Dark Duets Part 50

"Now for the next part of this. Time for awakenings, I think."

The words he whispered were not known to many humans. But those words were heard, and very clearly at that.

Soon the wind picked up, and the clouds began to gather.

Rodney made it back to his car before the storm came in earnest. Of course, he'd planned it that way. It was a storm that he'd designed.

THE STORM CAME up through the valley, turning the mountaintop into a shadowy, cloud-shrouded beast and tossing the leaves of trees with a sound like a long, drawn-out hiss. The sky lowered overhead, icy-gray sheets of rain visible in the distance as the old farmhouse seemed to huddle in the foothills.

Christian Burr was still sitting in the dining room and lost in thought, the contents of the envelope strewn across the table and his grandfather's letter in his hands, when he heard shouting.

He went to the front porch. Susan's voice cut through the wind like a knife, high and full of panic. Sammy. Money and riddles forgotten for the moment, Burr shoved the letter in his pocket and leaped down the steps. Susan was standing near the edge of the small pond, hands cupped to her face, screaming into the growing wind. But it wasn't Sam she was calling for; the boy stood clutching his mother's leg.

Susan spied Burr, scooped up Sam into her arms, and ran to her husband. "Lisa's gone," she said breathlessly, spots of red on her otherwise pale cheeks. "I got distracted near the water, turned my back, and . . ." She shook her head. "I can't find her anywhere."

Burr scanned the immediate surroundings, his eyes moving over their old Subaru wagon and its empty backseat, the house, the ragged lawn. There weren't many places to hide. Unless . . .

He turned to the wood's edge, a chill creeping over him. The trees ran in a thick line, but a faint, worn path led through the tall gra.s.s. Could Lisa have been tempted to explore there? Anything was possible.

"The storm," Susan said. "Chris, please . . . you have to get her back before it hits."

He nodded. "Take Sammy and get in the house," he said. "She couldn't have gone very far."

Burr didn't wait for an answer. The wind grew even fiercer, with a smell like ozone and mud as he ducked his head and ran through the gra.s.s, following the path toward the forest. At the edge of the trees he paused; in the soft dirt there he could clearly make out a partial shoeprint.

Lisa had gone into the woods.

Burr glanced back at the house. Susan and Sammy were nowhere to be seen; hopefully they had listened to him and made it inside. The storm seemed to race through the valley, more clouds boiling up and bursting with rain. It had come up so fast. He had only minutes before it would be upon him.

Burr entered the woods.

Inside the first line of trees, the wind was softer, buffeted by the thick canopy of leaves. It was even darker in here, and he moved forward cautiously, calling out Lisa's name with no response. The path appeared to continue on, faint but visible, meandering left and right around trunks and clumps of brambles. The air smelled of rich earth and decay, along with something else he couldn't place. He had a sense of things lurking beyond the edges of his sight, watching him, and he quickly grew claustrophobic and disoriented. He turned, looked behind him, the path suddenly gone; where had he entered the woods? It should only have been twenty or thirty feet away, but instead he saw nothing but branches and leaves.

Burr called out for his daughter again, pushing forward through the gloom. Now he could have sworn he heard whispers, too soft for him to make out any words. Perhaps it was the wind in the treetops.

Your grandfather is buried somewhere in here. Burr stopped short, heart pounding. A notion that had seemed quaint, if a bit odd, now felt more unsettling. He could be walking over Arthur's grave right now.

"Lisa!" Burr shouted. "This isn't funny. Come out, right now!"

No answer. He pushed through heavy branches, feeling blind in the growing dark, a twig snapping back across his face and making him wince. But nothing was there except more branches, more leaves.

Movement came from the left.

He stepped forward again and almost stumbled over something. Burr crouched to find a pair of girl's sneakers, half hidden in old leaves. A few steps farther on he found a shirt, and then a pair of jeans.

Thunder cracked the sky, rumbling through the valley and sounding slightly m.u.f.fled through the trees. Wetness dripped from above onto Burr's head as the first raindrops began to fall.

Then he heard Lisa scream.

THE WORLD HAD changed.

