The Juniper Tree: 9

(A sample chapter from novella, The Juniper Tree.)

© 2007 asotir.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.

9

It was funny when it happened. I guess I didn’t mind it much.

BJORN HADN’T GONE HOME that lunchtime, even though he meant to. He got in his car and drove out from the mill to the road and stopped and flicked his turn signal to go to the right and home. But when the car pulled onto the road a few moments later, it turned not right but left. It drove up country, into the high woods. There it turned off the main road onto a logging trail and bumped and jostled up the rutted tracks. The tires dug at the clotted mud and splashed it on the sides.

Deep beneath the trees he parked the car. He got out and shut the door. He stood there in his suit and rain coat and looked at the pines that towered overhead. He let his head lean back and his nostrils widened and deepened and drew in the fresh rain-wet smells.

For a few minutes he stood there. His eyes were closed. Little by little his face let go. When he opened his eyes there was something new and peaceful in them. He took off his raincoat and his jacket and tie, he took off his shirt, undershirt, slacks, shoes, socks, underwear. He folded them up neatly and laid them on the back seat of the car.

He stood naked in the breeze. The breeze shook loose some raindrops from the high reaches of the pines and the drops spattered down on the car and on his face and his chest and back. He turned around and took it all in. Birds were singing on every side. He looked down at himself, pale and pink like a hairless hog in the wild. He slapped his belly where the fat was coming, not like the old days when he came here every day, before he bought the mill.

In the car trunk an old gym bag was shoved behind the spare tire. Inside the bag were rolled a heavy woolen shirt, frayed smooth, a knitted undershirt and drawers, and tough old jeans patched at the knee.

He put on the clothes. At the bottom of the bag he found a battered suede jacket and a wool cap. He put them on too and from deeper in the trunk he drew forth a stout logging axe and whetstone. The axe was guarded by a leather case over the axe-head and this too was battered and worn. Bjorn hefted the axe, slammed the trunk shut, and took off up a narrow trail. He strode swiftly with long, ground-eating steps, up and down the hills between the trees.

He came to a grove where several stumps stood in a ring, and the warm, low-falling sunlight slanted down into a hollow in between.

Bjorn walked about the hollow, looking at the trees. He flexed his arms and shoulders. He leaned on a stump and unsnapped the axe cover. He honed the blade while he squinted up at the trees, judging them, measuring them and sighting the angle of their lean.

He left the stump and walked up to one of the trees. He walked all the way around it, staring up at it. He stopped once or twice, looking at it, leaning his head and looking at the angle of the trunk and the bunches of its branches high above.

He finished circling the tree, shook his head, and went to another tree. He repeated the ritual. This one he walked around twice and nodded his head. He took the axe and addressed the trunk. Huge wood chips flew about his feet. He chopped a grinning mouth of wood from the trunk, then went to the other side and with half a dozen brutal strokes cut it through. The tree began to topple and half way down it snapped free of the trunk and crashed into the earth.

 

IN RAYN’S ROOM it was quiet and warm and still. The sea-sounds drifted through the lace curtains in a sleepy murmur. Falco stared at the salmon colored satin sheets, the expensive hosiery, the underthings draped over the back of the chair. Rayn went before him and drew him on.

‘Don’t gawk, silly boy, come on.’

Against the far corner, under a silk chemise and some pairs of lace briefs, peeked the black corners of the Trunk. The Trunk was heavy oak with painted panels and iron corners. It was as tall as he was.

She guided his hand to the latch.

‘Go on – touch it.’

‘It’s heavy—’

Rayn’s fingers slipped from his. Her hand lifted the lid.

‘There. Doesn’t it smell pretty? The fragrance is very rare, very expensive. My Mommie had it imported from Turkey. Careful!’

He held up his hand. Across two fingers a cut was bleeding.

‘You must be careful what you touch, little sir, the lid is deadly sharp. Go on, you can look. Rayn says.’

He reached in and pulled out a green glass bottle.

‘What’s in here?’

‘No, put that away, that’s not for you. You want an apple. Go on, they’re in that bag at the back, take any one you like.’

 

OUTSIDE on the other side of the house, a car drove down the gravel through the woods. The car parked under the wooden hanging sign with the painted gull’s feather for White Quill. Mr Anders stepped out.

‘Bjorn? Anybody home?’ he called.

He walked up to the door. His shoes crunched on the gravel. He stepped onto the threshold and rang the bell.

 

FALCO drew back out of the dark heady mystery of Rayn’s Trunk.

‘The doorbell—’

She shuddered with impatience. ‘Oh, just a salesman, have your apple first.’ She smiled and her warm hand pressed against his neck, bringing him closer.

He looked back inside. He stood on tiptoes and craned his neck over the lip of the chest. He glanced back up to her.

At the last second her face lost its smile. It crumpled up with hatred.

She took the lid of the chest with both hands and slammed it down with all her strength.

Bang!

 

THE SOUND of the lid slamming home echoed in the room like a thunderclap. In its wake a dreamy, cool quiet followed. Rayn leaned back and closed her eyes and sighed. The voices were quiet. At last they were still. Then she felt something touch against her calf and she looked back down.

The body jerked and twitched between her legs. It went on twitching. She had to press down on it to make it stop.

‘Shhh,’ she whispered. ‘Shhh.’

She watched with a look of intense satisfaction as she held her hands up to her face, sniffing at the blood dripping from her fingers.

 

OUTSIDE, Mr Anders stepped back from the door out onto the drive and looked up at the house.

‘Hey! Anybody home?’

The shout reached around the house and stole in through the lace curtains.

Rayn stiffened and Falco’s body slipped down off her lap onto the floor, spouting blood.

Rayn pressed against the wall. Again the voice reached her and she knew it.

She shook her head and whispered, ‘Go away, go away you damned busybody lawyer!’

Mr Anders walked around back of the house. He found Greta holding one of Falco’s bird-women cutouts.

‘Hello, Greta.’

‘Hello.’

‘Is Papa home? Or Mama?’

Rayn listened to their voices through the window where the cold air poured toward her. She reached out toward the body but her fingers wouldn’t touch it now and she shrank against the wall.

‘You smirking little brat, is this how you get your revenge?’

Greta shook her head. She showed the man the bird-woman.

He smiled. ‘Yes, I see. Very good. Well, when Papa comes home, will you give him these? It’s important.’

Greta took the papers and looked at them. Mr Anders patted her head, clicked his briefcase shut, and walked back around to his car.

He got into the car and drove away.

 

GRETA ran around the lawn. She flew the bird-woman in her hand the way she had seen Falco do it.

‘Greta! Gooseling, where are you?’

Greta stopped. Her Mama’s voice came calling again, a terrible croak failing to sound normal and bright:

‘Greta! Come inside, now, will you please?’

Greta thought about that.

‘Come in!’

‘All right.’

She went up the porch steps and dropped the bird and papers outside the door.

Inside she found Falco sitting in the Morris chair for the Thanksgiving King. He held a spiced apple in his hand and he wore a red ribbon tied around his throat.

‘Falco, can I have a bite of your apple?’

‘Greta! Come into the kitchen, will you, goose?’

Greta went into the kitchen.

Her Mama was bent over the counter, slicing apples in a pie. She didn’t look back.

‘What’s wrong, Gooseling?’

‘Brother has an apple and I asked him for a piece, but he wouldn’t answer me.’

‘Oh?’ Still Mama wouldn’t look round. Still her voice sounded awful. ‘Well now. I tell you what. Ask him again, and if he doesn’t answer this time, if he doesn’t answer … you just reach up and give his nose a great big pinch, that will show him. You’ll see, it’s a funny game. My brothers and I played it all the time.’

‘Okay.’

Greta walked back into the great-room.

She walked closer and closer to Falco on the chair.

She stopped.

‘Falco, give me some of your apple?’

But Falco still wouldn’t answer. Greta grinned and gave his nose a great big pinch.

And Falco’s head twisted all around on his neck and tumbled forward on the floor and rolled a little and stopped.

Greta froze. It was as if icicles grew up and down in her legs and her arms and into her heart.

Falco’s head stared up at her from the floor.

 

IN THE KITCHEN Rayn stabbed three vents in the pie.

‘Mama! Mama!’

‘Yes, darling?’

Rayn wiped her hands and went out into the great-room.

Greta tackled Rayn’s apron and buried her face in it.

‘Goose, what’s the matter?’

‘I did what you said – and his head – his head—’

‘Well, never mind that, what are we going to do when Papa gets home?’

‘Falco – I didn’t mean it – I didn’t—’

‘That won’t matter to the police, Greta. If they find out, do you know what they’ll do? They’ll lock you up in a dark jail cell for the rest of your life.’

‘No… Please, Mama…’

‘Well now. Maybe I have an idea.’

Mama pulled the body off the chair and started to drag it across the floor.

‘Greta, get the head, will you dear?’

 

IN THE HIGH WOODS, Bjorn buried the axe blade in the fallen trunk and paused. His face was bathed in sweat. He took off the jacket and wiped his shirt sleeve across his brow and eyes. Down the slope behind the hollow he found a stream and he leaned out on a rock in the shallows on his belly. He ducked his face under and drank like an animal, so that when he lifted his head back out his beard and hair hung from his head streaming water, and he shook his head so the water flew, and he roared with laughter.

He hiked back to the hollow, sized up another tree, and attacked it. Midway through he stripped his shirt and undershirt, and his naked upper torso gleamed with sweat, bristling with short reddish hair all over his shoulders chest and arms.

He chopped down nine trees that day. When at last night fell he had to give over and lay back against the car, holding the axe before him in trembling arms, gasping, spitting cotton, sweat pouring down his chest.

 

THE SAME DARKNESS fell on White Quill, and the horror rested for a spell. Greta sat in the front window-seat. She swung her legs and clutched her stuffed dinosaur Boney tight against her tummy.

Her Mama had bathed her and washed out her hair. She had sprinkled perfume over her. She had combed out her hair and tied it with ribbons, and dressed her in her prettiest dress with clean underwear and brand-new white socks and her shiny shoes. But under the perfume Greta still smelled the smell of Falco’s blood.

She wrung her hands and leaned down to kiss Boney.

But her eyes never left the window. She stared out the window, and her legs kicked faster, faster. At last the lights shone through the trees.

‘Mama, Papa’s here!’

‘All right, goose, I’m coming. Go to table and take your place.’

Greta jumped down and ran to the dining table. She climbed into her chair with Boney in her lap.

She started swinging her legs again.

Papa entered and dropped his case on the chair by the back door. He looked funny. He wasn’t wearing his clothes like always. Instead he wore clothes like one of the men from his work. And his hair was bristly and ragged and wild.

‘Darling, I’m home!’ His voice boomed in the hall and Greta jumped.

Mama gave him a drink just like always. Greta squirmed in her chair and kicked her legs.

‘Huh! What’s that smell?’

‘Oh, new cleansers. “Mighty powerful – as seen on TV!” Come eat, I made something special, and Greta helped.’ Mama giggled.

‘Did Arne come by? He said he’d drop off some papers.’

‘Your lawyer? I didn’t see him.’

She went into the kitchen. Papa sat down and tucked in his napkin.

‘Greta, are you crying? What happened? Isn’t Falco eating tonight?’

Mama emerged from the kitchen with the soup-vat. Something scratched at the back door and Greta snapped her head round at it.

‘Oh, it’s Tang-Tang. Goose, be a dear and let him in.’

Greta climbed down out of her chair and went to the back door. Tang-Tang came in with the cardboard bird-woman in his jaws. Behind him the papers fluttered in the wind. Greta watched them fly.

Behind her she heard Mama say,

‘The truth is, Falco is spending the night at a friend’s house. You don’t mind?’

‘No, of course not. I didn’t know he had any friends. He’ll be back for Thanksgiving, won’t he?’

Greta walked back to the table. Mama was holding out the ladle with a pot-holder under it to catch any drippings, and Papa was leaning over it to taste the soup.

‘Well now, I would hope so. It wouldn’t be Thanksgiving without our little sir, would it?’

Greta climbed back into her chair. She stared at Papa, and his face bending in above the ladle, and his lips sipping the soup.

