Chapter 7: The Seed of Doubt

Chapter 7: The Seed of Doubt

The marital bedroom, once a sanctuary of whispered secrets and shared warmth, had become a cold, contested territory. Alex lay awake in the dark, listening to the sound of his wife’s breathing. It was slow and even, the rhythm of a person at perfect peace, and it was the most terrifying sound in the world. He hadn’t truly slept in days, existing instead in a hazy, whiskey-fueled twilight, watching and waiting. He watched Anya, cataloging the subtle changes in her with the grim precision of an architect assessing structural decay.

Her skin, once pale with grief, now had a healthy, almost luminous glow. Her eyes, which had been hollowed out by sorrow, were now clear and bright with a convert’s fervent light. She moved through their silent house with a serene, gliding purpose, her focus entirely on the yard and the monstrously vibrant tree that held court there. She was blooming, and he was rotting from the inside out.

That morning, the breaking point came. He was standing in the kitchen, staring into the black dregs of his coffee, when Anya drifted in from the backyard. Her hair was damp with dew, and her face was alight with that blissful, infuriating smile. She was humming the lullaby, the one about sailboats and stars.

The sound lanced through Alex’s carefully constructed wall of numb despair. It was a violation. That song belonged to them, to the memory of their son, the boy of flesh and blood, not to… that thing.

“Stop it,” he said, his voice a low, gravelly rasp.

Anya paused, her head tilted. The humming ceased. “Stop what, Alex?”

“That song. Don’t sing that song to it.”

She sighed, a soft, pitying sound that set his teeth on edge. “Oh, Alex. It’s not for ‘it.’ It’s for him. He loves it. It helps him feel settled.”

“He is dead, Anya!” The words erupted from him, a roar of pain and rage he could no longer contain. “Our son is dead! That thing in the yard is a tree. A monster that grew out of his body. When are you going to wake up?”

He expected tears, a retreat, the familiar pattern of their fractured grief. Instead, she looked at him with a profound, unshakable calm, her eyes full of a strange sorrow, not for herself, but for him.

“You’re the one who is asleep, Alex,” she said, her voice gentle, but firm as bedrock. “You’re so afraid. You’re letting your fear blind you. He’s right there. He’s reaching out to us, and you keep turning away.”

“Reaching out?” Alex laughed, a harsh, broken sound. “Is that what you call it? Anya, listen to yourself! You’re living in a delusion!”

“It’s not a delusion. It’s faith,” she insisted, taking a step towards him. “He needs us. He needs the connection. The prophet, the man with the thorns… he was wrong. Love isn’t the cage, Alex. It’s the conduit. It’s how we stay with him.”

The mention of the thorny man sent a jolt of ice through Alex’s veins. She had twisted the prophet’s warning into a gospel, his curse into a blessing. She was walking willingly into the fire.

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “I won’t let you.” He moved to block her path to the sliding glass door. “You’re not going out there today. You’re going to stay in here, with me. And we are going to remember the son we lost, not worship the monster that replaced him.”

A sudden flash of panic crossed her serene features. It was the first genuine fear he had seen in her for days. “Move, Alex. He’ll be lonely.”

“He’s a tree!”

“He is my son! Let me go to him!” She pushed against him, her surprising strength born of pure, fanatical conviction.

He grabbed her arms to stop her. “Anya, no! Please, just listen to me!”

“Let me go!” she shrieked, her serenity shattering into a thousand pieces, revealing the raw desperation beneath. She struggled against him, twisting and pulling, her movements frantic. It wasn’t a fight between husband and wife; it was a clumsy, heartbreaking battle between two opposing realities. He pulled her back from the door as she thrashed, her body stumbling against his.

He caught her, his arms wrapping around her to keep her from falling. His right hand splayed across her back, between her shoulder blades, the thin cotton of her nightgown doing little to cushion the impact.

And in that moment, he felt it.

Through the fabric, pressed against her skin, was something small, hard, and unmistakably sharp. It wasn’t bone. Her spine was a familiar landscape beneath his hands, and this was alien. It was a single, needle-sharp point, embedded deep within the muscle. It felt like a shard of wood.

The shock was a physical blow. The strength went out of his arms, and he released her as if her skin had become red-hot. The argument died in his throat. The entire world seemed to shrink down to the phantom sensation of that sharp point against his palm.

Anya, misreading his sudden stillness as concession, didn't notice. With a final, broken sob, she wrenched open the glass door and fled into the yard, straight to the base of the maple tree, collapsing into the grass as if seeking sanctuary.

Alex stood paralyzed, staring at his hand. He flexed his fingers, trying to erase the memory of what he had felt. The seed of doubt, planted by a thorny prophet in a sun-baked parking lot, had just broken ground. It spreads. It spreads through the heart. The roots feel the connection.

He spent the rest of the day in a state of suspended animation, watching her from the shadows of the house. He had to know for sure. He couldn’t ask her. She would deny it, call him mad, retreat further into her verdant delusion. He had to see.

The waiting was an agony. The sun crawled across the sky. Evening fell. She finally came inside, her face streaked with dirt and tears, but calm once more. They didn't speak. He went to bed and feigned sleep, his body rigid with tension as she slipped under the covers beside him. He lay there for what felt like an eternity, listening to her breathing, to the rustle of the Luke-tree’s leaves whispering just outside their window. He was lying beside a stranger, an enemy, a plot of contaminated soil.

When her breathing finally deepened into the heavy rhythm of sleep, he moved. The act felt like a profound violation, a crossing of a line from which he could never return. With hands that trembled so badly he could barely control them, he reached out and gently, so gently, rolled her onto her stomach.

The moonlight slanted through the window, casting a pale, sterile stripe across her exposed back. His breath hitched. He reached down and hooked a finger under the hem of her nightgown, slowly lifting the soft fabric.

He saw it immediately.

There, just to the right of her spine, was a small, angry red welt. It was swollen and inflamed, like a vicious insect bite. But this was no bite. From the very center of the inflammation, the skin was broken. And pushing its way through the breach, triumphant and obscene, was a tiny green sprout.

It was no bigger than his thumbnail. Two minuscule leaves, a perfect, vibrant emerald green, were just beginning to unfurl. They were slick with a clear, viscous fluid that caught the moonlight, making them gleam like wet jewels.

It was a sapling. A seed had taken root in the warm soil of his wife.

Alex let the fabric fall, his hand recoiling as if burned. He backed away from the bed, a silent scream building in his chest until he thought his lungs would burst.

The thorny prophet was right. Love was the conduit. The roots had followed. The enemy was no longer just in his yard. It was in his bed. And as he stared at the sleeping form of the woman he loved, he knew with a soul-crushing certainty that the battle for her soul was already lost. The only battle left was for her body, and he had no idea how to fight it.