The Facebook Killer by M. L. Stewart

limited opportunities. I spy with my little eye
something beginning with T: Tree. I spy with my little eye
something beginning with A: Another tree.
    Kalif drove back and forth for almost two
hours until I eventually spotted it. Truth be told, we’d passed it
twice but I hadn’t recognised it in its refurbished state. We
parked up near the farmhouse.
    I remembered the stile on the opposite side
of the road, that’s how we used to get over the fence. The path was
much more overgrown than I remember. Pushing leafy branches aside
and wading our way through nettles I eventually saw something
resembling a track. Kalif set the timer on his phone to go off in
one hour and we made our way through the undergrowth. The sound of
the birds and the smells brought memories flooding back. Sounds and
smells I hadn’t experienced for too many years living and working
in the city. Why hadn’t I brought Laura here when she was still
alive? If my memory served me correctly there were two “landmarks”
we would pass. The first was a tree stump so huge that my father
told me it was King Arthur’s round table, I remember in my youthful
innocence imagining the Knights sitting around it, their horses
tied to the neighbouring trees. The next landmark, from memory, was
a blackened, dead tree. I realise now it was the victim of a
lightning strike but back then I was firmly convinced it was the
home of the Dark Witch of the forest. At this tree we had to turn
right, cross a stream and we would be there.
    As we eventually came upon the landmarks I
felt an overwhelming sense of depression and loss. An all-consuming
wish to end it all there and then, like my life had come full
circle. I knew it was merely a sentimental emotion caused by my
surroundings, a chemical reaction in the brain.
    The Dark Witch’s tree still sent shivers down
my spine. It seemed taller and more evil than it had before. As I
approached, I could feel my mouth drying out, my cheek started to
throb. I stood under the shadow of her dead, burned and gnarled
tree. As I stared upwards I could feel the rage returning. Rage for
being here without my father, my parents or Laura. Rage for being
so cruelly left alone in this world. Before I knew it I had picked
up a branch and I was striking the witch’s tree harder and harder.
The vibrations were jarring my shoulders but still I went. Harder
and harder. The rage was in my eyes, on my breath. The branch broke
and I fell forward, crashing into the tree where I fell to my knees
and cried. I must have been sobbing for ten minutes or more when
Kalif snapped me out of it. He was right, we had to go on. We
crossed the stream together, the sun’s rays piercing the canopy
overhead, the water bubbling underfoot. It was then that we saw it.
The tallest tree in the forest. It cast a shadow like a sundial.
Cloaked now in over thirty years of ivy, we could only stare in
awe. It was much, much taller than I had remembered. It made the
beanstalk look like a sunflower.
    It was at that point that I left Kalif. I
approached alone. The base of the tree was totally covered in ivy,
which spiraled the trunk, choking every branch on its way to the
top. I started to pull at it with my bare hands but it was too
tough, only leaves came away in my hand. I called out to Kalif, did
he have a knife? He came up with a twelve-inch kitchen knife. Why
he was carrying it I never found out. I started to hack away at the
ivy. The blade was scalpel sharp. After making some headway I
climbed up onto the massive protruding roots and started to feel my
way around the trunk. Some more slicing and I found it. The fishing
wire.
    I couldn’t see the treehouse for the ivy but
when the hatch dropped, sending blackbirds scattering in all
directions, I knew it was still there. Invisible to the eye,
untraceable.
    The rope ladder got stuck three quarters of
the way down but we soon sourced a branch long enough to hook onto
it.
    The voices almost deafened me, “be careful
you two,”