Greta was staring with all her eyes. Her mouth was hanging open. She couldn’t believe it. Mama smiled at her and winked.

Papa leaned back and cleared his throat. It came out like a growl.

‘Oh!’ he said. ‘My that’s tasty!’

His beard sprouted out all shaggy and wild. It covered his chest down to the table. Mama filled his bowl and he hunched forward over it. His face hung over the bowl and the steam and savor from the soup, the horrible soup, wavered before his eyes and left little droplets on his huge rough eyebrows. His hair hung down his brow and covered the rest of his head, only at the sides in back the tufts of his ears popped up, brown and quivering. He brought the soup spoon up before his lips and opened his mouth wide, like a barrel filled with great jagged teeth. Greta could see deep into his mouth all the way to the back, where fleshy folds, red and raw, trembled greedily. Then the hairy lips swallowed the end of the spoon and the mouth vanished behind the beard. The big paw tugged on the little spoon-handle. The unseen mouth tugged back and the bristles flexed. When the bowl of the spoon broke free, it made sucking sounds like when Greta pulled her bootie out of some mud that wouldn’t let go.

‘Ahhhh.’ The huge thing growled in satisfaction. Then the shoulders bunched and the paw came down again, and another brimming spoonful went into the cavernous mouth.

‘More, give me more!’ His fingers, dirty and rough with long nails like claws, tore hunks out of the bread and stuffed them into his mouth. His spoon scraped the bottom of his bowl and he held it up for more. He burped, burrr-aowp! and sniffed and snuffed over the soup. He set down the bowl again and started shoving spoonfuls into his mouth.

‘Like it?’ asked Mama.

‘Delicious, extraordinary! Can I have a larger bowl? I’m ravenous tonight.’

‘Of course.’

Rayn started filling him a huge bowl.

‘I hear the ham-bones, didn’t you strain it yet? Well, Tang-Tang, you’ll have a treat tonight too!’

Greta looked away. But she still heard her Papa say in his big happy voice, ‘Umf! I’m still hungry, Rayn, may I have another bowl?’

‘Darling, you can eat all the soup yourself, Greta and I don’t mind, it will mean more room for pie for us.’

‘You can have the pie, but this soup is mine, I simply must eat it all!’

Greta looked back.

Papa had grown more monstrous. He growled and tore his bread apart. At last he lifted the huge bowl above his face and poured the soup into his dark gaping maw, and the soup streamed like blood down his beard. He shook the glasses and the table. He wiped his beard with his sleeve, belched again and laughed, loudly, for no reason. From under the table Tang-Tang growled. The thing in Papa’s chair banged its paws on the table and growled back even louder, until Tang-Tang whimpered and curled up under Greta’s chair. Bjorn barked a laugh, reached deep into his bowl and scattered the bones under the table.

Greta watched Tang-Tang stretch out his neck toward them. She slid down and pushed the dog’s muzzle back.

She put Boney in her chair and gathered up the bones.

Above the table she heard Papa say, ‘Is that all? What a meal! I’m stuffed, just stuffed.’

Greta squeezed out from under the table.

‘Greta! Gooseling! Where are you off to?’

But Greta ran across the room. The back door loomed in front of her and she opened it and dashed out.

 

SHE FELL to her knees beneath the Juniper Tree. She laid the napkin open. A little pile bones huddled in it, and that was all that was left of Falco.

The Juniper Tree stood against the dark sky. From its branches came the song of a bird.

‘I’m sorry, Falco. But I’ll put you back. I’ll put you back with your mother.’

She scratched a hole by the grave. She wiped her nose, leaving dirt-tracks. Her party dress was getting dirty too.

She pushed the bones in the napkin into the hole and filled it in with dirt. All the while she whispered his name.

‘Falco, Falco, Falco…’

 

THAT NIGHT as always the Juniper Tree stood guard between the Beak and White Quill.

The dinner table was strewn with plates and vessels of food and the great-room was empty. There was a pale flash through the window and far-off thunder from outside. A pallid shape moved from behind the Morris chair. Tang-Tang lumbered to the picture window and stood looking out, wagging his tail.

The lightning burned on Tang-Tang’s face at the window. He bared his teeth and growled.

The rain poured on the muddy patch, and a stream of muddy water flowed out of the grave, with dark threads of something mixed in it. It was blood, and the stream ran past the juniper roots and out over a notch down the stone face of the cliff.

Up in her room Greta lay in her crib, crying in the dark. Lightning flashed. She couldn’t sleep. Then she slept but woke up from a dream.

She climbed out of her crib, out the door, down the stairs and out the door.

She toddled across the lawn in the rain to the Juniper Tree. She stood looking up at it. She was trying to remember the dream she had before she woke up. Then she found a tiny black birdie in the branch. His wing was caught.

Greta freed his wing and soothed his feathers.

‘There, Falco,’ she said. ‘That’s better.’

She turned and went back to bed.

The Juniper Tree: 8

(A sample chapter from novella, The Juniper Tree.)

© 2007 asotir.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.

8

The part about Rayn and what went on in her head, the Juniper Tree told me later on. I didn’t make it up.

FALCO’S DREAD was well founded. Something in Rayn had indeed changed. She didn’t turn into something else. She turned more into herself, and that was the worst thing that could have happened for Falco’s sake.

Rayn lived on the brink of an abyss. All her life it seemed she walked there. On one side was the kind of life most people have, the kind they call ‘good’ or ‘safe.’ On the other side was the abyss like a drop into something deep and dark and awful. So why didn’t she just turn toward the safe side and get back from the brink? Maybe because over the brink, down in the dark, she could hear voices. The voices were always whispering to her and telling her to do stuff. Mostly they told her, ‘Come down here! This is what you want!’ That sort of thing.

A long time ago something happened to her. She never thought about it now but it was always there. The voices that whispered to her out of the deep knew all about what happened but Rayn didn’t know it at all, at least not if you talked to her about it or something. If you asked her she would only tell you that her father was a bad man and her Mommie was a saint, and that she always loved her Mommie and hated her father. She was always saying stuff like that to Bjorn. Hardly a day went by, she didn’t let something drop about how mean her father was, how much she loved her Mommie.

But that wasn’t what the voices knew. Something happened between Rayn and her father, and on account of that her mother died. That’s what the voices told. Rayn’s Mommie got sick and she died, and Rayn’s father was mean, and something was going on between Rayn and her father. But the rest of it, the how and why, depended on the way you wanted to look at it. Rayn had her way and the voices had theirs, and they were always trying to twist her into believing them.

And what came out of it was that Rayn had to make herself pretty so that men who were older got to liking her, so they couldn’t help themselves. She did a good job of it too. But then as soon as they did start to like her, and want her, and need her real bad, she started to not like them any more, if she ever really did like them, but probably it was all an act anyway. She listened to the voices coming from over the edge and if one of the old men had money she went for him more, and she hated him more than ever and did mean things to him and laughed when his heart broke and he started acting crazy. That was what really got her excited, when the men’s hearts broke and they started bawling and begging, and some even threatened her, and they were big men but they never got to go through with any of their big words. That’s what Tang-Tang was for.

Falco used to think it was just him. But Bjorn wasn’t the first one Rayn smiled and winked and wiggled at. Falco couldn’t even guess how many others there were. Hundreds maybe, who knows? But as soon as the mess was about to burst, Rayn got away quick. She had traveled half way around the world and had moved from city to city and from man to man.

And then she sat on a stone over the waves and combed her hair and played with Tang-Tang until Bjorn Hansen laid eyes on her. Right off she had her way with him. She moved into the house and even got him to marry her, and before the voices could drive her on to worse things, she had Greta.

Having Greta made the voices go away. They got quiet and sank down into the darkness like a fire burning low down to the last embers. But a fire lasts longer than the flames. Deep under the ashes the coals stay hot a long time, and if fresh wood comes, the fire will break out all over again.

Having Greta made Rayn think of her Mommie, and she began to act like she was her Mommie all over again, and a good woman, a pure woman, and a saint. But all the same she went on playing her games. She couldn’t help it. It was the only way she knew.

She played Mommie and wifey and went shopping. She walked around the house and the woods, counting the acres, all hers, all hers.

But something else was in her way. There was the dead wife’s child.

In the beginning Rayn didn’t think too much about him, but as time went on she thought about the future, in case something happened to Money Bags. It was a little thought way in the back of her head. The voices whispered really soft and quiet. After all it looked like there was plenty to go around, and plenty of time to get it.

And then she saw the document in the safe. She found the other papers too, about Hodgekiss and the money Hansen owed and the mortgage on the house.

Mr Moneybags, he didn’t have so much to fill his bags anymore.

That was the fresh wood that came piling up on top of the ashes where the hot old coals were waiting.

All that night after she found out, Rayn didn’t sleep a wink. She walked around the house like a ghost. She took off her clothes and went out into the woods naked. It didn’t seem cold to her at all because on the inside she was burning, burning, burning.

She went down the long way at the wood’s end to the shore and swam in the ice cold water, and the waves hissed and sizzled into steam around her where she swam, and the birds flew away, and even the seals and the fish kept away from her.

She left the rocks and climbed back up the path. Steam like fog drifted behind her in the starlight. She must have smelled like incense, all smoky and wild even in the woods.

She slipped back inside the house and went up to her room. She closed the door behind her and locked it. She went into her closet full of all her pretty dresses. She pulled one down and put it on. She tore it off and tried another. She tore that one off too. Nothing could please her. Nothing could make her happy.

Mr Moneybags, he didn’t have so much to fill his bags anymore.

The voices were louder now. She couldn’t hear anything else. Only the voices telling her things. Bad things, terrible things, things nobody should have to hear.

She took a bath in fire-hot water. Not even that could scald her now, not the way she was. She got out after a couple hours and dried herself and oiled herself up with perfume and lotions, all her stuff.

It was like she was trying to keep busy, to keep from hearing what the voices said. But all the while they went on talking. They said things over and over again and they wouldn’t stop. She couldn’t block them out forever. Nobody could.

She combed and brushed her hair. She put on makeup. She made herself beautiful for her birthday. But there was nothing she could do about her eyes. Deep in her eyes there was only murder.

Then dawn came and she went about her day.

 

IT WAS the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. That was the date of that terrible day. The weather made it worse. The weather was clear and dry and uncommonly warm. At the mill, Mary-Louise was stuffing papers into a cardboard box on her desk. Anders appeared at the door.

‘Hello, Arne. Bjorn’s out.’

‘Leaving, Mary-Louise?’

‘I have a sister in South Bend. I think I’ll get away from this part of the country for a few lifetimes.’

‘When Bjorn comes in, would you—’

‘—No. He only left half an hour ago, and I don’t think he’ll be back today. You better tell him yourself, Arne.’

‘All right. I know it’s been hard on you.’

‘Arne – you’ll probably find him at home, if it’s that important. I can’t imagine where else he’d go. What have you got, anyway?’

‘The bankruptcy papers.’

‘Go to his home.’

 

IN WHITE QUILL Rayn was opening her Trunk. It was early afternoon and the children had come home from school early for the holiday. Rayn had settled down a bit but the fury and fire that had blazed through her hadn’t wholly gone. Her face was still pinched and mad and ugly. She pulled out old photographs of her father and mother, bundles of letters, and spiced cured apples. She scattered them across the floor. She paced about the room. She heard the voices everywhere. She heard them in the floor boards and the lamp and the bedclothes and the closet. She heard them through the window. She stood before the window and pressed her hands against the glass.

Through the glass far below she watched the little boy playing on the lawn.

‘Mama, can I have a goodie?’

Rayn started. She whirled about.

Greta was standing in the doorway trailing one of her dinosaur dolls. Rayn frowned. She squatted down and began gathering back the things she had scattered on the floor. And the voices went on chattering.

‘I’m sorry, gooseling, what did you say?’

‘Can I have a goodie, please?’

‘Oh! Of course you can, come to Mommie’s Trunk.’ She led Greta to the Trunk but she never looked away from the boy playing out in the lawn.

‘Oh, yes!’ Greta clapped her hands and leaned against the Trunk. It was taller than she was. She raised her arms and pushed up against the lid. ‘It’s too heavy,’ she said.

