Page 6 of Sweet Silver Bells

Hunter kept his hands and his fingers to the ground.

If he was lost to the darkness, he might as well keep searching.

If he turned around now, who knew what direction he would wander off in, especially when everything looked the same.

Everything was a world of secrets and shadows, waiting for him to hold his breath before it was taken straight from his body.

Hunter kept looking and walking. It was all he could do.

He had the stream for reference, but he hadn’t come across it again, which made him suspicious that he was lost, too far in.

He tried to push away the fear of being trapped there all night, in the cold that was deadly on its own as the temperature plunged.

The sun had just set, and there would be too many hours before someone would find his car, before someone might step into the trees and hear him yell for help.

No, they wouldn’t hear him yell for help.

You are not leaving without that watch. You are not leaving her here.

There was another crack in the distance, a violent promise in the middle of the silent abyss.

Hunter’s breath hitched, and his heartbeat doubled.

There is no one there. Your mind is playing tricks on you.

That could be true.

But then he heard it again.

The warmth of his breath, panicked through his lips, created steam clouds around him. It felt like watching his life leaving him, running away, no longer choosing to stay.

Hunter bent down, sitting on the back of his jacket, hoping that the waterproofing worked better than he knew it would for a knock-off brand that he could afford with his teacher’s salary. He tucked his legs into his sides, arms on his knees, head down in between his legs, and shivered.

“I am a broken man without you, Sarah,” he said to himself. “And I’ve lost more pieces of you. Every day, I seem to have less of you to hang on to.”

The trees above seemed to absorb his grief, his cries, and his tears, somehow silent, his words barely a whisper. It didn’t feel right, though.

It didn’t feel right to be scared. It didn’t feel right to be silent.

Hunter lifted his head, a loud sob bellowing from deep in his core.

“I’m sorry,” he said to the trees, but he was talking to Sarah. “I’m so sorry I didn’t get to come with you. I’m so sorry that I am here and you are not.”

Hunter, plagued with grief and adrenaline, was sure that someone was listening, convinced that the cracks he heard in the distance were both a figment of his imagination and really there. Fear itself was summoning it.

He did the only thing he could think of to break the silence, to stop the fear; he started to hum.

Low and raw, the sound of his voice wrapped itself around the trees, a barrier, a cocoon of safety because anything malicious or vengeful could not enter through.

His breaths slowed and his body calmed as Hunter was enveloped by the cold.

His hum eventually turned into a song in an attempt to comfort himself, to calm his nerves.

“ City sidewalks, busy sidewalks ,” he sang, voice cracking as tears spilled freely. Images of Sarah flashed through his mind, from the Christmases that they had spent together, decorating the tree.

“Can you put me on your shoulders?” Sarah yelled to him from the kitchen.

Hunter stopped cutting the potatoes for dinner and came out into the living room.

“Questions like that are alarming, you know.” He smiled.

“I just can’t reach the top of the tree.” She laughed, holding out a bright gold, glittering star. “I’m just a little baby.”

“I’ve got something you can lift later,” he said, his voice low and seductive.

“You think your pickup lines would get better with age.” She sighed. “But I think you peaked years ago.”

Hunter growled before he dove under Sarah’s legs and stood. She screamed and then playfully slapped him on the side of the head a few times.

“Give a girl some warning.” She laughed as he stepped closer to their noble fir Christmas tree. She had a habit of breaking off little tufts of needles and pressing them to his nose.

“Smell this. Is there a better smell in the world?”

At that moment, he was between her thighs, so he felt that the question was unfair.

Another branch cracked, this time unmistakably, taking Hunter out of the comfort of his past home life and bringing him back to reality. It was so close, like it was right behind him.

“Hello?” he called out. “Who’s there? I can hear you.”

But there was no answer.

There was no noise.

There was nothing but the darkness pressing tighter with every breath.

“Silver bells,” he sang, terrified, tears welling in his eyes. “ It’s Christmastime, in the city.”

Crack.

Hunter jolted up and got to his feet. It was right behind him.

He turned, trying to make out what was there in the dark, but all he could gather was an enormous tree, its branches twisted and wrapped around it. Moss protected its bark like a cocoon.

“Is someone behind that tree?”

Nothing.

I’m going crazy , he thought. It’s time for me to resign and become a forty-year-old man who moves in with his parents.

A psych eval would land him in a seventy-two-hour hold, minimum.

Hallucinations due to grief, a failure to thrive.

He looked up at the branches and greenery clinging to the canopy, defiant trees refusing to die or fall. He laughed before the sound turned into a ragged, heavy sob.

“And on every street corner, you hear, ” he sang in a whisper.

That’s when he heard another crack. He focused his eyes on the enormous tree, the source, he was convinced, of the sound. Eyes strained, he watched, he listened.

It could have been the darkness playing tricks, but Hunter watched the trunk move, the moss fall, taking tree bark with it, like someone was inside, trying to claw their way out.