Mirage Beyond Flames (Coriola) (16 page)

“What’s the deal? Why
are you looking at us like that?”

Jean-
Paul didn’t answer, just gazed at him thoughtfully, rubbing his chin.

“Why don’t you tell us about that thing? And who do you say gave you directions? What woman?”

Because Gerard didn’t say anything, Linda took over. She related in detail the entire episode which had taken place in the forest, concluding by saying:

“That’s why I thought Gerard had my notepad, on it was drawn the route by that woman, Madame Mari
a. But I can’t find it. I can’t possibly imagine where it’s disappeared,” she added perplexed.

“I don’t believe you’ll ever find it
.”

Jean’s
firm and somewhat somber tone seemed to tense the atmosphere even more. “Haven’t you ever heard of the Hoia-Baciu Forest?” he asked them.

The young couple looked at each other, then shook their heads in denial.

“No,” Gerard replied. “Should we have?”

“It’s quite wel
l-known worldwide. There seems to be a very high frequency of… paranormal phenomena around there. There have been numerous documentaries, research, even pictures, recordings with UFO-s appearing to be authentic. Even Yoga and Wicca practitioners from all around the world come here, trying to explore the depths of this forest, but without much luck. Many witnesses declared that, no matter in which direction you’re heading, after maximum nine hundred feet you’ll find yourself in the same point where you left. Also, most of them claim they’ve heard strange noises. Radios, cameras, phones, composes don’t work in that area. Its nickname is
The Romanian Bermuda Triangle.
”

During this speech
, Gerard and Linda remained quiet, listening motionless. As the older man went on speaking, the two felt cold shivers sliding down their spines. All the hairs on their bodies grew erect, like in the presence of a huge source of static energy.

Jean-Paul continued
:

“Romania was for
med as an official state in 1862, when Transylvania, Tara Romaneasca and Moldova were united by Alexandru Ioan Cuza, one of the most important leaders – Romanians call them
domnitori
or rulers – of this country. Obviously, he made many enemies, so in 1866 he was forced to abdicate, being exiled. It was speculated he had an informant, his most trusted man, whom he wanted to leave in the country.”

“
I’m sorry, but what’s this history lesson got to do with what we were talking about?” Gerard interrupted.

“I’m gonna tell you in a moment. In the Hoia Forest, which back then didn’
t have this name, that mysterious character and his family had build a cabin. They’d lived many years in the heart of the woods, safe, without anybody even suspecting their existence. But shortly after Cuza’s exile, the informant’s hiding was discovered. The members of the coalition that had discarded of the ruler ordered the cabin to be burned to the ground, secretly, one night, with all those who lived in it. In spite all these, even now, after two hundred years, there are plenty of people who claim to have seen the cabin in the woods from a distance, whole, untouched by flames. Generally, people prefer not to believe them or to avoid the subject. But no one has ever mentioned meeting or talking to somebody out there. The informant’s name was never known, but his wife was legendary in Transylvania, being the daughter of a great nobleman. She had run away from home to get married, triggering a huge scandal. Her name was Maria.”

Linda was shaken by a chill so strong
it rattled the ice in her glass. Gerard saw her trembling hand taking the glass to her mouth, to wet her dry lips.

“What… what are you trying to tell us with this, Jean-
Paul?” he asked. “That we imagined the whole thing?”

The old Frenchman
remained silent for a moment then looked at his wife, who had stayed quiet, with her dark expressive eyes fixed on the guests.

“I don’t know if
imagine
is the correct verb for this, my friend. These so-called
paranormal
phenomena are not a fruit of our imagination. They are something beyond explanations or the logic we know.”

Linda lifted a hand to interrupt him.

“Wait a minute. All this is very interesting, but we perfectly know what we saw. You can doubt a single person’s word, but there’s two of us. We didn’t dream, we didn’t hallucinate. That woman was as real as you. We talked to her, she drew a route for us. What more tangible proof do you want?”

“Where is this drawing?” asked Jean.

“On that fucking notepad I can’t find,” she replied frustrated. “It must be in the car.”

“I’m going to look for it,”
said Gerard. He stood abruptly, feeling the acute need to counteract this bombardment of incoherent information with action, with something concrete.

He went in their room and grabbed the Jeep’s keys then walked the short distance to the place it was parked, on the side of the street. He searched all the places and corners where an object could have been placed or dropped, but his efforts were in vain.
He found no trace of the notepad or even of the sheet they’d used to guide them there.

In his mind
, he recalled dozens of times the episode in the woods, reliving each sensation, seeing each detail of the cabin, of the woman’s appearance, each line spoken.

It seemed impossible, absolutely impossible for it not to have been real. A figment of imagination, of a dream, of anothe
r type of… phenomena? Unconceivable! Then where was that damned notepad so he can flaunt it in Jean’s face, laugh together of the theories and phantasmagorical tales he had blabbed.

He stopped suddenly
, remembering something. Hurriedly, he locked the car and rushed to the house.

“The pictures!” he exclaimed entering the living room. “Linda took pictures, isn’t that a concrete proof? I don’t think the cabin actually appears in the photos, but…”

He paused, noticing Linda was in fact holding the camera, but the expression on her face was far from encouraging.

“What’s
wrong?” he asked, an unpleasant feeling bearing down his shoulders, sinking his entire soul.

No one
said anything for a moment. Linda looked at him with such helplessness and panic he went quickly to her, cupping her shoulders, massaging them gently.

“What happened, baby
?” he asked, now thoroughly alarmed.

