The World Beneath

“This number here, this is all I get after 20 years?” Caprice crumpled her Letter of Termination slowly in her tight fist. She knew exactly how much money she had made the company over the years. Being the first accountant hired came with its own hindsight. “Emilio, this can’t be. Tell me this is not how you thought things would end. You owe me that.”

“Caprice, you know what we’re going through. The whole world is going through this. The algorithm will replace all of us one day.” He looked out the window and sighed. From this high up in the office skyscraper, he had a great view of the business district with its towering office buildings. “We can’t just let low wage personnel go, we all have…”

“You have to save face. Heads must roll so the press paints you in a pretty picture.” Caprice took a glance at the crumpled ‘offer’ in her hand. “This is bad. I don’t deserve this.” She threw the paper in the basket next to Emilio’s all glass desk. “You’ll hear the same words once the axe swings in your direction. I’ve seen the numbers. There’s no way back and no way forward. I just expected more.”

He stopped looking over the city and turned towards her. He set his half-empty whiskey glass down on the desk. “I know what’s coming. My wife doesn’t. And she won’t like it.” He let out a sigh and moved closer to the huge window. Using one hand to gaze into the setting sunlight, he waved Caprice over. “Come look at this. You won’t regret it.”

They squinted through the massive window like two kids through the front of a closed candy store. In the sea of skyscrapers, only a handful of office lights were still on against the coming darkness. “Last month, this was all lit up like New Year’s Eve,” said Caprice.

“Maybe it’s a new beginning,” said Emilio just as another office light switched off.

The next day, during a mild panic attack at her new unemployed status, Caprice’s phone buzzed in her pocket. Her mother’s short text message just said “I need you to sign some papers. Dinner?” It had been some time since she had met her mother in person. The occasional phone call wouldn’t cut it any longer. Caprice’s first instinct was to not tell her mother about getting canned. The right time and place will show themselves if she would really have to tell her. “Patience, Caprice,” she thought. She took a deep breath to calm her nerves and called her mother to confirm.

Even though she was outmatched by an algorithm, Caprice took pride in being calculated. Her way of dealing with numbers during her job had made it hard for her to understand the subtext of male interest. She got married and divorced for the same calculated reason: because at a certain time, it made sense. When 6 years of marriage were suddenly over, her mother took the side of the shocked husband. Blaming only herself for robbing Caprice of her motherly affection in her early years, she tried to reconcile the couple. What she didn’t know was that her daughter had taken this decision after long years of seeing herself grow old in a relationship that made her feel even older than she really was. “I see no point in carrying on with something that leads nowhere,” she had told her mother.

From the table they were sitting at, Caprice could smell the sweet fragrance of freshly cut tomatoes and basil. Their pasta should arrive soon, she hoped. “I have some news for you,” her mother said and put down her glass of wine. “You never met grandpa Flint, but it’s time I told you something.” She took the envelope from her purse and put it on the table.

“He wrote me a letter?” said Caprice in a sarcastic tone.

“Uhm, no. Unfortunately, he passed away.”

“I’m sorry, mom.” She might not have known the man, but her mother did. “Do you want me to go to the funeral with you? I have a few free days coming up.”

“The funeral was yesterday, Caprice. Although I don’t understand what for.”

“What do you mean?”

“He had been missing for more than ten years, there was no body to be buried. It was more of a formality for us, the relatives. The priest called and told me it was done. And that only his neighbour showed up. I couldn’t bring myself to go there after what he put my mother through.”

“How old were you when he sent you and grandmother away?” Caprice had heard the story a long time ago but felt that her mother would benefit from getting some things off her chest now.

“Six or seven. Almost sixty years ago. Your grandmother never told me what had happened. Looking back at it all, I have to say she seemed happy to be out of there.” She opened the envelope and handed Caprice a pen. “In that envelope right there is the deed to his house up north, in Chisholm Minnesota. He left them to me, and I leave them to you. I just need a signature on that last page.”

