American Quest (11 page)

The hopelessness of it suffocated her.

She strode to the window and ran her hand along the sash, looking for a latch of some sort. She’d gone through this futile drill a hundred times already, and she’d do it again even knowing the outcome, if only to push back at the futility that reached for her. Perhaps running her hand along the seams of the window would give her ideas for how to escape.

She’d already thought about and discarded the idea of hurling the chair through the glass. Her intuition told her that she was being held by something more powerful than locked doors and windows. Maybe she’d throw one, anyway. She’d relish the terrific crash it would make regardless of whether it broke through the pane. It would show Vance that Gloria wasn’t the butterfly-in-a-net type.

She looked around. For a butterfly net, the room certainly offered
its share of luxury. It was spacious and beautiful with appointments that included a bedspread that looked similar to one she’d had her eye on—but never could afford—since she and Bruce had been together. In the bathroom she’d found all her favorite soaps and lotions. The delicately scented ones. Expensive ones.

On the nightstand rested a photograph of the dog she had when she was a little girl. She smiled at the dog for a moment, as she did whenever she saw a picture like this. But she took no comfort from it. How could she when she knew that someone else had placed the picture there?

The whole thing was eerie. Vance or someone in his employ had obviously been stalking her, studying her. Did they think placing these objects in the room would make her more compliant? Did they think they’d make her
like
being held captive? Would anyone?

On the wall, flowing from the vaulted ceiling, hung an opulent tapestry. The one she and Bruce had been admiring only a few nights ago. A shimmering peacock in gilded fringe and threads of green, blue, and violet, with paisley feathers. She’d thought it unapologetically proud when she’d seen it. The way she’d felt when she’d pulled off a big fundraising event. Or stood hand in hand with Bruce.

Now the bird seemed different to her. It seemed trapped, with the backward thrust of its head and the arc of its swanlike neck. Even the wings seemed to grasp for freedom from the binds of the tapestry.

She could not imagine what Aaron Vance wanted from her. And why was this elaborate ruse necessary? He could make a dining room disappear and keep her captive through charms and tricks. Why not simply use these to extract what he wanted?

The door opened, and he entered.

Terror threatened to consume her again. She squashed it.

Vance regarded her. “Would you care to join me for dinner?”

It was a casual request, like he might as easily have been offering her a souvenir program at the opera. Gloria was aghast. “Dinner?” she said, spitting the word. “Dinner with you would be poison in my stomach. Do you really think no one will come looking for me? I don’t know what you think you’re going to accomplish by holding me captive, but my fiancé will rip you to pieces when he finds out.”

Vance smiled slowly and Gloria felt her blood chill.

Mercifully, he left the room without another word.

Gloria shuddered. Her knees felt weak and she sank to the floor. This time, she allowed the sobs to escape.

She wept and gasped, leaning her head against the foot of the tapestry while her fingers stroked the threads. She poured out as much frustration, fear, longing, and anger as she could—and then she grit her teeth and shut off the tears.

She stood, washed her face and combed her hair, and returned to her place at the vanity.

A few minutes later the door opened again and Vance returned. Gloria steeled herself.

But he did not address her this time. Not right away. He carried a tray of food and set it in the corner on the little inlaid granite bistro table. On it rested a plate with a fillet of swordfish that lay atop a molded round of fragrant risotto, with a smattering of watercress and nasturtium petals. A place setting accompanied the plate, complete with a silk napkin and a small vase holding a single calla lily.

“You must be hungry,” Vance said. “Perhaps you will feel more comfortable if you dine in privacy tonight.”

He left the tray and exited, locking the door behind him.

Jamie breathed the autumn woodland, and it smelled like the moon.

Despite having driven all day to reach the wilderness well after dark, the two were wide awake, their footfalls snapping through the forest. Bruce and Jamie said nothing. The shock of Candace’s death cast a gray mist over any conversation. Bruce hadn’t bothered with a jacket, and though his fists were clenched, he seemed impervious to the cold. Not Jamie. She tucked her nose into her wooly scarf.

A single, cut-off message on her voice mail from Candace. That’s all she’d had to go on. Candace the Finder. Candace had said “Maine” and Jamie interpreted this as a sign. Jamie wished she had more to go on
than that. But she’d spent years of introspection and reading to come up with the right collection of herbs and incantations. It seemed only fitting that she invoke these things in the midnight forests of Maine under a full moon, and then just see what happens. Something was sure to happen, wasn’t it?

“What time is it?” Bruce said, his breath streaming white.

She cast her eyes up to the full moon. “Almost midnight, I think.”

The frost shimmered in the nocturnal glow, so brilliant and sharp that despite the canopy of trees the path shone cleanly in a rolling brocade.

“Midnight. The witching hour.” He fell silent for a moment, and then: “Do you think he’ll hurt her?”

Jamie considered this. She guessed that Enervata would certainly cause harm to Gloria if he believed there no longer existed any chance of her succumbing to him. But Jamie was sure some time remained.

She tried to sound authoritative. “No. She’ll be safe for now. He’ll be trying to seduce her.”

Bruce hunched his shoulders. “Safety by seduction. Not exactly good news.”

Their footfalls continued along the crisp leaves of the path.

Jamie wondered if they were in the right place, though she didn’t say as much to Bruce. She had always assumed the plan would emerge with such clarity that she could snap her heels and proclaim they go to Someplace and do Such-and-Such. That there would be some grand moment of tolling intuition.

