第44章 The Trees

The trees moved at night. Eli heard it from the bedroom, the sound of roots pulling free of earth, the slow, deliberate tearing of wood against stone, a sound like a joint being dislocated, repeated in a steady rhythm that matched the root's pulse. He lay in bed and listened, and the sound was in the walls, in the floor, in the ceiling, and the house shook, not violently, not enough to rattle the dishes or crack the plaster, but enough to feel, enough to know that the ground beneath the house was shifting, that the trees at the property's edge were moving, that the woods were coming closer. Nora was awake beside him. She lay still, her eyes open, her breathing steady, and she listened the way she always listened, with her whole body, her shoulders slightly forward, her head tilted, as if the house were speaking to her in a voice too low for the ear but loud enough for the bones. "They're coming," she said. "The trees. They've been coming since the fence fell." Eli got up and went to the window. The yard was dark, the sky clouded over, the moon invisible, and the only light was the amber glow that bled through the cracks in the foundation, casting a faint radiance on the ground around the house. In that light he could see the trees, the oaks and the maples that lined the northern property line, standing in their winter bareness, their branches clawing at the sky. But they were closer. Closer than they had been in the morning. Closer than they had been a week ago. He counted. He counted the trees the way he counted the symbols, the circles, the lines, the concentric rings, with the meticulous attention of a man who has learned that counting is the first step toward understanding. There were twelve trees along the northern line, and the nearest one was ten feet from the house, and yesterday it had been twenty, and the day before that thirty, and a month ago it had been at the property line, at the fence that no longer stood. The trees were moving. Not walking. Not in the way of fairy tales or horror stories, not the dramatic lurch of a treeline in a movie. They were moving the way a glacier moves, slowly, steadily, their roots pulling free of the earth and finding new purchase closer to the house, each movement a fraction of an inch, imperceptible in daylight but visible at night, when the hollow's influence was strongest and the root's pulse was loudest and the ground beneath the house was soft with the hollow's expansion. The trees were drawn to the root. They were drawn the way the water was drawn, the way the mold was drawn, the way everything in the earth was drawn to the place where the root touched the deep and the deep reached upward and the upward reach became the house. The root was the center, the hollow was the force, and the trees, which had stood at the property line for a hundred years, were being pulled toward the center by the same slow, irresistible gravity that pulled water downhill and rivers to the sea. Eli stood at the window and watched the nearest tree, an oak as thick as his torso, its bark gray in the faint light, its branches bare and dark. It was still. It did not move while he watched. But he could see the earth at its base, the soil mounded and disturbed, and the disturbance was fresh, the earth dark and wet, and from the wet earth the green-gold growth spread outward, the root's skin, the hollow's surface, covering the ground the way the mold covered the walls, reaching toward the house, reaching toward the root, reaching toward the deep. The trees were coming. The hollow was expanding. The boundary was gone. And the house, which had been built on the hollow's edge, was becoming the hollow's center, and the center was growing, and the growing was slow, and the slowness was the cruelest part, because it meant that each day was a little worse than the last, a little closer to the thing that waited below, and there was nothing to be done, nothing to stop, nothing to lock or seal or ward against, because the hollow was the ground, and the ground was everywhere, and the ground was waking. The nearest tree, an oak as thick as Eli's torso, stood ten feet from the house, its trunk pressed against the east wing wall, its branches reaching through the broken window, its roots tearing through the foundation, and the roots were visible in the disturbed earth, pale and glistening, and the glistening was the deep's light, the green-gold glow of the mold that covered the bark, and the mold pulsed, and the pulse was the deep's heartbeat, and the heartbeat was the sound, and the sound was the deep's voice, and the voice was saying: I am here. I am the tree. I am the root. I am the house. I am the deep, and the deep is waking. The tree's roots had broken through the foundation wall, and the wall was cracked, and from the crack the mold emerged, spreading along the roots, covering the stone, covering the plaster, covering the house, and the house was becoming the tree, and the tree was becoming the deep, and the deep was becoming the house, and the three were one, the house and the tree and the deep, and the one was the keeping, and the keeping was the door, and the door was open. Eli stood in the hallway and felt the tree's roots beneath his feet, felt the pulse, felt the deep's heartbeat, and the heartbeat was the sound, and the sound was the deep's voice, and the voice was saying: I am here. I am the ground. I am the tree. I am the house. I am the deep, and the deep is waking, and the waking is the sound, and the sound is me. Nora came down the hallway and stood beside him. She looked at the tree, at the roots, at the mold, at the crack in the wall, and she said, "The tree is the deep's hand. The tree is reaching for the house. The tree is the deep's way of touching the surface, the deep's way of becoming what it has always been." "The deep is becoming the house." "The deep has always been the house. The house was built on the deep's edge. The house was built on the deep's foundation. The house was the deep's way of reaching the surface, and the reaching was the keeping, and the keeping was the door, and the door was open." The tree pressed against the wall, and the wall cracked, and the crack widened, and the mold spread, and the glow brightened, and the sound deepened, and the deep was here, in the tree, in the wall, in the crack, in the mold, in the glow, in the sound, in the house, in the world. ---