“You kiled her.” A statement this time. Not a question. “How could you?” I glared at him, wishing I had the strength to wrap my hands around his neck and destroy him.
“It didn’t take much. Just a few quiet whispers in the night. She did al the hard work herself.”
“Did you kil Marlene, too?”
“No. Ted did that,” he smiled.
I had to get away from Lucian before he got his hands on me.
I kicked the door open and sprinted away from him, away from the car and Bradley’s stil form. Through the maze of timber, the feled logs stacked like toothpicks through the expansive lot. Dead men—shades—fel out of the piles, their bodies bloodied and putrid, eye sockets empty. A few were missing limbs; one carried his head under his arm. Sawmil casualties. These men died cutting down the forest. They watched me run past, the sound of their moans mixing with Lucian’s laughter, bouncing off the wood and slashing at the sky. One reached for me but as I ran past, he jerked his rotten hand back, as if shocked.
The burning in my chest, under my shirt, was unbearable, but I couldn’t stop moving. With one hand, I patted the area and realized it was the amulet, sizzling into my tender flesh, singeing a hole in my shirt.
“Gemmmmma! You can run, but you can’t hide! I’m coming for you soon. You and Henry. Two little lovebirds sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g…,” he sang. “Not even your dreams are safe, my sweet daughter. Not even your dreams!”
A wooded area stood at the southern edge of the lot and I raced toward it, knowing that I had to get away from Lucian before he caught up to me, away from the shades before they had the chance to grab at my shirt and pul me under. I yanked at the leather rope of the stil-smoldering amulet and let the triangle fal outside my shirt, the weight of the bronze clunking against my chest with every step forward. The undergrowth was thick but I flew over the falen trees and wet ferns without looking back. I ran until my muscles screamed and then kept running, afraid if I stopped or hesitated for even a moment, Lucian’s hands would pul me backward as they had done to Bradley.
I tripped and roled end over end into a ravine, landing with a thud on the soggy edge of a smal creek, but not before banging my head hard against a rock jutting from the soil. As I laid on the ground, staring upward into the sky through the heavy, moss-covered branches of the fir trees, it was quiet. Just the occasional bird to interrupt the silence. I don’t know why, but my hand moved to the amulet and closed around it. I let the calm swalow me, and closed my eyes.
:37:
In the middle of the road of my life, I awoke in a dark wood where the true way was wholly lost.
—Dante Alighieri
“She’s here! Over here!”
Yeling.
The percussion of footsteps on the ground above my resting spot.
Twigs breaking, the squish of dead leaves under fast-moving feet.
The slide of shoes against mud on a steep incline.
“Gemma!”
The not-too-distant hoot of an owl.
The chirp of a two-way radio.
A gloved hand on my cheek.
My eyes opened. “Henry,” I said.
“Oh my God, you’re alive.” His shoulders fel, as he exhaled a deep breath. “Come on, let’s get out of here. Can you stand?” He propped me up, his knee sinking into the mud of the creekside. The world turned itself upside down and backwards, but after a few dozen blinks, I could see straight. I could see Henry.
“Hey…,” I said.
“Is she okay?” Ted was standing at the top of the ravine, shouting down to us.
“Yeah, a little dazed, a bloody nose, but I think she’s al right,” Henry holered back. Just as he’d done after the visit to the emergency room, he scooped me into his arms and started up the slippery embankment. Ted shuffled down toward us to help Henry as we crested the ravine’s northern edge.
“Jesus, Gems, how in the hel did you end up out here?” Ted said as Henry helped me into a standing position, easing me out of his arms with my wobbly legs underneath me.
“Bradley Higgins…he found me…was going to give me a ride home…instead he passed the fairgrounds and brought me here,” I managed. Everything hurt and upon rubbing the side of my head, I came in contact with the newest source of my pain. A huge knot, just an inch above my right ear.
Henry’s color drained and his jaw tensed. He looked down at my blood-soaked shirt and set to inspecting the bump on my head for evidence of another tear in my skin.
“Where’s the blood from? Is that from your nose?”
