The Forest of Forever (The Soren Chase Series, Book One)

by Rob Blackwell

  “You’re telling me that this boy threw a rock and was punished by being trapped here?” Kael asked.

  “He punished himself,” Soren said. “So did you and your friends. You couldn’t have been the only one to kill a human guard. I could argue you all acted appropriately, but I imagine you feel differently. As a result, Darisam pulled you inside.”

  It also explained how Evan had now apparently joined Coakley in the forest. When Soren had interviewed him, he was in agony over what had happened. He said he heard Coakley’s voice in his head, calling him a sinner. When he physically returned to Reapoke, he must have been able to enter Darisam easily. His regret pulled him right inside.

  As for Soren himself, he qualified on two counts. When Meredith tried to murder him, she committed the sin of wrath. Coakley was able to come through and take her and Sara. The acolytes hadn’t touched him—why would they? He was on fire—so in theory he could have escaped. But he was in the midst of regretting his own sin.

  The revelation of his affair with Sara had rocked him, body and soul. The weight of that guilt was more than enough to ensure he crossed through into Darisam. That had ultimately saved his life because somehow this place was keeping him alive. Even thinking that felt ridiculous. How could this place save him? Why was he healing?

  Edolphus was nodding.

  “Sin is everything here,” he said.

  “What’s yours, then?” Kael asked.

  “I’m the original sin,” he said. “I caused my father’s fall from grace. It’s why we came to this place. My father has reminded me of that since I was old enough to listen. My birth killed my mother and ruined his life.”

  Soren looked at each one of them, holding their gazes. Some, like Owen, looked away. But Alice stared back at him almost in defiance. She was trapped here but far from broken. And that was good. Soren was going to need everyone’s help if they wanted to survive.

  “It doesn’t matter how we got here,” he said. “What matters is whether we can get out. The gem’s the key. It has to be. Edolphus, was your father like he is now before he came here?”

  “No,” Edolphus said. “He was a sad man, but not like this. He became more convinced of his own connection to God after he came here. I think . . . It might sound strange, but I think the gem speaks to him.”

  Edolphus had written as much in his journal, but Soren was still disturbed.

  “I don’t know if the gem has a consciousness or not,” Soren said. “But it’s seen a lot of human misery over the years, and it appears to have absorbed a lot of that pain. Somehow it corrupted Coakley. But it also is the only thing that can get us out of here. According to legend, only those with the purest or darkest hearts can survive even looking at the gem. If one of us can do that, we hopefully can use it to escape Darisam.”

  “Do we all have to look at it?” Kael said. “Because I, uh, don’t have the purest heart.”

  Kael shifted uncomfortably on his feet, glancing at Alice in embarrassment.

  “I don’t think so,” Soren said, and he looked again at Edolphus. “Somehow Coakley brought his congregation over. My guess is Coakley could leave at any time if he used the gem, but he doesn’t want to. He’s so in thrall to the jewel he won’t. But if one of us was able to look into it, I doubt it matters how many people we wanted to take with us. You could pull any number of . . .”

  His voice trailed off as another disturbing thought hit him.

  “Soren?” Kael asked. “I don’t like that look on your face. Well, what’s left of your face.”

  “I just figured out why the Association wants this place so badly,” he said. “When we raided the warehouse, I saw what they were up to. They were making gaunts—by the dozens, from what I could tell. They were building an army.”

  “Jesus,” Kael replied.

  “That army is relatively easy to conceal in Reapoke Forest,” he said. “There are hundreds of acres and no one around for miles. But if you want to move the army somewhere—”

  “You wouldn’t be able to,” Kael said. “You’d have to bring them out in the open. Maybe you could pack them into trucks—”

  “They’d probably kill each other if you packed them into a confined space,” Soren said. “Besides, traveling by truck would be risky for exposure. But think about what access to this place would do.”

  Soren gestured to the forest all around them.

