Camille Rebouillat-Sarti

The Tree of Ether

Novel extract

Chapter 12
Marian

Marian hadn’t anticipated the fog when she left for Hyde Park. She would have preferred a sunny afternoon to retrace Kian’s steps in the clarity of daylight. Based on the colour of the sky, she only had about an hour left before sunset. The park stretched before her, crowded in some areas, completely empty in others. A creeping cold slipped through her sleeves.

Marian pulled up Google Maps, trying to orient herself. If Kian had been heading toward The Ember Cove the night he disappeared, he would have likely walked along Serpentine Road. The path was straightforward enough, hugging the river as it curved through the green expanse. 

Droplets of rain pattered against the leaves, falling in time with the soft crunch of her footsteps. It was soothing, hypnotic – like a whispered lullaby. Trees lined the walkway, their bark darkened and wet, the grass underfoot slick and springy. Nearby, a group of people fed squirrels and pigeons, the birds squabbling over crumbs while crows watched from afar, their black eyes sharp and intelligent.

By the time she reached the Serpentine, nothing had stood out. The park was just as ordinary as ever – just people, dogs, and bare bushes. No clues, no shadows, no terrifying stranger wearing her brother’s face. Nothing to tell her what had happened to Kian. Just her, standing there, on a wooden pier.

A couple of swans glided toward her, hoping for food. She crouched, watching as their movement rippled the river. The surface shimmered, reflecting the world above, but beneath, the water was murky, hiding what lay underneath.

She was going about this the wrong way.

It wasn’t about what she could see – that night, Kian wouldn’t have seen much either. It was about what she could feel, what the park held in its silence. Closing her eyes, Marian inhaled deeply, grounding herself. At first, all she could smell was damp grass and wet dogs. 

Something changed when she reached for her necklace. The small amber pendant warmed under her touch, and with it came a new scent. Vague, but distinctive. Burnt wood. Like the smouldering remnants of a bonfire.

Her eyes flew open. To her left, just beyond the pond’s edge, the scent intensified. Her boots squelched in the mud as she followed it, drawn almost magnetically to a secluded clearing. Overgrown plants pressed in from all sides while statues of animals stood silent, their faces turned toward her. A prickle ran down the back of her neck, and she gripped her necklace tighter.

Then she saw it.

A scarf, snagged on a low-hanging branch. Green and white checkered. Cold, soaked through, streaked with patches of mud. Near the middle, a small, silver pin gleamed – a polished disc etched with the twin pillars of Gemini curling at the ends. She had the same one, pinned to one of her jackets – a gift from their parents. This was Kian’s scarf. 

How long had it been there? A week? More? She pulled it free, gripping the damp fabric as if it might vanish. 

Something crinkled.

Unfolding the scarf, Marian found a small, tattered piece of paper tucked inside. A torn scrap from Kian’s journal. The edges were frayed, the ink smudged from moisture, but the drawing was unmistakable.

The mask. 

Sketched in frantic lines of pencil and charcoal, it stared back at her with hollow eyes, its grimacing mouth frozen in place. The details were disturbingly precise. The shape. The patterns. The strange, elongated expression. It was beautiful, regal, haunting, just like the masks she’d seen in her mother’s book on the Zulu tribes. Just like the one her attacker had worn.  

Her heart pounded. Kian had drawn this. Which meant he’d seen it. 

She had to go back to the bridge.

Her fingers clenched around the scarf as she turned around. It wasn’t far. Kian would have had to cross it to get to the bar. He might have crossed paths with the same man she had – 

A sudden wave of exhaustion washed over her. 

She exhaled sharply, shaking it off. Not now. Night was falling fast. The last thing she wanted was to be caught in this park after dark again. She needed to move quickly.

She made her way toward the bridge, her steps urgent. The air grew colder and the walk along Carriage Drive felt long. Too long. She should have been able to see the bridge by now, but the fog had thickened over the lake, rolling over the water like a shroud.

Marian frowned.

The paths were twisting, narrowing, looping back on themselves. The same trees, the same benches. She wasn’t getting anywhere. She was walking in circles, as if the park rearranged itself as she walked. 

She checked Google Maps. The blue dot wobbled, shifting wildly – one moment placing her near the Serpentine, the next by the park’s edge. That didn’t make sense.

She slowed, scanning her surroundings. An old woman sat on a weathered bench, hunched under a large umbrella. 

“Excuse me,” Marian started, “I think I’m lost. Can you tell me how to get to the bridge?”

The woman glanced up, then past Marian, her expression puzzled. 

“The bridge, love?” Her wrinkled finger pointed ahead. “It’s right there, see?” 

Marian turned – and there it was. The washed-out arches of the bridge revealed themselves, cutting across the Serpentine’s waters. 

She swallowed, uneasy. Had she been so distracted that she missed it? Maybe the tiredness was catching up to her more than she’d realised. 

“Thank you. Do you mind if I sit here for a moment?”

The woman gave a silent nod. Marian lowered herself onto the bench, the damp wood pressing through her jeans. 

