by Rosa Sophia
“Sounds good to me.” She pecked him gently on the lips, and stepped out onto the back porch with a paperback in her hand.
She didn’t seem worried, but he couldn’t shake the sensation of unease that was growing steadily hour by hour. After a tense evening, he went to bed, cuddling beside her, determined to ensure nothing—and no one—ever harmed her. The desire to protect her was great, something engrained deep within him. Something centuries old.
***
She worked long into the night, and in the morning her father called. He sounded good, and he said business was improving. Amalie let out a breath she’d been holding, realizing she was worried he’d try to visit again. He seemed lonely, but there wasn’t much she could do about that.
In the wee hours of the morning, while Ian still slept, she lit the candles on her altar and prayed silently, seated in a lotus position on the soft carpeting. It felt good to be centered in her spirituality again, finally reconnected.
Things seemed to be evening out; everything was going well with Ian, work was plentiful and enjoyable, and Amalie hadn’t felt any severe pain in quite some time. Tinges and burning were common, a part of her daily life, but it was nothing she couldn’t handle. As the sun began to rise, she threw on a pair of black running shorts and a blue tank top. There was a nature preserve on the other side of Indiantown, within walking distance. Since they’d moved there, she ran across the street every day, beating a familiar path through the woods and then looping back. Today she slipped on her running shoes with the sole intention of going there, feeling the goddess around her, listening to the breeze whisper through the palms and cypress trees.
She marveled at the fact that only a few months ago, she’d resigned herself to believing in nothing; she’d trashed her own faith, certain she’d been long-since betrayed by the gods. But her faith had returned, and with such vigor she could feel the atmosphere around her like a gentle, soft blanket which cradled her and told her everything would be all right. Her new life had begun.
She took to the macadam with the ease of a well-seasoned runner, her light sneakers bouncing off the pavement as she breathed in, out, in, out, in—
A hawk swooped through the baby blue sky as the sun rose higher. Amalie pressed a hand over her heart, accepting the blessing of the beautiful creature, and grinned from ear to ear, not caring how many bugs got stuck in her teeth. This was a beautiful day, and she was looking forward to spending it with Ian once he roused himself from sleep.
Her favorite part about living in Jupiter was the mournful cry of the sandhill cranes as they swooped overhead. She often stepped outside, listening, watching their trim bodies disappearing in the distance. She heard them now as she ran, and lifted her head to the sky as if to join them.
Indiantown Road wasn’t very busy; she stopped at the edge and watched the cars pass, going between sixty and seventy miles per hour. She’d gotten used to the ritual of running along the bike path that skirted the swale and a narrow canal, listening as the large turtles slid back into the water upon seeing her, before she crossed the road. She ran until she reached a point where she could see, in her peripheral vision, the entryway she usually took to get into the forest. Then she jumped the guardrail and stood at the very edge of the highway, waiting for an old Dodge pick-up to barrel past. When the road was clear, she took a deep breath and jogged across until reaching the grassy median that separated the right and left sides of the road, two lanes on either side.
When that side was clear, she again took off until she reached the very opposite side of Indiantown, where not a single building dared invade the privacy of her run through the woods. The delight she felt at being alone in the thick of those trees, breathing deep beneath the straight limbs of the cypress, was indescribable.
The guardrail and the locked swinging metal gate were the only things that held her back. There were many entrances to the preserve; this was one of the less conventional routes. As she’d done a number of times since she and Ian had moved here, she climbed the gate and vaulted down onto the dirt path beyond.
The path opened up to a wider shell-rock road that was often used by those riding horseback. She walked for a while, then ran until she knew she was at least a mile from her house. Here, a marsh stretched out, and she spotted a small alligator basking in the sun. Water snakes slid beneath the surface when her footsteps frightened them, and she reveled in the heat of the morning. This was paradise, she was sure of it. She never wanted to leave. Today, she ran a loop through the woods, happy there wasn’t a soul in sight.
Sometimes she came across visitors who wore long pants and carried large cameras, wide-brimmed hats and glasses hiding their scrutinizing expressions. Maybe it wasn’t smart to run through the Florida wilderness in running shorts and sneakers, but she didn’t care. She felt safer here than she felt anywhere else, and she was willing to take the risk. As she headed back toward the spot where she’d jumped the gate, she stopped several times to admire the scenery, or watch an egret fly overhead. A field stretched out to her left, and she spotted a squat building where she guessed the county sometimes kept machinery to clear out invasive plant species.
She stopped for a moment, her hands on her hips, taking a deep breath. She enjoyed the feeling of the sweat on her skin, knowing it meant she’d run well. It was time to head home.
Her bliss was interrupted by a familiar voice, smooth and almost seductive.
“Amalie. It’s been a while.”
And when she turned, Artie was standing there clad in running shorts and a t-shirt, wearing the same forlorn expression he’d had on the day she left him there in Juno Beach.
Oh shit.
No wonder he’d stopped sending notes. He’d foregone the letters, and simply arrived.
