The Trees Swallow People: Part 4

After a few days, they had the pitch taped off. A local club wasn’t impressed. There were other pitches, but GAA lads aren’t known for their sense of rationality. Bitterly, they relinquished. The irony of trying to keep people away from the trees was it only led to more interest in them. People approached the tape, either noticing it in surprise or clearly searching for it, stopping and pointing. Usually, the latter came in groups, setting out together to investigate.

The Gardaí marching along the tape were often called over and asked what was happening, simply replying it was part on an ongoing investigation. However, the few times someone crossed the tape, approaching a Garda they hadn’t managed to attract, were met by barked orders to get behind the tape. Most would rush back, but one gentleman was particularly stubborn. It’s strange the way people speak to one another with such authoritative disgust, as though a minor inconvenience is a great outrage. For this fellow, his face shoved into the much and his wrists cuffed was all he got.

Further down the pitch by the paddock were more officers and people, differing depending on the day. First, they were just other guards, but from the chatter of those I passed in the park, gawking for the tape, they were guards from other counties. An educated guess made the rounds that they were looking for those who had gone missing. Later in the week, people in hazmat suits were scanning around the paddock. An argument sparked between the guards and the hazmat people. They were too far away to hear, but given the pair in suits entering the woods, never to be seen again, I can imagine they were warning about what happened to McGrath and Murphy.

As of late, more technical, scientifical looking researchers joined the effort. Obviously there weren’t in lab coats, but their large erected tents, the fact they were seen collecting soil samples around the wall, and the floodlights directed into the trees hinted at how seriously they were taking this. When brute force fails, I suppose.

Upon one of our walks, as Diva was taking her time to urinate, one of the many usuals that lined the tape daily I overheard asking had they found the drone yet. From what I gathered, earlier the researchers tried flying a drone over the trees to get a safe look inside. As I looked over, I could just make out one of the researchers still holding onto a large control panel, growing ever frustrated as it proved unresponsive, erratically shaking it. I took it the drone was lost amongst the trees too.

It wasn’t only researchers the trees attracted. The theories and gossip, spanning from aliens to Satanists, had brought more and more people to the edge of the tape. The locals soon struggled to get past those from across the country and even Europe. English families in camper vans and Dutch cyclists rerouted to see for themselves the source of the tales that had reached their ears. A French couple who had been staying in Dublin wielded their broken English and worn dictionaries as best as they could to make the trek from Connolly to Confey, asking passer-bys where are “des arbres”.

Despite the novelty of these strange events, the allure of the trees soon came over the visitors. One girl, a sixteen year old daughter of a travelling family from Kent, documenting their trip on their YouTube channel, ducked under the tape and bolted across the field. There were no shortage of people to catch her between her father, brother, and the guards, but still she managed to gain a good deal of distance as she wriggled, punched, and clawed, digging at the saturated muck, staining and chipping her fingernails. Despite the family pleads, she continued her manic quest for the trees, screaming incoherently, like an animal fighting to escape a trap. Her cries could be heard even as she was forced into the back of a squad car, brought to the station for questioning.

Though there were more like her, overcome by the desire to be amongst the branches, there were those who crossed the divide for other reasons. There have always been those who are incapable of accepting the world as a place that doesn’t make sense. Those people soon joined the gawkers, yet what made them unique was the entitlement, the demand that this all stop, as though that’s how it works. They’d loudly question the investigation, asking why aren’t they going in or why are they just standing around, only to give their own answers, suggesting this was all a hoax or that the government was just trying to scare them. If only.

The level of idiocy quickly rose as these free thinkers from message boards attempted to storm past the guards and researchers, throwing punches and spitting swears as they were tossed into the back of a van. A few nights of this, with one managing to get over the wall, screaming for those missing to come out, as though they were hiding the giggling behind the trees for fun, proved to be too much. The pathway around the pitch was taped off further. Between the monastery, the playground, and the Lucan end of the park was completely off limits now. With that, many tourists stopped showing up. Outside wild speculation online, even the fearful dropped their attempts to uncover the mystery. A brief sense of normality seemed to have returned. And then I saw him.

Diva needed her walk that evening. Though the park was now sectioned off for the most part, we were still able to walk circuits. I decided a few laps around the grassy fields just as you enter would be enough. Coming up on our third lap, I could just make him out in the clear night, enough moonlight to highlight his silhouette. I found it strange right away that he was on his knees, holding up his hands, his palms facing him, mumbling something with his lips barely moving. At first I thought he was hurt, then senile, then it occurred to me he could be praying.

As I got closer, I could see he was kneeling, but still upright. His hands quivered, as if he was straining to keep them up for some time. His eyes were open and looking up into the sky at nothing in particular. I kept pace but watched him, turning at the end of the path like the previous two times. I figured I’d leave him to it, pulling out my phone to check if there was a feast day I wasn’t aware of. The lap would take another eight minutes before I was back where I spotted him. By that point, he was gone. To where, I didn’t know. I still don’t to this day. What I do know, and what we would all learn, was that he called himself Shepard. And Shepard was praying that night. Praying to the trees.