The Leaves Forget, page 1
THE LEAVES FORGET
ALAN BAXTER
Table of Contents
Title Page
INTRODUCTION
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
EPILOGUE
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
THE LEAVES FORGET
INTRODUCTION
AND SO WE COME TO THE AUTUMN 2023 list for Absinthe Books, and I’d like to introduce you to The Leaves Forget, by the award-winning Alan Baxter.
Some of you may know Alan’s work already, of course, there’s certainly plenty to choose from: not least, he wrote a supernatural novella I loved, The Book Club, for PS Publishing a few years ago; then there’s the standalone novels, Sallow Bend or The Devouring Dark, to name just two; not to mention the novel series he writes—the Alex Caine horror novels, the Eli Carver supernatural thrillers, the short stories... I could go on at length, but you get the picture, I’m sure. I was delighted to see that one of Al’s stories was recently adapted for Netflix’s series Love, Death and Robots—“In Vaulted Halls Entombed”, a tale of soldiers entering caves in Afganistan to rescue a colleague; what they find is certainly not what they expected. And an excellent adaptation it was.
Which brings me to now. To The Leaves Forget, a supernatural novella that tells the story of Craig as he searches for his sister Olivia, who’s been missing for some months. When a neighbour hands him a bundle of letters from her, wrongly addressed to his apartment, Craig finally has something to go on. He sets off in a race against time to follow the trail Olivia’s left behind, and in the process attempt to rescue her from a mysterious cult he believes she’s been sucked into.
To say any more will tell you too much (and I really hope I haven’t already), but The Leaves Forget is a tense roller-coaster of a story, and one I’m sure you’ll enjoy as much as I did.
—Marie O’Regan
Derbyshire, June 2021
THE LEAVES FORGET
1
ALL I WANT IS A HOT bath followed by a room temperature scotch and the comfort of my favourite armchair. It’s been a long day and I’m over it. Hobart winters can be ridiculously cold, and today is doing its best to set a record. Everyone thinks because Tasmania is part of Australia, it’s hot and dusty and orange and all that stuff the mainland is famous for. But it’s an island, almost a different country, culture notwithstanding, and it does winter more like some European places. Honestly, I like that about it, except on days like this when I’ve been out on site working for hours and the cold has sunk into my bones, biting at my marrow, threatening to set up in there and never leave. Ah, that hot bath is calling, I can almost feel myself slipping into it as I slip my key into the apartment door.
“Hey, Craig.”
Oh, come on, I was so close. I turn around and reluctantly admit it’s good to see Victor Tan, my downstairs neighbour. It’s been months. “Hey, Vic! You’re back.” Obviously. Stupid thing to say, really, but small talk is exactly that. Small.
“Yeah, just this morning.”
“How was England?”
“Warm! Can you believe it? Summer there now and we came back to this. Bad planning.”
“Yeah, I can see that.” I can hear my bath screeching out for me. “But you had fun?”
“For sure. Maisie and I saw all the sights. We went to eleven different countries around Europe in seven months.”
“Eleven?”
“Right? Some are smaller than Australian states. One day we drove through three countries in a single day, where the borders all met up.”
“Wild.” Man, my hands are cold.
“Anyway, you’ve been at work. You don’t need me jabbering at you right now. But I wanted to give you these.”
He holds up a wad of envelopes. There must be a dozen or more, all the same looking stationery. Brow furrowing, I reach out to take them.
“Someone got the apartment number wrong,” Vic says. “These were all in our mailbox when we got back.”
If I was cold before, I’m arctic now. A shudder runs through me and my hand starts to shake when I see Olivia’s neat cursive. The writing I haven’t seen for months. The sister I haven’t seen since last spring. I quickly flip through the envelopes and every one is from her. My apartment address is 6/63 and she’s written 3/63. An easy enough mistake to make, I guess.
We’ve been trying for months to track her down and nothing. We’ve been so scared of what might have happened to her. She just disappeared one day. We’ve even had those tentative conversations, my parents and I—what if she’s gone for good? What if we never find her? What if someone turns up her body? And all this time she’s been writing to me and putting the wrong apartment number on the address? That’s such an Olivia thing to do it hurts.
“Vic, thanks for this.” My voice is artificially light, the aural equivalent of plastic. He doesn’t seem to notice.
“No worries. Catch up for drinks soon, yeah? Maisie will be keen to show you some photos and stuff.”
Like they hadn’t been posting fifty shots a day on Facebook the whole time they were away. We all know everything we might want to know about their trip already. But that’s not in the spirit of friendship, is it? “Sure thing, of course.”
“Good, good. Now get inside, you look so cold.”
Vic, you have no idea, mate. “Thanks. See you soon.”
I stumble inside and head straight for the bathroom. I want nothing more than to read these letters, but I have to get warm. I start the bath running and look back at the pile on the coffee table in front of my couch.
Jesus, Olivia, what am I about to read?
2
WHEN I LEAVE THE BATHROOM door open I can see the coffee table and the stack of letters on it. The bath is purely functional now, simply putting warmth back into my bones instead of the relaxing pleasure it should have been after a day on site. I’m only going to stay in here until I can feel my fingers again. Already they’re burning as blood starts coursing through. Although my gut is like ice and that might not change any time soon.