“But I’ve never been to Minnesota. What am I going to do with it?”

“I don’t know, just sell it. Nothing good ever happened there.”

When Caprice got to Minnesota two weeks later, winter was almost over. From outside, the house and land weren’t much to look at. It was clear that the house had seen better days. Red Brick walls and green window sills amounted to 5 rooms in total. From outside, Caprice could see the rooms were succeeding each other in an L shape. The rooms were connected by a long hallway that had plenty of windows on the side facing the main yard. One window was broken from what she could see through the gates, but other than that, everything was covered in dust and years of neglect.

Dried-up overgrown vines swallowed the tall metal gates that gave access to the main yard. When she tried the key her mother had given her, it didn’t even fit in the rusty lock. After minutes of trying she decided to find a different way in. So she set her eyes on a tree close to the property limits, where a stone wall separated it from the neighbouring house. If she could just climb on top of that wall, she could make it inside. While she was perched on top of the first branch of the tree, a voice behind her startled her.

“Miss, you don’t have to jump! Come on down, I’ll give you the key. Flint said to expect you.”

She turned around to see an old man hunched over with age. He rested his weight on an overly ornate, dark red walking stick. He was wearing a grey, long wool overcoat and heavy snow boots. The floppy ears of his fur-lined winter hat were moving around his wrinkled face in the evening wind. He gave her an excited smile and waved her down.

“I’m sorry, who did you say was expecting me?”

“You must be Caprice, Flint’s granddaughter.”

She made her way down the tree and extended her hand to the stranger. “Yes, that’s me. And you are?”

“I’m Flint’s neighbour. Name’s Jakob. He took her hand and gave her an energetic shake. “I saw you trying to hop over the gates and I came out thinking I could help.“

“Oh, thank you. that’s very kind of you.” Caprice let go of his hand, pulled her coat tighter against the cutting winter wind and looked at this man. He was shorter than her by two heads, but his blue eyes radiated with the excitement of a much younger man.

“When the war was over, we both came out here to buy land and re-start our lives, you know, back then...” Jakob would have kept going if she wouldn’t have interrupted him.

“You said he expected me?”

“Well, yes, in a way. Maybe 12-13 years ago he came over one day and said I should have this key.” He started looking through his pockets while he carried on. “It’s a copy of the master key of the house, you see. Flint said his family shouldn’t be breaking and entering into his house, once he would be gone.” He handed it to her.

“Did he say where he was going?” Caprice took the metal key and looked at it. It was definitely different from what she was given by her mother.

“No, miss. I was surprised as well. He almost never left his house and garden. After the divorce, he kept mostly to himself.”

“I’ve never met Flint,” and in her mind, she thought “I guess I have my mother to thank for that.” She started walking towards the old gate and tried the key. “What kind of man was he?”

“I usually saw him in that garden outback,” said the old man. “He kept some animals and worked the land every day. Kept to himself. He never bothered anyone and he wanted to be left alone. The very few conversations we had happened over that crumbling wall right there between my home and his backyard. We talked about the war, and how lucky we were to make it out alive.” The metal door gave in against a few broken vines and she stepped into the main yard. Jakob didn’t follow her through the opened gate.

“Would you like to come in?” Said Caprice.

“Oh no, it’s late for me. But you should be careful in there. It’s an old place. When his lawyer asked me to witness the property assessment a few weeks ago, I twisted my ankle on a broken step.” He started heading out towards his house. “If you have more questions, we can talk tomorrow!”

The main yard ran alongside the house and Caprice could see it had been long abandoned. She was no botanist, but she could tell that there had been a guiding hand here. Different types of flower beds, vines and vegetables had run wild for many years. Most of them wilted away and were reduced to old husks by negligence and the cold winter.