Lisa Burr had felt it as soon as she stepped through the forest wall. The barrier that had hidden things from her fell away as if she were shedding an old skin, and she felt everything click into place. She had suddenly awakened from a terrible dream. The forest was still thick, but she could see everything clearly in a way that transcended sight. It was not "sight" as she had known before, but something more, something deeper that incorporated her very essence.

She was still aware of the sounds, colors, smells, and tastes that normally a.s.saulted her senses, and yet she understood each and every one of them and their places in the world around her in a way she never had before. It was like magic, and along with it came a great sense of satisfaction, a purpose that had been denied her for the first fifteen years of her young life.

The forest was speaking a language, one that she finally understood.

The human clothing she wore felt terribly constrictive. She took off her shoes. The soil beneath her feet gave off a rich chocolate hue wherever it was most fertile. Leaves above her head pa.s.sed knowledge along through a sound like whispers in the dark, and the drops of rain that had begun to patter down sang of their journey from the heavens as they quenched the parched roots below. A fox barked a warning as she moved, a bitter scent from the creature's glands wafting out as a red cloud; without thinking, she responded, soothing the animal's fears with a hum that began low in her belly and sounded like the buzz of bees.

Lisa removed her shirt, then her jeans, repulsed by the toxic, chemical smell of them. The fox came forward and nuzzled her hand. Almost immediately, she sensed movement all around her. Other animals emerged from their hiding places, one by one: three squirrels chattered about her appearance as they darted down a thick pine branch; a deer came picking his way on spindly legs; a porcupine waddled forward, spines down in a gesture of acceptance.

Others came behind them, dozens, hundreds; the woods were full of them, and Lisa could feel them all calling to her, welcoming her to their domain.

She stepped forward into their embrace, her entire body tingling fiercely. The falling rain caressed and nourished her as it sang, roots of plants and trees digging into the soil and drinking deeply, pulsing with new life. Animals that had nuzzled at her suddenly parted as one, and another padded forward silently on giant paws; a wolf, its shoulders nearly taller than her own waist. She sensed both its power and its acceptance of her, the knowledge that she was completely safe here but also that this creature expected something important from her.

She let the wolf lead her forward through the woods, her feet finding the right path without thought, avoiding sharp objects with ease. At some point she sensed her father pierce the barrier of the trees behind her, heard him calling to her, but she did not hesitate. Several animals slipped away, circling back, but most of them continued along with her, a ma.s.sive and nearly silent march through the woods like a somber parade, meant to bear testament to something she could not quite grasp. Not yet.

Lisa slipped through undergrowth and branches like a ghost as they went deeper into the forest. Finally the thick trees gave way to a circular clearing. In its center stood a ma.s.sive tree, its naked branches stretching toward the dark sky. Rain clouds had lowered themselves until they appeared to nearly touch the bony, wooden fingers, and the tree's gnarled, rough bark glistened wetly. There was almost no light, but Lisa had no need of it; she could see everything far beyond the limits of her eyes.

The rain washed away the last of the chemical stink that had permeated her skin, and she stood naked and whole, spreading her arms wide like the tree, embracing the world around her.

She was shocked when another human form stepped out from the shadows. She recognized him as the man who had come to visit her father in the big car, but she had not sensed him standing there, even though she had felt everything else around her.

"K noze," the old man said. "Hodnej." The huge wolf padded across the clearing to stand at his side. "Welcome, " he said, smiling at Lisa. He spoke without saying a word aloud, and yet she understood him clearly. "Blahopejeme k promoci! It is time for you to awaken, Lisa Burian."

CHRISTIAN BURR STUMBLED through the thick trees, pushing away the branches that stung his face. The scream had been Lisa's, he was sure of it; who else would be out here in the storm? His heart pounded with fear, body charged with adrenaline as he tried to keep going in the right direction. It was nearly impossible. Everything in the forest served only to confuse him, the sounds of dripping rain, the shadows that seemed to dance and change as he moved, the grasping branches. He could become lost out here very easily, he realized, with the forest stretching on for miles.

