I’m on a tree kick for some reason – it may have to do with living in the desert and missing trees.  I hope you enjoy.

The Ghost, the Watch, and the Tree

“Honey, where’s my watch?”

“What watch?” The indifference in Marsha’s voice was palpable.

“My great-grandfather’s watch,” I entered the living room where my wife was engrossed in yet another soap opera. “The silver pocket watch. The one dad gave me at our wedding. I only carry it every freaking day.”

“Oh. Haven’t seen it.” 

It took everything I had not to scream in frustration. After twenty years of marriage, it is normal for people to be blasé about their partner’s day-to-day issues but her utter disregard for something so important to me was maddening. 

With a snort and dismissive wave, I stormed from the room. She wasn’t going to be any help. 

Twenty minutes later our bedroom looked like a tornado had torn through it. Clothing was pulled from drawers, jewelry boxes stood open and disorganized, and even my shoes were strewn around from shaking each one vainly in search of the errant watch.

“Jesus Christ, Ward, I hope you’re going to clean up this mess.”

Marsha stood, arms akimbo, in the doorway glaring at me as I sat defeated amid the chaos I had created.

“Yeah, I’ll take care of it. It’s just that the watch meant so much to Dad and I’ll never forgive myself if I’ve lost it.”

Her face softened, becoming the loving wife I remembered. 

“Where’s the last place you remember having it?”

“I don’t…. I think I remember winding it when I was working on the fence yesterday.”

“Tell you what, you go look out there and I’ll clean this up.”

I popped to my feet and kissed her. “I love you.”

“Go, before it gets dark.”

Our house sat on five acres of land that had been in my family for seven generations, passed from eldest child to eldest child. Grassy fields and a small duck pond lent it a rustic upper-crust air. Once upon a time, the property was covered with tall oak trees but only one tree remained and had been the sole survivor for as long as I could remember. I always hated that tree, it was a hundred feet tall if it was an inch and its base was wider than I was tall. It should have been an impressive jewel in the crown of the property but something about it always bothered me. I remember thinking it was some sort of monster when I was a kid, imagining evil faces contained in the swirling whorls of its bark.

Approaching it in the growing twilight, while kicking futilely at the grass in search of a glimmer of silver it brought a shiver of childhood dread. 

I reached the shiny, unpainted boards I had nailed in place just yesterday and dropped to my knees. It had to be here. I crawled on hands and knees, face mere inches from the grass hoping against hope that I had simply been a klutz, and dropped it. 

A groaning sound came from ahead of me in the growing darkness. I looked up but nothing was there, just grass, a fence, and the tree. Trees sometimes make noises when the wind rocks them but the night was calm. 

It had to be my imagination.

I crawled onward, continuing to search but feeling the aura of defeat growing around me. 

The groaning came again. I snapped my head up and I swear the tree moved. A faint luminescence flickered across the bark.

I shook my head and refocused on the tree which looked completely normal once more.

“Ward Montague, you’re acting like a child. It was just a trick of the light.”

The light was almost gone, the sun was just a glowing memory on the horizon. I wasn’t going to find the watch tonight. I rose to my feet and brushed dirt and grass from my knees. 

Another groan came from the area of the tree as I turned back toward the house. I refused to look. I assumed it was happy to see me go.

“Any luck?” Marsha asked as I came through the back door.

“Nah, but it was getting too dark to keep looking. I’ll try again in the morning.”

That night I was awakened by a humming sound, a dull drone, like a carpenter bee. I stared blindly into the darkness. The drone continued but I couldn’t fathom how a bee entered our bedroom. 

A flicker of light centered over the bed caught my attention causing me to pause my groping for the bedside lamp. The point grew to a glowing blob and rapidly expanded until it formed a man-shaped white light.

“You’re still dreaming,” I said reassuringly.

Marsha’s scream shattered my self-assurance. My wife sat up in bed and pointed at the glowing shape.

“What is that?”

“You see it too?” 

“Of course I do, it’s lighting up the entire room.”

She was right about the light. I could make out her face and the fact that her breasts were bare. I stared a moment longer than I should, considering that a glowing shape was still growing above us.

“Fool!” 

I was hurt that my wife would call me that, and then I realized that it had been a deep male voice. 

I’m not ashamed to say I was shaking as I looked away from my wife to see that the glowing blob had resolved itself into an elderly man, still glowing with a blue-white light, floating above our bed.

Marsha let out a small eep and dove beneath the blankets leaving me alone to face the ancient spectre. 

“Excuse me?”

“You fool, you have lost the talisman, and now the beast strains at its bonds.”

It suddenly dawned on me exactly who I was looking at. 

“Grampy Joe?” I had only seen pictures of the old man but the face above us was that of my great-grandfather Joseph Montague.

“Find the talisman and return it to life or the consequences will be dire.”

The glowing figure faded as it spoke, drawing out the final word as if speaking from a receding train.

“What the hell was that about?” Marsha peeked from beneath the blankets.

