by Tessa Adams
I glare at him, say that I’ll never go anywhere with him again. He shakes his head sadly but it doesn’t matter because then we’re at the lake and he’s kissing me like it’s the last thing he’ll ever do. I want to resist, to push him away, but it’s been so long and he feels so good that I end up wrapping myself around him, pressing my body flush against his and kissing him with all the emotion I’ve locked deep inside myself.
That’s when he disappears a second time and I’m left alone, stumbling barefoot through the rain-slicked forest in the middle of the night. It’s like a replay of the night I first met him. I’m barefoot and frightened, and a part of me knows that I need to turn back. Need to find help. But I can’t stop. There’s this compulsion pulling me forward, this current deep inside of me that won’t let me stray a foot off the given path.
My bare feet make a squishing sound as they sink into the waterlogged earth of the forest, followed by a loud, sucking noise as I wrestle them back out and take another step forward. Squish, suck, squish, suck…I concentrate on the noise in an effort to keep myself sane. To keep my attention focused on something besides what’s waiting for me at the end of this ill-advised trip through the woods.
I’m wrong, I tell myself desperately, even as I continue to put one foot in front of the other. This isn’t the same. It can’t be. It just can’t be, because if it is, I’m afraid I’ll start screaming and never stop.
It’s been nearly eight years since the last time—the first time—and I—I squash the rest of the thought like I would a particularly disgusting bug. I’m not ready to go there yet, just can’t acknowledge that that is what this late-night foray into the patchy wilderness around Ipswitch is all about. But even as I refuse to give the thought purchase, even as I lie to myself, the truth niggles through.
Somehow, it always does.
The wind picks up, turning the heavy rain into whips that lash against me. It stings the bare skin of my arms and legs and not for the first time I wish I had taken the extra five minutes to change out of my ridiculous party dress. While the hot pink silk was perfect for my birthday party, it leaves much to be desired when tromping through a wet, snarly forest at close to dawn.
Or whatever time it is—I can’t be sure. Time is a nebulous thing for me at the best of occasions and now—out here—it’s anyone’s guess how many minutes have passed since I started on this journey.
In an effort to get my bearings, I glance behind me, hoping that I am still close enough to see the merry sparkle of the town lights in the distance. But, like the smooth, rich sound of Declan’s voice in my ear, they have faded into oblivion.
I am on my own.
But then, these days, I almost always am. It’s the curse of my gift. Or the gift of my curse—I haven’t yet figured out which arrangement of words is most accurate. In the end, I suppose it doesn’t really matter. I’m latent, powerless, undesirable in the world of magic. All of which I’m normally fine with—I swear I am—but that doesn’t explain what I’m doing out here, stumbling around in the dark looking for God only knows what.
It’s not the same as last time, I tell myself again firmly. I’m in a different part of the forest and I’m not nineteen anymore. Nothing is going to happen out here. To me or anyone else.
The storm is crazy loud now, thunder booming and rain falling in torrents. Every once in a while lightning scrolls across the sky, illuminating the world I have walked so blindly into. More than once, between flashes, I have stumbled over shallow roots. More than once I have plowed straight into the thick trunk of a tree.
I put my hand to my head, where it still stings from my last close encounter with a branch. I wonder if I am bleeding—assume that I probably am—but the rain is coming down so hard and I am so wet that it makes it impossible to tell.
I’m not normally so careless, but this compulsion is making me clumsy. Making me slow and more than a little crazy. Or maybe that’s the belladonna?
I trip again, bang my shoulder hard against a tree. Pain shoots through my back and down my arm, and I tell myself to turn around. To go back. Whatever is out here can wait until the morning, wait until I’m not risking life and limb with every step I take deeper into the dark obsidian of the forest.
The thought makes perfect sense, and still I don’t turn around. I can’t. No matter how I try to convince myself otherwise, I know that tonight I don’t have a hope of moving my feet in any direction but forward. I am a slave to the sensation that has wrapped itself around me—much more frenetic, much more terrible, than it was that time eight years ago—until there isn’t an inch of my body that isn’t on fire as I stumble around out here in the middle of hell.
I want to go back, but I can’t. It’s like someone has wrapped a wire pulsing with electricity all around my torso, has burrowed the end of that wire straight inside of my stomach so that every molecule of my being feels like it’s being lit up by thousands of watts of electricity. With each breath I take, with each moment I resist, the flame grows hotter. And then it’s like someone starts to tug on that line, to reel it in—to reel me in—yanking me closer and closer to destruction, to devastation, with each step that I take.
The more I struggle, the harder they pull—which only makes me struggle more. It’s a vicious circle, one I have no hope of escaping.
Suddenly the burn ratchets up a thousand volts, jangling every nerve ending I have. It sears my skin, my lungs, every organ in my body and for long seconds I wonder if I’m in the middle of being struck by lightning once again.
It isn’t lightning that’s ripping through me, though. It’s the knowledge that I am close to the discarded.
Close to the raped, murdered, mutilated, burned, destroyed.
Close to the forgotten.
Even as I wonder who she is, images of her last moments tear through my brain with the power of a jackhammer.
