Chapter 1 of Beneath Cold Boughs

– | In Bloom ->

Knowest thou how to cut? Knowest thou how to rule?
Knowest thou how to win? Knowest thou how to tempt?
Knowest thou how to ask? Knowest thou how to bleed?
Knowest thou how to kill? Knowest thou how to sacrifice?

The words of the tree

The Dead Man and the Tree

It began with the dead man found by the great stone tree that forms the centerpiece of Willowgate Arcade. Shocking to encounter and sad to consider that someone was forced to break into the Arcade to find some shelter from the autumn cold, but a sad fact of life in a city such as Blackmouth. No-one even knew his name. Some put flowers at the base of the tree in memoriam but life moved on, but not for all. Three of those who found the body – Morris Mayfair, brusque tobacconist and man’s man, Jane Barrows, hurrying to open her parents’ convenience store before class, and Diana Graves, present in the Arcade see it torn it down – remember something differently: that the man was found hung from the branches of the stone tree by chains of wrought iron, that it had taken three people and a pair of bolt cutters to bring him down, and that his lips had moved soundlessly when they found him, spelling out alien words without the breath to voice them.

Things began to fall apart then. First came the dreams. All three had often suffered through troubled nights, dreaming of old fears and sins buried but not forgotten, but now they came with renewed intensity and interspersed with images of the hanged man and the tree. Diana suffered the worst of it, unable to sleep because of the stink of rot that permeated the home she had made of her office in the Arcade. She turned to nocturnal exploration of the Arcade to find and stop the stench, found the building had more structure than the plans she had and irritations grew into obsessions.

Then the visits began. First were the Save Old Ormwood protestors who assiduously avoided doing anything that could have allowed Diana to have them removed, their leader Layla Spenser chatting pleasantly with the Blackmouth PD patrol officers who came by when Diana tried to have them ejected. Then came the nocturnal visitor, a young woman who was fascinated by the tree and equally so by Diana. She introduced herself as Mel and offered help investigating and resolving the strange happenings, yet avoided giving any details.

Beneath the Roots

Problems began to spin out of control. Voiceless whispers echoed in the central atrium of the arcade in the quiet hours. Diana felt herself being watched even when alone. Layla Spenser returned, this time with cryptic warnings and a plea for Diana not to go ahead with plans to demolish the Arcade. Research uncovered a dark history to Ormwood and the Willoughby family, and investigations revealed the presence of a basement not on the current plans, sealed up 30 years prior, and Diana became obsessed with unsealing it. All while trying to charm, cajole or strongarm the remaining businesses into selling up, and being defeated at every turn by Morris.

The basement was opened with a yawning silence and Diana quickly descended into it, volunteering Hank to come with a light to cut through the gloom. Beneath the arcade lay a tangled maze of access corridors and the remnants of heating ducts, many of their pipes torn out and repurposed into an attempt at a circle that filled the room that lay beneath the atrium. Rusting remnants to one side showed it had been a boiler room but now it was dominated by a complex branching network of stone roots, as if the carved tree above had grown down into the void below. The broken pipes had been formed into circle of copper and lead about the outer edge of where the roots grew, while the air was thick with darkness and a susurrus of voices whispering unknown words. Jane quickly began recording them, having followed Diana into the darkness with Morris, before things went wrong. Unnoticed by anyone, Hank had begun mouthing the words, eyes staring at the tree as he began trying to carve open his wrists with the edge of a chisel. Morris’s quick actions stopped him from doing so and retreat from the darkness was decided to be wise.

Truths and more mysteries were revealed in quick succession. Mel returned, bringing a friend and was horrified at what had happened and what lay beneath the Arcade. She spoke of abysses and verges, of ley lines and of the complex but amateurish binding that was woven around the tree, and of magic. Her friend Carmine called the three sleepwalkers because he could not find a better term for them. The tree was unknown but obviously dangerous, and it was calling to the three of them, Diana in particular. The words the whispers had spoken were Old Norse and had been the same ones the hanged man had tried to speak with his last, breathless moments.

Into Nightmares

Mel and Carmine advised caution with the unknown, that they would seek further information before any rash actions were taken, but a moment of madness threw such caution to the wind. Diana knew the tree was offering something and almost paid its price for it before hestating at the last moment, at which point Morris saw a chance to be rid of the meddlesome realtor and offered her to the tree. Jane found herself pointing a gun at a man who was almost family and as ambition, betrayal and disgust filled the air the world fell away into frozen moment, then darkness and nothing more.

Each of the three found themselves lost deep in their nightmares – Diana in the burning tenement, Morris drowing in the mire and Jane lost in the screaming, thorn-filled garden. Unlike before, these nightmares did not end and instead repeated in lucid eternities of torment, while they could feel others caught in that eternal moment and suffering with them. After a timeless age, each turned from their personal pain to the others lost with them and in doing so they faced their nightmares. They saw that they were mirrors without a reflection, as hollow and incomplete as they were, wishing to be whole. In that moment of completeness and of reaching out to others, the three awoke but not to the world they knew.

The three awoke on a broad beach of black sand beneath alien stars, while far out to sea something resembled the tree was slowly sinking into the still, black sea. It must have been immense for it seemed to be descending achingly slowly, almost as if the sea is savouring the consumption of the fallen thing. The beach itself was calmingly still, blown only by a gentle sea breeze that carried scents of forgotten days until the wind shifted and a familiar scent of stone and smoke, the smell of city, blew over the three from a yawning cave mouth set back from the sea. Confused and disorientated, they walked to the cave and stepped through as they felt something call to them.

Awareness of the world returned and they found themselves back in the basement of the Arcade, confused and yet at peace. The thing in the tree was gone, the basement was silent and nothing would be the same.

People Encountered

  • Hank Torres (First appearance) – head of Ormwood Development work crew.
  • Fred Spears (First appearance) – Custodian of Willowgate Arcade, has no fucks left to give.
  • Layla Spenser (First appearance) – leading Save Old Ormwood protest, knew things about the Tree.
  • Daniel Matthews (First appearance) – PI hired by Morris to investigate Diana.
  • Mel (First appearance) – Encountered by Diana when poking around the Tree.
  • Carmine (First appearance) – Contact of Mel’s, asked by her to help.

Locations

  • Willowgate Arcade (First appearance) – 19th century shopping arcade targetted for demolition, noted for the unusual stone tree decorating its central concourse.