To her surprise, the house looked better inside than it did outside. She made her way through an arched entrance which was at the end of the L shaped house. The tiny keychain flashlight she never used finally came in handy. As she stepped in she noticed that the walls were so thick it made the house seem smaller inside. It was also really quiet and almost as cold as outside. She cleared away a film of dust from one of the photos at the entrance. A tall man in his 30s had his left hand over the shoulder of a petite woman. A little girl was sitting in front of them, looking awkwardly up and back towards the woman. “Mom?” said Caprice, squinting at the black and white image. More pictures revealed a forgotten life. A summer picnic on a checkered blanket, a dog with a stick in its mouth trying to escape the little girl’s annoying embrace, and a few birthday cake photos gave the impression of a happy family trapped in a time bubble.

She went on from the arched entrance into the long hallway reaching towards the front of the house. Furniture ghosts populated every room. Someone had been here recently and they’ve covered everything in white linen. The sparse kitchen, two simple bedrooms, a study and a large living room were all in perfect order as if someone put everything back in its place and never touched it again. Out of curiosity, she tried the lights. A loud pop somewhere at the entrance told her that an old bulb had just expired. Still, a few lights turned on, so Caprice decided to end the day on a positive note, and leave for the hotel. On her way out she noticed a metal-studded wooden door to the left of the main entrance. When she tried the new key, it didn’t work, so she went out and around the building to see where it was leading.

With night settling in, Caprice discovered the backyard. Old bird coops, an empty pigsty and some rusty cages were lined up along the brick wall blocking the metal-studded door. A tiny wooden fence divided the old animal enclosure from the main garden. What used to be a plentiful garden reached all the way back to the side of a tall, crumbling hill. Patches of grey, dried-up snow covered dead plants and flowers. Everything was overgrown and dried here just as in the smaller garden upfront. But something caught her eye. Shimmering in the moonlight like a silver statue, was a white, gnarled, stump of a tree that reigned over the dead garden. “I can work with this,” thought Caprice and went back to her hotel room.

Over the next few days, she called in an electrician, plumber and hired a few local hands to help restore the property to a semblance of normality. She didn’t bother getting rid of the furniture as she decided she would live in the old house until the property would find a new owner. She decided right then that she would not bake any cookies to attract said owner. Whoever decided to live here, will not do it for the cookies.

Jakob, the next-door neighbour, invited her to dinner one night. “How is the property coming along, miss? I’ve seen a lot of activity on our street lately.” She learned from him that his wife had passed away six years ago and that his two sons were too busy with their New York life to visit. “But we all get together for Christmas every year.” He leaned on his redwood cane while he pointed them out in pictures over his fireplace. He showed her to the dinner table and they sat down. “They left a few weeks before you showed up. It’s a long drive and I don’t think they enjoy it here that much,” said Jakob as he passed on the mashed potatoes.

“The house is in surprisingly good shape. You can say Flint did a good job,” said Caprice as she took the plate from Jakob.

“Oh yeah, he built the place mostly by himself. When he didn’t know how he hired experts. But mostly, he did the hard work.”

“Why did he move up here to Minnesota? Did he inherit this land?”

“Not really, no. His family came from California. He grew up there.” Jakob’s trembling hand tried to stab a few times at some peas, but he gave up and settled on the mashed potatoes. “The land here was part of the deal the military got him as a war veteran. We both served in the 103rd based in Rhineland, Germany. When the war was over, we both got the same deal.”

Caprice finished her plate and set it aside. “Jakob, tell me about the last time you saw Flint. Do you remember his disappearance?”

The old man sat back in the ornate wooden dining chair and let out a sigh. “It happened gradually if I can say so. My wife - bless her heart - even said that Flint is wilting away all alone in that house. She had a friend that she tried to introduce him to. Maybe he could have remarried, you know?” Jakob reached for his tea and took a sip.

“I’m more interested in the days prior to his disappearance, Jakob. Did the police show up around here?” Caprice realised it was almost nine o’clock and the old man could fall asleep at any moment now.

