(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.