She fought hard, this one, kicking and screaming and struggling, while he raped her. She clawed his face, pulled his hair, bit at him until he slammed her headfirst into the wall. Then she didn’t fight anymore, even as he nearly ripped her apart.
For a second my own thoughts go even more cloudy, more confused. There’s a ringing in my ears and a sickness in my belly that have nothing to do with my own situation and everything to do with hers.
This is what she felt like in those last few moments—disoriented, confused, in pain. So much pain.
I try to shake it off, to concentrate on the here and now, but it’s impossible. Her agony is all-consuming and it hits me like a runaway semi, rips me right off my feet and sends me tumbling into the muck.
I gasp for breath, start to scramble back to my feet, but that invisible force has me pinned to the earth. Fear rips through me, and as I feel his hands closing around my throat, I tell myself desperately that it isn’t real. That it isn’t happening—not now. Not anymore. I am not this poor girl and he, the monster who did this, is far away from this desolate dumping ground.
It almost works.
At least until lightning splits through the sky, so bright and omnipresent that it illuminates everything around me for one heart-stopping second.
The trees, with their long, leafless branches.
The large rocks strewn along the side of the makeshift path I have been wandering.
The huge mound of newly disturbed dirt that I am standing only inches from.
In that split second, as light fills up the world all around me, scorching my retinas and making me slam my hands against my eyes in a futile bid for protection, I know that I have found her.
I drop to my knees and begin to dig.
I’m not at it very long before I touch something that isn’t dirt. Though it’s still dark outside, I know right away that the cold, stiff thing I have found is human. The knowledge is deep inside of me.
The second my fingers close around the slender appendage—I’m guessing it’s an arm—images slam through me, more powerful and real than any that have come before. Her long b
lack hair is covering her face and she’s screaming, her fingers curled into claws as she tries for his face. But he keeps his head turned away from her so that her sad, weak defenses bounce harmlessly off his shoulders and the back of his skull.
I feel her pain, her terror, as if it is my own and the still lucid part of my brain screams at me to let go of her, to scramble backward, to run far and fast in the opposite direction.
I can’t move, can’t step away. Can’t do anything but kneel here, holding on to her and reliving every second of her last minutes on earth.
A cry splits the air and it takes me a second to realize that it is me. That I am the one making the high, keening noise that falls somewhere between a scream and a whimper. And then suddenly Declan is here again, holding me, burying my face against his chest as he moves us away from the body. Away from what is left of that poor, poor girl.
The second his arms come around me, the pain lessens, as if he is somehow muffling the connection between me and the dead girl.
“What’s going on?” I demand, sobs wracking my body. “What’s happening to me?”
“You really don’t know?” He pulls back to look at me with those mysterious, onyx eyes of his and the noise inside my head gets bad again.
“No!” My fingers tangle in the wet fabric of his shirt, claw at the firm, resilient flesh beneath as I struggle to get closer to him. Struggle to make it stop. When he’s touching me, nothing seems quite as bad as it really is.
He curses softly, strokes a not quite steady hand down the back of my head, over my short black hair. “Sssh,” he whispers to me. “It’s going to be okay, Xandra. I promise, it’s going to be okay.”
“How?” The word is pulled from deep inside of me. “I felt her die, Declan, felt everything that bastard did to her deep inside of me, like it was happening to me. And it won’t stop. It just keeps playing in my head, over and over again. I feel like I’m losing my mind and I can’t make it stop.”
He stiffens against me, his whole body going rigid with a fury I can’t begin to understand. Long seconds pass before he finally says, “I can make it stop.”
He speaks with such conviction that it’s easy to believe him, especially when the dead girl’s voice stops speaking to me inside my head. “How?” I whisper. “Please, tell me what to do.”
He doesn’t answer and before I can press him, help arrives in the form of the Ipswitch police department and my parents. I’m hugged and coddled by my mother, by my father, by the police chief who is also my godfather, and long minutes go by before I realize that I can no longer feel Declan.
I look around desperately, hoping to catch a glimpse of him, but he isn’t here. The buzzing in my head is back even worse than before, her pleas articulating themselves inside me—one after the other—now that Declan is no longer here to keep them at bay.
They rise up, overwhelm me, and that’s when I start to scream. This time I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to stop.
Three
Rachael’s hand crashes against my cheek. “Come on, Xandra! Snap out of it.”
“What’s wrong with her?” my mother demands hoarsely. “What’s she doing out here in the rain?”
“She’s hallucinating, Mom. Thanks to you and your bright ideas.”
“I didn’t know—” My mom stops speaking abruptly and I wish I could do the same. Could just close my mouth and stop the god-awful racket spilling out of me in all directions.
But it’s impossible. I’m lost inside the hallucination, inside the dream that’s actually a memory but feels like something else. Something more.
Rachael slaps me again and this time I slap back. She seems to take this as an encouraging sign, because the shaking stops even as her voice grows louder. “Come on, Xandra. Come back to us.”
It takes a little while, but eventually I do just that, locking the screams deep inside myself.
“She’s dead.” They are the first lucid words I can form.
“Who’s dead?” my mother asks, her eyes filled with concern even as she tries to wrap her arms around me.
