Ep. 32: Cycles
Wanda Barriston's daughter speaks to a tree whose roots run through generations...and bodies.
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“Why is she always talking to the tree like that?”, Wanda Barriston had asked her husband as they watched their five year old daughter, Leila, hug the only oak tree in their back yard.
“She’s just being a kid, honey. She’ll grow out of it.”
Wanda’s husband, Luke, said that until Leila was seven. The day after their birthday, they were alone at the house while Wanda paid a visit to the grocery store to get some raw ingredients for Leila’s favorite meal — spaghetti pesto with pan fried chicken.
Luke had, lately, been more distracted than ever while performing simple tasks. The result was chronic aggravation. And when he was outside trying to read and he heard Leila talking to the tree, something in him popped.
Without marking his place in the book, he slapped it down on the arm of his wood chair, and marched over toward an oblivious Leila, who was just talking to her friend like any other day.
He grabbed her by the shoulders and whipped her around. “The tree isn’t alive, Leila! You have to grow out of this!” He shook her harder than he should have but she was unresponsive. Only the whites of Leila’s eyes revealed themselves and Luke was horrified, thinking that he’d caused it. “Oh my god, Leila. Honey are you okay?” He touched her face. “Talk to me baby, what’s going on?”
“They didn’t mean to hurt me. It was just their instinct,” she said monotonously.
“What?”
“But the man who corrupted them will pay. The offspring of Michael Barriston the third will be destroyed.”
“Why are you talking about your grandpa that way? Leila, wake up!” He tapped her face with open fingers.
“The sons of Michael Barriston will pay. The sons of Michael Barriston will pay.” Leila was screaming now. “The sons of Michael Barriston will pay!”
Then he slapped Leila, Hard. She woke in a state of confusion with a red mark on the side of her face and a mild concussion. “Daddy?”, she asked before immediately passing out.
Luke was deeply confused as to how Leila knew her grandfather was the third of his name. He’d died when she was very young under mysterious circumstances.
Weeks went by and she didn’t talk to the tree. After a couple of months, Luke had nearly forgotten about the interaction. He had made the decision not to tell Wanda what had happened and kept it to himself. It was better that way. Better that Wanda, a woman with a family history of schizophrenia, didn’t know her only daughter had some sort of manic episode at such a young age. She had heard once that things tend to skip generations and since there was no indication that she had schizophrenia, Wanda had been concerned for Leila since the day she found she was pregnant.
And one night alone with Leila would make her rethink her entire family history.
Luke had to leave town for an emergency work trip. It was strange that he didn’t even come home to gather his things, but in his line of work it wasn’t unusual for a client to need him across the country without a minute to lose. She didn’t mind at all, alone time was something to be cherished. Three days after Luke left, Wanda was late picking up Leila from school and to make up for it, Wanda took Leila to get her favorite fast food chicken nuggets. Everything was pleasant but after dinner, as daylight waned, Leila asked to play outside.
Without thinking, Wanda agreed that she could as long as she was inside before sundown.
“When you get back inside get ready for bed and Ill come read with you.”
Leila gave Wanda the same excited look that had always made her soul happy, and burst outside with all the energy of a sugared up toddler.
Wanda needed a shower anyhow, and long showers were as valuable to her as anything. She blasted hot water and hid behind the steam for 45 minutes at a time until she sweated enough that she felt new again.
When Wanda got out, dried off, and dressed in her most comfortable clothes. The windows of her bedroom were black and she turned on the TV before flopping on the bed. Wanda stretched out and relaxed into her down comforter. The only thing that could have made the situation better was a foot rub from Luke. But he was gone. Her own hands would have to do.
Though she liked sleeping by herself in a king sized bed, Wanda missed her husband sorely. She had the urge to call him but they rarely spoke on the phone. If he was gone much longer, she would be sure to call. But he was probably busy, so she texted him.
I miss you, baby. Hope work is going well. Love you. <3
Love you too. I’ll see you sooner than you think.
He texted back oddly quick, but she smiled and sat up to rub the balls of her feet. The soap opera on the TV descended into a quiet moment and she noticed something odd.
Complete silence.
About a year ago, their family had established a signal Leila would give to show that she was ready to be put down for bed. They kept a stereo in her room that would play whatever music was her favorite at the time. Lately, she’d been favoring music from the movie, Moana. She knew every song by heart and sung everything so loud the neighbors could hear. Wanda had expected to hear it by now. Or at least hear Leila stomping around up stairs.
But there was nothing.
Wanda crept out of her bedroom in a loose tank top and cotton shorts.
“Leila, honey?”
