The Half That You See by Rebecca Rowland (best summer reads .TXT) 📕

He sat on the porch, drinking his coffee. Cornelius had already gone for his morning constitutional.

The previous night’s dream still played in his memory through a hazy filter. He rubbed at his chest where the pain began in the dream, unsure if the ache existed or was just memory.

He traced all the dream imagery back to the previous day’s events. The vines. The fear. An article he read while on the can about a man in Russia who went to his doctor when he coughed up blood. The doctors believed he had cancer. While operating, they discovered a small fir tree growing in his lungs instead of a tumor. Plants can be found in the strangest places. They are survivors.

His own condition manifested in strange ways, like cold spots in a room, or spirit orbs caught in photographs.

That was the essence of his life.

He whistled for his dog. His old friend loped out of the forest. The mist thinner today.

Cornelius carried something in his mouth. Something clearly dead.

When the dog made it to the porch, he noticed that Cornelius's teeth were sunk hard in a rabbit’s neck. Cornelius had given up on the armadillos years ago. But rabbits, squirrels, a small bird or large lizard—still sport for the aging retriever.

The dog dropped the body on the porch, a gift of sorts. The dog leaned against his owner’s leg. Only an animal could make a gift of death.

He should call in the body across the lake, but the police would come, trample the land, and ruin the landscape with yellow tape and halogen lamps.

And he wasn’t yet sure if she was really there.

Cornelius collapsed into a pile, yawned.

“If we wait too long, they’ll think we did it,” he said to Cornelius, who lifted his head for a moment, then dropped it back down on his paws.

Since the phone calls, he’d taken up talking to the dog again, exercising those old muscles.

That morning, he walked out to the body. She seemed the same as yesterday. This surprised him: still no bugs, no animals taking their due, no decomposition.

Her wet hair, wet from the morning mist, hung about her head like a halo. The crown, he noted, drove deeper than he initially realized. In fact, it wasn’t a crown at all, but roots fed down into holes in her skull. Someone cleanly clipped the roots about two inches above her skull. He could not tell what the plant was before being cut free.

Roots can be destructive, he thought, cracking concrete and foundation. They can tear down buildings and bridges. It can be a slow process, but one can be assured that they will find a way. Nothing can stop them. They find the weakness and exploit it over time. That is the strength of roots. Roots possess time and patience that mankind cannot fathom. When humans are extinct, the roots will reclaim the cities, calling them home.

He examined again at her own tree, the one on her back. Elegant line work and shading elevated the tattoo. Splendid. Done with a deft hand.

He spent the morning with her, thinking, wondering, maybe aloud, who she was.  Why she was here. Why he remained.

From the porch, he admired the moon, not much more than a wood shaving in the sky, reflecting on his lake. Off in the distance, beyond the small island, night enshrouded the body.

He ignored the ringing phone. For a moment, the phone tempted him. Should he answer, tell the detective on the line about his lady of the lake?

He didn’t move. Cornelius lay on his feet, keeping them warm. With the skies clear, and the moon light dim, he saw stars splashed out like flecks of chalk on a blackboard.

He had taken his pill, letting the tide of warmth and static wash over him. Stars above, moon on the lake, dog at his feet. What was he looking for?

Across the way, a darkness, a hole, where the body should be. And a thin, flickering light, hovered above the ground. He leaned forward, squinted through the dark. It wasn’t a reflection. It moved, too large to be a firefly or bug. Fire orange.

He pushed the sleeping Cornelius off his feet, pulled on his boots, and hurried to the shed. He grabbed his machete and flashlight.

He jogged around the lake to the body’s location. The unexpected exertion made him breathless. The light was no longer there. Maybe he imagined it.

However, the body of the woman was gone as well.

Through the brush, he caught a sliver of the orange light north of the lake. The shakes and sweating returned as he moved toward the light. He chopped the brush as he moved, trying to overtake the lantern, now disappearing behind trees.

He could hardly keep up, and he assumed that the person with the lantern also carried the body of the tree girl. It didn’t make any sense.

After some time, three more lanterns appeared as he closed in on the original light. The swinging lanterns converged on a large bonfire.

He saw the man that he followed. A carved wooden mask hung on his face. The design feigned roots or vines, eyes mere slits, and the mouth a dark cave. He laid the body of the girl on the ground, leaning her against a tree. He stood with others, four in all, around the fire.

He smelled the fire, heard the popping of knots in the wood. The other men also wore carved masks, flames crawling across the lacquered finishes. Grotesque, twisted faces. Faces not their own.

One of them rang a bell. The reverberation echoed into the night. Nearby, another masked man in a thick red robe led four naked women toward the flame, their hands bound with vines before them. A man carrying a thurible followed the women. Fragrant incense now mixed with the scent of burning wood.

The women stood in order by the size of the tree growing out of her skull, from largest to smallest. The final woman had none.