“I think it’s Bradley’s. He…he was al over me…he tried to…,” I couldn’t go on, couldn’t tel Henry and Ted that I’d been so foolish as to take a ride from someone who’d thought it would be okay to have his way with me in the quiet yard of a sawmil.
“Gemma,” Henry grabbed my shoulders, “did he hurt you?” His eyes buzzed with fury.
“No…yes…he punched me when I fought him off.” I touched my cheekbone, the skin tender and swolen. “This is his blood…I found a bottle in his car and smashed it into his head,” I said, looking down at my disgusting shirt. “Lucian showed up. He…the windows in the car…exploded. He puled Bradley off me, but I think…I think he kiled him. I think Lucian kiled Bradley.”
“No one is here. The lot is empty. We searched through the whole yard for you,” Ted said.
“That can’t be. Bradley’s car…broken glass…did you see the broken glass? From the car? It was everywhere!”
“It’s dark. We didn’t see the glass, and we didn’t see any cars.
Bradley’s car isn’t here, so he can’t be dead,” Henry said, “at least not yet.” His hands tightened into fists, and I noticed he was wearing the black gloves he’d had on the first night we met. He was clearly afraid. The gloves kept him from hurting anyone, me included.
“Gemma…,” Henry was staring at the space just under my throat. “Where did you get this?”
He reached and lifted the amulet from against my sternum and held it in his palm.
“I sort of woke up with it. A man brought it…” I needed to sit down. The memories from the afternoon rushed back at me. I felt woozy.
“Let’s get her to your car,” Ted said, and Henry scooped me up again and carried me through the weave of tangled branches, through the darkening forest.
When we reached the log yard, the door to Ted’s work truck whipped open and Irina bolted toward us.
“Oh, dear Lord, what happened? Is she hurt? What’s al the blood from?” Irina was frantic. She groped my skul, neck, arms, and legs, searching for open wounds. “Is she bleeding? Oh, thank God you found her.”
Henry moved toward his car and Ted opened the door to the back seat. They scooted me inside and Irina ran around to the other door, climbing in and wrapping a blanket around me.
“We have been looking for you al day,” Irina said, her voice scared but teetering on scolding. “Where have you been? How the hel did you end up way out here?”
“Ted, is Marlene dead? Lucian said…”
Ted looked away. I had my answer. I’d never seen him look so bad. He had to prop himself up against the car’s frame to keep from faling over.
“Gemma, I’m so sorry,” Irina whispered.
“How did you find me?” I said, choking on my tears and looking at Henry.
“This,” he said, reaching for the amulet. “It…it caled me here.”
“I’m sorry. I’m sorry I ran,” I said, my head down. I was so ashamed at my behavior, I could hardly speak. “I just couldn’t be there.”
“I know, I know,” Henry said, wrapping his arms around me while I sobbed. Ted fel to his knees, his face buried in his hands.
“The lightning…it knocked the power out. I can’t believe this has happened,” he cried.
I puled away from Henry and stepped out of the car, folding Ted into my arms. He was broken. Marlene had been his life—he owed her so much—and he had, in effect, kiled her.
“It wasn’t your fault, Uncle Ted,” I said, rubbing his back.
“Lucian made you do it. It’s his fault. He wanted you to do the Roulette…”
I stood and looked at Henry, the pitch of my voice increasing with the anxiety choking my throat. “Lucian kiled my mother. He told me. And he’s coming for us, Henry. He said that we’re next.” I puled Delia’s ring off my middle finger and handed it to Henry.
“This was Delia’s. He took it from her.”
Henry inspected it, read aloud the worn inscription around the inside of the band. “My Delia Rose…Love, Jonah.” Upon hearing Jonah’s name, Ted raised his head and watched Henry with my mother’s ring. Irina helped Ted to his feet.
“Please…I want to go home,” I pleaded. “I want to see Marlene.” I didn’t want to be in the dark, in the location that had been the scene of such terror just a few hours prior. I wanted to say my goodbyes to my auntie and…God, I didn’t even know what else. I was out of answers.
“We have to leave Eaglefern,” Henry said.
