Boy from the Woods (9781311684776) (37 page)

Thorsten was
lost for words. “Jesus,” he finally stammered, sinking down on the
lawn with crossed legs. “How is this… did he know?
Was
he aware that he was terminal?”

“He never
mentioned it to me.” But she knew better – he
had
mentioned it. In
Hyde Park, two days ago, he had told her he didn’t want to leave.
He didn’t want to disappear into the dark woods, like the man in
Daniil Charms’s poem.

“I can’t believe this,” Thorsten said,
obviously shaken. “You know, he actually talked to me last night,
and…”

Julia sighed. “Yes, I
know,” she interjected.
“And I’m sorry.
He was just jealous, that’s why he wanted you to stay away from
me.”

Thorsten frowned, shaking his head. “No, he
didn’t.”

Julia blinked
in confusion, mentally going over the conversation she’d listened
in on, hiding behind the shed last night. “I don’t get it. So
what
did
he tell you?”

Thorsten
cleared his throat. “He asked me,” he replied wearily, “to take…
care of you once he was gone.”

“Take
care
of
me?” Julia swallowed.

“Yes. And I told him he was a blind idiot for
asking me, of all people, to watch over you like an older brother.
I mean, it’s pretty obvious that I like you as more than just a
little-sister-slash-girl-next-door.”

Only now did
the meaning of the words
she’d overheard
start to make sense. Michael hadn’t asked Thorsten to stay away
from her - he’d asked Thorsten to
be there
for her once he was
gone. Fresh tears welled up in her eyes.

“I had no
idea,” Thorsten mumbled vacantly. “I thought he was talking about
him leaving for Graz. But he… he must have been talking
about
this
. He knew – just like he always knew stuff.”

Julia closed
her eyes. In her mind, she could hear the wind sing, the flowers
grow, the earth turn around its axis.
He couldn’t be
gone. She couldn’t deal with this.

“I have
to
be in the woods,” she suddenly said,
getting up in a rush.

“Jules, don’t go. Just
stay put.”
Thorsten tried to grab her
hands, but she took a step backward.

“I’m going. Tell Axel
where I went.
I just need to be alone for
a while.”

“Fine, but I’m joining you,” Thorsten replied
determinedly.

The flicker
of a smile passed over her face, despite the situation.
“I won’t be alone then, will I?”

He raked a hand through his
hair. “Too bad. I’m not letting you go all by yourself. Not like
this.”

She hesitated, then
nodded.
She stalked off to the bike shed
while Thorsten went inside to tell Axel where they were going. Not
much later, she was on her way to the forest cycling like crazy,
Thorsten sitting behind her on the baggage rack, his arms around
her waist. Julia was completely out of breath when she reached the
main trail, but she didn’t slow down, almost tripping over her own
legs in her rush to get to the spot where she and Michael had met
up in her dream.

She stopped
dead in her tracks when she saw the oak. The place had looked like
before in her dreams, but the
reality was
different. Her oak tree had lost almost all of its leaves. Its life
force was gone – the boy from the woods had taken the gloss and
brilliance from this holy place, and he was nowhere to be found.
What was it she had come to find here?

“Do you want to sit down, maybe?” Thorsten
asked her, panting from exhaustion himself. She’d been running
through the forest without as much as glancing back.

Julia turned around, shrugging desolately. “I
don’t know,” she said in a voice drained of all emotion.

He strode up
to her. “Come on,” he said, putting an arm around her slumping
shoulders comfortingly. “You didn’t bike and run all the way to
this place to just leave now. Anne told me you went to a special
place in the forest sometimes – a meditation spot to gather
inspiration.
That’s this spot, right?”

“Yes.” She slowly nodded. “It was, once.”

He gently
guided her to the shady spot under the oak. Julia lowered herself
onto the ground, leaning back against the trunk.
Thorsten sat down beside her, still holding her hand. She
nervously breathed in and out.

“Take your time,” he encouraged her with a
smile.

Julia slowly removed her hand from his grasp,
pulling up her knees and hugging her legs. She looked skywards.

Far above her
head, tiny
white clouds floated by in the
blue sky, oblivious of the drama playing out in her life on this
sunny day. Soundlessly and uncaringly, they drifted past her, past
the oak, past Salzburg into the big, wide world. The few leaves
still clinging to the tree branches softly rustled in the breeze
dancing through the woods.

