"How about stopping for the night?" Lucius suggested. By day he'd seen enough of the sun through the denuded trees to enable him to avoid hazards; now darkness was closing in. "This seems like as good a place as any. We can decide in the morning whether to go on or turn back."
Expecting an answer, he didn't get one.
"Ivy?"
She'd slipped her hand out of his when he paused to look around. Now, while still clutching her cane, she was groping the jagged surfaces of a tree trunk with a particularly nasty outcropping of broken branches.
"Ivy?" he said again, gently. "That's just a section of a tree. Be careful you don't pick up splinters."
"Oh...thank you, Lucius. I'll be careful." She didn't let go of it, and he waited patiently. At last she took a deep breath and said, "I'm not sure whether this is the same tree or a similar one. But it makes me think of one that was...very near...where I killed Noah."
By the time she'd gotten the words out she was trembling, and Lucius realized she was in tears. Of course. We had so many things to discuss this morning that she never gave herself time to deal with this.
He moved toward her and carefully put an arm around her. She let go of the tree and clung to him, weeping, her face buried in his shoulder.
He waited till she was calmer, then said quietly, "I doubt you actually 'killed' him. I shouldn't have used that word. I imagine what happened is that he grabbed you, you fought to get free, and he was thrown off balance, fell, and struck his head. Isn't that right?"
"I...I suppose so." But even as she straightened, she gave another convulsive shudder. "Lucius, I believed all along it was a forest creature! Perhaps, later, I should have guessed...the timing...but I'd actually seen the bad color. I'd never seen it in a person before, certainly not in Noah."
"He was wearing it," Lucius pointed out. "And perhaps, in a sense, it had possessed him."
"Perhaps. But now that I know it was Noah, I keep remembering...not long before, he'd been playing too roughly with the children in the schoolyard, hitting them. I made him promise he wouldn't do it again. I drummed into him, 'No hitting!'
"And then, after he stabbed you...I've always known he wasn't right mentally, Lucius. But...I went into the Quiet Room and I hit him, again and again and again! I had to be pulled off him! He didn't fight back, didn't try to defend himself. Maybe he was too stunned to react, I don't know. My last memory of him is of his screams as I was forced out of the room."
"Ivy," Lucius said helplessly, "if you're blaming yourself, you shouldn't--"
"I don't blame myself, exactly. But now that I know who it was, I keep wondering...after I'd hit him like that, did he really hate me enough to want to kill me? Or did he want to take me by force, sexually?
"Or..." Her voice sank to a whisper. "Th-this is the possibility that could drive me crazy, if I let it. Could it be that he'd forgotten the whole thing, and was just playing with me? Wanted to race, as we'd done so many times before?"
Lucius was at a loss for words. Playing a game. He may simply have been playing a game...
He tightened his grip on Ivy, wishing they could hold each other forever and not let go.
But after a few minutes he made himself say, "I'm sure you won't want to sleep here. We can safely go a little farther, if we start now."
Ivy shook her head. "No, this spot is fine. As I said, I'm not sure this is where it happened. I only expect to rest, not sleep...and I'll think of Noah wherever we are."
.
.
.
.
.
Lucius didn't mean to sleep either. But as he sat with his back to a tree trunk and Ivy's head cradled in his lap, he drifted off...
::::::::::::::::::::
Howling forest creatures chased them through the woods. When they fell, exhausted, the slavering monsters were upon them.
Blood-red cloaks were flung aside--and the monsters stood revealed as village elders. But the elders took an immediate voice vote and agreed, unanimously, that the young couple should be put to death for disloyalty.
While Lucius was struggling to protect Ivy, he felt another knife slide between his ribs. This time, however, the face inches from his was not confused but leering. It was the face of Edward Walker...
::::::::::::::::::::
He woke, gasping, in a cold sweat.
He evidently hadn't writhed or made a sound. Ivy, contrary to her expectations, was sound asleep.