‘What did you say, gooseling? I couldn’t hear, it’s so loud in here.’ Rayn’s eyes ran across the ceiling. It seemed so low to her, pressing down, the spackles in the plaster shaping little mouths that grinned and whispered.

‘It’s heavy, Mama.’

‘Of course it is.’ Rayn knelt before the Trunk and raised the lid.

Greta went up on tiptoes and tried to look inside. ‘Mmm, smells so good,’ she said.

Rayn reached into the Trunk. Inside were bottles and sachets and lacy naughty things and boxes wrapped and tied with ribbons and bows. There were chocolates and hard candies lurking in the underthings.

‘What shall I give you, what shall you have,’ Rayn asked. Greta answered but Rayn shook her head. ‘I’m sorry, darling, I can’t hear you,’ she said. She shook her head and frowned. ‘Why must you all talk at once? No, I can’t do that. What can I do? What must I do?’ She kept muttering and asking questions of that sort.

Greta looked up at her mother. She let go of the Trunk and stepped back. ‘Mama, don’t scare me,’ she said.

‘Should it be this? No, this? Or… Ah! An apple, gooseling, wouldn’t you like an apple?’

Rayn drew out a dried spiced apple and held it under her daughter’s nose. Greta closed her eyes and breathed in the wonderful odors of cinnamon and cardamom and cloves and sugar dripping with molasses.

‘Oh, Mama, how nice.’ Greta held the apple up and stared at it.

Rayn was putting the apples back in their bag. She had to use both hands. She bumped against the Trunk and the lid swung down and caught one apple on the edge – bang!

Greta jumped and Rayn started.

‘I’m sorry, gooseling.’ She shook her head and squeezed her temple. ‘What was it you said?’

She was staring at a bit of apple that lay on the floor. The lid of the Trunk had sliced it in half as clean as a butcher’s cleaver.

‘I said, doesn’t brother get one?’

Rayn lifted the lid. She slid her thumb along the edge. It was so sharp. In all the years she had possessed the Trunk she had believed she had wormed her way deep into its every secret. Here was a new one, like an unknown continent. She let it fall again. Bang!

Greta tugged on her mother’s blouse. ‘Mama,’ she said.

Rayn twisted her torso and her head swiveled about on her neck and glared down on her daughter. The look in those eyes made Greta’s hair stand up.

‘Mama – don’t!’

Rayn snatched the apple out of Greta’s hands.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘brother gets one too. You asked for it. Whatever happens now, you asked for it, little goose. Go call him up and he shall pick one out, whichever one he wants.’

‘But, Mama, my apple.’

‘Brother eats first. What are you waiting for, silly goose, go fetch him, now!’

 

GRETA went out on the lawn. Falco was playing under the Juniper Tree with his cardboard birds.

‘Falco, what are you doing?’

‘Flying.’ Falco lifted a cutout pasted with a model’s face over its head.

Greta looked back up at the house. The window to her Mama’s room was open now. Through it came a sound like bang.

‘What was that sound?’ asked Falco.

‘What sound?’ Greta asked.

‘That. It sounds bad…’

Rayn’s head showed in the window.

‘Little sir! Come inside, I need you now.’

He looked at his birds.

‘I’ll look after them, Falco. Go on up, Mama has a treat for you.’

He went to the house. Greta watched him go. She picked up one of the bird-women and thought of the cinnamon smell.

 

FALCO went up the stairs. He felt a sort of pressure growing with every step. It got harder and harder to push through. At last he struggled to the top.

Rayn stood in the doorway to her room. The light from outside shone all around her body. She was so pretty. She beamed down on him.

‘Are you hungry, little sir?’

‘No.’ Something made him say that. Something warned him. Not hard enough!

‘Wouldn’t you like a snack?’

‘No.’

‘Are you cross with me, little sir? Don’t be cross, I couldn’t bear it.’ She lowered herself, leaning against the doorjamb. Her face was sad and her red lips pouted. She beckoned him closer. ‘You want me to like you, don’t you? Don’t you want me to like you?’

He nodded. He’d never understand her. Was the war over, then? She bent forward and kissed him on the mouth.

‘All right, then. Would you like one of my apples? A special apple all the way from Norway? Yes? Come on!’

She began to lead him in.

He pulled back.

‘I’m not supposed to go in there.’

‘Who said?’

‘You said.’

She smiled and leaned down so close that her hair with its rich smoky scent brushed across his face and her red lips kissed his ear and whispered, so softly, ‘Well now. If I said it, I can unsay it.’

She pulled back and smiled but there were red tears in her eyes now. She took him by the hand.

‘Come, Falco.’

She took him deep inside.

The Juniper Tree: 7

(A sample chapter from novella, The Juniper Tree.)

© 2007 asotir.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.

7

It only got worse after that. Whenever you try to fix things they get worse. But nothing ever gets better by itself.

FALCO DIDN’T go back inside the house that night. He slept on the sand beneath the Juniper Tree. When morning came Rayn came unlocked the door and let him in without a word. Falco made his way upstairs to his room.

That Monday Dad went to work and Rayn fed Falco and Greta breakfast. Falco’s oatmeal didn’t taste right, though. He didn’t want to eat it, but Rayn pinched the back of his neck with one hand and with the other she took her big wooden spoon and scooped up a glop of oatmeal and shoved it into his mouth. Half of it went onto his face. He barely had a chance to gulp before she smushed another big glop in between his teeth. After that he was ready to eat it and he tried telling her, but she just went on shoving it in until he was almost choking and he fell out of the chair.

She laughed. ‘Well now little sir, how clumsy! And what a dirty smelly thing you are! Go outside now until the bus comes to take you to school.’

It was a cold morning. More storms were coming, blowing down off the water from far away where Rayn came from. Falco wished she’d go back there. But he didn’t really want her to go. He just wanted her to be nice to him.

A wind tossed the branches of the Juniper Tree. Greta was playing with Giorgio. She was putting dandelions in the curls behind his ears.

Falco don’t know why but that made him mad. He grabbed Giorgio away from Greta.

‘Don’t you play with him! He’s mine! Mine!’

‘Falco, don’t!’

He pushed her to the ground and dragged Giorgio away under the Juniper Tree.

Greta got up and brushed off her skirt. She started to cry. She ran back to the house.

He watched her go out of the corner of his eye. He pulled hard on Giorgio’s neck.

‘Didn’t I tell you? Didn’t I? So don’t start crying now!’

Rayn was watching through the window. At first Falco was scared she was going to come out and have to slap him. But she just went on watching him bending over Giorgio’s neck and hugging him.

He went to school. In the afternoon he came back. He stayed outside as long as he could but it started raining real hard so even under the Juniper Tree got wet. Dad came home and hollered for him, and he had to go back inside.

Inside there were decorations everywhere. Over the hall was a string of paper cut into a sign:

HAPPY BIRTHDAY RAYN!

Falco made it. He cut the pages out of magazines to make the letters. He did it at school so it’d be a surprise. She took it from him and said, in a cold damp little voice,

‘Thank you little sir.’

But it was like murder in her eyes. She was changed into her prettiest dress after cooking all day. The front of the dress was low and showed off her breasts underneath the web of diamonds. She smelled prettier than anything and her face and her lips were made up like a beautiful mask. But it was murder in her eyes and Falco knew it was all over now. She would hate him forever now. It was like war now and he didn’t even know why.

He excused himself and went upstairs. He hung over the rail and looked back down.

Dad sat her down in the Morris chair and carried in a big birthday cake, candles burning, and he and Greta sang Happy Birthday to Rayn.

Greta wore a party hat and laughed and clapped, but Rayn covered with presents in her throne only smiled a cold smile.

‘Now blow and make a wish.’

Falco wanted to go hide in his Mother’s room. He tried the door but it was still locked. He stared at it.

He looked downstairs. He heard the echoes of the party from below. Even from upstairs he could smell the cake and ice cream.

Rayn blew hard into the fire and all the candles died. Greta and Bjorn cheered and clapped.

‘And what did you wish for?’

‘You’ll learn later, little boy. If it comes true.’

‘I’ll drink to that.’

He downed his drink and went to the bottom of the stairs.

‘Where is the boy? Falco! Come down if you want cake!’

‘Oh, let him be, Bjorn. The boy simply has to learn that not everything will go his way. That is a lesson we all must learn.’

‘Falco! Falco!’

Falco trudged down the stairs.

‘At last! What’s the matter with you? You’d think you didn’t want cake at all.’

Rayn got up. ‘Well now I know it’s not proper to have the meal after the dessert, but now that our precious little sir has arrived, I’ll bring out your special treat for you, and I made it even though my grocery allowance has been cut.’

Rayn went into the kitchen and brought back out a fresh roasted lamb.

The head of the lamb lay on the server alongside the meat, and it had two dandelions tucked behind its ears. It was Giorgio, slaughtered and roasted for Rayn’s birthday feast.

 

GRETA’S eyes popped out.

‘There now, what do you say to that, are you all hungry? Who’s first to taste the meat?’

Falco tried to say something, but he couldn’t.

Rayn looked on him with her sweetest smile.

‘And what part of the carcass would the little sir like?’

He felt sick to his stomach. He ran out the terrace doors. Greta went after him.

‘Falco! Come back! Rayn, that was a nasty trick!’

‘Oh, Bjorn, don’t bother, the child will get over it. We all have to make sacrifices, Bjorn, you told me so yourself. Didn’t you?’

 

GRETA found Falco on the edge of the cliff. He was throwing stones into the sea.

‘Falco! Falco, I’m sorry, I’m sorry!’

He didn’t say a word. He didn’t cry one tear. It was war now. The murder-eyes told him so. He threw another rock.

‘That was a horrid thing to do to Giorgio, he was such a good lamb, I know you loved him very much.’

He turned to her ready to punch her, but Greta hugged him before he could do anything, squeezing as hard as her chubby little arms could hold. After that he couldn’t stand it any more and he sobbed and bawled.

‘It’s all right, Falco, It’s all right.’

‘Greta, I’m sorry I was mean to you.’

He took Greta to the Juniper Tree and sat her down on the roots. She shook her head.

‘No, I’m not allowed here, this is your place.’

‘From now on you’re allowed.’

They sat together on the Beak.

The sea birds soared and gathered on the Juniper Tree. Greta sniffled and sobbed and lay still. Falco smoothed her hair and petted her the way he petted Giorgio. His tears had stopped a long time since. He just sat quiet and looked out to sea.

But in his heart he was thinking, That’s Rayn’s birthday and mine comes next. It will happen before then.

What would happen?

The Juniper Tree: 6

(A sample chapter from novella, The Juniper Tree.)

© 2007 asotir.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.

6

I knew I had done something, something awful. I knew that since I was born.

RAYN WAS WAITING for them when they reached White Quill. The white dog warned her and she stood in the sidelight by the front door and watched the long black car glide up to a halt in the drive.

She watched the faces of the man and his ugly child. They didn’t get out right away. The man sat with his hands on the wheel. For awhile the little boy didn’t look at his father. At last he turned to the man, but the man was just staring straight ahead, not talking or moving. He didn’t look mad or sorry, but something had made a rift between those two.

Finally the boy opened his door and went around the house into the woods.

Rayn smiled to herself and walked out to the car.

She opened the door and whispered to Bjorn. She knew the boy could see them through the trees and this gave the moment an extra piquancy of delight.

‘Bjorn! Bjorn!’

Bjorn didn’t answer. She let her wrist trace in the air in front of his face, and his nose wrinkled, smelling her scent, and he looked into her face. There was a lost look in his eyes. He looked like he was younger even than the boy. He whispered back,

‘Rayn…’

She took his beard and kissed him on the mouth. She did it so as to make sure the boy could see her tongue twisting in his father’s mouth like a coiling snake.

‘Don’t talk now, you know you never have to talk with me.’

She slid inside the car and straddled his lap and squirmed around. She did it all quite expertly even though the man’s rolling eyes and lolling tongue disgusted her as it always had.

In the middle of it her head twisted all around on her neck and her eyes caught the little boy crouched behind a tree watching them. Her eyes glared red at him and he ran. He ran through the trees all the way to the cliff and the Juniper Tree.

The child’s pet lamb butted him and he clutched and hugged him. Rayn tried to draw Bjorn’s eyes away but he saw, and she felt his body wilting and she hated him for that weakness.

