Chapter Twenty-three 9 page

?glad of the break. Drove Aunt Mary down to the Port Hardy ferry for a sad farewell. I will miss her, but promised to lock up tight and call her when I arrive back in Portland.

I must admit it is nice to have the house to myself for this last night. The full moon is beautiful this evening?

?all packed and ready to go at seven a.m. sharp?the weather looks good for the?
28^th

?she really lost it, and scared the hell out of me. Glad to get away. What an intense woman, and she was so lovely at the start?
Isabelle closed the journal. There was no more to read, and what little she could make out told a bizarre tale. Was Ren hiding the journal because it showed their troubled past? Why not let the book burn? Eventually, Isabelle?s memories would return, and journal or not, she would remember this suffocating friendship. Except it wasn?t a friendship any longer. Last night she had allowed it to become something else. Isabelle sank her head in her hands. What had she done? It was all such a mess, when only last night it had felt so right. Her coup de foudre had collapsed into dust. Last night she had unwittingly flung herself from a point of safety into Ren?s arms. Today, secrets had been laid bare, and she realized she had fallen?heart, head, and soul?into a trap.

She slipped the journal and her passport and papers into her jacket pocket. As an afterthought, she grabbed the camera, too. Her mind was made up. She had to get away. If she stayed, she might well recover all her memories as Ren had promised. And then what? Find she was a captive in the valley? It sounded implausible, but the odds were stacking up against Ren. She had been devious without lying, manipulative under a mask of caring, and if the journal was anything to go by, predatory from the start. Isabelle patted the documents in her pocket, drawing comfort from their presence. They told her she was Isabelle Monk of Billinghurst Drive, Portland, Oregon, USA, and she was twenty-nine years old. It was all she needed. She now knew where home was. She was getting out. Somehow, between float planes, logging trucks, quads, and her own two feet, she was going home.

Chapter Fourteen

?I?ve got to go out tonight.? Ren?s arms enfolded her from behind; she buried her nose in Isabelle?s hair and breathed her scent. Standing before the kitchen sink with soapy water splashing up her forearms, Isabelle tensed. Mundane household chores had helped her through the rest of the day while she mulled over her limited options and tried not to fret. Now Ren had returned and she wanted to turn her anger on her and demand to know why she had stolen her journal, and torched her car, and stalked her, and hidden her away in this valley like Sleeping Fucking Beauty. But she also knew if she turned in Ren?s arms not only would she scream at her, she would also be staring into eyes that would melt her like molasses. She wasn?t used to being loved. She could sense it in herself, her awkwardness and reserve, her neediness. If she challenged Ren now she would be easily manipulated because she wanted to believe her. She wanted everything to be okay, she wanted to stay in love, and that was dangerous. A big part of her wanted to believe Ren?s half-truths. It would be so easy to just accept and take the easy way out. She?d come to Canada to end an abusive relationship, and she?d be damned if she was going to sink back into another one. If she blurted out her discovery she would concede an important advantage.

Ren?s scent was knocking her senseless. She had to stand firm and not start the fight she so dearly wanted. Not because she was any less angry. If anything, her anger fueled a need to pound on Ren and bring them both to the floor in a writhing mass of teeth and nails and ripped clothing.

Powerful emotions rippled through her. Ren was hers. How dared she act like this? How dared she try to lock her up, to hide her away like a dirty secret? She gripped the edge of the sink with soapy hands. Ren nuzzled her nape, as if sensing Isabelle?s heightened state.

?I promise I?ll be back by dawn.? Her voice rumbled in Isabelle?s ear, causing the fine hairs on her neck to rise. She shivered.

?Why so late?? she asked. ?Do none of the animals around here get sick during the day??

?It?s a mare. She?s begun to foal and I need the work.? Ren abruptly moved away. Isabelle turned into the space she?d left.

She was fine-tuned to Ren?s elusiveness, and little escaped her now she knew what to look for. The knotted muscles of Ren?s jaw, even the slightest quirk of her lips betrayed her. Her thoughts paraded across her eyes with fanfare. Isabelle read the clues as Ren tightened and twitched before her?a shoulder shrug, a hip slouch, restless hands. Every movement screamed a million messages until Isabelle?s head banged, until it felt she was living inside Ren?s skin. She wondered why she?d never noticed this acute sensitivity before. Now she thrummed with it.