  “The Association would have the perfect place to hide its army,” he said. “More importantly, it’d have an unbelievably effective way to deploy it. When Coakley and his crew showed up to grab Sara and Meredith, they did so instantly. One minute they weren’t there, the next they were all around us.”

  “It’s like the Trojan horse,” Owen said. “Like the story.”

  Soren gave the boy an appraising look. Then he remembered what Terry had told him.

  “Oh God,” he said. “A friend of mine said this jewel, the Gem of Darisam, was actually at Troy. Helen wore it.”

  “Slow down,” Kael said. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  It was Owen who answered him.

  “The sacking of Troy,” the boy said. “I’ve read all the Greek myths. The Greeks hid inside—”

  “I know what the Trojan horse is, kid,” Kael said. “I just don’t follow how it’s connected.”

  “Because the gem does the same thing,” Owen said, sounding almost excited. For a minute he looked younger than his age. “Instead of the Greeks offering a horse to Troy, they give Helen a jewel. They hide an army inside it, and when it’s night in Troy they attack. They probably show up right inside Helen’s bedroom. This isn’t like the Trojan horse; it is the Trojan horse. Isn’t that what you’re saying?”

  Soren was impressed. He tried to raise his eyebrows in surprise but realized they were burnt off and stopped.

  “Actually, that was better than the theory I had.”

  “How in hellfire did the story change a gem into a horse?” Samuel asked.

  “I always thought Odysseus was a bit of a bullshitter myself,” Alice said. “Probably covered up what really happened so he could find the jewel later. He did go missing for a long time.”

  “Look around you, though,” Kael said. “This doesn’t exactly look like Greece.”

  “Maybe it takes on the qualities of the place where the gem was last in the real world,” Alice said.

  “That’s not really important,” Soren said. “But if Owen’s right, this is big. Do you know what happens if the Association gets ahold of the jewel? It can take its army of gaunts wherever it wants. Washington, New York, London, Paris—it doesn’t matter. All it needs is to take the gem, open the doorway, and voilà! An instant army of unspeakable creatures is at its disposal. No one would know it’s coming. That’s why the Association wants the gem. It’s going to use it to launch an invasion.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Soren waited as he watched the gravity of what he said sink in.

  It wasn’t just their lives on the line anymore; there was far more at stake. The Association could do serious damage if it took the gem. But he had no idea how to stop it. He needed the gem to get home, and he wasn’t going to leave Sara stranded here.

  “What do we do?” Kael asked.

  Soren heard the defeat in his voice. Edolphus had said Coakley had at least a hundred followers. He briefly wondered how he had so many. Some were from his congregation, others had been trapped here, but perhaps some were from the Lost Colony. How long did they think they’d been in this place? Weeks? Years? Centuries? Was Bennett among them, or had he died in the fire?

  It didn’t matter. What did was that there were far too many for Soren and his small band of allies to launch a frontal assault. He wasn’t even sure all of them were in fighting shape. Owen hardly counted, and he had doubts about his own prowess, given his condition.

  But when he looked down at his body, he thought he saw traces of pink flesh. His body was repairing itself. He wished he understood how
or why, but he wasn’t going to argue with the effect. He was getting better. Perhaps he could fight after all.

  They were all staring at him when he looked up, waiting for him to have some plan.

  “First things first,” Soren said. “We go to the village and save Sara. Then we get the gem and go home.”

  “We will never survive,” Edolphus replied. “My father has been training his acolytes for the day when the Charred Man will come. They have knives and they know how to use them. They practice every day.”

  “Defeating the acolytes isn’t our only problem,” Kael said. “Even if we do, we don’t know where the stupid gem is.”

  Soren opened his mouth to respond, but Edolphus beat him to it.

  “My father will be carrying it with him,” he said.

  Soren looked at him in surprise.

  “How do you know that?” he asked.

