Forest of Shadows Read online

  “I’m not sure I like the way this is starting but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt.”

  Aware of her body language, she uncrossed her legs and gave him her undivided attention.

  He started with an exaggerated exhalation. “Right. We’ve already established that leaving Jessica behind will be emotionally and logistically difficult. Bringing her there could be problematic, but the pros, when I thought about them, outweigh the cons. Now, if I brought her with me, there would be plenty of times when I would need to do some investigative work, which would leave her to herself in a strange place. Did I mention we’d be like the only non-Native Americans in the whole town?”

  “Not until just then.”

  “Well, we would. That’s a con, but only because Judas warned me that the town folk don’t take too kindly to white interlopers. After being there for only a day, I can pretty much verify that as fact, with the exception of a redheaded waitress and a small boy at the diner.”

  Eve arched an eyebrow. “Oh, a waitress.”

  John waved the thought away with a flick of his hand. “She’s probably not even legal. And I could be wrong about the town. I didn’t meet a whole lot of people, so it might not be as bad as Judas says it is. I get the feeling he’s never been the recipient of the Shida Outstanding Citizen’s Award. To make a long story short, I was thinking that maybe you and Liam could come along as well. You guys are family and I think it would be a comfort to both of us. And it won’t be just sitting around a house looking for phantoms. I want to get the whole Alaska experience. There’s the Denali National Park not too far north and tons of outdoor activities.”

  “You forget two things,” Eve interjected. “I have a job and after the summer, Jess will have school.”

  “The school part is easy. I can just call her principal and arrange to keep her out for a month or two. I think they call it learning through life experience. I could get the curriculum and her books and do a little bit of the home schooling thing so she doesn’t fall behind. She’s so smart, I’m sure it wouldn’t be hard for her.”

  John paused and Eve tensed. After helping him through the sea of money grubbers and gold diggers immediately following his windfall, she had been very careful to remain utterly independent. He had offered her money and things such as cars and computers over the years but she had always refused. When Patrick left her and Liam, John even offered to pay all of her bills, from her mortgage down to the weekly groceries. Even her own mother had applied pressure when times were tight to go to him for help, but Eve had a solid streak of independence. It was a good trait to have for a single mom.

  John knew how she felt, which spoke volumes on how serious he had considered the fine print of his Plan B.

  “I don’t think I need to say that this is the hard part.”

  “You just did,” Eve said. Even she couldn’t tell whether she was trying to be funny or deadly serious. John was obviously having the same problem.

  “We both know your job is less than fulfilling.” Eve leaned slightly forward and John thought she was going to object but she remained attentive instead. “I’ve always felt you’re too good to work in a tiny office for an asshole of a boss. Believe me, life’s too short to live in your own, personally constructed prison. That’s a lesson finally settling in my warped brain. What I propose is this: quit your job, leave it for good, and come with us to Alaska. I want to hire you as Jessica’s full-time nanny and tutor while we’re away. Before you run from the house screaming, listen to the benefits.”

  Eve relaxed her posture and said, “I promise I won’t run screaming.” She even managed to smile.

  “All right. Here’s what I can offer. Freedom from a job you hate. The trip of a lifetime to a place so beautiful I can’t even begin to describe it. A salary designed to keep you in the black and assist you with finding a better job when we return.” Now he scooted his chair next to her and placed his hands on her shoulders. “Last but not least, you will have my undying gratitude. As much as I need this to happen to move on with my life, I need you by my side. You, Jessica and Liam have been my lifeline. I can’t imagine going all the way out there without it.”

  Eve started to cry. It was the most wonderful, delicate, moving thing anyone had ever said to her. One look in his eyes told her he meant every word of it and more.

  Yes, she could plainly see he needed her.

  For the first time in five years, she wondered, did she in fact need him just as much?

  She wrapped her arms around him and said, “You’ve got yourself a nanny and tutor. When do we pack?”

  Eve felt his body go limp as an unimaginable weight of tension disappeared like fog on a sunny morning and he held her tight, whispering, “Thank you,” over and over again.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The next three weeks were a whirlwind of announcements, changes, planning and packing. After Eve agreed to come to Alaska, they both decided that all bets were off if Jessica did not want to go. Her happiness, after all, was the most important thing, as was Liam’s, though he was still too young to care either way so long as his mother was near.

  It was no surprise that she was ready, willing and able to go. Even after John explained the reason behind their adventure, Jessica’s enthusiasm never wavered.

  “I’m not afraid of energy,” she said the night he broke the news to her.

  “Some people are.”

  “I guess. Not me.”

