There was not one thing in his past that he could look back at with pride or satisfaction.
He had no one to blame for what he had become.
It was not his appearance that would make it impossible for Sophie to ever look at him with anything but disgust and revulsion if she only knew who he was.
He had hurt her long ago. And some things could never be repaired or forgiven.
Chapter 16
I WAS BUSY WITH JO the following day. Then another snowfall made all roads impassable, and I had to wait for them to be cleared. As it turned out, it took four days before I was able to head out to the house in the woods.
I got a couple of jerry cans full of chainsaw fuel at the general store, along with some teabags and cookies. Stan gave me a funny look as he rang my purchases through the cash register, but thankfully didn’t ask any questions.
I saw Monster behind the trees on the other side of the fence as soon as the property came into view. His dark, russet fur made a striking contrast to the white snow as he paced on all fours between the tree trunks.
Seeing him from a distance, I could fully appreciate his magnificent form. Large and powerful, he moved with a feline grace through the deep snow at the edge of the woods. His long, furry tail swished around his hind legs, fanning the snow in bursts of glitter that sparkled under the bright sunlight.
He held his head unnaturally still, even as he moved. I knew it was most likely to avoid aggravating his headache, however, it gave his movements an especially dignified appearance.
The regal poise with which he carried his long winding horns reminded me of a majestic elk with a full rack of magnificent antlers.
I’d promised not to ask him questions, but it didn’t mean they didn’t swirl around my mind almost constantly. Who was he? And what happened to him?
Somebody had to have taught him to speak English, had showed him how to start a fire, how to cook meat.
‘There is no coming back.’
The memory of his words tugged at my heart.
The fact that he was alone now, without any apparent contact with people except for me, was therefore only more heartbreaking. If something happened to him, no one would be there to help. Being possibly the only person aware of his existence, I might be the only link to the world for him.
He moved closer to the fence, the moment I pulled the truck over, but he didn’t climb through the opening to greet me.
“Have you been waiting here long?” I stomped through the snow with a heavy jerry can in each hand and a plastic bag with tea and cookies around my wrist.
“Four days. With a few breaks.”
“Four days?”
“It’s not like I have a super busy schedule.” He shrugged.
I noticed a patch of packed snow by the nearby bush, as if a large animal lay there at least since the snowfall.
Did he really sleep here, waiting for me?
“I’m sorry. There was so much snow, I had to wait for the roads to be cleared a little—”
Still unsteady on my feet without the walking stick, I tripped over the snow bank and lurched forward. Dropping the jerry cans and flaying my arm in the air in a futile struggle to keep my balance, I leaned too far back.
“Careful!” I heard Monster’s warning a moment before I landed on my ass.
“Shoot.”
“Sophie. Are you okay?” Monster’s strained voice reached me.
He stood in the opening of the fence, his fingers curled through the chain links, the claws fully extended.
“I’m fine. No damage done this time, just to my dignity, ” I assured him with a short laugh and climbed out of the snow bank with all the grace of a yeti packed in a puffy snowsuit. “I may need some help with these, though.” I gestured at the heavy jerry cans, half buried in the snow wherever I dropped them.
“I can’t.” His grave voice drew my attention to his face. His expression was dark. “I can’t get to you, Sophie.”
“What do you mean?” I wrestled one jerry can out from the snow and carried it to the fence, holding it by the handle with both hands. “Why?” I sat it down by my side.
His eyes followed my movements, but he remained in place.
“I can’t cross the property line. I can’t leave the estate.”
Puzzled, I considered his words.
“Is it psychological? Like when people can’t leave the house?”
He frowned in reply and shoved away from the fence suddenly then slammed his fist at the opening, making me cry out in surprise.
His fist didn’t go through, though. As if it had encountered some obstacle in the air, the force of his blow threw his arm back, jerking his whole body back, too.
“It’s very much physical, princess,” he growled.
“What was that?” I lifted both hands in the air and leaned into the opening in the fence in search of the invisible barrier that stopped Monster’s fist. Not feeling anything, I almost lost my balance again, nearly falling through to the other side. “There is nothing here.”
With my gloved finger, I traced the edge of the cut.
“Stay back,” Monster bit out a curt warning, allowing me to stagger aside as he took a few steps back himself before lunging at the fence again.
He crashed into it with his shoulder this time. The full impact of his massive body sent him back through the air, and he landed heavily the good ten feet away from the fence.
“Stop it!” I leaped through the opening and rushed to him. It was painful to watch him thrash against his cage like a wounded animal. I couldn’t even begin to imagine how it must have felt to him. “Oh, God, Monster, are you okay?” I sank into the snow at his side as he rose to his elbows, still lying on his back.
“It’s real.” He shot a hateful glare at the opening in the fence. “I can’t leave.” His gaze travelled to mine, and his features softened, as the rays of warmth made their way through the dark clouds of pain and rage in his eyes. “I’m trapped in here, Sophie.”
“How?” I brushed the snow off his mane and shoulders. “What is this thing?”
