By Christopher Fryer
Inspired by: “The Lonely Willow Tree” a 17th century ballad.
*
That night, we sat beneath the willow tree near the sea, close enough to the cliff-edge that the mist of the crashing waves below made the campfire sizzle. Martin, the camp leader, cleared his throat and began the evening’s scary story.
“This one takes place right here, actually, about two hundred years ago,” he began, leaning forward with a jack-o-lantern’s grin. “And it involves a young boy, just about your age.”
A cool chill ran down my spine, anticipating a spooky tale. I was not a fan of horror, but on our first night of camp I wanted to be brave. It reassured me to see that the others shared the same petrified stare.
Slowly, lyrically, Martin spoke with a mad scientist’s sneer. “There was a youth, a cruel youth, who lived by the sea,” he said. He pointed to the tree behind us, its branches drooping like wet hair. “Six little maidens he drowned there by the willow tree.”
“That tree?” I asked, my voice cracking.
“That very tree.”
Down below, the waves crashed, and Martin continued the story.
*
He walked to the cliff with Sally Brown. The sun was setting, dripping red as blood into the silver-blue ocean, and a breeze played with the girl’s long blonde hair flowing out from beneath her golden crown. She was very beautiful, dressed in a silky yellow gown. They were all very beautiful.
“Is this the place?” she asked, a voice as sweet as warm milk. “Your most favorite place in the world?”
“Do you like it?”
“It’s lovely.”
She stood at the cliff’s edge, looking down at the crashing waves. Mist rose to flirt with her face. He stood beside her and he took her tiny hand in his, and she giggled but did not object. He could have been her king.
Push her, said a voice. Drown her like the others.
At first he ignored the command, burying it beneath his fascination with the way Sally smelled of jasmine and sea salt. This one was too pretty. He could not do to her what he’d done to the others.
She took him by his hand to the lonely willow tree and she touched its bark, tugged lightly on its leafy branches. “Feel her,” she said. “She is cold here. She must be so lonely by herself on the cliff.”
The boy did, and perhaps this was a mistake.
Do it now. Now is your chance.
Moved by a tingle in his mind, his infatuation with her turned, as it had with the others, to a rejection. He remembered now why he’d brought Sally here. “Oh turn your back to water’s side, and face the willow tree,” he said, feeling his mouth peel into a grin. He squeezed her hand tightly. “Six little maidens I’ve drowned here, and you’ll the seventh be.” Feeling the voice pulse through him like electricity, he cried, “Take off, take off, your golden crown. Take off your gown. For though I am going to murder you, I would not spoil your finery.”
Sally pulled her hand from his, but did not run. She did not seem afraid. A tear came to her eye as if she might have known the other six and wondered where they’d gone. With quivering lips, she cried, “Oh, turn around, you false young man. Oh, turn around. For ‘tis not meet that such a youth a naked woman should you see.”
He did not think the request peculiar. In his trance, he turned and faced the willow tree, and he felt the willow tree smiling back at him. But when Sally grabbed him by the shoulders, the willow tree screamed out in mute agony, and before the boy knew that he’d been fooled, he was thrown from the cliff.
“Lie there, lie there, you false young man!” she cried. “Lie there! Lie there! Six little maidens you’ve drowned here. Now keep them company.”
*
Martin paused, looking each of us in the eye. It was the way he licked his lips that bothered me the most. Some of the others snickered, finding the boy’s trust of the girl to be a lame way to die. The camp leader ignored their critiques, and continued, “He sank beneath the icy waves, he sank down into the sea, and no living thing wept a tear for him.” Martin nodded his head toward the whispering branches behind him. “Save the lonely willow tree.
“You see,” he explained, “it was the tree that made him do it.”
“The tree?” I asked.
“It wanted the boy to kill them.”
“But why?”
“It lives alone upon this cliff, as lonely as lonely can be. It only wanted companionship, as much as you, or you, or me.”
Behind him, through the leaves, I thought I heard the willow whisper: Push them. Drown them all. It was not my imagination, I discovered soon enough, when the camp leader stood with grabbing hands and said, “And now your time has come to join them. She’s asked again for company.”
He took us one by one, and flailing we were flung, to splash and drown in the blackened sea. I was the last to feel his grip, and the last to hear his words; only they did not belong to him as they came from the willow’s roots.
THE END
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