“So?” Conor said. “So would anyone! So would everyone! What did you expect him to do?”
I expected him to give the Apothecary the yew tree when the Apothecary first asked.
This stopped Conor. There were further crashes from the parsonage as another wall fell. “You’d have let yourself be killed?”
I am far more than just one tree, the monster said, but yes, I would have let the yew tree be chopped down. It would have saved the parson’s daughters. And many, many others besides.
“But it would have killed the tree and made him rich!” Conor yelled. “He was evil!”
He was greedy and rude and bitter, but he was still a healer. The parson, though, what was he? He was nothing. Belief is half of all healing. Belief in the cure, belief in the future that awaits. And here was a man who lived on belief, but who sacrificed it at the first challenge, right when he needed it most. He believed selfishly and fearfully. And it took the lives of his daughters.
Conor grew angrier. “You said this was a story without tricks.”
I said this was the story of a man punished for his selfishness. And so it is.
Seething, Conor looked again at the second monster destroying the parsonage. A giant monstrous leg knocked over a staircase with one kick. A giant monstrous arm swung back and demolished the walls to the parson’s bedrooms.
Tell me, Conor O’Malley, the monster behind him asked. Would you like to join in?
“Join in?” Conor said, surprised.
It is most satisfying, I assure you.
The monster stepped forward, joining its second self, and put a giant foot through a settee not unlike Conor’s grandma’s. The monster looked back at Conor, waiting.
What shall I destroy next? it asked, stepping over to the second monster, and in a terrible blurring of the eyes, they merged together, making a single monster who was even bigger.
I await your command, boy, it said.
Conor could feel his breathing growing heavy again. His heart was racing and that feverish feeling had come over him once more. He waited a long moment.
Then he said, “Knock over the fireplace.”
The monster’s fist immediately lashed out and struck the stone hearth from its foundations, the brick chimney tumbling down on top of it in a loud clatter.
Conor’s breath got heavier still, like he was the one doing the destroying.
“Throw away their beds,” he said.
The monster picked up the beds from the two roofless bedrooms and flung them into the air, so hard they seemed to sail nearly to the horizon before crashing to the ground.
“Smash their furniture!” Conor shouted. “Smash everything!”
The monster stomped around the interior of the house, crushing every piece of furniture it could find with satisfying crashes and crunches.
“TEAR THE WHOLE THING DOWN!” Conor roared, and the monster roared in return and pounded at the remaining walls, knocking them to the ground. Conor rushed in to help, picking up a fallen branch and smashing through the windows that hadn’t already been broken.
He was yelling as he did it, so loud he couldn’t hear himself think, disappearing into the frenzy of destruction, just mindlessly smashing and smashing and smashing.
The monster was right. It was very satisfying.
Conor screamed until he was hoarse, smashed until his arms were sore, roared until he was nearly falling down with exhaustion. When he finally stopped, he found the monster watching him quietly from outside the wreckage. Conor panted and leaned on the branch to keep himself balanced.
Now that, said the monster, is how destruction is properly done.
And suddenly they were back in Conor’s grandma’s sitting room.
Conor saw that he had destroyed almost every inch of it.
DESTRUCTION
The settee was shattered into pieces beyond counting. Every wooden leg was broken, the upholstery ripped to shreds, hunks of stuffing strewn across the floor, along with the remains of the clock, flung from the wall and broken to almost unrecognizable bits. So too were the lamps and both small tables that had sat at the ends of the settee, as well as the bookcase under the front window, every book of which was torn from cover to cover. Even the wallpaper had been ripped back in dirty, uneven strips. The only thing left standing was the display cabinet, though its glass doors were smashed and everything inside hurled to the floor.
Conor stood there in shock. He looked down at his hands, which were covered in scratches and blood, his fingernails torn and ragged, aching from the labour.
“Oh, my God,” he whispered.
He turned round to face the monster.
Which was no longer there.
“What did you do?” he shouted into the suddenly too quiet emptiness. He could barely move his feet from all the destroyed rubbish on the floor.
There was no way he could have done all this himself.
No way.
(… was there?)
“Oh, my God,” he said again. “Oh, my God.”
Destruction is very satisfying, he heard, but it was like a voice on the breeze, almost not there at all.
And then he heard his grandma’s car pull into the driveway.
There was nowhere to run. No time to even get out of the back door and go off on his own somehow, somewhere she’d never find him.
But, he thought, not even his father would take him now when he found out what he had done. They’d never allow a boy who could do all this to go and live in a house with a baby–
“Oh, my God,” Conor said again, his heart beating nearly out of his chest.
His grandma put her key in the lock and opened the front door.
In the split second after she came around the corner to the sitting room, still fiddling with her handbag, before she registered where Conor was or what had happened, he saw her face, how tired it was, no news on it, good or bad, just the same old night at the hospital with Conor’s mum, the same old night that was wearing them both so thin.
Then she looked up.