Did sleeping with a person make your nerve endings mesh with hers, your heartbeats synchronize, your skin tingle as if magnetically charged, just because she stood beside you? No, of course not. So why was it that way with Ren?

?Stay with me.? The words were out before she?d barely thought them. She was embarrassed by the plea. What she wanted to say was, ?Don?t go. Tonight is important. Curl up in bed with me and make love and tell me about our history. Give me all the missing pieces of our time together, the good and the bad, and I?ll forgive. I promise I will. I know I will.?

?I have to do this, Isabelle.? Ren was awkward and unhappy. ?I?ll come back as soon as I can. And tomorrow will be different. Tomorrow will be special.?

?Tomorrow, then.? Isabelle turned back to the sink. She felt Ren hesitate behind her, swore the air moved as her hand reached out to touch. Instead, Ren turned for the door.

Isabelle stood in the empty kitchen for some time looking at her refection in the windowpane. Straggly, dirty blond hair framed a thin, angular face. The swelling had gone down and her bruises were less vivid. She was healing quickly. She concentrated on her eyes, as if scrying secrets from their surface.

I?m no longer numb. The thought unfurled, and she realized she had been coiled up and frozen in the lead-up to her divorce. Ren had somehow dissolved all that. She wished her journal had been more complete. There had been happiness in those lines, as well as anger and regret. Ren had wooed her out of her numbness. Then it had all gone wrong. Isabelle ached to know what had happened between them. There was such connectivity and yet so much deceit.

?Tell me something new,? she asked her reflection. She ticked off what she did know. She?d come up to Canada to divorce her American husband, visit her aunt, and return to Portland, where she lived and presumably worked. She knew a lot about classic literature. No?she loved classic literature, and suspected she either taught or studied it. At least she had money now. A few hundred dollars was tucked away in her wallet along with her credit cards. A dollar for every mile she had to run. All she had to do was take a quad up to the logging road and hitch a lift with one of the trucks heading for Bella Coola. It all sounded suspiciously easy.

And suspiciously not what she wanted to do.

What she really wanted was for Ren to come clean. Running away was her last resort. She had run up here to end her marriage. She could feel it, the relief, the absolute rightness of that decision, but running from Ren?the very thought of it made her feel nauseous. Weak. Out of place in the world.

Had emerging from her amnesia made her form an unnatural bond with her rescuer? Was Ren really her rescuer, or was this another face of the woman in the journal? If so, then Isabelle was in some weird, stalkerish wonderland.

She cleared her head of her clamorous thoughts and breathed deep and slow several times, trying to not think, just feel. She liked it here. She liked the little group Ren had rescued with an offer of bed and board, and occasional work. There it was again, that word, ?rescued.? Perhaps they were all trapped here in some shape or form by Ren.

And as for herself, her bait had been the same as everyone else?s. She wanted to be loved and cared for. Her journal told her she had deliberately embarked on a lesbian affair after her marriage breakdown, and for once she had done the right thing. She had never felt so alive, so strong and purposeful. Sleeping with Ren was akin to drinking rocket fuel and swallowing a lit match. She glowed inside, burning up with a ferocity that was outside her normal sphere of feeling. She had no emotional reference for these feelings and did not need a restored memory to know this was new.

Isabelle slumped against the counter. She wanted Ren to validate her right to these emotions, to make them solid and dependable. To make them a gateway to their potential future together. What she did not want was Ren to be a mad stalker, and all this newfound feeling to be fool?s gold. She did not want her time with Ren to be the only thing she wanted to forget.

Night had drawn in, and a fat-bellied moon hung over the eastern peaks. Wind-tossed pewter clouds scudded across its surface. Tomorrow night it would be plump and full, a pregnant goddess with a thousand starry ladies-in-waiting, all twinkling fussily around her. Isabelle laughed at her fantasies. She was restless. The wind made the cabin rattle and bang, as if shooing her outside. Usually a glass of wine, a blazing fire, and a good book would keep her snuggled down on a night like this. But not tonight. Tonight she wanted to taste the air. To feel the wind whip her hair, its cold sting ruddying her cheeks and ripping the breath from her lips.