“I don’t know.” He sat up. “But I do know that it’s an impenetrable wall for me. All around the estate. I can’t walk through it. Can’t climb over it, no matter how high I climb. If I try to run through it, I get thrown back. If I run faster, I only get tossed back harder.”
“How about the river? You said there is a river running through, right?”
He nodded.
“The river marks the western boundary. The property line must be right in the middle of the stream because that’s as far as I can swim. I can’t cross to the other side.” He paused for a second. “I’ve tried it all, Sophie. Trust me.”
I sat back, disheartened.
I trusted he had explored every possibility of getting out of his invisible jail, but I struggled with the fact of its existence in the first place.
“Why is it here, Monster? How did it happen?”
“You promised not to ask questions,” he reminded quietly. “But even if you didn’t, I couldn’t answer them all anyway. I don’t know exactly how all of this works.”
“But this is not right!” I argued. “You’re being held a prisoner here. Who is doing this to you? And why? What crimes have you committed?”
“Many.” He got up slowly. “I’ve done many things, none of which I’m proud of, and all of them I now bitterly regret.”
“Are you saying you deserve this?” I exclaimed, scrambling to my feet too and pointing at the fence behind us.
“Yes.” He grabbed my shoulders, his glare pinning me in place. “I deserve all of it. It took me years to realize it, let alone admit it here to you now. But every single thing that happened to me I brought on myself, actively ignoring any path to salvation until it was too late. And here I am, a hideous monster, a pathetic creature from a nightmare, sitting like a dog by the fence for four days, waiting for you to return.” His fingers dug into my shoulders as his gaze slid from my eyes to
my lips. “And I didn’t mind the wait. For the first time in years, I had something to look forward to. Will you still come to the house with me, knowing all of this?”
I couldn't reply right away, stunned by the passion of his admissions.
“I’ve told you enough for you to leave and never come back,” he added.
Enough for me to understand how utterly alone he truly was, too—trapped in here by the fence and imprisoned inside his mind by his regrets.
“I have no reason to run.” I lifted my chin up in challenge. “Regardless what happened in your past, I have no reason to fear you now. I have your promise not to harm me.”
His chest heaved with a deep inhale as he broke eye contact.
“It is wrong for me to invite you here again and again.” He shook his head as his shoulders slumped in defeat. “But I don’t have it in me to refuse your company.”
“Why is it wrong?” I hurried after him on his way back to the opening in the fence. “I came here willingly. It’s not like you’ve forced me . . . I like being able to help. Besides,” I added quietly. “I like your company, too.”
He stopped abruptly, shooting me a surprised glance.
“You do?”
“Yes.” My focus suddenly shifted to my fingers as I fidgeted with the edge of my scarf. “I like talking to you, despite all your growls and glowering. You’re not a bad listener.”
He cleared his throat, stepping from foot to foot, but didn’t reply.
“I’ll pass you the cans,” I said to break the silence and slid through the opening back to the road again.
He grabbed the jerry cans when I lifted them through the hole in the fence. And I picked up my bag with tea and cookies.
“How is your leg?” he asked on our way to the house.
“Much better. Thank you.” My limp was a little more profound when walking through the snow. However, there was no longer any pain and I didn’t need a walking stick to get around.
We made our way to the house mostly in silence. I tried to start a conversation a couple of times, but it quickly died, as Monster seemed to be lost in thought, replying in monosyllables.
I noted that the front door was closed the moment we entered the front yard through the passage in the rose bushes. He must have cleaned the ice and snow that had held it half-open before. The porch seemed to have been cleared of snow, too.
Inside, the floors in the main room and the kitchen had been swept and instead of a blanket, several pieces of plywood had been nailed neatly to the frame of the broken back door. The cobwebs and dust had been swept off the remaining glass doors in the back, letting in more light.
“Wow, it’s warm in here.” I pulled off my hat and mittens, moving to the brightly lit fireplace.
“It takes a while to heat this house. I started the fire this morning.” Monster’s voice was gruff, but I sensed his satisfaction at my obvious pleasure.
“You did a good job. The place looks almost lived in. And I thought you didn’t spend much time in here.” I took off my parka, but left the boots and the snow pants on.
“I don’t. Usually.” He carried the fuel in the kitchen and then to the garage through the door there.
I followed him to the kitchen. The orange I got him last time was in a glass cookie jar on the island counter. Untouched.
“I brought some cookies,” I announced when he returned. “And tea.” I placed my bag on the counter.
He nodded then got the teakettle from a cabinet and filled it with water from the bucket nearby.
“Would you have some with me?” I watched as he carried the kettle to the fireplace and placed it on the wrought-iron stand over the flames.
“I’d rather not eat human food, Sophie.”
“Why not? You don’t like it?”
“It’s not that,” he heaved a sigh, rubbing the back of his neck. “It’s just that it’d be harder to go back to eating raw venison again. You know . . . after you leave.”
“Because there’d be no one to bring you cookies?” I whispered, lowering myself into the couch.