‘I was mean to Falco,’ said Bjorn.

‘He hates me,’ Rayn said in a little-girl voice, the one she used when she was strongest.

‘Rayn! Falco doesn’t hate you.’

‘He does. He hates me. But it’s all right. It doesn’t matter.’

‘I ought to make it up to him.’

‘He’s got to learn sometime. My Father always lied to me. Mr Money Bags. Do you like this?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Good. Close your eyes then, and let the little sir grow big his own way.’

She leaned in over him and blinded him with her breasts. From the corner of her eye she watched the boy get up and lean into the Juniper Tree and look out at the waves. ‘That’s right,’ she said softly, ‘be that way.’

‘What was that, dear?’

‘Never mind,’ she answered. She stopped any more of his questions with her mouth and tongue.

 

AFTER AWHILE they were done in the car. When she got out, Rayn had to pull down and smooth out her dress. She helped Dad with his pants. They went around the stone path and in through the glass doors. Dad called to him, but Falco buried his face in the grass and Giorgio’s side until they were in the kitchen.

Rayn struck a match and lit a hurricane lamp. Bjorn stood behind her in the doorway.

‘Power failure?’

‘Well now, I hope not, Mr Hansen.’

She set the lamp down. The orange light fell across the table spread with breads and wine and delicacies.

‘What’s this?’

‘Just a little something for your appetites.’

‘But the children—’

‘I gave Greta her supper hours ago, and packed her off to bed. This is just for us.’

Bjorn lifted Rayn up and laid her across the counter. She stretched and sighed and he went on kissing her. He kissed her throat and down to where her blouse was buttoned. He kissed her wrists and fingers. He kissed her ankles and up to her knees and up higher until he was nosing her skirt over her hips.

Through the window, out in the dark and the rain she could see the boy sitting beside the grave-marker, spying on her as always. The pet lamb huddled against him. But Rayn lay back and closed her eyes and felt the rich man’s mouth on her, and she guided his head silently until she was at last released from tension and care and the sweet, heavy bliss flowed sluggish through her. At least she let him believe that it did.

Later on she heard him go out into the great-room carrying the hurricane lamp and his case. He went to a closet in the back. On the closet floor was where the safe was.

Rayn arose and slipped into the hall. She took a glass of wine and draped his raincoat across her nakedness. She watched him take some papers in a red binder out of his case. He opened the binder and thumbed through the pages. She stepped out into view casually.

He shut the binder and stuffed it into the safe.

‘Aren’t you cold?’ he asked.

‘Come and warm me, Mr Money Bags.’

He crossed to her. Across the room the old ship’s clock struck eight bells, and the dial read midnight.

‘Do you know what day it is?’

‘What day is it, Mr Money Bags?’

‘Your birthday.’

‘Just now?’

‘Um-huh.’

Rayn slid down in his arms.

‘And did Mr Money Bags make lots and lots of money for me today?’

‘Naturally.’

‘Good, I bought three bras today. And a thong teddy. Very bad. Very expensive.’

‘Maybe we should have a sort of budget now. You know, just in case the economy gets worse.’

‘Well now, I’m sure Mr Money Bags needn’t worry over that.’

‘We should start budgeting household expenses – groceries, that sort of thing. You know, Rayn, I have to talk to you about something. It’s about—’

‘What?’

He didn’t answer right away. When he did his voice was changed. ‘Would you like your present now?’

She nodded like a little girl. He led her to the closet. He opened the safe and took out a small wrapped box. Rayn opened it.

‘Bjorn – no! It’s too much.’

She took out of the box a necklace of diamonds strung on a web. He clasped the necklace behind her neck and guided her to the mirror and she let the raincoat hang open and looked at her reflection.

‘Bjorn, now I have everything I ever wanted. If only my Mommie were alive.’

 

OUT IN THE YARD Falco turned away from the window and went back under the Juniper Tree. The rain started again. He looked down over the cliff.

Far below the waves smashed the rocks.

He blinked against the rain. He wasn’t crying. Not really.

That night was a strange one. It was in the wind and the rain. Most of all it was in the boughs of the Juniper Tree. Falco felt it. He walked around the house in the rain all night long. He felt like he was locked out and he’d never get back in. The thought excited him but it frightened him too. The strange rain fell like little tears changing everything it touched. Even the white dog looked like he felt it.

 

INSIDE THE HOUSE Tang-Tang lumbered down to the closet door.

Rayn wrapped herself in the man’s raincoat. He was asleep on the floor. She saw Tang-Tang at the half-open safe.

She went to the safe and started closing it when something caught her eye.

She took out the red binder with the papers assigning Tall Pines to the ugly little boy Falco.

Rayn replaced the binder and closed the safe, softly.

She looked down on her husband asleep on the floor.

Her face was cold and wet.

Upstairs in her crib Greta woke up crying. She must have felt it too.

Rayn took the lamp upstairs with her. She left Bjorn lying on the floor in the dark.

She put the lamp down and held Greta.

‘Mama, Mama!’

‘I’m here, little goose, tell Mama all about it. Was it a belly-ache? Was it a dinosaur?’

‘It was a bird in the Juniper Tree.’

‘Hush now, there’s no cause to fear, the bird wasn’t real.’

She stroked Greta’s hair and kissed her. She rocked her in her arms.

‘I’ll look after you, Greta. I’ll take care of my little goose. Does he think he can rob you, and give everything to that freak because he’s a boy and you’re a girl?’

She began to sing a little lullaby, making up the words as she went along.

‘Mr Money Bags sat on a wall,
Mr Money Bags had a great fall,
and all the King’s horses,
and all the King’s men,
couldn’t put Money Bags together again.’

The Juniper Tree: 5

(A sample chapter from novella, The Juniper Tree.)

© 2007 asotir.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.

5

The week went by and Friday came and Rayn dressed up and made nice to me and touched me a lot. That always meant trouble. Then it was Saturday all over again.

TO FALCO it always seemed the schoolweek flew by and the dark shadow of Friday and Saturday, those terrible two days, loomed closer and closer and swallowed him up before he could peep. And then the horrible Saturday itself came dawning, and though Falco woke early every Saturday, he kept himself close in his room for as long as he could.

In the gray early twilight he watched the Juniper Tree bending in the wind. Under the tree lay his Mother’s grave.

Falco stood on tiptoe on the end of his bed looking out the window at the Juniper Tree and his Mother’s marker. He ducked back inside.

He could hear them downstairs moving around in the kitchen and front hall. His Dad was getting ready to go to work. He was about to leave again and all day long Falco would have to face her.

He went down to the door to his Mother’s room. It was locked. It was always locked. It was locked since forever. He hung over the banister. How was he going to make it through the day?

My birthday is coming. It will happen before then.

What did it mean?

In the downstairs hall Rayn was helping his dad into his raincoat.

‘Did the children sleep all right?’

Falco crept down the stairs. He heard Rayn’s voice singing to his dad.

‘Oh! Greta was an angel as always. But your son wet his bed.’

‘Again? Poor Falco.’

Rayn looked up and caught him watching them.

‘Well now! Spying again?’

‘It’s all right. Falco, did you have some troubles last night?’

He jumped down the stairs at his dad. He hung onto the tails of his raincoat. Don’t go, he wanted to tell him. Don’t leave me alone again. But he couldn’t say that. He could only think of one thing to say and he just blurted it out. ‘Dad, take me to work with you.’

‘The mill’s awfully busy this time of year. You’d be bored in no time.’

He hugged his legs. ‘Please.’ He wouldn’t let him. It was hopeless and he knew it.

His dad’s hand stroked his hair.

‘Well, all right. If you like.’

Falco looked up. He couldn’t believe it.

‘Well, hurry up,’ Dad said, ‘get your things.’

Falco started up the stairs and stopped.

Rayn stood in the door to the kitchen. Watching him. He could tell how mad she was. Why was she mad? Suddenly he thought what might happen when he came back home and he knew he never wanted to come back here again.

He dashed upstairs.

It wasn’t until the car door shut and the seat-belt snapped around him that he could trust that he was going, really going, and that Rayn hadn’t thought up some way to keep him home. She stood on the steps to the front door. She hadn’t said anything at all. Uh-oh, he thought. It was going to be worse than he thought. But the car pulled away and he looked through the back window, craning his head around to watch her staring after them until the trees cut her off and swallowed the whole house.

He turned and lay back in the seat. His dad’s big hand wrenched the gearshift and the car ground up gravel and spit it back and threw them up onto the road.

The trees streaked past the mist.

He stared out the window. They were flying down the hill as fast as a hawk swoops. He looked over to Dad. Dad glanced back at him and smiled.

‘It’s been a long time since I took you to the mill. It’s a little different there now. A sort of a holiday, you could say. But you mustn’t tell Rayn about it, okay?’

‘I can keep secrets.’

‘Good boy.’

He squirmed in the seat. He knew this was going too far but he couldn’t help himself.

‘Dad? I didn’t wet the bed. I didn’t!’

Are you telling me your stepmother was lying?’

‘No … not really. But I didn’t wet the bed.’

‘Young man, tonight you’ll go apologize to her.’

‘But it’s not fair!’

His dad only looked at him then pointed his head at the windshield. Falco shut up. It was hopeless anyway.

They drove up and down the road through the woods. Over the hill and down to the riverside, the trees raced them but the black car always won.

The car roared to a halt and he stepped out and looked about the mill. Dad was right, it wasn’t like it used to be. It looked abandoned.

‘You can go wherever you want. Only remember, it’s our secret, right?’

He watched his dad walk to the office building. He wandered toward the mill buildings.

The doors were open and cavernous and dark. He ventured in.

Inside, he kicked through piles of sawdust. He approached one of the saws, and let his fingers curl around one beak-like steel tooth.

He turned and raced back toward the door.

He slipped into the offices and tiptoed down the hall to the door to Dad’s office. Through the glass walls he could see them.

Mary-Louise stood behind the desk holding a sheaf of papers. Mr Anders the lawyer sat nearby.

Their voices reached Falco from inside.

‘Those the papers?’ his dad asked.

Mary-Louise nodded. Her lips were tight.

‘Let’s see. Don’t look that way. The men will be back Monday after Thanksgiving.’

Mary-Louise looked down through the window to the empty yard.

‘Yes – for two weeks. What then? Another layoff? And another?’

‘Just until things get settled.’

‘Bjorn, you know only one thing will save us. Tall Pines has 10,000 hectares of prime hardwood – over three million board feet. We need that!’

His dad closed his eyes like he was trying to remember something. Falco had heard all about Tall Pines since forever. That was where his dad met his Mother.

 

IT WAS a long time ago. Maybe fifteen whole years. But Tall Pines looked like always. Tall Pines was full of old old trees and birds, and the birds all sang the same song, the song Dad called Ariela’s Song.

When he was a lot younger, his dad used to hike through Tall Pines every chance he got. On that day so long ago, he heard the song and looked up.

On a branch a black bird cocked her head at him.

He took a pencil stub from his ear and jotted a mark down on his surveyor’s map. He paced forward, measuring. He didn’t think anything weird or strange was going to happen. He was just measuring. Then mixed in with the bird song he heard a woman’s voice.

‘Hello,’ it said.

He looked up and saw a young woman with backpack and hiking clothes and short black hair sitting in the tree. And that was the first time he ever set eyes on Ariela, Falco’s Mother.

‘Hello,’ he said back.

He was startled to find someone here.

‘Are you a strip-miner?’ she asked.

‘Logger. What are you doing way—’

He didn’t get to finish. Falco’s Mother jumped down, pulled a spray can out of her pack, and shot paint across his face.

‘Murderer! Tree-killer!’

She darted through the woods. Dad took off after her.

 

MARY-LOUISE cleared her throat.

‘Mr Hansen?’

His dad sighed and opened his eyes. His eyes looked pretty sad. He placed the paper on his desk. Mary-Louise handed him a pen.

‘All I ever wanted to be was a timberman. I remember Grandmother telling me tales about the Wood-Cutter’s Son.’

Falco knew all about the Wood-Cutter’s Son, his dad had told him those stories himself. But that was back when he was little. Dad hadn’t told him any stories in a long time now.