  John himself was running on nervous energy, getting little sleep now because he was busy making arrangements and doing as much as he could on fearnone.com before he left. He posted an announcement on the home page that all regular activities would be suspended for the next several months as he was about to undergo a large scale paranormal investigation. Email would be checked sporadically though he couldn’t guarantee any timely replies.

  He stopped by Ed Smythe’s house to report that nothing paranormal was recorded on any of his instruments. Ed broke into an enormous grin and seemed buoyed by the news. Hopefully that would spell the end of his problems.

  Together, John and Eve made the rounds to trumpet what was now their plan to her parents and John’s father. To their surprise, they were met with smiles and wishes for the best of luck. Eve’s mother pulled him aside to personally thank him for helping Eve escape from her job. He could have sworn he saw tears in her eyes, but it may have been irritation from the smoke billowing from her cigarette.

  Next on the list for Eve was tendering her resignation, which she did with unmitigated glee. She wished she had a camera so she could have preserved the look on her obnoxious boss’s face for all time. She gave him her two minutes notice and was out the door before he could even register a response.

  While Eve was freeing herself, John met Jack Casella for dinner one night at a Japanese steak house to tell him the news. Jack was proud of him and happily volunteered to check in on the house from time to time. John’s final visit was with Dr. Anderson, who couldn’t have been happier. It felt good to finally do something that made everyone around him smile. It had been a long time coming.

  Thanks to the assistance of Mary Longfeather, John was able to find a furniture store that was willing to provide and ship what they would need to the big, empty cabin. The store, Wilderness Furnishings, was located in Palmer, a small city north of Anchorage. Absorbed in all things Alaska now, John looked up Palmer in the travel guides he’d picked up from the bookstore and learned that the town gained its prevailing character in the 1930s as part of President Roosevelt’s New Deal. Failing and starving farmers from the Midwest were moved to Palmer to try their hand at tilling the land and raising livestock. Even today, Palmer was mostly a farming community.

  Eve provided the list of needed furniture: beds for John, Jessica and Eve, a crib for Liam, chairs, a sofa, kitchen and dining room tables, lamps, bedside tables, dressers, a television and even a work desk for John’s laptop and piles of research material. It was all rented and promised to blend in
with the rustic yet refined look of the house. Jessica’s school was contacted and John was provided with a curriculum and textbooks. Funny how private schools that depended on your tuition never gave parents a hard time in situations like this.

  It was early August when John loaded his and Jessica’s bags into the rental car, a big luxury sedan, so they could pick up Eve and Liam on their way to the airport.

  He checked the back door for the third time that morning to make sure it was locked, leaned against the refrigerator while he went through a mental inspection of the house and his to-do list, then said, “Are you ready to go on a plane?”

  Her eyes lit up. “Oh yeah!”

  It would be her first time on a plane and she was as excited as if it were Christmas Eve.

  “Well come on, let’s hit the road.”

  She leapt from her chair and bounded out the front door. John slowly made his way through the house, giving it one long, last look. There was the easy chair that Anne had picked out, uncomfortable as hell to his back but Jessica’s favorite seat in the house. The framed finger paint masterpiece that Jess and Liam created hung over the entertainment center. The dining room, for a change, was clean and ordered. And for the next few months, all would be quiet, save for the steady ticking of his the clock on the mantel.

  His medication, the lowered dosage daily pills, the others for calming strong panic attacks and his sleeping pills were all on the coffee table. He’d put them there so he wouldn’t forget to pack them in his briefcase.

  His hand stopped midway as he reached out to scoop the amber-colored plastic bottles. He thought of Alaska, of his decision to take control of his life, of his conversations with his father and most of all, Dr. Anderson, and left them on the table. Before his mastery of his own emotions had spun out of control, he’d always considered himself a strong man. Anne’s death changed all that and he’d spent half a decade doubting himself and hiding behind irrational fear.

  The time for fear and doubt was over.

  He hoped.

  The door locked behind him and he joined Jessica in the car.

  The plane took off into blue skies, breaking through a carnival of white, wispy clouds that had been pulled from a cotton candy machine and stretched into thin tendrils across the azure atmospheric canvas.

  Liam cried for a bit after takeoff, settling down once the pressure in his ears had adjusted.

  Free from any tranquilizers, John immersed himself in the ecstatic emotions of his daughter as she gazed out the window and hopped in her seat. They all felt a rising bubble of excitement after the connecting flight in Seattle and their steady climb up the Pacific Northwest. The ten-hour flight passed by relatively quickly, with everyone taking little cat naps, reading, watching the in-flight movie and most of all, talking about all things Alaska.