Perhaps she should take a walk down to the farm and return the bag Jenna had lent her to carry groceries. Isabelle grabbed the bag, shrugged on the large coat she had more or less permanently borrowed from Ren, and stepped out into the night. The air assaulted her, slamming into her lungs, spinning through her cells until they snapped and popped. Everything around her was loaded with the tang of damp earth and pine needle. Far away came the musty scent of woodsmoke. The world smelled sharp, and satisfying, and clean.

Isabelle inhaled deeply through her nose. Clean, she could smell clean. Clean air, clean earth, trees, everything smelled natural and clean. She had never been in a place so wholesome, so connected, so right for her. And yet she had to leave it. She became bitter at the thought, and angry at Ren all over again for making her decisions so impossibly painful.

In a burst of giddy energy, she pushed it all away, and living in the pure, undiluted mountain-fueled moment, leapt from the top porch step. Instead of the satisfying crunch of new snow, her boots squished on slush. The thaw was a deep one. Mouse had assured her one more freeze was on the way and then it would be springtime proper. Isabelle smiled at the rustic wisdoms Mouse recited by rote. According to her, only the southern wind was keeping the temperature up. Soon it would die away and the snow would return for one last flourish.

Isabelle moved through the cedar windbreak. It hummed with fretful nocturnal life. Small creatures were making the most of the break in their hibernation to forage and stock up their body fat. For them the thaw was a boon. Predators were also making the most of this unseasonable abundance, picking off this sudden rash of fresh prey. Overhead, wings fluttered and folded. A squeak told her a snowy owl had found fresh meat. The winter thaw offered amnesty, not mercy.

Isabelle exited the windbreak and took the steep track down to the cluster of farm buildings. She noticed the yard was full of vehicles. All the trucks and quads had returned and were now parked up for the night. She slowed her step. This was what she had promised herself. A free ride out. But now? Tonight? With a bright moon and a crazy wind? She flexed her fingers against her pocket, touching her wallet through the waxed cotton.

Lights from the cookhouse windows paved the yard with oblongs of waxy yellow. Everyone was home for the evening. There would be witnesses. She noticed Ren?s truck parked beside Mouse?s lurid pink quad. It was craziness to bolt now. Isabelle?s anxiety rose. Maybe she should talk to Ren after all. Maybe she should try to understand what the hell was going on.

It looked like Ren hadn?t left yet. Perhaps she could ask to tag along with her. Isabelle wondered how far away the horse ranch was. They could talk in the truck and be honest with each other. They both had fears. Ren had secrets, and most of Isabelle?s life was currently a secret to her.

But what would she ask?

?Why have you behaved in such a manipulative and controlling way? Why have you hidden me in this valley and seduced me when I was at my most vulnerable??

It amazed her. These vehicles were her ticket home, and yet here she was hesitating, wanting to talk, wanting to see Ren again and not just disappear without a word. She was borderline insane to hesitate even a second. She needed to get out. If she still felt like this when she got home then they could talk?long distance! First step was to find a set of car keys.

Only the cookhouse lights were on, and after a quick rap on the door Isabelle entered to find the huge kitchen empty. Good. A furtive check of every cupboard and drawer produced no keys. She went back to the porch and frowned at the curious quiet. All the vehicles were accounted for, but no one was home? She checked the bunkhouse; it was empty, too. Not even Mouse was there, and it was well past her bedtime. Isabelle?s hope for a set of car keys left on a bedside table soon evaporated. Wherever they were, their keys were in their pockets. But where were they?

The barn door still lay ajar. One step into its murky interior and she knew it was deserted. The entire complex was deserted. Uncertain, she went back to the yard and contemplated the row of vehicles, unsure what to do next. I wish I knew how to hotwire a truck.

The howling started on the far side of the valley and shook her out of her indecision. An answering chorus tore across the Tearfell, carried by the wind. Her skin tingled with excitement. The smell of smoke brushed her nostrils. It was not cookhouse or bunkhouse smoke. This came from farther down the valley. She could see it rising, dancing on gusts of wind like a pale specter. Smoke was an ominous sign in the forest during summer, but what did it mean in the depths of winter?

