She walked to the kitchen and the others followed.
***
Sam ate as though he hadn't eaten in days. Liz watched him, pleased. Whatever was bothering him had obviously been forgotten. The pilaff was excellent and they promised to try it again sometime. Bryan cleared away the table amd Sam helped with the dishes. When the kitchen was clean and the dishes and glasses put away Bryan poured another glass of heavy red wine for each, very carefully, and suggested they retire to the living room again. They settled back and Sam sniffed the wine, sipped and placed his glass on the side table.
"Liz? What's this theory of yours? I have a theory too, but I'd like to hear yours."
Liz was reluctant to talk and Bryan began:
"Liz thinks that trees might have a soul. The willow tree, it might have a soul. Maybe that's why it acts - so - so -"
Liz interrupted. "I didn't say that, not exactly. It's just that if the tree did kill all those people then it acts like it has a soul, like it's alive, somehow. I don't know how, but if it did ... then it would explain the killings. Even the pieces that were made from the tree - the wicker chairs for example - they might share in this - this soul. But I'd like to hear about the baby," she said, trying to move the subject away from her theory. "Didn't you say something about a baby, just before we ate?"
"The bones," said Sam softly, as though he hadn't been listening. "There was a child's bones among the roots of the old willow tree. It died very young. Did the doll belong to this child? What if ..."
"That's where the soul came from!" cried Bryan. "Oh ... sorry. Didn't mean to shout. I just thought - what if the tree acquired a soul from the child? What if -"
"And what about the furniture made from the tree?" said Liz. "How can we possibly track down all that furniture?"
They looked at Liz in silence. The room was quiet and they could hear that it had started to rain, the tinkling of raindrops against the window sounding much too loud. Sam looked at the window, then at his watch. It was getting dark.
"I must say that I've enjoyed this evening tremendously," he said. "The meal was great, the wine terrific and the company incomparable. In particular I'm glad there's somebody to talk to about this - this willow tree thing. Somehow I think it's my duty to do something about it. Granddad wanted to - I feel he's left it to me. It was always on his mind. I sort of grew up with it." He looked down at his feet. "I haven't slept in days, thinking about it."
"We're in on it too, you know," said Liz.
Bryan grunted. "Yeah, we're in on it too," he mumbled. "Guess that's because of my history, my short history. Wouldn't be complete without a chapter on the willow tree killings."
Liz helped Sam with his raincoat. He had a raincoat? thought Bryan. Must have known it would rain. Maybe police officers just prepared for everything. Sam stood in the hallway and watched Bryan and Liz crowded in the doorway then he leaned forward and kissed Liz lightly on the cheek.
"Hold on officer," said Bryan. "No need for that. We weren't speeding and -"
Liz poked Bryan in the side and he stopped, grinning. They watched as Sam walked slowly down the stairs then Liz ran to the window where she could see the parking lot. Sam was about to climb into his car, he looked up, saw Liz and Bryan at the window and waved, then he climbed in and drove off.
None saw the figure in the dark coat with collar pulled high.
CHAPTER 18
Cassandra: July, 1983
She stared out the window, across the field, to the hills hazy on the horizon, her hair black and straight to her waist, her face pale, chalky white with dark, almost black eye sockets. It had been too long in coming and her patience was growing thin, but soon she would be again with her sister.
Yet did Ahriman rebuke her. Why? Had she not made the sacrifices, again and again? Had she not placed the babies in His keeping? Yet, all seemed in vain.
But she would not tolerate the abuse to her sister, to Willow.
She has seen it all. She had watched the Bourdens move into her mother's house, watched in anger and frustration. She had spoken softly to Willow nearly every night, caressing, trying to hide her anger. But Willow understood; knew and understood her anger.
She had watched when the police came and took away the bodies of Mrs. Bourden-Brown, then Mr. Bourden. Then she was pleased, very pleased.