Chapter 40
Her awareness heightened and every detail seemed clearer, crisper, perfectly defined like a drawing made in black ink. It was with this awareness she realized she was separated from the rest of the world, alone in the wilderness. Alone with him.
He must’ve been watching her, and in a split second she recalled an article she read about a runner who’d disappeared after her kidnapper had memorized the route she took every single morning, the article advising go a different way every day, don’t be predictable. Amalie had made a big mistake by being prosaic, and she realized it in the worst way possible when she saw his oily smile, his wide lips crawling up his handsome face like one of the thin, curved snakes she’d seen flitting away in the marsh water.
Her world seemed to flip on its axis as her visions came crashing down around her, and as dread coiled in the pit of her stomach she realized it had all led up to this moment. The universe, the goddess, had tried to warn her and she hadn’t listened. This is what happens when you don’t listen.
“Amalie, I’m sorry. Did I scare you?” He took a few steps forward and she froze in place, still trying to catch her breath from her recent exertions.
“Uh, no, I…Artie, I didn’t realize you ran here too.”
“I don’t normally. But I knew you did. And I had to see you.”
“You followed me?”
The excitement he had at seeing her, the apparent relief he didn’t bother to hide, slipped away from his face to be replaced by mild confusion. “No. I mean, Amalie…you make it sound so bad when you say it that way.” He chuckled, but the amusement wasn’t sincere. She could tell he was broken, hurting, and she felt terrible for making him feel that way.
The Woodsman stepped closer.
Amalie gulped. The past and present seemed to blur together, like a dark cloud, and it didn’t fit the clear, impeccably beautiful South Florida day. When she blinked and saw the back of her eyelids, for a brief moment she could’ve sworn she was back there—in a time long since passed, somewhere far across the ocean in another land.
A sharp pain crossed her face and she winced, leaning forward. He was by her side in moments.
“Are you all right? Is it the pain?”
“Yes.” She grimaced, standing tall again. But now his hand was on the small of her back, and his body so close she could sense his heat.
He lived in the woods and hunted game for whomever would hire him. He was alone, separate from the rest of the world, operating on his own set of values.
The visions swam through her mind, and it was with disturbing clarity she knew—more than before, she was certain—she stood beside the Woodsman. This was the man who’d comforted her when her brooding lover would have nothing to do with her. This was the man she’d been so intrigued by in another life. This was the man who’d pushed her down that path, killing her.
Did he feel guilty, deep in his subconscious? Did he want her forgiveness?
She lifted her head to meet his gaze. She could tell he hadn’t been running; he hadn’t come here to exercise, he’d come to see her. He knew she wouldn’t be with Ian all the way out here in the woods.
“Amalie, will you talk to me?”
She nodded. “I’m feeling a little…unnerved.”
“Why?”
The ignorance in his eyes dumbfounded her. He really saw nothing wrong with this, but she knew it would be clear to anyone else. He was stalking her, but he didn’t see it that way. “I just didn’t expect to find you out here.”
“I had to see you, Amalie. This was the only way.” Darkness crept over his gaze. “He won’t let me see you.”
“That’s because he’s my boyfriend.” She tugged herself out of his grasp.
“You’re really staying with him, after everything you’ve been through?”
“Artie, you have to understand…I love him.” Her words emerged small, weak. She couldn’t suppress her fear of him, a terror that was many years old that went back to a time when she was a different woman with a different face and name.
“You said you were falling in love with me.”
Two worlds collided. The pressure built around her, the sounds of the marsh and the forest swirling until everything mimicked the hum in her subconscious, the impact of two lives made one—her life now, and the life of Myrna, the woman she’d been all those years ago. It was too much, and she’d never wanted to run more than she wanted to now.
“I…I don’t want to hurt you.” The words were so familiar, she felt as though she were reciting lines in a play, a script written at the beginning of time just for her.
Unmistakable rage marred his otherwise handsome face, weathered by days and nights in the forest.
“But everything we shared, that meant nothing to you?” He slipped a large hand around her wrist, pulling her to him. “The way you kissed me on the beach, you let me touch you. You loved it. You said you were falling for me, Amalie.”
“I…I didn’t love it, I didn’t…” She wondered how she could explain the way her body had frozen, the fear that crept through her, she was too scared to say no. Being firm and standing up for herself was a new talent, something she’d been teaching herself. The goddess only knew she hadn’t learned that from her father. She’d always acquiesced to his wishes, and it was recently she realized she’d been doing the same thing with men all of her life—letting them hold the reins, not saying what she wanted, letting herself be the quintessential doormat.
She looked up as Artie’s face scrunched into a dreadful mixture of anger and pain, like a dog who’d been kicked one too many times, a dog who was ready to fight back. His grip tightened on her wrist.
“Artie, please let go, you’re hurting me.” She pulled, but he wouldn’t loosen his hold on her.
“I won’t let go until you tell me why.”
“Please, I j-just don’t want to hurt you, Artie, let me go.” She’d sounded firm before, but now she barely recognized her own voice—weak, insignificant, a distant cry.
“Not until you tell me why.”
