Bluebeard

Draping, sweeping branches hanging low to create a hushed canopy of safety and secrecy just for you. Only dirt on this ground, no grass - the shade is too permanent, too effective.  But you like it here anyway.

Inside that house though, the one behind the tree, you've seen the door to the locked room and you've seen the key bleed on more than one occasion.  There is no safety there.

Cartoons on tv, an open cereal box, a stack of napkins, a dainty teacup that can't be put in the dishwasher because the flowers were painted by a skilled hand. You see these on the counter next to clenched fists holding a rage you cannot fathom.  Your neck could be inside those fists, he wants it there.  You know this just like you know that teacup can't go in the dishwasher.  Black shadowed eyes on a face that seems to heave.  Angry spittle flying, those eyes drill a lifetime of hate right into you.

What do you do when you meet Bluebeard in real life?  Just a child, you run for the hills, you have the good sense to be terrified of the void you see in those black eyes.  You saw the skeletons stacked behind the door the minute you walked into the house.  The whip of darkness in that void reaches for you, you feel the blood before see it, but still you run.  You're still running.