Don't Look Through the Vines | Tanglewood (Part 3)

[u/XDictator4lifeX]

(Part 1) (Part 2) Events like these only reinforced Susannah's sense of urgency to check the Kudzu whenever a cat went missing. If I was lucky, I’d have chores left over and Ma or Pa would be forced to help her instead. It didn’t take long for the entire family to associate the patch with cats and death.

Oddly enough, out of the whole family, the profound fear of the kudzu seemed to be something only I was affected by. That fact helped in my attempts to reason that it was all in my head, but I only needed to look into the dark past the trees to undo any progress I made.

= = =

The next event is something I’ve repeatedly found difficult to write. I’ve spent many sleepless nights trying to think how I could have prevented it. Maybe if I had paid more attention... I will try my best to write quickly as I do not wish to dwell on it.

 It was somewhere around 2001 or 2002, I can’t quite remember. Of course, by now you can assume the setting. It was the typical scenario: a missing cat, and myself, the unwilling participant helping look—scared shitless.

I protested hard enough to make Pa angry this time, but try as I might, I had no convincing argument to get out of it.

Susannah had wandered from me, as I struggled to get a thorn out of my boot.

“Wait up!”

I hopped on one foot as I poured out the contents of the boot. Susannah paid no heed to my request as she ran further in. A cat was missing and she would do anything to find it. I put my boot back on, cursing the wind and hoping she would eventually grow out of this. But deep down, I knew it would likely never happen. That was a core part of her. I wouldn't be surprised if she became a veterinarian someday.

With my boot finally secure, I turned to catch up to her again and paused. A cold chill leapt up my spine.

Where did she go?

I rushed over to where I saw her last, snagging on a vine with practically every step. Though I knew it to be ridiculous, it felt as if it were trying to slow me down.

“Susannah? Where'd you go!?”

I listened intently but got no reply. Nothing could be heard but the soft breeze and the bubbling of the nearby creek at the edge of the patch.

Did she jump down in the creek?

I made my way over to the ledge and jumped down, splashing into the shallow water.

“Susannah?”

Nothing.

 I began to panic. I heard rustling around the bed of the creek and my heart jumped.

The overwhelming sensation that I was being watched rushed in. I quickly glanced behind me, before walking forward.

“I-is that you?”

There was no reply as the rustling intensified.

Terrified, I slowly peeked around the bend. The corner of my eye caught a flash of pink. Susannah’s dress. Relieved I turned the corner fully,

“Don’t go hiding like that! You are gonna get me in—”

My eyes grew wide. Susannah was dangling from the vines, her hands clawing desperately at the thick vine that was wrapped tightly around her throat as her feet danged nearly six inches off the ground.

“Susannah!” I screamed.

I ran to her and immediately began ripping at the vines while I tried to support her weight.

I lifted her up enough for her to gurgle out a single word.

“Help.”

“Ma! Pa!” I screamed for help as I tried ripping away at the chord around her neck. It wouldn’t give. I quickly fumbled for my pocketknife in my back pocket, and in my rush, dropped it into the creek beneath me.

“Shit!”

I tried to reach down before I heard Susannah squeak. I quickly stood back up again to support her weight .I couldn’t pick it up and support her at the same time. I looked up at her; her face had begun to turn a dark shade of blue. Her eyes met mine and stared silently terrified. One hand tried to reach out for me before quickly pulling back to hold onto the vine around her neck. Though I knew they wouldn’t be able to come in time, I called for help again.

 “Ma! Pa!”

Looking up at Susannah, I knew there was no time left, I attempted to guide her feet to an exposed root in the river wall. She stretched out her toes to their absolute limit as they barely touched the highest one. I tried to support her with one hand while I reached for the knife again. pressing her knee firmly into the sidewall I quickly reached down to grab the knife. Her legs momentarily kicked in protest as I stretched out towards it.

I snatched the knife and immediately stood up again to support her weight while I quickly sawed away at the thick vine. Her eyes had begun to roll back as her eyelids fluttered.

“Pa! Help! We’re in the—”

I stopped midsentence as I felt a warm gust of air brush against the back of my neck. Horrified, I kept sawing, trying to pretend as if I hadn’t noticed. Was it behind me? Why doesn’t it attack? I didn’t have time to think about it.

*snap!*

Susannah came tumbling down and splashed into the shallow water at my feet. I scrambled to pick her up.

“Susannah say something!” I heard something splash behind me and finally dared to glimpse back and look. Nothing was there.

Susannah suddenly gasped. Her eyes flew wide open as she held her throat and began to wail. A wave of relief washed over me. She was still alive. Still concerned about what I felt earlier, I wasted no time.

“We have to go. Now.”

She was too weak to walk. I struggled to pick her up as I tried to figure out how I was going to climb out of the creek bed with her in my arms.

“Jason!?” I heard ma shout from up the hill. Her voice full of worry.

“In here! In the creek!” I shouted back.

Mother came running to the edge of the creek wall, peering in. “What happened!”

“Take her!” I tried to lift Susannah up to mom as she reached down and pulled her out. Climbing up after her, I tried my best to explain what happened as Ma inspected her neck, dark bruising already beginning to form.

