Chapter 2: Unpacking Memories
The room was a testament to stillness. Dust motes danced in the solitary shaft of light piercing the drawn curtains, illuminating the thick layer that coated every surface. The air was heavy, stale, as if undisturbed for decades. Ivy's mother had grown up in this room, a thought that felt both comforting and profoundly alien. She couldn't reconcile the vibrant, sometimes frantic, woman she knew with the quiet despair that seemed to permeate these four walls.
She dropped her backpack and suitcase on the faded floral rug, the dull thud echoing unnaturally in the quiet. Her eyes scanned the room: a single, narrow bed with a patchwork quilt, a heavy wooden wardrobe, a vanity table with a cracked mirror, and a small, built-in bookshelf filled with dog-eared novels and outdated schoolbooks. Nothing here spoke of a life lived, only a life paused, waiting.
Ivy walked to the window, pulling aside the heavy velvet curtains. The glass was grimy, but through it, she could see a section of the sprawling backyard. The monstrous sycamore tree dominated the view, its branches thick and dark against the setting sun. It felt closer now, almost pressing against the house. Even from this distance, she felt its immense, silent presence.
She sighed, a long, weary exhalation that felt too loud. There were no answers here, not yet. Just more questions. Her mother's death had been ruled "natural causes," a vague and unsatisfying pronouncement that had left Ivy cold. No illness, no struggle, just… gone. It felt wrong, too quiet for a life that had always been so restless.
Turning from the window, Ivy decided to unpack. Maybe bringing some order to this small space would bring some order to her thoughts. She unzipped her suitcase, pulling out a few changes of clothes, a worn copy of her favorite novel, and her small, battered tablet. As she reached the bottom, her fingers brushed against something soft, wrapped in an old scarf.
It was her mother's photo album. She hadn't even realized she'd packed it. It was a bulky, old-fashioned album with stiff, yellowing pages, tucked away in a corner of her mother's closet, rarely looked at. Her mother had always been reticent about her past, especially her time in Elmridge. "Old stories are best left undisturbed, nwa m," she'd often say, her voice firm, her eyes distant.
Ivy settled onto the edge of the bed, the album heavy on her lap. She opened it carefully, the brittle pages crackling. The first few pages were filled with faded, black-and-white photos of Agnes, looking much younger, a stern beauty even then, and a handsome man Ivy vaguely recognized as her grandfather. They were stiff and formal, faces unsmiling, captured in the same quiet house she was now in.
Then came the pictures of her mother as a child. A tiny girl with bright eyes and a mischievous smile, a stark contrast to the somber adults around her. There were photos of her on the porch, in the garden, and—Ivy's breath hitched—a few of her playing beneath the very sycamore tree that loomed outside the window. In one, her mother, no older than six or seven, was laughing, a blurry, joyful sprite, clinging to one of the tree's lower branches. The tree seemed to dwarf her, even then.
Ivy flipped a few more pages, past blurry birthdays and school photos, until she came to a section that seemed to abruptly end. Several photo slots were empty, dark rectangles against the faded paper. And then, a series of more recent, though still years old, photos. These were of her mother in the city, holding a much younger Ivy, their smiles bright and genuine. It was a disjointed narrative, a life broken into disconnected segments.
As she turned another page, a small, folded piece of paper fluttered out from between the leaves. It was old, thin, and felt like dried parchment. Ivy unfolded it carefully. It wasn't a letter, nor a drawing. It was a page torn from a very old diary or ledger. The handwriting was spidery, faded ink, almost illegible. She squinted, trying to make out the words.
She could barely decipher a few phrases:
"…the sorrow… beneath the ground…"
"…they vanished… like smoke…"
"…always the tree… watches…"
And then, faintly, undeniably, she heard it.
It was almost imperceptible at first, a sound so soft it could have been the wind rustling the leaves of the sycamore outside, or the creak of the old house settling. But it wasn't the wind. It was a low, resonant hum, like a distant whisper. It seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere, a vibration in the very air.
"Lost…" it seemed to murmur. "Gone…"
Ivy froze, the paper clutched in her hand. She strained her ears, her heart hammering against her ribs. Nothing. Just the continued, heavy silence of Elmridge.
She told herself it was exhaustion, grief playing tricks on her mind. The stress of the past weeks, the strange new environment, the unsettling presence of her grandmother – it was all culminating in this. A trick of the light, a creak of old timber.
But as she looked out the window again, at the vast, dark silhouette of the sycamore tree, she couldn't shake the chilling certainty that the whisper hadn't come from inside her head. It had come from outside. From the tree.