Somewhere over the past year, though, something had changed. Harry had started noticing Conor, catching his eye, looking at him with a detached amusement.
This change hadn’t come when everything started with Conor’s mum. No, it had come later, when Conor started having the nightmare, the real nightmare, not the stupid tree, the nightmare with the screaming and the falling, the nightmare he would never tell another living soul about. When Conor started having that nightmare, that’s when Harry noticed him, like a secret mark had been placed on him that only Harry could see.
A mark that drew Harry to him like iron to a magnet.
On the first day of the new school year, Harry had tripped Conor coming into the school grounds, sending him tumbling to the pavement.
And so it had begun.
And so it had continued.
– • –
Conor kept his back turned as Anton and Sully laughed. He ran his tongue along the inside of his lip to see how bad the bite was. Not terrible. He’d live, if he could make it to Form without anything further happening.
But then something further happened.
“Leave him alone!” Conor heard, wincing at the sound.
He turned and saw Lily Andrews pushing her furious face into Harry’s, which only made Anton and Sully laugh even harder.
“Your poodle’s here to save you,” Anton said.
“I’m just making it a fair fight,” Lily huffed, her wiry curls bouncing around all poodle-like, no matter how tightly she’d tied them back.
“You’re bleeding, O’Malley,” Harry said, calmly ignoring Lily.
Conor put his hand up to his mouth too late to catch a bit of blood coming out of the corner.
“He’ll have to get his baldy mother to kiss it better for him!” Sully crowed.
Conor’s stomach contracted to a ball of fire, like a little sun burning him up from the inside, but before he could react, Lily did. With a cry of outrage, she pushed an astonished Sully into the shrubbery, toppling him all the way over.
“Lillian Andrews!” came the voice of doom from halfway across the yard.
They froze. Even Sully paused in the act of getting up. Miss Kwan, their Head of Year, was storming over to them, her scariest frown burnt into her face like a scar.
“They started it, Miss,” Lily said, already defending herself.
“I don’t want to hear it,” Miss Kwan said. “Are you all right, Sullivan?”
Sully shot a quick glance at Lily, then got a pained look across his face. “I don’t know, Miss,” he said. “I might need to go home.”
“Don’t milk it,” Miss Kwan said. “To my office, Lillian.”
“But Miss, they were–”
“Now, Lillian.”
“They were making fun of Conor’s mother!”
This made everyone freeze again, and the burning sun in Conor’s stomach grew hotter, ready to eat him alive.
(–and in his mind, he felt a flash of the nightmare, of the howling wind, of the burning blackness–)
He pushed it away.
“Is this true, Conor?” Miss Kwan asked, her face as serious as a sermon.
The blood on Conor’s tongue made him want to throw up. He looked over to Harry and his cronies. Anton and Sully seemed worried, but Harry just stared back at him, unruffled and calm, like he was genuinely curious as to what Conor might say.
“No, Miss, it’s not true,” Conor said, swallowing the blood. “I just fell. They were helping me up.”
Lily’s face turned instantly into hurt surprise. Her mouth dropped open, but she made no sound.
“Get to your Forms,” Miss Kwan said. “Except for you, Lillian.”
Lily kept looking back at Conor as Miss Kwan pulled her away, but Conor turned from her.
To find Harry holding his rucksack out for him.
“Well done, O’Malley,” Harry said.
Conor said nothing, just took the bag from him roughly and made his way inside.
LIFE WRITING
Stories, Conor thought with dread as he walked home.
It was after school, and he’d made his escape. He’d got through the rest of the day avoiding Harry and the others, though they probably knew better than to risk causing him another “accident” so soon after nearly getting caught by Miss Kwan. He’d also avoided Lily, who had returned to lessons with red, puffy eyes and a scowl you could hang meat from. When the final bell went, Conor had rushed out fast, feeling the burden of school and of Harry and of Lily drop from his shoulders as he put one street and then another between himself and all of that.
Stories, he thought again.
“Your stories,” Mrs Marl had said in their English lesson. “Don’t think you haven’t lived long enough to have a story to tell.”
Life writing, she’d called it, an assignment for them to write about themselves. Their family tree, where they’d lived, holiday trips and happy memories.
Important things that had happened.
Conor shifted his rucksack on his shoulder. He could think of a couple of important things that had happened. Nothing he wanted to write about, though. His father leaving. The cat wandering off one day and never coming back.
The afternoon when his mother said they needed to have a little talk.
He frowned and kept walking.
But then again, he also remembered the day before that day. His mum had taken him to his favourite Indian restaurant and let him order as much vindaloo as he wanted. Then she’d laughed and said, “Why the hell not?” and ordered plates of it for herself, too. They’d started farting before they’d even got back in the car. On the drive home, they could hardly talk from laughing and farting so hard.