What am I going to find out, Olivia?
My sister has always been flighty. The kind of person who takes astrological predictions more seriously than doctor’s advice. “She’s so open-minded her brain fell out,” our dad said once, and my mum snapped at him, appalled, but it’s true.
She doesn’t go so far as to believe every conspiracy theory, chem trails and flat earth and all that shit. And she has been vaccinated, but didn’t get any boosters. She worked in a café and said the vaccine mandate infringed her rights, but she went along with it anyway. She admitted to me one drunken night that she was glad of the vaccine, but still resented it. I’ve never quite understood that. We didn’t talk much more about it because she’s infuriating and I always end up so angry at her bullshit. Her “hippy-dippy ways” as Mum puts it.
But she’s my sister and she’s smart and funny and cool, and she’s so fucking kind it hurts. The kind of kid who would cry if she accidentally squashed a bug. Then, around last September, it’s like she fell off the planet.
It’s never unusual for Olivia to go incommunicado for a few weeks at a time. She’d get some new partner, some new craze, and it would occupy a hundred per cent of her mind, but she’d always come around eventually. She’s thirty now, not a kid any more, even if she’ll always be my little sister. Adults have a right to their own lives, don’t they?
When Mum started trying to plan Christmas and Olivia didn’t respond, didn’t even check the family WhatsApp, we got worried. We worked out no one had spoken to her since the week after Grandad’s birthday in early September. And that was me. I spoke to her last . . . I don’t want to think about that. I’ve been torturing myself about it ever since. Why couldn’t I have been more forgiving?
And now here we are in the first week of June, winter kicking in early and hard, and still nothing from Liv. Nothing at all.
We checked with every friend and acquaintance. We filed a missing person’s report. The case remains open, of course. By the time the new year rolled around, we’d already exhausted just about every avenue and started repeating ourselves. And we started getting used to the idea that maybe she was gone. Like, really gone. Forever. And maybe we’d never know why or how. You read about that stuff all the time, then maybe decades down the line some bones are found in a farm paddock somewhere and a cold case is finally solved. Or nothing is ever found and the case is added to the long list of mysteries without a resolution.
My gut clenches in the hot water and I cry out, grief a beast eating my insides. There might be answers right there in those letters. There might be relief or irrefutable proof of tragedy. And I realise I’m terrified to even look. Schrödinger’s missives. Right now I both know and don’t know what happened to Olivia. When I finally get up the courage to look, I fix reality in place. And I might not like it.
But knowing is better than not knowing, right? Closure is valuable. And what if there’s a chance to find her still? A course of ac
Except the last time I talked to her, we fought so badly. I said terrible things. She left in tears. And I’ve never forgiven myself for that. I’ve lived ever since desperate for a chance to apologise. What if those letters confirm I can never do that?
I haul myself from the bath and towel off, get dressed. My hands shake as I pour a generous scotch and sink into my armchair, pick up the envelopes.
They each have a date in the postmark at the top right, just above the address that says apartment 3 instead of 6. Who the fuck writes letters any more, Liv?
Damn it, Victor, why didn’t you sublet while you were away, you rich fucker? Someone else would have checked your mailbox. The thought of these letters sitting there all this time. I’ve walked past them hundreds of times, I’ve opened my own mailbox and my hands have been only inches away from all this possible news, and I’ve had no idea. My chest hurts.
The first letter is postmarked November 10th last year. A week after Vic and Maisie left. Two months or so after the last time we heard from Olivia.
Shit.
Shit shit shit.
I gulp some scotch, top off the dram from the bottle I’ve wisely kept beside me, and start to read.
3
THE FIRST LETTER, 10TH NOVEMBER:
Hey big bro. Okay, okay, I know we had a rough time a few weeks ago. I’m sorry, okay?
She’s sorry? Fuck, I’ve been beating myself up for months, wishing I could talk to her again, apologise for the awful things I said. I sounded like our dad, telling her to get her shit together, to start taking responsibility for her life. All because she wanted to borrow fifty bucks until the next weekend. Fifty bucks! What’s that between siblings? Fucking nothing. Liv, I’m so sorry.
I shouldn’t ask you for money, Craig. I know that. You’re a big site foreman, you oversee all these massive infra-structure projects and shit (look at me using big words like infrastructure correctly! That is correct, right?) Anyway, I think you make fat coin, which you probably do, but it’s not my place to borrow from you. So I’m sorry. But I think you did maybe overreact just a bit, yeah? Just a tad? You fucking psycho. Anyway, it’s all good. I love you, bro, and I’m sorry we fought. And I know it’s been a few weeks now and you’re probably stressed about that, and if you’ve been trying to email and stuff, well, I won’t have seen it. It’s been a wild time, big bro, but I’m happy. Remember that when you get mad at me in a minute, okay? Because you will get mad. I don’t have an email address any more. I’m not even allowed a phone. But that’s cool! It’s so much better!
