The Treehouse

Some people say kids can be mean.
I agree with that, we can be very, very mean. Not intentionally, I swear, I did not mean to kill Lenore when I was just a kid, and I do feel sorry for her. She was younger than me, she was six, and I was ten. Forever I will regret suggesting for us to play in my treehouse that night. It was Halloween, and horror games were very popular among our friends then. We were playing a game, Lenore, me and other two kids who were Lenore's cousins, the game was called "Horror story", and we had to tell a story and act like the characters. My story involved a murder scene, and Lenore was my partner on the acting game. I took things a little too serious on the murder scene. The first thing I can remember is how  scary the other two kids got when they saw all that the blood... Well, let me tell how the scene was: I was a vampire called Morgana, and she was my victim, I was supposed to throw her against the wall and kill her character, then drain all her blood. I did not expect her to bleed for real, but she did. I accidentally throw her against the wall really strongly, much stronger that I meant. Her head hit he wall so strongly, her skull crushed. The blood splash was terrible, my white dress got all red with her blood, all red with her death. The blood spilled even in my eyes. Little Lenore was dead, her skull and neck were broken. I lifted her body by the shoulders and her head fell limp over her chest. I saw pieces of her shattered skull falling through her blood behind her head, through her blond hair covered in blood. The other two kids got so scared they started crying, but I was surprisingly cold, scared too, but I did not cry or scream, I just told them in a low voice: "She's dead, help me clean it up. You tell anyone what happened here, you'll be the next ones to die in this treehouse." The two little boys, who were younger than her, helped me carrying the body to a little room I had in the tree house. Then, after they left, I stayed there, alone, with the dead body. We laid her on a table I had, to draw and play on the tree house. It was such an innocent childish little room. However, my playing that night was a little different.

     I close the door of the main room, so nobody would walk in while I finish the work, then I got back to the dead body's room. It was a very, very little room, there was only that little table, with the dead girl on it now, and some big pieces of paper, pencils, scissors, crayons and a lot of clay, all kept in a little closet. I felt dizzy, I did not know what to do, if they found her body, I would be blamed for her death. So I looked at some clay dolls I used to do, and I had an idea: Lenore was so pretty, why bury her, instead of turning her into a beautiful clay doll? She was very little yet, at the age of six, to me that was not so easy to do, since I was only ten, still I was taller than her. So I did it. I made myself my own human clay doll: I did not have too much clay, so I only did it with her head, the rest of her body I left inside the closed, which I had a key, so nobody could open it and find it. I cut her body in pieces, to fit better in the closed, put the arms and legs in the shelf and the body in the door under the shelves. Then I closed it, and swallowed the key.

      So, I got back to the main room of the tree house and saw her head, immerse on her blood drooping in gallons from her neck, which I had just cut out of her body. I had left the head on the table while I cut everything else to keep it in the closed. Her eyes were still open, staring at me with the most terrifying expression of fear, pain, desperation, or maybe something else I can't even name. Her blond hair was still covered in blood, with a terribly deadly contrast, the blood with such vivid bright red. Her face was terribly pale, like a ghost. I closed her eyes, took the clay, and started spreading it around the head. Before the sun rise, I had ended the job, at about 5 am. Then I cleaned up all the blood as much as possible for a 10 years old child to do so by herself. It got perfect, though, nobody noticed a single blood drop around the treehouse  in the following weeks. I washed my hands and went to sleep, but not before taking the fresh clay head to the little room where I had hidden the body. I left it in there, so the clay would dry before anyone could see what was beneath it. Then I closed the door of the little room, and of the tree house too, such a great luck all those little doors had keys! Finally, I entered in my house slowly, so nobody would noticed I was coming in at such a late hour, and ask me why was that. I went to bed and fell asleep.

       Nobody ever asked me anything about how I could do such a perfectly human like sculpture of a human head. I was even proud to show the head around, and I even said it was the hardest thing I've ever did. It really was. I was not even afraid they would wonder if that was really a dead human head, with the low profile I was able to keep, why would they think anything like that? About the way the sculpture "reminded" Lenore, I said it was a tribute to my little disappearing friend. Because Lenore's disappearing, well, that was never explained. I told the boys to tell everyone that a man had taken her away, I even cut myself in the face with scissor to make it look like I struggled to save her, but failed, so she was kidnapped... and people just believed me. Why wouldn't they? I was such an innocent little girl! So, I enjoyed showing the head of the girl I had killed, I showed to everyone, even to cops, I even enjoyed some adrenaline, the danger of somebody finding it out. The head was almost like a trophy to me, I felt proud, not for killing her, but for being able to keep such a terrible secret for so song, and even going beyond the laws. I felt superior carrying that head, getting away with murder. But about the closet, I though the body parts would start rotting and draw people's curiosity to the tree house, so I burned the closet in less than three days after Lenore's death, but I put the fire down before it burned the entire treehouse, where I kept Lenore's head always on the table. The fire destroyed the closet completely, and left some dark stains on the wall and floor, but not much more, it was a small closet, she was a small dead body. Even her bones melted into ashes.

     Now, it has been almost ten years since that night. However, yesterday, something terrible happened: It was almost night when I went back to the treehouse, to look at Lenore's head, and a neighbor called me, so I told him to come in. I showed him the head, like I always enjoyed showing it, my trophy. He held it, but he had a problem with trembling hands, then he dropped the head down the stairs, down the tree, through the door of the treehouse... When the head hit the ground, the clay shattered, and pieces of the skull, that I had glued back together with clay, fell apart. One of the rotten eyes fell off, colored in blood yet. The second I saw the head hit the ground I screamed "Lenoooore!!!" so loud, my voice hurt my own ears, and my throat ached with taste of blood. My neighbor, who was a cop, would sure ask me questions, and jail was waiting for me... my heart was racing, I could not breath anymore, I did not want to breath anymore... then I jumped. My head crushed on the ground, the last thing I saw was Lenore's skull shattered among pieces of clay, the treehouse had pushed me to my very last day.



Written by Amanda Leonardi.