“It’s hard to explain. I used to see him in that backyard, feeding the birds and then he stopped. Same with the pigs. Gone after a while. Must have sold them. It’s like bit by bit, everything around him died. Less and less of that garden bore fruit. It wasn’t sudden, you see,” He took off his glasses and set them on the table. “It’s hard for me to even remember precisely the last time we spoke. I said that much to the police. Everyone around here kind of thought he was still around, so we let him be. Like one of those paintings that fade away in your hallway even though you know it’s still there. We stopped looking. I... stopped looking.” Jakob’s gaze was far away somewhere, but definitely not here. When he finally looked at her, she saw the tears swelling up in his eyes. “I’m sorry, miss.“

“Oh, don’t worry about it, Jakob.” She stood up and squeezed his shoulder. “And please call me Caprice. I didn’t know him. I’m just trying to fill in the gaps left over by my mother.”

Jakob rubbed his eyes and put his glasses back on.

“It’s getting late. This was nice, Jakob. I’ll be really busy next week, but I’d like to sit down and talk one of these days.”

“Of course. You know where to find me.”

While she was heading towards the door, she remembered something. “Jakob, how old are you?”

“I’ll be 98 this summer, mis-Caprice.” and leaned on his good foot, trying to stand abit taller.

“And Flint?”

“Well, he was older than me. 3 years older if I remember correctly. Why do you ask?”

She started working the zippers and buttons on her heavy winter jacket: “I found what looks like a more recent photo of him. Just trying to understand how old he was in it.”

“That’s very hard to say. He had one of those faces that barely changed with age.” He chuckled and handed her the gloves. “One thing’s for sure: he always looked younger than me.”

When Caprice got home that night she decided to give her mom a call. “I had dinner with the next-door neighbour. He knew Flint for a long time.”

Her mother didn’t sound very convinced. “Mmm, I wouldn’t listen to Jakob if I were you. I’m not sure he’s all there at his age. What about the house, how is everything looking?”

“I’ve seen worse, to be honest. I can get the place to look decent in a week or so. That back garden is a mess though.”

“It wasn’t much to see when I was growing up as well. It always gave me the creeps, especially after my dog Butterfly disappeared there.”

“Maybe she flew away, mom,” said Caprice half-joking.

“No way she could have jumped into other people’s yards. The wall was pretty tall. Flint said that it had been raining that day and a portion of the hill out back fell on her and buried her alive. I never bought that story.”

“I’ll keep you updated, mom.”

“Ok dear, you take care of yourself out there. Good night!”

The doorbell woke her up in the early hours of the morning. She got dressed and opened the door.

“Good morning ma’am,” said the lumberjack. He was a man in his 50’s, broad-shouldered and sporting a salt-and-pepper mullet. “Name’s Pierce. I believe we spoke on the phone?”

“Oh, yes, good morning, Mr. Pierce! I didn’t expect you so early.”

“I thought we’d get a head start and try to finish clearing out both the front and back yard today. If it’s ok with you, that is.” Looking over his shoulder, she saw a few more men taking out gardening equipment from the van through the knee-high morning mist.

“Oh yes, please go ahead. I’ll join you in a bit. Let me get dressed.” Caprice pulled on a pair of jeans and a thick red sweater to brave the morning cold. She made everyone a cup of coffee and headed out in the back.

While the workers cleared out the dead bushes and old animal cages, Pierce was revving up a chainsaw to cut down the old white tree. Caprice handed everyone a cup and went to give the last one to him. Up close, the tree was wider than she had previously thought. It was a gnarled old thing and about 5 feet taller than the lumberjack. In its prime, it probably shaded most of the garden. Not making a lot of progress on the white tree, he stopped and took off his protective glasses. He took a sip of coffee.

“Is that normal?” asked Caprice pointing at the thick red sap splattered all over the chainsaw.

“My pops used to say the Indians called them blood drinkers. It’s a red maple tree. It used to be a great wood full of them here. Very old.” He cleaned the gory-looking chainsaw with a thick cloth and began replacing the chain. “In summer, they have these big leaves that turn the land into a red sea as far as you can see.”

“I haven’t seen any white trees like this one around here. Is this the last one?”

