What the Woods Keep

by Katya de Becerra

  He doesn’t respond, just gives me that weird contented grin again, like he’s proud of me for some reason I can’t fathom. It occurs to me that, his eeriness aside, I’m being kind of rude—questioning this man about his old car without having even introduced myself first. “I’m Hayden, by the way. My family used to live here.”

  “Please forgive an old man’s wandering mind! I’m just so excited to finally have you back in Promise, Hayden. We had a bet going with Elspeth for the past ten years about whether you’d return or not, and let me tell you, she’s not going to be too thrilled that you’re finally here!” He sniggers, then stops abruptly and checks my expression, as if he’d said too much. Two twentysomething girls enter the shop and head toward the bookshelves behind my back. Gabriel tracks their movement with an indirect glance, then turns back to me when they’re gone.

  Okay, this whole thing is weird. Does he not want anyone to overhear us?

  “So you know who I am,” I say. I might be imagining it, but I’m starting to see some hidden malice behind Gabriel’s overly friendly facade. Besides, it doesn’t take a detective to assume that if Mom was uneasy around Gabriel’s daughter, Mom wouldn’t be the best of buds with Gabriel.

  If any of my suspicions show on my face, Gabriel doesn’t notice—or he does a great job of hiding it. “Well, of course! You look so much like her. Our dearest Ella … You know, she was supposed to name you Eydís—meaning good fortune—after your great ancestor, but also because that’s what you are, our good fortune! She went with Hayden instead, but no matter. Her blood thunders through your veins regardless of what name you respond to. And you know what they say about blood?” He doesn’t give me any time to respond. “It runs deep! Like a bottomless well.”

  “You knew my mother.”

  “Oh yes! Yes, I knew Ella well. What a tragedy. These woods—” Once again, Gabriel cuts himself off and just stares at me. A different look this time, no longer excited or joyful but simply assessing. I wonder if I failed some kind of test when he sneaks a quick but obvious look at his wristwatch. “I’ll tell Elspeth to come look for you later. There’s much for you two to talk about.… Oh, I almost forgot, there’s something I’d like to give you. It belonged to your mother.”

  “What is it?” I barely suppress my anxious excitement, but all Gabriel does is murmur something incomprehensible and beckon me to follow him.

  I make a study of Gabriel’s back as I shadow him through the store’s interior; he’s moving with an ease and grace I’d expect from a much younger, athletic person. There’s toughness to the way he holds himself, like his spindly physique is a shell, hiding a hard, strong core underneath. As this thought crosses my mind, a peculiar but not unpleasant rush of energy goes through me, sharpening my vision and filling my head with images of my dreamscape army. Of Shannon riding by my side. The imagery is so real, I catch the heady fragrance of wet grass in the air, my eyes filling with wind-induced tears.

  I snap out of it, finding myself back in the coffee-scented bookshop, following Gabriel to some unspecified location.

  We don’t stop until we reach the back of the store, where a wall made of high-rising bookshelves blocks the way. I follow Gabriel and find a table and armchairs nestled behind the wall of books—a quiet haven hidden from the rest of the shop. Gabriel gestures for me to take one of the antique, overstuffed chairs. Tense, I sit down, edgy and ready to bolt.

  “Wait here, dear child, while I fetch your mother’s gift. Listen to your powerful blood sing as her amulet draws nearer.” Before I can think of a suitable reaction to his creepy words, Gabriel disappears behind a STAFF ONLY door that seems to have materialized out of thin air.

  The second he’s gone, I jump out of my chair, the visceral wrongness of this place solidifying in my mind. I want to leave. Del should be done with the vintage shop by now. She’s probably looking for me. The idea of her walking in here, of being seen by Gabriel, gives me a severe case of dry mouth.

  Nothing bad is going to happen. The bookshop is full of people. Gabriel is harmless.

  Thoughts and more thoughts, all very logical, rush through my head while I pace the floor. To distract myself, I study the books held back here, but I come to regret my decision immediately.

  These books are shelved here, away from customers’ prying eyes, for a reason.

  Among the topics covered are arcane rituals, witchcraft, runes, and sacrifice. Also Nibelungs.

