The Forest's Son

by Aleo, Cyndy

  He nods, still incoherent. She takes a few steps closer to him and takes a seat on a large, flat rock that allows her to dangle her feet over the water. She dips one toe into the current and shrieks when she feels how cold it is.

  “How can you stand it, Jakub? It's so cold! I'll turn into a popsicle if I get in there.”

  He has no answer for her.

  She leans back on the rock and stretches, her ivory skin glowing white in the sun that hits the rock.

  “It's nice in the sun, though. I feel so much better than yesterday. I think that infection had been brewing right since, you know, everything happened. I'll just stay here while you finish your bath, if that’s—”

  He's out of the stream and beside her on the rock before she can finish her sentence. There's a silent pause when they both know what will happen — no sound but the water dripping from him onto the rock and their breathing. All the apologies vanish as he lines himself up so that every part of him is covering her.

  She’s so warm under him, but she shivers — in anticipation or because of the touch of his body, cold from the water, he isn't sure. He lingers above her just a second more, his lips barely brushing hers. Denying her is impossible now, but this last moment before he completely gives in is sweet torture. She loses patience before he does, and comes up to meet him, wrapping her arms around his neck and pulling him down to her.

  44: Memento

  His mouth meets hers, and she sighs. Finally, finally, finally. His skin is frigid where it touches hers but warms quickly as he presses against her, his mouth slanting over her lips. There’s no hesitation; she knows this time he won't back away. A brief flash of a question passes over her, asking 'Why now? Why here?' But it's gone just as quickly. There’s no room for thinking — only feeling — and she gives herself over to him.

  If the rock is uncomfortably hard under her, if being outside where anyone could come upon them at any moment is less than ideal, she doesn't care, because she’s waited so long for him, for this.

  Every fantasy she'd had pales next to the reality of him; he’s more gentle, more careful, more loving with her than she'd imagined. Neither of them close their eyes; she keeps hers on him, needing to drink in everything he does. Whether this is the first time of many or the only time, she needs to paint the memory of this on her heart so it's with her forever.

  His eyes never leave her either, and he seems bent on watching everything, his gaze often following his hands, as if he, like her, wants to commit every second to memory. Or as if he's reminding himself constantly that she's real.

  He checks on her constantly, murmuring in her ear, making sure she's still with him. He's lost in her, but not so lost he's unaware. His hands are greedy, but she doesn't feel rushed; his mouth devouring, but not aggressive. Each time she answers "Yes" to both spoken and unspoken questions: Can he touch her here? Can he taste her there? Time stretches endlessly out in front of her, and every second is drenched in thinking, He loves me, he loves me, he loves me.

  She feels him pressing against her, first her hip, then her inner thighs. She writhes beneath him, urging him to hurry, but he shifts away each time, refusing to let her rush them. Want, and want, and want, and when he's finally, finally inside her, he stills, allowing her precious moments to get used to the feeling of him, even as he continues touching her with hands, with lips, with tongue.

  She tells him she's okay, but he waits even longer, kissing damp tears from her cheeks and tasting them from her neck. He moves in her, so gently she almost doesn't notice at first, and he touches, and she's caught in the moment, if not the feeling of it.

  Her hands run over his back, warm muscles rippling under her fingers. She can feel her climax just under her skin, but she wants this to last forever, to hover here on the knife edge of pleasure, each time he thrusts within her better than the last.

  His mouth meets hers, hungry, desperate. His teeth catch the ring in her lip, then retreat, letting his tongue lick into her mouth, mimicking the movements of his cock inside her.

  She knows when he's close, when his rhythm stutters and his breath gusts in her ear in nonsensical syllables. She strokes his hair and whispers his name, and urges him to come with her, come in her as she arches against him, trying to press every inch of her skin against his, and then he's frozen in time: a statue.

  A low keening groan comes from deep within him as his hips writhe against hers, each time longer and slower than the last. She strokes his back, now slippery with exertion. He rolls so he’s beneath her and pulls her into his arms, kissing the top of her head while he strokes her back, her arms, her hands.

  “I'm so happy,” she says. “This is everything I ever wanted. I love you, Jakub. I love you.”

  He doesn't answer, and that's okay. She doesn't expect him to say it back right now. She knows he’s been fighting this, and she thinks he might have dozed off, until he slides her off his chest gently and reaches for his pants.

  “What are you doing? Do we need to go back already?”

  “Where are your clothes?” he asks.

  She points to where she left them next to a tree.

  “Please put them on.”

  Donovan isn't sure what to think of his abrupt change in behavior, but she does as he asks, and she's glad when she sees Bożena come up the path a few seconds after she's dressed. He must be able to hear — or sense — the women when she can't, and she's grateful; as comfortable as she is now being naked in front of him, she's still adjusting to the constant state of nudity the women exist in, and she's not ready to join them, no matter how many times they've seen her in a state of undress while she's been ill or injured.

  Bożena greets them both, then stands next to Donovan, facing Jakub like she's waiting for orders. It's the oddest thing, and Donovan looks at her, wondering what's going on that Jakub hasn't told her, but he doesn't give her long to wonder.

