Alex, are you out there somewhere? My telepathy fizzled out, stopping just a little way from my brain. I’m not sure how I could be so convinced of that but it was like knowing how far your voice would carry; my telepathy was down to a hoarse whisper.
Someone had heard though. The man turned round.
Johan.
He didn’t look threatening wrapped up snugly like an Indian papoose in his sleeping bag. His expression was—well, exulting was the word that came to mind. He gave me a ‘good morning’ nod and shrugged off the cover. I really didn’t want him to emerge—I wanted him to stay huddled over there for ever while I made a run for it. That was if I could get rid of this sensation of being weighed down by concrete.
‘You slept well, Misty?’
His question was bizarrely inappropriate to someone who had ‘slept’ sprawled without cover on a bed of old leaves.
‘What am I doing here, Mr du Plessis?’ I brushed my hands on my jeans then brought them up to my face to blow on cold fingers. I was scared to the bone but guessed it was safer not to show this.
‘I thought after some breakfast we’d make a start. There’s some business to deal with in Cambridge, then we can get on with it.’ He poked the fire, frowning at the dead ashes. ‘We could do with Yves Benedict—I hear he’s good with flame. I decided he was too complicated—and a little too old. I don’t suppose this is one of your hidden talents?’
I shook my head, dislodging leaves caught in my hair.
‘Shame. Still, you have some gifts that will prove rewarding, I’m sure.’ He took kindling from a pile he had made a little way off. He painstakingly built a tepee structure, then struck a match. I watched in silence, debating if I could outrun him. I’m small and light on my feet usually, but I had woken up with the sensation of being weighed down by manacles. I rubbed my ankles. He glanced at my hands. I stopped moving and tucked my fingers back under my arms.
‘I’m afraid breakfast is going to be very basic as this was more an impulse outing than a well-planned expedition.’ He threw something at me. I was too slow to react and it hit my curled up knees and fell onto the ground. A cereal bar.
‘The service station didn’t offer much in the way of choice. I’ve water, if you want it.’
Now he mentioned it, I realized I was ferociously thirsty. I nodded.
‘Come now, what have you done with your manners?’ His expression was taunting.
‘Yes, please, I’d like some water.’
This time I was ready and caught the little plastic bottle. I unscrewed the blue lid and took a gulp.
‘There, you see, we’ll get along fine. I can’t abide bad behaviour. If you are quiet and obedient, we might even be together quite pleasantly for some time to come.’
It was no comfort to know that everything he said was a truth as far as he understood it. That still left me confused: what could possibly be the point of this?
‘Mr du Plessis … ’
He held up a hand. ‘Uncle Johan. We are practically family, after all.’
The idea of calling him ‘uncle’ made me want to vomit but his expression warned that he would take anything else as a sign of rebellion.
‘Uncle Johan,’ the questions jostled in my mind—where, why, who—I settled for the one I thought the least offensive, ‘where are we?’
‘Epping Forest.’ He looked around at the stands of elegant beeches. Their trunks shone faintly in green and silver streaks of smooth bark. ‘Pretty, isn’t it? I do like how you British preserve old places despite the pressure of your population. There are far too many of you on this small island. Surely you aren’t all necessary?’
‘Why are we here?’ I checked my watch. It was seven in the morning. ‘I’m supposed to be at school.’ I had the sudden random thought that I would be missing breakfast if I didn’t get back by nine when they stopped serving, but a second thought followed immediately that I had far more serious worries than that.
‘I thought I would liberate you from a situation that you found intolerable.’ That was only a partial truth. He gave a half-smile as if recalling that he couldn’t lie to me. ‘I find your gift interesting, and I can’t say that I like your link with my nephew, so I thought it would be good for the two of us to spend time together so I could get to know you better.’
He was speaking honestly but there was some hidden meaning that he was concealing. He had had us all fooled in Cambridge but now I suspected I knew who—or at least what—he really was. Hoping I was wrong, I latched onto one part of what he said that hinted at a less frightening motive for his actions.