  I pull a book down at random (or maybe because its spine feels warmer to my skin than the rest) and open it to a spot in the middle. The illustration I’m looking at is of a naked woman suspended from a tree, upside down, one leg tied to a branch, the other bent at the knee. A demonic ballerina doing a twisted pirouette. The longer I stare at her face, the more the hanging woman’s features remind me of the girl from Mom’s first clue card. The woman’s long black hair touches the ground; her hands are spread wide, one holding a cup and the other a bleeding heart. The woman’s mouth is smiling, but it’s the grin of a person in a trance. A sleepwalker?

  Cold sweat coating my back, I close the revolting book and try to insert it back into its spot on the shelf, but the book doesn’t fit there anymore; the books around it have pressed together, closing the opening. With the book still in my hand, I take one step toward the safety of the bookshop proper, but then the STAFF ONLY door swings open, spitting out Gabriel.

  He assesses the situation. I say, voice weak, “I was just looking around. Nice collection you got here.”

  “Yes. Books Elspeth and Ella amassed over many years, child. They’re yours as much as ours, so why don’t you keep that one. Seems like it chose you.” He nods at the book in my hands. I start saying I don’t want it, that the thought of sleeping under the same roof, let alone in the same room, with it makes me sick, but my tongue doesn’t turn the right way. So instead of dropping it like my hands want to, I bring the book close to my chest and hold it tight.

  When my brain fog dissipates, I notice Gabriel has returned with a small red box, the kind that holds jewelry. Remembering his earlier comment, I listen to my blood. It doesn’t sing. The only thing I can hear is the trapped-bird drumming of my heart against my rib cage.

  Gabriel lowers himself into one of the armchairs, but I remain standing. With a sigh, he offers me the box, and I accept it. It’s surprisingly heavy, its surface rough to the touch. I lift the lid and a jolt of electricity travels through my body at the sight of a round, silver pendant. Its stylized design replicates the image from Mom’s second clue card—three ravens, one black, one gray, and one white, circling the misshapen dot of a heart.

  “What’s with all the hearts and blood? Were you and my mother in a cult or something?”

  At that, Gabriel laughs so hard, he bends over, hands cradling his stomach. When he calms down enough to speak, his tone is condescending. “Dear Hayden, it pains me that you know nothing of your heritage, it really does! I guess we shouldn’t be that surprised at your ignorance, considering our poor Ella perished before she could fully initiate you into her world, but I’m not at liberty to tell you anything just yet. My Elspeth is in charge now, and she’ll be in touch, but for now why don’t you keep your mother’s amulet? Take it into the woods to where the earth was burned black and let it show you its message. Elspeth will explain the rest.” Gabriel’s unsettling words hover around me as I stare at the amulet in my hands. Had I ever seen Mom wear it? My mind draws a blank. I close my eyes and try again—wading through the murky waters of my childhood memories. No recollection of the amulet. Besides, there was nothing in Mom’s codicil or any of her clues about it.

  “Why can’t you just answer my question? What was my mother really into?” I sound desperate and I know it, but I don’t care.

  Gabriel looks me in the eye, another one of his assessing stares, before saying, “You strike me as a person who would be extremely skeptical about mere words, no matter how truthful, coming out of an old man’s mouth. And I don’t know any magic tricks
good enough to make you believe.”

  “Try me. With words, I mean, not magic tricks.”

  He shakes his head, an impatient gesture. I’ve failed another test, it seems.

  I remember the book I’m clutching and open it to the disturbing drawing of a hanging woman, the image already imprinted on my mind. I show the illustration to Gabriel. “Okay, riddle man, if you won’t tell me anything useful about my mother, can you at least tell me what this means? Is she being tortured?”

  “Au contraire, dear child, she’s rather content. Can’t you see she’s smiling?”

  I wait for more, and he delivers. “This is Eydís, the Nibelungen goddess of sacrifice and good fortune. Legend has it, one fateful night, Eydís decided to hang herself from the Tree of Life and Death. Some say she sacrificed her heart and mind for wisdom. If only her descendants were as dedicated as Eydís was.”

