“Tomorrow morning,” I promised. “We’ll cut one down and start decorating.”
* * *
“Just remember, the farther we go out looking for a tree,” Samuel grunted as we trudged through the snowbanks, “the farther we have to pull it back.”
We’d had to all but drag him from the house. He’d woken in a grumpy mood, sour and snapping at everyone. Dark circles smudged his eyes, and I wondered if he was coming down with a cold.
Sadie paid no attention, her gaze fixed in the distance as she searched for the perfect tree. She pulled along a sled, ready to bring our prize home.
“What about that one?” Merry asked. She’d lingered back from the group as if taking Samuel’s words to heart. She hated using snowshoes.
Samuel looked at the one she pointed to. Shaking his head, he followed after Sadie’s exuberant steps. “Too tall.”
“This one?” I asked, gesturing to a smaller tree. It didn’t look like it would be too heavy if all four of us helped.
“Too small!” Sadie giggled at her rhyme.
We shuffled on through the snow, Merry muttering behind us as the tips of her snowshoes crossed and she toppled over once again.
“That one!” Sadie exclaimed, pointing deep into the woods.
Situated among the underbrush, the tree’s branches were thick and lush with verdant needles. It was just the right height and almost perfectly symmetrical. A shaft of weak gray sunlight struck it just so, as if even the sky knew this tree was special.
“Isn’t it beautiful?” Sadie asked with a hushed, reverent tone.
“It’s lovely,” Merry agreed.
“It would fill the sitting room perfectly.” I envisioned it swagged with strands of red string and popcorn. We could even use old scrap paper to make snowflakes.
“No,” Samuel said, putting an end to the magical moment.
Sadie’s head snapped toward him. “What? Why not? Abigail thinks it’s pretty too!”
“Then she can wander out and get it,” he grumbled. “It’s beyond the Bells. I’m not going that deep into the forest for a tree, when there are others that will do just as fine.”
“But that’s our tree! That’s the one we want,” Sadie said, pawing at him.
“I said no,” he replied with a sudden harshness, using the firm tone to mask the quaver undercutting his words. It only took a glance at his face to understand what was going on.
Sam wasn’t sick.
He was terrified of stepping foot into the woods again.
Sweat beaded his upper lip, and his skin was pale with a sickly sheen. He breathed out of his mouth, almost panting, his pupils shrunk to tiny pinpricks.
Our days were so often spent bustling about, tending to the animals, keeping the house clean, ourselves clothed, and our larders stocked. I didn’t mean to ignore Sam’s trauma, but it was easy to forget what he’d been through, with other concerns piling up around us. But it was clear to me now, as I studied his trembling form, that he wasn’t as fine as I’d assumed he was.
Dark shadows limned his eyes—was he not sleeping through the nights?—and his frame seemed so much less than it used to be.
“Why don’t I take the hatchet?” I offered, wanting to spare him embarrassment. “I…I’ve never gotten to cut down the Christmas tree before—Papa always does it. It might be fun.”
“We should find another—”
“Just give me the axe, Sam,” I said, holding out my hand. “You all wait back here, until the tree is cut, all right?”
Merry nodded. Sadie handed me the sled’s rope. Samuel remained motionless, eyes fixed on the pines as though an army of monsters were there, lurking in the shadows.
When I turned, there were eyes.
Dozens of them.
Round and full, with enormous irises, staring wide, staring at me, all-knowing and unblinking, a horde of eldritch creatures come to claim me.
I nearly cried out in surprise and alarm before realizing they were marks on the trees, whorls in the trunks where limbs had fallen off, leaving the impression of human eyes in the wood.
Or almost human, I thought ruefully, staring at one with an uncomfortably malformed pupil.
Were these Sam’s monsters? I wanted to laugh. They were nothing but knots and felled branches.
Then I remembered the blood that had covered him, running like a macabre river down his arms and face, staining his clothes with fetid rust.
Pines and firs had not done that.
So I hesitated at the tree line, giving the moment when my foot first stepped into the woods a strange importance I normally would never have noticed. One moment I was with my family, a part of the Falls, and the next, I belonged to the pines.
It was darker in the woods, the evergreens’ full branches blocking out most of the morning’s light. Quieter too. All the soft background noises I was used to hearing—the wind pushing across the valley, the rustling of the winter wheat, waves slapping on the Greenswold—they were all swallowed up as I crossed the invisible boundary.
The Bells jingled uneasily, each clinking note sharp with discord. There was no melody, no pattern, just noise. Being in the midst of the Bells, I understood why our forefathers had thought the little chimes would hold back strange animals. The pitches grated on my nerves until even I wanted to flee them.
The Christmas tree was farther in than I’d thought. I picked my way through the thick undergrowth, pulling free my skirt as it snagged on thorny brambles. When I finally reached the edge of the Bells, the axe felt heavy in my hand, and a flicker of irritation swept through me as I noticed how weathered the wooden handle was.
Samuel must have left it out on the splitting stump after finishing the last cord of firewood. How many weeks ago had that been? The head was dulled gray, with bits of rust sprinkling the blade. When Papa had left, this hatchet had looked brand-new, the wood oiled, the metal polished and clean.
Anger sparked in my chest, kindling a firestorm of fury, and I suddenly had the sharp and terrible urge to hurl the axe at Sam. I pictured it thwacking into his face, cleaving those smug, thin lips into two jagged halves. I’d never have to see that arrogant, selfish smirk of his again.
God, what a relief that would be.
The shock of the thought startled me, and I nearly dropped the hatchet. What—what was I thinking?
I glanced back at my brother, alarmed he might somehow guess my thoughts. His eyes were worried. He wasn’t fretting over my wicked thoughts but my safety.