What the fuck is she talking about, not allowed a phone? Who the hell is telling her that? Has she hooked up with some overbearing abusive incel motherfucker who won’t let her have a phone?
Now just calm down and listen, Craig. Okay? I told you you’d get mad.
Smug bitch. Despite my fears, a smile tugs my lips.
I’m not in some abusive, horrible relationship or anything, but there are rules here and I’m happy to follow them. I haven’t felt so complete in so long, big bro. I’m light as air and deep as the ocean, Craig!
Anyway, I’m running out of time, so I’d better wrap up for now. I’m not supposed to be writing or anything. But I’ll write again soon, because fuck the rules, right? I’ve got a little method worked out, but I can’t get caught. Lol, who writes fucking letters any more? I’m like Emily Brontë or some shit. My hand aches already, it’s ridiculous.
Anyway (I have to stop saying anyway) I’m okay. I’m happy. Tell you more next time.
Love you, you big dumb fuck. Say hi to Mum and Dad.
Liv xxx
Holy shit. This doesn’t sound good. This doesn’t sound good at all. I reach for the next letter.
4
THE SECOND LETTER, 17TH NOVEMBER:
Hey bro,
Okay, it’s been a week, sorry to leave you hanging. I should have said before, I think I can get out a letter once a week or so. I’m not supposed to, but I have to tell someone. Honestly, I wish you were here and we could be experiencing this together, but you’d just shit all over it with your cynicism. You really need to open your mind, dude.
So far my brain will fall out? No thanks, Liv. Where are you that you can only write once a week, and even then you’re not allowed to?
So if these letters are short it’s because my window is short and if one doesn’t come one week, don’t panic, okay? It’s all good, I’ll communicate when I can. Where to start?
At the beginning, Sis. Or maybe the end and just tell me where the fuck you are?
Craig, I know you’re not into the whole synchronicity thing, but this is just so . . . what the fuck is it? Pre-ordained is too strict, you know? I mean, it’s destiny, but it took my free will, too. It’s like a path opened before me but I had to choose to take it.
Liv, get to the point. Aren’t you stretched for time?
Anyway, I don’t have much time, so just accept that this was meant to be. It started not long after we were yelling at each other and I stormed out. I called a mate of mine, just a booty call, you know? Had to blow off some steam. That went pretty well, but then his wife came home early and I had to literally leap out of the bedroom window like some corny ’70s porno, it was fucking degrading, man. Kinda hot too, in a way . . .
But that’s why I was wandering the streets of Sandy Bay at three in the morning. It was nice, you know—salty air, fresh breeze. It’s springtime, starting to warm up. And there was this group of people, three guys, at the park near the water. You know where the kid’s playground is? Near there.
They were doing some strange activity, the three of them, like a kind of séance or something. I stopped to watch and heard them chanting and it was really creepy but so beautiful at the same time. Compelling is the word.
Then one of them saw me watching and they all faltered to a stop and it was shattered and I felt awful. But the one who saw me, he came over and said I couldn’t stay, what they were doing was private.
Private? In the middle of a park in the city of Hobart? Come on, Sis, they were clearly mad.
But he gave me this card with an address on it and said if I liked what I had heard I should go and see him in two weeks. He said his name was Jonathan, and he gave me the date, said it would have to be that day or I’d miss out. I tried to ask what he meant, but he shook his head. He’d tell me all I needed to know then, if I came. Like it was a test, you know? Then they all just sat there and watched me until I walked away. It was weird. But it was hard to ignore as well, you know? How intriguing, right?
No, Liv, it sounds fucking mental, not intriguing. But I’m guessing you went and saw this Jonathan.
I pocketed that card and tried to forget about it, but I kept thinking about it. I ignored it for a good while, but as that date came closer, something kept nagging at my mind. That chant, if nothing else. I really wanted to know what it was. And I figured, what could it hurt, you know? Just go and talk to this Jonathan and see what he says, right?
Shit, I have to go. More soon.
Love you.
Liv xxx
Gods damn it all, Sis, you can avoid the point like a championship fencer. I reach for the next letter.
5
THE THIRD LETTER, 29TH NOVEMBER:
Hey bro,
Okay, I know, it’s been ages. More than a week. Sorry, I hope you haven’t been worried.
Jesus, Sis, it was only about this time that we even realised no one had heard from you for weeks. We were so used to you coming and going in our lives. I couldn’t feel like more of a shit if I tried, but honestly, how could I have known? Liv dropping off the radar for a few weeks was so normal it was pretty much routine. Even when we realised we hadn’t heard from her, we didn’t worry too much at first.
The system has changed, see. Maybe I should explain that part of it?
You think?
So I’ll keep this brief, tell you more about the whole thing as time allows, but basically, I’ve got myself in a position where Jonathan trusts me to drive him into town once a week for supplies. I really bugged him about it, because we’re not meant to go anywhere, but I told him I really needed to see something else once in a while. I promised I’d stay in the truck. But I think it’s also because he’s kinda sweet on me and honestly, I don’t mind that. I can tell he compromises himself a little bit for me, but I have that power, don’t I? I can sweet talk anyone about anything.
