Stolen Tongues

by Felix Blackwell

  “I’m so glad he was able to get up that road,” Lynn replied with a smile, trying to change the subject.

  Faye sat up with a grunt and cast her impatient eyes onto Lynn.

  “Mom.”

  “It was nothing,” her mother whispered. She set down the mug of hot chocolate she held and wrapped herself tighter in a blanket. “Just, you know. Creepy things about the place. That’s all.”

  After a few more minutes of our prodding, Lynn became visibly upset. Tears welled in her eyes, and a look of guilt swept over her face. She kept picking at her fingernails and apologizing to us, swearing she never thought anything bad would happen. Then, out came a story that mortified us.

  Nearly thirty years ago, in the youth of their marriage, Faye’s parents bought the cabin from some old friends. Those folks were named Jennifer and Tom, and they lived in Orchid Valley, deep within the Colorado Rockies. When their daughter died in childhood of leukemia, they couldn’t bear to live in the same house anymore. The couple bought land on nearby Pale Peak and built a cabin.

  Tom was a big outdoorsman, and was especially fond of the mountain for its solitude and its astonishing views of the Rockies. He collected arrowheads and all sorts of historical relics he found on his hikes, and made friends with all the locals. He seemed to be healing from the loss of his only child.

  But after a while, Jennifer began complaining to Tom about weird experiences in the cabin. She suffered recurring dreams of her husband being dragged out of the bedroom and off into the woods at night. The dreams grew more bizarre and horrific with time, until she began to question her own sanity. Eventually, Jennifer’s nightmares culminated with her walking barefoot into the woods, where she’d find Tom’s flayed body pinned up in the trees like some macabre work of art. The dreams led to insomnia and a fear of sleep, which exacerbated the depression she already struggled with.

  Then things got worse. Sometimes when Tom was at work in the valley, Jennifer would hear her daughter calling out to her from the edge of the forest. The voice terrified Jennifer and slowly drove her mad, until she suffered a breakdown and begged her husband to leave. He resisted for a while and the psychiatrists changed Jennifer’s medication several times, but nothing stopped the horrible dreams or the voice outside. Tom finally requested a transfer to Las Vegas, and the couple hastily sold the cabin, never to return. Two years later, he unceremoniously hanged himself in their garage. He never left a note.

  Faye and I were shocked to hear such a dark history of the little place. The grim tale had me momentarily doubting my conviction that ghosts did not exist, and Faye reacted with unmitigated anger toward her mother.

  “How the hell could you send us to a place like that?” she hissed, trying to keep her voice down.

  Lynn cowered in her seat.

  “Honey…We stayed there many times over the years. It was our vacation house for a long time. And I never experienced anything like that. No voices, no dreams, nothing. If I didn’t think it was safe, there’s no way I would send you up there.”

  Faye’s glare did not relent. Her mother pressed on with her defense.

  “Jennifer and Tom were dealing with the death of their child, sweetheart. Of course weird things happened to them. It’s a traumatic experience. It can drive you crazy. There aren’t any ghosts on that mountain. Just the painful memories that people carry around with them.”

  “Then why did you never feel comfortable there?” Faye asked.

  Lynn shrugged.

  “Once you know the story, it’s just…a little creepy, I guess. You’re always expecting something to happen.”

  “But you guys bought the place knowing that story?” Faye replied.

  “No. No. We didn’t know for a long time. Tom and Jen never even told us. We had to find out from the locals.”

  “What about Greg?” I asked, trying to cut Faye off before she could chastise her mother any further.

  Lynn sighed and slouched deeper into the ludicrously cushy sofa. I was almost angrier at the decadence of their home than their decision to send us to Pale Peak.

  “Your father doesn’t like it there either,” she replied, looking directly at Faye. “Remember when you were little, and dad was talking in his sleep a lot?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, it kind of started up there at the cabin,” Lynn said. She dropped her gaze to her lap.

  The admission reignited the fire in Faye’s eyes.

  “Just like Jennifer,” she said angrily.