‘Why don’t you like my link to Alex?’ We had hit a rough patch but I hadn’t been that bad, surely?
He opened his own bar and gestured to me to copy. I didn’t dare refuse, though food was the last thing I wanted.
‘To be frank, you’re inconvenient. Soulfinders make their partners so boring. I don’t have a family that acknowledges me and I want Alex to be mine. He won’t be while he is focused on you.’
So there was some weird kind of jealousy at play. Maybe that was the only reason—maybe he wasn’t the person I feared. In any case, he was wrong about the attention being for me.
‘But didn’t you see how eager he was to get to know you? I don’t get in the way—he has made room for both of us or, at least, was attempting to.’ I’d been unfair to Alex, I realized. He had been trying.
‘No, he puts you first.’ Johan stated it as if there was no doubt on the issue. ‘I did think about it for a day or two but came to the conclusion that you would always have his loyalty before me. That is unacceptable.’
‘And it’s not unacceptable to kidnap me and drag me off to the middle of a forest?’ I couldn’t contain my anger a moment longer—but I wish I had.
‘Careful.’ His tone was searing. I flinched even though he made no move towards me. ‘You’re not to question me. I’ll tell you only those things I want to share with you. You can’t understand the greater plan that is at work here or your part in it—you are just one small immature savant, but I am so much more.’
The clues that he wasn’t sane had been there since the waking-up-in-the-forest moment; that speech clinched it. If I was dealing with someone so unstable, I would have to keep him calm. I remembered Sky and Phoenix’s advice. My one advantage was looking small and unthreatening, so I would use it.
‘I’m sorry, Uncle Johan. I just don’t understand, that’s all.’
He got up and approached me. I tried not to cringe. He leaned down and patted my hair. His mood had shifted again to something more benign. ‘Don’t worry your pretty little head about the whys and wherefores, Misty. Thinking has never been your strong point, has it?’
I guess it hadn’t as I had ended up here with him. I looked down rather than risk an answer.
‘Unfortunately, I have to get back to Cambridge so I can be there to comfort Alex when they discover you’re missing. You were sleeping in the car when I went back to the restaurant but I told them I dropped you safely at school. They’ll want me to confirm my story.’ He said all this as if it were entirely reasonable. He was leaving and by the sounds of it I wasn’t. ‘I can see that you think I’ll do something drastic to you but don’t worry, there’s plenty of time left for you and me to work together. I’m going to put you into nowhere for a while as I deal with the fuss, but I’ll be back for you, never fear.’ He looked at my blue-tinged nails. ‘I think I will leave you the sleeping bag. Can’t have you freezing to death now, can we?’
I tried to leap up but the weights-that-weren’t-there on my legs kept me down.
‘Now, now, none of that. Just get in the sleeping bag. I’m going to hide you here so no one will stumble over you.’ He dropped the sack on my lap.
There had to be a way out of this but I couldn’t think of one. Heroes in the books I read were always immensely resourceful, having some secret weapon or plan to foil plots against them. But maybe I was only a minor character—another victim that
falls about halfway through. With my track record, that seemed far more likely.
‘W-what do you mean, nowhere?’
‘If you get in then I’ll tell you.’
Seeing nothing else for it, I wiggled inside, disgusted at myself for not putting up a better resistance. It smelt of his overpowering pine-scented deodorant, which made it even worse, like accepting a hug from him.
He crouched beside me, his expression friendly again. ‘There’s a good girl. You’re much quicker than the others to know that making a fuss is unproductive.’
The others? Oh God.
‘My gift is to make a void. I suppose you can say it is the reverse of my nephew—he fills people up with his charm; I can make them blank, register as an empty space. I can do it to myself as well, which I must say has proved most useful.’ He looked as though he wanted me to congratulate him.
I could feel tears pricking my eyes. ‘And you are going to make me disappear?’
He nodded, pleased at my quick grasp. ‘Yes, exactly. For today at least. I’ll be back to fetch you when I can reasonably leave Alex. I’m anticipating that he might be a little distressed that you’ve dropped out of his life as suddenly as you fell into it.’