With that thought came the memory of his grandfather's stories about the Leshy, the legendary Slavic forest creature that protected the forest and confused travelers who were ignorant enough to trespa.s.s on his lands. A Leshy could appear to be an ordinary human but could take any living form, his grandfather had said, from the smallest insect to the largest animal. It could protect crops and livestock in exchange for tribute and worship, and if a human befriended one, he could be taught the secrets of magic.

But a Leshy could also make you disappear forever if you did not obey its wishes.

Why had he thought of that? He hadn't remembered those stories since he was a boy, but now they seemed fresh in his consciousness. Burr pushed on, listening for any signs of his daughter. His mind kept worrying at the details of his grandfather's bizarre letter and set of instructions, and the riddles it had contained: What bends without breaking, gives shelter without roof and walls, warms after death, sighs without breath?

And the second one: Reaching stiffly for the sky, I bare my fingers when it's cold.

In warmth I wear an emerald glove, And in between I dress in gold.

Trees, Burr thought suddenly. The answer to both is trees. He stopped, looking up through the dripping rain at the canopy high above him. The leaves were thick, branches intertwined. Above that the storm raged; he could hear the wind and the rain lashing at the forest, but down here it was calmer, quieter, and he began to get the sense that he was not being led astray at all, that he simply had to get his wits about him and begin to listen more carefully.

Find the answers, his grandfather had written, and you will see the light.

With great effort, Burr cleared his mind of the clutter and confusion that had gripped him from the moment he realized Lisa was missing. Almost immediately, he sensed something coming. Flitting through the cover of the treetops came a flock of birds, hundreds moving as one as they pa.s.sed over his head. He sensed and heard them but did not see a single one until a small sparrow alighted on a branch directly in front of him, c.o.c.ked its head in the dim light as if studying him before flitting to the next branch, and then the next, leading him on.

Christian Burr slipped forward, following the birds deeper into the forest.

"IT'S THE SYNTHETICS." The girl looked at him for a moment, barely seeming to comprehend that he had spoken, and then looked down at herself, as if suddenly realizing that she was unclothed before him. Rain glistened on her glowing flesh. "I did the same thing when I first became aware of how bad they smell, how they feel when they touch the skin." He smiled softly. "These days all I wear are clothes I have specially made. All natural. Cotton fabrics and silk. Even the b.u.t.tons on my shirt and jacket are custom." He pointed. "Wood and stone and occasionally bone."

The girl frowned slightly. She was a beautiful thing, and he could sense the power starting to build in her, growing like the clouds that were even now rising to greater and greater heights above them. A thrill ran through him, one he tried hard to suppress.

"Your great-grandfather was my best friend. I think he would have liked to meet you under different circ.u.mstances, my dear, but it has to be this way."

She looked at the tree. To most people it might merely look like another oak, but he knew better, and judging by her expression she did too.

Talbot smiled and nodded his head. "That's right. He's here." His hand caressed the thick bark of the tree. Five years since he'd buried the acorn inside his best friend's chest, making sure to pierce the meat of the heart as he'd been instructed to do. Five years since he'd buried the body himself, jumping through nearly endless legal loopholes in order to properly guarantee the secrecy of the final resting place. These days secrecy was almost impossible, but he'd managed. There was truth to the old saying about money talking, and even though the majority of Arthur's fortune had been put into trust, he'd left enough to grease the proper legal wheels.

Lisa came closer to the tree, not speaking. Her eyes stared at the powerful, vibrant oak. He knew what she saw. Arthur had taught him over years what came to her instinctively. She could see the raw, magnificent power that was Arthur's spirit locked within its branches.

The woods here were protected. Rodney had seen to it. He had done so much over the years, because he loved Arthur and because he understood his best friend. Trust funds had been established, taxes paid, and more funds set up to guarantee the legal protection in perpetuity. All of this Rodney had willingly done to ensure that the family would be protected and cared for.

And yet when all was said and done, he had been left alone, set adrift, taught so much and yet not enough. Not nearly enough.

Lisa put her hand on the bark of the tree and closed her eyes, communing with her great-grandfather for the first time, truly communing with him as only a few people would ever be able to understand.

She had eyes and she could see. That was her birthright.

It was also Rodney's gift, and he felt a flare of jealousy that he'd tried so very hard to suppress. He felt it-and reveled in it.

