The Forest's Son

by Aleo, Cyndy

  ~

  Bożena creeps out of Tadeusz’s flat in the early hours before dawn, when even the birds have yet to begin chirping their morning greetings. She takes money from his wallet for a cab which will leave her a mile or so from the forest. The cab ride will be her one chance to clear her mind of the events of the past few hours, so her sisters won't sense her transgressions.

  It's times like these she wonders if Edyta is right, if Grażyna's sin has tainted them all. Mostly, she wonders if Grażyna isn't the smartest one of them all: break free, throw off all the laws and conventions of the Dziwozony and have a different sort of life. Some nights it's harder for her to sneak away from Tadeusz's bed, the temptation is so strong to stay and be there when he wakes. What would it be like to play human? To be a wife? Has Grażyna done that? Settled down with her son and a man somewhere? How does she hide what she is if she has? How has she hidden what she is even if she hasn't taken a man? Eventually, humans must notice she doesn't age anywhere near as quickly as they do.

  Bożena sighs. This isn't helping to clear her mind. It’s adding too many complications, and she already has enough of them. Hiding the clothing and clearing her mind are enough for now. And while Tadeusz is sweet and tempting, she isn't sure he's enough to risk everything for. It's been nearly 200 years, and Edyta still asks almost every day when they can hunt down Grażyna and her child. Trying to stay here, or even in Kraków, with a Polish man? Suicide.

  Still, as she sheds the human clothing and hides it again in the tree, she allows herself just a few more moments of dreaming before she clears any thoughts from her mind that don’t concern the tribe. Living with Tadeusz, even waking with him a few mornings a week, cooking for him, having a human job, having any kind of baby that came to her without having to worry about killing the male children: all dreams. Human lives sound so much simpler, even in their complications. Maybe Grażyna has had a whole tribe of children on her own by now. Maybe there are even more males out there besides the one she fled with.

  She stuffs all her wondering into a tiny space in her mind and closes it off. She fills her mind with worrying about the tribe, about those who may be carrying children, about Edyta's vengeful thoughts about Grażyna, about the gathering they need to do in order to put stores back before winter. Waking to sky blue eyes gazing at her never even flits through her thoughts.

  10: Filling

  Vance is exactly where his mother pictured him, on his back, on top of the gold-and-white striped chenille bedspread, staring at his ceiling. He can sense his mother's presence downstairs, like she's waiting for him to walk down there and ask her all the things he wants to know, but he can't bring himself to leave the bed.

  He isn't sure he wants her answers.

  While he can't say things were fine before today, they had a rhythm to them that everyone was used to. There were expectations and roles and even he, as an empty space at the moment, had his spot. This morning had seemed fairly seamless, even with the rushing. There were instructions to be followed and everyone showed up at the appointed time and did what they were supposed to do.

  With one wrong move — on his part? on his mother’s? on Donovan’s? — one decision, everyone is different, and he doesn't know how to get it back. He doesn't have enough information.

  He sits up suddenly. More places do have information, though, that he can access if he wants to. The computer. His mother. Hidden pieces of his life are stored all over the place and tell a whole story he isn't sure he wants to know. With the information in all those places he would be able to change things, if he wants to. He can take them back to where they were before, or maybe make them better. He'll know why Donovan is so angry all the time, and maybe why his mother has the ability to change personalities right before his eyes and what makes her that way.

  The video he watched this morning gave him clues to finding the encrypted information on his hard drive, and he knows he can search for those clues, or maybe remember them on his own, but it will be wasting time. His mother has known all this time, and it makes no sense that he has all these computer files and boxes in his closet when all the answers have been with her. Unless he thinks he has been protecting her as well.

  His eyes shift between the computer and the door. Neither option for getting the information he wants makes more sense to him; neither seems safer, or riskier, for that matter. Ignoring the computer, he pulls on his boots, grabs a sweatshirt in case he needs it later and walks downstairs.

  His mother is waiting expectantly.

  “You have questions?”

  “Yes,” he says. “We have a car, right? Am I allowed to use it?”

  Something pings in the back of his mind about the car: that he never leaves his mother without a way of escape, which is why Donovan drives him to campus, but he ignores the anxiety that errant thought causes. He needs to escape. It feels … important that he do this right now, and his mother must agree with him, because she hands him the keys.

  “It will be fine. You will know what to do.”

  She doesn't even tell him where to find the car; she simply trusts he'll know where it is and how to drive it. Nor does she mention her personal safety, the issue bubbling up in the back of his mind. He brushes her cheek with a kiss automatically, without thinking of his actions, and she whispers, “Be safe, my Jakub.”

  The name. He’s heard it before, but he doesn't know where. It's his, though; he’s sure of it. She probably doesn't even realize that she called him a different name. Or maybe it wasn't a mistake. Maybe she's glad Donovan pulled all their secrets out of his closet. Maybe she wanted this Pandora's box opened for all of them. Maybe she wants to stop hiding who and what she is, too.

