He had it. First and Grant. The bartender filled in the blanks: two blocks over and one block down. Nerak enjoyed a final drag on the cigarette before allowing the bartender’s body to collapse beside the tavern’s loading dock, the wound on his wrist still wet.
At the corner of First and Grant, Nerak took a well-dressed woman, a financial analyst. She was home from work and taking out the rubbish, the only person outside in the street. Nerak had his answers almost before the woman died.
Jennifer and Hannah. They live right across the street. Three houses down. Tragic the way that girl disappeared. Her mother has never been the same. Used to be very cheerful, but losing her father and her daughter in the same year -
Nerak interrupted the dead woman’s soliloquy: he had everything he needed for now: Jennifer Sorenson was Hannah’s mother. So that’s where Steven went. She’ll have the portal.
He cast his thoughts ahead to examine the inside of the house. No one there. Not surprising; she would already be gone. Steven was reckless and overconfident, but he had not yet proven himself stupid.
‘Where have you gone, Jennifer Sorenson?’ Nerak asked out loud. ‘Perhaps a bit of time in your house will help me track you down.’ He laughed, the sound of a soul in Hell. As he climbed the stairs to Jennifer’s front door he wondered if his latest victim was a fan of Confederate Son chewing tobacco. ‘We must introduce you,’ he promised the hapless body.
Jennifer flipped on the indicator and hoped that being lost in the anonymity of the five o’clock rush hour would offer some protection from the creature hunting her. As the radio DJs cracked jokes about politics and religion, weight loss and divorce, she moved into the centre lane, strangers’ cars surrounding her on all sides and creating a living barrier to protect her from Steven Taylor’s demon.
She tried to decide where to go. Someplace no one would expect her to be, that’s what Steven had said, somewhere no one would think of finding her, because apparently, Nerak had the ability to read minds.
Jennifer had enough money to live comfortably for some time, even if that meant staying in hotels. She had stashed a lot of cash from the liquidation sale at Meyers Antiques in the metal strongbox down in the basement, though she wasn’t sure what she had planned to do with the money. The cheques and credit card receipts were all deposited at the bank, but she still had thousands of dollars tucked inside her tote bag. Jennifer had been feeling a little guilty about her taxes, but that was gone now: if the IRS knew the cash was to save lives, her own life, her daughter’s, and perhaps to help keep the country safe from an evil force with the ability to tear the fabric of the world apart, they might not mind if she kept a few dollars. Or, if they did, maybe they would make arrangements for her to have a corner cell, something with a view. Jennifer smiled. Being in traffic was good; it was helping. As her thoughts cleared, she made a decision.
With the Friday night ski traffic and a forest fire closing several lanes in Idaho Springs, it would be hours before she reached Silverthorn. She nestled herself back into the protective centre lane and thought that another six or seven hours of traffic would be fine with her.
‘The forest of what?’ Hannah spat a mouthful of tecan into the fire. The brown liquid sizzled into steam. ‘You can’t be serious. There has to be another way through.’
‘Not one that isn’t guarded by Malakasians,’ Hoyt explained. ‘They don’t bother with this particular pass because no one would dare come that way.’
‘Except us.’
‘Well, yes, there is that, but it will get us into Malakasia without them knowing.’ He tossed her an apple he had stolen from an orchard that morning. ‘And we may get right through the forest without incident.’
‘You don’t sound convinced, Hoyt.’ Hannah sounded sceptical. ‘The forest of ghosts, good Christ. All right. Um, what happens in the forest of ghosts? Do we meet Casper and the hitchhikers from the Haunted Mansion, or is there something else?’
Alen said, ‘You misunderstand, Hannah. There are no ghosts in the forest of ghosts.’
‘No ghosts in the forest of ghosts?’
‘Only those we bring with us.’
‘All right then, Churn, remind me not to bring any ghosts into the forest of ghosts. I want to go in alone and come out the other side entirely ghost-free. Can you help with a periodic reminder between now and then?’ Hannah’s sarcasm was not lost on the big mute, and Churn grunted a laugh. ‘Thanks, Churn – or am I correct in assuming it’s not that easy?’
‘Uh, no,’ Hoyt answered.
‘The forest of ghosts is an enchanted place along a narrow stretch of foothills south of the Great Pragan Range, the mountains separating us from Malakasia,’ Alen broke in. ‘No one knows how or when the forest developed its curious power, but many travellers have been lost so now no one wanders through there on purpose.’ His words carried a sense of finality that made Hannah shiver.
‘What does it do?’ she pressed.
‘To some, nothing, but to others, it ensnares their minds, trapping them with memories of times in their lives – good times, bad times; no one knows really, because so few have experienced the visions and lived to reach the other side. Of those who have survived, the stories are always the same: they were trapped by the enchanter or the spirit of the place, and shown visions of their lives, pictures of essential moments that had led up to this journey. They always had some ambition or great goal…’
‘And if I’m just out for a morning jog, it will leave me alone?’ Hannah considered the forest’s curious nature. ‘Why would it only target those pursuing lifelong goals?’
Alen went on, ‘Because it feeds on the lies we tell ourselves to soften the blow of our memories. Maybe it grows stronger every time it keeps one of us from reaching our potential or fulfilling a dream. If it can show us the mistakes we have made, the lies – however small or infrequent – we have told ourselves or others to get to this moment, then it can trip us, perhaps convince us to give up – or worse.’
‘Worse?’
‘To stay,’ Hoyt said. ‘We can’t be sure, but the forest may convince some travellers to wait there, reliving the same images from their past again and again until they succumb to hunger or thirst, completely oblivious to the fact that their lives are draining away while they re-enact some bygone moment.’
‘How does it know if we are pursuing something so emotionally important?’ Hannah was trying to find a flaw, a loophole through which she might slip without the forest’s detection.
‘I don’t know,’ Alen said simply. ‘Somehow it reads our dreams. It knows if we are chasing down the last stages of something in which we have invested our passion.’
‘So, of the four of us, who is in trouble?’ Hannah asked.
‘I certainly am,’ Alen replied. ‘Churn is also pursuing a lifelong desire for vengeance.’
Hannah gave the quiet giant a compassionate look; she could not imagine how he had suffered. The mute hadn’t hesitated when Alen told them they would have to make their way inside Welstar Palace to send her back to Colorado. Hoyt was convinced that Churn had been tortured, forced to watch his family die, and then beaten nearly to death before managing to escape. The Pragan healer had found Churn still strapped to several pine planks, as if the big man had torn down a wall to free himself.
Alen added, And you, Hannah.’
My life’s work? This? Nonsense. Hannah envisioned the faculty at the law school, cowled in black at last spring’s graduation ceremony. ‘This isn’t my life’s work. I’m not reaching any lifelong goals here. I just want out of this place. Granted, I would like to find Steven first, but if he is trying to get home as well, we may find him somewhere between here and there.’
‘Not necessarily your life’s work, Hannah,’ Hoyt rejoined the conversation, ‘but something in which you have invested your passion. This journey represents the most important thing you have done in – I don’t know – how long?’