“What the–?” she said, stopping herself by reflex from saying “hell” in front of Conor. She froze, still holding her handbag in mid-air. Only her eyes moved, taking in the destruction of the sitting room in disbelief, almost refusing to see what was really there. Conor couldn’t even hear her breathing.
And then she looked at him, her mouth open, her eyes open wide, too. She saw him standing there in the middle of it, his hands bloodied with his work.
Her mouth closed, but it didn’t close into its usual hard shape. It trembled and shook, as if she was fighting back tears, as if she could barely hold the rest of her face together.
And then she groaned, deep in her chest, her mouth still closed.
It was a sound so painful, Conor could barely keep himself from putting his hands over his ears.
She made it again. And again. And then again until it became a single sound, a single ongoing horrible groan. Her handbag fell to the floor. She put her palms over her mouth as if that was all that would hold back the horrible, groaning, moaning, keening sound flooding out of her.
“Grandma?” Conor said, his voice high and tight with terror.
And then she screamed.
She took away her hands, balling them into fists, opened her mouth wide and screamed. Screamed so loudly Conor did put his hands up to his ears. She wasn’t looking at him, she wasn’t looking at anything, just screaming into the air.
Conor had never been so frightened in all his life. It was like standing at the end of the world, almost like being alive and awake in his nightmare, the screaming, the emptiness–
Then she stepped into the room.
She kicked forward through the rubbish almost as if she didn’t even see it. Conor backed away from her quickly, stumbling over the ruins of the settee. He kept a hand up to protect himself, expecting blows to land any moment–
But she wasn’t coming for him.
She walked right past him, her face
twisted in tears, the moaning spilling out of her again. She went to the display cabinet, the only thing remaining upright in the room.
And she grabbed it by one side–
And pulled on it hard once–
Twice–
And a third time.
Sending it crashing to the floor with a final-sounding crunch.
She gave a last moan and leant forward to put her hands on her knees, her breath coming in ragged gasps.
She didn’t look at Conor, didn’t look at him once as she stood back up and left the room, leaving her handbag where she’d dropped it, going straight up to her bedroom and quietly shutting the door.
Conor stood there for a while, not knowing whether he should move or not.
After what seemed like forever, he went into his grandma’s kitchen to get some empty bin liners. He worked on the mess late into the night, but there was just too much of it. Dawn was breaking by the time he finally gave up.
He climbed the stairs, not even bothering to wash off the dirt and dried blood. As he passed his grandma’s room, he saw from the light under her door that she was still awake.
He could hear her in there, weeping.
INVISIBLE
Conor stood waiting in the schoolyard.
He’d seen Lily earlier. She was with a group of girls who he knew didn’t really like her and who she didn’t really like either, but there she was, standing silently with them while they chatted away. He found himself trying to catch her eye but she never looked over at him.
Almost as if she could no longer see him.
And so he waited by himself, leaning against a stone wall away from the other kids as they squealed and laughed and looked at their phones as if nothing in the world was wrong, as if nothing in the whole entire universe could ever happen to them.
Then he saw them. Harry and Sully and Anton, walking towards him diagonally across the yard, Harry’s eyes on him, unsmiling but alert, his cronies looking happy in anticipation.
Here they came.
Conor felt weak with relief.
– • –
He’d only slept long enough that morning to have the nightmare, as if things hadn’t been bad enough. There he’d been again, with the horror and the falling, with the terrible, terrible thing that happened at the end. He’d woken up screaming. To a day that hardly seemed any better.
When he’d finally worked up the courage to go downstairs, his father was there in his grandma’s kitchen, making breakfast.
His grandma was nowhere to be seen.
“Scrambled?” his father asked, holding up the pan where the eggs were cooking.
Conor nodded, even though he wasn’t remotely hungry, and sat in a chair at the table. His father finished the eggs and put them on some buttered toast he’d also made, setting down two plates, one for Conor, one for himself. They sat and they ate.
The silence grew so heavy, Conor started to have difficulty breathing.
“That’s quite a mess you made,” his father finally said.
Conor continued to eat, taking the smallest bites of egg possible.
“She called me this morning. Very, very early.”
Conor took another microscopic bite.
“Your mum’s taken a turn, Con,” his father said. Conor looked up quickly. “Your grandma’s gone to the hospital now to talk to the doctors,” his father continued. “I’m going to drop you off at school–”
“School?” Conor said. “I want to see Mum!”
But his father was already shaking his head. “It’s no place for a kid right now. I’ll drop you off at school and go to the hospital, but I’ll pick you up right after and take you to her.” His father looked down at his plate. “I’ll pick you up sooner if … if I need to.”
Conor set down his knife and fork. He didn’t feel like eating any more. Or maybe ever again.
“Hey,” his father said. “Remember what I said about needing you to be brave? Well, now’s the time you’re going to have to do it, son.” He nodded towards the sitting room. “I can see how much this is upsetting you.” He gave a sad smile, which quickly disappeared. “So can your grandma.”