Conor smiled just thinking about it. Because it hadn’t been a drive home. It had been a surprise trip to the cinema on a school night, to a film Conor had already seen four times but knew his mum was sick to death of. There they were, though, sitting through it again, still giggling to themselves, eating buckets of popcorn and drinking buckets of Coke.
Conor wasn’t stupid. When they’d had the “little talk” the next day, he knew what his mum had done and why she had done it. But that didn’t take away from how much fun that night had been. How hard they’d laughed. How anything had seemed possible. How anything good could have happened to them right then and there and they wouldn’t have been surprised.
But he wasn’t going to be writing about that either.
“Hey!” A voice calling behind him made him groan. “Hey, Conor, wait!”
Lily.
“Hey!” she said, catching up with him and planting herself right in his way so he had to stop or run into her. She was out of breath, but her face was still furious. “Why did you do that today?” she said.
“Leave me alone,” Conor said, pushing past her.
“Why didn’t you tell Miss Kwan what really happened?” Lily persisted, following him. “Why did you let me get into trouble?”
“Why did you butt in when it was none of your business?”
“I was trying to help you.”
“I don’t need your help,” Conor said. “I was doing fine on my own.”
“You were not!” Lily said. “You were bleeding.”
“It’s none of your business,” Conor snapped again and picked up his pace.
“I’ve got detention all week,” Lily complained. “And a note home to my parents.”
“That’s not my problem.”
“But it’s your fault.”
Conor stopped suddenly and turned to her. He looked so angry she stepped back, startled, almost like she was afraid. “It’s your fault,” he said. “It’s all your fault.”
He stormed off back down the pavement. “We used to be friends,” Lily called after him.
“Used to be,” Conor said without turning around.
He’d known Lily forever. Or for as long as he could remember, which was basically the same thing.
Their mums were friends from before Conor and
Lily were born, and Lily had been like a sister who lived in another house, especially when one mum or the other would babysit. He and Lily had only been friends, though, none of the romantic stuff they got teased for sometimes at school. In a way, it was hard for Conor to even look at Lily as a girl, at least not in the same way as the other girls at school. How could you when you’d both played sheep in the same nativity, aged five? When you knew how much she used to pick her nose? When she knew how long you’d needed a nightlight after your father moved out? It had just been a friendship, normal as anything.
But then his mum’s “little talk” had happened, and what came next was simple, really, and sudden.
No one knew.
Then Lily’s mum knew, of course.
Then Lily knew.
And then everyone knew. Everyone. Which changed the whole world in a single day.
And he was never going to forgive her for that.
Another street and another street more and there was his house, small but detached. It had been the one thing his mum had insisted on in the divorce, that it was theirs free and clear and they wouldn’t have to move after his dad had left for America with Stephanie, the new wife. That had been six years ago, so long now that Conor sometimes couldn’t remember what it was like having a dad in the house.
Didn’t mean he still didn’t think about it, though.
He looked up past his house to the hill beyond, the church steeple poking up into the cloudy sky.
And the yew tree hovering over the graveyard like a sleeping giant.
Conor forced himself to keep looking at it, making himself see that it was just a tree, a tree like any other, like any one of those that lined the railway track.
A tree. That’s all it was. That’s all it ever was. A tree.
A tree that, as he watched, reared up a giant face to look at him in the sunlight, its arms reaching out, its voice saying, Conor–
He stepped back so fast, he nearly fell into the street, catching himself on the bonnet of a parked car.
When he looked back up, it was just a tree again.
THREE STORIES
He lay in his bed that night, wide awake, watching the clock on his bedside table.
It had been the slowest evening imaginable. Cooking frozen lasagne had tired his mum out so badly she fell asleep five minutes into EastEnders. Conor hated the programme but he made sure it recorded for her, then he spread a duvet over her and went and did the dishes.
His mum’s mobile had gone off once, not waking her. Conor saw it was Lily’s mum calling and let it go to voicemail. He did his schoolwork at the kitchen table, stopping before he got to Mrs Marl’s Life Writing homework, then he played around on the internet for a while in his room before brushing his teeth and seeing himself to bed. He’d barely turned out the light when his mum had very apologetically – and very groggily – come in to kiss him good night.
A few minutes later, he’d heard her in the bathroom, throwing up.
“Do you need any help?” he’d called from his bed.
“No, sweetheart,” his mum called back, weakly. “I’m kind of used to it by now.”
That was the thing. Conor was used to it, too. It was always the second and third days after the treatments that were the worst, always the days when she was the most tired, when she threw up the most. It had almost become normal.
After a while, the throwing up had stopped. He’d heard the bathroom light click off and her bedroom door shut.
That was two hours ago. He’d lain awake since then, waiting.
But for what?
His bedside clock read 12.05. Then it read 12.06. He looked over to his bedroom window, shut tight even though the night was still warm. His clock ticked over to 12.07.
He got up, went over to the window and looked out.
The monster stood in his garden, looking right back at him.
Open up, the monster said, its voice as clear as if the window wasn’t between them. I want to talk to you.