  “My father has a ritual before making a sacrifice,” Edolphus said. “He goes into the stables to pray. I didn’t know it at the time, but I believe now he was taking the jewel with him. Perhaps he needs it to punish sinners—or maybe he just fears others might take it while he is gone. Whatever the reason, he will not leave the jewel behind.”

  “So how do we take it from him?” Kael asked.

  Soren felt his own despair creeping in. He didn’t know how to defeat Coakley. Kael or Captain Mitchell could try to kill the preacher from far away with an arrow or gun, but if the gem was on his body it wouldn’t help them. They’d still have a hundred crazed acolytes to defeat.

  A new voice cut in.

  “But we know you’ll win,” Alice said to Soren.

  They all turned to look at her. The others looked either scared or skeptical, but Alice had a thoughtful expression on her face. There was almost a twinkle in her green eyes, as if she knew something the rest of them did not.

  “Come again?” Soren asked.

  “You said the Association sent you here specifically,” Alice said. “You also said they wanted you to be the Charred Man because of what they read in Edolphus’s journal. Did the journal say anything about the Charred Man taking the gem?”

  Soren shook his head.

  “No, but the last pages were ripped . . .”

  He stopped talking again.

  “Damn,” Soren said. “The last few pages were ripped out. Maybe it was written in those pages that I got the gem. Meredith was right. They let me have the journal but purposely hid that information from me so I couldn’t figure out that I was the Charred Man.”

  “But the journal is the solution,” Alice said. “Didn’t you say it predicted your arrival?”

  “The journal ended with Edolphus and you in the forest,” Soren replied. “You were waiting for me to arrive. There was more, but the Association took it. I don’t know what it said.”

  “But they do,” Alice said. “Whatever Edolphus wrote, it must be clear that you made it and that you took the jewel. Otherwise, why would they bother to send you in the first place?”

  She was right. Meredith’s goal had been relatively straightforward—get Soren to reveal the truth of how John really died. But Chastain had directed everything toward bringing Soren to Reapoke and lighting him on fire. Somehow he must have known Soren would survive the experience. He also apparently knew that Soren would return with the gem.

  He put his hand to his head, intending to run it through his hair, but it had been scorched off. All he felt was bare skull. He drew his hand away in disgust.

  “This time-travel stuff is making my head hurt,” Soren said.

  “Let me get this straight,” Kael said. “Edolphus’s journal somehow tells them our future? God, we are so fucked. The Association knows what we’re going to do before we do.”

  Soren kept looking at Alice. It felt like she was driving toward a point.

  “Do you have your journal, Edolphus?” Alice asked.

  Edolphus pulled something from his pants pocket, and Soren reached out to take it. It was the same leather-bound volume he’d handled earlier, although this looked considerably newer.

  “I bought it when I was in town by myself one day,” Edolphus said. “That was before we came to this place. I had to keep it hidden from my father. He would not have approved.”

  Soren flipped through it, scanning entries he’d already read. The final two parts of the journal were missing. There was no mention of seeing his father in the stable with the gem or of fleeing into the forest with Alice.

  Soren handed the book back to Edolphus, and Alice eyed him with interest.

  “So somehow the journal ends up back in the past,” she said. “And presumably Edolphus writes the remaining entries, both the ones that Soren has read and whatever was torn out.”

  “It’s not just the journal that ends up in the past—its owner does, too,” Kael said. “I know Edolphus lives because he’s my . . .”

  Kael started counting on his fingers and then gave up.

  “You’re my ancestor,” he told Edolphus. “Not sure how many greats it is, but my distant grandfather.”

  Edolphus seemed stunned by the news.

  “Mine, too,” said Mingan.

  Edolphus looked at Brian and Danny, who’d remained resolutely quiet through the whole experience. Both shook their heads.

  “I’m your . . .” Edolphus trailed off.

  “You’ll go home and meet a nice Indian girl,” Kael said.

  Suddenly Edolphus grinned broadly. It was the first time Soren had seen him look happy.

  “I thought I would die here,” he said.

