Wounds

Part Three

Part Two

Vincent woke up shivering in his back yard, staring up at Orion and his three star belt. Hilda barked inside. His body ached. He sat up. A sound that made him shiver, that triggered an old memory, a sound like a thousand threads breaking made him rub his bare skin. Little threads rolled under his palms as a warmth rushed through him. He grabbed one and pulled, feeling it slide out of his arm. Raking his fingers down the backs of his biceps, he felt the threads pulling from deep inside his body, tickling along his bones, brushing against his nerves, twining around his insides and then snapping inside him.

“No, what the fuck?” Vincent jumped up and started inside.

“Do you know who wounded me?”

He whirled around. There was no one there, just the madrone. But something was wrong with it. Shivering and still pulling threads from his arms, he walked closer. The burl at its center throbbed, the wood creaking as it pulsed.

“What the hell?” Vincent reached out to touch it.

His phone pinged. He flinched and grabbed for it in his pocket. Maril.

“Where are you? I’ve been trying to call you for days. This is probably like my two hundredth message.”

“I’m home. Where are you?”

“FFS!! I’m at the hospital with my mom. You are in deep shit, Vincent.”

“Yeah ok.” He put the phone on silent and shoved it back in his pocket. His other hand lifting toward the madrone’s burl.

Bark. Bark. Bark from the dog inside.

His fingers slid against the papery, peeling bark, it curled and crumbled under his touch. A finger slid into the soft, wounded wood, warm sap oozing out around it.

“Do you know who wounded me?”

The voice came in separate whispers from every leaf, raining down on Vincent in a silken torrent. The sound rippled along his spine in a sharp ache. He stumbled backward. Suddenly remembering where he should have been right then. Up at the old fruit’s place selling his ill-gotten wares. He shoved a hand in his back pocket, his cash pocket, and a wad of bills slid into his fingers. He pulled it out and went inside to count it. Hilda slipped past him when he opened the door, brushing against his legs on her way out. It was more money than he’d expected. He didn’t remember talking to the fruit, let alone raising his prices. He stuck the cash in the jar on the counter marked “Swear Jar” in Sharpie on blue painters tape and ran his hands through his hair. The fuck was happening? Outside the wind picked up and the madrone rattled its branches. His eyes settled on the fine threads growing out of his arms and he groaned.

“What the fuck is wrong with me?” With a shaking hand he flipped on the bright overhead light in the kitchen and laid an arm on the counter. Thin, pale pink filaments, like roots protruded from his flesh. He pulled one, watching it spool out, twisting the thread around his fingers as he pulled. He felt it as it travelled through his arm, an internal itch he couldn’t scratch. There were dozens in his arms. He started to pull the next one, but a feeling stopped him. A warmth he remembered from a long ago trip to the forest with his father. Where Pop had gotten that leathery old skull he used to scare the neighborhood kids with. He’d put it up proudly every Halloween, like some cheap prop instead of the head of a murdered guy they’d found out in the forest. The day he’d first felt The Mother Love. Where had he even learned to call it that? As he watched the threads retreated back into his arms. The warmth grew.

“The trees are fucking with me.” The madrone, the tree on the way out to the fruit’s, it had swung a branch out into the road to stop him. What it had shown him though. What was that? A memory? A hallucination? Hilda jumped up against the door. Vincent flinched, he was still staring at his forearms, though all the little threads were gone. He looked at the back door, at Hilda standing up so she could see him through the window. He didn’t want to get close to the madrone again. The door was too close. Hilda whimpered. She licked the glass.

“Geez, girl.” Shaking, unable to stop it, Vincent skirted the kitchen counter and opened the door, looking anywhere but the tree as the dog slipped inside.

“Do you know who wounded me?”

He looked down at the dog. “Don’t start that. Please.” His throat felt tight, tears burned behind his eyes.

Hilda barked and flipped her empty food dish over with her paw. He took a deep breath and set it right, emptying a can of wet food into it. Food she only got on special occasions. A sane, normal act that calmed his nerves somewhat. His sister had always told him that normal was relative, not a concrete thing that actually existed out there in the world.

