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In the treehouse, Kitty lies on the floor, surrounded by a crude circle of red. Dim-lit like this, Hannah can barely tell how pale her skin is. Can hardly see beyond the flickering sphere of candlelight for that matter. Caleb, Eleanor, and Jenny stand at the sides, pressed up against the wall. Hannah can see the tears glistening on Jenny’s cheeks. She was always closest to Kitty.
Hannah ignores her own emotions and looks to the book in front of her, staring blandly at the foreign script. Intellectually, she knows that she can’t read this language, but that seems to not be a barrier to her understanding. The knowledge from the book has got her this far, she trusts it to take to the end.
Hannah shuts the book with a slam and chooses to ignore the flinches from the edge of the cabin: she can’t afford to be distracted. All she needs for this is next to her, collected frantically in burlap and woven sacks. She reaches into one of them, drawing out a handful of dirt. With a shaking hand, Hannah sprinkles it over Kitty, careful to avoid her face.
The candles flicker ominously in the cold air of the night, they throw kitty into sharp relief and send shadows whirling around the room. They look almost like spectres, these undefined shapes, dancing an ominous waltz across the walls.
Hannah knows she must complete this soon, or else the sun will rise, and the moon set. At that point, her chance of saving Kitty would be gone.
When they had found her- found Kitty- sprawled out on the ground, the red had formed streams on her face and her side and her leg. Where it flowed to meet the ground, the soil had turned a darker red and shone wet in the sunlight. In a clearing like that, Kitty had looked like a painting, lain on the ground, pale skin surrounded with red. Her dress, however, was torn and stained pink. Her hair has lost its lustre to be dull and brown in places.
Since then, they have changed her into a thick cloth, wrapped tight around her shoulders and legs. Her hair has been brushed. There is still red, wound around her as rope and enclosing her in the centre of the room.
As Hannah completes the final step, she glances up towards Caleb, and sees clear streams run in rivulets down his face, making them shine in the candlelight. He had been the most hesitant to do this, telling Hannah it won’t work: “You know this. Surely you know this.” He had looked at her with despair, knowing that, now she had the idea, nothing would convince her otherwise. And so, as her closest friend, Caleb had hugged her tightly and helped her collect all she needed.
The girls had been easier to convince, all they had to be told was that Kitty could be fixed, and they did everything in their power to help. Although, how much they actually believed it was possible, Hannah didn’t know. Hannah herself was doubtful, worried that Kitty’s injuries would bar her from returning.
Though, as she had this thought, the candles burned brighter for a moment then dimmed, and shadows glided over people and walls alike to settle unnaturally on Kitty, a sphere of darkness surrounding her where before there had only been light. The children squinted to see into the blackness but could see nothing. All at once, the flames spluttered to their original brightness and Hannah could see once more.
In the centre of the circle, Kitty’s body had gone rigid. Her arms were straining at the cloth, back arched and head tilted so far back it looked broken. In a moment of insanity, Hannah rushed forward to clasp onto Kitty. Caleb and the girls followed suit, holding Kitty down while untying the lengths of cord and cloth from around her. All at once, Kitty relaxed and slumped to lay flat on the ground, and her eyes snapped open to stare past the children to the darkness of the forest outside the window.
She never visited the treehouse after that. Never even went into the forest.
Later, when they ask what she saw, out in the trees that made her gasp and screech like she did that night, she only shrugs and tells them “Nothing.” A year later, on the day, she doesn’t turn up at school, or the playdate she and Jenny had that evening, or even the doctor’s appointment the next day. For a moment, the candles on Hannah’s bedside table splutter, throwing spectre-like shapes on the wall.