  Soren looked at them impatiently. He wasn’t sure how time moved in this place, but he worried about what might be happening to Sara.

  “How does Edolphus get to go back in time?” Mingan asked. “Can this gem even do that? Maybe we could go back in time and stop Coakley from getting the jewel in the first place.”

  Soren shook his head.

  “I doubt it works like that,” he said. “Time in the real world is linear. I don’t think we could actually change it with this. That’s kind of the problem, actually. We’re locked into whatever Edolphus wrote in his final entries.”

  “Okay, but we know Edolphus gets back, right?” Kael said. “Did you have any romances with a Chickahominy Indian before you got in here?”

  Edolphus’s face turned bright red.

  “I would never—”

  “We can take that as a no,” Soren said. “Look, I’m flying blind here, but my guess is Edolphus and Samuel can go back to the past but we can’t. As for what they can do once there, it’d be hard to change events in the twenty-first century from the seventeenth.”

  “I could,” Owen said softly. “I could go back and change things.”

  Soren shook his head.

  “To use this jewel, you have to pass some kind of test—at least if my research is correct,” he said. “You look at a reflection of your true self. And either that allows you to control its powers, or you go crazy. I’m sorry, Owen. Nothing would make me happier than to send you back to right after you left, but I don’t want to risk losing you. Your father would never forgive me.”

  “That’s how we get back? We look into the jewel?” Kael asked. “This just keeps getting better and better.”

  “Not everyone needs to look. Whoever controls the gem can bring whomever he wants back with him into the real world, so long as they were in relatively close proximity,” Soren said. “If I get the jewel and I pass the test, I can take us all back. That’s my theory.”

  “How do we know your theory is right?” Kael asked. “Coakley’s people disappeared only a few minutes after they returned to the real world, right? What if that happens to us?”

  Soren shook his head.

  “The gem wouldn’t be much good to the Association or anyone else if it didn’t allow people to escape,” he responded. “My guess is the gem controls Coakley more than the other way around. His acolytes were pulled back inside because either the jewel or Coakley him
self didn’t want anyone to leave for very long. But if someone new gets control, they could open the doorway and let everyone out.”

  Alice cleared her throat. Of the nine of them, she appeared the most calm and collected.

  “You’re missing the point,” she said. “We know that we get the gem. If we don’t, how would Edolphus have gotten home? We also know that the Association believes you get it; otherwise, why bother to send you here?”

  “Fair point,” Soren said. “And I guess that’s good news. But I still want to know how we do that.”

  Soren suddenly wanted to hit something. Sara was going to die and there was nothing he could do to stop it. This was taking too much time. He turned away from the group in frustration and walked a few steps into the clearing.

  He didn’t know how to get the gem from Coakley or stop his religious crusade. Presumably he was going to figure that out, but even if he did, he worried he’d just be doing what the Association wanted. He’d be bringing it a powerful tool, one it could use to wreak havoc anywhere. And he’d likely die in the process because it had an army waiting for him. Soren could whisk everyone home to Virginia, only to have them all quickly devoured by gaunts.

  The Association controlled the chessboard. How could he defeat an enemy who knew exactly what he was going to do? There was no way to win.

  Soren abruptly stopped walking when he noticed something at his feet. He leaned down in the grass and found his sunglasses. They must have fallen out of Meredith’s pocket when the acolytes grabbed her. As he looked at them, he heard John’s voice in his head, an old memory brought to the fore. They’d been playing some game, one in which Soren had established very strict rules. John had been about to lose and he’d cheated to win. When Soren protested, John had smiled at him.

  “When the rules aren’t in your favor, change the game,” he said, and smiled triumphantly in that way that only twelve-year-old boys could. “Fortune favors the bold.”

  The memory triggered something inside him. He needed to think more creatively. He thought of the pretender he’d faced at the séance. He hadn’t been able to defeat the creature physically—he’d changed the game. He just needed to do the same thing here.