This story is inspired by the axe shape of my cards, and the hearts found on three of the four.
The Root Of All Evil
The thwacking noise itself was not the problem. On a warm Sunday afternoon metal on wood is a perfect domestic sound. But moonlight still peeked through the gap in Alison's curtains, and her alarm clock reminded her that twelve hours of work was an inevitable conclusion in the morning.
Each thwack knocked sleep further away. Every week. That bloody tree.
Alison slipped on her threadbare dressing gown, and walked down creaking stairs. She ignored the aggressive stack of post by the front door, the piles of grubby dishes by the sink. The back door handle jammed twice before opening.
Darius was a moving shadow puppet in the garden. Thick lawn reached up to his ankles. The old tree, grandmother's tree as she would always think of it, shook with every repetition. The blade of the axe caught the light from the kitchen.
A platoon of thin slashes marked the thick mottled trunk. Darius swung again, and rather than digging in with a satisfying thunk, the axe bounced off the bark. His hands were stained with dirt which had somehow found its way into his hair.
She grabbed his shoulder and he paused, as if expecting her interruption.
'Not again.’ She said.
‘I know you don't believe me, but I promise you, we get it down, and we are there,’ he replied.
‘Do we have to talk about this once more?’
‘Look. Look!’
Darius pointed to the slashes, each one so thin and shallow. A oily reddish sap bled from each one, dripping in time like a heartbeat.
Alison remembered her grandmother wrapping the branches in scarlet thread. Those bony fingers making sure every loop was so tight. The picnic under those branches, the weather so cold even in the middle of summer.
The axe was a month old. It wouldn't last the night.
Should she go back to bed?
She glanced at the house, and found only shadows.
