***
I did start crying a few minutes after he left. Solitude just was not suiting me at all; in the silence, all alone, I could only think of Maura. I could only look back at everything she had been forced to suffer. Curled up on the couch, wrapped in a soft blanket I had found in the closet, I cried with my face buried in a pillow, sometimes watching the fire burn and sometimes staring at the ceiling, all the while praying that Penny didn’t awaken and find me in that state. When the second knock on the door came, I hiccupped a few times, and swiped at my eyes, praying that whoever it was would go away. Of course, it might have been Caspar, coming back to check on me again, but somehow, I knew that it wasn’t. If it was, I knew that I would rush to the door to answer it. For some reason, in that very short time I had known him, I had grown to rely on him. Somehow, despite only knowing him for an hour, I trusted him and knew that I could confide in him. Something about him made me feel so safe, even though it should have been impossible to feel that way after so short a time.
“Vi, it's me.”
Upon hearing Alice's voice, all of those thoughts erased themselves, and I threw open the door to greet her. I knew that she would try to comfort me, and her comfort would be nothing compared to his, but I needed company. I needed my best friend.
“Hey.” She hugged me tightly after I moved aside to let her in, and I held onto her and cried some more. Even after we had sat down on the couch, I continued to cry. It wasn't until I had gotten it all out of my system, at least for the time-being, that she commented on the obvious.
“It's really dark in here.”
“I haven't lit a fire.” I told her through the uncontrollable gasp for air that always follows crying heavily. “I should, but I haven't been able to.”
“I'll do it.” She stood up and moved through the darkness easily. Her eyes had changed over, and yet mine stayed the same. I was just too distraught to embrace the evolution.
When the fire roared to life in the grate, I saw for the first time that she had brought over two clay mugs, a small clay tea kettle, and two small tea-bags.
“Don gave me those.” She told me as she put the tea kettle, in which I could hear water sloshing around, over the fire. “I double checked with Rachel, and she says that they're basically like chamomile, but you don't need any honey or anything. She says it just relaxes you.”
“Are we going to start acting like the rabbit and Mad Hatter?”
“I would think that if I hadn't talked to Rachel first. I would think that Don was slipping us something like the Peace Fruit. That's what he is doing right now, by the way. He and a bunch of other people are in the main building up at the top of the path, celebrating our arrival with the Pangaeans.”
“No, he's not!” I exclaimed in rage. “He's celebrating?! Even after what he did, even after he said he was sorry, even though Brynn and Adam and so many other people are gone, and probably dead?!”
“Shit, I shouldn't have told you that.” She came back and sat beside me, “Vi, we've talked about this before. It's hard to believe it now, after what he's done and how terrible it was, but he will get what he deserves for it. One day, he'll pay a price...”
“That's only when people die, Allie. And he can't die! None of us can.” I stood up and started to pace around the room. After a few times back and forth, my foot caught under the rug, and I nearly face-planted onto the floor. In frustration that was so unwarranted by something so trivial, I kicked the leg of the coffee table and only pained my toe.
“Shit!” I exclaimed, before plopping back down onto the couch beside her. “Allie, I can't stand this. How am I supposed to live with him, knowing that he tortured her?! We had our differences, but she's been in my life pretty much since the day I was born! I'm going to have to see him every day and work under his rules, or lack of rules, forever. We're stuck with him forever.”
“That's not true.” Alice leaned forward and grasped my hands. “Think about it, Vi... He's the leader of us, and the Bachums are trying to hunt us down. Who do you think they're going to take out first? In fact, who do you think is going to be taken out first when someone in our camp tries to take control?”
“Do you really think that will happen?”
“In both scenarios, I think it is a sure thing. Don has been getting out of control.”
“Yeah, but he's letting us get out of control, too. That's why people love him. Because he's Hippie Don, with all his talk about being free, and loving one another, and working just for ourselves, but then, he turns around and beats people up, or worse, from what I've heard!”
“I heard that, too. Apparently, he's got a sadistic side. Who knew, right?”
“I didn't know! I never could have suspected that. I mean, look at him.”
She raised her eyebrows at me, and I got what she was trying to say without her actually speaking it out loud. Alice and I were reaching the level that most best friends eventually reach; we could communicate with looks as easily as we could with words; what one of us was thinking was generally known by the other long before it was said.
“You're right. It's like a Napoleon complex. But Allie, do you really think he's done all those terrible things that they said? I know what he did to Maura, and it was disgusting. It was uncalled for, and I will never forgive him for it. But apparently, he's like, really, really awful to those women.”
“Yeah, and they go along with it. Some of them, I'm not surprised that they want to do stuff like that with him. They're obsessed with him because he's powerful. He's the most powerful man in our camp, right, and everybody's sharing. No one is just with their boyfriends, girlfriends, husbands, and wives anymore.”
“No one except us.”
“And I want to keep it that way. I don't ever want to do what they're doing. It's disgusting.” She actually pulled a face when she thought about it. With a quick shake of her head, she stood up and walked over to the fire where water was bubbling over the sides of the teapot into the flames below. As the drops hit the flames, I could distinctly hear a pop and violent fizzling, when a normal human ear would hear nothing. Outside, far off in the distance, a wolf howled, and a lion roared.
