heat either.
The rope from the tire swing was completely and totally gone. The tire itself I spotted twenty feet away, having banged off the side of the shed. It wasn’t melted. Wasn’t even scorched. A bit of rope was still wrapped around it, but most of the line had simply flash-fired into ash.
I stopped short of the tree, staring up at it. The evening sun was now quite warm on my skin. No leaves were left in the tree to provide shade. Only the branches. All of them blackened without being burned. Something had simply robbed the tree of life.
Looking at the ground, I eyed the crazed pattern of burned lines, trying to make sense of it. Was it random, or was there more? My subconscious was telling me there was a pattern in it, but I couldn’t spot it. All I could tell was that it didn’t seem to be as random as it should be. Walking around the tree to the far side, I tried to spot what was setting off a part of my brain, but I couldn’t.
“Was this a sign?” I asked the empty air. “Did you send this, Grandma, to tell me that the past is over, and it’s time to move on? I’m not sure what else I could interpret from that.”
Walking up to the trunk of the old oak, I held my palm out and slowly leaned it in closer. Still no heat. In fact, touching the bark it seemed … cold. Like death should be.
The bark where I had touched the tree abruptly peeled back and fell to the ground.
“What the hell?” I looked into the trunk, only to see that the inside wasn’t dead wood. It was rotted. Decaying. Decomposing in front of my eyes.
Nails clawed at my spine.
Crack!
I scrambled out of the way as one of the mighty branches came plunging down right where I’d stood. Breathing heavily, I stared at the spot I’d been. A branch that size would have killed me. Only the fact I’d started moving early had saved me.
More terrible noises signaled the rest of the tree branches falling off in huge chunks. Bark came with it, peeling down the tree. Rotting debris poured from underneath as it shed layers. Peeling away like the skin of a fruit.
I took another step back. My spine was still tingling. So I took another.
The thickest part of the trunk split apart like a cheese string right down to the core, and my spine lit up with warnings. I raced around the circle of dead oak, making for the house.
Halfway there, the core of the treemoved. Distracted by the horrifying sight, I tripped over a fallen branch and hit the grass hard. So it was as the center of the tree unfurled, shedding the rotting wood like a cocoon, revealing the ebony wood at the center.
Among moresnaps, wood peeled away from the core, like arms and legs. A nail gun ran down my spine, shrieking with warnings of danger and death as a humanoid wooden figure stepped out of the rotting core. Moving toward me.
Its limbs continued to split and braid themselves together until they looked like a child’s hair. Black and shiny. And absolutely not natural.
I had to get out of there. Getting to my feet, I backed away as the tree-thing took an unsteady step toward me. Then another. Each time its movements grew in confidence, the faceless wood showing no emotion or purpose.
The thing extended a hand toward me, and I opened my mouth to scream. Nothing came out. An invisible hand was latched around my neck, squeezing tight.
Bloodbound.
The voice roared in my head, instantly giving me a headache that threatened to split my skull in half. I turned and ran, clawing at the ghostly pressure on my throat.
Bloodbound.
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