“Probably, at least for a few hundred miles. But this old guy here pulled a fast one on me.”

“What do you mean?” said Caprice, looking at the red sap that was coming out of the fresh cut.

“It looks dead. No branches, no leaves.” He gave her back the empty coffee cup and started the chainsaw.”But as you can see, it’s still alive.”

She went back inside and got to listing the property on local websites and newspapers. “With some luck, this thing could be over in a week,” thought Caprice and turned on her laptop.

When breakfast was over the next day, she put her winter jacket on, took her phone and went out to get pictures of the outside of the house. When she got to the back yard, she got a mild shock. The gnarled white old tree was back. As she got closer to it she couldn’t even see a mark where the lumberjack made that first cut. She called him.

“Mr Pierce, I think you’ve forgotten something.”

“Oh? I’ll send someone over to get the leftover gear. Sorry. It happens.”

“I mean the tree. It’s here. I’m looking at it.”

“Miss, it can’t be. It took my guys one hour to haul it into the back of those trucks.”

“I don’t know what you hauled into the truck. I wasn’t there. But this damned tree is still here.”

“Then what did we burn last night, miss? You know what? I’m coming over.”

An hour later, Pierce and his trusty chainsaw were back. Caprice told him she doesn’t care how he gets rid of it, but it has to go. There was no way for him to explain how she alone could have done this. He looked at the old white tree for a very long time without saying much. And then he got to cutting. What he couldn’t cut through though, was his gut feeling that he should have stayed away from this place.

Caprice led him to the main gates when he was done. She took a few pictures of the now-empty back garden, just to make sure they both have proof of a job well done.

“I’m sorry you had to make the trip again. I just didn’t want you to think I’m crazy or something.” She extended her hand in a very business-like manner. Pierce took it in his calloused palm. All she got from him was a low hum and a nod. She could tell he was in a rush.

For the first time that night in her grandfather’s old house, she couldn’t sleep. Her mind couldn’t comprehend what just happened. No scenario she tried to make up was reasonable. She stood up and decided to check the backyard again.

The crisp air was still and the winter night had laid a thick blanket of silence over everything. Caprice disturbed it with her boots crunching on the gravel path. Her feet slowed down to a standstill on the frozen garden ground. Her trembling hand shot up and covered her mouth. Shining like a deformed pearl in the moonlight, the old white tree was back. Caprice put both her hands on her face and realized she was burning up.

She rushed back inside and came out with an axe. “Well, if I’m dreaming, take this you old husk!” She let out all the frustration through that axe. She hit the old tree on all sides and from all angles. She hit it for so long, she let go of the grudge of being fired. When her hands got sore, she started kickin it. That’s when her foot broke through one of the roots.

When she pulled it out, a bigger hole opened up. She stepped back and got to work on expanding the hole with her axe. The hollowed root was massive. And just like an empty sewer pipe, it was heading down, into the world beneath.

With barely enough space to crawl through, Caprice followed the hollowed root to its source. Wet, red sap got stuck to her clothes, trying to glue her in place. Tiny sharp roots scratched her knees, back and hands. Where they made it through her clothes, the little teeth drew blood. She pushed through the old, empty root. With only her breath and her keychain flashlight to keep her company, she advanced through the damp underground air. A few more twists and turns brought her to a small cave underneath the hill. She managed to stand up and tried to stretch when she saw something stir at the opposite end of the cave.

“I knew you’d be coming before the end, girl.”

“The tree said so.”

She found him laying down against the back wall of the cave. Thin, white roots covered everything around him like underground capillaries. The old man put a hand up to shade his eyes from her flashlight. Caprice lowered it but she didn’t move.

“Who are you?” She could see that his thin arms and legs were full of dried-up cuts. He was so old and weak, he was barely breathing.

“You know who I am. You are here because of me, Caprice. Sit down.”

“You’ve never met me. You don’t know me! This can’t be!” She started pacing around the cave.

