Annika gave him a withering look.
“Yeah, genius, I got two rooms,” she said. “Of course I got us a single room. We’re a lot more inconspicuous that way. Besides, it’s not like either of us is going to be getting a lot of sleep.”
He stared at her until she blushed.
“Because we’ll be reading the journal,” she finished. “Keep your thoughts clean, please.”
But there was the trace of a smile on her face as she said it.
The door clicked and she opened it to allow him inside. It was a plain, boring hotel room, similar to a thousand others he’d stayed in. He wondered if hotels somehow miraculously all got their carpets from the same place. It even had the same smell.
But it had a king-sized bed, a desk, and a bathroom. At least their stay was liable to be comfortable.
Annika used the restroom to clean up while Soren took off his jacket and pulled out the journal. He wanted to start it but waited until she joined him. They could have used the desk, but there was only one chair in the room. Instead, they sat on the edge of the bed.
Soren took a breath before they began. He was tired but too curious to stop now. If there was anything Edolphus knew, he had to find out what it was.
“Here we go,” Annika said.
He opened the book and read the first line, an entry from August of 1812: “I don’t know what devil made me go into the forest. My father is a man of many rules, and I sometimes struggle to remember all of them.”
October 1813
I found her bound and gagged inside the grain shed. I thought her dead at first. She was so still and silent. But I realized she was only feigning sleep.
I could barely see her by the light streaming in from the door. I put a hand gently on her shoulder.
“Listen to me,” I said quietly. “My father was the one who took you captive. He’s coming for you soon. And me. We need to flee into the forest. Can you walk?”
She opened her eyes and looked at me. Terror was etched into her expression. For a moment I just stared at her, unsure of what to say. I’d had little experience with maidens my own age, and this one appeared older. I felt unexpectedly flustered. I wanted her to understand I had no ill intent, yet I was unsure of what to say.
“This is no ruse, I assure you,” I continued. “If you don’t come with me now, you will either die or be converted. It is always his way. And do not think you can pretend to convert, either. He will know. He can see into your heart.”
While I spoke, I removed her gag. Her green eyes watched me warily, but she didn’t scream. She was dressed in strange apparel, with a bright, multicolored pattern on her bodice I’d never seen before. I at first assumed she was an Indian, but her face was as pale as my own.
“Will you come with me?” I asked.
She looked into my eyes, but I do not know what she found there. Perhaps the same fear that occupied her own. She nodded slowly. I loosened the bonds around her legs.
“Stand up,” I said.
She stood slowly, as if she were not sure she could.
“Turn around,” I said.
I tore off the bonds around her wrists and she stared at her hands as if it were the first time she had seen them. I do not know how long she had been held captive. It was not like my father to hide someone away, and I wondered if this was not some kind of test for me. Perhaps my father knew I was in the stable when he talked with the gem. Perhaps he truly wanted to know if I was the Judas he claimed me to be.
But it didn’t matter anymore. Maybe my father was once an honorable man but no longer. If it was really my fate to betray him, then I would fulfill it. Someone must.
She turned around to face me.
“Come on,” I said.
I turned my back to her, wondering if it was a foolish decision. If it was a test, it could also be a trap. Perhaps this woman had already been turned, her mind filled with thoughts of sin and repentance. If so, she could strike me now. But she didn’t.
I led her out into the village and saw several lamps had been lit. My father was alerted to my absence. He would check the stables first to make sure I had not removed his treasure. After that he would come to the granary.
“Hurry,” I said. “He’s coming for us.”
I took her hand and led her into the woods, the very same forest that I had been forbidden to enter for my entire life.
We went deep into the forest, farther than I had ever dared to go before. I did not think of fleeing the forest, however. There was nowhere to go; nothing lay beyond the wood. Once upon a time our situation was different. But that had changed long ago.
Our only hope lay in the visions I had witnessed: the Indians, the Gypsy, the soldier, and the Charred Man. But we had seen none of them so far.
Instead, we hid at the far edge of the forest as my father’s congregation spread out, searching for us. I could hear him calling my name. Each time my father did, my companion looked startled as well. After a moment I understood why.
“You will hear them calling your name,” I told her. “It is an illusion, a trick of the forest. You must not respond.”
“There was a friend with me,” she said. “I thought your preacher killed him, but I think that’s his voice I hear.”
“He has been taken,” I told her. “Above all, if you see him, you must not go to him. My father corrupts. He says he will free you from sin if you join him. But instead he fills you with his own hatred and malice.”
“What is your father?”
I pondered this question for many minutes.
“A man,” I said finally. “A man who has let himself be consumed by his own guilt. But he has found a tool. I do not know where he discovered it, only that it is evil.”
We survived that night and the one after. They searched, calling our names in the night and the daytime, but we stayed hidden.
I do not know how long we stayed in the forest. Sometimes I think it was only a few days. Other times it seemed like weeks or months had passed. But one evening my companion and I saw my father march his congregation to the center of the woods. He was no longer searching for us—that was clear.
