Philippa, MA

June 20th

5:39

The air at a crime scene has weight. You could place it on a scale and see a figure reflecting back the severity of the crime. Some crime scenes had greater weights and others less so. The old Wych Elm in the forest of Philippa fell into the former category.

Langston’s old, Chevy Delta cut a path through the trees using it’s headlamps as a plow to push through the darkness. Carver had slept the entire journey, he didn’t drive so he wasn’t someone Langston could fall back on. I didn’t matter much to her because she didn’t need much sleep. Six hours here, three hours there, she could function well on just about anything so long as she had her crutch that is coffee. Of course, the first gas station they met just outside of Philippa had the familiar smell of a Starbucks attached to it much to the delight of both Langston and Carver.

“Tea,” she said, “always with the tea.”

He smiled and sipped on his earl grey, blowing the outside of the paper cup in order to cool it down enough to drink.

“Black coffee, one ice cube” she said to the barista.

Moments later a hand came out slowly holding a cup with the word “Langston” written on the side. The turned and left the coffee shop and began across the parking lot towards the car.

“You still give them your surname then?” asked Carver.

“I recall you used to call me Langston when we worked together,” she replied.

“I did it affectionately.”

“Of course you did.”

It was a different type of air already. The mist and smog of the city had dissipated and had been replaced by a cool, sea side breeze. Carver opened the driver’s side door for her as she struggled with the key and the coffee.

“You sure you’re okay driving?” he asked.

“I’ve got us this far haven’t I? Plus, I haven’t got much choice” she replied as they stepped into the car.

“I just meant, we could stop off for longer if you wanted.”

“No, I’d quite like to get this out of the way quickly.”

The rest of the journey went by as quietly as the first half and it wasn’t until they had arrived at Main Street in Philippa that Langston uttered another word to Carver. It’s not that she was purposefully staying silent, it was that she had nothing to say.

“Jesus, the place is exactly the same,” she said.

Carver looked out of his window at the rows of shops all affectionately painted white and black with a few flourishes of colour in the newer buildings. Main Street was long and wide the way all town centres are in places like Philippa and it stretched all the way to the harbour where the Old Lighthouse stood. The took the first left by the Town Hall where an elderly woman looked up from a sign she was knocking into the grass that read “Re-elect Mayor Oliver Thread!”. She looked upon the car with, for a moment, a strange recognition, and then, in an instant, a powerful hatred. Carver watched the woman disappear around the corner as they drove past row after row of identical houses, each with their owners pouring into their cars ready to head off to work either in the city or around the town.

Eventually they came to the edge of town where they saw, on the left, the old Dumont Estate which sat in its own land on its own patch of sea front and then, to the right, the expansive and thick Philippa Forest. Langston took the second right but both of their gazes met the Dumont Estate for similar periods of time until it disappeared, like the woman, behind them. Eventually they came to the mouth of the forest that they were looking for, the point that they had to leave the car and set out on foot which is what they did. Carver walked just behind Langston who strides through the overgrown bushes and trees deep into the forest. It had been hours since the sun had come up and so the heat had started to beat down upon them but the air still remained different here, it had a different flavour to the city. A bitter taste.

“It’s just down here,” she said.

“No, it’s straight on,” replied Carver.

Langston didn’t argue. She followed behind him now as he turned the corner and then, they both stopped dead in their tracks. In an instant, all the purpose with which they had driven and walked disappeared and they both seemed stuck in the moment. Frozen to the spot the way you become when you’re confronting your biggest fear. They looked upon the thick, leafless Elm tree at the heart of the small clearing in the forest the same way you might look upon one of the serial killers from one of Langston’s lectures. Carver thought back to the pictures of the Elm on his wall and how different they were to the real thing. If you could put the air in this place on a scale, the weight would be off the chart.

“I never thought I’d be back here,” said Langston.

Carver had hoped the same thing.

“I never left,” he replied.

“Why did we come here?” she asked.

“I don’t know, why did we?”

Neither took their sight off tree.

“We needed to see it again, to remind us,” she said.

“Is that what its doing?”

Carver stepped into the clearing and Langston followed just behind.

“Are you seeing what I’m seeing?” he asked.

She looked up and saw the tree as it was twenty years ago on the day that they had first met. The day that Emily had been found hanged from the tree.

“It’s just a tree,” she replied, feeling the falseness of the words as they passed by her lips.

Carver walked over to the tree and rested his palm on the bark. It was course and rough and dry the way the ground became during the summer. He ran his hand over the trunk of the tree and began circling it until he came to a stop at something that horrified him.

“Jim,” asked Langston.

She ran around the tree dodging the branches that reached out like thin fingers on a withered hand. She ducked under a final branch before stopping too look at what Carver was seeing.

“Holy shit,” she said.

“Who do something like this?”

He traced his fingers over the words “who put Bella in the Wych elm” which had been carved, crudely, into the trunk of the tree.

“Kids,” she began, “one generations tragedy is another generations joke.”

“But why this?” he asked.

“I don’t know, maybe it was a couple.”

Langston began walking back from the tree when she noticed something catch the light on one of the branches. She turned to find a small cross necklace dangling from a particularly long, thick branch.

“Jim,” she said.

He turned to look at her.

“What the fuck is this,” she said.

She was transfixed by the necklace, horrified by its presence.

“Another joke,”

“Made by someone who knows the case?” she began, “this isn’t a joke.”

She circled the tree again looking for a break in the trunk. Eventually she found a small crack that led up towards a small hollow portion near the top of the tree. She propped herself up on one of the stronger branches and lifted herself to look inside the crack of the tree.

“Call the police,” she said, “call them now.”

Next Chapter: Chapter Four- "Cold"