The Tree Garden

© 1999 Barry Bissonette
All rights reserved.

In looking over the papers my father left me after his death, most of which were old letters from friends and family, I came upon the following, somewhat unusual, narrative. I reproduce it here, as I found it, along with my father's accompanying notes. As for its authenticity, I can only vouch for my father's character. He was the type of person, and we all know, or have at least met one, who was always very serious and never, I mean never, joked around. He neither read nor told stories. If it wasn't real, he wanted nothing to do with it. Keeping that in mind, imagine that very person you know, always serious and never joking, relating these events to you, and judge for yourself.

The tree garden, as I like to call it, composed of evergreens, planted in square sections of as many as forty across, as was the one directly outside my second floor window, captivated my attention from the first time I laid eyes on it, a little over two months ago. This sector, right behind me, the tips scarcely protruding from the newly fallen snow, was planted, for the most part, I believe, just prior to my moving in. I say for the most part, because on a few occasions, I've seen a man, dressed in black, sporting a heavy black coat with a large black hood, which is entirely understandable given the nature of these New England winters, just past dusk, plant the occasional tree, evidenced by the fact that in other sections, most of the trees are similar in height, with a few stragglers trying to catch up to their older brethren.

Not having any friends in the area, I nevertheless tried asking my neighbors if they knew anything of this man who planted trees in the dark. The answer to all of my inquiries, as you may have already guessed, was no. Now I'm no great judge of character, but the people I asked, all of whom were friendly enough to talk to me, seemed to turn cold and distant when asked about the man in black. One woman, whom I had often seen jovially talking with others around town, was taken aback before turning her back on me and walking away; another, one of her friends, became visibly upset at my question. After that I stopped asking questions, which would have done me no good anyway, since the people changed, en masse, from having an indifferent attitude towards me to having one of, I won't say scorn, because no one was ever mean to me, but I noticed that they began to distance themselves from me, as if I carried some horrible disease that none of them wanted to risk contracting.

After a few days of this erratic behavior on the part of the townspeople I saw him again, for we had just had a heavy storm, on his way to plant another evergreen. This time he was very close, only a few yards from me on my perch, and I could make out every aspect of his person, though my eyes could detect little more from this distance than when he was further away. The one thing I did notice, as he cleared away the snow to make way for his tree, were his hands, sinewy in their appearance while they tore at the solid earth beneath the snow almost, almost, gracefully. They were white, pasty white, and the long, slender fingers seemed perfectly suited for the job they were now performing. All this time I was fixated, and surely he should have seen me had he looked up, but he never deviated from his appointed task. When he finished he gently covered the barren land with one sweep of his white hand, and then, standing up, turned in my direction. My heart skipped a beat and I recoiled with a gasp, and this should have, must have, caught his attention, but he showed no sign of recognizing my presence. I regained my composure, breathing heavily, heart racing, and assumed my place at the window. The man in black was just as I saw him last, facing my building, not looking up at me as you would expect, but straight ahead. It was only after I sat back down that he turned and began to walk away. I should have been able to see his face but I could not, only a darkness, darker than the clothes that adorned him, enveloped by the large hood. Now understand that I am not a brave person, but as this man was causing me so much trouble, both in my own mind and with my neighbors, I had to find out who he was, and what he was up to.

I raced down the stairs. I would have to go around the house, the front door being the only exit, but I was confident I could catch him. Upon reaching the door, I threw it open, only to be hit by a gale-force wind, snow smacking me hard in the face. I ran out and turned the corner of the house, wholly expecting to see him walking towards the woods just past the tree garden. The storm, though there had not been the slightest hint of it moments before, blinded me while I searched in vain. He must have sensed it and run for cover. There was no use fumbling about in the snow for someone who wasn't there. Dejected, I made my way back inside to my spot by the window, perchance to spot him from my elevated position. I was overcome by a horrible sense of dread by what I saw. The wind was still whipping, shaking the small glass window, and I noticed that my footprints, made only seconds before, deep depressions in the pristine snow, were the only ones visible. The man in the hood left no trace of his visit behind; even the spot he knelt in to plant the tree, a large disturbance in the fresh snow, was gone, like he was never there.

I sat, and watched, and waited, but he never returned.

At daybreak, I decided to pose my problem to the reverend. The church was a mile away, and it was a beautiful day, so a walk figured to do me good. I could compose my thoughts. I didn't make it. Less than a hundred yards from my door, I heard my name being called.

"Miss Belham," Christina Gables, a kind and honest woman who always called folks by their last name, was waving at me, trying her best to catch up. She was well respected in town, so far as I can tell, having taken over the market after her husband Steven passed away a few years back after a long bout with pneumonia.

"Miss Belham," breathing in the cold air greedily attempting to catch her breath, "Miss Belham, where you off to so early in the morning?"

"It's a beautiful day; just thought I'd go for a stroll."

"The priest can't help you, dearie, nobody can help you, you just got to go."