‘Tall Pines will keep us going for six years,’ Mary-Louise said. ‘You’ll have Hodgekiss off your back and some breathing space.’

No, Falco thought. He wanted to hammer on the glass wall with his fists and shout. You can’t cut Tall Pines! You promised!

‘I had a picture book of Paul Bunyan,’ Dad said, ‘and the blue ox.’

‘In six years’ time, the economy will come back. You’ll still own Tall Pines, and we’ll reforest it into modern wood-bearing cropland.’

But Dad told Falco he promised Falco’s Mother that he’d never cut Tall Pines. He swore it on his honor. Otherwise she wouldn’t marry him.

Dad looked at Mr Anders. Mr Anders didn’t say anything. He was as calm and careful as if he was carved out of beech.

Mary-Louise touched Dad on the arm. She was standing close to him. She was almost whispering. ‘You’ve got to. We have no other choice now.’

Dad looked into her eyes. Falco knew his dad wouldn’t say no to her now. Rayn always got what she wanted from him when she stood close to him like that.

Dad nodded, and said, ‘No.’

He pushed the paper away and gave her back the pen.

Falco felt like cheering.

‘Mr Hansen – you can’t refuse.’

‘You did your best, Mary-Louise. We all did. But it couldn’t be done.’

‘It can be done. I have the answer right here. This is the answer!’

‘I made a promise to my wife. I loved her.’

Her face scrunched up. Falco never saw Mary-Louise that mad. ‘You think that makes you special?’

She turned away. She looked like she was about to cry. She walked out the door.

Falco ducked out to the hall when Mary-Louise came out.

He ran down the hall. The doors and walls flew past him. It was like dad told him, when his Mother spray-painted him and he chased her under the trees in Tall Pines.

 

‘WAIT! Wait!’ Dad had called after her.

‘Catch me!’ she shouted back. ‘Ha!’

She dodged, but Dad caught her against a tree and pinned her arms.

‘There! Ha yourself!’

It was beginning to rain, and the paint ran down his face. She broke out laughing.

‘What are you laughing at?’

‘What a mess you are!’

‘You know, I’m not like that.’

‘Like what?’

‘What you said.’

‘Prove it.’

The rain was misting over their faces and hair, and their faces were so close, and he kissed her on the mouth, lightly, just a little peck, he said. Only the kiss didn’t end, and the rain streamed over their faces so there was as much paint on her face as on his and she looked funny too and they both laughed a lot. Everybody laughed a lot back in those days.

 

FALCO ran all the way out the back doors and skidded up in the weeds outside his dad’s offices. He was breathing hard. Dad was still there. He was leaning against the end of the window with his eyes shut. He was probably thinking about Tall Pines again, and Ariela. He wouldn’t ever forget her or his promise. He said so.

Dad cranked the window open and Falco heard what Mr Anders was saying.

‘The only other way,’ Mr Anders said. ‘It might not work.’

Bjorn opened his eyes and turned back. Mr Anders stood up at the end of the long table and shuffled papers like they were playing cards.

‘If Tall Pines is no longer in your possession, it can’t be seized in the court settlement.’

‘So?’

‘Give it away to someone. Someone you trust.’

‘I could leave it to Falco.’

‘How old is your son?’

‘Eight years. Tall Pines really belonged to his mother. We spent our honeymoon there.’

‘We could draw up the papers this afternoon. I must warn you, though.’

‘What?’

‘This mill and Tall Pines are the company’s two principal assets. Hodgekiss would contest the agreement. A court could very easily overturn the deed and give Tall Pines to Hodgekiss anyway.’

‘Then let’s postdate the documents. If I gave the land to Falco the year his mother died, they couldn’t say it was to avoid this bind.’

‘That would be illegal.’

‘Anders. We’ve tried a lot of things to save the mill. Well, maybe we lost. Maybe I have to go back to being a crew chief again, or even just a cutter. I don’t care. But Tall Pines.’

‘Well, but it wouldn’t work. Land grants need to be recorded in the county offices. Still, what you could do is sign over the right to the trees to your son. That way Hodgekiss could claim the land but it would be useless to him. It will make him furious.’

He smiled to himself.

‘His face will turn blue.’

‘Purple!’

‘Steam will blow out of his ears!’

They started laughing.

Falco left and wandered around the millworks. He threw stones out into the river. He chirped at the birds in the trees and tried to match their songs. The hours sped past. It was time to go back before he knew it.

 

THE BLACK CAR shot down the road. Falco watched his dad out of the corner of his eye. He was proud of him. He kept his promise. He couldn’t be all bad. He wanted to say to him, ‘Good Dad,’ or something like that, only he didn’t know how.

He looked out the window into the trees and thought about Tall Pines.

‘Dad, do you remember my Mother?’

‘Of course. You look just like her.’

‘Her room is locked. I tried but I can’t get in.’

His dad looked at him funny. Something went off in the back of his eyes. He was getting mad or something. What did he do now?

‘Why do you have to look just like her? Don’t you know what that does to me? To have to look at you?’

‘Rayn has the keys, but if you asked her—’

‘That room’s been locked up for years, and you know why? You know why she died? She died because of you. You killed her, Falco.’

Falco stared at him. Dad looked serious. He looked like he meant what he said.

They didn’t talk anymore the rest of the way.

The Juniper Tree: 4

(A sample chapter from novella, The Juniper Tree.)

© 2007 asotir.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.

4

Years went by. Nobody killed anybody, nobody died. I got a little sister. They called her Greta. And they were all happy together, the three of them, like cookies and ice-cream. But I didn’t get any.

AFTER BJORN married Rayn, White Quill changed. It didn’t even look the same, though you’d have a hard time saying how. The big bedroom was kept locked and not even Bjorn went in there anymore. He slept with Rayn in the middle bedroom, though the room showed no sign of him and they all called it Rayn’s room. Men came and sealed off the master bath from the big bedroom and opened it to Rayn’s room instead. She had them redo all the fixtures and put in a big red tub. Their daughter Greta slept in the small bedroom across the hall.

That left no place for the boy, so Falco was put in a room in the attic at the top of those twisting narrow stairs. The room held an old dusty washstand, a small iron cot, and cardboard boxes under the bed where Falco kept his clothes.

He made his own toys with bits of cardboard and paper he got out of the garbage. He pulled Rayn’s fashion magazines out of the recycling and looked at the pictures of pretty women. They were all smiling and laughing like Rayn. He pasted their faces onto cardboard bird shapes and hung them on strings. When the wind blew into the window, the birds danced around over his head. He lay on the cot and stared up at the birds and how they flew under the ceiling.

He spent a lot of time in his room. He supposed he did a lot of bad things, because Rayn was always sending him to his room.

If he stood on the end of his cot on the iron foot bar, he could see the back yard through his window. He could see the water and the end of the lawn and the Juniper Tree standing guard at the Beak. Whenever he looked out the window, the Juniper Tree nodded back to say Hello. Falco waved back but he didn’t tell anybody about it. He didn’t tell them much.

The rain fell and the sun shone on the Juniper Tree. Birds sang in his branches. They sang sad songs, lonely and mournful and hurting.

Falco put pictures of birds on the walls when he found them in the magazines. He used to dream about birds sometimes. He dreamed he could fly. But he couldn’t.

Sometimes he cut out pictures of kids in the magazines. He took the pictures into the bathroom with him and he looked at the pictures and then he looked at his face in the mirror over the sink. He was eight years old – he only got to be eight before it happened. He looked at the pictures of the kids, all fat and happy in clothes from the ads. Falco didn’t look like them. But sometimes he found pictures from articles about other countries where there was some disaster or something and everybody died. They had pictures of kids starving and dirty. They were more like him. He couldn’t read the articles too well but he thought they were all about the people who went flying around the world giving those kids food and new houses and clothes and whatever they wanted. He used to wish somebody would fly around here and give him food and clothes and a new house. He knew it wouldn’t happen.

His room was once a cabinet or closet up under the rafters. The cot was tucked under the eaves with just a space between the door and the window. That was okay so long as nobody came in and slapped him or nothing.

He used to save scraps of bread in his pockets. He found a tin pie plate in the attic and he put it on the windowsill with crumbs on it and opened the window. Rayn said it was a dirty habit and Falco was a dirty boy and she was ashamed of him. She told him to shut the window and keep it shut, all sorts of nasty things could come in, but he left it open anyway when he thought she wouldn’t find out.

Sometimes a bird came to picked at the crumbs.

Falco sat on the cot and stared at the bird.

The bird cocked his head. Falco cocked his head.

Downstairs he could hear Rayn singing. That’s why he didn’t want to go down.

Fridays were bad days. Rayn was prettiest on Friday, she laughed a lot and smiled and put on extra perfume and wore naughty things all day. Friday they sent Falco home from school early, and he had to be alone with Rayn all afternoon. But Saturdays were worse.

On Saturday Falco’s dad still went to work all day but there wasn’t any school at all. And all day long Rayn had her eye on him. All the bad things she said he did on Friday just to make her mad, she saved them all for Saturday.

For awhile Falco lay on the floor inside his door and looked down through the rails. From there he could just peek into Rayn’s bedroom.

She was singing and stripping her bed. Rayn did wash on Saturday. Her sheets were hot pink with roses and flames sewn in. Greta was in there too. She was always hanging around. She must have been four then. She was probably playing on the floor with her dinosaur toys. She got all the toys she wanted.

Greta was pretty, but she was chubby on account of they fed her so much. She used to go around all the time in designer dresses even when she was just playing. That was all right with Falco. She was a girl. She was okay, he didn’t have anything against her except she cried so easy. It wouldn’t take anything to start her bawling. Then he usually got a slap and Rayn would pick up Greta and hold her and kiss her over and over. Falco never saw the point in crying. It didn’t get him anywhere.

He listened to Rayn singing. Her voice was something. Back then he was half in love with her. When he heard her singing like that he had to sneak downstairs and hang on the railing so he could spy deeper into her room. He could see her bending over her Trunk, still singing.

‘Would you like a sweet, little goose? A special, special sweet from my Mommie’s Trunk?’

She gave Greta a piece of candy or something from far away. Greta played with it.

‘Did you know you have a rich Daddy? Yes! He’s Mr Money Bags! And because you’re such a pretty girl, he loves you best of all!’

She put the sheets in the basket, plopped Greta on top and carried her downstairs, singing all the way.

Falco ducked back out of sight until it was safe to sneak down after them.

Downstairs the Thanksgiving decorations were already up. Rayn put the basket by the Morris chair. It had a sign on it, the sign they put on it every Thanksgiving:

The
Thanksgiving
King

Greta tried to climb up the chair. Rayn kissed her again.

‘Well now! What a clever girl you are! You know what that is, don’t you? That’s your chair! That’s the chair for the Thanksgiving King! Two weeks to Thanksgiving, and then you’ll get to sit in it, just you and you and you!’

She tumbled Greta back into the basket and carried her out the door.

Out in the sun Rayn hung her sheets on the clotheslines. The wind made the sheets billow like flags or sails or big tongues of fire. Rayn’s dress billowed too, bright like fire.

Falco crept under the porch. It was covered with crossed white laths so they couldn’t see him. He hung on the laths like on bars on a cage and watched them.

When she had the sheets up, Rayn started hanging up her naughty things. Her underthings and such. Greta played in the grass with her dinosaurs. Greta was nuts for dinosaurs. They gave her a set that was all bones of dinosaurs and she tried to snap them together but she never got the shape right and the head usually ended up on the tail or something like that.

When everything was up, Rayn put Greta in the empty basket and took her back inside. Her high heels stabbed the porch boards over Falco’s head. He was thinking about coming out when the porch door creaked open again and she came out with the dog.

Tang-Tang was always growling at Falco and trying to bite him. He had a lot of scars from the white dog. When Tang-Tang bit Falco, Rayn would laugh and give him a dog-cookie and let him lick her face. So when she brought him out, Falco crawled back under the porch as far as he could.

But the white dog went bounding after her. She lured him across the yard, away from the Juniper Tree to the landing on the cliff. Tang-Tang ran on down the steps in front of her, but Rayn paused and looked back at the house and smiled. Falco was at the lath cage then but he pulled back when she looked. He thought she was looking at him. But he must have guessed wrong, because she didn’t come back and scold him, she just skipped down the steps.