  “No. Not like that. Your dad always had nightmares

  before you were born. But his were gone for a long, long time, and came back on the mountain for some reason. I always say it’s because he confronted Tom about what we learned. It just…affected him. I think Jennifer’s story reminded your father of his own bad dreams, that’s all. And that’s hardly a reason to prevent our daughters from using our vacation home.”

  Faye became quiet and pensive, probably recalling her own nightmare at the cabin. The fire suddenly popped, causing all three of us to jump. After a moment, Faye and I caught eyes.

  “What did he dream?” we both asked at the same time.

  Lynn hesitated and looked over her shoulder at the staircase. After a moment, she said, “You can never repeat this to him. He’d be embarrassed. And furious, of course.”

  We nodded.

  “One night when we were staying on the mountain, he started screaming in the dark. When he woke up, he told me that all his buddies who got killed in the war, well, they were inside the room with us – all maimed and rotten. Just sitting on the bed or standing over him, watching us sleep.”

  A cold, tingly feeling spread down my back. I tried to hide the goosebumps that popped up on my arms. Faye looked as if she already knew, corroborating what she’d told me at the cabin about his sleep-talking when she was little. She hugged her knees to her chest nervously.

  “He was so upset he didn’t talk almost at all the next day, and didn’t sleep the next night,” Lynn continued. “So we left. And that was the last time we stayed the night. We made day trips to do upkeep and remodeling from time to time, but your father refused to ever sleep there again.”

  “But he was fine with us going?” Faye asked loudly, incensed over this whole conversation.

  “No, he wasn’t,” Lynn replied. “But you know your dad. He doesn’t like to talk, and didn’t want to explain himself. Plus, he knew you had Felix there to take care of you. I’m so sorry, honey.”

  “Lynn, if you don’t mind me asking,” I said, again trying to head Faye off, “why did you guys keep the cabin all this time? If you never use it, why not sell it?”

  “Well,” Lynn said, “property value around Orchid Valley has quadrupled in the last fifteen years. Greg always says it’s gonna be the new Aspen. Probably wise to hang onto the place until we’re ready to liquidate it when we retire in a few years. I’m really sorry, both of you. I don’t know what really happened up there, but I’m so glad you’re okay.”

  With that, Lynn touched my hand and cupped Faye’s cheek. She gathered herself and went upstairs to bed.

  Faye was still furious with her parents later that night, but was also creeped out by the story her mother had told. She insisted on me staying in her old bedroom with her, despite my offer to sleep on the couch. I wanted Faye to get a full night’s rest and be on the mend as soon as possible, but she refused to be left alone. For an hour she vented her frustrations to me behind a closed door, but soon became nauseous again and fell into a restless sleep.

  While I scrolled through the news on my phone, Faye began mumbling her dreams out loud. Instead of waking her up, I listened quietly, hoping that she’d reveal something useful that might explain what was going on in her mind. Instead, she answered more questions, just like at the cabin when she sleep-talked to the strange figure outside:

  “Never. No. No. I wouldn’t.”

  “In the snow. Up there.”

  “I can’t.”

 
“Why…his name?”

  “I don’t know you. Why, why?”

  “Down in the hole.”

  "No it's Felix…Felix, yes.”

  The feeling of being naked and exposed came over me. Someone was coaxing Faye into divulging things about herself and me – someone in her own subconscious mind. This freaked me out so much that I felt the urge to shake her awake and demand an explanation, but I knew that she’d never remember what she was saying or who she was talking to. I convinced myself that letting Faye rest was the best way to distance her from the experiences on Pale Peak; hopefully the terror she brought home from there would be washed away by a week of good sleep.

  But hours later, near the approach of dawn, Faye sat straight up in bed and sucked in a huge breath. The sound woke me up, and I instinctively grabbed the trashcan I’d set near the bed, preparing to catch a volley of barf. Instead, she grabbed my arm with surprising strength. With her eyes still closed, she looked right into my face, and said,

  “Tell the man in the hall…he needs to leave.”

