The Old Oak Tree (EPISODE 13)

‘Vengeance!’
 
Father Gregory was surprised that the mob even bothered to consult him. They swarmed outside the church, boots grinding into the dirt where Peter had lain mere hours before. In their hands were crude weapons: logging axes, sharpened spades, pitchforks. But the real difference was in their eyes. In their eyes, the preacher saw the will to violence. The will to maim and murder. A will that could not be waylaid by talk of forgiveness or love.
 
For the first time since the old oak tree had split the town of Orlow in half, Father Gregory wondered if he stood on the wrong side of the Line.
 
He wondered what the crowd wanted from him. He knew that they wanted agreement – prompting, maybe even religious justification – but he didn’t know why. Father Gregory didn’t understand why they cared about his opinion at all.
 
The preacher’s shoulders sagged. He felt tired: deeply, bone-wearily tired. He wanted to shrink back from the mob. It seemed to swell in size, filling the space, rising above him like a wave ready to crash down. Behind him was the church, equally vast, leering down at him. Father Gregory felt like an insect between two rocks pressing together: tiny, impotent… doomed.
 
He watched Bridget ascend the few steps to the church entrance. She ignored him, turning to face the crowd. She supplanted his role with ease. Father Gregory wondered how she still had the energy to stand. He had heard her screams and tears, grief for her son and husband torn from her ravaged throat.
 
She had not sought comfort at the church, of course. There was nothing the preacher could offer her now.
 
‘My husband is dead,’ she cried out, and the mob fell quiet to listen to her. ‘My son is dead. The monsters killed them.’
 
‘This is our fault,’ she added, with venom. ‘When my son was murdered, we saw the Others for what they were. Hell!’ she screamed, ‘we had already seen they were monsters, with our own eyes, and we did nothing, and then my son… my son…’
 
‘We did nothing,’ she said. ‘NOTHING! So they came back. They killed my Jack. They murdered my Jack… who will be next? For the third time, will we do nothing? Will we wring our hands and mourn our dead and hope they leave us alone? Or will we do something? Will we end this?’
 
Father Gregory stumbled back against the church entrance. The stone wall dug sharply into his spine, cold and judging. He knew he was failing: in that very moment, failing. He willed himself to speak, but he couldn’t form words. It’s pointless, he silently reasoned. They weren’t listening to him, anyway. He stared out across the faces of the crowd and, behind them, the old oak tree. It seemed to stare back at him, eyes of crumbling bark, eyes of purest black. There was laughter in those rotting eyes.
 
The preacher shuddered.
 
Bridget had won the crowd – not that there had been opposition. They wanted to spill blood, and Father Gregory could not stop them. The preacher closed his eyes. He had no strength left but passivity. He could not stop them, but he would not join them. Maybe he would sleep.
 
He just wanted to sleep.
 
‘They didn’t kill Isaac, though.’
 
Father Gregory opened his eyes. Liz had walked out of the church, her strange, little face scrunched up in incredulity. She had left her notepad in the church – probably a good thing, the preacher mused darkly, given the mood of this mob.
 
The words of the little girl broke Bridget’s rhythm. Liz frowned at her, fearless.
 
‘They didn’t kill Isaac, though,’ the child repeated.
 
‘Where have you been, girl?’ her father, Thomas, demanded.
 
Apparently in the last place you chose to look, Father Gregory thought.
 
Liz shrugged by way of answer. ‘Isaac was my friend,’ she said. ‘I know what killed him. It was the tree.’
 
Father Gregory expected laughter, derision. But the girl’s words were met with scattered mumbling. Even while caught in the old oak tree's spell, the people recognised it for what it was. What he had told them it was.
 
Evil.
 
‘Father Gregory told him not to climb up the tree,’ Liz continued. ‘So, he snuck out at night to do it. But he didn’t come back. Then he fell out of the tree.’ She played with a strand of her dark hair. ‘So, the tree did it,’ she finished confidently.
 
The crowd looked to one another. Father Gregory could read their doubt. They would not follow the child’s leaps of logic, even in this time of illogic and monsters. But they were distracted; they had paused. In that moment of confusion, Father Gregory realised that he had been given a second (or was it third, or fourth?) chance.
 
He had to take it.
 
‘The tree is evil,’ the preacher announced, stepping forwards and trying to project his voice. ‘Have I not always told you thus?’
 
Bridget shook her head. ‘I saw that monster kill my husband!’ she returned. She turned to the crowd. ‘Weren’t you there?’
 
‘That’s because you hurt Peter,’ Liz said. She tapped her foot, getting increasingly annoyed.
 
‘He terrorised us!’ Bridget replied, more to the mob than the child. ‘Thomas, will you please come and fetch your daughter?’
 
‘The child spoke with Peter,’ Father Gregory interjected, as Thomas stumbled forwards. ‘Hear what she has to say.’
 
‘It’s not Peter, father,’ Bridget argued. ‘Not anymore.’
 
The preacher put out a hand to stop Thomas. Thomas paused, frowning as Liz tiptoed back behind Father Gregory. The preacher marvelled. He could already see that the fire had left Thomas’s eyes.
 
‘Just listen to what your daughter has to say,’ Father Gregory instructed. ‘Please.’
 
Thomas glanced to Bridget, and shrugged. ‘No harm,’ he suggested. He raised an eyebrow at his daughter. ‘Come on now, love, say your piece.’
 
Emboldened, Liz stepped forward, frowning at the crowd. ‘He said that we looked like monsters to him,’ she said. ‘But I said that he looked like a monster with all his skin falling off, and he told me to touch his hand and see if it felt that. So, I touched his hand and it felt normal. It felt sweaty but it didn’t feel like his skin was falling off.’ She shrugged. ‘Oh, and he said I didn’t look like a monster, even though everybody else does.’
 
‘Hear what she says,’ Father Gregory commanded. ‘They think we are monsters. It is a curse, a trick. Witchcraft from the old oak tree, designed to turn us against one another.’
 
‘It doesn’t matter!’ Bridget shouted. ‘I don’t care what they are or how it began. They came across the Line, and they attacked us!’ She frowned at the girl. ‘We told Pe – that thing – to leave. We gave it every opportunity. Think! Every single time, they have provoked us. They have attacked us. They are evil. We have to defend ourselves!’
 
Liz bit her lip. ‘But could you cut down the tree?’ she asked. ‘For Isaac?’
 
‘Yes!’ Father Gregory exclaimed, seizing at the moment. Sudden energy filled his veins. ‘There’ll be time for your vengeance after, brothers and sisters, should you still want it! Thomas, man, give me your axe! I’ll chop down that damned thing myself!’
 
Thomas glanced to Bridget, and shrugged. ‘Don’t see the harm,’ he said. Father Gregory saw the shrug rippled across the crowd.
 
Bridget glared at the preacher. ‘Fine,’ she said. ‘Chop down the tree if you want. But then we’ll do what needs to be done. Then we’ll end this.’ She cast her eyes across the crowd. ‘Then we’ll protect our loved ones from those monsters.’
 
Father Gregory accepted Thomas’s axe, following Bridget’s gaze. Thanks to the child, the violence was forestalled, but the preacher saw that they still stood on a precipice. The violence was delayed, nothing more.
 
‘Please, God,’ he muttered. ‘Let it end with the tree.’
 
His eyes flitted to the tree itself, its black foliage seeming to absorb the darkness of the night sky. He still couldn’t shake the feeling that it stared back at him, trembling with laughter and the cold, biting wind.
 
The tree accepted his challenge. It was ready.
 
But for the first time in days, Father Gregory had hope.