The Ghosts of Hollow Tree. Part Five.

Bury Me at Hollow Tree

The unwanted truth, hidden in plain sight.

I thought it was over. The same way you think Nightmare on Elm Street is over, but it just keeps going.

I stopped painting. I wouldn’t even look at my work. But I didn’t burn them either. Maybe that was the problem.

I just got on with my life. Told myself I was no artist, and besides, I’d never go back to Hollow Tree.

I had to pass through Bothwell, though. The closest settlement, where presumably the one or two living residents of Hollow Tree get their groceries, their beer, their petrol. Where they are outnumbered by the residents of the graveyard, full to overflowing.

Ancient, guarded by towering yew trees, oaks, and rowan, sprinkled with apple trees spewing seasonal bounty, which nobody dares to pick. An unspoken agreement. Those apples belong to the dead.

The public toilets back onto the cemetery; therefore, on too many occasions, we’ve had to stop there. So often I felt sick after wandering through the cemetery, as if something dark and sticky dragged at me. My belly turned with oily revulsion.

Yet normally, I enjoy the peace of a graveyard. And this one’s so pretty. So historic.

I’d packed it all away, though. Ten years go by so fast. I moved house, and in the chaos, in the making of decisions, I finally looked at the paintings.

That pointy hill looks strangely familiar? That one isn’t too bad, actually. I’ll keep it. I really should start to paint again. I could improve that face woven into the trees, there’s something odd about it. More definition needed.

The ghost of Hollow Tree seems quite harmless from this distance.

It was all so long ago.

Back through Bothwell again, it’s on the way between here and there.

Good god! That weird pointy hill. I’d forgotten about it, towering over the town, jutting up behind the graveyard. Couldn’t even see it from Hollow Tree. I’m not sure how it got into the painting.

I’ll have to clean it up a bit when I get home.

I like to have a few drinks when I paint; it frees me up. It’s been so long, I’m not even sure I know how to wield a brush anymore.

I clean back some of the paint around the woman’s face. Her eyes are white and haunted, her lace collar melts into the bushes. It always felt like she was watching, waiting in the land.

I remember now.

I remove a little more paint, trying to get to the basic lines, the bones of the matter.

Her jawline is strangely familiar; her nose has a curve I recognise. She’s oddly faded, maybe ageing. I don’t know.

I squeeze a few colours onto the pallet. Some brown, some blue. a lot of white. As I sip my wine and stir the colours to form a gentle grey, I glance up.

It’s getting dark outside. I should pull the drapes.

My face reflects back at me from the night-blackened window.

I glance at the canvas.

My heart slows, a time lapse of recognition, a slow fall into knowing.

Perhaps I’ve known all along. I’m buried there.

The ghost of Hollow Tree is me.

Find parts 1–4 here:

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