“I’m not sure but I think it was about the watch. I think I need to call Dad in the morning.”

There was no way we were sleeping after that so we both got up and went to the kitchen table where we drank coffee and stared dumbly at each other until morning.

I waited until almost 9AM. Dad was an early riser but I wanted him fully coherent before I bounced the events of last night off of him.

“You saw what?” His voice went up a full octave after I explained last night’s events.

“Grampy Joe. He said something about losing a talisman and a beast. I think he was talking about your old watch.”

“No. No. No. He couldn’t have been serious.”

“Who? Grampy Joe?”

“No, my father, your grandfather. He told me that his watch had been passed down for several generations and that it was my sacred duty to always keep it working. He said that my life might depend on it. I thought he was just being melodramatic so I wouldn’t pawn the old hunk of junk.”

“But you ended up believing him? I mean, you always kept it wound and in good repair.”

“Of course not, but after a while humoring him turned into habit and…well, I kind of came to like the old watch.”

“So, what’s this about a beast?”

“No freaking clue, son.”

“Great Dad. Well, thanks for not being very helpful. I’ll just have to find the damn thing before Grampy comes back for a follow-up performance.”

“Useless.” I locked eyes with my hovering wife. “He’s not gonna be any help. I think we better find that watch.”

We chose to divide and conquer. Marsha would search every inch of the house while I resumed my search of the fields. 

In the morning light, the field near the old oak wasn’t nearly as sinister as it had been in the growing gloom the prior night. I could swear though that the lowest branch on the fence side had pointed more upwards before, now it seemed to be reaching down toward the ground. Were there always so many roots bulging through the surface of the turf? 

“You’re imagining things, idiot. You are just noticing things that you ignored before.” The quaver in my voice didn’t go a long way toward convincing me.

I studiously kept my eyes glued to the ground in search of any glint of silver that might reveal the watch. 

“Any luck?” Marsha’s voice echoed across the field. 

I turned to reply and the same groaning sound from last night reached my ears a split second before Marsha’s scream.

I looked back to the tree, two of the larger branches strained downward reaching toward me. A faint bluish glow flickered across the bark randomly forming demonic visages among the whorls and knotholes. 

My scream was almost as high-pitched as Marsha’s. 

A tuft of grass saved me. I tripped, landing on my back as a massive branch swept through the space I had just occupied.

I scrambled backward, desperate to escape the demonic oak. Its branches continued to reach for me and I could see the trunk bending as the tree leaned forward attempting to extend its reach. Cracking sounds filled the air and massive roots burst free of the loam, thrashing on the ground like woody tentacles. 

That’s when I saw it, a glint in the grass, not three feet from the base of the tree. It had to be the watch.

It was suicide to try to retrieve it but if the tree kept pulling free of the ground it would soon be mobile and we’d be dead no matter where we hid. I rolled over and scrambled on all fours under the flailing branches. I felt like a mouse frantically evading a homicidal rat catcher. Branches slammed into the ground around me. I was lashed by leaves from near misses. My heart was pounding, fit to burst and through it all I could hear the impotent, terrified screams of my wife. 

A final lunge brought me to the target of my journey, it was the watch. 

I grabbed the timepiece with a shout of pure joy. My victory was short-lived. Something massive and hard slammed into me and I felt myself propelled into the air. I smashed into the ground again and my vision contracted to a narrow tunnel. I tasted something wet and coppery and shredded leaves threatened to choke me. 

Marsha’s voice, screaming my name, was growing louder. I couldn’t let her come to me, that thing would kill her. I struggled to my knees, spitting out leaves, dirt, and blood. The world spun and a spike of pain shattered my focus but I managed to look toward her, running across the field, and raised my hand to stop her.

Somehow, the damned watch was still in my hand, its chain wrapped around my fingers. Cackling in fear and happiness, I fumbled the latch to open the pocket watch. As expected, it was not ticking. I had no clue what time it was. I had to pray that Grampy Joe was right and it just needed to be working. 

The ground trembled, I didn’t need to look behind me to know that the beast was now free of the soil and was stomping toward me.

“Please, please,” I muttered but it sounded more like, “Peas, peas.” The bastard had knocked out my upper teeth. 

I fumbled the watch once, twice, and then pulled the stem out. I took a wild guess and set the time. I rammed the stem home and began to wind for all I was worth.

The soil rippled like ocean waves as the massive tree moved closer, bouncing me with each ponderous step. The stem ceased turning and I almost cried when the second hand began to move.

The world went silent.

Marsha skidded to a halt, dropped to her knees, and threw her arms around me. It hurt almost as bad as hitting the ground but I didn’t care, we were alive.

I looked over my shoulder, the tree stood, bent almost double toward us, its branches not five feet from where we knelt. No further sign of demonic life infused it.

“Thanks, Grampy Joe,” I mumbled through my busted lips.

“You are never losing that watch again,” Marsha said and hugged me even tighter.