Johan didn’t understand. Soulfinders can’t be only a ‘little’ distressed at such a thing. ‘But you’ll be back?’ I wasn’t sure I wanted Johan to, but suspected he was the only one who could make me return from nowhere.
Johan smiled. ‘Absolutely, Misty. I promise. You won’t feel a thing. It’s just like passing out under anaesthetic.’
I tried sending out another telepathic distress call but it went no further than the nearest tree.
Johan reached out his finger and touched my forehead. ‘One, two … ’
‘Misty? Misty?’
It took me a while to rouse myself. I woke feeling like I’d just had a heavy dose of flu. I didn’t want to open my eyes. The voice belonged to the man I most hoped—most feared—to see.
‘I’m sorry you’ve been out so long. It took more time than I expected.’ A bottle was pushed against my lips. I could feel that they were cracked and dry. I gulped.
‘How long?’ I croaked.
‘Two days. You must be hungry and in need of a bathroom break. Let me help you out of the sleeping bag.’
Limbs as wooden as the fallen branches around me, I staggered to my feet as Johan pulled me up. He was right; I did need a visit to the bushes. That added a slick of humiliation on my ocean of fear.
‘Where can I … ?’
I didn’t need to say any more. He took me to the other side of the tree, showed me a low branch I could hold and left me to it. After some clumsy fumbling at my jeans, I managed to sort myself out, refasten my clothes and stumble back round the tree. He held out a little bottle of handwash. He then helped me sit on a log he’d pulled near the fire.
‘Feeling better now?’
‘Yes.’ Apart from the fact that I was stuck in a forest with a madman.
‘You’ll be pleased to hear you are much missed. Alex is very distressed.’
I was supposed to be happy about that? ‘My parents?’
‘Out of their wits with worry. And your friends.’ He smiled and passed me a filled baguette. ‘There you are: lunch.’
Wiping my eyes, I registered that it was broad daylight.
‘Go on: eat.’ He nudged my hand nearer my mouth. Remembering how quick he was to anger, I took a bite. The taste reminded me that I was hungry; if he wanted to kill me, I wasn’t going to do the job for him by starving.
‘You’ll be flattered to know that there’s a huge hunt underway for you. They’ve flown in your aunt Crystal. Now there’s a fascinating gift. She’s using your link to my nephew to track you.’ He didn’t sound worried. Instead he got out a flask and poured himself a cup of coffee. He held the drink out to me. ‘Would you like some? Best Arabica beans.’
I shook my head. ‘I’d prefer water.’
‘It’s by your foot.’
I looked down to see the bottle resting against the log. We continued our bizarre picnic, me wondering why he hadn’t killed me yet and him … well, I don’t know what he was thinking. I wondered how close a rescue party might be.
He answered my question before I had to ask. ‘Of course, Crystal can’t sense you, thanks to my gift. She is getting a rather distressing nothing in response. I’m afraid they think you are dead. Everyone’s hugely upset.’
I twisted to be sick behind my log. I didn’t have much in my stomach so it hurt my abdomen. I grappled for the water to rinse my mouth.
‘I did wonder maybe whether Uriel and Victor Benedict suspected me but I allowed Uriel to touch me and trace my history; he got nothing except an impression of a blank blameless night spent in a Cambridge hotel. They’re focused on that idiot, Eli Davis, who helpfully didn’t have an alibi for the time you disappeared.’ Johan crossed the campfire clearing and helped me to another log away from where I had been ill. He didn’t mention that, neither to tell me off or apologize, just ignored what he didn’t want to notice. ‘Alex was very upset with the Benedicts for suggesting I had anything to do with it. He’s a fine boy.’
I could imagine that Alex was massively confused. If I had vanished, he wouldn’t want his only family to be taken from him as well.
It was going to kill him when he learned what Johan was.
Alex? I didn’t expect to succeed but my telepathy still had no way to escape Johan’s influence. I needed him so much it hurt.
‘You’ll feel better if you eat something.’ Johan gestured to my sandwich.
