The Gift of Chaos

9 - The real monsters

"Lucy, Mary, you stay in here, okay? We're just going to check something outside."

"Lucas, you too." I said.

"But, Ri-"

"Stay inside!" I retorted.

I eyed him until he huffed and nodded. Then, Scott and I marched outside. We immediately dropped by the footprints, glancing at the window every few moments to make sure the younger ones weren't looking outside.

"I'm not imagining this, am I? This looks exactly like the ones we saw yesterday..."

"They do," I agreed.

I looked up at him. We searched one another's faces. I hesitated. Should I tell him? Wouldn't he just think I was crazy? He'd never doubted me as a child, but that was hardly unusual. Children could believe just about anything. Finally, I steeled myself and said:

"Scott, I think they're from my book."

He blinked at me.

"What? What book?"

"The book I'm writing," I explained. "I... It has a creature called a Treefoot in it. They have feet just like that, and they look like walking Christmas trees..."

He stared at me for a long moment. I wasn't sure if he was trying to wrap his head around what I'd said or debating whether to run away or not.

"I'll show you... Hold on..."

Mum and Dad had taken Grandma to the next town for her monthly medical appointment for her knee problems, so the house was empty right now. I hurried up the stairs to my room, though I could remember the passage as I ran.

Ruby stared up at the fearsome creature before her. It was like a Christmas tree had been turned into a human, but the process was incomplete. It had the human body, but it was the trunk of a fir tree, covered in a thick layer of sharp-looking green needles. And if that wasn't strange enough, it was also covered in colourful baubles and tinsel. It had no face or hands, and its feet were the roots of the tree, giving a misshapen form that looked like tentacles in different sizes intertwining.

I picked up the book and hurried back down with it, only just avoiding falling rather painfully on my face at the foot of the stairs in my hurry. Moments later, I was back outside. I paused to find the right page, then carefully handed the book to Scott. He stood very still, his eyes slowly trailing across the page. His face grew slowly more bewildered as he did so.

"... So... you're saying you think that the... Tree foot came out of your book?" he asked slowly, his tone suggesting he was trying to decide whether he believed it or not.

"I don't know for sure... and I realise how crazy it sounds... but I..."

Then, I remembered how I'd fallen asleep with the book closed on my desk and found it open the next morning. I'd assumed Lucas had sneaked in to read it, but... what if it had been left open by the Treefoot coming out?

"How would this even happen?"

"I don't know! I... this is insane..." I said. "But... I can't believe it's a coincidence. And that thing Lucas saw..."

"We don't even know what he saw," Scott reminded me.

"My little brother's a lot of things, but he's not a liar," I replied, perhaps a little more firmly than I'd meant to.

"Okay," he said. "If you believe him, I believe you."

I relaxed a little and smiled gratefully at him.