She managed to pull herself away from him, pressing her arm against her chest as if to shield herself. “Because…b-because I don’t love you,” she hazarded. Again, the familiarity of the words burnt her to her core.
“How can you say that?”
“Please, Artie, just…I have to go.” She started off at a slow trot. The sound of his footsteps followed her, she felt his gaze slicing the back of her head. If she could just get to Indiantown—
“Amalie, don’t leave me here. Talk to me. Let’s work this out.”
“I have to go!” she snapped, not meaning to sound so harsh—but she was frightened. Scared of him. She started jogging.
“Am—” She heard his breathing strain as he ran and spoke at the same time. “You’re my soul mate, I feel it.”
“No!” She turned her head long enough to see him behind her. He had no idea he was scaring her, he was just being persistent. She sensed he always got what he wanted, and for the first time, he was being denied a desire engrained so deep in his consciousness that it was taking over, controlling him. He was no longer the fun-loving carefree man she’d met on the beach. He was someone else, someone she didn’t want to know.
She ran faster.
Eventually, his begging receded in the back of her mind as she concentrated on her breathing. Was he close to catching up? Had he stopped following? She couldn’t tell.
In the distance, she saw the swinging gate and made that her goal. That gate led to Indiantown, to the bike path, and back to the little house she shared with Ian. Back to Ian.
She didn’t turn her head to see if Artie was following, she no longer cared. She just ran, and ran, hoping to the goddess he’d gotten the hint.
She vaulted over that gate with athletic precision, and her feet slammed on the earth below. Then, as she prepared to head across the highway, the pain came, lancing through her face like a thousand nails being pounded into her skull.
Crying out, she didn’t see the lip of the rock before her. With a resounding thump, she fell and her face met the shell rock path.
And in those woods as the sound of the wind, and the birds, and all the life sung around her with a primordial drone, she heard those same words as if they’d been imprinted on her DNA, a part of her, syllables that jumped centuries and lifetimes and overcame death, repeating in her mind, a steady mantra:
It has to work. It has worked before. It will work now.
Chapter 41
Amalie dreamt she was running. In her dream she clutched her head and cried out as pain drove itself like multiple needles through her flesh, slicing along the path of her trigeminal nerve. She ran past many people, but none of them seemed to notice her discomfort.
As her feet pounded on the pavement, she simultaneously saw the blonde standing beside the man with the ominous expression. Malachi.
She heard her own voice, and the same words playing like a looped recording: “Meet me in the garden, meet me in the garden.”
What garden, where? The thoughts jumbled in her mind, and she heard sounds that didn’t jive with her dreams, noises that sounded as if they came from computers, people calling out, heels clicking on hard floors.
Where am I?
Time passed slowly, and her dreams grew stranger, but at the forefront of everything was the pain—so bad she wanted to die, so horrendous she was certain she already had.
She heard someone calling out to her, but it seemed distant. In her mind, she ran toward that sound, listening to her breathing, making her way closer and closer.
The first sensation she became aware of was someone gently rubbing her hand. She opened her eyes and saw the white of the ceiling, and someone said excitedly, “She’s awake, look.”
“Sweetie, how do you feel?”
Amalie shifted her gaze to her left and saw Joy, clad in a white blouse and casual gray slacks, a sport jacket in her arms.
“I…I’m o-okay.” She winced, slowly lifting a hand to the side of her face. “Or maybe not. Did you…did you come from work?”
“No, Amalie.” Joy took her hand and held it tight, and that was when Amalie realized Ian was holding her other hand, gently stroking her f
ingers. “As soon as I heard what happened I rushed from home. I was getting ready for work.” Joy frowned, her brows knitting together. “You do know it’s morning, don’t you?”
“Not much time has passed, baby. They gave you some hardcore painkillers, and an anti-convulsant.” Ian’s deeper voice was a contrast to Joy’s melodic tone. He leaned forward and kissed her gently on the lips. “Do you know what happened? Roseanne is here too.” He nodded to his left, and Amalie turned her head, looking up at her good friend. Roseanne reached down and ran a gentle hand through Amalie’s hair, steering clear of her left side, her touch cool and refreshing.
“You…y-you all came out to see me? Where am I?” Glancing to and fro, she knew she was in a hospital, but she wasn’t sure where.
“Jupiter Medical Center,” Joy said, sitting down in a chair near the bed. The shades behind her were drawn, letting sparse amounts of daylight through the slats.
“Your dad called.” Ian continued gently rubbing circles on the back of her hand. “I told him what happened, but that you were okay.”
“W-what happened? And how did you know?”
He gently lifted her hand, reminding her of the medical bracelet she wore that had his phone number and her medical condition engraved on the face of it, before he placed a soft kiss on her knuckles. “They called me when they brought you in, pumpkin. I came over quick as I could. I think I may have broken the speed of light getting here,” he joked.
“Well, well, well,” a trill voice interrupted as a nurse stepped into the room. She was a rosy-faced, plump, middle-aged lady with brown hair and gray roots. “Look who’s awake! How are you feeling, Amalie?”
“I’m okay. Kinda confused, though. I’m not sure what happened.”