  He ignores the name slip and walks out to the garage, finding the car exactly where he knew it would be. Again, without thinking, he disconnects it from the charging system and is on his way before it hits him. He knows what he's doing, or at least his body does. He drives aimlessly, looking for nothing other than time alone with his thoughts, but he finds himself in town, if you could call it an actual town.

  The place has the look of a dying city. Some storefronts are boarded up, and there are a few that look like they soon will be: Brightly colored signs line the windows broadcasting going out of business sales, and those people desperate for a few hours' pay and willing to stand out front are wearing sandwich boards proclaiming, “GOING OUT OF BUSINESS SALE! 20 TO 60 PERCENT OFF! EVERYTHING MUST GO!” while pacing back and forth looking bored and sending text messages on their phones.

  It's closing in on five o'clock, and people are already leaving their offices and heading for cars and public transportation. They ignore the blight of the city and the texting people in sandwich boards, keeping their heads down. By focusing on their feet they can avoid the misery around them.

  Just like I have, he thinks. If I focus long enough on getting through each day and what I have to do, I can avoid thinking about what it must being doing to my mother, to Donovan, having to deal with me, having to deal with secrets. His mother knowing them, Donovan in the dark.

  He can't allow himself to think about Donovan. To wonder what makes her come back, day after day, knowing each time that it may be another day when she’s starting from scratch with a blank slate, trying to win him over once again.

  Even a best friend would grow tired of it after the first few times, he thinks. Even the most selfless person would want an active social life and boyfriends and a gaggle of girlfriends to discuss the boys with.

  He’s alone here, in this sea of people, just as he’s alone on campus. There are only two people who even begin to understand him. One he’s afraid will leave him, and the other he’s afraid of speaking to, because he's not sure he wants the answers she holds.

  He walks back to the car, staring at his feet the entire time like the rest of the people around him, drawing into himself and feeling the confines of his aloneness. He unlocks the car doors with a beep and gets in, but once he’s seated and has the
door closed behind him, there’s nowhere particular to go.

  He has no friends he can drop in on for an unexpected visit, and he hasn't ever been one for just hanging out somewhere for no purpose. He can't think of a single place he wants to be.

  He leans forward, resting his forehead on the steering wheel, debating, before he finally starts the car and heads back out of the city.

  11: Direction

  Donovan wakes with a sense of urgency. She doesn't remember falling asleep, but it can't have been that long ago, because she has that groggy, pulled-from-sleep feeling. She sits up on her bed, still fully dressed, and listens for a sign of whatever might have woken her. There’s nothing but silence.

  Her small, one-bedroom apartment isn't much, but it's hers. Her parents live just on the other side of the county, but she needed the space to be herself, and it’s worth playing the role of starving college student to have it, even if it often means ramen for a week when things run a little too close to zero in the bank account.

  Grace always seems to know when Donovan is a little too close to broke, though, and work will magically appear.

  After today, though, exactly how magic things are is up for debate.

  Sighing, she throws back the sadly pilled dark violet comforter and pads in bare feet to her microscopic galley kitchen to brew some tea. Whether the reason for waking up appears or not, she’s wide awake now, and she knows sleep isn't going to come easily until she's spent at least a little bit of time obsessing about everything she put off thinking about last night when she crashed.

  She puts the kettle on and bends over to scratch the ears of her contraband, non-landlord-approved Tonkinese cat.

  “Did something wake you, too, Satrina?”

  Both she and the cat jump when someone knocks on her door.

  The cat looks suspicious, but Donovan is torn between hopeful and wary. No one comes to her apartment, ever. It's like a hermit cave. Even Vance has been here rarely, and only when she’s dragged him along because she's forgotten something she needs for class.

  Caution tells her to keep the safety lock engaged when she opens the door. Hope wins out and has her throw the door wide to see him standing here, his wheat-blond hair nearly standing on end, probably the result of his nervous habit of pulling at it. His eyes are a muted, stormy gray, their whites a murky pink from bloodshot veins showing.

  “May I come in?” he asks.

  She doesn't hesitate. She takes a step back away from the door to make more room for him to walk in. She's not sure she’s ever actually entertained him in her apartment. Actually, she's not sure anyone has ever been in her apartment for more than a quick stop-in, other than her family and Satrina.

  “Can I get you anything?”

  “Nothing,” he says. “I just … May I sit?”

  Embarrassed, she gathers up the books and fleece blankets she left on the couch the night before. The mere idea of him being in her apartment is strange; the reality of him is altogether rattling. If she’s ever fantasized about him showing up unexpectedly, this is not how it played out in her imagination.

  “I don't know how to start,” he says.

  “So start anywhere.”

  “Then maybe I should say I'm sorry for how harsh my mother was to you. I have no idea where that came from. That — well, I'm not with it enough to know what's her and not her — but I don't think that was her at all.”

  “Oddly enough, I think that was more her than anything I've seen in all the time I've known you. But apologizing for your mother’s behavior isn’t why you're here. How did you figure out how to get here anyway?”

