When I was younger there was a valley near my house. It was this secret thing; you wouldn’t know it was there, but it was. I didn’t even discover it until I was about fourteen. By then I was old enough to go there on my own, but too young to recognise how dangerous it could be. I remember getting scared once, hearing a man with a loud dog coming my way. I ended up hiding in a tree, if you could believe it.
That’s how I ended up in this situation – hiding.
I grew up the youngest of four. Some like to say that the youngest child gets the most attention. And that is true – you’re the last chance your mum has to make something great. Sometimes it’s nice, the knowledge of everyone before you doing so well. It makes it easier for you to do well simply by not failing. But then there’s the eyes. Everyone else has already done what they needed to do so you’re just there, waiting and watching. I don’t say all of this to evoke pity or sympathy – I only say all of this so that you may understand what happened next.
Whenever I go into that valley, I sit in the tree and hide behind its leaves. Pretending, for a moment, that that is all there is to the world. About three summers ago, I was hiding, pretending, when it happened.
It was late that night, later than I had ever dared to stay in that tree. My family were all scattered away, so there was no one expecting me back home. I was sitting in the crook of the tree, enjoying the peace of not having to rush back. The dense leaves lulled me into a sense of security and the summer air meant that there was barely any sign of chill. So, as the sun began to rest, so did I.
Howling woke me up. I didn’t think much of it, at first. I knew that some of my neighbours had dogs even though I never made any overtures to meet them. I was tempted to close my eyes again, to stay inside my special tree for a little bit longer.
Then came the heat.
Like I said, it was the height of summer. Memories of cold and shivering were distant at best. This was different. This heat was oppressive, trapping me in place as I struggled to breathe. Smoke crept up on me, a wave of it rolling through, confusing all my senses and stopping me in my tracks. Someone had lit a fire. Not just a small collection of twigs, but a roaring bonfire right next to the tree I was in. I wanted to scream and tell them that I was still in there, that someone was going to get hurt if they weren’t careful. But I couldn’t speak. It was like my mouth had been sewn shut.
The light of the bonfire practically forced its way inside my sacred space. Yet the tree itself was so dense I couldn’t make anything out. At first I thought nothing was there, that the howling was a work of my imagination, but then I saw the shadows move.
They were fast, too fast for me to make anything of them. At first I thought it was a man and his dog, skipping around the fire and throwing more branches in a frenzied rush. Then I heard a woman’s laughter, no, a cackle that turned into the rattling sound of a snake. Before I knew it, they were singing. It sounded ancient, old, dark, and definitely not meant for my ears.
The smell of wine started to fill the air. It was sweet, almost sickly so. It was like I was being soaked in it. Soon I was convinced that there were no people there at all, only beasts. Singing in their strange choir of howls and whistles, shouting at the moon, begging for the sun to rise. As the night went on the fire grew taller, the wine seemed to be dancing towards me, the sweet smell of it burning lulled me back to dark sleep.
By the time I awoke it was silent. Eerily so. I was used to birds chirping in the morning, but there was nothing. Climbing from my perch I was convinced none of it had happened, that it had all been a dream. My legs ached in a way that spoke to future days of pain and suffering. I couldn’t stop myself from sniffing the air, trying to capture that scent of sweet wine and smoke.
Back on ground level, it was like the world had stayed exactly the same. The earth was littered with wildflowers and tall grass. Like nothing strange had happened and it had simply been my fault for spending the night in the tree. I had to stop myself from checking for ashes under my feet as I walked away, tempting as it was.
Just before I went to bed, I went up to close my window. It could have been the wind, or even my imagination, but I would swear on my life that just before it clicked shut, I heard a howl.