“I can tell you’re disappointed,” Tabitha said. “You expected something.”
“A friend of ours had a theory,” Annika said. “He said that for a place to become the way Reapoke is, there had to be a series of tragedies. But even early on in its colonial history, there were rumors this place was cursed.”
“It was cursed, even then,” Tabitha said.
“But you just said—” Soren started.
“It wasn’t cursed until the colonists came,” Tabitha said. “It wasn’t cursed before James Bennett.”
“We know he was murdered,” Annika said. “But that shouldn’t be enough.”
“The curse started just after his death,” Tabitha said.
She paused, turning away and looking out a window. Soren kept waiting for her to start speaking again, but she appeared to be lost in thought.
“Please,” Soren said. “If you know something that can help us, tell us.”
Tabitha turned back to him and eyed him carefully.
“The Indians have an expression,” she said. “‘Payback’s a bitch.’”
“No offense, but I’m pretty sure you guys didn’t come up with that one,” Soren said.
“Maybe not, but it fits in this case. Do you know why we want federal recognition so badly? The Algonquin peoples—the Pamunkey, Mattaponi, Chickahominy, Eastern Chickahominy, Rappahannock, and more—have been here since time immemorial. We shouldn’t need a scrap of paper from the government proving that. But federal recognition would bring money, which we badly need. Some of our tribe subsist below the poverty level. If we qualify as a federally recognized tribe, we’d have access to government funding for health care, education, even support to create a museum.”
Soren looked at Tabitha and glanced at Kael, who was staring at his mother.
“I’m not sure what this has to do with—”
“Give me a minute, Mr. Chase,” Tabitha said. “Some stories move in a straight line, others take a winding path. As I said, federal recognition would bring money, but it would do something far more important. It would ensure we are not forgotten. Tell me, did you know any Virginia Indians still survived?”
Soren shook his head.
“I’d never given it much thought,” he said.
“Most don’t,” she said. “And do you know why we are forgotten? Have you ever heard of Walter Plecker?” She didn’t wait for him to respond but continued on immediately. “Most haven’t. He worked for the state of Virginia several decades ago. After the passage of the Racial Integrity Act of 1924—a state law that, among other things, forced Indians to identify themselves as ‘colored’—Plecker systemically erased any mention of the word ‘Indian’ from the birth and death records that came from his way. From a purely bureaucratic point of view, we ceased to exist as Indians. And that is why the federal government refuses to recognize us. What the colonists and US government could not accomplish by bloodshed, a petty bureaucrat has done with a stroke of a pen. We have been erased from history.”
Soren opened his mouth to speak again, but Kael gave him a warning look and he shut it.
“My grandfather called that retribution,” Tabitha said. “He said it was revenge for what happened to Bennett.”
“Which is stupid, Mom,” Kael said. “The colonists did far worse than that.”
“Maybe so,” she said. “But that’s at least when the trouble in Reapoke Forest started. There is no written record of this, but our council of elders officially forbade hunting near Bennett’s property immediately after his murder. Our bowmen reported seeing things there.”
“What kind of things?”
“A man on fire,” Tabitha said. “My grandfather said the chieftain at the time saw the Charred Man running through the forest. And he just disappeared before his eyes.”
Soren looked at Annika in surprise. They’d heard a number of stories about Reapoke Forest, but nothing about a charred man. Soren ran his hand through his hair and waited for Tabitha to tell him more.
“Never heard that one,” he said.
Kael reached over and touched his mother lightly on the shoulder.
“Tell them, Mom,” he said. “Tell them the rest of it.”
Tabitha looked at Soren and Annika, appearing to make some mental assessment of them. Whatever it was, they must have passed. She nodded her head and patted Kael’s knee again.
“We owe Wallace that, I suppose,” she said. “My grandfather saw the Charred Man as well. When he was a boy, he said he felt drawn to what we once called Reapoke Forest.”
Soren looked over at Kael, who pointedly ignored him.
“He saw many visions in those woods,” she continued. “He saw Father Coakley, a Civil War soldier, and others. Strange as it sounds, he did not believe they could hurt him. The phantoms never seemed to notice him. He believed they were just vestiges of the past. And then one night he saw the Charred Man running through the forest. Most have seen him as a burnt-out husk, but my grandfather saw him bathed in flames. He described him as a living candle. My grandfather was a brave man, but he ran that day and never went back.”
“He didn’t think it was just another vision?”
“He thought it was a spirit of vengeance,” Tabitha said. “He was so close to the spirit that he saw the crazed, pained look in the man’s eyes. He didn’t know for sure, but he thought he knew who the Charred Man was.”
“Bennett,” Soren said.
“As I said, he couldn’t be sure. But that is what he believed. Sometimes the past haunts us. And Bennett—he is our shame.”
“Why?” Annika asked.
Tabitha smiled sadly.
“Indians—or Native Americans if you want; I’ve never really cared what people call us—have a tendency to glorify the past, just like you do,” she said. “You see it in the South all the time. It’s why they insist on raising the Rebel flag. It’s the glory of an honorable defeat. We are no different. The battle against the colonial invaders is seen as a worthy battle. If only we could have fought them off, pushed back harder. We cast ourselves as the doomed heroes of our own story. But it is a foolish game to play.
