The interrogation room at the Graycliff Police Department was a vacuum, forcibly stripped away by civilized society.
The walls were painted with cheap, yellowish soundproofing paint, and a single exposed fluorescent light on the ceiling emitted an unsettling buzz. The air was thick with the musty smell of cheap coffee, stale case files, and a sour, sweaty odor known as "fear."
Sheriff Brody stared through the thick one-way glass at the creature seated in the interrogation chair.
Yes, a creature.
Despite Rowan's oversized, baggy gray prison uniform and her roughly trimmed and disinfected hair, Brody couldn't detect a single trace of "modern civilized" about her. She wasn't flustered like a typical suspect, nor did she attempt to defend herself.
She simply sat there, back ramrod straight, her hands handcuffed to the metal tabletop. Her eyes weren't focused on Brody, nor on the observer behind the glass, but rather fixed on a crack in the ceiling diagonally above her—the only place in this locked room where she could sense a trace of "natural evolution."
"She hasn't spoken for thirty-six hours," Officer Falkin said in a low voice, standing behind Brody, a still-wet lab report in his hand. "She refuses to eat anything provided by town, except water. The doctor said her physiological aversion to industrialized food is practically a severe allergic reaction." Brody didn't reply, his hand unconsciously reaching for his trench coat pocket. There lay the leather-bound diary found in Julian's office—the fatal piece of evidence that could overturn the entire definition of the "murder case."
"Sheriff, the evidence is complete," Falkin continued, a hint of eager excitement in his voice. "Julian Carter's body was found in the mine. The fatal injury was internal organ rupture caused by a fall, but the forensic pathologist found a large number of spores of a variant of puffball fungus in his lungs. This fungus only grows around the greenhouse of that 'madwoman' on the north slope. Plus, Julian's diary mentions her repeated threats to 'cleanse' the Carter family's territory…"
"Falkin," Brody turned his head, his eyes as cold as autumn rain, "did you really understand that diary?" Falkin froze.
Brody pushed open the heavy iron door of the interrogation room. The jarring sound echoed in the small space, but Rowan didn't even blink.
Brody pulled out a chair and sat down opposite Rowan. He turned on the tape recorder; the red indicator light shone like a beating heart in the dim room.
"Rowan." This was the first time he had called her by name.
Rowan's gaze finally moved slowly. Her pupils were darker and deeper than normal, and under the direct sunlight, they didn't contract violently like ordinary people; instead, they held an almost predatory focus.
"They say you killed Julian Carter," Brody pushed the photos of the scene—Julian's mangled body and the Remington shotgun lying in the mud—in front of Rowan, "in a way they've never seen before, a way more insidious than a bullet." Rowan glanced down at the photos.
It was the first time in fourteen years she had examined Julian so closely. The man in the photos wore that terrifying, fanatical, stiff smile, but in Rowan's eyes, it was nothing more than a biochemical reaction of some organic matter being forcibly locked in place by toxins before decomposition. She showed no pleasure in revenge, not even a flicker of emotion.
"In my territory, there is no murder," Rowan finally spoke, her voice still carrying that rough, unspoken quality of long isolation. "Only transgressions, and their consequences."
"That's determined by the law, Rowan, not by the forest," Brody retorted, though even he felt his words lacked conviction.
"The law?" Rowan let out a very soft, cold laugh. She raised her handcuffed hands and pointed to the Remington shotgun in the photograph. "Where is your law when a man, carrying something like this, breaks into a woman's home in the dead of night, trying to eradicate her like weeds? Where is your law when that man's father, fourteen years ago, used a contract to demarcate a girl's only sanctuary as public property?"
Brody fell silent. He pulled the leather-bound diary from his pocket and placed it on the table.
"I read the diary, Rowan. The whole thing. The stone he threw at you in 1979, the man he sent to the observatory to test you in 1985, and last year his plan to send you to a mental hospital so he could take over every record of that redwood forest." Brody's voice deepened. "I know he went there with murderous intent. I know he's the one who 'premeditatedly murdered'." Rowan's eyes softened for the first time, a look that was a mixture of surprise and scrutiny.