She watched, horrified, when they tore down her Willow, bombed and slashed her Willow and built the apartment. Then the walkway, covered in roses, right over Willow. She was pleased when they took away the bodies, one by one, on New Year's day. She had spent that night, cold and windy, the collar of her heavy gray coat pulled high over her ears, sitting at the side of the building, the snow swirling about her, speaking quietly to Willow. The vines had begun to climb the trellis, gnarled and twisted and she stroked them and spoke softly. And Willow understood and her anger was unleashed, and the dark shadow of Ahriman enveloped the building and all inside were abolished, all who laughed amid the misery of her sister, all who sang and mocked the soul of Willow. All were purged.
And Willow understood everything.
But no one cared for Willow. The wicker chairs were abused, discarded. Even when Willow sprouted and grew into a vigorous young tree, trying desperately to exist in a world of butchers, they would cut her down, burn her, abuse her, poison her, rape and violate her.
But most cruel, the very cruelest, the most evil thing - they removed her very lifeblood, her inner being: they had removed the bones that gave Willow vitality ... and soul.
She had recovered the bones from the Inspector's house and had placed them reverently with Willow once more. Inspector Jaffre, meddling fool. She called upon Ahriman and the Prince had spoken to the Inspector, and the old files now lay buried in the vaults beneath the station, yet it was not done, for Willow lay still in the cold ground.
She, Cassandra Brubacher, would avenge her sister.
And they came when she needed them, the Friends of Willow. They came to cry to Ahriman, to join her in the quest for souls, to place the delicate pink bodies before Him, to plead for the return of her sister.
Yet, Ahriman had denied her and she knew not why.
***
Cassandra placed her hand to the window and the great tree bent, tendrils caressing the glass, spinning to outline her hand, dancing branches gently swaying. Willow understood.
It had been difficult, but Melissa had encouraged her. Know your sister, torn from my body, buried among the roots by the evil wind, tempest of the devil. Know that she waits beneath the willow so that one day she may join us and rejoice.
Melissa and Cassandra.
Together they had appealed to Ahriman, groveled, implored. But He had ignored them.
***
It was soon after her twenty-first birthday that Cassandra first entered into unholy alliance with the Prince of Darkness.
It was mid-January, during that first storm of 1917. The winds had howled their discontent. Snow, driven by an angry, raging tempest had roared across the fields and buried the house, tall and narrow with its arched brick and stained glass. Melissa and Cassandra had prayed, again, for the return of the buried twin. To Ahriman they prayed, kneeling before the great tree, in the driving snow, in the dark, amid the tangled branches, black and twisted.
Then the winds stopped and a glowing came from beneath the tree, a light that shone through the shadowy tendrils, and they ceased to pray and stared, afraid, and the glowing grew into luminescent shapes that rose and shimmered and fell upon them and they cried out and crawled to the house, to the great oak door and in, and the shapes followed ... and they knew that Ahriman was with them, was listening, and Melissa alone knew what must be done.
Melissa knew: they would place the first unborn Martin child before the Prince of Darkness.
They asked Arnie to drive into town, to leave them free for this most solemn rite, and when he was gone Cassandra had carefully removed her garments, and together
they saw the face of Ahriman, for her body was covered in shadows and the shadows moved and Cassandra felt the power swell within her, and luminescent figures appeared once more and Cassandra felt her strength expand to encompass them.
Then, unbeckoned, the Martin girls appeared and Jake Martin and his wife and the young man, Chad, and they were in awe, and Cassandra danced, wild and passionate, embraced by Ahriman, fondled, caressed, and all gathered about her, falling to their knees to worship ... and Melissa wept with joy, thrilled.
Now, my child, your sister shall come.
And the doctor came, intruding ... and they ignored him, but he saw, and would be purged.
When Doc Manner had left, the first pregnant girl crawled without a word to the table, then moaned and Cassandra stroked her swollen belly and the dark shadow of Ahriman left Cassandra's body and covered the girl, blessing her, and she screamed - and she gave her child, bleeding with life, to the arms of the Prince. Together they carried the child to the tree, for the winds had died and the snow had cleared and the branches of the great willow rose like a fountain and a hollow appeared in the ground, and Cassandra laid the child in the hollow, before the tree, before Willow, before Ahriman, and they all began to chant.
