Great Oaks Grow From Little Acorns

The people of Golflands had loved her, almost from the very moment she was born.

And why shouldn’t they? All the portents had suggested an auspicious birth; property prices in the area were on the rise, the new shopping mall was a mere seven and a half minutes drive away and the Golfland Gorillas had – for the first time in seven years - clobbered the Queen Street Quibblers in the annual indoor soccer tournament.

Yes, things were looking up for the neighborhood. People walked with a spring in their step and a glint in their eye. Countless conversations were had over fences; cups of tea were drunk in abundance. You couldn’t even bring in your mail without being accosted by a couple of friendly faces. That year, all the older neighborhood kids passed their exams with flying colours and the younger ones grew in leaps and bounds.

“Great oaks grow from little acorns,” people said to one another, because this was the kind of thing you heard in Golflands back then.

Something wonderful wascertainly in the air.

So when Katrina Smith unexpectedly came home with a little baby girl one sunny Wednesday afternoon, everyone was over the moon. It didn’t seem to bother people that Katrina’s sister had died during the childbirth, or that the baby’s tiny little hands were colder than was natural, or that the surrogate mother was already struggling with a mortgage and an absentee, soon-to-be-divorced husband.

As the years passed, property prices in the area took a sudden, inexplicable nosedive. The shopping mall became overrun with hostile hooded teenagers. The Queen Street Quibblers regained their place as the undisputed indoor soccer champions. The local children became surly and uncommunicative and spent day after day watching television with dull eyes behind drawn curtains.

Of course, people didn’t blame the baby. They'd watched her grow into a beautiful child with golden ringlets and apple-pink cheeks, the kind of child that makes spinsters cluck and other mothers jealous.

She symbolized a brighter, lighter time for most of the Golflanders.

They would often buy her little treats - a new ribbon here, a chocolate bar there – but they would never stay and talk to her for long because there was something unsettling about the way her eyes moved, as if she was always taking in another layer of life that no one else could see.

Katrina did the best she could, but she found it increasingly difficult raising a child as unlovable as Zapphy and it wasn’t just because of the way her eyes moved; there was always something sinister behind the girls smile. She didn’t play like other kids. She just sat at the dining table for hours and swung her legs to and fro while she stared out of the front window and onto the empty street.

Once Katrina saved up and bought a little ride-on toy car for her. They were all the rage in the neighborhood back when kids went outside to play but Zapphy had taken one look at it and then rammed it as hard as she could into Katrina’s leg. The bruise was enormous and lasted for three weeks but Katrina didn’t scold Zapphy.

She’d given up by then, because Zapphy didn’t cry.

Not ever.

Then, when Zapphy was about seven, she started disappearing.

Katrina didn’t worry too much at first.

After all, she had other things to think about. Her boss had started taking liberties with her; a tentative touch on the elbow, a brush of a hand along her back, a brief flash of thigh-on-thigh heat. But a single mother doesn’t have a lot of options, especially when she’s five months behind on the mortgage and up to her ears in OT. So Katrina had other things on her mind and she managed to turn a blind eye to Zapphys mysterious vanishing act, right up to when her teacher started calling.

What started with ‘she’s wandered off during lunch’ quickly progressed to ‘she left in the middle of music class’ and by the end of the week it was ‘she never even showed up’. The air became thick with threats of child removal and criminal charges and while the former sounded like a godsend, Katrina decided the latter would probably put a dent in her plans to escape from her current job.

She called in sick that Monday.

As usual, Zapphy ate breakfast at seven thirteen. Toast soldiers. Egg with runny yolk. Glass of milk (calcium-enriched). As usual, she hoisted the little pink rucksack on to her back. As usual, Katrina kissed her twice on the nose before she left and - as usual - Zapphy ignored her and marched out the door and down the road with the grim determination that’s so particular to children of that age.

At first, Katrina was curious as she followed her surrogate daughter down the road and past the school they had both attended.

They went past the corner shop where she had bought Zapphys nappies, and the daycare Zapphy had to leave after three days because of a mistake with over-enrollment.

By the time they went past the store where Katrina had bought the little ride-on car – the store where the sales assistant had smirked at her little plastic bags of change – she was starting to feel decidedly uncomfortable.

They went past the bus stop.

They went past the train station.

They went past the shopping mall and they went past the movie theatre.

And Zapphy? She didn’t turn around, not once.

But along the way, she’d managed to pick up a following. Katrina hadn’t noticed at first because the people only joined in ones or twos but by the time they’d reached the outskirts of Golflands, there was a long, straggly parade trailing Zapphy.

There were business men and nurses: homeless people and bus conductors. Some faces were ripe with plump tears while others sagged under the weight of an unspoken grief but somehow, somewhere along the way, they had all been dragged into Zapphys orbit.

Finally, the procession shuffled to a halt and Katrina pushed to the front. Zapphy was standing outside a huge pair of wrought-iron gates. They looked strange, those stern black gates, against their pastel suburban backdrop and didn’t seem to serve any function other than to intimidate, because they were attached to a brick wall even Katrina could have vaulted over.

“Zapphy,” she said. “Zapphy darling, what are you doing?”

“Souls,” Zapphy said and even later, Katrina couldn’t decide if the little girl had looked at her or right through her. “Human souls.”

Behind the gates, thin black shapes flitted to and fro. A figure appeared. It seemed to be fumbling with the latch and Katrina – thinking only of the simple, numb faces behind her - grabbed the iron bars and gripped them with all her strength.

A kindly pair of eyes regarded her from under a habit.

“Human souls,” she heard Zapphy repeat, almost to herself. “For the abbess.”