The Spirit Keeper (30 page)

I was already turning away and heading down the path. “No, no,” I assured them. “You guys go on ahead.”

So the three of us parted ways: Adrian and Shyla heading in one direction with me backtracking the way we’d already come.

But I hadn’t walked more than a hundred feet or so when I was overcome by the nagging suspicion that I wasn’t alone on the path. There was a tightening in my chest, and my heart began to race, as though some primitive instinct to flee was overriding thousands of years of evolution. All my senses were on high alert to whatever had caused me to stop in the first place. The fear of what might be hiding in the shadows of the forest brought back memories of the wolf in my dream, sending shivers down my spine.

I shook myself. Probably that’s all it was . . . an unshakable memory.

And yet I stood immobilized on the path, powerless to walk any further despite being so close to home. If only I could pick up my feet and move in the right direction, I’d be there in a few minutes, even faster if I ran.

“Priscilla?” I called out, thinking it might be her. I had hoped to see her head of orange hair bob into view from behind the tree line, but it didn’t.

“Stop being paranoid,” I said out loud to myself, the sound of my voice getting swallowed up by the surrounding trees. “There’s nothing there.”  

Taking a deep breath, I willed my body forward again. But I’d taken no more than a few steps before I heard the unmistakable sound of a twig snapping underfoot and the soft rustle of brush being pushed aside.

“Priscilla? If that’s you, answer me!” There was a forced annoyance in my voice that I hoped hid the true panic that lay underneath. “You know I hate these kinds of games, so you might as well just give up!”

I waited and listened, but still there was no response.

“Get a grip,” I muttered, taking a few more steps.

Snap!

I stopped again. “Come on, Priscilla! You’re on thin ice here. I’m going to disown you as my best friend if you don’t cut it out. This is
so
not funny!”

There was no mistaking the fear and alarm that had seeped into my voice by that point, and I hated how desperate I sounded. A noise to my right had my wheeling in the same direction, slightly crouched and hands out to defend myself. Against what, I didn’t know.

Victor stood no more than ten paces away leaning against the trunk of a large pine, studying me with an intensity that scared me out of my wits. He was the last person I wanted to meet in the woods, alone and with no one to back me up. As deep in the forest as I was, I knew no one in the surrounding houses would hear me if I screamed. And likely Adrian and Shyla wouldn’t hear, either.

“Victor.” My mouth had gone completely dry at the sight of him, and I swallowed repeatedly to work up enough spit to talk. “What are you doing here?”

Although Victor continued to stare at me, he didn’t immediately speak. He held me in his sights in much the same way a predator watches its prey, and I was afraid to move even one inch. If he was trying to unnerve me, it was definitely working. After what felt like an eternity of oppressive silence, he stepped onto the path in front of me, blocking my way.

“You look so much like your mother,” he said, his voice deep and gravelly. I winced at the look of disgust on his face.

I straightened from my half-crouch but kept my eyes trained on his, not even daring to blink. “What do you want?” I said in a low voice.

He shrugged. “To talk.”

I squeezed my hands into fists to stop their trembling. “All right. Then why don’t we g-go back to my house? We can talk there. I’m sure my aunt and uncle have a f-few things they’ll want to say to you.”

Victor gave a short, guttural snort. “Why? So they can accuse me of murder?” He shook his head. “I don’t think so. Besides, I’m not the one who set that fire.”

The blood was pumping so loudly in my ears that I had to strain to hear his words. “How can you blame your own daughter of such a horrendous crime? She had nothing to do with the fire, and you know it. You’re a . . . a
horrible
father.”

Victor raised his eyebrows and gave a slight shrug, but he didn’t say anything in his defense. I thrust my chin up and made a move to pass him, despite how very afraid I was. If he wanted to talk, he could do it where there were witnesses.

 “I sense a wild streak in you,” he said, stepping in front of me to block my way. “There’s an almost primal scent to your blood that you could only have inherited from your father. And you call
me
the horrible one.”

He laughed, the wicked sound of it like snakes slithering over my body. My skin crawled. “You might not feel it yet,” he said, “but it’s there, pacing like a caged animal, waiting to escape. It’s only a matter of time.”

His expression changed suddenly, and he narrowed his eyes. “I remember your father well. He left me with this little souvenir, though I was never able to thank him. He was too busy tearing apart my
wife
.”

Victor lifted the hem of his shirt and turned slightly so that I could see a series of faded, but still-puckered, scars running the length of his right flank. Claw marks. I sucked in my breath, but I was too terrified to respond.

“Needless to say, I’ve been waiting a long time for this day,” Victor said. “A
very
long time.”

I was frozen in place. Everything about Victor screamed danger, and yet I couldn’t move. “I don’t understand what you’re talking about,” I bluffed. “Maybe I should get Adrian and Shyla. They’re just around the bend, not too far away. We can go back to my house and talk this out.”

Victor shook his head and took a step toward me. “My children refused me, and so they are dead to me now.”