‘Maybe later.’ If there was a later. I wrapped the clingfilm back round the end I had bitten. Mozzarella and tomato. One of my favourite flavours until today. I’d only just noticed.
‘I imagine you want to know what happens next?’ Johan drained his coffee.
‘Yes.’ He raised a brow. ‘Please.’
‘I for one don’t like sleeping in a forest.’ He smiled as if I should get the joke. ‘My tastes are more evolved than that. I’ve told Alex I have to go on business but will be back next week to aid with the search if you haven’t been found. I was his only comforter, you know, as I suggested that you’d probably just run away, thinking yourself not worthy to be his soulfinder, and that you’d be back when you had had a chance to consider things in peace.’
‘How does that work with them thinking I’m dead?’
His thin mouth curved in a smile. He was enjoying this. ‘Well, I refused to believe it, naturally. I said that Crystal was letting fear blind her, that Alex would know if you were dead and he’s convinced you’re still alive.’
Because I was. I felt a little comforted by the fact Alex hadn’t given up on me.
Johan put the top back on his Thermos flask. ‘He was very encouraged by my faith in his instincts.’
Snake.
‘I promised to hurry back but had an unavoidable meeting in America to attend. As do you.’
‘Me?’
‘Yes. I’ve brought you a change of clothes. You are coming with me to Oregon for Thanksgiving.’
His shift of direction was as erratic as the path of a tornado, twisting one way then the next. ‘Why?’
‘Why? Because Thanksgiving is a family time, don’t you know that?’
He was making no sense. I took some hope from the fact that if he tried to take me abroad we’d have to leave the forest. Questioning him to make him see the pitfalls in that would probably end up with me left here dead. Cooperation seemed the right course.
‘Let’s go then.’
He pulled a carrier bag from his backpack—all new clothes bought from some supermarket. ‘There you are. I’ll get you some more things when we get to America.’
So he was serious about this going-abroad notion. I didn’t have my passport on me as that had been destroyed. He’d never get me through border control.
I took the bag and went behind another tree. I was relieved to see he had put in some thick
layers, including gloves, scarf, and coat. I dressed rapidly. Somehow being warmer made it a little easier to think. I had to keep him happy, give him no cause to decide he should kill me and be done with it; but I also had to escape. His wild idea of going to Oregon—where was that exactly?—sounded like it could end in a showdown at the airport. I had to keep as far from him as possible. He could put me out with a touch; I guessed he could kill with a fingertip too.
That was probably what happened to the others.
We had to hike a long way back to the car. He had parked by the side of a minor road and we passed no one. I tried to work out what day it was. Wednesday? Americans always celebrated Thanksgiving on a Thursday, didn’t they? That meant he planned to be across the Atlantic very soon.
When we reached the car, he gestured to me to get in the back.
‘I’m afraid I can’t risk having you up front,’ he said in his hateful let’s-be-reasonable tone. ‘You might be seen.’
The rear had darkened windows and he had put up a grill, the sort used to contain dogs in the boot.
‘Now you have a choice: I can put you out or you let me secure your hands and feet. I won’t gag you: there’s no one to hear.’
Until we reached the airport.
I held up my wrists.
‘Good choice.’ He quickly fastened them with plastic ties. Once he was content that I was immobilized, he got in the driver’s seat and started the car. He put on the radio to fill the silence. When the news came on, we listened to the emotional appeal from my parents promising me that I wasn’t in any trouble for running away if that was what I had done and begging me to come back.
Please don’t think I did this to you on purpose, I pleaded, wishing for a chink in Johan’s blackout to send my message through to them.
The announcer quickly moved on to war in the Middle East. Johan searched for another channel, settling for local radio with its almost continual travel announcements. I looked out of the window. I didn’t know this part of England very well but the road signs changed to the blue of a motorway. The plane icon pointed to Stansted as our destination—London’s third airport. We didn’t go in the main entrance but took a detour round to a gate for a private aviation company. The barrier folded back for Johan without him having to announce his arrival. My hopes of a public showdown were diminishing.
Misty Falls Page 20