  Petrified, I slipped away from her grasp and peeked out the door into the long hallway. There was no one. For the first time in ages I thought of Carrot the parrot. When I shut the door and turned around, Faye was horizontal and snoring. I was so weirded out that I couldn’t fall back asleep. I read the news on my phone for hours, quietly waiting for the sun to come up.

  Chapter 9

  Greg was up bright and early the next morning. I could hear him shuffling around downstairs, talking softly on his cell phone and moving back and forth between the garage and kitchen. He mentioned something about Pale Peak. Faye was out cold and hadn’t budged for hours, hopefully because her illness had passed. I crept down the hallway and tried to pick up on Greg’s conversation.

  “Nothing in particular,” he said. “Just, yanno. Poke around. Make sure it’s all locked up. Don’t need anybody fuckin’ around in there.” After a few moments he chuckled and added, “It burns down, it’s on you. Ten-four, buddy. Owe you one.”

  I descended the stairs and headed to the pantry for cereal as if I hadn’t been listening, but the stupid look on my face instantly gave me away. Greg was a mindreading, black-ops kind of guy anyway. He knew what I was up to.

  “Ranger,” he said, dropping the phone into his bathrobe pocket and taking a sip of coffee. “Just gonna check on the place. I figure you kids got loopy on a gas leak up there. Pipes were laid in the ‘seventies, you know?”

  I didn’t bother pretending to agree.

  “Wasn’t a leak,” I said, shoveling Kix into my mouth.

  “There’s someone up there in the woods.”

  Greg palmed the lighter that was sitting on the counter near me. He shrugged and headed toward the patio door.

  “Whoever it was,” I called across the room, “they were talking to your daughter from outside the window. In her sleep.”

  Greg stopped at the door, just for a moment, then pushed it open and went outside.

  Faye and I spent our last day in Colorado with her parents. We watched movies, traded cheery stories, and generally tried to pretend that our visit had been an unremarkable one. That evening, Greg and Lynn dropped us off at the airport.

  Faye slept the entire flight home. Despite her lifelong parasomnia, she was adept at falling asleep virtually anywhere. I, on the other hand, am a nervous wreck on airplanes, and barely managed to operate my iPod. I clutched her limp hand for the duration of the trip and occasionally looked at her eyelids. Beneath them, her eyes rolled and darted to and fro, up and down, toward me and away. Again, I found myself wondering what was going on in her sleeping mind. Her lips trembled and mouthed words from time to time, but any sounds she might have made were lost in the din of humming engines.

  We arrived at our house after midnight and went straight to bed. I had never felt so overjoyed to be in our old, familiar bed, away from the frigid air and dark memories of the cabin on Pale Peak. Perhaps Faye felt the same way, because from the moment she crawled under the blankets until noon the next morning, she didn’t make a sound.

  I woke up around 9 A.M., which is sleeping in, for me. There was a missed call on my phone from Greg. When I called him back, he notified me that Ranger Pike had investigated the cabin with his partner, and it appeared as though someone had tried to break in. It was probably a simple burglary, and most likely committed by some teenagers from the high school down in the valley. He made me promise to tell Faye in order to settle her nerves, then bade me not to worry about what had happened.

  Something in Greg’s voice made me think he was lying. It was too friendly, too warm. His insistence that we try not to focus on such an odd series of events didn’t help either. It was too urgent. The moment he hung up the phone, I called the ranger station at the foot of Pale Peak.

  “Rocky Mountain National Park Service, Pike speaking.”

  “William, it’s Felix,” I said.

  “My favorite tourist!” he replied in his thick Southern drawl. A muddy laugh slid out of his mouth.

  “Hey listen,” I said, cutting straight to the point, “Can you tell me about the burglary?”

  “The wha—? You talkin’ ‘bout Hemsville?”

  “Um, no, I mean the cabin. I just got off the phone with Greg. He said you told him someone broke into his cabin.”

  “Uhhh…”

  “He said some teenagers were messing around up there. Told me not to worry.”

  William paused for a second too long.

  “Oh, right, the burglary! Yeah. Yep. Sorry, coffee maker’s out. Ain’t woken up my brain yet. Cabin’s fine, I just—”

  “It’s bullshit, isn’t it?” I interrupted.

