by Sophie Stern
Something bad is going to happen.
Someone has come, and judging by the cries outside, they brought reinforcements. There are plenty of people who don’t like Forwal, plenty of people who would want to hurt him, and the thought pains me.
I don’t want anything to happen to him.
I need to save him the way he saved me.
I get to the dungeon room and when I place my hand on the knob, I’m surprised it turns easily. I push the door open and sure enough, Forwal is in the center of the room. He’s standing with his back to me. He’s staring at the shackles on the wall. He doesn’t move, but I know he hears me breathing. I’m out of shape and the running has me gasping for breath.
“Forwal,” I say, but he just shakes his head.
“There were three girls before you,” he says, and suddenly, I’m quiet because I’ve never heard him talk about the ones who came before me. I knew there had to be other women, other girls he had stolen. Why else would he have a room like this?
But he’s never talked about them before.
He’s never mentioned them.
He’s never opened up to me.
No, Forwal, for all of the things I love about him, is essentially a closed book. He keeps his guard up constantly. He never relaxes, and he never calms down. He can’t. He doesn’t have time for that.
For Forwal, letting his guard down could mean getting killed. It could mean betrayal. It could mean a thousand things, and none of those are good. So he guards his secrets, and he maintains his privacy, and he doesn’t talk about the other women he has taken.
Until now.
“The first girl I thought I was saving. Her father beat her, and I took her away. I brought her here, gave her a room, and left her alone, but she ran away at the first opportunity. She ran away and she left and she was lost in the forest.”
“There are wild animals in the forest,” I repeat the warning he gave me the first day. I think of the creature that grabbed me when I wandered too close.
I still have bruises, and sometimes I even have nightmares.
The creature completely caught me off guard. I wasn’t paying the closest of attention, but it completely ambushed me. I was lucky that Forwal and his workers saved me. I was lucky he heard my cry. If he hadn’t found me when he did, I would have died. I would have been torn apart, completely eviscerated by the creature.
“We found her in pieces,” Forwal says. His eyes hold a certain sadness, but he keeps going. “The second girl, I locked up. It seemed fitting. I was saving her from the prison she was in, but I only replaced it with a different one. When I was sure she wouldn’t run away, I gave her a room, but she ran anyway.”
He shakes his head sadly, and I can clearly read his emotions.
He’s wondering what he did wrong.
He’s wondering why he wasn’t enough for them.
He’s wondering why he couldn’t save them.
If anyone could have saved them, it should have been him.
He should have been able to, but he couldn’t, and now it eats away at him. Forwal has a dark, fierce exterior, and he is merciless when it comes to loaning money to people. The debts will be repaid, one way or another. They must be, so he must be strong.
There’s another side to him, though, and I have the feeling I am one of the very few people who gets to see that side.
There’s a side to Forwal that isn’t so strong, that isn’t so hardened.
“Oh, Forwal,” I move forward and come up behind him. I wrap my arms around him from behind, pulling his back to my chest. I lean my cheek against his back. “It wasn’t your fault,” I say. “They were scared. You couldn’t have done anything to prevent this, and you didn’t do anything wrong. They were just afraid.”
“We never found the second girl,” he whispers. “I don’t know what happened to her.” I continue to hold him tightly, and I just focus on breathing.
In and out.
In and out.
In and out.
We can do this. We can get through this moment. We can do this and somehow, everything will be okay.
“What about the third girl?” I shouldn’t ask, but I suddenly need to know. I desperately need to understand, and Forwal might not be as forthcoming with information in the future. “Did you lock her in the dungeon, too?”
He nods, but doesn’t speak for a long time, and I wonder what he’s thinking. I wonder what makes him think of the other women, of the ones who came before. I wonder what makes him consider these memories from the past.
I wonder what makes Forwal go to that place.
There’s so much about him that no one knows. He’s a mysterious recluse: someone people need, but whom they are terribly afraid of. He’s someone who doesn’t ask for what he wants. He simply demands it and he receives what he asks for.
Demanding is always easier, though, because you don’t have to deal with the possibility of being rejected. No one is going to tell you no if you don’t give them a choice. No one is going to embarrass you or humiliate you by turning you down. When you demand, you receive. When you ask, you take a risk.
“She lived here in the dungeon for a very long time,” Forwal says.
“Did you save her?”
“I saved her.”
“From what?”
“A fate much worse than me.”
“She died,” I say, but it’s not a question. It’s obvious. Three times Forwal has tried to save people and three times they have died. This obviously hurts his heart. He’s obviously had to carry this burden alone.
He doesn’t say anything and even though I want to ask him more about it, even though I want to hear more about it, I know there isn’t time for that. Not right now.
“Mrs. Paughts sent me,” I tell him. He pulls away and turns around to face me. Confusion fills his face, but then it clouds over with suspicion.
“Why?”
“There’s a disturbance.”
“Someone is coming for me,” he says. This is not a question, and I nod slowly.