After a while it seemed safe so he came out. He went over to the clothesline and looked up at Rayn’s things dancing in the wind. She had the prettiest things and they always smelled like nothing else in the world.

Then he went over to the Juniper Tree.

‘Hello, Juniper Tree,’ he said.

The Juniper Tree bowed to him.

Sometimes Falco tried to look into the Juniper Tree and see what its face looked like. He was sure the tree had a face but he could never make it out. But sometimes he could feel what its face would’ve looked like if he could’ve seen it. Sometimes Falco knew the Juniper Tree was smiling, and sometimes he knew it was frowning, and sometimes it was like it was trying to warn him or something, that kind of a look.

Under the Juniper Tree there was a seat made out of stone. They used to pile logs under it for the fireplace sometimes. His Dad did anyway, Rayn didn’t like it and told him not to, which was funny, because she was always lighting candles and setting fires.

Next to the seat there was a stone that stuck up from the ground a little. On the stone they had carved three words Falco knew by heart:

Ariela
Flew Away

He sat down on the grass and stroked the stone. His dad said his Mother was curled up in the ground underneath that stone like a chick inside its shell.

He could hear Rayn laughing. He got up and went to the landing.

The waves crashed into the rocks on the shore. Rayn was down there playing with Tang-Tang.

She waved a stick in front of Tang-Tang’s face. He tried to bite it but she pulled it away at the last minute so he couldn’t get any. She laughed and talked to him. She used the pretty words she had that Falco never understood. His dad said those were words Rayn learned far away in another country someplace. When she used those words Falco used to feel funny inside. He used to call them Rayn’s magic words.

She threw the stick when Tang-Tang was worked up so much Falco was afraid he was going to bite her, even her. The white dog growled and tore after it. He pulled it out of the water and ran back to her, so proud. Big deal, anybody could’ve done that. But then seagulls came and Rayn said more magic words to Tang-Tang, and he went chasing after the birds.

‘Watch it birds!’ Falco said. They didn’t listen though. They thought they were safe with their wings. But they didn’t know Tang-Tang the way Falco did.

Most of the birds scattered in the air and it looked like they were all going to get away. Then Tang-Tang caught one. His jaw worked on it and Rayn laughed. Tang-Tang dropped the gull on the rocks in front of her bare toes. The gull was bent and its head flopped the wrong way and after that it didn’t move. Rayn clapped her hands and sent the white dog off again. Tang-Tang must have killed six or seven gulls that way. They made a little heap in front of Rayn. Even from the cliff Falco could see the broken feathers and the blood. There was blood on Tang-Tang’s jaws too when Rayn bent down and kissed him and let him lick her face.

He felt kind of sick. He couldn’t stop staring at the dead birds. He wondered if that was what his Mother looked like in the ground beneath the stone.

Rayn and Tang-Tang started back. Tang-Tang romped up the steps with his tail straight up like he was saying, ‘Come on, hurry up!’ Then he raced back down to her and swung around her skirts.

When she reached the Red Step Rayn stopped and looked up and Falco ducked back down so she wouldn’t catch him spying. In a bit he peeked over the grass again. She was on her hands and knees and reaching under the Red Step. He couldn’t make out what she was doing. Tang-Tang poked his big nose in and she pushed him away and said something to him. He bounded up the steps, shaking the whole pile of them. He was almost at the landing when Falco turned and raced back to the house. He crawled under the porch again, barely in time. The white dog stood growling at him through the laths.

Rayn popped up and walked toward the house. She petted the dog, as pretty as ever. How could she do things like kiss Tang-Tang over the dead seagulls and still look so pretty? But she only looked prettier when she did mean things.

She came back to the porch. She was looking right at Falco through the cage. Maybe she wasn’t, because she didn’t say anything. But it sure felt like she did, so he crawled back deeper.

She turned about and sighed out loud. ‘What a wind! I hope none of my things blows away. I would hate to lose anything. They are all so precious to me,’ she said. Then she went in.

Tang-Tang growled at Falco again. He was still wild from playing down on the rocks and Falco could see his teeth all bloody. On his throat two metal disks hung and made a little metal sound when they hit. Tang, tang. Tang, tang. Probably that was why she called him that. Tang, tang was probably the last thing the seagulls ever heard.

‘Tang-Tang? Tang-Tang! Come in here, silly puppy!’

Tang-Tang gave Falco another growl, like, ‘I’ll see you later,’ and went inside.

For a while Falco hung onto the laths and looked out on the sunshine. Rayn’s sheets and things blew on the line. Then one of her things, it hugged her breasts and she called it a camisole, it took off from the line and went flying.

It landed on the grass. It moved a little in the wind, like it was alive.

He couldn’t hear anything in the house. By then Rayn and Greta and Tang-Tang had gone into the kitchen or someplace. Probably she was giving Greta more food. She was always giving her food.

Falco crept across the lawn where the camisole lay fluttering. It was red like it was on fire. He almost picked it up but he wasn’t sure that was okay, to touch it. The wind blew at it again. He followed, and the camisole hopped to the edge of the cliff. Then it blew over.

He lay down on his belly and looked over the cliff.

The camisole was caught on a rock where there was a little dirt and a weed or something was trying to grow out of nothing. It was down a little past the Red Step.

Something pushed Falco from behind. It was Giorgio.

‘Hey, who let you loose?’ Giorgio wasn’t supposed to be off his tether, not ever. Rayn got sore when he got free. But maybe he chewed himself free. He did that sometimes. He butted Falco and Falco petted him. Giorgio smelled like the green things at the wood’s edge that he liked to eat. Falco liked the feel of his wool-coat, it tickled. Giorgio was his friend. He was probably his only friend.

Falco sat on the landing and looked down. The camisole was still hanging onto the rock and the weed.

Giorgio started to go out onto the landing but Falco pulled him back.

‘No, Giorgio, go back, it’s not safe, how many times do I have to tell you, are you dumb or something? The steps are rotten. Dad says. If you go on the steps you’ll fall on the rocks and break your neck. I’m not allowed there either and I’m ten times smarter than you are. Come on.’

He hauled on the lamb’s collar and dragged him back across the lawn. He tied him up again and moved him to another peg in the shade by the woods where the good green stuff grew.

Through the glass doors he thought he saw Rayn looking out. He turned away and petted Giorgio. He acted like nothing was going on. When he looked back she wasn’t there, so maybe he was wrong.

He went back to the landing and stared at her camisole. It fluttered in the breeze, taunting him.

If he lay on his stomach on that step down there, he might be able to reach it. Rayn had gone down and come back up okay. She even had Tang-Tang with her, and the dog was as big as Falco all by himself.

He took a step onto the landing.

The old boards creaked and rocked in the wind. He wanted to step back but Rayn’s words wouldn’t leave his head. I hope none of my things blows away. I would hate to lose anything. They are all so precious to me, she said. If he could get the camisole for her, maybe she’d give him a kiss. Sometimes she did give him a kiss, after all. It wasn’t like she only hit him all the time.

‘What do you think, Juniper Tree? Should I?’

The Juniper Tree bristled in the wind. It didn’t seem too fond of the idea. But Falco had already made up his mind. He was thinking about Rayn.

He went down the steps, one at a time. He was clinging to the rail and being as light as he could. The stairs swung out from the cliff and rocked back. It gave him a kind of sick feeling in his stomach.

The seagulls soared by, crying.

‘No, I can’t fly like you. I don’t have wings.’

But he heard something else in his head. It was like an old song he heard a long time back and forgot, but then it came back:

Sventola, Falco, sventola.

Then he felt lighter and his throat stopped choking so tight. He looked out over the water when he stepped across the Red Step. It was like if he didn’t look at it, the Red Step wouldn’t know he was there.

He lay down on the step. He slid beneath the outer rail. He had to slide out farther. Straight down below the waves smashed the rocks to foam. Some spray blew up on him. It tickled and tasted salty.

He reached but couldn’t get to it. He had to crawl out more. His shirt was pulled out of his belt and the edge of the step scraped his belly-button. He was hanging so far out his legs came up like he was going to blow away. And the steps creaked and swung way out, but his hand moved closer and the camisole wrapped around his hand.

He twisted back onto the step. He clung to it and held the camisole against his face. It was softer than anything. It smelled like her. It smelled like her towels in her bathroom after she took one of her long baths and then she rubbed the towel all over herself up and down and in between.

He went back up. On the way he saw the nut on the Red Step was gone. The bolt was there but the nut that held the iron onto the bolt was missing. The iron bracket bounced up and down on the bolt. Sometimes it bounced so high it lifted clean off. That must have been what Rayn was doing when she knelt down and felt around there. She must have seen that the nut was gone and she was trying to find it to put it back on. That must’ve been what happened.

All the same Falco had a sick feeling in his gut all the way across the lawn and up onto the terrace and into the house. Just as he had figured, Rayn was in the kitchen. He couldn’t see Greta anywhere or the white dog either.

Falco hung around the kitchen door. He felt bashful. He felt like a fool. What was she supposed to do when he gave it to her? He stared at the camisole in his hands. It shone like fire. Maybe he ought to keep it. Maybe he ought to put it inside his pillowcase. But she’d miss it when she went out to take the wash in. She’d miss it now and later she’d find it in his room and call him a thief and then he’d be in it good.

He let go of the door and walked into the kitchen. She was making soup in a vat on the stove. She turned around and saw him and her eyes lit up like she was surprised.

‘Well now.’ That was all she said.

Falco couldn’t say a word. He looked down and away and he pulled the camisole out from behind his back and held it up to her.

‘Did you find this, little sir?’

He nodded.

‘It blew off the line? You chased it and brought it back to me?’

He was looking at her ankles and her legs. He didn’t dare look up to her face. There was laughter in her voice. Was she laughing at him or was she only happy to get the camisole back? Falco couldn’t tell.

He heard her put the spoon and oven glove on the counter. She bent down so that her face came very close to him.

‘What a good little sir you can be sometimes. You may kiss me now.’ That startled him and he looked up. She had her face turned with her cheek toward him.

He leaned forward into the nest of scent that her body breathed out and he let his lips touch her cheek.

Rayn laughed. ‘Well now little sir, what do you call that? Do you call that kissing? What a weakling little man you’ll be! Here, let me show you how the thing is done.’

Then she held his shoulders and kissed him on the mouth. He felt her tongue licking his lips before she let him go.

He stumbled back. His face was on fire. He could hardly breathe.

She stood and let the camisole hang free in her hands. He leaned against the counter. He didn’t know anything anymore. He just stared at her. Then her face changed.

‘But look here,’ she said. She held out the camisole. There was some dirt on it from the cliff.

‘Just how did you know when this fell from the line, little sir? Were you spying again? Or did you come sneaking around to touch my things, my personal and intimate things? Well now, what a naughty boy you are. A dirty boy, a sneak. You are spying all the time, aren’t you? Look at your hands, how filthy and vile. You stained my beautiful cami. I must throw it away now. I must destroy it. I must burn it in hot flames. All because of you.’

She caught his chin and twisted his face back and up and made him look at her.

‘You know what this means, don’t you, little sir?’

He nodded.

‘What does it mean?’

‘It means you have to punish me.’

‘You bring it on yourself, you know. I don’t enjoy doing it. You only get what you deserve, Falco. You only get what you deserve.’

She slapped him and he fell against the stove and his knees gave out and he slid down on the tile.

She helped him up. She took a rag out of her apron.

‘Oh, little sir, why do you make me punish you all the time? Why must you be so bad? Blow.’

He blew his nose into the rag and she sat him on a stool at the counter. She tied a napkin under his chin.

‘Well now, I’ll get you something to warm you up. Would you like some black bean soup?’

He nodded.

‘Say please. Or there’ll be no more food for you today.’

‘Please, Mommie.’

‘Don’t call me mommie, little sir. I’m not your mommie. What is my name?’

‘Rayn.’

‘That’s right, my name is Rayn, and that is what the little sir shall call me.’

She brought the ladle and poured it into the bowl. The steam-cloud swam in his face.

‘Don’t eat it right away, it’s piping hot!’

She went back to the stove.

