“Wow. Friendly people you’ve got here.” But Genny remembered the noise of the party downstairs last night. They had seemed friendly enough after she’d gone upstairs. After Lubochka had threatened them, and told them she didn’t want to hear any more whispers of . . . trouble.
“Don’t pay any attention to them,” Mariana said.
“They’re afraid.”
“Of what? Me?” Genny tried to laugh, then choked it back. “Of me? Why?”
“You have a look about you that we’re all too familiar with here. You look . . . gifted.”
Genny almost wrenched her neck turning to stare at Mariana. “What do you mean, gifted?”
“There’s an old legend . . .” Mariana rubbed her arms as if cold had suddenly gripped her.
“You are foolish, Mariana,” Lubochka called back, and sternly. “Don’t encourage her, Genesis.”
But Genny had to know. “A legend? The legend? About the Abandoned Ones?”
“You know it?” Now Mariana looked surprised.
“I do. But why do you?”
Lubochka turned off the road. Genny and Mariana followed. The coniferous forest closed in around them.
Mariana gestured widely. “It happened here.”
“The legend happened here? No.” Perhaps Genny shouldn’t so openly scoff. But . . . “It’s a legend.”
“All legends contain a grain of truth. All myths have their beginnings somewhere.” Mariana stated a truth she obviously believed with all her heart. “Look around.”
Genny did. The forest was cool and smelled spicy with pine. The mossy ground sprang softly beneath their feet. The air grew warmer and, here and there, sunlight glowed like a benediction through the branches.
Peeling off her coat, she stuffed it in the outer pocket of her backpack, then kept trekking. “Yeah. So?”
“This forest was old when the Egyptians built the pyramids,” Mariana said.
Genny remembered her feeling yesterday—that the forest was ancient, a living, breathing entity. And it seemed to watch insignificant humans come and go while it waited for a time when the trees would once more cover the earth . . .
“Men come to harvest the trees. They bring their machines. They go into the woods . . . and they don’t come back. Or if they do, they’ve got the wind singing in the empty spaces of their heads.” Mariana tapped her forehead.
They’re not the only ones. This woman was one taco short of a combo plate.
Mariana continued so solemnly, she should be making sense. “Gods walk in these woods, and devils. Good and bad, all manner of creatures came into the world through this portal.”
“Portal?”
“The crossroads is here.”
Lubochka marched farther and farther ahead, fallen branches cracking beneath her hiking boots, leaving Genny alone with Mariana and a bunch of trees that listened and nodded.
Genny sped up. “I don’t know what any of this has got to do with me.”
Mariana’s long strides easily kept up the pace. “You had dreams last night, didn’t you? Nightmares.”
Mariana’s certainty set Genny’s teeth on edge. “Nothing special, just the usual. Going to the new high school and taking a test I didn’t know about. Going to a law conference, getting up to speak and realizing I forgot my speech. Seeing my mother on the street and . . .” She reined herself in. Seeing my mother on the street and knowing that she would, once again, look right through me as if she didn’t know me.
She didn’t mention the nightmare with the eyes that watched her from the depths of the dark forest, or the fantasy—so erotic that again she blushed and hoped that Mariana attributed the color to the exercise in the cool air.
“In the legend,” Mariana said, “the mother abandoned the girl baby because she had marks in her palms . . .”
“They looked like eyes.” That part of the story always sent a shiver up Genny’s spine.
“Yes. Eyes. And when the girl grew up, she looked witchy.”
“Witchy. Are you saying I look like the girl? That I look witchy?” Genny was feeling exasperated. Frazzled.
“She was beautiful—”
“Men manage to resist me pretty easily.”
“—with an oval face and a dimple just there—” Mariana pointed.
Genny put her finger to the cleft in her chin.
“Exactly.” Mariana nodded. “She had an abundance of dark brown curly hair, like yours, and eyes that looked brown. And when she grew angry or excited, gleamed like gold. Beautiful skin. Strong body. And a malevolence that went right to the bone.”