“They’re not here,”
she replied weakly, “the pictures don’t appear anywhere. Look!”

He
took the digital camera from her hands and accessed the menu which displayed the photos recorded on its memory card. Indeed, there was no trace of the pictures taken in the forest. He went over all the images twice: the beautiful landscapes they’d admired together, taken from inside of the car or on stops, the pictures they’d taken at the restaurant, images of all the dishes served, a picture he’d taken of Linda while she sassed him with her tongue out… He had found that very hilarious. However, now it was the last photo from the gallery, then the images repeated cyclically. Not a single photo from that damned forest was registered.

Damned?
he asked himself. Yes, he couldn’t find another word, his mind seemed to be blocked. But that word conferred the place a maleficent aura, and they hadn’t seen anything evil there.
Strange, bizarre, but not evil
, he thought, remembering the kind woman who had opened her home’s door for them, showing them the way back to civilization. True, all objects, the cabin itself seemed detached from another era, but still… they were in a country unfamiliar to them. He couldn’t know how civilized or primitive these people were. After all, Jean and Mariana’s house wasn’t exactly a technological center. But at least they had electricity.

“I remember now,”
he said suddenly, catching everyone’s attention. “That cabin didn’t have electricity. It was illuminated only by some kind of lamps, pretty strong though…”

“And that woman asked us
where we’d left our carriage,” Linda added, nestling closer to his chest. “She was so awed by our clothes, by the pen we left her… She seemed never to have seen such things in her life. My God, Jean, are you really serious about this? Is it truly possible it had all been a … paranormal experience?” she asked, her voice rising in a tone of absolute incredulity.

Jean looked at Mariana then nodded.

“I can’t think of another logical explanation and I don’t think you can either. You’re far from being the only ones who had unusual experiences in the Hoia Forest. But no one mentioned an occurrence like the one you described.”

Both couples stood in silence, like statues, while dozens of thoughts crossed their mind
s in an unavoidable vicious circle.

Eventually, Gerard said:

“You must be wrong, Jean. There probably is a real cabin in that forest and we simply stumbled upon it. The name of that woman is just a coincidence. Maria is extremely common worldwide. And from what I understood, in Romania there are still entire villages without electricity. So this doesn’t prove anything.”

The older man watched his friend for a long mom
ent, perfectly understanding his need for denial and his difficulty in accepting the unacceptable. He sighed and asked:

“Do you still know how to reach that cabin?”

The two looked at each other then nodded.

“I belie
ve we do,” answered Linda. “We had made a wrong turn, but we didn’t change directions many times. Once we got out of the woods, the road was simple, especially with Madame Maria’s indications.”

“Then tomorrow, after y
ou and I conclude our business,” Jean told Gerard, “we’re going over there, see what we find. I’ll leave you two to guide me, because I don’t know well the forest either, but I do know the place where that cabin burned. We’ll see if it’s the same or not. Agreed?”

“Perfectly agreed,”
Gerard replied. “You’ll see we’re not wrong. I just hope we won’t bother Madame Maria too much.”

“I seriously doubt that Madame Maria could be bothered i
n the last hundred years or so,” muttered Jean in French.

In darkness, in the comfortable bed from their cool room, Linda curled against his chest, embracing him tightly.

“Do you really think Jean-Paul i
s mistaken?” she asked him, a trace of uncertainness in her voice.

After a while, he replied
, stroking her hair:

“I think there has to be a r
ational explanation for all this. In any case, one way or another, tomorrow we’ll learn the truth.”

Following
another long silence, when he thought his lover had fallen asleep, she asked again:

“What if Jean is right are we are the ones who are wrong? It seems absolutely impossible but when I was listening to him telling that story, on that… matter of fact tone, I wondered fo
r a moment if it’s possible we just thought we experienced what we think we did in that forest.”

“If he’s right, then we must come to terms with the thought that we wer
e witnesses – no, participants,” he corrected, “to a paranormal phenomena. We’re not the only ones, you heard Jean. If it’s so, we’ll have to console ourselves because nothing bad happened to us.”

He stroked his lover’s cheek,
then kissed her forehead.

“I do
n’t even wanna think what I’d do if something bad happened to you. I’d kill anybody or anything that would want to harm you, be it real or imaginary, man or spirit!”

He sensed her relaxing against him, as though a pleasant warmth had taken
over her entire being.

“
I’ve never felt this happy and protected in my life, the way I feel around you. I love you,” she whispered. She fell asleep without knowing how much it meant to him hear her say those words, knowing they were true. He was always the first to profess his love, free, without hesitation. Sometimes his heart constrained with the fear she won’t reciprocate.

“I love you too, Linda,” he whispered huskily, knowing she can’t hear him. Nevertheless, he felt
the acute need to say those words, simple but expressing such complex feelings. Drawing her closer to him, breathing deeply her hair’s fresh perfume, he fell into a dreamless sleep.

Chapter Eighteen

Gerard could have ignored the annoying sunray sneaking through the old shutters. But the sound of a cock which cheerfully set the tone for an entire troop of unidentifiable beasts made Linda jump, literally. Standing abruptly, all tousled hair and huge eyes, she looked around disoriented, exclaiming startled:

“What the hell was that
?”

He started laughing,
smoothing her hair.

“That, my love, is a cock,”
he answered. His laughter grew even louder when he saw her suspicious gaze heading toward his lap.

“Oh, no,”
she said emphatic. “I’ve seen one of those and it doesn’t make any sound.”