I stay stiff, not yet willing to forgive her for the torture of the last few hours.
“It’s just a dream,” Rachael says. “She’s drugged. Remember?”
She’s talking to my mother, but I nod anyway. I know she’s right. Even at its most terrible, what I’d just experienced had simply been a dream. A memory of my nineteenth birthday, that long ago night, come back to haunt me. That’s assuming it had ever really left.
Still, something feels weird, off, and I wrack my brain trying to figure out what it is. Pulling away from my mom and sister, I stumble to my feet.
For the first time since I came around, I realize that it wasn’t all a dream. I’m outside, wind and rain licking at my face and dormant peach trees all around me. My feet are buried in mud.
The urge to scream wells up with the memories, but this time I’m the one who slaps it back. Belladonna or not, I’m stronger than this. Yanking my feet free, I start to stagger back down the path toward home.
“Where are you going now?” my mother asks, her voice rife with concern.
I don’t bother answering as I shuffle down the path to the house. With every step, I’m conscious of Rachael and my mom behind me and the memories all around me. I ignore them all as I stumble up the stairs to the back door and then down the hall into the bathroom, figuring my destination is self-explanatory. Besides, after the crazy, mixed-up acid trip of the last few hours, I don’t trust myself to say anything nice to my mother.
I force myself into the shower, let the steaming water parboil me for a while as I try to make sense of my jumbled thoughts. It was just a dream, I remind myself again. It couldn’t be anything else. After all, Declan was there, as was Uncle Mike, my godfather, and he’d died nearly five years ago. Because of the drug, I was open, vulnerable, and the memories I’ve suppressed for so long had come rushing back. That’s all there is to it. There is no other girl lost in the woods waiting for me to find her.
So why do I feel so out of sorts then? Like my entire world is about to come crashing down on me? One belladonna poisoning and it’s as if the whole existence I’ve built for myself away from here doesn’t exist. Which is crazy. I’m a successful business owner in Austin, have friends and a life that have nothing to do with the person I once was. One day, no matter how crazy, can’t erase all that.
And still the hallucination niggles at me. I climb out of the shower, dry myself off. Do everything in my power not to think about Declan. I’ve only ever seen him in person that one time, right after my party, though he’s haunted my dreams ever since.
I thought, after I went away from here, got an education and a job, dated a few men, that the memories of him would fade away. But they haven’t. I’m stuck with them the same way I’m stuck with the stupid Seba in the middle of my palm. Not because I’m pining for him—goddess forbid—but because something about his magic reaches out to me, connects us. If I could identify it, if I could figure out what it was, I would sever it completely.
But I can’t figure it out, so I’m stuck with him creeping into my dreams when I’m at my most tired and unguarded. Once, when I first got to Austin, I poured the whole story out to a shrink—minus the magic parts, of course. He told me it was normal for me to dream of Declan, considering how he’s so tied into the worst night of my life.
And yet, today excluded, very little of what I dream about him feels like a nightmare.
That night by the lake, the night of my nineteenth birthday, we’d talked for hours. Had kissed and touched until I’d felt more connected to him than any other human being ever. He’d bowled me over and after a few hours I’d been seriously thinking about taking the next step. About giving up my virginity to Declan. He hadn’t allowed things to go that far, though, had refused to let anything get out of hand.
I’d thought it was because he was beginning to fall for me as I was falling for him, but in the end, it was the exact opp
osite. He’d walked away like I was nothing and, except for his continued appearances in my dreams, I haven’t seen him since.
Which is exactly how I like it. Stupid, one-night crushes aside, my new life is exactly the way I want it.
Feeling better than I have since I got to Ipswitch, I reach for a towel to dry my hair, and that’s when I get my first real glimpse of myself in the mirror. I look like hell—again to be expected after the morning I’ve had—though everything is the same as it’s always been. Same purple eyes. Same too-full lips. Same pale skin and freckles across my nose. Same black hair—
I freeze then, staring in dismay at my short, razor-edged cut. It’s the same cut that was in the dream/hallucination/whatever the hell I’d just had and it’s the same cut I’ve worn for the last four years. It isn’t, however, the same hairstyle I’d had back when I’d known Declan.
And yet, in the dream, it had been so clear. He’d held me, had run his hand over my cropped hair even though, when he’d known me, my hair had skimmed my waist.
Another trick of my doped up mind? I wonder. Or something more?
For the first time since I walked away from that forest so many years ago, I strain to remember the details. Hot pink dress, pouring rain, Declan holding me. All of those memories check out. It’s just the hair that’s out of place. Just the hair that doesn’t fit. My hair…and Lucy’s.
Horror swamps me as I remember what I had once forced myself to forget. Lucy had short blond curls streaked with blue. I’d seen them in her struggle with her killer, then seen them again as they exhumed her body.
The woman in my hallucination today hadn’t had those cute, multicolored curls. No, her hair had been long and black and straight.
My knees buckle at the thought and I catch myself against the vanity, then hold on for dear life as the truth finally sinks in.
Either I’m losing my mind and giving in to drug-induced paranoia, or there’s another girl out there in the forest, just waiting to be discovered.