But alas, no tolling occurred. The notion to come to Maine was maybe a tinkle in a pot. Jamie puffed. A chamber pot at that.

She wondered what Bruce would say when he realized she truly had no idea what she was doing. What if they were just wasting time galloping around in the woods while Gloria slowly folded under Enervata’s manipulations?

She cut her eyes at Bruce.

The leaves under their feet became less brittle and spongy, compacting on a hardened subterrain of granite. The trees fell away from the path.

“Look at that.”

Bruce pointed to a shallow but vast bank of fog that lay ahead. In
the distance, the sound of rushing water intertwined with the rushing in the trees. Bruce and Jamie quickened their pace, their feet disappearing as they entered the fog bank.

Jamie marveled at the way the fog tumbled and swirled like a rolling pod of dolphins. As they continued forward, the bank deepened until it rose halfway up their knees.

Bruce looked around. “It’s like a river.”

And indeed the fog had begun to flow in a concentrated direction, rushing to catch at their ankles and then accelerating so that the current moved even faster than they did.

Jamie breathed in the cool air. “It’s a sign! It means we’re in the right place!”

They strode faster, as if keeping pace with the fog that urged them forward.

Perhaps a tinkle in a pot was enough after all.

Bruce breathed out silvered puffs. “Why wouldn’t we be in the right place? You weren’t sure?”

She hitched. “Sure? Well, there’s no doubt now. It sounds like there’s a river nearby. Or a creek.”

“Watch out!” Bruce shouted.

He grabbed her by the hood of her sweatshirt just before she stepped off a ledge.

Jamie gave a startled cry. The granite shelf ended abruptly, though the eager fog continued to surge forward, concealing the shift in terrain until the very last moment.

Jamie clutched Bruce’s arm with a hand to her heart, catching her breath. “I didn’t even see it. How far down does it go?”

They looked over the precipice to where the fog now poured as if from a waterfall. The sound of a rushing stream bubbled somewhere below.

Bruce shook his head. “No telling. It looks like it goes down about thirty feet, but with the fog it could be much deeper.”

They panned the vicinity. The granite shelf rimmed the drop-off in a broad circle so that the lower terrain looked like a great sinkhole. On the opposite side of the higher ground, towering pine and beech trees lined the cliff in a semicircle.

“We could walk around,” Bruce said.

Jamie scanned the trees and turned her head toward the forest beyond. She slowly shook her head. “No. I think we’re meant to go down into it.”

He eyed her. “How do you know?”

She shrugged. “I just do.”

Still no sign of a tolling intuition, but she’d take what she could get.

He frowned into the sinkhole. “All right. If you’re absolutely sure we’re supposed to go down there.”

It was a good thing Bruce faced away from her so he couldn’t see Jamie’s expression at that point.

Bruce stepped gingerly over the side and lent a hand so she could do the same, and they traversed a steep, narrow path leading downward. Cheeks burning, Jamie followed him down, winding, picking, until they reached the bottom.

The sinkhole lay broad and open, with rivulets of water trickling down from the cliff and gathering in a stream that ran along the outer perimeter. The fog now swirled above and around them and it glowed among the red maple trees in white wisps under the full moon.

Both the mist and the stream seemed to be flowing in the same direction. Jamie and Bruce followed that path, which first wound along the cliff wall before turning sharply toward the center of the sinkhole. They clutched at each other’s elbows to keep from stumbling, because while the moon provided drenching illumination, the fog created a dense veil throughout the basin.

When they reached a clearing at the center, the stream once again took a turn back toward the cliff. In its wake, the fog dissipated. This left a cylindrical gap through which Bruce and Jamie could tilt back their heads and see the stars glimmering above.

The maples rimmed the clearing, rich and red behind the curtain of fog, their limbs canted like the folded arms of skeptical observers. A lone stump nosed up from the center of the meadow. Rooted within its hollows, a single yellow sapling was growing. It was the only tree in the vicinity with shimmering gold leaves and it beamed with jubilance in the moon’s spotlight.

“That’s it!”

Jamie rapped on the stump with the palms of her hands. Her fingers
ran along convoluted indentations in the gray bark, shapes that seemed strangely geometric for such a natural canvas. “They must be symbols.”

Bruce knelt beside her. “What do we do now?”

She continued to finger the markings, chewing her lip. “Do?” She cleared her throat. “Now we . . . um . . . we should probably . . .”

Her face angled squarely on the wood, but her eyes darted toward the cynical maples beyond. It seemed their leaves were whispering with the brook, as if the entire forest were listening with Bruce, waiting for Jamie to speak.

And yet nothing.

Jamie willed her voice to sound authoritative. “We must make an appeal. Come here.”

She rose and positioned Bruce so that he was resting on the stump.

He sat very still as she began to walk in a circle around him, her fingertips lingering at the golden leaves of the sapling. She made three rounds. On the third, she began to speak. The breeze waned and the whispering of the forest hushed. Even the brook quieted. As her fingers brushed Bruce’s shoulder, she felt him shiver.

Jamie spoke in a downy voice, soothing and imploring. She appealed to the north, to the east, to the south, and to the west, asking at each point for guidance and strength. She invoked a protection from evil:

“Jamie?” Bruce whispered.

She ignored him, eyes half closed, maintaining concentration.

Bruce coughed. “Uh, Jamie? Jamie.”

She opened one eye and threw a look at Bruce.