  “You said earlier I was supposed to be named Eydís. After an ancestor? This Eydís?” I point at the book again.

  Gabriel’s smile turns impish. “The real question here is what are you willing to sacrifice for wisdom? Or more likely, who are you willing to sacrifice?”

  I swear I can hear Del calling for me from the depths of the shop. I’m torn between running toward her voice and staying here in the hopes that I can actually extract useful information from Gabriel.

  When I take another look at him, something’s not right with his face. The mask of a mild-mannered bookshop owner is slipping away, revealing … something strange. It occurs to me that maybe this is exactly what people who freak out on me feel—an ungrounded urge to skedaddle. Before I can figure out what I’m looking at, Gabriel stands and disappears behind the STAFF ONLY door, leaving me alone with Mom’s amulet, the book, and many unanswered questions.

  20

  BLOOD DRIVE

  I find Del in the bookshop’s fashion section, leafing through an album of photographs depicting out-of-this-world elaborate dresses and impractical shoes. Her lips in a tight line, she has worry in her eyes when she sees me.

  “Found what you were looking for?” she asks, putting the album back. She eyes the items in my hands and I hastily stuff the box and the book into my messenger bag.

  “Just more questions,” I say. “Let’s get out of here, okay? I’m starting to believe this entire town’s been taken over by body snatchers.”

  “Don’t know about that. The woman running the vintage shop seemed nice enough, even though I didn’t buy anything. And Angie, the psychic from the magic shop, read my fortune and told me I was going to meet a tall dark stranger. Today. I think I’m starting to like it here.”

  Back in the car, I analyze my first day in Promise so far. Those weird little things I keep adding to my Promise tally—the blood vials, Mom’s clues, my recovered memory of Elspeth, Gabriel’s riddles—still refuse to come together in a coherent way. Maybe I’m going about it all wrong. Maybe it’s time to abandon logic and go with my heart instead? Or is it my gut I’m meant to listen to?

  I do find it peculiar how the Black Clearing keeps popping up. Both Mom and Gabriel want me to go there, although their instructions are different. Does Gabriel somehow know about the blood vials and what my mother wants me to do with them? And if Mom left me the amulet, why didn’t she mention it in her codicil or in any of her clues I’ve found so far? It feels like all the puzzle pieces should be starting to fit by now, but instead they’re all too different to match together, leaving me more confused than before. Maybe, like my alleged ancestor Eydís, I should just go into the woods and suspend myself from a tree in hope of gaining wisdom. At the very least, some blood might rush into my head, bringing with it new ideas.

  * * *

  As we drive farther away from Promise’s center, quirky small-town storefronts disappear, replaced with decrepit houses, dim and beige, as if all their color got stripped away over the years by the constant rain. There are fewer people here, and those walking the narrow streets move fast, keeping their heads down. The streets are clean yet unkempt, as if the town knows it’s on its last breath and those who could leave have packed up and left already; the rest are stuck here because they have no choice.

  It’s springtime, but Promise seems frozen in an eternal fall, its spirit crushed by rain and wind. It’s wet and miserable, and yet this place feels right to me. As if, despite it being inhospitable and damp and glum, it wants me here—and I belong.

  * * *

  Once we enter the forest, Del’s first to spot it: a laminated poster marked with Blue Haven’s pyramid-in-a-circle logo. An arrow points straight ahead. Shortly after that, our car rolls into a militarized zone.

  I reduce speed and gawk at a small army of uniformed women and men swarming a large, cleared-out area of the woods, which is not that different from the abandoned one we saw the day before. A cluster of camouflage-painted pavilion tents lines the outer periphery of the clearing. A convoy of army trucks and jeeps is parked by the trees near the road.

  A medical blood collection point?

  Hmm … Sorry, not buying it.

  The road ahead is blocked by a security gate. Before I can decide whether to be concerned (especially since doing a U-turn on this narrow forest road wouldn’t be easy to accomplish), a lone male figure in olive khakis and a dark-camo Windbreaker emerges from the human swarm and signals us to pull over.

  I stop the car and watch the guy approach. An edgy kind of anticipation tightens its icy paws around my throat. Del is uncharacteristically silent by my side.