Joey?s huge black quad sat before her. Would Joey carry his keys with him all day long? He couldn?t even ride his quad with his bad leg. What had he done with them after she had returned his bike that afternoon? Think, Isabelle, think. She strode over and unclipped the seat. Joey had stashed his keys underneath. She blessed his predictability and started the engine. It burst into life, loud and unforgiving. The roar was whisked away by the wind, its horsepower an ineffectual whisper against the raw power of nature. She twisted hard on the throttle to prevent the engine from stalling. Maybe it was the colder night air, but the engine seemed temperamental and sluggish.

She took the dirt track for Big Tree and kept an eye out for where it forked off to meet with the logging road near the north end of the valley. She knew she could find her way to Big Tree easily enough in the moonlight, but Joey still hadn?t fixed the headlights, so finding the exit track would be tricky.

Under the forest canopy her engine noise was muted. Solid walls of bark and the density of the snow that covered everything blanketed the sound. The thaw had not yet made its way here to the shadowy interior. Even the wind was beggarly under the low-slung boughs.

She scooted up to the skinning hole clearing where she?d found the burned-out car, and eased up on the throttle. Was it worth another look? What did she hope to find? Confirmation it was not her car after all? Was she willing to twist every fact to make Ren the good guy? To give her one last chance? No. She wasn?t. They could talk when she was safely in Portland, in her own home and settled in her old life.

The smell of smoke grew stronger. Even in the darkness she could see thick gray wisps weaving through the trees. It was not a forest fire?the smoke was too thin and wispy; the wind shredded it and sent it swirling in all directions.

Eventually, she saw the actual flames through a maze of tree trunks. A huge bonfire crackled before Big Tree. Orange flames swirled and danced, casting livid sparks up into the night sky. It was primitive and magical on this dark winter?s night.

Isabelle braked and sat watching, her breath huffing in the cool air, a stark contrast to the blazing heat up ahead. Mesmerized, she fixed on the fiery flash and roils of the flames. Shadows danced around and across them, like the wings of huge black birds fluttering and swooping through the blaze. She was uneasy now, as if she had gate-crashed a private event and was somewhere she shouldn?t be. There was something about the fire that was so personal, almost intimate.

As much as it unsettled her, she could not turn and ride away, either. Instead, she dismounted and carefully approached on foot through the woods. She hid in the shadows, lurking behind trees. Her apprehension prompted quiet steps and cautious movements, but an insatiable curiosity drove her on. Why were birds fluttering around the bonfire? Who had built it, and why was it unattended, roaring away, spitting and crackling like a coven pyre?

She crept closer, until only a few yards lay between the sheltering trees and the bonfire. The howling came again, this time closer. The wolves had crossed the river. They were on her side of the valley now. Isabelle was no longer excited by the eerie, singsong cries. Fear began to creep through her. Here, under the Big Tree, before this monstrous blaze, she was all too aware of the legends of Singing Valley and its ghost wolves. Now the old stories seemed far from fanciful. They crept across her skin like spiders.

Just one more step, one more tree to crouch behind and spy, and then she would go, she promised herself. She took the step?and caught her breath.

There were no shadow birds swooping on the bonfire. Only rags. Hundreds and hundreds of tattered rags hung from the lower branches of Big Tree. They billowed in the wind and in the updraft from the fire, their long shadows swooning and swirling among the flames. From deep in the forest they looked like a flock of elongated, black-winged birds, circling the blaze like demonic phoenixes.

Isabelle stepped out of the shadows and into the circle of orange firelight. She gazed in awe at the strange sight. Cottons and linens and wool in all colors danced from the branches. A rag of pale blue chambray caught her eye. She fixated on it, watching it droop exhaustedly only to twitch and leap back into the dance at the slightest breeze.

?That?s my shirt sleeve.? Her gaze darted from branch to branch. Each scrap of fabric was hers! Every piece of clothing she?d had in her suitcase now hung from this tree in a thousand rags. Flapping and dancing and ripped into shreds.

Isabelle turned and ran. She bolted for the quad and viciously kicked the engine into life, swinging it around in too tight a turn. It spluttered and shuddered as it hit a bank of mud. She bullied it on through and shot off along the track at full throttle.

Now the smoky tendrils crossing her path were menacing fingers that tried to catch at her face and clothing. She gunned the engine. Slow down, you?ll crash, her common sense screamed. But she couldn?t slow down. She flew on recklessly.

