Witching Tree (Alice Gray Book 1)

19

"Alice, help me," Thomas gasped, hand shooting out from under the blanket and grasping my wrist.

Shocked by the violence of his movement, I twisted away, terrified that the monster would be back. I closed my eyes, vowing to myself that if I found myself in that hungry crimson glare, I was running, and I wasn't stopping until I got all the way back to London.

Prising one eyelid open, against every impulse that told me to keep them slammed down, my body sagged in relief when I saw that his were still closed.

The lull was short-lived. Despite my best intentions, I couldn't quell the impulse to ease his suffering. His lovely face was distorted, not by cruelty, but by a look of distress that wrung my heart painfully. Fear consumed his perfect features. But it was still him; the version of Thomas that I knew.

A moment later his face smoothed back into flawless angles, all creases of care ironed away. His deep breathing told me that he'd settled back into a peaceful slumber. I carefully removed his hand and placed it back under the blanket.

Impatient, Anne poked her head around the door and beckoned me into the kitchen. I stalled again, glancing back a couple of times, fearful that the version of Thomas from outside might appear again. Realising that I couldn't watch him all night, I finally turned and followed.

Anne handed me a steaming cup of tea, not bothering to ask if I wanted it. Suspicions flew round my mind as I remembered the calming effects of the last tea she'd given me. I placed it back on the kitchen table, untouched.
"Let me show you the rest of the house, the bedrooms are downstairs," Anne said, with a puzzled glance at my discarded drink.

She was acting the perfect hostess, while I could barely control the frantic glances that were darting everywhere. My arms were stapled to my sides, too scared to touch anything in this house of crazy.

"Wait, ... downstairs?" I stuttered, unable to keep the unease out of my voice.

From the outside the house looked like a small one level cottage. Anne beckoned to a door at the rear of the kitchen. I had assumed it led out to the garden at the back of the house. Instead there was a staircase leading down.

Hesitating, I peered after Anne's retreating form. I really did not want to descend into the earth when all reality was shifting around me until I didn't know quite where the boundaries lay anymore.

I had to admit that it looked as far from threatening as possible. The walls were rendered and painted white like the outside of the house. Glass lightshades in the shape of snowdrops were spaced at regular intervals as far as it was possible to see. A soft green mossy carpet covered the steps. It looked bright and welcoming, not sinister, dark and damp, as you might expect from a passage leading downwards, with no visible terminus.

The staircase spiralled as we went down. It finally opened out into a large underground reception room. There were two more doors on the far wall, the bedrooms. Anne showed me into one of them.

Pale green walls with intricate vines and colourful flowers painted all over them gave the room a pleasant earthy feel. The pine furniture was simple and unassuming. A large hand sewn quilt covered the bed. The patchwork depicted a Tree of Life with multi-coloured leaves dangling from its branches.

It was beautiful but eerily similar to the tiled floor mosaic in Hazel's Place, the restaurant that Evan had taken me to on our date. The hairs on my arms suddenly rose, a cold draft lifting my hair from my shoulders. A rocking chair in the corner of the room swayed gently.

My eyes darted in the direction of the movement. A swirl of gold mist floated around the chair before dissipating in the air. I looked around the room for a vent or air-con unit.

"I think this was your mother's room when she stayed here," Anne said, completely oblivious to the activity in the room, "it's yours for as long as you want it."

At the mention of my mother, a deep longing suffused my soul. I hadn't missed her so much for months. The perfect security of our relationship was something that I yearned for now more than anything. I'd never managed to achieve anything close since. That had been made painfully obvious by Stephen's betrayal.

Could I find that again with Anne? She was family, so maybe there was a chance.

As I stood there, pining for something that was absent from my life, shadowy images of an untidy brown haired girl flitted in and out of the room. First as a small pigtailed child, the girl appeared again and again each time at a different stage of development, until finally a beautiful teenager with long curls falling down her back glided through the room.

A gasp escaped as I recognised the girl who looked so much like me.

It was the girl from the picture.

It was my mother.