The Skeleton Tree Read Free

Uncle Jack. He went down to the cabin and clattered through drawers. When he brought up the lunch, so did I. The smell of Spam and ketchup made my stomach twist, and in one hot rush everything spewed out through my nose and mouth.
    “Oh, gross!” said Frank.
    Uncle Jack made me lie down in the cabin. He gave me a big blue pill to make me sleep. Then he gave me another just to make sure. Still in my boots and jacket, zipped into my sleeping bag, I lay in a bed that heaved and tossed, and I dreamed of those things that didn’t bear thinking about.
    It seemed whole days went by. Confused by the blue pills, I couldn’t tell what was real and what was not. I was sure that my father brought me a glass of water, and that a seagull flew into the cabin and told me a story. I was aware at one point that the engine had stopped. Through the open hatch, I could see the sail full of wind, glaring white in the sun as
Puff
rushed along.
    I dreamed terrible dreams. Zombies chased me across an island made of garbage. One of them caught me and held me down; he started to rip my arms off, and I woke wrestling with Uncle Jack. “Chrissy, it’s all right,” he said. He’d brought water and soup, but I wasn’t hungry. He talked in a voice that was loud and distorted, and he stared at me with a worried look as I fell again into woozy nightmares.
    The sea gurgled past; the waves whooshed and burst. There was sunlight and darkness, and all I wanted was to get off the boat and onto solid land. Then something jolted me out of my sleep. I heard a shout, a bang, and
Puff
came to a shuddering stop. The floorboards burst from their places as the sea came roaring through the hull.
    The blue pills made everything seem unreal. But ice-cold water rose over my bed. And I knew the boat was sinking.

I am aware that Frank has been talking to me. He brings this to my attention by kicking me in the butt. He doesn’t have to get up from his bed to do it. He just swings his leg and boots me.
    “Hey!” he shouts. “Are you all right?”
    Embers crackle in the fire. Flames leap through the smoke, casting their strange pictures. I nod to tell Frank I’m all right. “I was just thinking.”
    “Well, go think outside,” he says. “You’re creeping me out.”
    I take a plastic bucket and fill it quickly with the things I’ll need: a plastic cape and my tattered poncho; the paperback book with its ragged pages; a bottle of water and half of our last piece of fish. When I open the door, the trees tower above me, reaching down with shaggy branches. From the sea comes the soft bursting of the waves, as though the forest is breathing.
    The trail is a dark tunnel through the salal bushes. Anything could be hiding in there, and six weeks ago I would not have dared to go alone. Even now, with the bear and the wolves in my mind, I wish I had waited for Frank. But I know every twist and bend. I’ve learned my way through
all
the things that scare me. I just duck my head and run.
    Branches snatch at my bucket. Roots try hard to trip me, but I keep going, and as soon as I reach the clearing I see the skeleton tree. It stands alone on the grass-covered rocks, its branches twisting across the sky. The black shapes of the coffins rest in its gnarled arms, and I don’t look up as I dash underneath them, straight to the rocky shore where the wooden saint looks blindly out to sea.
    I feel terrible disappointment to find the ocean black and empty. There’s no Coast Guard ship, no helicopter. There’s nothing but my memories.
    It was somewhere out there on the waves that heave and roll, that I last saw Uncle Jack.
    •••
    I screamed his name as the sea came gushing into the cabin. But no one came running down to save me.
    In the open hatch floated puffy clouds bright with sunshine. The steering wheel gleamed, and the big sail thrashed back and forth as ropes stretched and shuddered. I felt a sudden dread that Uncle Jack had taken the kid and gone away, that I was