Genny stopped walking. “I am not malevolent.” She pulled her hands from her pockets and showed Mariana her palms. “I am not marked. I’m certainly not gifted.”
“Yes, I see.” Mariana stopped, too, and observed her. “Your parents are alive.”
“Very much so.”
“But I wonder . . . if your mother properly cherished you.”
Genny’s throat didn’t close. Not quite. But she coughed slightly before she could speak, then waved her hand around at the cool, dimly lit trees. “She didn’t take me into the woods and throw me into a stream.”
No. Instead, when Genny was in college, she worked up her nerve and went to visit her mother. Mother had remarried a wealthy man, of course, but she was still remote, still beautiful; and when her new husband came in, she told him, “Genny’s applying for a job as my social secretary.” Then to Genny, “I’ll let you know my decision in about a week.”
No, her mother hadn’t tried to kill her. She didn’t care enough to bother.
“Look.” Genny’s voice rose. “Is this some kind of initiation ritual? Because I’m not buying it. Somehow you found out who my father is, right? You made up all this stuff about the legend and now you’re . . . you’re trying to scare the newbie for some weird reason.”
The bushes crackled as Lubochka came stomping back, scowling heavily.
Genny turned on her. “Maybe you’re in on the joke. Maybe this is how you get rid of unwanted, untrained assistants. But it’s too late for that. The fee has been paid, and I promised my soul for a chance to observe the lynx in the wild. So I don’t want to hear anything else about this legend and the forest and the . . . the crossroads”—she turned back to Mariana—“whatever you mean by that.”
Lubochka dismissed Genny’s tantrum with a characteristic snort. “Girl, if I wanted you gone, you would go with my teeth snapping at your heels.”
Genny almost collapsed in relief. She should have known. Lubochka was too straightforward for such a ruse.
Lubochka fixed her attention on Mariana. “Why are you doing this? Trying to frighten the girl? Was the winter too long? Have you lost your mind?”
“I am fine, thank you.” Mariana looked earnest and normal. “I’m trying to warn her.”
“Warn her of what?”
“We have a long memory here.” Mariana looked between Genny and Lubochka. “We know she’s . . . bait.”
Chapter 10
“What?” Genny couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“She is bait?” Lubochka sounded just as incredulous.“My English fails me sometimes. Maybe bait is too strong a word. But women like you”—Mariana gestured at Genny—“you bring them.”
Lubochka leaned forward, eye to eye with Mariana. “Who does she bring?”
“The ones who seek evil. The ones who seek innocence, who would corrupt you.” Mariana pushed her hair off her forehead. “Of course you had to come here. The crossroads draws you. But I wish you would go home.”
“Well, I’m not going to!” The big cats were waiting.
“Did you not hear me last night?” Lubochka demanded. “I said no trouble!”
Back at the inn, Genny had liked Mariana. Now she just thought she was insane. “I mean, if we’re going to be superstitious . . . you did say I would bring luck!”
“I said you would bring change,” Mariana corrected.
“And luck!” Ge
nny reminded her.
“Rasputye could use some change,” Lubochka said.
“The earth shakes when Rasputye changes!” Mariana spread her hands, palms up. “All the elements have lined up!”
“What elements?” Lubochka asked.
“The gifted one has returned. He is angry, like a wounded bear.”
That face in the woods . . . it haunted Genny. The man, whoever he was, had looked at her as if she was a vision . . . or a curse.
“He finds the lonely women, the ones dissatisfied with their lives, and he shows them a new world. And now you”—Mariana pointed accusingly at Genny—“you come along. You’re trapped by life.”
“What?” Genny vibrated with outrage.
Mariana continued. “You’re lonely. You seek something new, and he’ll know. You’re bait.”
“I am not bait.”
“Go home, Mariana.” Lubochka drew herself up to her full height. “Go home and cook, and from now on, listen to me. No trouble.”