“Good,” he says. “Let them come. Now leave me.”
I watch him: tall and dark in the shadows. He’s big, and I understand why people call him a monster, but he isn’t. Not really. Not to me. Perhaps he shouldn’t be seen as a monster to anyone, but death changes people. Pain changes people.
There’s only so much one man can be expected to deal with alone before his heart breaks and cracks.
There’s only so much.
I should go back to Mrs. Paughts and find out what the staff is going to do to defend the mansion. If men from the village are coming, they’re going to try to destroy it. They’re going to try to destroy everything. They’ll damage the house and they won’t care who’s inside of it.
Their argument might be with Farwol, but their hate consumes them. They won’t care that innocent workers are hurt. They won’t care that I am hurt. They won’t care about anything but revenge.
“I don’t want to leave you.”
“Do it,” he growls at me, turning to stare at me with those dark, dark eyes.
“You can’t just demand that I obey you at all times,” I tell him. “I might be your prisoner, but I am more than that.”
“You are not. You are nothing else to me.”
It’s a lie, but I’ll let him have it. I know I’m special to Farwol. I know I’m different. It’s obvious in the way he treats me, in the way he protects me. He cares about me deeply. He just doesn’t know what to do with those feelings because he’s never experienced them before.
He doesn’t know how to put into words that I’m not the same as all the other people in the world.
I want to reach for him, to take his hand and promise it’s going to be okay, but before I can, the banging starts, and the mansion begins to shake.
Chapter 11
The villagers are determined to break into the mansion. The solid wooden doors won’t hold them out for long. Not when they’re yelling for Forwal. Not when
they’re demanding his head.
“What did you ever do to them?” I ask, crossing to the dungeon window to peek out the front of the mansion. “You’ve never done them wrong. They have no reason to hate you.”
I’m not scared of the villagers. Perhaps I should be. Forwal probably has some sort of escape plan or attack protocol in place. Mrs. Paughts was anxious for me to find him, but she didn’t seem scared or afraid. She just seemed a little bit nervous.
It’s not fair that these men should come here now to attack him. They have no business doing so. They have no business coming for the man I love.
This is our home.
I’m more angry than I am scared.
Fuck these men for coming here, for coming in the middle of the day, for thinking they can just attack and get away with it.
I look outside in time to see several men walking down the path to the house. There are already three men at the door, hitting it with their fists. They’ll never break in that way, but then, if they get enough people, maybe they’ll figure out a way.
Forwal looks sad, but resigned to his fate. He looks like he knows they’ve been planning this, like he expected to go out this way.
And then I realize he’s not going to save us.
He’s not going to fight them.
His face is shrouded in sadness, and he’s not going to rescue us.
Not this time.
“You can’t just give up,” I say, looking from him to the window and back again. “You just can’t. You have to do something. Don’t you have a plan? Do you have weapons? What do we do, Forwal?”
“The world is not as simple as you seem to think it is.”
“At least I’m trying!” I hit the glass window. It wobbles, but doesn’t shatter. It should. It should shatter and break and fall into a million pieces because that’s what I feel like my heart is doing right now.
“You should go,” he says. “They won’t hurt you. You’re one of them.”
“I will never go back to them.”
Forwal stares at the wall, but something tells me he’s not thinking of the stone that lines the sides of the room. No, he’s somewhere else, somewhere in his head. He’s somewhere I’m never going to get to be and he’s thinking about something I’ll never get to understand.
He’s not who I thought he was the day he took me. There’s something dark and dangerous about him, something deadly, but there’s also something broken.
He is damaged, perhaps beyond repair.
“What should we do?” There are more people coming out. I can see at least 15 men, including one I know very well. “My father is here,” I point to the window. The familiar face isn’t a welcome one. I can’t explain why seeing him makes me feel uncomfortable. I should miss my father. I should pine for him, but I don’t.
“You need to leave,” Forwal repeats. “But do not go back to your father’s home.”
“Why not?”
He’s silent.
“Tell me.”
Still, Forwal doesn’t speak. He doesn’t move. He just watches me, waiting. When he came for me, I was terrified, horrified. When I crawled under the bed to hide, I was so scared I thought my world was ending, but now I know there is more to life than the people who raise you.
“The man my father paid off. What did he see?”
Forwal told me my father had been caught. Someone saw something they weren’t supposed to, and my father went to Forwal for a loan. Who had seen him doing something? What had he done that was so terrible?
“Your father’s job,” Forwal says. “What is it?”
The sound of yelling from outside fades as I concentrate on what Forwal is asking me. It’s a strange question and I’m not sure why he’s bringing this up now. Why would he care what my father’s position in the village might be? What does that have to do with the men trying to break into the building?
I’m sure the employees have barred the front door. The staff is likely arming themselves, ready to go to fight for Forwal. They all seem to like him. At the very least, they respect him.
“He’s a butcher.”
“A good one, I’m told.”
“The best in the village. No one can compete with his hams.”