  “Phone mapping.” He grins, wryly, and her heart does a skip-thump. “Your address was in my phone. All I had to do was type it in, and it brought me here. I probably should have left myself that information in a note. Or a video.”

  “You hardly ever drive, though.”

  “I didn’t think I did, but I had to get out of the house. My mother didn't fight me at all. I have this feeling that everything’s changing, even though I'm not sure how things are supposed to be.”

  “I think you're right.”

  They sit in silence, staying at opposite ends of the couch from each other. Donovan picks at imaginary pieces of lint while taking surreptitious looks at Vance. He goes back to rubbing his hand almost obsessively over the top of his head, making his hair even more of a mess. It makes her sit on her hands to keep from leaping across the couch and running her fingers through his hair to comb it all back into place.

  The silence stretches between them: taffy pulled too taut until it's about to break apart in the middle.

  “Are you still going to talk to me—?”

  “Are you going to ask your mother—?”

  They both speak at once, their words tangling and twisting together while moving at cross-purposes.

  “Is that the most important thing to you?" he asks. "Is that all you're after? To know what the big secret is? To have all the answers?”

  He stands and stalks to the door, yanking it open.

  “This was a mistake,” he says, turning back to her. “I came here, thinking— I don't know what I was thinking. I was thinking that I needed you, that I need you. I couldn't go back home wondering if you'd be coming in the morning, so I found my way here, but all you want is information.”

  “That's not what I meant! I wasn't sure what to say, and that's just the first thing that came out. Please, come back in. I'm sorry. Please.”

  He closes the door at her request but doesn't move any further back into her apartment.

  “I just — This is coming out all wrong,” she continues. “I don't need any more answers. Honestly, I don't. Until you showed up here, I wasn't completely sure if I'd pick you up in the morning, but I don't see how I couldn't. You're my best friend.

  “I was asking only because I didn't know if you remember anything — if you know anything, and that’s why you came here. I don't know if anything’s changed between us. If you want me to stay away or to keep things the same … or something else.”

  “It's not fair to ask, but I wanted you — want you — to stay in my life. And to keep things the same. Or at least, same-ish.”

  She can't ask him again to come closer. He’s standing at the door, his hand still on the doorknob, ready to leave at any second. She can see how vulnerable he is, exposed under her gaze. He may not remember much of her, or himself for that matter, but he never asks for help. This isn’t at all him, or at least the him she thinks of as the full-moon him.

  By pulling out that box, she tore a hole in everything she knew. Some of it might turn out badly, but here, in this moment, everything is different, and she’s so tired of pretending all the time.

  She walks up to him and puts her hand over his on the doorknob.

  “Why do you think it's not fair to ask?”

  “Isn't it obvious? That box isn't something normal, is it? If I've been doing that to myself for who knows how long, and my mother not only knows about it, but condones it, then it has to be something horrible I'm making myself forget, don't you think? If it's that bad, the safest thing for you to do is to run as fast and as far away as you can from me.”

  “The smart thing would have been for me to run a long time ago.”

  She's so close to him that she can feel, more than hear, his indrawn breath. As much as she wants to be wholly in this moment, it’s taken on a sense of not being real. It’s like she's outside of her own body as she moves closer still and rises to her toes. Her words are a whisper in his ear.

  “Apparently, I only do very dumb things.”

  She isn't sure who moves first. The plan is hers, but the move may be his, and then they’re mashed lips and crashing teeth and low groans. Their joined hands leave the doorknob, and their fingers weave together, landing at her lower back as he turns her so her shoulders are now against the door. He is hard planes and warm breath and wet lips and tongue, and she breathes in small gasps and wonders how a
wish can come true in the middle of such chaos.

  12: Expectation

  No otherworldly skills are needed for Grace to know where her son is. From the moment he took the car, Grace knew exactly what his final destination would be. Not for the first time, she wonders if this is his lot because of how she has raised him or because he is a man.

  She has nothing but time on her hands, and she entertains the thought of falling in love for a few brief moments before chuckling under her breath. She is too set in her ways, the habits and lifestyle of the sisters too ingrained for her to ever think about any other way of life. Men, and sex, are transitory things, and they always will be for her.

  The only companionship she has ever missed is that of her sisters, and even her son can't make up for losing it. Trying to replace it with a committed relationship with a man, though? It’s amusing to her. Men's thoughts are so foreign to her: thoughts of dominance and rutting and control. She will never understand how women live with creatures who think such thoughts for the rest of their lives instead of living with other women.

  She can remember how disharmony would creep in whenever a man spent any longer than a few hours with one of the sisters. The man would always be looking around to make sure the sister he was with was the most attractive, or strongest, or smartest, or whichever quality he most valued. His assessment of the others would cause feelings to rise up in the sister he'd already rutted with.

  Occasionally, a group of sisters would kill him instead of sending him back on his way to wherever he'd come from, the disharmony would become so threatening. So, no, she couldn't understand the driving need these people have to couple and mate and attempt to stay together for life. She can, however, appreciate what makes her son happy, and she hopes the girl will be someone who does. That she will be strong enough to stay with him through what is coming.