The Spectacular Speculations of a Scintillating Mind

The Hanging Tree

This is a story I wrote a few years back when I was just getting into writing. It's a little rough around the edges but overall not too bad. Hope you enjoy! :)

Are you, are you, coming to the tree?

The whispering wind of the woods slowly creeps past and rustles my hair. I stick to the path, desperately avoiding the dried leaves and the dead branches on the forest floor. I do not want to make a sound. Nothing does. Everything is silent in here.  

Where they strung up a man, they say he murdered three.

The forest treetops sway eerily in the breeze and I can't help but watch their hypnotizing movements, each leaf waving as the wind whisks past. Empty hollowness yawns inside me and I know it is just as deadly as the silence of the forest and that if I let it, it will swallow me whole. I have been irrevocably scarred by tragedy.

Strange things did happen here,

I know what I have to do. It may seem stupid, it may seem foolish, but I have to. First, though, I must face the ghosts of my past.

No stranger would it be if we met at midnight in the hanging tree.

I look away from the treetops and continue to pick my way carefully through the undergrowth. I had always found it unsettling. There were no bird tweets, no insect chirps or any sound of snakes slithering in the undergrowth. They could feel it. They could feel the ghosts of death and pain that echo throughout the silence. And wisely, they stayed away.

Are you, are you coming to the tree?

I always wondered what would have happened if I had not gone out that day. If I hadn't, maybe none of it would have happened at all. Maybe it was all my fault.

Where a dead man cried out, for his love to flee.

I could still see their blood staining his white shirt and see the acceptance in his eyes. He knew what would happen. He knew, yet he still did it.

 Strange things did happen here

It was the worst moment of my life. He had accepted the consequences for protecting me from them, but I hadn't and I never would. Always and forever, he had promised me.

No stranger would it be if we met at midnight in the hanging tree.

I think the worst part of it all was that there wasn't even the barest trace of regret lingering in his gorgeous brown eyes. Despite knowing that they would come, what they would do, he didn't even attempt to conceal it. 

Are you, are you, coming to the tree?

He had made his decision. He also had wanted me to make mine. But I couldn't. Not when the grief was so fresh and overwhelming and horrid. 

Where I told you to run so that we'd both be free.

Silently, he had offered me a choice. I had simply clung to him with all my might and drunk in the last dregs of his presence right up until the last as the furious hoard kicked in our door. He understood and gripped me tightly back.

Strange things did happen here.

We knew that they wouldn't listen. Desperate for revenge or to kill the killer in their midst, not thinking for one second that he had once been their friend. Not thinking for one second the love they would ruin. No. They were not even thinking that he may have had a reason. A good reason.

No stranger would it be, if we met, at midnight in the hanging tree.

And so, we both cried as we were ripped out of each other's arms and I watched in despair as he was carried away. But for some reason, I was compelled to follow. I just had to see. I just had to know.

Are you, are you coming to the tree?

So, I followed them into the forest and to the giant oak in the centre of the clearing. I followed and listened as they decided his fate. I kept my eyes steady on his brown ones, and he did the same to me. I made my decision. He knew. He smiled.

Wear a necklace of rope, side by side with me.

They decided his fate, and as if time had slowed I watched the noose go around his neck. I watched him mouth his last words. I love you! And with tears glistening in my eyes, I watched as the wooden platform beneath him gave out. I heard the snap of his neck- saw the limp, dangling body.

Strange things did happen here.

Two days later, I gaze at the giant oak in the middle of the now too-silent woods. I look at the dangling noose over the wooden platform and I get onto it.

No stranger would it be if we met at midnight in the hanging tree.

I put the noose around my neck. Saying one last prayer to the Lord, I remember my decision. My unspoken promise. Always and forever. And then I jump.