He dipped his spoon and fork two-fisted into the black soup. Rayn turned back to the counter and her apron brushed against his arm. Her hand tipped the soup bowl and it spilled into his lap. He pushed back from the counter, shouting, and Rayn’s face leaned in above him.

‘Well now little sir, that was a naughty thing to do!’

And somehow the stool tipped and he fell. He got up, wiping at the heavy greasy black on his pants.

‘You spilled it! My, that must burn! Quick, go to the bathroom and wash up!’

He ran away.

In the bathroom he shut the door behind him. He turned on the light and peeled off his T-shirt and fell rolling on the floor kicking his pants off over his sneakers.

Rayn came up outside the door.

‘Little sir, are you all right?’

He heard her put her key in the door and lock it.

He stood quite still at the sound of that click. Now he was locked in the bathroom with his soiled clothes. Already the dark stains of the bean-soup on his pants began to smell rotten and sour.

He waited but Rayn didn’t come back. Once he scratched at the door but she wouldn’t answer.

He sat on the rug and leaned his head against the toilet and stared at the door leaning high above him.

 

IT WAS DARK that night when Bjorn came home. It got dark early those days. The sun fell away like a fire going out in the sea, and then the sky turned red with flames, and then the colors drained out of the clouds and the stars peeped out. Around White Quill the woods were black, as black as though they marked the end of the world. Then lights came shining behind the tree trunks and the tires came crunching up the drive.

The black luxury car pulled up behind the house.

Bjorn came in and set his case on the chair by the door. He was taking off his coat when Rayn slunk up behind him with a fresh drink.

‘Welcome home, Mr Hansen.’

She coiled her arms around and kissed him on the neck, biting his flesh a little with her teeth.

 

AFTER DRINKS, the family sat at table as usual. Bjorn sat at the head, Rayn beside him, and Greta across from them in her high chair. Falco’s chair was empty. Bjorn looked at it and shook his head. Rayn let her fingers tickle the back of his neck.

‘You can’t make him eat, you know.’

‘I don’t know what’s gotten into the boy lately.’

‘He’ll be better come Thanksgiving.’

‘No, he’s always jealous when we don’t make him Thanksgiving King.’

Rayn tied a napkin round Greta’s chin, a black one with green and golden dinosaurs on it. ‘And do you know what these are, my darling?’

‘Di-no-sawers.’

‘Yes! Oh you clever clever girl!’ And she kissed Greta.

Rayn left and came back carrying the soup-vat. She dipped the ladle into the vat and stirred.

‘Oh, is it your black bean soup?’

‘Mind the ham-bones, it’s not strained yet.’

Bjorn frowned at the stairs. ‘Falco! Falco, come down and eat!’

But Falco was locked in the bathroom, sitting in his sneakers and soup-soiled underpants.

Bjorn plucked a bone out of his spoon.

‘Tang-Tang! Tang-Tang!’

Bjorn tossed the ham-bone under the table and the white dog nosed his way in between the chairs.

Greta put her head below the table and watched Tang-Tang gnaw on the bone. Rayn laughed. Her voice was pure as bells.

‘You see, all our babies want their treats.’

She got up and walked to the bathroom door.

 

INSIDE, Falco saw the glass knob rattle against the lock.

His dad’s voice sounded from far away. ‘What is it?’

Rayn’s voice answered, ‘The bathroom door is stuck.’

‘Hang on.’

Falco heard him join Rayn at the bathroom door.

The glass knob turned again. Through the door he heard their voices.

‘It isn’t stuck,’ his dad said. ‘It’s locked.’

‘Well, who would do such a thing?’

‘Falco, are you in there? I’ve just about had enough of your pranks, young man. Now unlock the door and come to supper.’

He looked down at himself. What could he say? He was dirty, naked, shameful. All he wanted to do was get away. High over the tub he looked at the small frosted window. He climbed on the edge of the tub. Too high. He couldn’t reach it.

He heard his dad’s voice again. He sounded mad now. ‘Falco, open this door!’

‘It’s no use, he won’t answer. Another of his tricks. Didn’t I tell you about him?’

Falco knelt inside the tub. He took hold of the shower curtain and started to pull it round.

The rings of the curtain dragged on the shower rod, screeching.

His dad’s voice boomed, ‘We’ll have to get your keys and unlock it if he’s going to pull stunts like this.’

‘Well now, never mind. I can bear to use the washroom upstairs if I have to. It isn’t worth the fuss, I put up with his antics all day long.’

Falco huddled in the tub. He jammed his fingers in his ears and hummed inside and drowned out their voices.

Overhead the high window hung half-open, and through it he could hear birds singing outside. If only he could go out there beyond the glass where the night air stirred and lifted away from the house, out beyond the dark leaves where stars were shining, and the air grew thick with birds’ songs, and higher still where the last leaves fell away the heavens lay wide open, glittering in another place…

 

DEEP IN THE NIGHT Falco woke up. He had fallen asleep in the bathtub and the back of his head hurt. He sat up and rubbed his head. Something was changed but he didn’t know what it was right away. Then he saw.

The bathroom door was open.

A little light spilled from the hall onto the door. There didn’t seem to be anybody out there.

Now he knew what woke him up. He remembered sounds like clink and clunk when the door unlocked and opened. That was what woke him.

He stepped into the hallway. The night was cold on his bare legs. He went to the kitchen. He wasn’t hungry but his mouth was dry. He didn’t dare open the refrigerator door though. The light might bring Tang-Tang. He got a glass and some water from the tap. He drank and drank.

He crept upstairs as softly as he could. The door to Rayn’s bedroom was open. Greta’s nightlight shone across the hall beneath her door.

The narrow steps to the attic creaked when he was halfway up but nobody came out to give him a beating.

He crawled under his blankets and poked his head out the foot. He clung to the iron footbar and looked out the window. Out on the Beak the Juniper Tree stood watch like always.

That was Saturday for Falco. It wasn’t the nicest but it wasn’t the worst either. There was really only one thing about that Saturday that made it stand out. It wasn’t going onto the cliff steps, though that was the first time he ever did it. No, what made that Saturday different was a thought that came into Falco’s head up in his room deep in the night, just before he fell back asleep.

The thought came out of nowhere. He must have dreamed it in the bathtub earlier, and he didn’t know what to make of it. But when he thought it, he shivered.

I’m only eight, he thought. Soon it’ll be my birthday and I’ll be nine. It will happen before then.

The Juniper Tree: 3

(A sample chapter from novella, The Juniper Tree.)

© 2007 asotir.
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.

3

I wasn’t supposed to live. I was supposed to die before I was even born. But she gave me her life instead. I got life and she got death.

SO THE MAN buried his first wife under the Juniper Tree. After that the weather turned foul. The sky grew dark and mad. Cold winds came and it rained and the waves shook the Beak.

The rain poured down on White Quill in the woods. The windows rattled and the slate tiles trembled. The lamb hid under the shed at the end of the porch.

When night came the house stayed dark. There was a little light in the upstairs window where a year before the little witch had leaned into the wind.

Night passed into day and the storms followed one another down the coast out of the arctic seas. The Juniper Tree bore the storms patiently. The old tree had weathered many storms in his long long life. Then late one night the wind gave over a little. The rain lessened. When the brightness came before dawn the clouds were rising and a new wind was pushing the tails of the storm-clouds inland toward the mountains.

The Juniper Tree watched the new day climb out of the woods.

In the woods a redheaded woman walked by in a sea-green dress. A big white red eared dog padded at her side. The woman stopped and looked through the trees at the house. She watched the lonely house. Then she stole back deeper in the woods.

Giorgio poked his head out from under the shed. He started grazing on the grass. The grass was long and thick after the rain. Giorgio didn’t even look up when the man came out of the house and walked past. Bjorn still wore the black suit he wore when he dug the grave. His face was beaten and sad. It looked like he had been out in a storm for a hundred years. Already the laugh lines were ironed away. It was like they were never coming back.

He stood awhile at the grave beneath the Juniper Tree. The grass was growing on it already. Nothing lasts for long.

He walked under the Juniper Tree to the landing over the Beak. It was made out of wood and once it had been painted white, but the paint peeled and faded in the wind and salt. Whitewashed wooden steps went down to the rocks below.

The man climbed down the steps. He held onto the rail and walked gentle and the steps creaked and rocked under his shoes.

The thirteenth step down was painted a rusty red and it was loose. The man bent and reached below the Red Step to the ironwork that held the steps to the rock. He twisted the rusty bolt tight. Then he stepped gingerly past the Red Step and down to the shore.

From the top of the Beak the Juniper Tree could see the rocks and the waves along to the next headland. The waves still crashed big and wild from the storm. The waves were so mad they seemed happy, the way crazy people get. The man walked above the waves’ reach. He stepped from stone to stone around the tide pools.

In one pool the man found a dead seal. Just past it the redheaded woman was sitting on a rock combing her hair. Just then the sun broke through a hole in the clouds. The light shone off the water onto her sea-green dress and made its colors dance like flames.

The white dog came and growled at the man.

‘Tang-Tang! Stop that!’ said the redheaded woman.

The dog hunkered down and showed his teeth.

‘Never mind him. Tang-Tang won’t hurt anyone unless I tell him.’

Bjorn stared at her. She held out the comb.

‘Help me?’

He took the comb like an idiot. He started combing her hair.

‘Hi!’ she said.

‘Hello. I’m Bjorn Hansen.’

‘Very nice to meet you. I’m Raynhild, Raynhild Ingebjorg Borgrim. But everybody calls me Rayn.’

She took back the comb and they shook hands. Rayn jumped down and the dog frisked around her. She taunted him with a stick, hurled the stick away and the dog scrambled after it.

‘Do you live around here?’ she asked.

He waved his hand behind him. ‘The house on the cliff.’

‘Well now. I know that one, it’s pretty. I go to university, I’m an exchange student from Norway, do I talk too fast? – that’s what my friends tell me.’

‘Your English is good.’

‘TV – movies and comic books – Superman – Rock and roll! Anyway, I’ve to do only one year more before graduating. Hotel Management. It’s just a glorified study of cooking, housecleaning, and ass-kissing. I want to run a resort somewhere. Don’t you think that’s a good way to travel?’

‘Where do you want to go?’

‘Well now. Everywhere, really. Someplace hot, someplace snowy, someplace strange. I’ll never go back home, my brothers and sisters are so jealous.’

‘Do you have a lot of them?’

‘Six sisters, three brothers. Litters run big in my breed.’

‘And your parents?’

‘My Mommie’s dead.’

‘I’m sorry.’

‘My Father’s alive, that’s what you should be sorry about. His money keeps him alive. Well now, but how I chatter on! Tell me about yourself. You must be rich to own such a big house?’

‘I make timber. Boards, plywood, that sort of thing.’

‘The mill up the river? Is that yours?’

‘And some timberland up country.’

‘Well! You’re a regular Money Bags! Does it make you happy?’

Bjorn looked out to sea. Rayn teased the dog and watched him.

‘Well now. Did I insult you?’

‘My wife died.’

‘Did you kill her?’

He shook his head. It was like he didn’t really hear what she said. He answered in a faraway voice, ‘I don’t know. I was there. She died. I didn’t do anything…’

‘And you’re alone now?’

‘I have a baby son. At the house.’

‘Well now! And all alone? That’s awful! Come on, we must get you back straight away. Tang-Tang!’

The white dog romped up and they headed back.

He helped her up the wooden steps, up toward the top of the Beak where the Juniper Tree was waiting. She acted scared and made him hold her hand and arms. She leaned against him in the wind and her scarf slapped his face with the scent of her.

When they reached the Red Step he took her by the waist. ‘Careful,’ he told her. ‘It isn’t safe here.’

She curled up in his arms and looked into his face. Her eyes were round and her mouth was open. Her tongue danced over her teeth. ‘Why? What’s the matter?’

‘The bolt under that step isn’t any good. It gets loose all the time. I’d bring a wrench and really screw it down, only it would strip the threads and come out. Here.’

He bent down. She let her legs and hips rub against the side of his face. He reached around her legs and twisted the bolt with his fingers. It went around two turns before it snugged up.

‘That should do it. You go up first, hold the railing, and lean toward the landward side.’

