Devil Tree
by
Sheila Lee Brown
Published by Sheila Lee Brown
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2011 by Sheila Lee Brown
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Devil Tree
“Hey, Mom, it’s like a big hand. Come sit in here with me!”
It was a little girl’s voice that caught Olivia’s attention. She was taking a walk in the park, breathing the fresh air, trying to relax after a particularly stressful day at work. Still a bit on edge, Olivia jumped at the sound, and looked around to find the little girl who had spoken. Instead, she saw a woman standing near a tree, peering through the leafy branches. The woman appeared to be talking to someone. She was smiling.
The little girl’s voice laughed at something the woman said and Olivia finally saw the small figure as she climbed down out of the tree and the two walked away, hand in hand. The laugh had irritated Olivia and she was glad that the little girl and her mother were heading towards the parking lot and leaving.
Olivia took a few steps to continue her walk and found she was drawn to the tree the little girl had been in. She moved close enough to peer through the smaller branches and saw that the trunk split off into five larger branches and did sort of look like gnarled fingers. After all the times she had been in the park, she had never noticed this particular tree before, and had certainly never noticed that it looked like a hand.
Olivia reached through the leaves and touched one of the limbs - what would have been the thumb, she supposed. She envied the little girl’s imagination and hated her for it, too. The little girl had freedom. The little girl didn’t have to go to a job every day that felt like dying over and over again for the past fifteen years. She didn’t have to fudge the numbers at work to make everything show up right for the boss and then keep covering it up. She didn’t have to go home to a lonely apartment every evening and pretend she didn’t care that no one ever called or seemed to want to talk to her.
I’m jealous, Olivia thought. I’m jealous of a little girl!
Olivia found herself getting angry at the little girl and at the same time she longed for the little girl’s innocence and laughter. Olivia looked at the tree and exhaled forcibly. Maybe she should have just gone home. After all, a third party was coming in to her workplace in the morning to audit the books. She should be working on an exit strategy.
Olivia glanced over at the play area where other kids were running around and climbing on the wooden jungle gyms. Her nerves felt strained, which is why she had come here in the first place. The park reminded her of when she was a child and her parents would take her to the playground. It was a fond memory. Both her parents were dead now and she had never made friends easily.
Olivia noticed that the swings were empty. It crossed her mind that it would be fun to go over and swing for a while. She didn’t dare do it, though, for fear of looking silly. She turned back to the tree and sighed again. She thought about the little girl sitting up there in the branches and how no one could see her. With that in mind, Olivia looked around to make sure no one was watching, grabbed the upper limbs, positioned one foot on the trunk and pulled herself up into the tree. She sat in the space where the limbs touched, in what would have been the palm of the hand.
Olivia allowed herself a rare smile. The tree was leafy and she felt a sense of invisibility as she sat there. She took a deep breath as she enjoyed her little sanctuary. She sat for several long, relaxing minutes in quiet before she began to feel slightly uneasy about being a forty year old woman sitting up in a tree. She was about to come down when she heard voices nearby. She didn’t see anyone, but she remained where she was, not wanting to be seen climbing out the tree.
“She’s one of ours all right.” It was a thin, whiny voice. It sounded really close. Olivia looked around. She still could not see anyone.
“I can feel her.” Another deeper, gruffer voice replied. “She’s in our grasp. We ought to take her now.”
Olivia tensed. Her skin tingled in an unpleasant way. She wasn’t sure where the voices were coming from but she began to have an eerie feeling that they were talking about her.
“No. We have to wait.” The whiny voice said. “She will come to us. She is one of ours.”
“But, she has come to us.” The gruff voice said. “Why not take her and be done?” The voice spoke matter-of-factly. “She is almost dead already.”
Olivia found that she couldn’t move. She was still in the tree and the feeling of being in a hand was even more real. The gnarled branches curled around her and she could almost feel them wanting to close in on her.
“See? She knows. Let’s take her now.” The gruff voice said.
“Perhaps you’re right.” The whiny voice said, slowly. “I do not see that she will change.”
Olivia felt the tree branches tightening even more around her. She felt like she was in the grip of something dark and sinister. It crossed her mind that she was sitting in the hand of the Devil and she was about to be pulled down into a fiery doom. She trembled at the thought, and it caused her to jerk into action.
Olivia wrenched herself from the grip of the branches and slipped out of the tree. The limbs pulled at her shirt and hair as she jumped down and ran from the tree as fast as she could. She drove away from the park hurriedly and went home to her empty apartment, hoping she would feel safe there. She tried to convince herself that she had only imagined it all. However, she couldn’t sleep that night. She felt like the dark feeling had followed her, attached itself to her.
I’m not dead yet, she kept whispering to herself: They can’t have me. I’m not dead yet. But, a voice in her head kept asking, “Are you so certain?”
Olivia thought of her life and how the days stretched out dully before her. Deep down she had to admit that perhaps she already one of the living dead. She wondered what she could do about it. She spent the night thinking it over. She was still awake when the sun came up the next morning. She was grateful for the light.