“You’ve undoubtedly heard of Chief Powhatan, the father of Pocahontas. I’ve never understood the fondness for her story, which has become twisted beyond recognition, but that is a conversation for another time. Powhatan was not our chief, but he headed the Tsenacomoco, a political alliance of Indian tribes that included the Chickahominy. He was the first to fight the settlers. He tried to negotiate with them, of course, but he was not afraid to use force. His battles ended, however, when Pocahontas married John Rolfe.”
“I thought she was with John Smith,” Annika said.
“Don’t believe everything you see in Disney cartoons,” Kael replied.
“Powhatan tried to keep the peace after that, believing it was impossible to win against the settlers,” Tabitha said. “But his younger brother, Opechancanough, did not feel the same. When Powhatan died, Opechancanough became the de facto leader. And in 1622 he decided to strike back against the settlers.”
“The Good Friday massacre,” Soren said. “Where James Bennett died.”
“Except it wasn’t actually on Good Friday,” Kael said. “Some historian got his dates mixed up.”
“Regardless of the date, Opechancanough was a savvy planner,” Tabitha said. “And it was a surprise attack. He organized the various tribes in an assault that killed one-third of the Virginia colonists.”
“Good God,” Annika said.
“He believed that if he struck a hard enough blow, the colonists would pack up and leave for good,” Tabitha continued. “And after the attack worked, he sat back and waited for that to happen. He did not follow up, believing what he’d done was enough to force the English to surrender. Instead, it turned into a long and bloody war. And much later it became the basis for various reprisals against us.”
“Where does Bennett fit into all this?”
Tabitha sighed.
“Officially, he was just another colonist from Jamestown, living not far from its walls. When the attack came, he and his family were unlucky.”
“And unofficially?”
Tabitha studied Soren’s face for several minutes.
“What I will tell you has not been revealed outside of the tribe,” she said. “It was something my grandfather confided to me in secret and, until now, I’ve mentioned it to only one other.”
She nodded in Kael’s direction.
“As I said, we like to play the role of the doomed heroes,” she said. “But there was nothing noble in killing Bennett and his children. There was nothing honorable in the plantations we helped burn elsewhere. It does not justify what was done to us then and later, but that does not change the fact that it was wrong. My grandfather told me that Bennett was reportedly a good man. He traded with the Chickahominy and treated us well, far better than others at the time. How my grandfather knew this, I don’t know. When Opechancanough ordered the attack, there were some that wanted Bennett spared and his family left alone.
“But when our warriors went with the other tribes to attack Jamestown, they were frustrated. Someone warned the town early, saving it from destruction. They came back angry, and in their fury, a band of younger bowmen left to attack the Bennett homestead. There were six of them. Only one returned.”
Soren looked at Annika, who was staring at Tabitha in fascination. He thought of the reports of seeing Indian hunters in Reapoke Forest. It wasn’t hard to speculate who those bowmen might have been.
“Bennett must have put up a hell of a fight,” Soren said.
“No,” Tabitha said. “The survivor said he and his family were unprepared, as most others were on that day. They killed the two youngest girls and Bennett’s wife before James Bennett even realized what was happening. By the time he got inside, two more of his children were dead. The eldest boy tried to help his father, but an arrow took him through the heart. Bennett retreated into the house with his surviving children.
“The survivor says the bowmen cautiously made their way inside the house. They knew Bennett had guns and they waited for him to use them. But instead they found him and his remaining children huddled inside a bedroom, apparently unaware of their presence.
“The family didn’t even look up when the bowmen arrived. They were all frozen in place, staring at a small lead box that Bennett had open before him. The children were gathered around their father, looking into the box like it was their salvation.
“Inside the box, the survivor said, was a gem like nothing he’d ever seen. He had only the barest glimpse of it before he forced himself to look away. Based on his description, we know the gem was large, the size of a person’s hand, and oval shaped. We also know this was no hunk of quartz just found buried somewhere in a mine. It was multifaceted and appeared to have been cut in a manner intended to show off its beauty.
“When the survivor first saw the gem, it bathed the family in a greenish light. After a moment, he said, its color turned to a dark red. Finally, the gem had some kind of symbol etched on it, though the survivor did not get a good enough look to say what.
“Neither Bennett nor his children moved to save themselves. The survivor’s companions stopped their attack as well as soon as they saw the jewel. They just stood there, gazing at it, and would not move or respond to the survivor’s touch. He panicked. The survivor feared Bennett had used some witchcraft on all of them, and so he refused to look at the gem again and fled to return to the tribe for help.
“As he ran out of the house, he knocked over candles the family was using for light. Within minutes the house and everyone in it were consumed by the flames.”
Tabitha kept talking, but Soren was barely listening anymore. He thought of what Terry Jacobsen had told him. He could hear his voice in his head. “Places—and even some objects—can absorb the psychic energy of human trauma,” Terry had said, but Soren hadn’t really understood him until now.