A tear ran
down her face when she thought of that one afternoon she and
Michael had been here when he felt sick.
He’d come
here to gather strength. If her dream was really true, she could
now understand why.
But how
could
it
be true? He had simply suffered brain injury due to the accident,
and the effects had finally caught up with him. That was the only
reasonable explanation for his strange behavioral changes and his
sudden death.

“I’ll stay close,” Thorsten mumbled, getting
up to give her some more space. Julia watched him go, a warm
feeling stirring in her heart. He wasn’t going to abandon her.
Michael had asked him to take care of her, and he would.

Her thoughts drifted back to last night’s
dream. Michael had told her what was going on and why he had to
leave. He had always insisted she should keep dreaming, because it
was such an important part of who she was. But whether the dream
was real or not, it wouldn’t bring him back.

“Return to me,” she whispered in a choked
voice. “Please, come back. Give me a sign.”

The forest kept quiet. A
stray oak leaf fluttered down, landing on her knee.
Julia looked up and stopped trying to blink away
her tears. She couldn’t do this. It was too much.

At that
instant, her cell vibrated in her pocket. Oh crap, it was probably
Gaby asking where she was. Her best friend had come all the way to
her house to console her, and she wasn’t even there. Julia
stretched out her legs and pulled her phone from her pants pocket
to read the text message.

‘I new message. Michael.’

Speechlessly
she gaped at the
display.
What
?

Her trembling hand put the
phone down in the grass.
Julia exhaled
deeply, rubbed her eyes, then cast a sidelong glance at her cell
still blinking with the same notification. She hadn’t imagined it.
It really
was
from him.

There had to be an explanation for it. Maybe
he’d sent out this message hours ago, only for it to be picked up
by her phone now. Mobile networks weren’t always one hundred
percent reliable. And yet – she had asked for a sign, and here it
was.

Her fingers quivered as she picked up her
phone to read the message.

‘sweet Julia,
i will miss you. i will never forget you. whenever you hear the
trees rustle with music singing in the woods, then stop and think
of me. but don’t wait for me. i am free now. and you have a head
filled with dreams and a long life filled with love ahead of you.
let the sun shine.
X, forever your
michael.’

She read the message over
and over.
He could have sent her this
before his death, if he’d felt himself slipping away in the middle
of the night, knowing he didn’t have much time left. The message
could have been stuck up there, between satellites, landing in her
phone hours after the text was sent. But those last few words… he
had said the same thing in her dream last night – that to
her
, he
would always be Michael. Or was she just clutching at
straws?

Julia put
away her phone and looked around
searchingly. She held her breath. For just a moment, it
felt as though he would be right behind her, like he’d been
watching her all this time. He would smilingly step out of the
trees to pull her into a warm embrace. She pricked up her ears.
Didn’t she hear footsteps approaching? Who was going there, in the
forest of her dreams?

A soft
rustling filled her ears. The whisper of the wind, the voices of
the trees, the spinning movement of the Earth turning and turning
endlessly in the immeasurable vastness of space.
The
music in everything.

And then,
Thorsten emerged from the treeline, heading back to her with a
sweet smile on his lips. He carefully pulled her up, hugged her
tiny frame, and stroked her hair.
She felt his warm
body against hers. “Come,” he whispered. “I’ll take you
home.
Everyone will be there to comfort
you. There’s no need to be alone.”

Julia started back to the main trail, taking
one step at a time, clinging to him for support. Her hand felt safe
in his. Overhead, the birds sang, making the entire forest alive
with music.

“I
know,” she replied softly, yet purposefully.
“I’m not alone.”

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YA Dystopian series

YA/NA Paranormal Romance

Writing my
first book (Shadow of Time)
involved a
lot of research, because the story was set in Navajo Nation, a
place I had never visited myself. The Boy From The Woods was far
easier in that respect, because I once lived in Austria myself. I
was there in 1998-1999 as part of an exchange. My German was crap,
I had never lived anywhere but home with my parents, and I had no
idea how the country worked. In other words, I had the time of my
life! It was fun getting to know all kinds of things that were
different about Austria, such as the fact that Austrian stores
always close for lunch (not so much when you thought you’d be doing
some lunch-time shopping, though!) and that people always greet
each other by saying ‘God greets you’ (
Grüss Gott
) or ‘I am your
servant’ (
Servus
). I really enjoyed
incorporating those elements into the storyline while writing this
book.