Prince of the Night, we surrender to thy will.
Lord of Darkness, we ask in thy name.
Safeguard this child unborn.
Take this soul to your keeping.
Soul of Willow, arise and rejoice,
complete and whole,
union and life.
Join us now.
But her sister did not come.
And the second Martin girl had pleaded that she, too, may serve the Prince of Darkness for she, too, nourished a life within her. And she knelt before the great tree and was enveloped by the glow of Ahriman and the child came bleeding, and they all rejoiced.
But even this second soul did not appease the Prince; her sister did not come.
Even when Cassandra danced throughout the night, her body wracked with the pain of rejection, the agony of rebuke - still her sister did not come.
Melissa and Cassandra.
Together they gathered the Friends to support them in their supplication: doctors and nurses and police and men of influence and women who held souls within their body, that the Friends of Willow might appease the Dark Prince, Ahriman.
Yet, Cassandra failed, again and again ... and Melissa did not wait for the glorious day of reunion. Melissa was dead.
Melissa and Cassandra.
Had they made the proper alliance? Did Ahriman listen, amid the angry cries of the King of Light? Would Ahura-Mazda submit to this indignity?
Yet they had made their choice early, and Ahriman had come with his ghostly disciples and they knew it was right. Let Ahura-Mazda scream his rage; they had entered the stage of battle and stood with the Prince of the Night and it was right.
And now Cassandra must go on, enduring the hurricanes of doubt, the torment of denial, the violent winds of denunciation.
Yet, one day, one day ... Willow would stand by her side.
***
Cassandra leaned against the window. Tonight she would summon yet another to the Friends of Willow, a meddler, a guardian of the law ... and it was good, for he would summon yet another.
Sam Jaffre: July, 1983
Although Sam Jaffre had little in common with his father, he had loved his grandfather, Inspector Jaffre, dearly. The old man would spend hours telling him stories of mystery and intrigue, figures that walked stealthily in the night, of evil men and unsolved crimes and frantic races with high powered cars. Sam Jaffre knew that, one day, he would be a policeman just like his grandfather.
When Inspector Jaffre suspected that the willow tree was somehow involved in the deaths associated with the Kumar property, one of the first persons in whom he confided, after the death of his wife, was the boy. Sam was not yet ten years old but listened intently, transfixed by the image of a giant tree whose roots invaded drains and pipes and pulled people into the dark recesses of the sewers. He imagined roots within the walls, listening. He had nightmares of coils, slimy and black within the faucets, hiding in the bathtub drain, waiting, waiting. The young boy was afraid to use the toilet for weeks. His father had become furious and in the evening the boy could hear them argue; his father and grandfather.
"You've got the boy all confused with your damn stories of a tree that kills."
"It's a theory, and I think it's the correct theory."
"I don't care what it is - don't feed it to my son."
"He's old enough. He understands. If you were ten I'd tell you and we could discuss it and -"
"You did tell me, or have you forgotten? And I'm not ten any more and I don't have to listen to that bunk and I don't want Sammy to listen to it either."
After the arguments, grandpa still told him of his theory, when dad wasn't around.
When Sam graduated from the police academy, his grandfather had awarded him his badge, then retired from the force. The stories were told less often and Sam watched his grandfather become old, then confused, but he never stopped talking of the willow tree and Sam never forgot the terror he felt as a youth.
Now twenty-eight, Sam Jaffre sat in the study on the second floor, next to his bedroom, and stared at the small notebook on the desk. If he were to continue the investigation begun by granddad then it was fitting that he should make his notes in the very same notebook. He opened the book to the last written page:
Evil - kills - must destroy everything made from tree.
He picked up the pencil and stuck it in his mouth, chewed at the rubber for a bit then added:
Bones of a child - give the tree
He paused and thought of Liz' theory. It complemented his own theory of why the tree was evil. He continued:
Bones of a child - give the tree a soul.
