Mack shivered, his teeth chattering.
Don’t say it, he thought. If you don’t say it, it’s not true, but whether he voiced it or not, the thought reverberated in his head: We’re lost.
The Stoneroot Forest was not a good place to get lost. Miles of woods, and the cold could kill you in a night, especially when you added the rain. In September, the temperature shouldn’t drop below forty, but only a moron staked his life on it.
Mack had never been lost in the Stoneroot Forest in his life. He’d grown up there, after all, spending weeks at the cabin with his Uncle Byron, hunting and fishing and escaping the rough hands of his father. He’d learned the woods as thoroughly as his own bedroom. He’d never gotten lost in them, not once in his life.
He dug through his pack but knew he wouldn’t find a compass. He never carried one. He’d never needed one.
Misty barked and ran off again, vanishing into the fog.
“Misty,” he yelled, but she didn’t return.
Far off, he heard a bark, as if in a matter of seconds, she’d covered a mile of woods.
He tried to follow the sound, but already it had faded.
“Misty,” he yelled again, uneasy at the panic edging his voice.
He took a deep breath and opened his pack, digging for the dried beef he’d dropped in that morning. He dug until his fingers hit something.
He frowned as he drew the object out.
He held the leather satchel full of stones.
“What the hell?” he grumbled. He stuffed it into another pouch, trying to shake off the quiver tugging at his spine. “I thought I grabbed the jerky, is all,” he told no one.
But then his hand hit the small plastic bag that held the jerky. He refused to think about it. He opened the bag, popped a hunk of dried meat in his mouth, and trudged on, calling out for Misty.
As he walked, a branch snapped behind him. He spun, expecting to see his dog.
Instead, far in the distance, obscured by the fog, a tall man stood in the forest. He was a black silhouette in a forest of equally dark trees, but the shape of the man was clear.
Mack waved, started to walk toward him, and then paused. Something about the man felt wrong.
Mack’s mind flashed to the figure he’d imagined the night before. But of course, there’d been no man, merely a trick of his troubled mind.
He watched the man, waited to see if he waved back.
When he didn’t, Mack turned and continued the way he’d been going. He walked for several minutes, listening, growing desperate in his search for a familiar tree.
Mack twisted around. The man had gained on him.
His heart gave a little skip.
He turned and picked up his pace. He ran a few yards before looking back.
Again, the man stood closer, tall, dark, and faceless in the fog.
“Just punch the son of a bitch,” Mack chastised himself. “Ask him what he wants.” But as he started forward, a crippling fear washed over him, as if someone had poured a cup of ice water over his head. He faltered, and looked up to see the man closer still.
Mack turned and bolted into the trees. His breath hitched and his legs burned, but he didn’t stop.
Suddenly the thing was on him, leaves and twigs snapping, and Mack tried to run harder, but it was gaining on him. He felt the man touch his back.
He remembered the knife in the skeleton’s ribs and waited for the hot slash across his exposed neck.
He cried out and flinched away, but then Misty’s growl filled the quiet.
Mack dove to the ground and rolled, ready to face the man who pursued him, but the forest stood empty save for his dog, who jumped on him and licked his face wildly.
Mack lay, elbows propped beneath him, staring into the receding mist.
The man had vanished.
When Mack stood, he spotted the beech tree and dropped to his knees.
“Thank you, thank you,” he murmured, imagining not a God guiding him home, but his mother somewhere up in the gray sky watching over him.
Misty nudged him as if she preferred they keep moving, and he agreed. He scrambled back to his feet, and he and Misty trotted back to the cabin.
Chapter 9
Liv
“Stephen.” When he looked up at her, his eyes revealed only confusion. But Liv’s heart gave a little jump. He looked older, sure. But the same pale blue eyes gazed from his handsome face. He’d lost the smoothness of his youth. The bones of his face created depth to his jaw and brow-line.
“Liv?” He sounded curious, not excited or disappointed. He turned to a woman in a white smock. “Go ahead without me. I’ll be in shortly.”
The woman nodded and hurried away.
Liv took a step closer. Conflicting emotions raged within her. She’d missed Stephen, missed the closest friend she’d ever known, longed for him during some of those lonely years when she went home from the orphanage night after night, read a few pages of a book, and drifted off to sleep.
But she’d loathed him too. Hated how she’d followed his strange obsessions, hated that she’d committed the ultimate sin on his behalf.
He didn’t hug her, but when she stopped before him, he took her hand and squeezed.
“How are you, Liv? It’s been…”
“Twenty years,” she whispered.
Twenty years to the day, soon. Twenty years since that fateful All Hallows’ Eve, the costume party… Liv could still smell the purple dahlias, and the blood.
She shook her head and cleared the memory.
“Your mother said you moved west…” he started, studying her face.
So, he had asked about her.
Sometimes she’d wondered in those intervening years if he’d simply walked the other way from which she ran.
“I did, for a few years. And then I ended up in Boston. I’ve been there for almost seventeen years.”
“Are you married? Children?”
Liv shook her head.
“There are children in my life. But none are my own.” Because I’m barren, she thought. I paid for our treachery with the lives of the children I’ll never have.
She didn’t know where such thoughts came from. How could she possibly know? But then she thought of George and all the things he’d told her about wisdom rooted deep in the belly. How a person could access all the secrets of the universe if they merely traveled into themselves and grew very still and silent.
‘The womb of the world lives inside of you, Volva, inside of us all. Ask her and she will tell you.’ Liv could see George as he said the words, daring her to look deep enough to know it all.
“Do you have children, Stephen?” she asked, breaking from his gaze.
He recoiled as if the suggestion disgusted him. He shook his head.
“No. I’m married to my work.” He gestured to the asylum.
“You’re a doctor? You followed your dream.”
He nodded.
“It wasn’t easy, but yes. It’s been very fulfilling.” His voice shifted on the word fulfilling, and Liv took a step back. She wondered what sorts of things he did as a psychiatrist, how long his reach had become.
As she studied the soaring asylum, her breath grew shallow. Gazing at the high spires rising from the brick buildings made her unsteady on her feet, and she looked to the ground to escape the dizziness.
“Magnificent, isn’t it? I can’t give you a tour. It’s a sanitarium, after all. But if you’d like, I can show you the offices.”
Liv sighed.
“Not today. There are things we need to talk about. Meet me later?”