Lucius didn't believe the elders could really be murderous. And he knew it wasn't likely they'd been pursued: no one could have foreseen that he'd take time to explore instead of driving straight ahead. By the time they'd been missed, it must have seemed they had an insurmountable head start.
Nevertheless, he spent the rest of the night on the lookout for bobbing lanterns. Twice he imagined he saw them.
.
.
.
.
.
Come morning, they quickly agreed to go forward. Based on Ivy's previous experience, they were sure they'd reach the wall before hunger or thirst became a serious problem. Once past it, they could only hope they'd be as lucky in their meetings as she'd been before.
They'd been dutifully following the stream since the previous afternoon. But by mid-morning, Lucius needed a change.
"Ivy, would you--"
She'd apparently sensed his restlessness. "I know," she said calmly. "You want me to stay here while you explore."
He grinned, and promised once again that he wouldn't risk getting out of earshot. There isn't much variety in here. Prowling around may be a waste of time. But I may never come this way again, save on our return trip.
He'd been walking for about ten minutes when he stepped on something hard--turning his ankle, but not painfully.
He bent to examine the object on the ground.
Picked it up, wiped some of the dirt off it, and turned it over and over. It can't be...
"Ivy?" he called. His voice was unsteady.
"Over here!" she responded.
"I'm coming back. I've found something."
He hurried back to her, carrying his unlikely find. The light was better near the stream bed; he inspected it again, reaching the same unnerving conclusion.
"What is it?" Ivy prodded him.
"I...I've never seen one of these, only pictures in books. But the pictures were detailed. I don't see how this could be anything but the real thing..."
"What?" She was exasperated now.
Wiping his brow, he said, "A human skull."
.
.
.
.
.
While Ivy grimly held onto the skull, Lucius resumed his exploration. By mid-afternoon he'd found a dozen skeletons, with tattered remnants of clothing attached. He wasn't knowledgeable enough to distinguish male from female, but four had undoubtedly been children. The finds were spread among three sites.
"You're sure of this?" asked a shaken Ivy. "They couldn't be...forest creatures?"
"Ivy, the bones look just like the pictures I've seen in books on human anatomy. And the clothing--I can't be sure what it looked like, but there were a half-dozen fabrics and colors. I've even seen ruined shoes." He shuddered. "Some of the clothing was...the bad color. But it's mixed with others, as if these people didn't consider it any different."
They sat side by side on a fallen tree limb, hand in hand, shivering.
Lucius knew the same question was in both their minds. Do we go forward or back?
Ivy said, "Perhaps they were killed--" The harshness of the words made her stop and gulp. But she made herself go on. "Perhaps they were killed by whatever seems to be killing the forest."
"Why didn't they leave? People shouldn't even have been in this forest," Lucius pointed out. "No one from the village has ever gone missing. Villagers wouldn't have been wearing clothing that included the bad color, in any case. Why would anyone else have been here?"
"Outsiders would have had no reason to fear 'forest creatures.' "
"No, but the forest certainly isn't inviting." Reluctantly, he suggested, "Perhaps they took refuge here because the violence of the towns is so appalling. It's possible they'd heard rumors of our village, and hoped to reach it. But if they knew of it, they never found it. They wandered in the forest till they died of exposure."
He heard Ivy gulp again.
After a long minute, she said, "That doesn't explain why the forest itself is in such decline. Or why, if the towns are so horrible, I met a man as kind as Kevin."
"No," he admitted.
Do we go forward or back?
Ivy said quietly, "The one thing we're sure of is that our parents lied to us."
"Yes." He paused, choosing his words carefully. "Ivy, I want you to think long and hard about this. Are you willing to take the chance of going on, knowing we may be killed?"
"I've already thought long and hard, Lucius. If you're willing, so am I. At this point--"
"What?"
She still hesitated, and he urged, "Please, Ivy. I want to know what you really think."
"Here it is, then." She squeezed his hand. "I dread the possibility of losing you. But after coming this far, I'll never be able to rest if we don't learn the truth."