I took a reflexive step back as Victor took another step forward, and a refraction of light cut across my face. It stung my eyes, momentarily blinding me. He rotated his wrist a fraction of an inch, and sunlight bounced off the object in his hand. I realized, with a deep sense of horror and dreadful understanding, that he was holding a hunting knife. It had been in his hand all along, but I’d been too focused on the loathing in his eyes to notice it before.  

“Victor. What do you think you’re doing?”

My voice came out in a low, strangled whisper, sounding foreign even to my ears, and I took another step back. I realized by the satisfied smile on his face that he was feeding off my fear. His smile was eerily similar to Adrian’s, and I shuddered to think that while it looked so beautiful on one face, it looked absolutely terrifying on the man standing before me.

“I have to put an end to it.”

My eyes cut to the knife as I continued to back away. “To
what
?”

His face crumpled suddenly, and he took a deep breath. “To all of
this
,” he said, gesturing around us. “To my misery.”

I swallowed hard and took another step. “And you think killing me will help? Answer me this, were you any less miserable when my mother and grandparents died?”

He shrugged. “Your grandparents were innocent victims, but your mother wasn’t. Her death
did
ease my suffering a little. And so will yours.”

I let out a shuddering breath, feeling the bile rise up the back of my throat. “Stay away from me, Victor. I mean it.”

I had thrust out my hand in a half-hearted attempt to extend the space between us, but Victor advanced with my every step back so that I couldn’t put any considerable amount of distance between us.

“Stay away,” I warned again. “Whatever you’re thinking of doing, don’t. It doesn’t have to be like this.”

I knew he wouldn’t listen to me. I was a sixteen-year-old girl, and he was a grown man. He had over fifty pounds on me and at least six inches. How could I possibly stand against him alone, especially when he had a weapon and I didn’t? I continued to back away, my eyes never once wavering from his.

Victor shook his head, a crazed and resolute expression on his face. “There’s no other way.”

Despite the adrenaline spilling into my blood, I managed to keep a steady voice. “I’m not a threat to your family or the tribe. There is nothing bad in me.” I shook my head, searching for the words. “What happened to your wife . . . I had nothing to do with that. I wasn’t even born yet!”

Victor suddenly stopped his advance, and I was convinced I had finally gotten through to him. I thought he’d finally come to his senses and seen that what he was doing was ludicrous and very dangerous. But then he shifted the knife to his right hand and crouched into a more threatening position. With just one lunge, I knew he could be on top of me in an instant. I was no match for Victor, and yet I couldn’t give up without trying to save myself.

Knowing I couldn’t hesitate any longer, I pivoted on my heel and took off running for my life.

“Adrian!” I screamed, as loudly as I could.

My voice came out too wild and frantic to form an intelligible sound, though. It was a strangled, garbled mess of vowels that sounded utterly inhuman and desperate, like the cry of a petrified animal being pursued by a hungry predator. With horror, I realized that’s exactly what I was.

Victor’s fingertips grazed my left shoulder as he tried to grab the flimsy fabric of my shirt, but I slipped free. And I had one advantage over him: I knew the woods better than he did, and I anticipated every dip and turn on the narrow path with greater accuracy.

He tripped on the root of a tree I’d only managed to clear and stumbled back several paces, nearly going down altogether. He cursed, and I took advantage of his blunder to push myself harder and faster. I had to find Adrian and Shyla, but exactly what they could do to save me against their lunatic father, I didn’t know. I would have run in the direction of home if Victor hadn’t been blocking the path, but there was no going back now.

I took a deep breath, filling my lungs, and screamed for all I was worth. “Help me!”

I pumped my legs as quickly as I could. I could hear Victor breathing heavily and cursing behind me again, gaining speed and getting closer.

Up ahead I saw Adrian and Shyla shoving their way through the trees, and the identical looks of panic on their faces were immediate as they realized the reason for my scream: I was being hunted.

My breathing came in ragged gasps, and my lungs burned. Tears streamed from my eyes, obstructing my vision and making it almost impossible to see where I was going. I slowed slightly, hesitating just long enough for Victor to finally catch up to me. I shrieked and stumbled as the knife tore down the right side of my back, feeling the separation of skin and the searing heat of pain.

“No!” Adrian yelled. He cast his eyes around frantically and grabbed at a fallen branch.

I fell to the ground with Victor straddling my back, and my fingernails clawed the earth as I fought to drag myself from under the weight of his body. I screamed, anticipating the thrust of the knife between my shoulder blades.  

“Stop! Please stop,” Shyla shouted in the distance.

Feeling a surge of rage that seemed bigger than me, I rolled to my back and brought my right knee up with as much force as I could. The jab connected with Victor’s privates. He gasped, and his eyes rolled in the back of his head. But he soon regained his balance and lunged at me, growling with fury and trapping me underneath him so that I couldn’t escape.

I instinctively covered my face and head with my hands and curled my knees to my chest to protect my vital parts from further attack, wondering if the end would come quickly, or if I would die a slow, painful death. 

“Get off her!” I heard Adrian yell as he swung the branch at his father.

Victor took the blow across the shoulder and bellowed with rage. He looked up, momentarily forgetting me, and I craned my head for one fleeting glance of Adrian.

“I said get off her!” he screamed again, screwing his face in fury.