“Not until I see Marlene.” I turned to Ted. “Where’s Irwin? I have to see them!”
“Irwin is with the Thomassens. Junie and Emelie are looking after him,” Irina said. “He’s very upset.”
“Ted, please, take me to see Marlene.” Though my grip on his shoulders was firm, he was slack, defeated.
“Gemma,” Henry reached for my upper arm, “the amulet—it’s a sign. We have to get to Rouen where Thibeault can help protect us.
That’s the only way we can save ourselves.”
“Save ourselves from what? What the hel else can he take from me? From al of us?” I looked from Henry to Ted’s soaked face to Irina’s furrowed brow. No one said anything. “There’s nothing LEFT, Henry! He wins!” I screamed at him. “You hear that, Lucian? YOU WIN!” I shrieked with every fiber of my being. It echoed through the forest.
“You know what we have to do. We don’t have a choice,” he said, his voice quiet. “And there is so much more he can take. So much more. We have to go. Now.”
The apocalypse was real. It was happening.
And we were leaving. Tonight.
As I shuffled toward the front seat of Henry’s car, I looked to the heavens and whispered to the stars. I love you, Auntie. I love you always and forever…and I will make this right.
:38:
It is vain for the coward to flee; death follows close behind; it is only by defying it that the brave escape.
—Voltaire
Henry had a packed bag for me in the back of the car, the contact number for some mystery friend of Ted’s in Seattle, and a suitcase of money to get us from this place to the next. For now, it was SeaTac International Airport. Drive there, dump the car in the parking garage, walk away and wait for Ted’s associate to pick us up.
We were going off the radar. Cel phones were out of the question—too easy to track. Any phone contact would have to happen either via pay phones or the disposable, convenience store variety. The less contact, the better. Lucian would likely report Henry’s car stolen, which would put it on the hot lists for every major police department along our route away from home. We had to make tracks.
As we drove out of Eaglefern, away from the tearful goodbyes in the dirty, bark-littered lot of the sawmil where Irina and Ted watched us disappear into the darkness, I was stuck between wakefulness and numbness, my own personal hel punctuated by the ripping pain in my chest and gut every other second as the faces of Marlene and Delia took turns drifting through the desolation in my head. Closing my eyes didn’t help; Lucian’s malevolence pasted itself across the back of my eyelids.
Henry’s hand was never far from mine. Each time I repositioned in my seat, stretched the fatigue from my neck and shoulders, the crushing weight of the amulet on my chest reminded me I was stil very much alive. But if breathing had been an act requiring concentration rather than something a living body just did, I would’ve suffocated.
Exhausted from crying, I nodded off now and again as we navigated the backroads in total blackness, making our way toward the western slice of the state where Interstate 5 would carry us toward our rendezvous point. I dreamt of Marlene taking care of me, brushing my hair and cooing in my ear, harping me about chores, cheering for me when I’d learned a new song on the violin.
And about Delia, her fits of rage that would send me into hiding behind furniture and under blankets. The reels of footage from my on-again, off-again life as someone’s daughter replayed the memories of my first taste of cotton candy; my introduction to Gertrude and the day Jiminy was born; getting my ears pierced for my sixth birthday and the ice cream parlor where they sang happy birthday to me but got my name wrong, sending my mother into a tirade; how beautiful and proud Marlene looked in her costumes and how wide her smile was when the audience applauded for her briliant husband; how lost and desperate Delia looked when she thought about Jonah, how she would sit with her notebook and draw hundreds of unfinished pictures of the man she said was my real father; how I would sometimes hide in her closet and watch her, curled in bed while she gazed at Jonah’s photograph for hours, until she cried herself to sleep.
Each recolection carried with it a different subset of emotions, of tastes, smels, and sounds. Happy was folowed in short order by sad, wrenching, even terrifying. Thanks to Marlene, the good outweighed the bad, and the presence of that good shone as brightly as a newborn star.