Were hallucinations normal in anyone’s relativity? What about roots growing out of your arms? Were those even real? They felt real. April would know what to do. She always did.

“April.”

With shaking fingers he dialed his sister. She picked up on the second ring.

“Vincent? It’s late. Did somebody die?” Her voice, rough from sleep, twisted his gut and he instantly regretted not having called her for so long. She called him all the time, texted. He never picked up, texted back when he remembered.

He looked at the time. Two thirty in the morning.

“Maybe? I’m so sorry, April. I don’t know. I didn’t know what time it was. The house I live in now, did we ever live here when we were kids?” The vision of his, of their, mother’s body dissolving into the madrone kept replaying in his mind. Body into the tree. Tree fucking with him. He choked back a sob.

“Vinnie,” April took a deep breath, “slow down. You never call and then outta the blue you’re not sure if somebody died? And you sound, frantic.”

“Yeah no, look, I’m sorry I never call. I just-“

“Stop. Stop. I don’t care, you’re my kid brother, I’m going to help you no matter what dipshit thing you’ve done. What did you ask me?” He could hear her husband in the background, asking if everything was ok. Hear fabric rustling as she got out of bed.

“Did we ever live in this house that I live in now?”

“Maybe, we moved around a lot. I kinda stopped paying attention to be honest. Why?”

“I just had a weird… dream I guess. I don’t know. I keep seeing things. And hearing things. I think I’m going crazy.” His voice cracked. He could never keep it together around her.

“Where’s your girlfriend? Is she there?”

“No. She says she’s with her mom in the hospital. But that’s the other thing, I keep forgetting things or losing time. Shit I really think I’m going mental.”

“Have you seen a doctor?”

“Sis, I can’t afford a doctor.”

“Ask them to bill you when you go to the ER, you don’t have to pay up front. You need help.”

“I need to figure out what connection this tree in my backyard has to do with mom, is what I need.”

“Babe, you’re all over the place.” She sounded tired, he felt like shit for calling like this in the middle of the night.

“I had this dream vision thing where I saw mom in this back yard. She was wearing a green dress and she looked scared and then she said, ‘Do you know who wounded me?’ Which the tree also says. Jesus I sound like a lunatic.”

“I mean dad hit mom all the time before she died. Maybe you’ve got trauma surfacing.”

“How did mom die, again?”

“You were so little. Some guys dad made a deal with and then backed out on came to the house and shot her. I guess to threaten him? So fucked up. I was at school. You were there, but the police said you can’t have seen anything because they found you in your crib.”

Vincent’s eyes drifted out to the tree, it oozed red sap out of its burl, like blood from a tit. Burls were wounds…

“How’s the weather in Half Moon?”

“Um… fine? You’re suddenly worried about weather?”

“No. I don’t know. We put dad’s stuff in storage when he died, right?”

“Yeah, it’s here. You thinking about coming to visit?”

Vincent looked at the jar on the counter, then at Hilda. “Would you mind?”

“Little bro, the kids haven’t seen their uncle in two years. They ask about you all the time. Of course I wouldn’t mind.”

“Tomorrow too soon?”

“If you leave early, you’ll be here by dinner. Bring Hilda, the girls love her.”

“Yeah,” Vincent felt relief surge through him. Emotion tightened his chest. He wiped his eyes with the back of his hand, “Ok, yeah. Thanks, April.”

“I love you, Vin.”

“Love you, too.”

“Drive safe.”

Vincent hung up the phone and cleared his throat. Hilda nuzzled his hand and Vincent caught her up in hug.

“Going for a little trip, girl.”

Hilda stuck her tongue in his ear.

“Ah Jesus,” Vincent pulled away and rubbed his ear with his shirtsleeve. He laughed. “Yeah, maybe I needed that. Fuck.” He grinned at the dog and ruffled the fur on her head.

He slept for a few hours and by early morning he was on the road.

Part Four drops next week!