“What is that?” Alice asked, and her head jerked up immediately.
“I don't know. Mine just clicked on, too.”
We stood up, and walked out onto the porch into the silent forest night. The wind had halted, and all around us, there was silence. Off in the distance, I could hear the faint sounds of music and the laughter of many as they reveled in their relief and joy. But where we were, far back near the border of the village close to the trees, no birds sang, no animals roared, or chirped, or even moved. The only presence that was moving was one that was very old and, beyond any shadow of doubt, very evil.
“Do you think it's a Shadow?” I whispered to Alice.
She shook her head and rubbed her arms quickly.
“No, I would definitely know it if it was a Shadow. Whatever it is, it feels...”
Her eyes widened, and her jaw fell open multiple times as she tried to say something. Even as I recognized that I was confused by her sudden show of fear, a cold, gripping feeling in my chest warned me that once I turned around, I would be just as afraid. Still, curiosity gets the better of our kind almost always, and sometimes against our will; it was only my feet turning me around, even as my mind protested.
Pangaea is a land of many creatures we didn't know on Earth. There had long been talk amongst those who were more informed on the Earth's history (among us survivors, I should say) that the mythological creatures we encountered, gentle and monstrous alike, had once roamed on our home planet. However, after years of drastic, sudden change, those species, for whatever reason, had died out, and after many more years, they were forgotten completely, or were relegated to the same thought-sphere where other fantastical things were contemplated but never believed. Knowing all of that, and even after being attacked by one of those strange breeds, I still found myself being surprised. I th
ink it is safe to say that we all did.
“It... jumped down...”Alice whispered, her voice trembling violently.
Even though I was expecting something strange and scary, a gasp escaped me upon seeing the thing that was on the ground below us.
Immediately on the other side of the ash circle, a strange man was standing, looking up at us almost hungrily. I had only seen that look of desire for harm and pain in the Shadows; all the other creatures were like our animals, harmful only if provoked. This creature, like the Shadows, looked like a human being, except for the way his hair seemed to be made of twisted branches ripped from the trees he dwelt in. His eyes were two horizontal slits, with just a single black dot, almost like a marble, it was so shiny, in between them. Black leaves covered his body everywhere from his neck, down his abnormally long arms, torso, and legs, to his large, clawed feet. His long, sharp fingers were clawed, as well, and tapping eerily against the tree he was standing beside. Even as he stared up at us, he was almost drooling, but saying nothing from his small, misshapen mouth.
“He... he was in... the tree... Came out of it…” Alice stammered out, but I was so busy staring that I barely heard her. “What do you think he is?”
There was something so hypnotic, so peaceful about the world when I stared into his eyes. Everything slowed down and quieted. My grief disappeared abruptly, and yet I felt no need to ask where it had gone in such a hurry. I felt no need to question anything. All I wanted was to walk down the stairs, approach the ash border, and take his outstretched hand. A voice was calling my name, but I was ignoring that person purposely. Perhaps he just looked scary. His voice told me that I was right about that; after I crossed over the border, I would see him differently. It was the magic of the forest-people with whom we were currently living that was making me see him as a grotesque woodland beast.
“Violet!” Alice pulled me away, and I swung back to hit her instantly. I had wanted to listen to his soothing whispers; they had been more calming than the lullabies Maura had sung to me when I was a little girl...
Maura. Just like that, my senses returned.
“Oh, my God, did I actually hit you?!”
As the words left my mouth, I realized that my wrists were clenched in her hands.
“You can't look at it!” She exclaimed, “I was, and it didn't do that to me, but you got all weird. You stopped talking, and you weren't responding to me, and you were saying things in this weird language!”
“I was saying things out loud?” I asked in horror.
“You were kind of muttering them, but...” She shook her head. “What did it say to you?”
“It wanted me to come down there and go with it into the woods. The forest-people are bad. It was saying that the forest-people are bad.”
“Oh, yeah, like we're going to take the word of a freaky tree demon!” She leaned over the side of the railing and shouted, “Go away!”
Then, she took my arm and turned me around. Even after we were seated on the couch again, and gratefully drinking the calming tea Don had suggested, I couldn't shake the feeling that the words of that creature were true. It was more than likely a ploy to get me to follow him into the woods, where he would surely rip me apart with his bare tree hands, but that soothing chill in my chest, the one that had quieted all of my guilt and sadness... It had been so real, so wonderfully serene, almost perfect...
The food was perfect, too, Violet Mae.
In my head, Brynna was shaking her own and frowning at me over the top of her glasses in disdainful condemnation of my momentary naivety and stupidity. Her voice should have been enough to shake the feeling, but the tree-man's was still too strong.
The forest-people are bad.
The effects of the tea finally settled, and I realized that I was slowly descending into a heavy, peaceful realm of sleep where none of it mattered. Nothing existed anymore but the most soothing memories my mind held close. Just as the shores of the real world disappeared from my view, I swore to return to the harsh reality of what I had just been contemplating. I swore to return from numb, blissful ignorance to heightened, harrowing awareness.
Brynna told me firmly that we could not afford to let our guards down now, but after that, I heard nothing but the sound of my heart.