Part 2 (1/2)
There'd been some speculation around the dinner table at the time about what might be inside the yawning grotto high on the side of the tree trunk.
”Baby racc.o.o.ns, maybe.”
”Or squirrels.”
”No, a honeycomb! Like in Winnie-the-Pooh.”
”If there's honey, there'd be a million bees too.”
The branch just below the open cavity was as broad as a park bench and didn't feel precarious at all. It just felt wonderfully skysc.r.a.per high like being on the third-floor balcony at Nonny's condo, but with your own gra.s.sy pasture below and your own house just on the other side of the cattle gate. The girls weren't afraid of falling; they fully expected to go down the same way they went up. So they sat for a long while, taking in the last of the suns.h.i.+ne, discussing all sorts of things. I didn't push them to confide in me about the particulars of their private conversation, but I would have loved to be a little squirrel up there in the branches, eavesdropping on these two sweet sisters swinging their feet and talking about life.
When the dry branch groaned beneath them, they froze for a moment, looking at each other with wide eyes and slightly open mouths, neither one of them daring to take a breath. They looked down at the soft brown gra.s.s thirty feet below. Suddenly it looked p.r.i.c.kly and pocked with jagged rocks, littered with sharp sticks and jutting deadfall.
”It's okay,” said Abbie. ”When I was up here with-”
The branch s.h.i.+fted with an abrupt crack, and the girls screamed.
”Abbie!”
”Annabel. Don't. Move.”
”We need to get down. Abbie, I want to get down.”
Far below their feet, Cypress paced and whined. Adelynn looked up at them and called out, ”What's the matter with you? When are y'all coming down?”
Abbie swallowed and called down to her, ”Don't be scared, Adelynn. We're coming down. Right now. We're coming down. We're okay. Anna, can you...”
”I think so.”
They carefully got to their feet. The branch seemed to exhale an agonized sigh. A moment before, they were sitting on a castle bridge. Now it felt brittle and tilted, and that far end of the bridge seemed very, very far away.
”Anna, you have to go back that way.” Abbie pointed to the slender tree behind her. ”Let me get around you and get my weight off the branch. I'll go down over there.” She nodded in the direction of the craggy tree trunk. ”Just scooch over so I can get around you. Go, Anna. Move over by the trunk where it's safer. I'm right behind you.”
They inched toward the gaping wound left by the fallen branch.
”Okay,” said Abbie, ”step into the cave for a sec so I can get around you.”
”No.” Annabel shook her head. ”I don't want to.”
”Annabel, just do it. It's only for a second. I need to get on that side, and then I'll help you get down.”
”Abbie, no! I don't want to!”
Another sharp crack. Another arthritic sigh.
”Annabel! Just go! Go now!”
”I don't want to. Abbie... I don't like this,” Anna whimpered, genuinely afraid now, but she set one foot on the jagged edge of the opening. Bits of bark and rotted wood broke away when she put weight on it. She grasped the side of the opening, peering inside. The sun was close to the horizon now. She could see nothing but deep shadows in the musty grotto.
”Anna, move. Hurry,” Abbie said, inching toward the tree trunk.
”How deep is it?”
”I don't know, maybe a foot? How deep does it look?”
”A foot... I guess...”
”Anna, come on! Just go.”
Anna gingerly stepped her other foot onto the edge, and it instantly gave way. She grasped at the other side with her hands. Leaning across the gaping hole, fighting to hold herself up, she felt the ledge crumbling beneath her feet, felt the strength sifting from her arms.
Annabel managed to hold herself there for a moment. But in that moment, she realized there was nothing but darkness below her. And the next moment, she was gone.
Chapter Three.
Because of the tender mercy of our G.o.d, With which the Sunrise from on high will visit us, To s.h.i.+ne upon those who sit in darkness and the shadow of death To guide our feet in the way of peace.
Luke 1:7879 THIS IS WHAT I know now about the cottonwood tree: It is related to the aspen and poplar, with quaking leaves that turn brilliant gold in autumn. It is one of the largest trees native to North America, but its seeds are only half as wide as the head of a pin. The female cottonwood has blossoms with fluffy white tufts that give the tree its name. It is armored with thick, corklike bark, able to withstand prairie fires, brutal drought, and bitter cold. So the cottonwood stands strong, green and growing, even as age and disease decay the heartwood deep inside the limbs and trunk. The fallen branch and the open wound we later learned were the signs.
As Annabel dropped away into the darkness, the tree revealed its secret at last: From the jagged grotto to the gnarled roots thirty feet below, it was hollow.
She says she hit her head three times on the way down, and this is consistent with the findings of a CT scan. With the facts in front of me now, I see it all with sickening clarity. Sometimes at night, it replays in my head, a dark twist on Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole.
Annabel plummeted headfirst down the long vertical corridor, flailing for any kind of handhold. The first of the blunt blows to her head might have happened as she pitched forward or at some point as her body hurtled past misshapen walls and jutting knots. The second may have been her skull glancing off a burled ledge that protruded eight inches or so inside the tree roughly five feet from the bottom. The third-oh, G.o.d, it's hard to think about-happened when she hit the ground.
Her little body folded on impact. Fragments of bark, rotting wood, and dry moss rained down in her wake. Heaped in a distorted fetal position, Annabel lay at the bottom of the black, airless shaft.
”ANNA? ANNA, ARE YOU okay?”
High on the unstable cottonwood branch, Abbie inched forward until she was able to clutch the side of the opening where Annabel had disappeared.
”What's wrong?” Adelynn called from below. ”What happened?”
”Annabel, are you stuck?”
Leaning forward as far as she dared, Abbie peeped over the crumbled edge into the cavity. She could see that it was more than a few feet deep, but the sun was low on the horizon now; she could see only shadows inside the tree.
”Anna? Anna, are you okay?” Abbie called. ”Annabel? Anna. You better not be messing with me.”
The only answer was the soft murmur of the cottonwood leaves.
Abbie squeezed her eyes shut. Think. Think. Think.
Scrambling across the bridge branch, she swung down through the branches, dropped to the gra.s.s, and lit out running. She pounded across the pasture toward the house, leaped the cattle gate, and rounded the drive. I don't think she even paused at the back door. Instead of coming in to get me, she ducked into the garage, s.n.a.t.c.hed a headlamp flashlight from Kevin's work area, and ran back to the cottonwood grove.
I don't believe it was her intention to hide anything from me; it was her intention to fix it. She would fix it, she was thinking, because this was fixable, and it would be okay after she fixed it, and it would just be this big ol' story: This one time, my sister fell inside a tree! How insanely weird is that? And I was all, say what? OMG! And I ran all the way to the garage and got a flashlight and climbed up there again, and I pulled her out, and she was okay, and we were all like, OMG, like... that happened...