She hadn’t rested properly in days. Her limbs sagged, dragging her toward sleep. She closed her eyes just for a second. Just to steady herself– 

She blinked. 

The old woman was gone. It was dark. The park was silent. 

She was still there, alone. 

Marian tried to stand, too quickly. Her head swam, her legs buckled, knocking her back down. 

She felt heavy, sinking.

Summoning what little energy she had left, Marian fumbled for her phone. Her vision blurred as she pulled up her contacts, barely registering the name at the top of the list. 

Amir. 

She tapped it and sent what she hoped was her location. 

Her senses dulled. 

The last thing she saw was the glow of a distant streetlight, outside the park – far, far away. 

Her fingers slipped from her phone.

Her eyelids fluttered shut.

She found herself hovering just above the ground, her feet barely brushing the red earth. She recognised the holes dug by meerkats and the acacia trees, their umbrella-like canopies standing sentinel over the savannah just as they always had. A sudden surge of joy took hold of her, like a little girl stumbling upon a secret hideaway. This wasn’t a dream – she was in the bush, for real. 

She felt everything, from the dusty smells she knew so well, to the crackling of branches and the distant hooting of nocturnal birds.

The vibrant yellow grass of her memories was missing though, replaced by a barren and scorched landscape. A wildfire perhaps? Not uncommon in the hot December summers, after all. 

To her right, in the distance, she saw the kopje that traced the contours of Mvubu Dam. These were the plains of Nakasanga, for sure. The ones that surrounded her farm. A hollow ache settled in her heart – this place had been stolen from her. She hadn’t been born there, but this was her home, her true home. She belonged here, and so did her brother. Why had they ever had to leave?

Marian extended her arm and let the warm zephyr caress her hand. It gently blew in her hair, guiding her gaze toward the animals approaching from afar.

A quiet warmth bloomed in her chest, spreading outward like an unspoken call, an instinctive impulse to get to the blurry figures. She glided on the breeze to meet them, discovering a herd of female impalas. They should have scattered, as they always did when she and Kian cam bearing salad, but instead they stood still – waiting. The antelope shook her head, ears wobbling, and gave her an affectionate lick with her rough, black tongue. A tear slipped from Marian’s eye. The bush welcomed her back. 

Behind the females stood a lone bull, his profile framed by inky black lines sweeping down his nose. A single lyre-shaped horn arched over his head – the other likely lost in a battle, as male impalas often did. The bull that used to wander near the farm sported a single horn too, earning the nickname Rapidash from Kian – after the fire-type unicorn Pokemon, of course. His large, dark eyes stayed fixed on the horizon, as if waiting for the sun to set. 

Marian examined the bull’s neck and identified a familiar scar: a triangular mark that, in their childhood eyes, had looked like a flame. Rapidash’s back hoof had also missed a toe. The bull suddenly snorted and swung his head, pointing off into the distance. His tail flicked as he trotted away with a limp. 

It was him.

Marian sprang forward.

The bull moved with grace, his coat shimmering in shades of russet and gold. Each nimble bound of his legs made the black “M” mark on his rear shift in rhythm. This was meant to confuse predators in a chase. Had their father taught them that, or the neighbour? She couldn’t remember. It didn’t matter. What mattered was the undeniable urge to follow Rapidash. She needed to see if he still remembered her. She needed to see what he wanted to show her.

As the wind blew against her back, the grass beneath her began to grow, reaching up toward her like the tender arms of an old friend. 

It had risen nearly to her shoulders when Rapidash halted beside the remnants of her home. The farmhouse stood deserted and forlorn. Its stone walls were cracked on the Eastern wing, bricks had tumbled away and scattered on the ground like forgotten relics, while a gaping hole marred the thatched roof. 

Yet the place still held a certain beauty. She envisioned it the way it once was, with its colourful mosaics, tall windows that embraced the morning sun, and the two tokoloshe statues – gifted by their neighbour, she recalled – that stood guard at the entrance.

One had crumbled into weathered fragments, while the other stood in front of her, unaffected by the ravages of time. Perched atop its head was an endearing bush baby. His skin, almost translucent, stretched tightly over his tiny frame, and the claws on his spindly fingers screeched against the stone. The galago blinked at Marian with his oddly oversized, orange eyes before he jumped to the nearest tree branch and disappeared into the shade. 

A few steps led to the front entrance, where a wooden door, carved with the image of an elephant, awaited. The elephant’s tusks protruded from the door, and a set of keys dangled from one of them, catching the light with a nostalgic glimmer. Marian felt compelled to go inside and see if the interior had changed. Was the chimney still standing? If she fed it wood, would it exhale the same fluffy clouds as it did during the cold winters? And what about her room? Were the things she’d left behind still there, waiting in the quiet corners of her past?

But as she took a step forward, Rapidash snorted. Marian sniffed the air, catching a whiff of something rotten. She realised with a start that the grass around was still growing unnaturally fast, now towering over her like it did when she was a child. She reached out to touch it, and it crumbled into ash in her hands.