Forwal nods and turns, leaning back against the wall. He crosses his ankles. This gives him a casual, relaxed look. He doesn’t seem nervous or bothered by these questions or by my answers. Then again, I suspect he already knows what my answers are going to be before I offer them, so I’m not sure why he’s even going through the trouble of asking me.
Maybe he just wants to see if I’ll lie.
Forwal is clever, though, and he’s sneaky. He’s always two steps ahead of other people. Perhaps he’s trying to get me to truly think about my childhood, about what I thought I knew, but he doesn’t realize that I don’t want to.
Or he simply doesn’t care.
“And your father spends quite a bit of time at his shop, doesn’t he?”
“You know he does.”
“And he doesn’t have any other employees.”
This one isn’t a question.
“No, he doesn’t. Johnny-boy worked there for a bit, but he left to go live with his aunt.”
“And who told you that?”
“Johnny-boy told my father the day he quit, and my father told me.”
“There is no aunt,” Forwal says. “Johnny-boy is dead, and your father is the one who killed him.”
I’m silent for a minute because I can’t quite believe what he’s suggesting, what he’s saying. This can’t be true. It simply cannot be true. My father would never do this to me. He would never hurt anyone, much less his favorite employee.
“No,” I shake my head, finally speaking. “This is a mistake.”
“It’s not a mistake,” Forwal says. He’s silent, still. He seems much too calm for this news he’s delivering, and I instantly wonder what else he’s going to tell me tonight.
“My father doesn’t hurt people.”
“On the contrary, my love,” Forwal’s eyes are heavy as he lowers his voice and tells me the words I never thought I’d hear. “Your father is very, very good at hurting people, and he’s gotten into trouble for it before.”
I let the words sink in.
I let them roll over me in a wave, and even though I don’t want to accept this, the realization that he’s being truthful takes me by surprise. Forwal has done many things, but he has never lied to me, and I don’t think he would start now.
I feel sick.
I think of my father, of the man who raised me, and I wonder how I never saw this before. The signs were there: the late nights at his shop, the nights he returned home covered in blood that wasn’t his, the times he had strange injuries on his body. He always had an excuse.
It was an excitable pig, but it had to be slaughtered.
This one was messier than usual.
I had to work late to finish up a special order.
He always knew just what to say to keep me calm, to keep me complacent. My father is a murderer, and I had no idea.
Forwal did.
“That’s why you took me,” I whisper. “You knew.”
“If I hadn’t claimed your father’s debt when I did, someone else would have claimed it, and trust me when I tell you they wouldn’t be half as kind to you as I am.”
“You can’t let them take you tonight. You can’t let them hurt you.” I shouldn’t feel the pull to Forwal that I do. I shouldn’t feel comfortable with him, shouldn’t feel safe with him. At the end of the day, I should fear the man who stole me from my home. It’s unreasonable to believe my captor when he says he was saving me, yet somehow, that’s exactly what I’m doing.
I can’t stand the thought of him being taken, damaged. I can’t handle the idea that he might be hurt by the men from the village.
Before he can do anything, though, Fortune and Gauge burst through the door.
“It’s time,” Fortune says.
“Th
ey’ve come,” Guage adds.
Forwal obviously knows this, but he doesn’t panic or react. He just walks to me and kisses me on the forehead.
“You have been perfect,” he whispers. “But you cannot leave now. You had a chance, Evelyn. Remember that.”
Before his words register in my mind, Fortune grabs me and hoists me over his shoulder so I’m hanging upside down. He holds me firmly in place and carries me quickly from the room.
“Stop! Put me down!”
“Can’t do that, miss.”
“You have to. Put me down! He needs me!”
“Master needs no one but himself, miss. The sooner you realize that, the better off you’ll be.”
Chapter 12
Fortune takes me to the bedroom I share with Forwal, and he deposits me there.
“Please,” I whisper. “Don’t leave me here.”
“Evelyn,” he turns to me, using my name for the very first time. “You’re good for him, but he is not a good man. Do not make the mistake of thinking that he is.”
Then he leaves, locking the door, and I am alone.
I immediately rush to the window and plaster my face to the glass. I can see the villagers outside. I can see them pushing and ramming the door. I can see them trying to break in, and then I see the first one fall.
I look again as another man falls, and then another. It’s all happening so fast that I don’t realize why they’re falling at first until one of them rolls over and I see it.
Arrows.
Someone is shooting arrows at them.
Forwal has come through.
For a man who said he was good for nothing, for a man who said he was useless, Forwal somehow decided to defend his home, to defend his place. He somehow decided that fighting for me was worth it.
He’s going to save us.
One by one, the men fall to the ground, and soon only my father is left. Fortune and Gauge, along with a few other men, go out the front door of the mansion and surround him. My father’s only weapon is a knife. He holds it in front of him like a shield, like it’s going to save him.
He holds it as if it’s going to offer him some sort of protection, but there are simply too many of them.