He was marching to another sacrifice. I waited, wondering if the moment was now. I did not know how much longer we would last on our own.
“Be ready,” I told my companion.
She nodded.
I had told her my story and heard her own. It was unbelievable, a tale of madness, but I knew she spoke the truth. Insanity lay at the heart of this forest.
There was shouting and I heard my father’s commanding tone. A moment later I finally saw the one we were searching for.
As we watched, the Charred Man ran past, a person consumed in fire. He was screaming as he ran, fleeing away from where my father now stood.
But I knew he would return.
And we would be waiting for him.
—Edolphus Coakley
Soren anxiously turned the page, only to find he was at the end of the book.
It wasn’t the true finale, however. Instead, the remaining pages had been torn out.
“Damn,” he said.
“That’s it?” Annika asked.
He wasn’t sure how long the two of them had been perched on the bed, reading. But when he looked at her, he could see from her bloodshot eyes and haggard expression it had been too long.
“It wasn’t,” Soren replied. “But it looks like someone forcibly removed the rest.”
“Chastain?”
“As good a guess as any,” Soren replied.
Annika let out a long sigh and fell back on the bed.
“So all of this was for nothing?” she asked.
Soren shook his head.
“No,” he said. “Not nothing.”
“Well, what did we get? We know the jewel was in the stable, but it’s not like we know where that was. And if it were that simple, the Association would already have the gem in hand. Other than that, we learned that Coakley was crazy—no, wait, we alre
ady knew that—and that Edolphus had a sucky life. Why aren’t you throwing things and being frustrated? Did you read a different book than me?”
Soren stood up and paced back and forth across the carpeted floor.
“It answers certain questions,” he said, “and it raises others.”
Annika sat up and eyed him quizzically.
“What does it answer?”
“For starters, where Coakley was getting his congregation from,” Soren replied. “It was in the last entry. He said his father either brainwashed people or killed them. So that explains the followers in the forest. Maybe he had a few to begin with, but the ones he added are those he captured.”
“Still doesn’t explain how there are so many,” Annika replied. “The population of Virginia isn’t that big in 1812. How the hell are there enough people walking across that piece of forest for him to build a cult?”
Soren didn’t know the answer to that. He felt like it was right there in front of him, but he couldn’t quite grasp it.
“There’s something else,” Soren said. “Edolphus wrote that there was nothing beyond the forest. But that’s not true. In 1812 Reapoke Forest was hardly in the middle of nowhere. It was near Jamestown, Williamsburg, and not that far away from Richmond. Granted, it wasn’t like you could hop in a car and drive, but the idea that there was nothing out there just doesn’t hold water.”
“Well, his father was a cult leader,” Annika said. “So obviously he wouldn’t just let him leave.”
“Look at that last entry,” Soren said. “He doesn’t say he won’t leave; he says he can’t. ‘Nothing lay beyond the wood.’ That’s what he wrote. And it’s not true. Or at least it shouldn’t be.”
“He also says that wasn’t always the case,” Annika said.
“Right,” Soren said. “Maybe the jewel is keeping him from leaving. Like somehow it’s trapping him. I feel like I’m close to something here.”
Soren was pacing more frantically now, his body unconsciously echoing the pace of thoughts in his head.
“He also mentions a Gypsy,” Soren said. “He mentions him twice. I’ve read all the material on Reapoke. So did you. Do you remember a Gypsy coming up before?”
Annika shook her head.
“I’m pretty sure a Gypsy could be standing in front of me right now and I wouldn’t know,” she said. “I am well and truly exhausted.”
He looked back at her and realized how true that was. She looked like she was barely able to sit up.
“Get some sleep,” he said. “I’ll reread the journal. There’s something in there that we’re missing, I can feel it.”
“Other than the ending?” she said as she moved herself so she could lay her head on a pillow.
“I wish I knew what was in there,” Soren said, “but short of going back to the warehouse office, I don’t think we’ll ever know. The answers may still be in the journal, Annika. We’re just not seeing it in the right way.”
When he looked up, he realized he was talking to himself. Annika’s eyes were shut and her mouth was hanging open. She was fast asleep. He sat down at the desk and began reading the journal again.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Soren woke up on the hotel room floor.
He wasn’t sure when he had fallen asleep or even how he ended up there. It was hardly the most sanitary of places. He looked at the clock in the room to see it was almost five in the morning. The last thing he remembered was rereading the journal while sitting at the desk. But apparently at some point he’d succumbed to his own exhaustion.
He sat up and noticed Annika was still sleeping. For a moment he was tempted to lie next to her and see if he could doze again. He didn’t think she would mind. He looked at the journal, which was still on the desk. He knew he should get up and start reading it instead.
But his body felt stiff. His back ached from sleeping on the ground. When he stood up, the room seemed to spin for a moment, making him realize once again how tired he was. Between the gaunt attacking him in his apartment and working into the late hours of the night, he hadn’t slept much in the past week.
Still, he didn’t want to go back to bed. He looked at the bathroom and realized what he desperately wanted was a shower. He cast another look back at Annika but she seemed dead to the world. He doubted he would disturb her.
