Enlightened (Love and Light Series) (6 page)

“Yes, I did have to stay away from her. She was pretty pissed.” His eyes twinkled, and he threw her over his shoulder and strode toward the house with Rachel kicking and protesting the entire time.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Loti groaned in her sleep. She was hiking through the dark woods, on a trail too dark to see.

“David?” she called. He couldn’t have gotten far. They’d miscalculated how long it would take to get to the campsite and the sun had set an hour ago. They were getting close, but he hiked on ahead, and now she couldn’t see or hear him.

“David,” she hissed, afraid to raise her voice in the eerie, still night. Resentful that his long legs ate up the trail miles so much faster than hers, she hustled to catch up, but the damn rocks and roots kept grabbing the toes of her boots. She tripped outright over a rock, almost falling, but she caught herself with a hiking pole. Footsteps crunched behind her, and she whirled around, exasperated and relieved.

“How did you get behind me?”

But nobody was there. She spun around, peering down the trail, but even with the big moon above, she couldn’t make anything out. Alone at night in a hundred miles of wilderness, she was less and less certain where she was. Her neck tensed as she strained to hear the footsteps behind her. Despite the frigid air, her hair stuck to the back of her neck in warm clumps. Her calves ached. They’d been hiking all day toward the grove at Mast Hollow where the every eastern white pines towered over the perfect grassy tent site next to the burbling stream.

She stopped at the sound of running water.
Thank
god
, she thought, and her shoulders eased. Queen’s Creek wasn’t far, and soon she’d be putting her feet up to a warm fire.
That’s what David is doing right now, building a fire and cooking dinner.
She dug her pole tips into the hard-packed trail. No wind, not a sound. It was the wrong time of year for crickets, but there should’ve been something besides the utter stillness ringing in her ears. Stiff knees creaked as she hiked on, but instead of crossing Queen’s Creek, the trail devolved into ruts and rocks. The skeletons of last year’s undergrowth clutched at her gaiters and boot laces.

A twig snapped. Heart thumping, she didn’t dare look back as she scuttled up the rocky incline. Her legs screamed to stop, but the foot crunches behind her drove her into a jumble of rocks. When she dared to look up, the tall trees were gone. In their place was a macabre sculpture garden of talus and twisted krummholz. How had she gotten above tree line? She turned in circles, but it was all wrong. There wasn’t an “above tree line” in Virginia. In the Whites, yes. New Hampshire, yes. Definitely in Maine, but not here.

Holding her breath, she strained to hear the footsteps over her hammering heart. Jumping at the sound of boots scuffing on rocks, she bolted. The scree rolled under her panicked feet and her heavy pack wrenched her backwards. The hiking poles dangled and banged from the wrist straps as she snatched at a scrubby bush clinging to a rock. The roots ripped free. For an instant, she hung in space, and then sizzling adrenalin exploded under her ribs as she crossed the tipping point and plunged.

A hand shot out, grabbing her wrist and Loti screamed. Another hand clamped around her other wrist and lifted her up and over the loose rock. Loti’s scream died away as a black face filled her vision. A mouth full of large, yellow teeth surrounded by a scraggy beard and mustache grinned down at her. A broad, flat nose hunkered over thick, rubbery lips.

“Who are you?” she managed.

She stumbled as the hands released her and the grin relaxed into a knowing smile. Motioning for her to follow, the tall stranger turned and picked up a walking stick. Never making a sound, he negotiated the rocks, climbing higher. Trembling all over, Loti followed in anxious silence to the top, where the black man threw both arms wide, raising a palm and his stick to the sky.

“Do you know where we are, girl?” His booming voice shattered the silent night.

Clutching herself, Loti peered around at the star-studded blackness blanketing the never-ending forest that hugged the bare mountain. Off in the distance a lake glittered in the moonlight. And the full moon wore a prism-like halo.

 “On a mountain?” she whispered.

“Good” he yelled and she winced.

He plopped down in a cross-legged position, gazing up at the moon with its crown of refracted light. The cold air bit Loti’s cheek, but all the black man wore was a loose pair of cargo shorts. His bare chest and arms, all lean muscle and gristle, were exposed. A head, too big for his spindle of a neck, sprouted gray tendrils. They splayed out in wavy strands, reminding Loti of a used Brillo pad. In an apparent effort to hold the mass of black and gray in place, he wrapped a brown leather thong several times around his forehead, tying it in a knot above his right ear. His bright eyes turned from the moon to Loti. In the iridescent moonlight the whites were tinted blue.

“Actually, you’re at the center of the universe,” he spoke, his tone grave.

Then he laughed, slapping his thigh, his voice like a chorus of laughing men. Loti stiffened, warning bells clanging in her ears. He cut himself off, forcing a serious frown as he said, “Man, fae, vampire, shape-shifter, dryad—” he waved his arms in a dramatic gesture, “—all kinds of creatures have been searching for this place, and we’ve stumbled upon it.” His narrowed eyes and puckered brow held for a second, and then he dissolved into a laughing fit. His belly shook as tears seeped out of the corners of his eyes. He wiped them away with thick, calloused fingers, blowing out a breath between hissing giggles.

“Whooooo, boy,” he gasped. “It really is funny when you think about it.” He snorted. “It’s been here waiting all this time and everyone’s running around like crazy, tripping over themselves to find it.” The amusement left his voice. “Even fighting over who was going to get here first.” He snorted again. With eyes fixed on the moon he leaned forward, patting the ground.

Her face frozen in permanent surprise, Loti hesitantly kneeled on the bare dirt beside him.

