Seduction

Twenty-nine

Something was breaking inside Jac. She didn’t understand the feeling or where it came from, but she had never experienced anything like this before. This wasn’t like coming out of the hallucinations she’d had as a girl in Paris or this past summer. Those were easy transitions. She would just step past the dream and be back to being herself, and remember it all clearly.

But not this time. She wasn’t sure who she had been or even where she was. As the impression of leaves and trees and water and rock came into focus, all she could think about was how she wasn’t ready to leave this place. Wasn’t done mourning. Someone she loved had died here. And she couldn’t go out in the world yet. Not without him.

No. That was wrong.

This was where someone she loved had lived.

“Jac, hold on to my voice.”

The chanting interrupted her thoughts. Yes, her name was Jac, of course, but that was only half of her. She felt as if there was another self. Two of them warring with each other-one wanted to stay, the other wanted to go.

“Hold on to my voice. Let my voice pull you up. You’re not to be scared anymore. Or sad. Or worried at all. You’re going to be fine. Just hold on to the thread.”

Jac didn’t want to be scared anymore. Or sad. She pushed hard, as if she were shooting up from underwater. Breaking the surface, she took a great gulp of air. Focused her eyes in the direction of the voice.

A woman was sitting next to her, watching her. From the expression on the woman’s face, Jac knew something was wrong.

“What happened?” she asked.

Jac recognized the woman as Theo’s aunt.

“You’re going to be fine,” Minerva said.

Theo ran over, knelt down. “Are you all right?”

Jac remembered seeing his face like this once before. When? Why? Then she knew. At Blixer Rath. But under what circumstances?

“You both look so worried,” Jac said to them.

“You know who I am?” Theo asked.

“Of course. Why wouldn’t I?”

“And where you are?” Minerva asked.

“Not exactly this spot, no, but in Jersey, yes. Why are you asking me these questions?”

“You’ve been not quite with it for the last hour or so,” Minerva said in that voice Jac knew. A therapist’s voice. Giving only the most minimal information, making an effort not to influence the patient as she tried to calm her.

“How did we get here? I remember we were in the cave.” She looked at Theo. “We found that strange rock and the little amber totems and…” She had to think. “Oh. You found the Victor Hugo journal.” She searched his face. “You still have it?”

He nodded.

“You found it?” Minerva asked, astonished.

“We did,” Theo said.

Jac was still trying to work her way out of her confusion. She could smell Minerva’s perfume. It was of this time and place. Not of that darkness where she’d spent the last hour. A whole hour? Was that really what Theo had said?

“So how did we get from there to here?”

“Let’s go home to Wells in Wood,” Minerva said. “We can go over it once we’re inside and have some tea and cake. You’ve been through quite a bit for one day.”

Theo helped Jac up. She was still looking around, trying to get her bearings. “I thought we were down by the beach.”

“We were. But we took a long walk-a run actually. You’re a very fast runner, you know. I couldn’t keep up at all.”

“I don’t run. I haven’t in years. I swim but don’t jog.”

Theo had a strange expression on his face, as if he was hearing her but not believing a word she said.

“Let’s wait to talk about all this till we are back at the house,” Minerva said. “I’ll get the car and pull it closer. Theo, bring Jac down to the road.”

Theo took Jac’s arm to help her. They took a few steps, and then she stopped and looked back at the stone ruin.

“You said I ran here?” she asked Theo.

“Yes. We were getting into the car, down by the beach, and you broke away from me and ran off.”

“Did something scare me?”

“I don’t know. You didn’t say anything. Didn’t explain. You just took off as if you knew where you were going and led me right here.”

“This was his house. He lived here with his family.” Jac had shocked herself. She didn’t actually know who she was talking about, but there was knowledge about a man that she had now that she didn’t have before. The knowing was just there in a niche in her mind. The way the totems had been sitting in the rock, protecting the bones, waiting all this time to be discovered. To reveal their treasures.

“Who? When did he live here?” Theo asked.

Jac shook her head.

“You were crying when you got here. Do you know why?”

“No. Wait. I do. Something had gone very wrong. As I started to come back, I was still holding on to a terrible loss. As if everything that had mattered to me, that would ever matter to me, was gone.”

Theo nodded.

“You know the feeling?” Jac asked.

“I do. And I don’t quite understand how to explain this, but whenever I come here, and I have been coming here since I was a boy, I’ve always felt a particular loneliness. A profound sadness. This place is part of the reason I wound up at Blixer Rath. I was spending so much time here, becoming more and more depressed, until I…”

He stopped, kicked a rock with the toe of his boot.

Jac looked at him. She empathized with this man. She understood him in a way that she understood no one else she’d ever met. As if she were inside his head somehow. It was a very real connection. One she didn’t think she should ignore.

“Let’s go. Minerva will be waiting with the car by now. Once we get back, we’ll try to figure out what happened,” he said.

Jac was still staring at the ruin. Stones surrounded by trees. Ancient stones and holy trees. “You know exactly where we are, right?”

“Yes, of course.”

“So if I wanted to come back, you’d be able to bring me?”

He nodded. “But we’re not going to come back.” He said it as if he were trying to will it so.

“Before, you said when you were a teenager you’d come here all the time until-until what?”

“I tried to kill myself here.”