Rowan In The Oak Tree Read Free

free, she swept
them into her left hand with her right, and slowly got down from where she
teetered on the chair. After putting them in the bin, she sneakily patted her
pretty puppy on the head and made her way to the sink to get the cloth so she
could wipe out the oven and make it sparkle.
    After wringing out the cloth into the sink to the best
of her ability, for her young hands were not strong like an adult’s and could
not do a proper job, she carried it across the kitchen to the chair, dripping
as she went. She had climbed one-handed onto the chair and leaned right into
the oven to start wiping from the back when Peyton started to whine softly.
    Knowing it meant the wrinkle was coming, Rowan dropped
the cloth in the oven bottom, jumped off the chair with silent feet and
hurriedly carried it back across the kitchen. She put it down as quietly as her
hurried hands would let her, and ran back to take her place on the stool,
picking up the cloth to scrub just in time.
    “Aren’t yeh done yet, yeh stupid baby?” Her maman demanded, looking inside the oven.
    She smacked Rowan on the side of her head, hard,
causing Rowan’s head to hit the oven tower with a bang. Peyton sat bolt
upright, teeth bared, but made no sound. He knew not to make a sound when the
big woman was about; or else he’d get a kicking.
    Rowan bit her lip on the inside, and fought back
tears. She could feel herself getting angry, and her chest rose and fell hard
and fast as she kept her anger inside her. She forced her gaze to remain on the
floor; she’d be called obstinate if she dared look her maman in the face. She didn’t know the meaning of all these strange words her maman used, but the tone in the old tree’s face gave it
away that they were not nice words, that they were words meant to hurt her.
    At that moment the outside door clicked open, and in
walked Rowan’s daddy-long-legs. He took one look at her and smiled a lopsided
smile that did not reach his eyes, before looking at her mother. Rowan’s maman’s face had changed as soon as the door had clicked,
changed from fire-breathing venom-dripping dragon to the perfect portrait of
the sweet little woman who ran the household. Rowan hadn’t noticed the change;
she’d been looking at the inside of the oven door and trying to compose
herself.
    “I’ve jus ’ bin showin ’ ar Rowin ’
‘ ow to look afta th ’ house like ah do. ‘ Ow to keep i ’
nice an’ clean.”
    Rowan smiled inwardly. Much as the walking wrinkle had
changed her expression, she couldn’t keep the bitterness out of her voice;
there was a trace of her accent, which she very rarely used around the tall
man.
    Her maman seemed to have
noticed her slip up. “How has it been at work today dear?”
    Daddy-long-legs removed his coat and scarf and threw
them onto the back of the chair Rowan had just been using and followed the tree
with feet from the room, but not before pinching Rowan’s bottom as she leaned
into the oven to continue cleaning it.

*****
     
    His footsteps were soft on the carpeted landing, but
they echoed like a gong in a cave to Rowan, who heard him coming as she did
every night. He’d wait until he suspected she was asleep, and would then come
into her room at night, apparently to check on her and make sure she was
sleeping soundly. Once he reached her door at the end of the landing, he paused
outside it a moment. Rowan wondered what it was he was thinking; if he’d decide
to leave her in her apparent peaceful state of sleep, and go back downstairs.
    Rowan’s door creaked open and he stood there in the
doorway holding onto the handle tightly, making sure, as she did whenever she
tried to sneak to the bathroom  in the night, that it wouldn’t creak it’s
loud squeal on the way back up. The light from the landing shone into her room
around him, making it impossible for Rowan to see his face. She didn’t like
that she could see his face; though her eyes were open only tiny slits she
could see him