Explain It Like I'm Tree

Cursed

Christopher was transfixed. "You... you mean Great Grandma Edie?"

"Your family! Created! This! It whispers. To each. 'What is. The harm? You know. The future. Is short. Be. Reckless. Take. Great risks. For little. Gain. Do not bother. To seek out. Life for yourself. Away from the family. Do not. Start fresh. It will only. Sink. There is no point. You will die. It is nobody's. Fault. That someone died.' Never. Your responsibility. It is all. Just. The. Curse. It says. 'I am your. Friend. I am comfortable. Familiar. I absolve! You! Believe in me. Produce heirs. And die.' "

Keeping Christopher trapped with one hand, Arthur turned and pointed his other hand at the house. What had only been a sour presence at the edge of his perception now filled his vision. A great, bloated serpent coiled around the mansion, now bursting out of one window and entering through another. Now spilling out of a balcony and then coiling around a gabled roof. Its tail trailed through the cemetery and its head rested at the top of the house's left-hand spire. Some of its coils wrapped around the great tree that supported the spire, gripping it tight. Choking the tree. It watched them with a single milky eye, half-lidded.

"Can? You? See?" He rasped. "You believe it. So much. Your family. Then you. You come back. Read the stories. Record more stories. Feed it. It. Kills. You. It. Kills. Me."

"No," Christopher whispered, trembling under Arthur's hand. "I don't see anything. But you know! I told her, Miss Vivi, not you, but you know. How do I fight it? You have to tell me!" The boy's good hand came around, gripping Arthur's wrist. "I don't want to die like them!"

Arthur fought to keep himself from crushing Christopher right then. "But. You. Do. A part. Of you. Wants the same end. And. Believes just as much. Or you would. Not have come. Or it would. Not have. Taken hold."

"What do I do?!"

"Die now. Make no. More heirs. For it to consume. And discard. Let the curse. Die. With us."

Arthur struggled against the tree's hold as Vivi shouted, "That can't be the answer! Give us time, we'll figure something else out!"

"More time. For the curse. To adapt? To draw in. More belief?"

You don't want to kill anyone! Arthur hurled his thoughts at the tree. I've seen it! You embraced this house, you held it up! You loved to watch the little ones. You grieved at every death! You tried to warn them as the curse choked you, too. You screamed for them to hear you!

He leaned toward Christopher, studying the boy's face. "No. I do not. Want this. But. I do not. See better ways. He could not. Stop. Believing now. Even if. He wanted to."

"So you're going to punish him for your mistake?" Vivi challenged. "You pop out and scare him into belief so hard he can't shake it, then you kill him? What kind of trap—"

Arthur and the tree turned, roaring at her. "STOP. SPEAKING."

She took a step back, shaken. Mystery edged in front of her, his posture tense but no longer hostile. "Vivi, it wasn't a trap. If our friend, Christopher, had continued to come back here, he would have perpetuated the curse to the next generation. Either way, he will meet an untimely end. Old one, you are trying to make it so that there is never a next time, correct?"

Sorrow dampened the edges of the rage. Someone was listening. Arthur let out a sigh like a gale through stripped branches. "Yes."

Mystery crouched, but Arthur did not sense an attack in his posture. Instead, he inched forward, cautious as a cat in his approach. His tails swept from side to side in gentle, wide strokes. He spoke gently. "Old one, please. Is Arthur well?"