No answer.
As she tip toed through the kitchen, she didn’t see the reflection of any light coming from upstairs.
Out of instinct, Wanda looked out into the night. There was just enough dayglow to see, and it would be completely dark in just minutes. But the sun wasn’t needed. There was another glow — a blue glow illuminating Leila’s silhouette from in front of the family oak.
Wanda strutted over to the door and cracked it.
“Leila, honey, it’s past dark! Time to come in!”
No response.
“Leila! Come inside!”
Nothing.
“I’m gonna count to three!”
Crickets.
“Shit,” Wanda muttered to herself as she put bare feet on the fraying wooden porch.
Careful to avoid splinters, Wanda walked out into her yard. Cool grass refreshed her feet that were still hot from the shower. Luke’s gonna mow this lawn the instant he gets back — she thought.
“Leila, that’s two!”, still nothing. God, she’s been so good lately what the hell is going on? “If I get to three, no TV this weekend! …Okay, that’s three,” Wanda said as she got within a few steps of her daughter. “Let’s go, time to go in.”
Wanda reached down and saw something confusing. The glow illuminating Leila’s silhouette wasn’t one of her hand held games like she’d expected, it was a smart phone.
She looked closer. It wasn’t just any smart phone. It was Luke’s.
“Where did you get that?”, Wanda hardly tried to hold back her fury as she whipped her daughter around. “Is daddy home—“, the inflection her question was cut short by the whites of Leila’s eyes.
And she was grinning.
“Honey, how did you get daddy’s phone?” Wanda sat her on the ground and crouched in front, waiting for an answer. “Leila, answer me!”, she shook her daughter lightly.
“The sons of Michael Barriston the third will pay,” Leila said, unfeeling.
“How do you know your grandpa’s name? Talk to me sweetheart, what’s going on? Why do you have this?”, Wanda snatched the phone from Leila’s hand.
“Look up,” said the child.
So Wanda did, but couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. “I don’t see anything. Leila, you’re scaring me. Why are your eyes like this?”
“Use the flashlight.”
Wanda turned on the phone’s flashlight and aimed it upward. She couldn’t see far up the 100 foot tree. But what she thought she saw, threw her into a state of adrenaline fueled denial that had her drop the phone and run to the garage for Luke’s spotlight.
Once she retrieved it, out of breath, she aimed the powerful lamp up into the mostly barren tree. Few orange and brown leaves obscured the smooth gray trunk. As the light scanned upward, bark turned from gray to brown, to garnet.
Then she saw his shoes.
Khaki pants.
Luke’s blue collared work shirt stained to a deep purple at the center, radiating from a sharpened tree branch protruding from his sternum. His pale face permanently deformed into a writhing howl. Dried blood spreading from his eyes in the form of Lichtenburg figures.
Breath and thought escaped her.
The only thing Wanda was capable of thinking was: 911
She sprinted inside to her own phone, dialed the number, and screamed so incoherently that the operator could hardly understand. Without hanging up, she dropped it on the floor of her bed room and ran outside to find her daughter.
Luke’s phone was still glowing on the ground, but Leila was not next to it. Frantically, she gripped the spotlight and scanned the yard. There was no one in the yard either.
“Leila! Baby! Where are you?”, Wanda yelled as she ran around the house. The yellow spotlight bounded up and down between her neighbor’s fences and the zoysia grass planted around the acre of property.
There was no one there.
Police and a few neighbors searched her house and the woods around the neighborhood for Leila. They found nothing.
Two days after she found Luke’s body in the tree, Wanda was arrested and charged with double murder. Though they found no second body, it was assumed that Wanda killed and buried her daughter somewhere nearby without remembering where. They stopped looking for the body of Leila Barriston after two weeks.
The family history of schizophrenia, according to two psychologists, had manifested in her despite showing few if any symptoms to those she knew. In both of their opinions, she should have been taking antipsychotics for years.
However, there was one thing admitted into evidence that gave anyone who saw it pause. It was reviewed behind closed doors and a deal was struck under the table to exclude it from the pool of evidence.
A short video of Leila Barriston taken on Luke’s phone the night his body was discovered, after Wanda called the police.
It was 7.4 seconds long.
Leila’s face. No irises to see. The words “It’s time” — in a voice that sounded like a woman, but not Wanda. Leila looked up and smiled, dropping the phone. But in the last second, there was a glimpse of Leila’s body being dragged. You could see something gripping her and no one would say what they thought. It was difficult to tell exactly what it was, the only apparent feature was the color gray. But you could certainly tell what it was not.
It wasn’t a human hand.
