The secret of the elf tree

At last, the house was quiet. Sarah could finally remove her fingers from her ears and relax her tense body. For as long as there had been danger, she had lain curled up like an oversized foetus in her narrow bed. It hadn't been safe to block her ear canals. But even at the risk of being caught off guard, she had to muffle the noise as best she could.

It was good to hear the roar muffled and softened somehow, as if there were something between her and whatever was downstairs. Something that might protect her, although the child knew that nothing and no one could save her from what happened time and time again. The tiny room was cold and damp. 'You haven't paid the bloody electricity bill, you good-for-nothing slut!' Then came a clatter and dull thuds, as if something softer than a brick was thudding against the walls. Screams and roars. 'What on earth are you talking about, you brain-dead drunkard!' Shattering, crashing, screeching.

Her brother used to lie with her in the sagging bed, clinging to Sarah. Then, when it got particularly loud, he would wet himself. He often had a cold and was just as afraid as Sarah of going downstairs to the loo. It wasn't safe. Sometimes, in the middle of the night, heavy footsteps would come up the steep staircase. The blanket would be yanked off with a jerk, and then all hell would break loose.

While her brother was still there, big fists would grab them and yank them out of bed. 'Bloody filth!', he'd roar, followed by the slap of hands against skin in the dark. Wherever they landed. At some point, her brother disappeared; after one particularly bad night, he was gone. Sarah had fallen asleep sometime after the pain in her head had subsided. She couldn't remember exactly when. The police had been there, as had the people from Child Services, too. He'd just vanished.

They asked Sarah about him and how she was. But the people asking didn't really want to know. Sarah had felt his eyes on her. She hadn't said anything except what they had drilled into her. That he'd gone to school that morning and hadn't come home. She couldn't remember anything else. Since then, the blanket had been torn away, but the fists had stopped, and only the voice remained: 'What a mess this is, you lazy toad! You're just like your mother, but I'll knock that out of you!' At night, she would clean the tiny room with cold water or put the torn clothes back in the wardrobe armed with a ruler. She needed the ruler to ensure the measured accurately, because if she didn't, she'd have to start all over again.

One night, he cut off her hair with his pocket knife. At school, Sarah said it had been her. For weeks afterwards, everyone laughed at her stubble. The teacher just shook her head. It had hurt terribly because the knife wasn't sharp enough, and he said that if she made a sound, he would cut her throat. Nothing ever happened during the day. The two of them would sit in front of the telly and drink, and there would usually be bread and something to spread on it. Sarah didn't like eating and was pitifully thin, but nobody noticed because she was quite small anyway.

Now that it was finally quiet, the child opened her eyes and looked out of the small window onto the courtyard, where the elf tree stood. It was a secret; nobody knew about it. But the old tree shimmered in the moonlight, looking silver like something from a fairy tale. Sarah would calm down when she saw that and eventually fall asleep. However, since her brother's disappearance, she had noticed that the tree shimmered even when there was no moon in the sky. It gave off a delicate, living glow. It looked friendly and warm. She was freezing, because the duvet was thin and constantly damp due to the cold in the room.

Looking at the tree warmed her a little. It was as if the glow were casting some warmth through the window. It felt somehow ... safe.

In Sarah's world, things were either safe or not safe. School wasn't safe, but the long, lonely walk home was. Talking to the teacher was safe, but not to the other children. When Sarah entered the small, rundown house, she left any sense of safety outside. The only safe thing was the elf tree.

She had almost fallen asleep when a sudden chill brought her back to her senses. He was standing over her with the blanket in his hand, shouting at her. She could smell the disgusting stench of the stuff he always drank. She shivered and cried. Things like that could happen, too. The argument was over, but he still wasn't finished. He returned to the small attic room because he wasn't tired enough yet. He started shouting: 'You left the toilet door open, you little rat! Do you know how draughty it is? I'll show you what it's like to be cold!' He then went out, taking the blanket with him. Sarah tried to curl up on the bare mattress, but it didn't keep out the cold.

The child whimpered softly, rubbing her arms and legs desperately, as she noticed that was getting lighter. It couldn't be long past midnight, yet it was almost as bright as day outside. Then she saw it: the elf tree was glowing with a soft, silvery light. It looked like a Christmas tree, except the lights were inside rather than outside. Sarah got up and went to the window, staring in wonder at the sight in the courtyard below, knowing that the time had finally come.

Holding her breath, she opened the window and carefully climbed out onto the roof. She had imagined how easy it would be many times before, and now it was. She placed one foot gently in front of the other until she reached the edge. From there, she climbed onto the roof of the old, rotting caravan that had stood in the courtyard for as long as she could remember. From there, she shimmied down to the ground and ran to the trunk of the elf tree. The warmth radiating from the tree felt wonderful, so she spread her arms and leaned against it as tightly as she could. Everything was bright, gentle and soft. It was safe.

'It's so cold, and it's only the end of February', said the policewoman. The police doctor nodded. 'It's a tragic affair. The girl must have been sleepwalking. I can't imagine it any other way. She must have leaned against the tree and then frozen to death in her sleep. She was wearing nothing but a shirt and underwear.' Shaking his head, he beckoned the men with the stretcher over. 'Poor parents', he muttered.

© 'The secret of the elf tree': A tragic story about safety and uncertainty by Ilona E. Schwartz (translated by Izabel Comati), 05/2026. The picture shows trees in a snowy landscape, CC0 (Public Domain Licence).