‘No, I’m frightened,’ she said. Her voice was humming like a low fire.

‘You’ll be fine. I’m right here to catch you if anything happens. Only it won’t.’

She sort of wiggled in his arms and took a step up. Then her shoe was on the Red Step, and she rocked back and forth a little, and the whole stairs rocked and shuddered in a sick way like it was about to fall off.

‘Oops,’ she said, and giggled, and pranced up two more steps. She acted like it was an accident. She acted like she was scared. Bjorn looked up at her with the wind flapping her scarf around, and he believed every little thing she wanted him to.

But when she went past the Juniper Tree, she wasn’t acting. She walked by it fast and didn’t look up. She was glad to get onto the terrace, you could tell that much.

Bjorn let her in through the glass doors. Rayn looked around.

‘What good taste your wife must have had. But so big! You ought to have someone look after it while you’re working.’

‘What about you?’

‘Pardon me?’

‘Will you look after us?’

‘Well now! I know just the thing for you, you naughty boy. Let me get you a drink – whiskey, okay?’

Bjorn nodded. He watched her as she walked to the liquor cabinet. He was always watching her. Every move she made was like a show.

‘I knew it – see, I know what you like already.’

She touched her glass against his.

‘Clink-clink. Your health, Mr Hansen.’

‘Skoal.’

They drank some. She had a funny way of drinking. She tilted up the glass and let the drink almost touch her lips. Then she slid out her tongue and lapped at it like a dog. He stared at the way she did it.

‘You haven’t answered me. About staying. And taking care of the place.’

‘But I can’t. I mean, I have my studies.’

‘Take the semester off. I’ll pay whatever you ask.’

‘Money, money, money…’

Bjorn couldn’t stop looking at her. She watched him back. All that time there was a faint sound like mewing from somewhere in the house. At last she looked up and away and arched her eyebrows at him. Then Bjorn came back to himself and heard the crying.

‘That’s him,’ he said. He started toward the stairs but she stepped into his way so he bumped into her. She pressed against him and worked him back and settled him into the dark old Morris chair.

‘You stay. This is woman’s work.’

‘His name’s Falco.’

‘Falco, how pretty!’

Rayn mounted the stairs, and Bjorn watched her from the Morris chair. Her hips rolled as she walked up the steps. At the landing she paused and looked back down at him. She laughed and her teeth flashed fire in the gloom and she went on up where he couldn’t see her any more.

At the second landing the stairs turned again, and a smaller, narrower set of steps led up to the attic. Rayn poked around in the rooms on the second floor. There was a bathroom and three bedrooms, one small, one medium, and one big. The cries came from the big bedroom. She stepped to the doorway and peered in.

‘What a mess!’ she said. She clucked her tongue and opened the windows.

From the cliff where the Juniper Tree stood, her red head showed in the window.

‘It’s better with fresh air, isn’t it, little sir?’

She bent over the crib where the child was lying and kicking his legs and crying.

That was the first time he saw her. He was only a couple months old but he never in his life forgot it. Her face was pretty. Her perfume smelled like a hundred different flowers with oils and herbs and things out of the woods burning, like smoke.

‘I expect you’re hungry, isn’t that it? And starving for affection, poor thing.’

She slapped his face, hard.

For a moment the child stopped; then he started bawling even louder.

Rayn slapped him twice as hard. That shut him up.

‘You will learn, little sir, that children are liked better when they are seen and not heard. And now I will get you your milk, okay?’

Down in the great-room, Bjorn was sitting listening. The house was quiet for a change. He sighed and nursed his drink, until Rayn came down.

‘How did you get him to stop crying?’

‘Oh, we women have our ways.’

She went to the closet and pulled out his raincoat.

‘Now go to work. Don’t come back until tonight. Then we’ll see, Mr Hansen.’

Bjorn wandered out to the black sleek car. He was holding his case and his umbrella and looking up at the house. Then he got in the car and drove off.

In the big bedroom, Falco heard the car go down the driveway. Then he heard the woman’s shoes on the stairs again.

She filled the doorway.

He stared at her. He didn’t dare cry. He didn’t dare breathe.

‘Well now.’ She smiled and gave a little nod.

‘Now, little sir, the house belongs only to you – and me.’

Bjorn never knew what went on between those two the rest of that day. He didn’t really want to know. Falco knew but later on he couldn’t remember. Some things are harder to remember than others. Some things you don’t ever want to remember.

So Bjorn drove off and left them. He drove down the road and through the trees to work. It was a long time since he felt like working. It was a long time since he felt like he was good for anything. Not since Ari died.

He turned off the road by the river and drove down under the sign:

HANSEN LUMBER

From the mill buildings the ripsaws screamed and sang, eating up the logs fed into them and shaving off their bark. The squared beams were carved into planks. The sawdust flew and spilled in heaps.

Bjorn walked across the yard to the office shed. It was small beside the large buildings with the saws, the stacked and drying lumber, the mountains of sawdust where the big trucks came and went.

He entered a long room all of different strains of wood, with a window overlooking the yard.

His assistant Mary-Louise Cartwright and Arne Anders, his lawyer, greeted him.

‘Bjorn! Welcome back!’ said Mary-Louise.

She hugged him. Bjorn didn’t know how to react to that. It wasn’t the way she usually greeted him. He never did figure Mary-Louise out. So he just asked, ‘Why are you in? It’s Saturday. Isn’t it?’

‘There wasn’t much happening at home. And besides, you’re here.’

Bjorn shook Anders’ hand.

‘Are these what you call lawyer’s hours? We still solvent?’

‘Barely. Hodgekiss wants Tall Pines.’

‘We’ve got to cut them,’ said Mary-Louise.

Bjorn stared at her.

Anders handed Bjorn a sheaf of papers. ‘Here. Look at this.’

Bjorn glanced over them. They were all legal documents. A loan to the mill, with terms and conditions. He frowned.

Mary-Louise said, ‘Hodgekiss will give us the loan. But the terms…’

‘I see.’

‘It’ll buy time,’ Anders said. ‘Three years, say? But if you can’t pay it back – and he’s made damn sure you can’t—’

‘—Then I lose. Okay. So what?’

Bjorn took out his pen and slashed his signature across the papers.

Mary-Louise stared. ‘Bjorn! What brought this on?’

‘I don’t know. I feel like I’ve come back to life again.’

He dove into the business. He talked things over with the foreman, he looked over the schedules of deliveries, payments, inventories. He ate at his desk standing up. Most of the day he was in the sawmills. He breathed in pine resin and sawdust. The screams of the saws shook his bones. The hardhat and earmuffs and face shield felt odd to him at first, after so long away. Then when he picked up a sandwich he was surprised to find he still had them on.

It was dark when he left. The saws were quiet and still. The men had all gone home. Mary-Louise he had ordered home only a half an hour ago. He walked across the yard in a light rain and stood beside his car. He looked back over the mill. Then he got into the long black car and drove up to the road. He sat at the end of the drive and for awhile he stared in the rearview mirror at the lighted sign behind him, the sign with his name on it.

When he got home he found everything tidied, picked up, and polished. Jazz played on the stereo. Rayn welcomed him at the door with a drink in her hand. But the look in her eyes did more for him than the whiskey in his belly.

They had dinner by candlelight.

‘Did you find everything you needed?’ he asked.

‘Of course! But what could be more boring than listening to me talk about dusting and cooking! Tell me about the mill.’

‘Well, the mill itself is one thing, but the big problem is feeding it. You see, it’s owning the right timberland that makes for true wealth in this field. What?’

‘Oh! Nothing. You’re so serious about it, all your money, all the things you take to yourself and own. It’s funny, that’s all.’

After dinner he remembered the child. Rayn took him to the big bedroom and they tucked the child in for the night.

‘He won’t stay quiet long,’ Bjorn warned her.

‘Well now! We’ll see about that. Mr Falco and I are reaching an understanding, aren’t we, little sir?’

They closed the door until it was just ajar. They stood out in the hall. Rayn pushed open the door to the small bedroom.

‘I took this old room, I’ll send for my things later – it’s all right, isn’t it, Mr Hansen?’

‘Yes…’

She leaned against the doorjamb, humming. Her eyes were bright.

‘So, you will stay?’

‘If you’ll take me, Mr Hansen.’

‘Don’t call me Mr Hansen, please, you make me feel older than the trees.’

‘All right.’

He didn’t know what he was saying anymore. It all sounded like nonsense in his ears, like something in a language he never learned. He breathed her scent, like wood-smoke. She was smiling at him but he didn’t know if she was saying anything or not. He took her head in his hands and kissed her.

Her glass dropped and ice cubes scattered down the stairs.

‘I’ll get that.’

‘No. Leave it. Leave it, Rayn.’

‘Well now. Mr Hansen. Well now.’

He kissed her again. Or maybe she was kissing him. She was the one who broke it. She leaned back again breathing hard.

‘Whew! One gets so out of breath.’

He nodded. He was breathing hard too.

She looked up at him from the corner of her eye. It was a shy sly smile. It was almost a leer. She tugged on his hand and he came. She drew him into the little room and he went.

Outside in the darkness the Juniper Tree kept guard. Through the high window it could see the little bedroom was dark but in the big bedroom a night light was burning. In the crib, the child kicked his legs and whimpered.

 

THE NEXT DAY was Sunday. The man and the redheaded woman didn’t leave the house. They didn’t get dressed, either. When the darkness came back the redheaded woman turned on all the lights except for the big bedroom upstairs. She didn’t wear much and neither did the man. They went at each other on the couch, on the floor, on the counter in the kitchen, and in the antique Morris chair.

The lights stayed on all night.

Two weeks later, on Wednesday, a hearse drove out of the woods.

Two mill-workers got out, walked to the back and slid out onto the gravel a Trunk. It was made of wood and iron and painted like Danish furniture from hundreds of years ago.

Rayn stepped onto the back porch in a green blouse and tight blue jeans.

‘Oh! It’s here, Bjorn, come and see!’

The man came out. He wore old slacks and a fisherman’s sweater.

The mill-workers waved to him and drove off. The white dog barked and jumped around the chest.

‘What is it?’

‘‘What is it?’ Money Bags says. It’s my Mommie’s Trunk, silly, it’s her chest with all her things in it, her wonderful, special things!’

‘From your father?’

‘It’s all that’s left of her since she died.’

‘See, your father isn’t so bad.’

She crouched down and kissed the Trunk, lots of little pecks.

‘He’s horrible, I hate him. I do.’

‘He sent you the Trunk.’

‘He can afford to. As if he could make a present out of something that belongs to me anyway! And after he practically drove her into her grave.’

‘It looks heavy.’

‘Well now! Will you stop teasing and carry it in – quick, before it gets wet!’

Bjorn hoisted the end of the chest onto his back. He staggered under the weight. He started up to the porch.

And the rain started for real.

Rayn held the door open for him.

‘Wait.’

He went in and Rayn took a turn about the porch, nodding to the dog.

‘Yes! Yes, silly puppy! It’s here! We have it back again!’

Bjorn stepped back out.

‘Now let’s do it properly, shall we, Mrs Hansen?’

‘By all means, Mr Hansen.’

He carried her over the threshold.

That night the redheaded woman went through the Trunk. Bjorn had set it in the middle bedroom and stood in the doorway watching her rummage through her things. Little lace underthings were the first things she pulled out. They filled the atmosphere of the room with their perfumes, smoky and deadly. Bjorn got a little dizzy from their intoxication.

The Juniper Tree shuddered in the wind.

Bjorn stuck his head out the window to the big bedroom and closed the shutters.

He closed the window. Now there was only his shadow crossing the slats in the shutters.

Inside the room, Bjorn stepped over to the crib. When the child saw his face again, he couldn’t help it, he had to whimper a little.

‘Oh, Rayn will see to you, just wait.’

Bjorn carried him in the crib across the room out into the hall.

‘You can’t go on crying forever, Falco.’

He shut the door behind us and locked it. He stood for a moment, looking at the door. Then his hand closed over the key and pushed it deep into his pocket.

‘Good-bye, Ari,’ he said.

He picked up the crib and went up into the attic. Falco swung in the crib, looking back down as the door to his Mother’s room disappeared down the stairs.