“Yeah, sure,” Conor said, keeping his voice low. “Because that’s what monsters always want. To talk.”
The monster smiled. It was a ghastly sight. If I must force my way in, it said, I will do so happily.
It raised a gnarled woody fist to punch through the wall of Conor’s bedroom.
“No!” Conor said. “I don’t want you to wake my mum.”
Then come outside, the monster said, and even in his room, Conor’s nose filled with the moist smell of earth and wood and sap.
“What do you want from me?” Conor said.
The monster pressed its face close to the window.
It is not what I want from you, Conor O’Malley, it said. It is what you want from me.
“I don’t want anything from you,” Conor said.
Not yet, said the monster. But you will.
“It’s only a dream,” Conor said to himself in the back garden, looking up at the monster silhouetted against the moon in the night sky. He folded his arms tightly against his body, not because it was cold, but because he couldn’t actually believe he’d tiptoed down the stairs, unlocked the back door and come outside.
He still felt calm. Which was weird. This nightmare – because it was surely a nightmare, of course it was – was so different from the other nightmare.
No terror, no panic, no darkness, for one thing.
And yet here was a monster, clear as the clearest night, towering ten or fifteen metres above him, breathing heavily in the night air.
“It’s only a dream,” he said again.
But what is a dream, Conor O’Malley? the monster said, bending down so its face was close to Conor’s. Who is to say that it is not everything else that is the dream?
Every time the monster moved, Conor could hear the creak of wood, groaning and yawning in the monster’s huge body. He could see, too, the power in the monster’s arms, great wiry ropes of branches constantly twisting and shifting together in what must have been tree muscle, connected to a massive trunk of a chest, topped by a head and teeth that could chomp him down in one bite.
“What are you?” Conor asked, pulling his arms closer around himself.
I am not a “what”, frowned the monster. I am a “who”.
“Who are you, then?” Conor said.
The monster’s eyes widened. Who am I? it said, its voice getting louder. Who am I?
The monster seemed to grow before Conor’s eyes, getting taller and broader. A sudden, hard wind swirled up around them, and the monster spread its arms out wide, so wide they seemed to reach to opposite horizons, so wide they seemed big enough to encompass the world.
I have had as many names as there are years to time itself! roared the monster. I am Herne the Hunter! I am Cernunnos! I am the eternal Green Man!
A great arm swung down and snatched Conor up in it, lifting him high in the air, the wind whirling around them, making the monster’s leafy skin wave angrily.
Who am I? the monster repeated, still roaring. I am the spine that the mountains hang upon! I am the tears that the rivers cry! I am the lungs that breathe the wind! I am the wolf that kills the stag, the hawk that kills the mouse, the spider that kills the fly! I am the stag, the mouse and the fly that are eaten! I am the snake of the world devouring its tail! I am everything untamed and untameable! It brought Conor up close to its eye. I am this wild earth, come for you, Conor O’Malley.
“You look like a tree,” Conor said.
The monster squeezed him until he cried out.
I do not often come walking, boy, the monster said, only for matters of life and death. I expect to be listened to.
The monster loosened its grip and Conor could breathe again. “So what do you want with me?” Conor asked.
The monster gave an evil grin. The wind died down and a quiet fell. At last, said the monster. To the matter at hand. The reason I have come walking.
Conor tensed, suddenly dreading what was coming.
Here is what will happen, Conor O’
Malley, the monster continued, I will come to you again on further nights.
Conor felt his stomach clench, like he was preparing for a blow.
And I will tell you three stories. Three tales from when I walked before.
Conor blinked. Then blinked again. “You’re going to tell me stories?”
Indeed, the monster said.
“Well–” Conor looked around in disbelief. “How is that a nightmare?”
Stories are the wildest things of all, the monster rumbled. Stories chase and bite and hunt.
“That’s what teachers always say,” Conor said. “No one believes them either.”
And when I have finished my three stories, the monster said, as if Conor hadn’t spoken, you will tell me a fourth.
Conor squirmed in the monster’s hand. “I’m no good at stories.”
You will tell me a fourth, the monster repeated, and it will be the truth.
“The truth?”
Not just any truth. Your truth.
“O-kay,” Conor said, “but you said I’d be scared before the end of all this, and that doesn’t sound scary at all.”
You know that is not true, the monster said. You know that your truth, the one that you hide, Conor O’Malley, is the thing you are most afraid of.
Conor stopped squirming.
It couldn’t mean–
There was no way it could mean–
There was no way it could know that.
No. No. He was never going to say what happened in the real nightmare. Never in a million years.
You will tell it, the monster said. For this is why you called me.
Conor grew even more confused. “Called you? I didn’t call you–”
You will tell me the fourth tale. You will tell me the truth.
“And what if I don’t?” Conor said.
The monster gave the evil grin again. Then I will eat you alive.
And its mouth opened impossibly wide, wide enough to eat the whole world, wide enough to make Conor disappear forever–