Her shredded clothes hung from Big Tree like the skins of ancient ghost wolves. It was ceremonial magic of some sort, shaman and black, and it freaked her out to be at the core of it. She cannoned back toward the skinning hole as if the hounds of hell were after her.

Up ahead, headlights bounced off tree trunks. A truck was coming from the direction of the farm. Soon it would round the bend and pick her out in its lights. Isabelle yanked on the twist grip and swerved into the skinning hole clearing. She drove into the scrub for camouflage, thankful for Joey?s black paintwork and her lack of headlights.

The quad coughed angrily, spluttered, and cut out. Isabelle ducked behind it and peeped out from behind a wheel. The other driver was upon her now, but drove by unaware she was crouched only yards away. She could make out Ren?s profile at the wheel. It was a fleeting glimpse, but enough to set Isabelle?s heart racing for all the wrong reasons. It was Ren driving. She remembered seeing Ren?s cold beauty for the first time at the cabin. Classic features cut out of flawless marble, and her initial dismay and disbelief that she should be the object of Ren?s affections. Ren. Someone who could have anyone, yet chose her?

Isabelle watched that classic profile pass. Ren looked relaxed, pleased. Even from several hundred paces and from an oblique angle Isabelle could read that face. Ren was happy and charged. Was she heading for the logging road and the horse ranch, Isabelle wondered. Or was she going to Big Tree and the bonfire to get naked and dance around it?

Isabelle slumped behind the quad wheel and rested her head in her hands, her mind full of grim thoughts. The forest was eerily silent now. Even the wind had died away. She glanced over her shoulder. There was no further movement on the home track. It was time to go. She had to back up the quad and find another way out, and hope she managed to before Ren or one of the others found out she was missing. She tried to start the quad. No amount of bouncing on the kick-start, twisting the key viciously, or cursing would make it roar into life. It was done for.

Tears pricked the back of her eyelids, tears of humiliation and anger. She wanted to howl with rage. A flicker of movement in the shadows freaked her out. She threw herself off the quad and skittered into the brush, not caring if it was a loose leaf, a nocturnal scavenger, or worse. The stench from the skinning hole was strong, but she slithered toward it. The smell would disguise her scent. Her instincts told her this, but she had no time to think about these newfound survival skills. She part slid, part ran down the steep path to the hollow below. At least from here she could orient herself. The farm lay to the northeast, toward the top of the valley. She knew where the home track ran, but she dared not walk along it. They could be out looking for her.

Isabelle would follow a parallel path. Somehow, she?d scrabble through the woods back to the farmyard. From there she could find her way to the Tearfell and with luck find the back road to Black Knife Lake, and maybe another route out. There was no soul-searching this time, and no wrestling with the facts or skewing the truth to how she would like it to be. She had to save herself, not wallow in self-pity over another twisted relationship.

Chapter Fifteen

It took her hours to make her way back to the farm. With every stumbling step she worried she was doing the wrong thing. But where else could she go? She wasn?t going back to Big Tree now that it was being used for ceremonial witchcraft.

The Black Knife track that forked from the hatchery station was the only other option she knew of. What she needed was a vehicle to take her down to the hatchery station and then on to Black Knife Lake. She had gone in circles and was right back to the car key dilemma. One problem at a time. Get back to the farm first, and then worry about keys.

Her approach brought her in by the far side of the barn. The yard and outbuildings lay quiet in the gray predawn. Isabelle stood motionless in the shadow of the barn wall, her legs shaking from the long hike. She watched and listened for several minutes. Everything was still. Not even the morning birds had begun to sing. She had just screwed up enough courage to dart across the yard when she heard a truck approach from the river.

Panicked, she darted into the barn and stepped back into the warm, dry darkness. The truck came to a standstill outside, and its door slammed shut with a bang.

?Hey, Ren. How?d it go?? she heard Patrick call and then the crunch of footsteps as the two met to talk. She hadn?t noticed Patrick lurking?he must have been out there all along. Isabelle shuddered to think what would have happened if she?d taken another step toward the parked vehicles.

?A fine filly.? Ren sounded upbeat. ?Old Man Williams was so pleased he paid on the spot.?

?Good job. I made some coffee, want some??

