Chapter 12

Hours can pass in a brittle haze, where they break apart easily to scatter time across the floor. We try to navigate the broken pieces, but this only elongates the day, as each splinter becomes an hour of its own.

Edmund kept to his room, pacing its small length, wading through the fractured moments until the wooden boards protested beneath his feet. Every time he paused, he sensed the faint echo of warmth in his chest, as if a hand had pressed there from the inside and the sensation was refusing to go. He tried to ignore it. He tried to drown it out with coffee, and even attempted tea, but neither washed away the sickly flavour. He listened to the soft murmur of the radio, not loud enough to hear the words or songs distinctly, but enough to add a disjointed noise to the room. But the warmth was, somehow, louder. He tried anything that felt normal because, as overrated as normal normality was, it should be enough to quash the feelings inside of him.

None of it worked.

By late afternoon, the pressure behind his ribs had grown into something else. A tension had built, pounding like a second heartbeat. He felt neither pain nor fear. No, this was worse.

It was comforting.

He stood by the window, watching the village beyond. It moved with its usual slow, weary rhythm, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that every person who passed was glancing towards the forest, even if only in their minds.

A knock startled him. It was sharp. Measured.

Not the landlord.

He hesitated before opening the door. He’d been wondering how Mrs Kettering had known he was in the forest and, more so, how she managed to rescue him unscathed. Anyone visiting uninvited, which would be everyone, might hold the secrets he could smell beneath the surface of the village, without being able to grab onto them.

A man stood in the corridor. Tall and thin, his skin as pale as frostbite. His clothes hung on him like garments stolen from a washing line. They were ill fitting and slightly too loose, forgetful of how they should hang on a body. His hair, once dark perhaps, had faded to an ashen grey that clung to his scalp in case an errant breeze might dislodge it.

But it was his eyes that chilled Edmund.

They were narrow. Empty. His irises were the colour of daffodils seen through a dirty window.

An old song lyric came to mind, probably misremembered, though he would never be able to remember the actual song for confirmation.

Switchblade eyes in a dead face.

“Edmund,” the man said softly, a slight smile draping his lips.

Edmund’s own eyes narrowed. He contemplated shutting the door and ending any interaction with the man. He wanted to be left alone, and the very presence of a visitor was disturbing. Unfortunately, he was too polite.

“Do I know you?”

The man’s mouth twitched, the smile increasing for a second.

“Everyone knows everyone here.”

That didn’t answer the question. Everyone else might know everyone else. He had yet to reach that point, and had no particular desire to. He should leave, in fact. His car was still waiting outside. It would be so easy to just climb in, start the engine and drive away. The world was still waiting for him out there, and he would have to face it at some point, anyway.

He knew he wouldn’t, though. Not yet, at least. He knew why, too.

“Can I help you?”

“You shouldn’t be alone,” the man said. His lips became a narrow slit, a mirror to his eyes. “It’s dangerous.”

He stepped closer, hovering at the doorway.

Edmund stepped back. It wasn’t an invitation to enter. It was a recoiling.

“Who are you?” Edmund asked. “What do you want? Can’t you just leave me be?”

The man blinked slowly, as though so many questions were too much at once and required translation, or time to filter in.

“I was Terry.”

Shit.

Was?

“Terry? The landlord’s friend?”

The man, Terry, tilted his head in a motion that was too smooth and deliberate.

“He worries. They all do. They don’t understand.”

“Understand what?” Edmund asked.

Terry looked along the corridor and down the stairs – checking for witnesses? – then back at Edmund.

“How quiet it is. In there.”

Edmund felt the calm flicker, sharp and sweet, in his chest. Reawakening. He shook his head, as if such a motion could prevent its growth.

Terry took another step forward, entering the room.

“You’ve felt it,” he said, quietly. No volume was needed. Edmund could feel the words before they were spoken. They were truth. “The stillness. The softening. The hunger, from it and from you.”

Edmund swallowed hard. He wanted to evict the man, but the thought of touching him to push him back made his fingertips feel like they needed to retreat into his palms.

“What do you want?”

Terry’s eyes glistened as tears seemed to froth in the corners. He moved, suddenly, from sly to pitiful.

“I want you to stop fighting.”

Edmund’s body shook and he reached for the edge of the door for support.

“You need to leave. I need you to leave, now.”

“Why?” Terry asked. “You called me.”

Edmund’s hand gripped the door tighter, his knuckles white.

“No. I didn’t. I… wouldn’t. I don’t know you.”

“You did,” Terry whispered. “Last night. You said you were ready.”

“I didn’t say…” Edmund shook his head violently.

“In your dream,” Terry said simply, his smile returning. “We hear dreams’ release.”

Edmund was done. He tried to close the door. Terry’s hand shot out, slamming against the wood with unnatural speed, preventing its closure.

“Don’t,” he whispered, though it had the force of a command.

Edmund didn’t respond, but didn’t move, either. The word had locked him in position. Terry leaned in, his voice dropping further.

“It’s already begun. The forest has claimed you.”

Edmund could feel his heartbeat pound throughout his entire body.

“You don’t know that. How can you?”

Terry’s smile widened. It wasn’t warm or kind or sympathetic. It was, instead, shaped by someone who had forgotten what either meant.

“I do. I can feel it. It’s a thread between you and the roots.”

He touched his own chest lightly. Edmund could feel the contact in the same spot.

“It starts here. Then it spreads. And it’s…”

Edmund shoved the door harder, not wanting to know. This time, it moved. Terry’s hand slid off the wood. His expression twitched between confusion and disappointment.

“You’ll come back,” he murmured. “They all do.”

“Get away from my door.”

Terry nodded slowly, acknowledging the inevitability, then he turned and walked down the corridor. Each step was smooth and silent.

He disappeared around the corner.

Edmund slammed the door shut and locked it. His breath came in frantic, staccato bursts. His hands shook. He backed away from the door until his calves hit the edge of the bed, then dropped to the mattress. He sat, trembling.

A faint knock echoed.

It wasn’t at his door, nor was it anywhere in the building. It came from inside his chest.

Thump.

Thump.

Like something knocking from the inside, and not his heart. He clutched his shirt.

“No,” he whispered. “No, no…”

Another knock, and beneath it, that calm again, warm and inviting.

Calling him.

Edmund curled forward, pressing both hands over his chest, as if he could smother the sensation.

“Stop,” he begged. “Stop.“

It didn’t. It demanded an answer. It was patient and it was certain.

Like the forest.

Like the man who once was Terry.

Like something that now knew his name.

And wasn’t going to let go.