"But here's the problem." Brody tapped the table. "If you admit it was self-defense, you need to recount the process. You need to explain to the judge how you used the fungal growth cycle, how you calculated the wind direction in the mine, how you 'set up your trap' on that rotten log. Once you speak, you're no longer an innocent victim, but an extremely dangerous expert who uses the natural environment to create deadly traps."
"So?"
"So, those people outside the courtroom—the Carter family's lawyers, the congressmen eager to give their voters an explanation, and the townspeople afraid of the 'Forest Monster'—are more likely to believe you're a madman, a random, ruthless demon. If you remain silent, they'll send you to a hardened prison or a mental hospital; if you speak up, you're admitting to the world that you possess a killing skill more terrifying than firearms."
This is the core irony of the "silent accusation": the truth itself is a crime.
Rowan stood up, the handcuffs slamming against the iron table with a piercing scream. She slowly approached Brody, the scent of earth and resin from deep within the forest instantly dispelling the stale smell of the interrogation room.
"Sheriff, you still don't understand," Rowan said, staring into Brody's eyes, her words slow and deliberate. "I'm not trying to survive. I am an echo left behind by this forest. Julian Carter didn't die from my trap; he died from his own arrogance. He thought that woodland was just a pile of timber that could be exchanged for dollars, but he forgot that it was my flesh and blood, my skin. When he tried to cut into it, the forest was simply undergoing a normal immune response."
She paused, a tiny, chilling expression appearing on her face—a hint of pity.
"Your laws try to find a name for every dead person, a motive for every action. But on the North Slope, death is death. Rain washes away the red soil, fungi decompose the rotting corpse. That's the most honest judgment in the world. If you want to lock me up, then lock me up. But that doesn't change the fact—Julian Carter was eliminated by nature, and I am still alive." Brody looked at her, a sense of unprecedented frustration welling up inside him.
He held enough evidence to overturn her conviction, but if these testimonies were made public, they would tear open the darkest wounds of Graycliff—about class, about bullying, about how a town conspired to banish an innocent soul. Rowan, however, didn't care about such an overturning of the conviction. She was filled with disdain for the human judicial system; that profound alienation placed her in a position of absolute spiritual superiority.
A deathly silence fell in the interrogation room.
Suddenly, the tape recorder reached its end, making a crisp "click," like a gavel falling.
Brody put away the diary and stood up. Before leaving the room, he glanced at Rowan one last time.
"You know, Rowan. If you had begged for mercy, or acted like a frightened ordinary woman, I would have been able to help you more easily." Rowan sat back down in her chair, her gaze returning to the crack in the ceiling.
"Begging for mercy is a vice unique to humans," she said softly, as if talking to herself. "In the forest, it's either survival or extinction." Brody walked out of the interrogation room. The corridor lights remained a stark white.
Farkin immediately surrounded him: "Well, Sheriff? Did she confess? Can that diary convict her?" Brody ignored Farkin and walked straight to the exit. Outside, the morning sun, after the rain, struggled to pierce the clouds, illuminating the neat streets of Graycliff.
He pulled the diary from his pocket and glanced at the distant, verdant, deep, and unknown redwood forest on the northern slope. He knew that if this diary, filled with sin and greed, appeared in court, it would ruin the Carter family's reputation, but it might also make Rowan appear as a highly intelligent, psychopathic killer.
But if he destroyed the diary, Rowan would be sent to the county sanatorium due to "insufficient evidence" or "mental instability," where at least there would be clean sheets and no more harassment from Julian Carter.
Sheriff Brody stood in the sunlight for a long time, and finally, he stuffed the evidence bag back into the deepest part of his trench coat.
That was his last time as a law enforcement officer teetering on the edge of morality and nature.
In the interrogation room, Rowan closed her eyes. She couldn't hear the town's sirens, couldn't hear the officers' arguments. In her mind, she was barefoot on the damp red earth, with an endless canopy of trees overhead, and the ever-present, vibrant echoes of that forest in her ears.
That was her trial, and also her freedom.