He crept into the bathroom and quietly shut the door. He shed the layers of dirty clothes, wishing he’d brought some clean ones with him just in case. But he hadn’t expected to be away for very long, or to launch a nighttime assault on the Association.
Soren was grateful to find a large shower stall instead of just a bathtub. He wanted to crank up the hot water and let it run over him for the next hour or so. That might be what it took until he felt clean. He hoped the hotel had an unlimited supply of warm water. His own apartment ran out after about three minutes.
He turned on the faucet and let the spray heat up. He stepped inside and felt immediately better. He let his mind drift away from the journal and Reapoke. He stuck out his arm from the shower stall, grabbed some shampoo and conditioner on the bathroom counter, and concentrated on just cleaning himself up.
The shower felt incredibly pleasant. He had the feeling that when it was over, he’d be far more refreshed than if he’d slept. He finished rinsing his hair and body and closed his eyes, standing there in the spray. He wasn’t sure how long he stood there before he heard a noise in the bathroom. He opened his eyes to find someone standing by the shower door, staring at him.
He opened his mouth to scream but stopped when he realized two things simultaneously: it was Annika—and she was naked. She opened up the shower stall door and looked inside.
“Mind if I join you?” she asked.
Soren didn’t trust himself to respond; he had a hard time forcing his eyes to stay looking at her face. She looked down at him and smiled broadly.
“I see that you don’t,” she said.
She stepped inside the shower stall and closed the door after herself. The stall had seemed large a moment ago, but now it felt much more crowded.
“Would you excuse me?” she asked, and gently pushed him out of the spray.
She closed her eyes and faced into the water, letting it run through her blond hair. He noticed the way it ran down the length of her body, paying particular attention to how the beads of water dripped over her curves. He didn’t remember the last time he’d taken a shower with a woman—but it had been far too long.
“Could you hand me the shampoo?” she asked, her face still in the main spray. “Actually, could you just put some on my hair and wash it for me?”
Soren reached over and grabbed the small shampoo bottle. She turned around with her back toward him, pulling away slightly from the spray, as he emptied much of the soap directly into her hair. He didn’t think he’d ever washed a woman’s hair before. He gently worked the shampoo into her scalp, trying to pay careful attention to the task at hand rather than to how smooth her back was. He wanted to run his hands across her body but settled for caressing her hair. He took his time, moving slowly, letting his hands massage her scalp.
Annika moaned quietly as he did so and pressed herself against him. From this angle, he could watch as the water hit her neck and spilled down her body and off her breasts. He thought about touching them but held himself back. Instead, he focused his desire on how his hands moved through her hair. His fingers wandered down to her neck, gently rubbing it. She pulled her hair back into the spray, and Soren watched the soap wash off her body.
Annika abruptly moved away from him, and at first he worried he’d done something wrong. But she opened the shower door and grabbed a bar of soap at the counter. She turned around, shutting the door and handing it to him. He let himself take a long look at her body and wondered if he’d ever seen anyone so beautiful in his life.
“Will you wash the rest of me?” she asked, and stepped toward him.
She was within inches of his face and he wanted to ki
ss her. Actually, he wanted to do far more than that. But something about their encounter felt like a test. He could feel his hands shaking and knew he was barely in control.
But he took the soap and rubbed it in his hands, lathering it up. He saw her watching him intently the entire time.
He put the soap on the shelf inside the shower and began rubbing his hands over her body. As with the shampoo, he washed her slowly, fighting the urge to go quickly. He rubbed her neck and the top of her chest and then moved to her left arm, kneading his fingers into the skin, massaging her as he went. He reached her hand and moved his thumbs in soft circles on the palm.
He looked at her, keeping his expression calmer than he really felt. She was staring at him, watching him touch her hand. She was breathing faster now and her cheeks were flushed. Soren could tell he wasn’t the only one barely keeping control.
His hands moved back up her arm and across to the other side, massaging and kneading gently as they went. He forced himself to go even slower and watched her breathing get faster as he did so. It seemed to be almost a test of wills of who would break first. He lingered on her palm, bringing it to his mouth and kissing it gently. She moaned again when he licked the water off her.
He almost lost control then. He could think only about what it would be like to kiss her and push her body against the shower glass. But he held on, even while he noticed how quickly she was breathing.
He dropped her hand to her side, grabbed the bar of soap, and lathered it more. When he put it back, he smiled at her.
“What comes next?” he said.
She moved closer to him, taking his hand and putting it on her breast. She leaned in and whispered.
“I think you were here,” she said.
He caressed her with both hands, keeping his eyes locked on hers, his mouth bare millimeters from her lips. He didn’t look at her body but let his hands do the exploring for him. They wandered across every curve, moving slowly over her breasts and down to her stomach. She no longer tried to contain herself. As his hands stroked her, she gasped and moaned. She closed her eyes, with her mouth hung open.
The Forest of Forever (The Soren Chase Series, Book One) Page 27