Broken Branch by John Mantooth Page B

the hatchet and, when she did, she felt the demon shift inside her. It began to climb up the walls of her belly, and it was slippery and hot and it grew. This was what it had been waiting on. This moment.
    She reached as high as she could and slammed the hatchet into a nearby elm. Then she pulled herself up and began to climb.

44
    Later, when Trudy had almost given up that James would return, and the sight of the two bodies wrapped in the willow had caused her to shut her eyes tightly and think of the swamp, she finally heard the sound of him coming, dragging Helen’s body behind him.
    She opened her eyes and saw him standing near the willow tree, Helen’s body lying on the ground beside him.
    He sighed heavily. “Where’s that hatchet?”
    Trudy tensed. The demon was in her throat now. It could come out of her mouth anytime, but she realized now that wasn’t its goal. Instead, it climbed higher, oozing into her sinus cavities and further up toward her brain. It slithered around, testing the hardness of her skull before settling into the soft refuge of her brain.
    It told her what to say.
    â€œYou never believed any of it, did you?”
    James turned quickly. “Who’s there?”
    She smiled. He thought she was behind him.
    â€œTrudy?”
    â€œJust answer the question,” she said. “I thought you believed, but it was all a lie.”
    â€œTrudy, I don’t know where you are or what you think you saw, but I’m a God-fearing man. These bodies were here when I arrived. The Lord woke me up out of my sleep and told me to come here.”
    â€œI’ve got a demon in me,” she said.
    â€œTrudy, you’re talking crazy. Are you in the tree?” He craned his neck, trying to look through the branches, but it was dark, and she knew she was well camouflaged.
    â€œYou put it in me,” she said. “You and Otto with your lies and deceit. You hurt people like that. You say you’re godly but then you go and kill and fuck and put demons in people. If there’s a God, He’s turned His back on this place.”
    â€œI’m only doing what has to be done, Trudy. I knew you wouldn’t understand. I won’t see Otto’s prophecies go unfulfilled. God’s work isn’t always pleasant. If you’d just come down and listen to me.”
    â€œYou’re afraid,” she said, suddenly sure that it was his fear, his deep-seated fear, not his faith at all that had caused him to act like this.
    James stepped back as if he’d been physically punched, and she knew she was right.
    â€œTrudy, if you’ll just come down from there, we can work this out.” He leaned over, gazing up into the tree, trying to spot her. “We can talk it out. Otto will know what to do with your de—”
    He never finished the rest. She came down.

45
    Once it was over, she lay in the grass, breathing, looking at the stars, which seemed streaked and blurred across the sky. It would have been easy, she realized, to stay here for a long time, to wait until morning, to wait until someone found her.
    The demon was gone, and without it, she felt weak and tired, and full of reasons why she would fail.
    Except, maybe it had never been a demon at all. Hadn’t G.L. said there was no such thing? She couldn’t remember, but it seemed like he’d said something like that once, and the more she thought on it, the more she realized that the demon had just been the part of her that had to act, just like the demon in James had been his fear of losing control, of discovering that his entire life had been built on a sham.
    A sham.
    No demons, no God. Just people.
    And the swamp. That was something. She’d been there. She wouldn’t allow herself to doubt that she hadn’t.
    This got her back up on her feet, and she stared up into the branches of the willow tree—the ones untouched by the bodies—and saw the stars between them.
They