He tried giving her a raspy laugh “Ha! I know enough. I raised your mother. I knew she would not have come herself. I knew you well enough to know you would come though. It’s a start.”

“Is this how you wanted to meet your granddaughter?” She took a few steps closer to the old man. An emerald green pocket knife was laying on the floor within his reach. She could now see that some of the scars on his arms were fresh.

“No, God no! But it’s the only way I knew.” His cloudy blue eyes started darting around, looking for something. “I knew this was the only way since I was a young man.” He tried shifting his head around to where he could perceive her shadow moving.

“You’re delirious from blood loss, Flint. Let’s get out of here.” She moved in closer and gently pushed the knife out of his reach with her boot.

“Only one of us is getting out of here, but not before you understand something.”

Caprice sat down and hid the pocket knife in her jacket pocket. “All I understand is I have to get out of here.”

“First, something for your mother. Tell her I’m sorry. All I wanted to do was protect her. Sending them away was the only way I knew how.” He pushed himself up against the wall of the cave, coughed a few times and continued. “The night your mother was born…Your mother wasn’t the first child, you see. When my wife gave birth that night, the first child, a boy, was stillborn. I didn’t have the heart to tell her when she woke up. She had lost a lot of blood and passed out.” Flint lifted his head towards the cave’s ceiling as if he was looking towards his house. “She was so weak I was afraid I would lose her too. So I took the baby to the red tree. I buried him here.” He lowered his head and tried looking in Caprice’s direction.

She found his gaze and realized he was blind from all the years in the dark. “I’m sorry.” She looked away. “Is that why you sent my mother and grandmother away?”

“No. That night it’s when it started. When I woke up, the German bullet that was lodged in my hip for years was right there in bed with me. All clean. No scar. And it didn’t stop there. That summer I fell from that roof out there and landed on my neck. I should have died. It never happened. I got stronger instead.” Flint looked at the hands resting in his lap. He balled them up into fists. “I couldn’t control it, girl.”

“What-what do you mean?”

“This damned tree! It kept me alive. As long as I fed it. But after a few years, the animals, the dog...there was no more blood to give. I couldn’t trust myself. I had to send your mother away. If the tree dies, I die.”

“We all have to at some point,” said Caprice.

“Not if you find a way to survive. When you put your head on the pillow at night you think there’s a new day tomorrow. But what if you don’t wake up? I found a way to always wake up.”

“What were you living for, Flint? You were all alone, for all those years!”

“I lived for the magic of this world. You can’t explain everything away, Caprice.” He spread his weak arms, bringing her attention back to the cave. “You can’t explain this.”

“There is no magic, old man! We have managed to expla...”

“Then there is no way out for you! Don’t you have wishes that you’d like to see come true? Because let me tell you girl, some of them do. No matter how much, or how less you want them to, they do come true. And then you have to live with them. Like a bird learning to live with its cage.”

Caprice got up and dusted off her shredded jeans. “We’ll see about that. I’ll drag you out if I have to.”

Flint gave out a tired sigh and closed his eyes.”The only way out of here is to feed the tree. It doesn’t make sense to you, but you’ll have to do it.” Flint started patting the cave’s floor looking for something. She took his hand into hers and gave it a tight squeeze. “I have it here, Flint.”

Caprice left her grandfather’s body behind. What little blood he had left seeped quickly into the cave floor. The roots of the old white tree sucked at it voraciously. While crawling back towards the surface, she made the red maple a promise. “Put handholds and steps in my way, let me out and I will find a way forward for us both.”

Around late May that year, Caprice had a table set up for her guests in the back garden. Even Emilio made the trip up north. Turns out he got sacked too a month ago. The yard was full of flowers and vegetables again.

She even managed to put together a small menagerie of farm animals that were running free around the guests’ feet. The old white tree had grown tall and its red leaves were already giving a bit of much-needed shadow from the strong sun.

Her mother caught Caprice smiling while looking at the white tree. “I’m happy you decided to stay,” she said. “The country air does wonders for you, my dear. You look younger than ever!”

End.