  “It's time for you to go, Donovan. It isn't safe for you here. Bożena will take you back to the hotel. You still have a return ticket to get home.”

  He can't be serious. They just made love — outside — and now he wants to send her home to the life she was living before they came here? How can he make love to her and then minutes later tell her he's sending her away?

  He expects her to go back to living an average life, without him in it. To go back to school, knowing she won't have the daily question of whether or not he'll remember her. To find a new job, since the extra money she's relied on helping Grace will obviously be gone, since Grace is, too.

  In shock, she looks to Bożena for help, but the woman offers nothing, just stands waiting for Jakub's next command. Donovan wonders how long this has been planned, if he knew all along that he would fuck her before he sent her on his way. One good lay to get the human girl out of his system before he takes over as king, or whatever it is he is here.

  Donovan opens her mouth to scream, but all it takes is one word from Jakub, uttered in a cracking voice, to set Bożena in motion: “Proszę.” Before Donovan can say anything at all, before she can let loose with a string of curses, including the few new ones she has learned in Polish, Bożena has lifted her as easily as one would a small child, and is running with her through the woods, away from Jakub, away from everything.

  The trees pass by in a blur; Bożena is running quickly, and soon Janina is running beside her, carrying Donovan's luggage. Before Donovan can truly process what’s happened, she’s at the edge of the forest, on the lip of the castle grounds, which look alien and unfamiliar. The women stroke her arms and kiss her hair before disappearing back into the trees, and Donovan falls to the grass next to her luggage. He gave her time to put her clothes on, but he left her just as stripped naked as if he hadn't.

  She isn't sure when it was that she started crying, but she isn't able to stop. She sits there, in the wet grass, in this strange country, next to her suitcase, sticky with tree sap and covered with dirt, hugs her knees to her chest, and sobs endlessly.

 
; 45: Comfort

  She reaches for Janina's hand the moment she knows they are beyond the girl's sight, and clutches tightly. Bożena has come to care for the girl while she's been with them, and leaving her like that, crying and alone at the edge of the forest goes against every instinct she has.

  It’s wrong of Jakub to do this. It’s wrong of him to send her back to the life she knew before, when nothing can ever be the same for her. Janina pulls her along until they’re at least a mile away from where they left the girl before she stops. Bożena lets go of her hand, wrapping her arms around herself.

  “How could he? How could he bed her knowing the girl wanted to stay and then make us take her away? She isn't like us. She didn't bed him as we do, with the intent of bearing a child or because it feels good at the time. She did so because to humans it is often an expression of love and a symbol of commitment. And he knew that.”

  Janina looks at the ground.

  “We should not question. We have to assume he knew what he was doing. We don't know everything about how humans interact.”

  “You saw the girl just now. She wasn’t expecting this. She had no way of knowing this was coming. She was more confused by what he was doing than we were." Bożena says. "This isn’t how humans interact, or she wouldn’t have been so surprised. Why would he do this to her?”

  “You said yourself he was upset last night when she was ill, that he wanted her back among humans with their medicines and doctors and hospitals, that he felt she would be safer there.”

  “Yes, but he didn’t ask what we could do for her. And we haven't yet begun to find out what he’s capable of doing with his power. Her fever was nothing last night. His worries for her were unfounded. He may have sent her away because he panicked because she was ill. I just don't know why he didn't do so before he bedded her. She might have understood then.”

  Janina shrugs and starts walking. “We don't need to know, sister. He has chosen to stay with us. He does not want her here. He wants her back with the humans. Why are you concerned with it?”

  “Because she’s hurting and we left her there alone. Had she been a sister, we'd never have done that. And I think when we get back, we’ll find he’s also hurting, and that will affect us all. I think of the tribe as a whole, not just him. Not just the girl.”

  Bożena follows Janina into the forest and back to the rest of her sisters, and now, Jakub. She has the idea of avoiding him once she’s back, but they’re more than a mile away when it's clear it's going to be impossible. Everything he feels is pumping out in waves at them, even at this distance, and it's crushing them.

  Janina gasps at the unanticipated onslaught, but Bożena knows it for what it is. In sending the girl away, he has torn out his own heart. If he could hear them before, and send them his thoughts, as he did when he called Bożena and Janina to take the girl from the forest, it is now beyond his control with the pain he feels. Now he must learn to live with a giant black hole inside of himself, and the rest of them will feel that emptiness along with him until he does.

  Many of the sisters are moving in the opposite direction as they get closer, and even Janina turns and flees into the forest. Bożena keeps moving forward. She finds Jakub exactly where she thought she would: where she left him, by the water. He’s on his back on the rock and dressed in his human clothes again, letting her know he moved after she came and took Donovan out of the forest, but he’s so still that if it wasn't for the emotions crippling the rest of her sisters, she’d think she was looking at his corpse.

  “Jakub?”

  He doesn't move. He doesn't even blink.

  “Jakub, can I help you?”

  No response.

  Bożena dares to climb onto the rock next to him. At first, she thinks he might be crying, but there are no tears; he's staring blankly at the sky. There’s no emotion visible at all; it's all being funneled outward into the forest and toward the sisters.