Destroy the bones and the soul is destroyed.
He thought of the death of Sophie Brenner. She was killed by a small willow that grew from a discarded wicker basket - or was it a chair? That was in the next county. If the bones were destroyed ... what about the pieces of the tree? Would they continue to exist as an evil entity? Did all the various parts of the tree have to be destroyed? The chairs and baskets and roots that had sprouted from discarded parts?
He was sure of the answer.
There is but one soul - redeemed from the child - absorbed by the tree.
He turned the page and drew a rectangle at the top. Inside he wrote: BONES.
Beneath the rectangle he drew another. He wrote SOUL within the second rectangle and joined the two rectangles with an arrow. Inside a third rectangle, joined by an arrow from the second, he wrote: WILLOW. Sam leaned back and put his pencil in his mouth again, then leaned forward and drew several rectangles, all on a single line beneath the WILLOW. He wrote, in each, TREE PARTS. Then he drew arrows radiating from the WILLOW rectangle to each of the TREE PARTS. Then he drew another line of rectangles, each containing the words TREE PARTS and drew a haphazard arrangement of arrows from the first line of TREE PARTS to the second such line. He leaned back again, chewed on the pencil, then he got up and paced the room, eventually returning to the desk, staring at the notebook.
He had drawn a tree, upside down on the page; the root was the top rectangle labelled BONES and it grew into a trunk SOUL then WILLOW then into a tangle of branches at the bottom, each labelled TREE PARTS. He sat down quickly, leaned forward once again and wrote at the bottom of the page:
Remove the root and the whole tree dies.
Remove the soul and the whole tree dies.
Remove the bones and the whole
He stopped writing and looked up, into the dark corner of his study. There was a sound, a faint humming from the floor below, but only for a moment then it was quiet again and he turned again to the notebook.
The noise started again almost immediately, this time more insistent. He put down
his pencil and walked to the top of the stairs. He was certain that he had turned off all the lights on the first floor, but there was a glow from the living room and the light ran zigzag up the stairway. Slowly he walked back into his study, pulled the revolver from his jacket then back to the top of the stairs. Waiting only for a second or two he began to descend the stairs. The humming grew louder and the light wavered and grew brighter.
At the bottom of the stairs he paused. It might be a break-in, but he would have heard something before the humming. It might be a loose light bulb glowing on and off, but that didn't explain the humming. He checked the gun; it was loaded.
He walked slowly to the arched doorway, paused for a moment, pushed his gun before him and jumped forward, turning his body so that he was standing wide-legged in the hall looking directly through the doorway, arms raised, revolver pointing into the room.
Cassandra spun about and raised her hands above her head and the shapes behind her flickered and rose, shimmering and luminescent and the light was blinding and Sam fell back against the wall. She walked slowly toward him, hands raised, the shapes now spiralling around her head, silhouetting her body and Sam raised his revolver with his right hand, pointing it in the direction of the lights, covering his eyes with his left arm. The room was spinning. The shapes grew larger, filling the room with dazzling light, but he couldn't pull the trigger, his hands were frozen, his legs became wax, melting beneath him and he slid against the wall, slid onto the floor, arm extended, revolver quivering. Cassandra raised her hands higher and the humming grew to a deafening pitch, wailing, shrieking. He watched helplessly as the shapes crowded him, enveloped him, swarmed over him. He dropped the gun. His arms were stiff, he couldn't move, he curled, writhing on the floor, twisting his body. Cassandra stood over him, then lowered her hands suddenly. The room became dark, black.
The last thing that Sam Jaffre saw were her eyes: blood-red, glowing, bright, piercing.
***
"Oh no ... no ... oh God, no," moaned Liz.
Bryan ran from the kitchen. Liz let the newspaper fall from her lap to the floor.
Liz cried out: "Bryan ... it's Sam. He ... he ..."
She began to cry, holding her hands over her face. Bryan stooped and picked up the Gazette. The article was on the front page and he stared at the picture of Sergeant Sam Jaffre, in uniform. The headlines read: