That was how she had felt this morning when she woke up and immediately sensed the familiar goose bumps all over her, a shivering inside like one of those chills that came over you out of nowhere, only longer-lasting and more powerful. Someone’s walking over your grave, said her grandmother’s voice in her head.
A virtual zoetrope of images flashed by in her head before she could register what most of them were. A jade green grasshopper landing on her arm. Trevor’s emerald eyes. A ten-point buck with a mouthful of grass. The shadows of immense, twisted branches swaying over her head. A wall of massive logs. Falling leaves. Purple flowers in Trevor’s beard. Gnarled roots like an old man’s legs poking through a soft bed of sun-dappled moss. Trevor’s strong embrace. Clouds of pollen as far as the eye can see…
Normally she would have examined and pondered the mental stream of images and their possible meanings, but there had been no need for an interpretation. This time, she knew exactly what they foretold. Seconds after she had opened her eyes, her cell phone had started vibrating on her end table. She snatched it up and grinned as she saw the screen. It was Trevor.
“How’s my little wildflower?” he asked in her ear. His voice was always warm, like a summer breeze through the trees. Like molten caramel. Her knees went a little weak and she felt her cheeks flush whenever he called her by his pet name. She could listen to him forever, imagining his breath on her neck. His lips on the curve of her jaw. His hands sliding down her back.
Caitlyn shivered a bit before responding, “Hey, stranger. Are you already back in town? I was hoping I’d see you soon, but I wasn’t sure when you were getting in.” She winced at her words. I sound so desperate and needy. He must think I’m such a pathetic little girl.
“I wanted to surprise you.”
“Well, you did, and it worked wonders. I don’t think I’ll even have my morning coffee today.”
“You might want to have at least one cup, wildflower. We’re going on a hike to a place that is very special to me. It’s beautiful. I’ve wanted to take you there so I could share it with you for a long time.”
“A hike?” Caitlyn winced, took a slow, measured breath and forced herself to smile. He couldn’t see her through the phone, but she had to be careful he couldn’t sense her mortification at the idea, “Oh, what fun! I can’t wait.”
“Fabulous! I’ll be by within an hour. How does nine-thirty sound? Don’t worry about food, either. I’ll pack a meal and we’ll make a day of it all. I promise you’ll love it. See you in a bit.” Trevor ended the call and Caitlyn sat there, on the edge of her bed, biting her lip.
“Shit. Shit. Shit,” she muttered angrily to herself.
They had met in Vellum, the upscale bookstore specializing in rare, out-of-print tomes which she managed in downtown Burlington, Vermont. He had come in searching for a specific book one day, trailed by a cohort of fawning female students. Luckily for Caitlyn, she had recognized the title, The Art of Botanical Illustration: An Illustrated History by Wilfrid Blunt, almost immediately. It had arrived in a recent shipment, even though it had not been ordered, and she had been deciding whether or not to return it to the distributors, or to place it on their shelves on the chance that someone might buy it. On its cover was a distinct illustration of The Green Man, a medieval nature deity commonly represented by a face surrounded by leaves. In this particular case, vines and fronds were growing from the ears, mouth and nostrils of the face, sprouting fruit and flowers. The image struck a note with her and it proved to be what triggered her memory.
Serendipity, she thought when he asked for the title. Destiny, she thought when he returned to Vellum the next afternoon and asked her out on a date.
It was almost a perfect storybook romance, the key word there being almost. The one thing that she and Trevor did not have in common was a love of the outdoors. In his job teaching botany at the University of Vermont, Trevor was rarely ever in class giving lectures. That was what Skype and a cadre of teacher’s assistants were for. Instead, Trevor was always traveling to remote areas, searching in forests and jungles for new plant species, and hoping for miracle medicinal substances derived from said new discoveries.
Caitlyn, on the other hand, was much more content in the hustle and bustle of a city, not that Burlington was a large metropolitan area at all, but it certainly had more than its share of greenery. It was a college town, though, and something was always going on. She could handle carefully maintained parks within the city limits, but venturing into unpaved areas with hills carpeted with trees, flowers and pollen were always a special sort of hell for her.
Something would go wrong today. She just knew it. Either her allergies would be sent into hyper drive, or she would twist her ankle, or, least attractive of all, she would sweat like an ape in a steam bath. How she had managed to hide her antipathy towards nature from Trevor so far was a complete mystery, but she could not beg off now. A double dose of Benadryl would hopefully keep the worst symptoms at bay. She should be able to handle itchy eyes and a runny nose. If her face swelled up, though, she would have to tell him the truth.
You’ll cross that bridge when you come to it, she thought with a grimace. She placed her phone back on the end table and went directly to her closet to pick out something sufficiently practical yet sexy, just enough to make certain Trevor would notice.
* * *
Trevor was ten minutes late as usual, but Caitlyn had grown accustomed to his leisurely approach to schedules early in their relationship. If they absolutely had to be somewhere on time, she would tell him their appointment was fifteen minutes earlier than the actual time and, more often than not, they were perfectly punctual because they cancelled each other out. Trevor probably was aware of her little subterfuge, but he never mentioned it. Unspoken, it was a comfortable compromise between the two of them.
She was waiting at the curb outside her apartment when he pulled up in his pride and joy, a kelly green 1978 Volvo 240 Diesel station wagon that he had bought in an auction and converted to biofuel a couple of years before they met. Caitlyn thought it was hideous, but it was one of Trevor’s quirks and she could tolerate it for his sake. Even if the exhaust smelled like french fries and the rear bumper was festooned with dozens of bumper stickers with eco-friendly slogans, she was happy as long as she was with him. Besides, they lived in Vermont and even with the odor of fried potatoes trailing behind them, the car didn’t stand out from the hundreds of other Volvos they passed on the road each day.
“There’s my wildflower,” he grinned as he leaned across the front seat and unlocked the passenger door. “Are you ready for our little nature hike?”
“Ready as I’ll ever be,” she replied.
“Let me make room,” he said as he cleared off the cluttered seat for her, brushing stained papers, receipts and coffee cups to the car floor.
She climbed in and gave him a peck on his bristly cheek, wincing as his whiskers abraded her lips.
“Ow, Trev!” she pressed her fingers to her mouth and was surprised to see a couple of drops of blood staining her fingertips. “Is there something stuck in your beard?”
“No, babe. Are you okay?”
“Something scratched me! You need to shave soon. You’re as hairy as a sasquatch.”
“Sorry, baby. I wanted to see you as soon as possible.”
Caitlyn wrinkled her nose and peered at his appearance, “And look here… you have still have something stuck in your hair. Did you even take a shower?” Without a second thought, she reached out and pulled on the twisting green tendril that was tangled in the unkempt curls at his hairline. This time, it was Trevor’s turn to flinch as she plucked it out.
“Did that hurt?” she asked as she examined the small green sprout. “Must have gotten tangled in that bush you call a hairstyle. I thought it was an inchworm at first.”
“Hey now, all the guys wear their hair this way now. It’s just naturally wavy.”
“Natural, huh? Smells kinda ripe to me,” she teased.
“Ripe? You wound me, dear. I thought you liked how I smelled. That’s just my natural male musk,” Trevor said as he pulled away from the curb. He glanced at her with his characteristic smirk and stuck his tongue out playfully. His reddish-blonde mop of hair hung over his clover-green eyes, and she had to admit that the facial hair looked good on him. Even if he was a bit pungent, she felt her pulse quicken as a compulsion to rip open his shirt and ravage him nearly overrode her normally prim demeanor.
Whoa. Where did that come from?
The urge had felt ancient, primal and utterly foreign, as if someone had control of her emotions for one split second. Whatever it had been, it certainly hadn’t come from Caitlyn. She was well aware that many of her friends probably thought of her as a prude, and they were probably correct in their assessment. She had only been with a man once before. Actually an awkward boy named Joey Barker in April of her senior year of high school. Less than thirty seconds of thrusting, whimpering and shuddering ended with a sad spurt and a stain on her favorite acid-washed denim skirt. She remembered the aftermath more than the act. All mess and apologies and the embarrassed ride home. Joey had avoided her in the remaining weeks of school and she hadn’t seen him since graduation. In the last seven years, she had never let herself get close enough to a man where intimacy, much less sex, had ever been an option. It just hadn’t seemed important.
Until now.
Maybe it was a lingering remnant of her premonition from that morning. A chill ran over her skin as she remembered the vivid sensations.
Caitlyn shook her head in amusement at herself and returned the raspberry, “Musk? I guess that’s one way to describe it. You should bottle it up and sell it, Tarzan.” She leaned against the passenger window to nap as they drove toward their destination.
The thrum of the wheels on the pavement had nearly lulled her to sleep when she realized that Trevor was trying to tell her something, but she couldn’t hear all of what he was saying. She was half awake and the drone of the road muffled him. Something about finally meeting his mother.
WAIT…WHAT? Caitlyn shot awake with a yelp, “What was that?” She turned to look at him barely able to stifle the panic that threatened to completely roll over her.
Trevor smiled, “After the hike, I want you to meet Mother. She’s in the area and she wants to meet the woman who has stolen my heart.”
Caitlyn was speechless. This was not good. No, not good at all. It wasn’t that she didn’t want to meet Trevor’s mother, but like this? Under these circumstances? When she was likely to be sweaty, wheezing and inflamed in all the wrong places? This was not the way she wanted to make her first impression on the woman she hoped would someday be her mother-in-law. In her mind, the woman she knew only as Mother was this mythical matriarch around whom Trevor’s entire world revolved. He consulted her for every decision he made, and visited her every chance he got. For a while, Caitlyn thought his devotion to his mother was yet another sign that he was the perfect man. Like that Dean Martin song says, any man who loves his mother is man enough for me.
Lately, however, she had begun to wonder just how healthy his relationship with his mother actually was. There had never been any mention of a father or siblings, so, for all Caitlyn knew, they were the only family either one had. Devotion to each other was certainly understandable, but there was always a vibe that they would always be the most important person in each other’s life. Perhaps Caitlyn was just projecting her own insecurities on Trevor and interpreting the situation in the most paranoid way possible. Then again…
“Your mother?” she sputtered.
“Yes. Not a problem, is it?” he said, wrinkling his brow as glanced away from the road. “I thought it was time you two met. It was Mother’s idea after all.”
“Her idea?” Caitlyn said. Shit. Can’t back out now. That would go over like a lead balloon. Deep breaths, Caitlyn. You can do this.
“Don’t be nervous, baby. She will love you. I have no doubt that you and Mother will be closer than you can imagine after this afternoon”
The only thing she could do was face this surprise head on and hope that she wouldn’t completely ruin the best thing that had ever happened to her with some sort of critical faux pas. Nothing to worry. Just keep repeating it. Nothing to worry.
“I’m fine,” she smiled as she looked back away from the window.
“Excellent,” he grinned. “I can’t tell you how long I’ve been waiting for this day. This will be great.”
Caitlyn turned back to watch the passing trees as they wound their way north-east away from civilization. She sighed as quietly as she could manage and tried to doze.
* * *
After another hour of travel north then east on gravel-covered lanes barely fit for off road vehicles, much less Trevor’s beat-up Volvo, they turned down a sunken muddy path hidden by a wall of brush. No entrance was apparent, but Trevor wrenched the steering wheel left and right and the thorny branches seemed to magically part just as the car was about to barrel through them. They entered a verdant tunnel of intertwined branches that meandered through the trees to a massive gate made of logs that blocked any vehicle from passing beyond.
“And we’re here,” announced Trevor as he parked next to the gate. “The rest is on foot.”
Caitlyn stepped out the vehicle, stretched her stiff joints and looked around. The trail back to their point of access was barely noticeable. It was amazing they hadn’t gotten stuck in the soft earth because her boots sunk ankle deep into the spongy moss that led up to the gate as she approached it.
Lined up vertically next to each other, the behemoth logs forming the gate were each at least two feet across and fifteen feet tall. It resembled the outer palisade of a colonial fortress overgrown with vines and moss. Left and right, the walls continued out of sight into the trees.
“What is this place?” whispered Caitlyn in awe.
“I’ve been meaning to show you this for some time,” answered Trevor. “Come look.” He gestured toward a faded metal sign, about six feet by four feet, attached to the two central pillars.
Caitlyn approached the barrier and, clearing away the vines and moss, read the words etched into the thick metal surface:
“What in God’s name is this?” she repeated as she traced the lettering. Faint patches of dead lichen flaked off in a grey-green powder on her fingers. It was cold, and besides the lichen, the metal seemed to be untouched. She rubbed her fingers together, noting an oily residue that remained.
“God?” Trevor smirked at the thought. He was the least religious person she knew and he wasn’t shy of sharing his disdain. He said nothing, though. Perhaps he was turning over a new leaf. “This is my real job,” he continued. “At least it’s what I consider to be my calling. Teaching at the University pays the bills, but it doesn’t fulfill me the way I feel when I come up here.”
“Yeah, I can see that. You’re glowing.”
And he was. As if he had woken from a deep slumber, he appeared energized and serene, plugged into the natural vitality of the emerald growth around him.
“I always feel like I’m home when I come back here.”
Caitlyn leaned against the closest log. It had obviously been weathered for decades, but it was still as sturdy as ever. With each log at least three feet thick and lined with pitch to seal the cracks, it would be centuries before they began to fall.
“So… exactly what do you do here?” she asked pointedly “And you still haven’t told me what this place is. I’ve never even heard of the Special Territories Branch or the North American Vale.”
“What I am is a Special Territories Warden. It is my responsibility to make certain that no person enters the Vale without the express permission of the STB…”
“STB?”
“Sorry… Special Territories Branch. We love our acronyms in the government, don’t we?”
Caitlyn didn’t answer immediately. A gentle breeze had sprung up, rustling the leaves in a calming susur
rus and sending ripples across the leafy canopy.
“What makes something a special territory anyway?”
“It depends on each case. There aren’t any strict guidelines for us to follow,” answered Trevor. “But it usually involves some natural feature that we feel would be irrevocably destroyed by contact with civilization. Some places have been preserved as they were for centuries. This has been going on far longer than the Branch has existed”
“We?”
“Me and the other Wardens. If there is any question about whether a territory qualifies, we consult with each other and then vote on the outcome.”
“So what makes this place so special?”
“That’s the surprise, wildflower. Come on inside and follow me. Just wait until you see what I have to show you,” he said grinning broadly. Trevor slid his hand beneath the sign and appeared to grasp some hidden mechanism. With a hard twist of his wrist, a clanking of metal gears hidden within the barricade sounded and the log gate swung slowly inward, revealing the most picturesque woodland path Caitlyn had ever seen sloping up a gentle incline. Trevor took a few steps inside, then turned and beckoned to her.
Mesmerized, she followed him into the lush greenery.
* * *
It seemed as if they had only walked for fifteen to twenty minutes, but when Caitlyn next looked at her watch, she saw that it was already well past noon and they had been hiking for over an hour and a half, just reveling in the primeval beauty of the old growth forest as they trekked toward their destination. As they made their way in a general south-easterly direction, the forest floor gradually climbed at a minimal gradient to a ridge about two miles away, zigzagging between the trunks of trees packed right next to each other. Often they were forced to turn sideways to squeeze between two adjacent spires. Caitlyn had never seen a forest so thick. Yet what should have been claustrophobic was instead comforting to her, as if they were protected on all sides by timber sentinels.
Finally, the dense thicket began to thin and the forest brightened as sunlight was once again able to penetrate the canopy. Soon after, they topped the ridge and the trees just stopped, as if there were an invisible barrier preventing them from venturing onward, down into the valley below.
Widowmakers: A Benefit Anthology of Dark Fiction Page 9