The words were uttered very softly, and the trap he'd laid was triggered.

The girl was beautiful, no two ways about that. She had features that were so similar to Magda's, Arthur's wife. To the woman Rodney had willingly surrendered to Arthur when their love was so evident.

And that, too, made his actions easier.

Talbot began to undress. He hated his fleshy, pale white belly, his flaccid, shriveled p.e.n.i.s and wrinkled skin. He was ancient, his cells dying one at a time; his body ached now, and he could feel death standing behind him all the time, waiting for the right moment. Not yet, Talbot thought. Not yet.

He slipped a knife from the pocket of his pants. Lisa's hand tried to pull back from the tree, but nothing happened. Her sweet, innocent eyes flew wide, and her mouth drew down in a frown of unexpected pain.

"Don't fight it, sweet girl." Naked now, Talbot put a hand on her shoulder, but she was too busy struggling to notice. "The more you fight, the more it will hurt; and Arthur never wanted you to feel pain."

Her skin was warm and soft, but the muscles beneath her flesh jumped as if electrified. Her brow was stippled with sweat, and her breaths came out as tiny, frenzied gasps.

"Arthur told me that you were the next Leshy and that I was to bring you to him. And so I have." He spoke softly to her, his voice barely a whisper. "But I have to tell you, I don't think you're quite the right choice for that. I think it might take someone with more experience." He brushed her ear with his lips and she tried to flinch away, but the binding spell was working. His eyes traveled along her arm, looked at where her hand and forearm had already been covered by the same thick bark as that which covered the tree that housed Arthur's spirit. A low groan came from her and she tried to sag, but her legs were held in place by the binding spell, and no matter what she tried, there was no escape for her.

"It's nothing against you, sweet Lisa. I think you are a lovely child and I've watched your family from afar for a very long time. But I am growing old now, without Arthur's help, and I need to remain vital. I need to remain strong."

His hands ran along her shoulders and down her arms, keeping the knife's edge against her skin. He stopped his progress down the length of her forearm just shy of the bark that was swallowing her flesh.

"I found the ritual. It took a lot of time and research, and believe me, it took a lot of money. You are the Leshy, Lisa. But thanks to the words, the proper care and processes, I can bind you to Arthur. You remain the Leshy and as long as you live, I retain the Stewardship."

He let the blade bite, just enough to draw blood.

Oh, how she fought. Lisa pulled as hard as she could and actually shook him off for a moment, but in the process she offended the power that bound her and it retaliated. A flaring light rippled across her skin and the bark swarmed like a thousand hungry ants, crawling up her arm and covering her shoulder, her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, her stomach. Lisa's eyes flew wide and she screamed. Rodney could feel her pain and frowned. The cut should be shallow and not dangerous, just enough to share a few drops. He did not want this. Quite to the contrary, he wanted her happy and healthy.

"Please, child. Don't fight. I never wanted you to suffer." Talbot shook his head as he sliced his own forearm and let the blood drip onto her skin, mixing with her own. "Arthur would not approve."

CHRISTIAN BURR FOLLOWED the sound of the birds.

At some point he had closed his eyes, but it made no difference. The sound led him forward, and he found that his feet knew exactly where to step to avoid roots and sinkholes, rocks and brush. He ducked around branches without a single mishap, and as he did his mind seemed to expand, soaring over the forest and watching from far above. He felt the rain pounding down and the wind shaking the trees, but underneath it all he was sheltered like a fetus in the womb. With the rain his spirit was washed clean, and he found himself listening to the sounds of the forest in a way that seemed intimate.

But it wasn't just sounds, Burr realized; it was scents and other ways the forest connected to him that he had never imagined. He let these lead him deeper, and when he emerged on the edge of a clearing and saw the gigantic tree at its center, he was not surprised.

Nor was he surprised to see the huge wolf watching him from the other side with luminous eyes and lolling tongue, or the countless other creatures of the forest creeping forward from its edges.

But what did surprise him was the image of Rodney Talbot, stripped naked, caressing the nude form of his fifteen-year-old daughter as she stood fused to the tree, her hands and arms all but disappearing into the thick bark.