Soren had been so focused on the place part of the equation, he hadn’t even considered the alternative. There was always a treasure in the old stories, but it was a red herring, something to be ignored. That’s what he’d told Annika. But he also knew that behind most legends there was usually a grain of truth. In this case, the land itself hadn’t caught up Coakley, Leggett, Turner, and the others. Instead, it was an object that was brought there.
It must have been something old, likely even ancient, which had passed from hand to hand throughout the centuries, meeting with tragedy along the way. Somehow it had absorbed those disasters, until finally it had been brought here and unleashed.
Soren suddenly understood what the secret was. He knew what the Association was after.
In his mind’s eye, Soren saw the puzzle again—and at the center of it was a jewel.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Soren’s thoughts raced through his mind, everything falling into place. He could almost hear the click within his own head.
Both Annika and Tabitha were staring at him. Soren looked at them self-consciously. He put his hand to his face, momentarily worried he’d sneezed or there was something gross on it.
“What?” he asked.
“You’re practically screaming, ‘Aha,’” Annika said. “I almost expected you to jump out of your chair and say ‘Eureka’ or something. What did you figure out?”
Soren looked at the other three people in the room.
“I’ve been a fool,” he said.
“Tell me something I don’t know,” Annika cut in.
Soren theatrically rolled his eyes before remembering no one could see them behind the glasses.
“I’ve been looking for an origin event here,” Soren said. “But Terry made it clear that it’s not just places that become cursed, it’s objects as well. We heard stories about men looking for jewels in Reapoke Forest. Sometimes it was Coakley’s treasure; other times it was from some wealthy Southerner. Those stories weren’t true, but an underlying element of them was. There was a jewel in the forest, but it predated everyone but Bennett. It’s likely a powerful artifact.”
“Do you know what artifact it is?” Annika asked.
“No idea, but there are many stories of cursed gems,” Soren said. “It would have to be something with a long history, perhaps even a jewel that was created supernaturally.”
“Anything spring to mind?” Annika asked.
Soren shook his head.
“No,” he said. “Right now I’m more focused on what this means. I know why the Association bought that property. They’re looking for the gem. What I don’t understand is why they haven’t found it already. They’ve owned the property for decades. Surely that’s enough time to dig holes all across the area.”
Soren noticed Tabitha and Kael, who were no longer focused on him but instead were whispering to each other.
“Guys?” he asked. “Do you know where the gem is?”
The two Indians exchanged a long look with each other before Kael finally nodded at his mother. Tabitha looked hesitant but started to speak.
“There’s something important we need to tell you,” she said.
She was interrupted by the sounds of a soft bell ringing. Soren realized it was a chime that went off when someone entered the church. Tabitha glanced at her watch.
“Ah, that must be the minister now,” she said. “I’ll go tell him we’ll be a few more minutes.”
She stood up and walked out the door before Soren could object. He was so close—he knew it—but they just needed a little more information.
“Why haven’t you told your mom you’ve been to the forest?” Annika asked Kael.
“She’d flip out,” he said. “Besides, I have a feeling she already knows. You know how moms are. My guess is she’s just waiting for you two to leave so she can grill me about it.”
“She said your grandfather felt drawn there, too,” Soren said. “Why?”
“I, uh.” Kael stopped. “It’s probably nothing.”<
br />
“Spit it out, Jefferson,” Annika said. “You’re a lousy liar.”
“We should wait until my mom gets—”
He was interrupted by a sudden scream. All three of them jumped up.
“Mom!” Kael shouted, and darted out the doorway.
Soren and Annika followed close behind. As he ran, Soren pulled his revolver out of his jacket and held it close by.
When they reached the sanctuary, they saw Tabitha Jefferson lying facedown on the ground. Kael got there first and turned her over. Her face was covered in blood, and her eyes stared vacantly toward the ceiling. Soren didn’t need to check her pulse to know what Kael would find.
“Mom, no,” Kael said.
Soren realized too late what the problem was, turning around just in time to see the gaunt leaping in his direction. It plowed into him, knocking him onto the floor near the pews. The creature landed astride him, and Soren watched as it drew out its claws and grinned hideously at him. Its white, bulbous eyes shimmered faintly, and it made the guttural sound that Soren recognized as laughter.
The thing brought down its claws, but Soren blocked it with his arm, barely knocking them away from his face. He heard the ripping sound of his jacket being torn.
The gaunt tried to hit him again, but Annika came up behind it and kicked it, knocking it off Soren. As he scrambled to get on his feet, the creature jumped away and then loped forward on all fours away from them and deeper into the church.
Soren looked around and saw that Kael was gone. He’d left his mother lying dead in the aisle.
“You need this,” Annika said, holding out the gun to him. He must have dropped it when the gaunt attacked him. He grabbed it.
“Where’s Kael?” he asked.
“I think he panicked and fled,” Annika said. “I didn’t see where he went.”
“Shit,” Soren said.
He knew Kael hadn’t gone outside but must have run back into the church.
“That thing is in here somewhere,” Soren said. “We need to find it before it finds him. Why don’t you get back to the car and see if you can get Miles to help?”
The Forest of Forever (The Soren Chase Series, Book One) Page 21