With al this tragedy, my thoughts turned inward and I began to blame myself for not being good enough. I could’ve been a better daughter to both Delia and Marlene, been less stubborn, written more letters, colored more pictures, practiced harder on my violin, argued less with Ash, read more to Irwin, attended more family days at the hospital, caled more frequently, answered more emails, done more chores… I could’ve been a better girl.
I soon tired of snapping the business end of the whip into the fleshy parts of my soul and fel asleep, a dead sleep suited to a creature sentenced to dwel in the dark void between heaven and the vicious flames of hel.
:39:
Courage is like love; it must have hope for nourishment.
—Napoleon Bonaparte
As the car eased to a stop, my eyes snapped open, a momentary panic nipping at the confusion of my half-awake state.
“What’s happening? Where are we?”
“Just stopping for gas. It’s okay.” We were at an al-night station, in the middle of nowhere, the pumps automated for payment and therefore not another soul in sight.
As Henry pumped the gas, I puled down the visor mirror to check the colateral damage. I gasped when I saw my reflection: my face was splattered with Bradley’s blood and the grime from my tumble down the ravine, my left cheek bright red and purple from the blow rendered by Bradley’s heavy fist, my hair matted with dirt and leaves. The front of my shirt, just below the neckline, was a charred shadow of its former self.
The amulet had burned through my shirt.
I puled the fabric down and was shocked to find residual scorch marks in my skin, not ful-thickness burns but red scuffs, as if someone had grazed the soft flesh with a flat iron.
Henry climbed back into the car and sat quietly, watching me as I traced my fingertip over the tender spots.
“Let’s find a rest area and get you cleaned up.” He started the car and puled back onto the road, his hand draped across my leg.
We drove for a while, in silence, until a long turnout, intended for drowsy semi-truck drivers, opened alongside the roadway. Henry parked the car at the front-most edge, and moved around to the trunk to retrieve bottled water, a towel, and my travel bag.
I stepped out of the car and stood along a stone wal that overlooked the blackness of a wide valey. The moon was bright, casting long shadows from the trees scattered across the landscape.
“Gemma,” Henry caled me back to the car. Without saying another word, he gestured for me to put my head down and poured one bottle, then a second, running his fingers through t
he lengths of my hair to tease out the debris. It took a third bottle before the water running off the ends of my hair was clean. He wrapped a towel around my head and squeezed out the bulk of the water before moving behind me and opening the towel so the hair could fal down my back. His fingers brushed my neck as he colected a few wayward strands; the tenderness of his touch sent a fresh wave of chils through me.
Henry reached into my bag for a fresh shirt. Again, in complete silence, he removed the towel and grabbed the bottom of the shirt, puling it over my head, careful not to dislodge the amulet. I stood before him, in my bra and dirty jeans, shivering and numb. He puled the clean shirt over my head, noticing that the button on my pants was ripped off.
His eyes stopped at the tear in the fabric.
“Henry…?”
He touched the threads where a button was once attached. “Did he…did Bradley…” He couldn’t finish his sentence. He looked at me, his eyes hard. His fists clenched at his sides.
“No. No, Henry, he didn’t…” I touched his elbow. An uneasy silence floated between us as I thought about Bradley’s anger, about the hate in his eyes, how close I’d come to being victimized, to having to answer “yes” to Henry’s question. How, despite his malicious, despicable agenda, had Lucian not shown up when he did, Bradley would’ve succeeded in doing whatever the hel he’d wanted to do.
Henry closed the distance between us and wrapped himself around me, the warmth radiating off him like an electric blanket. I closed my eyes as the shivering intensified, but he held tight, enveloping me in body heat. His breathing slowed, and we stood, hugging, my face buried in his protective shoulder. He puled back only to softly touch his lips to the bruise on my cheek, not kissing it but alowing the warmth of his body to pass from his face to mine in waves, ebbing with each slow inhale and flowing with each exhale.
The familiar sensation of calmness surged through me, and when he released his embrace, I was warm, less sore.
“Thank you,” I said, stepping back.
His brow wrinkled as he again saw the amulet hanging from my neck.
He reached for it and picked up the triangle in his fingers, stroking it with his thumb.
Sleight: Book One of the AVRA-K Page 27