The Vanishing Mulberry

When I was eight, back when our neighborhood kids roamed free until the streetlights hummed on, the most baffling thing I ever saw happened near the old Beechwood house. My best friend, Danny, and I were tree climbers. Our favorite was a giant willow at the far end of the gravel lot behind the abandoned church, its sweeping branches perfect for hiding and its catkins like tiny furry fingers. Just past the willow, across a cracked asphalt drive, stood the Beechwood house—a sagging Victorian with peeling gray paint and a wraparound porch that sagged like a tired jaw. Above the front windows, two stone owls stared with cracked marble eyes, and between them, a rough-carved woman’s face, her mouth a dark O as if caught mid-scream. We always dared each other to peek through the boarded-up windows, but the boards were sturdier than they looked, and the gaps were too narrow for even our bony shoulders.

One humid afternoon, a thunderstorm rolled in fast, turning the sky a bruised purple. Danny and I scrambled down from the willow, laughing, but as we passed the Beechwood house, I noticed something odd: the mulberry bushes in the side yard, which had always been barren, were now heavy with glossy black fruit. Danny, braver than me, plucked a handful and popped them into his mouth. ‘Sweet,’ he said, offering me some. I hesitated—the house seemed to watch us—but the fruit was irresistible. We gorged ourselves, the juice staining our fingers like dark blood.

Then the rain came harder, and we ran. But as we ducked under the church’s awning, Danny froze. ‘I dropped my lucky marble,’ he said, patting his pocket. ‘I have to get it.’ Before I could grab him, he sprinted back toward the willow. I shouted after him, but the rain hammered the pavement, swallowing his name. I waited, counting seconds, but he didn’t return. I ran after him, my sneakers slipping on wet gravel.

At the willow, the ground was empty. Danny was gone. I circled the tree, calling his name, but the only sound was the wind hissing through the leaves. Then I saw a trail of crushed mulberries leading away from the tree—toward the Beechwood house. My heart pounded. The front door, which I’d never seen open, was now ajar, a black gap in the gray facade. The stone woman’s face seemed to turn slightly, her mouth widening.

I should have run home, but something pulled me forward. I crept up the porch steps and pushed the door open. Inside, the air was thick with dust and the smell of rotting wood. The floorboards creaked under my feet. I followed the mulberry trail through a dim hallway, past peeling wallpaper with faded roses, into a kitchen where jars of pickled things lined the counters. In the corner, a ladder led down to a cellar hatch, its handle smeared with purple juice.

I descended. The steps were slick, and the dark swallowed me. At the bottom, I found a small room lit by a single bulb swinging from a wire. In the center stood a wooden table, and on it lay Danny’s marble, glittering in the light. But Danny was nowhere. The far wall had a crack, wide enough for a child, and beyond it, darkness. I called his name, and a whisper answered: ‘Come see.’

I stepped through the crack. Inside was a hollow space, shaped like a huge womb, with roots crawling down from the ceiling like veins. At the center grew a sickly tree, white and twisted, its branches sagging with fruit that looked like eyes. And there, hanging from a branch by his jacket, was Danny, his face pale, his mouth open as if in mid-scream, but he was alive—his eyes were closed, and he wasn’t breathing. I touched his foot, and he crumbled to dust, leaving only his jacket swinging.

I screamed, and the darkness rushed in. The roots wrapped around my ankles, and the stone woman’s face appeared in the ceiling, her mouth a cavern, her tongue a long, forked root. I tore free and scrambled back up the ladder, through the kitchen, out the door, into the rain. I didn’t stop running until I reached home, where I collapsed on the porch.

I told the adults, but they said I’d imagined it. They searched the Beechwood house, but they found nothing—no cellar, no crack, no tree. Danny was declared a runaway, his family moving away a year later. But I know what I saw. That willow in the gravel lot still stands, but its branches now droop like weeping arms. And sometimes, when the rain falls, I see a boy in a dripping jacket standing under it, staring at the Beechwood house, his mouth moving as if chewing something sweet. I never go near there anymore, and I never eat mulberries.

Years later, I learned that the old house had been torn down, replaced by a parking garage. But that made it worse, because the ground where the house stood is now black asphalt that never warms, no matter how high the sun climbs. And last summer, I saw a child sitting on the curb there, licking dark stains from his fingers, and he smiled at me, and his eyes were the same shade of hollow as the stone woman’s. That’s when I understood: the house wasn’t the door. It was a mouth, and it was still hungry.