"What do you mean?"

"Oh dearie, come with me to the store and I'll tell you."

At this point I was confused and more than a little frightened. We walked in silence to the market, where she sat me down and made us some tea before going into her tale.

"Back in the late 1600s we had a reverend, name of Holly, a tall, languid man with long limbs and a slender face, on it a wide mouth, long nose, and deep-set eyes that commanded attention when he spoke, in a deep hypnotic voice, and preached God's word as if it were his own. Like he were the almighty Himself, he felt it was his duty not only to teach love and respect, but also to punish those who broke God's law. It wasn't supposed to be that way, preacher and executioner rolled into one, and I ain't heard of it happening before or since, but that's the way it was. He wanted it that way, and I dare say no one ever challenged him on it. Never were good and evil allowed to flourish side by side as it did in Reverend Holly. Now, like I said, he was good and kind, especially to children. He was known to plant evergreens; said they never changed, no matter what the weather, as a good Christian should not change in his love for God. Good and kind, so long as you did as he told you, but the minute he thought you broke a commandment, he'd find you, have you brought out in the town square, and administer whatever punishment he felt fit the crime himself. He was known to cut the hands off of thieves, brand the tongues of blasphemers, and whip anyone who dared to skip his sermon. Murderers could be hanged, racked, stoned, beheaded, drowned, burned at the stake, or simply beaten to death. But there was one crime he held up above all others, and that was a woman having a child out of wedlock. For this there could be no redemption. They say he'd have the woman stripped and bound, legs spread, up on the scaffold at sunset. He'd then join her, deliver a sermon on the evils of her deed, and then, with long, thin, pale white fingers leading the way, reach up and rip the unborn child from her and hold it up for all to see. He would then take the lifeless body and bury it, not in the cemetery, but beneath one of his evergreens. A prayer was then said, asking forgiveness for the poor child. The woman, now in shock and bleeding, was left by the reverend and the townspeople to die.

"Now, I only heard of this happening once, when I was a little girl, about forty years ago. A young lady reported seeing a man dressed in black, with a large black hood, planting a tree in the dark by the road leading out of town. She had come to town alone not long before and was expecting her first child. Two weeks later she was found dead in her house, childless, with dried blood everywhere. Died in labor, it appeared, but with no baby around they couldn't say for sure. Didn't matter, ain't none who actually believed it. It was the reverend, and it's him now."

"That's just an old story meant to scare young girls," I said, not believing my own words even as they passed my lips. I thanked her for the tea and got up to go when I was stopped by her question.

"You are expecting, dearie, aren't you?"

I couldn't turn around to face her: "Yes," trying to hide the fear in my voice. "I just found out."

"Then go. Make no delay, just pack up and leave today."

Without looking back, lest she should see the terror in my features, I left her and headed home. I made it back without seeing a solitary person, and went inside, turning the old lady's story around in my mind. Could it be true? I had no friends. How hard would it be to pick up and move? At the very least, someone whom I could not identify was watching me, the townspeople had marked me as an outcast, and I would never fit in. A cup of tea to settle my nerves, and I would begin packing. I sat down with my tea by the window, thinking of where to go.

When I woke, the sun had just dipped below the horizon, and the sky was an eerie pinkish orange. On the ground, in the fresh snow, traversing the tree garden and continuing on by the corner past my line of vision, were footsteps I knew were made by the man in the black hood whom I had been told was none other than the Reverend Holly.

I felt ill, the sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach not only for me but also for my unborn child. The door creaked open—my God, I didn't lock it when I came in—the slow footfalls climbing the stairs had me transfixed, staring blankly at the landing until I saw the hood clearly for the first time, ragged and torn, before the entire figure stood at the top of the stairs, arms spread, white, moldy fingers outstretched. Each step cut shorter any possible path of escape. The room took on an oppressive odor of death and decay and I tried to scream but there was only silence. I still couldn't make out a face behind the hood. My legs were spread easily, horribly, against my greatest efforts....

The writing ends in a few lines of unintelligibly written, barely coherent script penned with a trembling hand and weakly x-ed out. I have spent some time deciphering this final part of the manuscript, and instead of horrifying the reader with the gory details of Miss Belham's discovery upon waking, it is only necessary to understand that Miss Belham was no longer with child, and her baby was not with her.

When I found her, she was slumped by the window. Outside, in the evergreen field, there was a single set of footprints heading out into the woods, leaving from a spot where a new tree appeared to have been recently planted.

Arthur Johnson

I have but one thing of my own to add to this tale. Over the years a small legend has grown, that on winter nights at dusk, when the sky turns a pinkish orange hue in a small town by Hartford, on a certain street that shall remain anonymous, where there stands a house overlooking a tree garden of evergreens, the visage of a young woman can be seen staring at the trees, hoping to catch a glimpse of a tall man dressed in black, head draped by a large black hood, who stole her baby and, as some believe, buried the child under one of the trees.

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