Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine. Vol. 40, No. 6, June, 1995

I had to wonder how that eerie portrait of Naomi Ray ever won a prize (first prize yet) at the county fair, unless it was just a sympathy vote. Like I said, a lot of people still felt very sorry for Cyrus Ray. I supposed the technique and composition were good, but the rest of the painting was just plain weird. Twilight Zone stuff. One of Cyrus’s painted trees was twisted into the shape of a beautiful woman’s body with what looked to me like a face on it screaming in pain. I was hovering over the photograph with a magnifying glass just like my hero Nancy Drew would have done, but the longer I stared, the more my eyes seemed to play tricks on me.

I’d had Barney, the staff photographer, develop my film as soon as I returned to the office, even though he was kind of ticked at me for borrowing his camera without asking. But he printed up the pictures just like I asked, cutting Cyrus out completely and enlarging Naomi’s portrait in the background.

I had seen those trees before. If only I could remember where, I might find Naomi’s body buried right underneath them. I had nothing else to go on. Where had I seen those trees? You can’t see the forest for the trees. Now what made me think of that? I looked to see what else was in the picture to give me some point of reference. I hadn’t paid much attention to the rest of the picture, the background for the trees, something that looked like a long white arm.

I picked up the telephone and changed my appointment to meet Big Tim McCallister for his Celebrity Chef interview, and then I went down to the county offices. I wanted to look at a geological map. Derrick Seevers, who sat in the map room, was flapping his face with a Chinese restaurant takeout menu.

“Can’t take any more of this hot weather, Candace Sue. I’m putting in a pool. My kids will love it.”

“A big pool?”

“A couple of guys from Rotary had pools put in during that heat wave a couple of years ago. It wasn’t that expensive. They rented a bulldozer, and Cyrus Ray helped them out.”

“Cyrus Ray?”

“He’s good with cement. You done with this map?”

I nodded, and Derrick put it back on the shelf. “You know, while I’m here, there are some other things I’m wondering if you’d help me look up.”

“Sure. It’s a slow day.”

I knew I had seen those trees before. When we were kids, my cousins and I played hide and seek in that very same grove of trees, and it looked just as Cyrus had painted it after Naomi disappeared.

It was nearing five o’clock in the afternoon, which was a pretty time to be in the woods. The sun wasn’t hitting so hard, and it filtered through the branches of the trees and danced on the ground like magic crystals. The freeway overpass just to the north of the grove was new and added a lot of noise to this once secluded area. But still, nothing much had changed, and I hung my arm around the trunk of one of the trees like it was an old friend and wondered if it was time to bring Deputy McCallister in on my discovery.

This had been our very favorite spot to play hide and seek because of the faces on the trees. It was just the way the bark curled and knotted, but the faces we saw added a spooky element to our game that we couldn’t replicate anyplace else. I guessed it was still a good spot for hide and seek, because when I took a deep breath of my past and turned around, Cyrus Ray came out behind the shadow of a tree.

We didn’t say anything for the longest time. Our eyes locked on each other’s, and all this communication just buzzed between us like electricity. I could feel it, but then again, maybe it was my own fear.

“Do you see the faces?” Cyrus Ray said. “The trees have faces, Candace Sue. I knew you would want to come out here to see them again.” He stroked his hand down the side of the tree and then faced me. “I wish you all would just leave me alone. I have nothing to hide, Candace Sue.”

“That’s what you keep saying, but I don’t believe it any more.”

“So I turned the tables and have been following you around, Candace Sue. Except for this afternoon. I knew you would come out here this afternoon. Normally I’d say a pretty girl like you should find better things to do with her life, but I think it’s too late for that.”

It wouldn’t have done any good to scream for help. All the five o’clock traffic heading home on the overpass was making too much noise for anyone to hear me, so instead I started shouting Naomi’s name — don’t ask me why —“Naomi! Naomi!” which unraveled Cyrus enough to give me a little bit of a head start when I started running away from him.