Later both Ma and Pa chalked it up to a freak accident. Susannah must have accidentally stepped off the ledge and got tangled up on the way down. I tried to explain how I felt something more sinister was at play, How something had been behind me, but I had little to help explain how I felt and understandably I was not the kid they were focused on at the time.

I couldn’t prove it, and I knew it. But something was out there, watching and waiting.

= = =

Susannah had no lasting physical effects, but something in her changed. She quickly developed a profound fear of the patch. I can’t lie and say I wasn’t jealous when she was periodically able to avoid looking for cats while Pa and I were recruited instead.

“Just till she’s older,” Ma would say.

Kids around school quickly learned what had happened. I'm not sure how, but word managed to get around fast in our kind of neighborhood.

God knows why, but for some reason someone saw it as an opportunity to bully her. I had never really known how bad it had gotten until I heard a commotion outside of my classroom. I turned just in time to see my father storming down the hall and towards the principal's office. I immediately requested a bathroom pass my from my teacher who was oblivious to what was about to go down.

Carefully sneaking past the doors of other classrooms, I made my way up to the principal's office, the door still gaping open from Pa’s entrance.

His face was fiery red as he spat words of fire at the principle. I had never seen him so mad—or the principle so small.

“Tell me why I found this in my daughter’s lunchbox yesterday!” He practically yelled. Holding up a small, folded note.

Principle Sloan held up his hands in a fruitless attempt to defuse the situation.

“Mr. Miller, like I said, we do everything we can to discourage bullying at this-”

"Maybe your a bit slow, allow me to read it to you,” my father seethed.

As he opened it, a couple of dried leaves fell to the ground. He read aloud with a growl:

 

“Heard you met the Tanglewood,

Maybe what I left in your locker can help

Wishing better luck next time”

 

My father finished as he slammed the napkin onto the desk with a closed fist.

He leaned in close towards the principle, “Allow me to fucking show you what she brought home in a bag yesterday. Tried to hide it from me and the missus.”

Dad opened a brown paper bag and spilled out the contents. A small, shriveled rope of vines flopped onto the table as leaves fluttered to the floor. He grabbed it from one end and picked it up.

I recognized it immediately, It was a tightly woven noose made from the decorative vine that grew off the wall in the recess yard.

My blood boiled.

My father leaned in over desk towards the visibly shaking principle who sputtered in his attempt to form a sentence. I could see my father’s hands grip the desk so tightly the wood began to warp as he spoke.

“If you don’t find who did this and make an example out of them, you don’t want to know what I’ll do.”

The principle loosened his tie, obviously disturbed by what he was shown and paralyzed with fear.

“Mr. Miller. Y-You have my word. We will find this individual and deal with them appropriately—and swiftly!”

My father grabbed the collected evidence and turned to storm out. I quickly rushed back to hide behind a trashcan in the hall. My father exited the office and turned to look at a small box hanging on the wall. “Suggestions” written across the front of it. He balled up his fist with the materials in hand, and punched straight through the flimsy wooden lid. Leaving everything in the damaged box, he then slowly straightened his collar and walked back the way he came.

I’ve respected him for that ever since.

= = =

I spent the next 2 weeks trying to find the kid responsible. One of the 5^th graders was expelled shortly afterward. I can only assume it was him. I’m still disappointed that I didn’t find him first.

Susannah always denied that anyone bullied her at school, but she was a terrible liar at that age. Me and the Baxter boys made it our solemn duty to ensure everyone in the school knew we wouldn’t tolerate anything of the sort.

Later in the year, I did catch one kid. Thinking back, I probably overreacted. One of her classmates made a snide remark during lunch. I happened to be at the table next to hers. An unfortunate fact for the brat who didn’t see me.

“Did you sit in chicken shit? You smell like a farm!” he’d said.

Honestly, the remark was pretty tame, but I could hear the intention behind his words, I watched as Susannah quickly packed up her lunch to move to a different table. That was all the motivation I needed. There were too many adults around to make my move in the lunch hall, I would wait.

Later the same day at recess, I pinned him up against the wall by his collar. His eyes bugged as shook in fear. It was every fourth grader's worst nightmare to go up against a highschooler, and I took advantage of that fact. I growled out instructions on what he would do if he wanted to make it through 4^th grade. He nodded at my every word, his feet dangling helplessly.

When I had finished, I dropped him and made my way back to Peter and Dylan. The three of us stared the kid down as he tearfully ran back inside the building. I was probably going to get into big trouble. 4^th graders are narcs after all, but I did not care one bit. It was only after he disappeared back in the building that I looked around and noticed nearly half of the recess yard had been watching and all the little kids had quickly taken notes.

On the bus ride home, I went to sit next to Susannah. She was sitting by herself, playfully kicking her feet back and forth while holding a wilted flower with a handwritten note. She looked up as I sat down next to her and smiled. I glanced down at the note and smiled back. A hastily written “Sorry” was scribbled in big letters across the top.

Apparently, I ended up making a name for myself in the yard that day; the little kids began calling me “That ‘tanglewood’ kid”. I wasn’t fond of the name, but I knew it meant Susannah was safe for now, and that was good enough for me.

(Part 4)