He patted her knee and pointed a wide finger at the moon. “But we’ve found it, haven’t we?” He smiled as if he and Loti were in on the secret. With an ache in the back of her throat, Loti nodded as she followed his finger to the unusual moon. When she looked back, her bizarre companion was upside down, standing on his head. She leaned away from him, tucking her chin, eyes wide, because he wasn’t just doing a headstand. He was in the exact same cross-legged position he’d been in earlier, only turned on his head. With his hands relaxed on his knees, he seemed unaware of his predicament.

“Do you know why everyone’s killing themselves to find this place, Loti?” His voice was quiet and subdued.

With a tingling in her chest, she shook her head. “No, sir.” She swallowed.

The black man blinked in surprise and laughed out loud. “Sir? Oh, that’s precious.” He slapped his knee a few more times, and when he’d caught his breath, he let out a happy huff. “Ahhhh, you make an old man feel good, girl.” He shook his head. “Sir, indeed.”

He rested a gentle, reassuring hand on her knee—a neat trick for someone hanging upside down in mid-air—and in an instant, all of Loti’s fears dissipated in the warmth of his touch. She felt like she should know him, but his name was out of reach. Had she and David met him on a trail somewhere? Hadn’t he told them a story about a little bird offering unwanted advice to a bitter monkey in the rain? And about thinking three times before deciding? Hadn’t he shown them how to make bread from sprouted grains and how to gather the dew from the leaves in the morning? She shook her head, and for a split second recognized she was dreaming, but then lost it, again.

Edging closer to him, she asked, “Why is everyone trying to find this place?”

“Because, child, they want to know the secret of the universe.” He closed his eyes and his chest heaved. “And because they think if they know the secret of the universe, they will have their greedy, little heart’s desire.” He patted her knee. “Which is true, of a sort.”

Loti’s heart picked up its pace and she tingled all over—but it wasn’t from fear. In an eager voice, she asked, “What is the secret of the universe?”

He chuckled. “Oh, girl, you already know it. We didn’t have to come here to figure it out.” His lips tightened. “Hell, everyone already knows it. They just don’t believe it.”

Shaking off his irritation, he turned an expectant smile on Loti. She shifted her hips to the side and crossed her ankles into an easy, seated position. Rubbing the toe of her boot, she rooted around in her cluttered mind, but couldn’t unbury the secret to the universe. She’d pondered the meaning of life, her life, but never the secret of the universe. Taking her time, she untangled the pole straps from her wrists and arranged the hiking poles on the dirt in front of her. Giving up, she flicked her gaze up at him.

“Would you tell me, please?”

Without a second’s pause, the black man answered, “Be thyself, know thyself, trust thyself.”

His laughter rang out across the mountain side, somehow was the mountain side, and set the rocks to trembling. His voice was not one voice, but many voices in a chorus laughing, laughing, laughing. All around them rocks shook themselves loose and tumbled like an avalanche. The roar filled the spaces between, shook the stars, and vibrated inside Loti’s head until she screamed. Then she was falling. The rocks pummeled and pounded her until she was sure every bone in her body was broken. The fantastic pain gathered in her chest. Her heart pumped liquid fire and ice. A vivid light coursed through her body, rupturing the vessel walls and piercing her sternum. Brilliant beams exploded in random directions.

“Wake up, Loti!”

Loti bolted upright in bed, screaming into the blackness. Throwing off the covers, she staggered into the living room where she collapsed in front of the fireplace, wheezing. The full moon poured an eerie blue light over everything. She crawled on her hands and knees to the fireplace and leaned against the river rocks. Despite their radiating warmth, she shook as fear twisted her insides. Her home vibrated with a sinister energy, and she hugged bare arms around trembling knees. With a foul taste in her mouth, she jerked at the creak of a settling board. Her whole body tensed as she got the unshakeable feeling that someone was watching her.

Hmmmm, hmmmm, hmmmmmmm

She froze at the sound of a man humming an off-handed tune, the hair on her arms and the back of her neck standing on end.

Mmmmm mmmmm hmmmm hmmm

Dizzy and sick to her stomach, she thought,
Call Rachel
. Her frozen muscles thawed, and she dove for the phone on the writing desk tucked in the corner of the dining room. Fumbling with the receiver, her fingers shook as she dialed. While the other end rang, she counted her breaths—
inhale one, two, three, four—

Hmmmm hmmmmm hmmmm

Holding her breath, she cowered in the corner between the desk and French glass doors, trying to make herself small and invisible. There was a click on the other end.

“Rache—”

“Hi, this is Rachel. You’ve missed me, but I’d hate to miss your call. Please leave me a message and a number, and I’ll get back to you. I promise.” Beep.

“Rachel, are you there? Pick up.”

Silence.

“I have no idea what time it is, but I’m coming over. Something’s going on. I’ll explain when I get there.”

She hung up and surveyed the open space of the great room. It was like a fishbowl. Four years ago, she and David fell in love with the house because it was the closest thing to living in the outdoors without setting their living room up in the yard. Now it felt like a stupid idea. There was nowhere to hide. With the lights out, she could see the naked dogwood tree through the front door.

The dense air caught in her throat and her blood roared in her ears as her eyes fixed on a dark blob on a branch. With quivering legs, she slid her back up the wall and took a tentative step forward, squinting. The shape was like a cardboard cutout or something not living. Tense with the effort to be quiet, she crept across the room, but the thing turned around and looked straight at her.
A raven?
She took off like a shot, diving into the bedroom and slamming the door behind her.