“I didn’t mean to,” Conor said, his heart starting to thump. “I don’t know what happened.”
“It’s okay,” his father said.
Conor frowned. “It’s okay?”
“Don’t worry about it,” his father said, going back to his breakfast. “Worse things happen at sea.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means we’re going to pretend like it never happened,” his father said, firmly, “because other things are going on right now.”
“Other things like Mum?”
His father sighed. “Finish your breakfast.”
“You’re not even going to punish me?”
“What would be the point, Con?” his father said, shaking his head. “What could possibly be the point?”
– • –
Conor hadn’t heard a word of his lessons in school, but the teachers hadn’t told him off for his inattentiveness, skipping over him when they asked questions to the class. Mrs Marl didn’t even make him hand in his Life Writing homework, even though it was due that day. Conor hadn’t written a single sentence.
Not that it seemed to matter.
His classmates kept their distance from him, too, like he was giving off a bad smell. He tried to remember if he’d talked to any of them since he’d arrived this morning. He didn’t think he had. Which meant he hadn’t actually spoken to anyone since his father that morning.
How could something like that happen?
But, finally, here was Harry. And that, at least, felt normal.
“Conor O’Malley,” Harry said, stopping a pace away from him. Sully and Anton hung back, sniggering.
Conor stood up from the wall, dropping his hands to his sides, preparing himself for wherever the punch might fall.
Except it didn’t.
Harry just stood there. Sully and Anton stood there, too, their smiles slowly shrinking.
“What are you waiting for?” Conor asked.
“Yeah,” Sully said to Harry, “what are you waiting for?”
“Hit him,” Anton said.
Harry didn’t move, his eyes still firmly locked on Conor. Conor could only look back until it felt like there was nothing in the world except him and Harry. His palms were sweating. His heart was racing.
Just do it, he thought and then realized he was saying it out loud. “Just do it!”
“Do what?” Harry said, calmly. “What on earth could you possibly want me to do, O’Malley?”
“He wants you to beat him into the ground,” Sully said.
“He wants you to kick his arse,” Anton said.
“Is that right?” Harry asked, seeming genuinely curious. “Is that really what you want?”
Conor said nothing, just stood there, fists clenched.
Waiting.
And then the bell went, ringing loudly, and Miss Kwan began to cross the yard at that moment, too, talking to another teacher, but eyeing the pupils around her, keeping a close watch in particular on Conor and Harry.
“I guess we’ll never find out,” Harry said, “what it is O’Malley wants.”
Anton and Sully laughed, though it was clear they didn’t get the joke, and all three started to make their way back inside.
But Harry watched Conor as they left, never looking away from him.
As he left Conor standing there alone.
Like he was completely invisible to the rest of the world.
YEW TREES
“Hey there, darling,” his mum said, pushing herself up a bit in her bed as Conor came through the door.
He could see how much she struggled to do it.
“I’ll just be out here,” his grandma said, getting up from her seat and walking past without looking at him.
“I’m going to grab something from the vending machine, sport,” his father said from the doorway
. “Do you want anything?”
“I want you to stop calling me sport,” Conor said, not taking his eyes off his mother.
Who laughed.
“Back in a bit,” his father said, and left him alone with her.
“Come here,” she said, patting the bed beside her. He went over and sat down next to her, taking care not to disturb either the tube they had stuck in her arm or the tube sending air down her nostrils or the tube he knew occasionally got taped to her chest, when the bright orange chemicals were pumped into her at her treatments.
“How’s my Conor then?” she asked, reaching up a thin hand to brush his hair. He could see a yellow stain on her arm around where the tube went in and little purple bruises all the way along the inside of her elbow.
But she was smiling. It was tired, it was exhausted, but it was a smile.
“I know I must look a fright,” she said.
“No, you don’t,” Conor said.
She brushed his hair again with her fingers. “I think I can forgive a kind lie.”
“Are you okay?” Conor asked, and even though the question was in one sense completely ridiculous, she knew what he meant.
“Well, sweetheart,” she said, “a couple of different things they’ve tried haven’t worked like they wanted them to. And they’ve not worked a lot sooner than they were hoping they wouldn’t. If that makes any sense.”
Conor shook his head.
“No, not to me either, really,” she said. He saw her smile get tighter, harder for her to hold. She took in a deep breath, and it ratcheted slightly as it went in, like there was something heavy in her chest.
“Things are going a little faster than I’d hoped, sweetheart,” she said, and her voice was thick, thick in a way that made Conor’s stomach twist even harder. He was suddenly glad he hadn’t eaten since breakfast.
“But,” his mum said, voice still thick but smiling again. “There’s one more thing they’re going to try, a medicine that’s had some good results.”
“Why didn’t they try it before?” Conor asked.
“Remember all my treatments?” she said. “Losing my hair and all that throwing up?”