Mariana strode down the hill, then turned one last time and said, “I suppose it is your fate, Genesis Valente, to be here now, but you have been warned. Don’t weep when the whole world catches fire and you’re swept up in the blaze!” Before Lubochka or Genny could respond, Mariana leaped like a mountain goat down the hill.
Lubochka shook her head. “Of course she had to have the last word.”
“Is she crazy?” Genny thought she had to be.
“No. Well.” Lubochka waggled her hand back and forth. “Not crazy, for one of her people. They aren’t Russians. Not ethnically. They’re backward. Gullible. They believe in myths.”
“Legends,” Genny corrected.
“In English you would call that splitting hairs.”
The rocky trail grew narrower, curved back and forth like a snake, and climbed at such a pitch that Genny puffed with exertion.
Lubochka, of course, did not puff, and she frowned at Genny. “Your application said you were in prime condition.”
“I didn’t practice walking uphill with weight on my back.”
“You’ll know better next time.” Lubochka continued up the mountain. “Mariana is fancied to be the wise woman in her village, blessed with the gift of foresight. For that reason, she was sent away to Moscow and educated. I thought that would connect her to the real world, but apparently such a hope was futile.”
“Apparently.” Genny took care to keep her gasping to a minimum.
“Usually it suits me to use their beliefs. They tell me the Ural lynx has been hiding in the rasputye all these years.”
Confused, Genny asked, “In Rasputye? In the town?”
“In the rasputye. The crossroads. Don’t you know? That’s what rasputye means.”
“I didn’t realize.” No matter how Genny turned the words around in her mind, they didn’t make sense. “Why is that important?”
“Ah. Here we are.” Lubochka stopped abruptly. Waved an arm.
Genny pulled herself up the last few steps, then gaped in awe. She stood beside Lubochka at the top of a cliff, a hundred feet over a broad, snaking riverbed. A sparkling green river wound its way through the sand. Beyond that, the mountains built again, the forest grew green all the way to the Arctic Circle, and in the distance, a series of mighty, jagged rocks protruded from among some of the oldest trees in the world.
“The Ural Mountains. The Great Stone Belt. The spine, and the division, of Mother Russia.” Lubochka’s voice became more accented, more Russian, more proud. “In the streams and in the mines, miners find topaz and beryl. They strip gold from the soil. Here live the reindeer, the sable, the mink, and the hare. And my cats.”
The vista held Genny enthralled. Those jagged rocks were so . . . weird. So out of place. “What are those?” She waved a hand.
“The Seven Devils—seven stones that rise out of the ground like huge male erections.”
Genny chuckled. “Yeah, most men would like to think that.”
Lubochka boomed out a laugh; then her face soured. “Mariana would tell you they’re the doorway to the rasputye. Which is one more proof that everyone in this region are fools.”
Remembering Mariana and her weird warning, Genny said, “I can’t argue with that.” The rock oddities fascinated her, drew her gaze like magnets. “The Seven Devils are some kind of igneous intrusions?”
“I don’t know.” Lubochka shrugged. “I’m a wildlife biologist, not a geologist.” She looked impatient and irritated. “Genesis.”
“What?”
“Okay, listen. Really, I think it’s all nonsense. But that man that’s out there, the yeti Brandon worked so hard to frighten you about—” Lubochka stopped.
“What is it?” Genny had not thought this woman could ever be indecisive, but she was dithering now.
“Everyone in Rasputye keeps saying this yeti is one of the Chosen Ones.”
Genny nodded encouragingly.
“Mariana tells me the Chosen Ones bring danger to everyone around them. She’s constantly harping at me, at the rest of the village, that wherever the Chosen are, trouble follows. It’s silliness, but in Rasputye, they believe—and she’s a powerful woman. For some reason, she’s decided you’re some kind of Chosen magnet.”
“Because I have a cleft in my chin,” Genny told her helpfully.
Lubochka said something in Russian that sounded incredibly profane.
Genny grinned.
Lubochka did not. “For the sake of this study, for the sake of the cats, don’t give her any reason to think that you are extraordinary in any way.”
