Perfectly Preventable Deaths

Epilogue Yew

You’re tired in the forest and you’re running. Your breath catches in your throat. The woods around you, clean and fresh. You see the tiny oak, new growing from the earth. The soft things starting, like your baby girls. The two are there. They’re coming for you now. You cannot stop them, but you try to hide. You are exhausted.

It was supposed to be a normal life. A wife. Two daughters. Clever little things, her mouth, your eyes. Catlin has her hair and Maddy yours. They’re perfect. Sheila’s face. There are so many good things in your world.

Checks and balances.

The steps come slower now. You try to move so silently away. Oak and ash and elm. Little flecks of bark and leaf to help. You say the words. You try to say the words. It doesn’t help. You see a raven land and then another. Something’s different here. There’s something wrong.

You were always quiet. She liked that in you. Steady. She trusted you, and almost right away. There is a sort of love that is like magic. And it grows, it draws in other people. You’re kinder in your life because of her. And it will be OK. The little girls. You hope they’re not like you. You hope they are.

There’s goodness and there’s badness in the world.

You turn. They are there. The old one and the young. There’s something in his hand – the young one’s hand – it’s hard and heavy. Moving down towards you.

Once your legs are broken, you know what’s going to happen next. It’s what they do. It’s what they’ve always done. You cannot move. When they are done with you, you cannot move. All you are is chunks of flesh on bone. The canopy of trees, the wavy oak, the fat lopsided beech. The lovely ash.

The old one takes a book out, starts to chant. The young one pours.

You close your eyes. It’s warm on you and wet. Like being Christened. You can remember things. Moments of love. Eyes and little hands. Two babies in one cot, and curled together. They cannot sleep when they are kept apart. Two hands flexing around your index fingers. They grasped you right away. Such different souls, but something in them knew that you were theirs.

The young one pauses, and you see him look at your face for a long time. So long that his father stops the chant to make him carry on.

You haven’t told them what they want to know. It wasn’t hard; you’re used to being quiet. You felt the secrets rising in your mouth sometimes with Sheila. The parts of it she didn’t, couldn’t, know. The weight of love from her. Those hazel eyes that look at you. That looked.

Love is hard to hide from.

You won’t see her again. You know that now. He watches you on fire. Oak and ash. Elm and beech. All the living creatures. You clutch at what you can get. The earth. Blood. Bone. You spend it all. Everything you’ve left, one perfect coin.

You’re burning and it hurts and, oh, it hurts like nothing’s ever hurt. And that is something. Channel it.

On fire.

Pink flesh red and black and grey and white.

With everything. You keep the forest safe.

You do your job.