  “Jakub, she’s safe. We left her at the castle with her things. We waited in the trees to see people come out of the castle for her. We would not have left her until we were sure she was safe and others would care for her.”

  He turns his head toward her, and now she can see the emptiness in his eyes. They’re blank, with nothing behind them. The hole is bigger than his heart, she thinks. It has grown to take in all of him.

  “Can someone travel?” he asks.

  Bożena nods.

  “Can you send her? Whoever it is who can travel? Please? I have money. I'll tell you where. I just need someone to follow her.”

  “It's none of my business, but why —?”

  “You're right. It's none of your business. Please just bring me whoever can travel. As soon as you can. I need to know she's safe. I can't know she's safe if no one can see her.”

  Bożena hopes Regina hasn't fled too far into the forest and has some relatively current clothes to travel in. She isn't bothered by his dismissal; she needs to focus on getting the tribe under control and out from under Jakub's grief. If putting Regina on a plane to wherever the girl goes will do that, then Bożena will put Regina on a plane. Somehow, though, she doesn't think it will be enough to fix everything he has broken.

  46: Empty

  Jakub thinks Bożena is more efficient than most executive assistants. A few hours after he asks her — well, orders her — she has Regina in the air on her way to the U.S. to check up on Donovan. He makes her send another Dziwozona out with his cell phone to charge it at an Internet cafe and wait with it until he gets word from Regina that Donovan is okay, even if she'll need to get a hotel room and stay overnight to wait for news.

  In other words, he's obsessed, and he knows it.

  Most of the sisters have fled into the forest, and won't come anywhere near him. He can sense what he thinks of as the DMZ around him: a neutral area that separates him from them. The women won't enter it because they think it's too close to him to keep from drowning in his emotions. As a favor to all of them, by nightfall, he takes to the forest himself so they can return to their huts — and their beds — to sleep.

  His grief heads out in front of him, and the sisters can probably sense that he's moving even if they don't understand why. It will push them back toward their village (for want of a better word) and that suits him perfectly. He knows he won't be able to sleep himself until he knows Donovan is safely back in the States and cared for, and Bożena can explain his motives if they’re afraid he'll come back before they can rest.

  He laughs at himself, the sound echoing in the silent forest. There's no one to pretend for out here, and he certainly isn't fooling himself in thinking he'll be fine once he knows Donovan is safe back in the States. He can send a hundred Dziwozony after her, and it won't make any difference; he'll live the rest of his life missing her and wondering each second what she's doing and if she's okay.

  Knowing if he keeps walking around, he'll just keep moving the "safe zone" he's created for the tribe, he drops to the ground where he is and stretches out on the forest floor. Soon, it will be covered in snow. The seasons here will change, and probably differently than they do back where he and his mother last lived in the States.

  He wonders what Donovan will think when she gets home to find his mother had signed everything over to Donovan's name before they left: the house, the car, the land, some of the bank accounts. She can go back to school if she wants or sit around and do nothing instead. She can take over Grace's herb business or burn the place to the ground if she wants. And, he thinks, he'll never know what she'll decide to do with it all. Unless he keeps sending Regina back to check on her.

  Jakub thinks maybe Donovan might just want to burn the place to the ground. He would if he were her. He'd burn anything that had any trace of him near it if he were her.

  He has no idea what he was thinking when he made love to her. Especially after all that time spent not having sex with her. Years spent erasing his memory every time he started remembering who he was, usually prompted by his feelin
gs for her. And now when he finally knows everything about who he is, has done everything his mother ever wanted him to do, and he's lost her anyway, and he’s about to lose Donovan as well, he loses all sense of who he is and what he's supposed to be doing and gives in, idiot that he is. Knowing there wasn't much time. Knowing Bożena and Janina would be there to help him.

  When he'd sensed Bożena outside the hut the night before, he knew he had to ask for help. He'd never be able to send Donovan away on her own, never be able to get her out of the forest and leave her with the humans. He'd bring her back here every time, without fail. He wouldn't have been able to leave her at the edge of the forest and watch her cry as he ran away. But the sisters had no real ties to her, and would help him. They knew humans don't belong here.

  “You’re wrong, you know.”

  His eyes pop open. He’s so obsessed in his grief that he doesn't hear Bożena approach him. She’s apparently the only one willing to come close to him. The rest of them are staying as far away as they can because of the emotions he can't seem to keep bottled up, but she doesn't let them bother her.

  “She could have stayed,” Bożena says. “She would have been fine here. I know your mother did well for herself with plants, and that’s because of us. Our healing is better than the medical things you had out there.”

  “But you don't treat humans,” he says.

  “Not usually, but we can. We’re all part-human. You forget that. Our sires are human. You think it’s all magic that creates us while it’s science that creates humans? Think on it. In breeding with humans, and no males of our own for centuries, we'd have been diluted into nothing by now. We are more than just created, Jakub. Have you not thought it all through?”

  She's right; he hasn't thought about it at all. To him, there’s always been the human world and this other world, but not once did he think about how they got here, and how they've continued to exist over centuries, and probably millennia. The Dziwozony have returned to humans to breed with time and time again, with no dilution in their size or their power. How can that be?