Without replying, he got busy getting my tea ready as I kept thinking about what he had just said.
I believed I could understand a little the reason of his initial hostility towards me now too. Over his time of being here, he had established a certain lifestyle. He’d learned not to need things he couldn’t get. And here I came and disrupted this balance. Eventually, I would go back to Calgary, leaving him alone again.
“Monster.” The name didn’t make me wince anymore. Even as I wished he’d tell me his real name if he had one, I realized, this might be another one of his tactics to keep distance between us, for his self-preservation. “Could I help you in more ways than just bringing things for you? Can I do something that would last? Like, I don’t know, something that would be helpful in the long run?”
He brought me my tea and joined me on the couch.
“A tempting offer, Sophie,” he said softly. His eyes narrowed as he peered at me intently. His jaw flexed, the lips forming a thin line over the teeth—even the long canines disappeared from view—as he considered me for a moment. “I would love to bring the house back in order, but it may take some time. How long are you staying in Rocky River?”
“I haven’t decided yet. I think I could stay until Christmas if it gives you enough time to get everything done. It’s just over three weeks left. What exactly would you need me to do?”
“Three weeks is good,” he nodded. “I’ll take three weeks.”
“What can I do?” I asked again.
He shifted on the couch to face me straight on.
“The house has been badly neglected, but I believe all services are still in working condition. I would like to bring them all up again. Electricity, running water, heating—”
“Are you planning to live here?”
“I used to. Until about three years ago. It hasn’t been that long since everything was functioning.”
“Alright, do you need me to call the utility company to turn it all on?”
“No. The house is completely off the grid. Solar power, geo-thermal heating, propane tanks outside, and a backup generator. I’ve learned to do a lot of things myself around here. But I need someone to call people to service the systems, to make sure it’s okay to turn them on—an electrician, a plumber.”
“Okay.” My thinking processes finally got some traction too. “I could call someone to refill the propane tanks.”
“A maintenance person should look at them first,” he warned.
“How about sewage? Do you have a septic tank here? I’ll find out who in town can pump it out.” I swept the living room with my gaze quickly. “And the door—” I tipped my chin at the blanket.
“If you find a new one, I can replace it myself. Also, if you could send some mail to a law office in Calgary for me, I’ll be able to pay for all these expenses.”
“So, it is your house? You are the legal owner?”
His gaze slipped from my face, and he stretched his neck side to side, slowly, obviously stalling over his reply.
“Technically, my father’s trust company is the owner. He’s dead, and I’m the sole beneficiary.”
I held my breath, welcoming any little bit of information about him and his past. I waited for him to continue, but he went quiet again.
“I’m so sorry, Monster. When did your father pass away?”
“Don’t be sorry, Sophie.” His tone hardened. “Not for him.” He shook his mane. “Tell me about your family.”
“My family?” He’d changed the subject so suddenly, I needed a moment to catch up.
“Yes. Are both of your parents still alive?”
“They are.” I nodded. “I live with my mom. We get along very well, actually.”
“Are your parents divorced then?”
“No. They were never married. My mom met Henri while backpacking in Europe after high school. Henri, well, he was on a rebellious streak at the time,
I guess, travelling the world, looking for his purpose in life or . . . something. If there ever was a time for them to connect on any level at all, that was it. They had a few wild weeks together, before Henri’s rebellion wore off and he returned home to France to take over his family business. My mom learned that she was pregnant with me several weeks later.”
I didn’t talk much about my parents. Normally, I didn’t want my friends to know anything about my dad. His name and fortune only attracted unnecessary attention and seemed to cause people to form the wrong opinions about me too. And the few people who spoke to me in France didn’t need or didn’t want to know much about my mom.
Telling all this to Monster now felt different. He was so far removed from either Calgary or Paris that opening up to him was like making confessions in absolute privacy.
“Henri was not thrilled at the news of becoming a father. He had a vasectomy done the very same day my mom told him about me and refused to have any contact with us until I was about eight or nine.”
“What changed then?” The genuine interest in Monster’s expression prompted me to continue.
“Oh, nothing from our side. But that was when Henri remembered that there was a person carrying the legacy of his last name and became increasingly concerned about that legacy. He contacted my mom through his lawyers, demanding a custody agreement. My mom fought it at first but then gave up, realizing, I think, all the potential benefits I could reap by being accepted into the Morel family.
“Henri let us live where my mom wanted but insisted I come to his estate near Paris for one month each year.”
I hated this part of their agreement the most. Instead of having a month of summer vacation like everyone else did, I had four weeks of grueling lessons with tutors hired by Henri to teach me French language, literature, and history.
“He was hardly around because he spent most of his time in a townhouse in Paris and came to the chateau only when he had a large company to entertain. When I visited, I was left in the care of his housekeeper and the Madame Morel of the month.”
Monster snorted.
“You must have had an army of stepmothers.”
“About a dozen, I think, not counting a few fiancées who didn’t make it to wife status. All of them were pretty much the same—tall, slim and breathtakingly beautiful.”
To Love A Monster Page 8