Rapidash leaped over her head, blocking her way. He scratched the ground, and the stench strengthened. To her horror, she noticed that half of his face was putrefied. On the hornless side, the flesh had decayed to a sickly greyish-green hue, with patches of slimy tissue clinging to the bone. Marian gasped.

“What happened to you?” 

Flaps of skin hung like tattered rags, frayed and uneven, some bits still attached by thin sinewy strands while others dangled freely, revealing raw, festering muscle underneath. The base of his fallen horn was a bare bone, a jagged stump jutting from the side of his skull, its porous texture visible where the keratin sheath had splintered away. The decay had spread to the left eye, sunken and cloudy, oozing a dark, viscous fluid that streaked down the cheek in thin, blackened rivulets.

What could have bitten his face off like that? 

The impala tilted his head back, pointed his nose towards the sky, and let out a low, mournful note. His gaze snapped to hers, brimming with hunger, rage, and something far worse. 

He approached with a guttural rale that reminded Marian of the way jackals growl right before they strike. 

“Was it me?” she asked, her voice trembling with confusion at the words she’d just spoken. “Did I do this to you?”

His lips pulled back like curtains, revealing two rows of sharp, yellowed teeth. The gums were an inflamed red, stark against the pallor of his rotting flesh. Each tooth seemed to jut out at odd angles, some chipped, others pointed and cruelly curved. 

“Rapidash, please. It’s me –”

Marian extended a shaky hand, hoping for a flicker of recognition in his eyes. Instead, the creature jumped at her, sinking its teeth into her flesh and sending her sprawling to the ground. She felt the earth for the first time. It shifted, unsteady, trembling like quicksand. Her hand throbbed and blood flowed in thick streams, staining the grass with a deep burgundy tint that edged towards black. 

Ants and ticks suddenly swarmed over her with a writhing frenzy, their tiny legs scratching and biting at her skin. 

Marian tried to scream but her voice died in her throat. 

She looked around. She knew this place. But it no longer knew her. The surrounding trees were alive with clusters of glowing orange eyes that peered out from the shadows like malevolent fireflies. The bush babies’ cries sounded like laughter, mocking and sinister, while a grey loerie’s “go-away” call echoed through the air. 

“Amahle,” a voice whispered.

A rumble of hooves pounded across the plain. More impalas rose from the grass, their half-rotten faces mirroring Rapidash’s. He descended toward her, hooves grinding against the fractured steps.

“AMAHLE, GO AWAY!” 

Rapidash lunged at her again, but a strong gust of wind thrust Marian away, sending her rolling across the ground. She scrambled to her feet, heart pounding as she sprinted, trying to outrun the land undulating under her feet, threatening to swallow her. The farm’s perimeter loomed ahead. A rusty wire fence cut her from the bush. The jagged, corroded metal gnashed like teeth. She climbed over, edges biting into her soles. A sharp sting shot through her foot.

She ran until a dense forest appeared in sight, twilight promising a refuge from the putrid madness at her heels. The grass on her path reached out and grasped at her, whipping her legs as she struggled to escape the sea of yellow. What was happening? What had she done? 

Her necklace seared against her skin, propelling her forward. With the hammering of hooves growing louder and louder, a burst of heat erupted around her, igniting her clothes and the vegetation. The sudden flames gave her a jolt of energy, and she lunged for a branch that one of the strangler figs offered her. 

She clung it, but unseen forces wrenched her away, dragging her into the thick bushes. Soon her entire body was ensnared by the branches, one of which seized her injured wrist, causing the dark blood to splatter across her face. How was this possible? Another bough went for her neck, wrapping around it like a python. 

The more she struggled, the tighter the branches gripped her. Her legs went numb, her arms unresponsive, and she found herself desperate for air. 

“Why –” she choked out.

Why were they doing this to her? 

The bush babies bobbed their heads in trance, their cackling warping into a fevered chant. Shadows danced along the trunks, weaving an eerie embrace that closed in on Marian. They stretched out their claws, latching onto her skin and burning her like red-hot iron.

Her chin slammed against the wood. A gnarled grey branch, like a twisted arm reaching from the sky, suddenly plunged down from the leafy canopy above. It hesitated briefly before her face, then dove toward her mouth. Marian clamped her lips shut just in time, but the branch struck her teeth, forcing a spurt of blood into her throat. With a brutal swing, it smashed against her temples, sending a shrill ringing through her ears and blurring her vision. 

Another blow broke her nose. Every time she tried to take a breath, the branch forced itself deeper into her mouth, shedding rough splinters with every push. 

I can’t breathe.

Amid the chaos, Marian felt a pulse in her wrists and ankles – an alien heartbeat, distinct from her own. It emanated from the tree itself, a steady, insistent rhythm that seemed to sync with her racing heart. Each beat reverberated through her veins, and her necklace flared with light. Her lungs were on fire.

I can’t breathe.

I need to breathe.

I need to breathe now.

NOW.

Her pendant blazed, dissolving the shadows. The branches recoiled. Like a star exploding in silence, Marian vanished into her own blinding light. 

She woke up gasping for air. Hyde Park. The same bench. The same terror.