?No, thanks. I?m going up to the cabin and check on Isabelle. How are the others??

?All tucked up snoozing. It was a great night. Pity you had to go on to Williams?s place in the middle of it.?

?Tonight will be even better. Isabelle will be there?? Their footsteps receded as they moved out of earshot.

Isabelle stood in the barn, completely indecisive. What she had overheard had not terrified her. She had detected no horrifying consequences for her in Ren?s voice. And she was attuned to that voice. She could make it do things, like roar and purr. Ren?s tone with Patrick had been so casual, so matter-of-fact, so?so un-sinister? She was dithering again and it annoyed her. A part of her just didn?t want to go. Leaving the valley was like pulling off skin.

Footsteps warned her of Patrick?s return. He was making straight for the barn. She slid farther along the wall into the deepest shadows. This was awful. If he came in here, she could end up trapped. Why couldn?t he go back to the cookhouse and his coffee? Isabelle looked around her in a panic. She contemplated her chances of bashing Patrick on the head and making a run for it. She even lifted a shovel and hefted its weight in her hands. Could she do that to him? How would she know what was a good debilitating thump compared to a whack that might kill him? She didn?t want to hurt him.

Patrick?s footsteps stopped by the barn door and her dilemma was forgotten. She waited with bated breath. What was he doing? She could hear the rustle of clothing. Was he undressing? Then he began to groan in pain. Deep, guttural growls and keening that unnerved Isabelle until she dropped her shovel and pressed against the rough-planked walls. What the hell was happening? Did he have an animal out there with him?

She sidled farther into the barn looking for somewhere better to hide. The old Case 400 sat between her and the door. She slipped under it. No. It wouldn?t do. She was too exposed. She slithered out. Above her head was a storage ledge about a yard deep. It ran along the barn length nearly eight feet off the ground. It had probably been used to store excess bales but now lay empty and neglected.

Outside, the grunts had stopped and the ensuing silence gave her no clue to Patrick?s intentions. Perhaps he had gone? Perhaps she should sneak out now while the coast was clear and?

The barn door creaked on its hinges and opened a crack wider. Pale morning light spilled across the floor. Without hesitation Isabelle placed a foot on the rim of the tractor tire and the other on the hood, grabbed for the ledge, and hoisted herself up out of sight.

Flat on her belly she peeped over the ledge and watched in dismay as a huge beast slipped into the barn. It was taller than a bear, and it had a broader chest and shoulders than a bear. The creature walked upright with an awkward slouching gait and was covered in a thick brown pelt. Its face was thankfully turned away from her, but she could still make out a short, stubby muzzle and long, nasty teeth. It passed by her ledge unaware of her presence and moved toward the back of the barn.

Isabelle craned her neck and watched its progress, fascinated and at the same time repelled. It went to the straw bales, to the exact spot where she had found Mouse. Mouse?s hidey-hole was occupied. Several more of these creatures lay tangled in a tight ball, all fast asleep. Dust motes danced over their coarse fur. Soft snores and heavy breathing broke the quiet at the back of the barn.

As she watched, the newcomer stepped carefully into the nest and sank down into the huddle. The others twitched and growled sleepily, making room for the addition to their litter, for that?s what they were?Ren?s litter. Isabelle looked down on the sleeping forms from her perch and could make out each individual. The black pelt of Noah curled around the smaller form of Jenna. Joey, huge and golden red. Great gashes covered his furry underbelly where he lay spread-eagled, flat on his back. And Mouse, little dun brown Mouse, lay sprawled across them all, snuffling in her sleep. Her ears twitched as she dreamed, and Isabelle remembered that same small, squashed face spying on her through Ren?s bedroom window.

Patrick had settled and was asleep already. She knew him now, from before. From her nightmare. Just as she remembered the red-gold flash of Joey rolling over her car hood, howling in agony. Patrick had been the sly face at her driver window. He had started the attack that threw her into such a terrified panic she had crashed her car. She had interrupted a deer hunt; it was as simple as that. And had somehow ended up back here, at Ren?s farm. Ren, who had apparently known Isabelle from before. Ren, who nurtured these creatures. Isabelle had been brought here, her car destroyed, her clothes shredded, and her papers either burned or hidden.

Date: 2016-06-12; view: 61