Revulsion washed over him, and rage flew fast on its heels. He stepped out, into the clearing. "Get away from her," he said.

For a moment, he thought Talbot didn't hear him. And then the man turned his head, and Burr saw the forest reflected in his face. His eyes were tinted green, his lips blue. His skin had begun to take on the texture of the bark that was absorbing Burr's daughter, one cell at a time.

Talbot looked at the wolf and made a guttural sound, like a river rushing and tumbling over rocks, and the beast took a step toward Burr, then another, growling deep in its throat as Talbot turned back again and focused his attention on the girl.

THE SOUNDS OF the forest had changed.

Before they had been lilting, sweet, beckoning her forward; but as she touched her great-grandfather's sh.e.l.l, the sounds had begun to nip at her like playful dogs. The man had spoken and the song had changed again. Its bite had teeth and it hurt. It meant to catch her now, to bind her and never let her go.

She tried to pull away, but it was no use. The living bark had begun to flow over her flesh. Somewhere deep within the beat of the tree she felt another presence, one with a powerful, deep and ancient voice. But it would not come to help her, not anymore. It was too far gone and bound to the roots that had buried themselves so deep in the soil.

Just a short time ago, she had finally understood herself fully for the first time; her disability, as her school counselors had described it, wasn't a limitation at all, but a gift. She had felt herself emerging like a b.u.t.terfly from a coc.o.o.n.

But now that gift had become her prison, and the same power that drove it was being used against her.

Lisa screamed, a very human sound, and felt the man come up behind her, violating her with his hands as they moved across her shoulders, pulling something from her that hurt worse than anything else. He spoke the ancient words and the feeling intensified, a drawing out like blood being sucked from a wound.

The pain was too much to bear. The man's voice had gotten louder now, a rhythmic chanting that tore at her again and again. She tried to yank her feet free, but it was as if someone had driven spikes through her heels; when she looked down she saw that roots had sprouted from her flesh, wriggling like snakes as they found the soil and dug in.

The giant tree shivered, once, twice, three times. Talbot shrieked in triumph as the bark enveloped Lisa's face and the world began to fade away.

CHRISTIAN BURR STOOD his ground as the wolf approached. The warning growl left his legs weak and his heart racing ever faster, and he felt himself beginning to lose control. He still wasn't sure what was happening, but it seemed impossible. What he had seen didn't make any sense. His daughter was being absorbed. . .

Burr felt the familiar panic that always overtook him when the stress got to be too much, and the detachment that went along with it was close behind. He had never been good at dealing with intense situations; he had wondered, after Lisa had been diagnosed, whether he had just a little bit of what she was born with and had pa.s.sed it along in a more concentrated form.

She is a Leshy.

There is no such thing. And yet he could feel the truth like some monstrous wild creature bursting through the forest. His grandfather had been one too. Now it was time for another to take over, but it would not be him.

He was simply a steward of the blood.

The wolf was close enough to touch. Burr could smell its wet, sulfur smell, see the glint of its long, sharp teeth. Unbidden, words sprang to his lips: a phrase his grandfather had taught him as a young child while they planted the Christmas tree, words that sounded like gibberish but that he had been made to repeat, over and over.

"Klid je les, poslouchat stormy."

The wolf paused. "Steal ivot od cizince, a dej mi to," Burr said. The wolf took another step forward, panting, and stopped, c.o.c.king its head as if listening.

There was more to the ritual, but Burr couldn't remember it. He looked at Talbot. The man had continued to change. He was swelling in size like a bloated tick, his hands still on Lisa's shoulders, his head thrown back at a grotesque angle. His hair had changed from silver to a thick brown, and his flesh had lost the barklike pattern and begun to take on a bluish tone. His eyes were the color of summer gra.s.s.

Burr considered trying to run past the wolf, but it was already too late. Lisa was almost completely shrouded in bark, a coc.o.o.n of living armor that turned her arms to branches and absorbed her legs and feet until they appeared rooted to the ground. Burr could barely make out his daughter's features, but what he saw was frozen in horror.

Talbot screamed again in triumph, a look of ecstasy on a face that had turned thirty years younger. At that moment, the wolf gave a snarl and leaped at the man with bared teeth.