  I roll down my window, and the Windbreaker guy leans in close enough for me to see the hint of stubble on his chin and catch a scent of him. Woodsy. Unnerving. His eyes are dark gray, one slightly darker than the other—as if that one iris couldn’t decide between dark and light gray and got stuck in between.

  I’ve seen these eyes before.

  I flinch when he brings himself even closer. Pausing mere inches away from my face, he studies me. His face unreadable, he asks, “Are you here to donate blood?” His voice is friendly enough but also guarded, undecided on my status—friend or foe?

  The name tag sewn into his Windbreaker reads REASER.

  Three (pounding) heartbeats later, I finally say it.

  “Shannon?”

  “Do I know you?” A little wrinkle appears on his forehead, looking misplaced on his young but serious face. It’s clearly formed after years of frowning in surprise, a habit Shannon first acquired as a kid while hanging out with me. Any doubt I had about this guy’s identity is erased from my mind now. With the wild blood rushing into my head, I can barely hear myself say, “It’s Hayden. Hayden Holland. And here’s my friend, Del.” I nod in Del’s direction. “And yeah, we’re here to donate blood. I guess.”

  I have a lot more awkward words where that came from. Some are shaped like questions, others as apologies for not being in touch for ten years, as well as some excited words full of disbelief. But after one close look at Shannon’s stony face, all my words wither before being spoken. He shows no signs of recognizing me, and it hurts. But I was the one to leave Promise (and Shannon) behind, so I guess I don’t have much ground to be angry about his blank look, do I?

  “Leave your car here and follow me, please,” he says. “Don’t stray off the path. And don’t touch anything.” He doesn’t take his eyes off me. All the prolonged staring makes me want to squirm. I glance at Del for support, but all she does is grin at me and mouth hot jerk. Rather unhelpful.

  I consider leaving my bulky messenger bag in the car but can’t bring myself to part with it. The slippery ground gurgles under my feet, and I hone my movements, focusing on staying upright and not falling into the mud, face-first, at Shannon’s boot-clad feet.

  Shannon’s got at least a foot and a half on me. A flash from my recent dream sends a wave of heat over my face, my brain struggling to reconcile the scrawny boy I used to chase through the woods with this impressive human specimen towering over me. His mismatched gray eyes are the sole reli
c of Shannon from my childhood memories.

  I only face him directly for a moment. Shannon’s quick to turn his back on me, eager to get going. Del keeps close as we head for one of the tents.

  With Shannon leading the way, I watch his neck and the line of his straight-cut brown hair. My eyes slide down to take in his wide shoulders and well-formed back, its muscular shape clear under the Windbreaker. I think I almost catch him a few times wanting to turn, to look at me. He doesn’t do it, but the hesitation is there in his step.

  Silent, we approach one of the tents. Like the others, it’s forest green and blends with its surroundings. The entrance is guarded by two burly, uniformed guys. They look like they mean business. No weapons on them—at least, none that I can see, but I bet they’re hidden, strapped to their waists or whatever.

  “What kind of a blood collection needs guards?” I ask. Shannon stops abruptly, and I almost run into his back. Del lets out a snort-giggle hybrid only I can hear.

  “The kind that’s also a research station, chock-full of expensive, high-tech equipment,” Shannon replies, his tone pleasant in a tour guide sort of way. He pulls the tent’s thick plastic door to the side and we step in, entering a space jam-packed with hissing, puffing equipment and busy men and women in medical coats.

  Del trips over the threshold, and one of the passing white coats catches her midstumble. “Are you all right?” He gives her a long look. Del finds the audacity to give the guy a flirty smile. He’s not bad looking—just ten years older than she is, if not more.

  “What are you monitoring for? Has an alien mother- ship finally landed in these woods?” Del asks him before giving me a meaningful look. The white-coat guy produces a polite, tight-lipped smile and mumbles something about being away from his post for too long. I guess even Del’s charm has limits.

  After passing through the lab area, we reach an improvised observation room separated from the rest of the tent by a hospital curtain. Beyond, simple bare cots line the room’s walls.