  “No, it’s true! Karen knocked it over this morning when she was pullin’ files. Damn carpet’s been—”

  “I want to know what you found up there, and I want to know why everybody’s acting like I’m fucking crazy.”

  William sighed and asked if I could hold for a moment.

  The phone beeped, and then he came in much clearer.

  “Had to take this in my office,” he said. His voice softened to just above a whisper. “Look Felix, I don’t want any trouble with Faye’s daddy. He’s a good man, and I gotta see ‘im a couple times a year. So whatever I tell you, you can’t go tellin’ around.”

  “I won’t say anything,” I replied. “I just want to know what’s going on.”

  William cleared his throat.

  “I respect Greg, but I think you have a right to know, seein’ as how y’all went through what you did. He wasn’t lyin’ about the break-in, only they didn’t take nothin’. You know, I been on this mountain for eighteen years, and before that I worked all over the Appalachians. I ain’t never seen anything that made me believe in ghosts. But I was weirded out up there yesterday.”

  “What are you saying?” I asked, glancing up the stairs for any signs of Faye.

  “I’m tryin’ to say I believe you,” William responded. “I mean I don’t think any UFO’s been touchin’ down up there, but I believe that somethin’ happened. I don’t think y’all are lyin’. Or crazy.”

  “Tell me what you found.” I tried to sit down on the couch but immediately found myself standing again, nervously awaiting William’s reply.

  “Well, uh, we come up there about noon. My buddy and his son come with. They live over on the Indian reservation, other side of the mountain. Big hikers, helped us on a few search-and-rescues in the past. Cabin was fine outside, no smashed windows or nothin’, but somebody’s been in there. I don’t know how.”

  “How do you know?” I asked. Faye coughed upstairs.

  “I was in that bedroom with you when you were packin’,” he said. “Y’all had stuff in the closet. You only grabbed what you could. But I remember how that room looked when we left, and it wasn’t like that when we visited yesterday. Them clothes were all over the ground, some on the bed. Like somebody was smellin’ ‘em, or maybe even tryin’ ‘em on.

 
“We also found some big black stains on the carpet, in both the living room and bedroom. Smelled ungodly. Still can’t figure out how they got in.”

  “What do you mean ‘they’?”

  William sighed again.

  “My buddy found tracks outside in the snow. ‘Bout a dozen of ‘em. Wanderin’ all around, like they were all lost, weren’t goin’ in no specific direction. Wandered up to the windows like they was tryin’ to look in, back and forth to the woods over and over. He never saw nothin’ like it before. Couldn’t explain it.”

  My knees went weak and I finally felt like sitting. I dropped onto the couch and rubbed the back of my neck. My hands were freezing. Pins and needles of anxiety climbed up my limbs.

  “Is that it?” I asked.

  “Mostly, yeah,” William said. “Couple other things were odd. Silverware drawer was taken out and dumped all over the kitchen counters. Dirty dishes on the floor too, but none of ‘em broken. Nothin’ stolen from the house, looks like. Not even the food. Maybe somebody was searchin’ for somethin’. I gotta tell ya kid, this one’s got me stumped.”

  A door opened upstairs, and I heard footsteps across the ceiling. Faye was awake.

  “Look uh, I ain’t sayin’ I believe much of this,” William added, “but there’s a lot of old legends about the mountain. Real old.”

  “Like what?” I whispered, trying to keep Faye from overhearing. I now understood why Greg had lied to me. Neither of us wanted to scare her any further.

  “Stuff about uh, the old mines. People gettin’ dragged

  deep down into ‘em. Strange things comin’ out. Stuff about spirits of the woods, things livin’ up in them trees. Shit like that. I don’t know much more but if you wanna talk to my buddy, he’d probably be willing. I told him about them voices you heard in another language, and he was real interested. He thinks he knows what it is.”

  “Did you tell him about the dreamcatcher?” I asked.

  “We didn’t find one,” he said.

  I rushed to the kitchen and grabbed a pen.