“I won’t,” Genny assured her.
“It goes without saying—have nothing to do with the yeti. But I don’t have to say that. You’re a sensible girl. You’ll stay away from that murdering, lustful goat.”
It was Genny’s turn to say nothing. Well, what could she say? That she was only here because she’d promised she would talk to the murdering, lustful goat?
“I’m glad we’ve had this talk.” Lubochka pointed down the cliff. “There’s your station.”
Genny looked.
Ten feet down, a gaggle of warped and twisted pines clung to the sheer rock wall. They grew sideways into the air, their branches intertwined; they swayed softly to the unheard music of the breeze rushing up from the riverbed below.
Someone had constructed a ladder, short lengths of heavy board fastened into the stone leading down to the largest trunk. From there, a person—if she was limber, blessed with great balance, and had absolutely no common sense—could crawl out on the tree trunk to a small wooden platform built among the branches. And that person would have an unsurpassed view of the forest floor and the stream that trickled along the flat, winding riverbed below.
“The lynx are nocturnal animals, but right now the females are nursing and caring for their babies and will sometimes, in the early morning or at twilight, bring the kittens out. This is a wonderful chance for you, Genesis, to see the great cats in the wild. Watch for movement. Then take pictures. Lots of pictures.”
Genny lifted her camera from the padded pocket of her backpack. It had been frighteningly expensive, the thing she had splurged on for the trip. “It also takes video.”
“Good!” Lubochka clapped her on the shoulder.
“Go on, then. You aren’t afraid of heights, are you?”
“No.” Not on a normal basis. But this . . . the platform was perhaps four by four and had no rail.
“Good. Brandon will relieve you in ten hours. Until then, watch carefully.” Lubochka clomped off into the forest.
Genny started the precarious climb down to her station.
Chapter 11
Someone was watching her. Again.
She had spent a week on this platform in this tree hanging over the edge of the cliff. She had seen seven glorious dawns break over the horizon. She had observed foxes scampering cautiously, elk strolling majestically, brown bears standing in the icy river to fish. She’d thrilled to the drama of a snowy ow
l capturing its last meal, of the waning night, and felt her heart lift as she viewed two eagles swoop and tumble across the clear morning sky. Once a light snow had fallen on her. More than once, the wind had shaken the tree so hard, she’d worried for her life.But she still hadn’t seen a Ural lynx. She had watched until her eyes were dry, with no luck.
Whoever was watching her had given her no sign. She knew he stalked her, just as she knew that, in the depths of the forest, the lynx hunted in their established territories. She didn’t have to see to believe. She trusted her instincts. Yet nothing could make her give up.
Although someone manned this site and three others, the big cats had been elusive. Every night, Misha and Lubochka assured the team they had found signs—fresh dung, tufts of hair stuck to a bush. Reggie watched every moment of video taken on the paths where the lynx roamed. Thorsen reminisced about the first year he’d come along on Lubochka’s study, when they went a month without a sighting.
But everyone was edgy. Only Brandon openly grumbled about Genny—as if she herself had promised to bring them luck.
Mariana was right about one thing. Rasputye’s atmosphere worked on a person because someone had been watching Genny. Was watching right now.
The early-morning breeze ruffled her hair and dove down her neck.
She ducked her head, wrapped her arms around her knees, huddled into her coat, and wished she could relax her tense muscles.
The unexpected, shrill ring of a phone made her jump.
Her phone. In the side pocket of her backpack. It hadn’t rung all week. She had sort of thought she couldn’t get service out here. Sort of hoped she couldn’t get service out here. Now the sound was loud, shrill, out of place in this wilderness.
She scrambled for it, silenced the ring, glanced at caller ID and tensed.
Closing her eyes, she braced herself, then answered with modulated serenity. “Hi, how are things in New York?”
“Have you found him yet?” Her father’s voice came through clear, cold, and direct.
“Hello to you, too, Father.”
“Hello. Hello! Is there a problem with the connection?” His voice cut out on the last word.
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