  Eve had been worried that Jessica would be upset leaving her friends behind, but John assured her she would be too wrapped up in the newness of their adventure for it to be an issue. With any luck, they’d be on the plane back to New York by the time homesickness settled in.

  “You’re very pretty,” Jessica said to a passing flight attendant when they took off from Sea-Tac Airport in Seattle.

  “Not as pretty as you,” she replied, beaming.

  Jessica was later invited to see the area where the flight attendants worked and given all the cookies she could eat.

  “She’s a charmer,” Eve said.

  “I taught her everything thing she knows. When I flew back they let me sit on the captain’s lap and fly the plane.”

  Their laughter woke Liam from his third nap of the trip and John spent the remainder of the flight entertaining him.

  The plane slowly descended and they passed over Prince William Sound, then above the tiny houses that made up the suburbs of Anchorage. The city of Anchorage contained almost half the population of the entire state and sported several beautiful, tall glass buildings, though most of the architecture would pass for medium to small sized apartment buildings in New York. Lake Hood lay adjacent to the busy airport with its collection of smaller jets, props and even sea planes. They touched down with nary a bounce in Anchorage International Airport.

  Most of their luggage had been sent ahead of them days earlier, so it wasn’t a difficult task loading their few bags onto a cart and walking to the car rental station. A brand new Jeep Grand Cherokee was reserved under John’s name and they were out of the airport and driving to the center of Anchorage by eight o’clock.

  “Daddy, can we drive to the house now?” Jessica asked from the backseat with a yawn. She was confused by the wave of exhaustion that had swept over her since the sun still burned in the sky and it was an hour from her normal bedtime. She wasn’t aware of the time change that actually made it far later for her tiny internal clock.

  “Not tonight, Jess. We have reservations at a Marriott. We’ll set out after breakfast in the morning.”

  “The Marriott, huh,” Eve said. “I thought you might want to put us in a rustic inn to get the true flavor of the wild frontier.”

  “Wait till you see the cabin in Shida. It’s ten times nicer and more modern than my house. Roughing it, we ain’t.”

  It wasn’t long before they were settled into their room with a breathtaking view of the city and ordering room service for a late dinner. Liam and Jessica both fell asleep waiting for the food. After they had their fill, John and Eve weren’t far behind, each cuddled next to their children in separate double beds.

  Chapter Seventeen

  “Who’s missing?”

  The old man’s head craned from side to side as he swept the sea of wizened faces seated around him in metal folding chairs.

  “Ed, Nuna and Gary.”

  “Nuna is home ill,” a shrill voice piped up.

  “And Ed Kaake is away, staying with family in Vancouver.”

  “That just leaves Gary, then.”

  “Should we hold off?” one of the women seated in the front asked.

  They silently waited as the man seated behind the solitary desk closed his eyes and pondered the question.

  The chair creaked as he leaned back. “Let’s begin. He will come and I will tell him anything he has missed.”

  All told, there were sixteen people in the library basement—ten men and six women, all between the ages of sixty and ninety. The heavy aroma of moldy books and dust was setting quite a few well-worn pairs of lungs to coughing.

  “Mary Longfeather says the white man will be here soon,” the leader said, pausing to catch the eyes of his audience. “She says he has rented the house and has no intentions of staying.”

  “For how long?” asked a man with flowing white hair.

  “Two months, maybe three. He claims to be a writer.”

  “Why Shida?”

  “He was seen talking to the Graves boy during his visit last month,” someone interjected.

  “I saw them together,” said another man, resting on his cane. “They acted as if they had known each other.”

  Several heads nodded.

  “Do we know if he has any relation to Graves?”

  Silence.

  “There ain’t no one related to Graves, at least no one living,” added a disembodied voice near the stairwell.

  The sound of heavy booted footsteps descending the stairs brought the conversation to a halt, but only until they saw the wearer of the boots.

  “I don’t exactly know who this fella is right now, but sure as bird shit on a barbecue grill I can find out,” Sheriff Gary High Bear said as he swaggered into the room. His hat was pulled low and he kept a hand on his hip.

  The group leader nodded his head gravely. “You have no choice.”

  A man, slightly younger than the others and still spry, leaped from his chair. “We’ve had enough rash decisions! We cower and we react to shadows.”

  “Pipe down, you old fool.”

  “I may be old, but I’m tired of acting like a fool. I’ve heard this man is bringing his
family. There will be children.”

  The gathering murmured in dissention as people took sides.

  Finally, a heavyset woman with dark, sad eyes set in a face etched by years of hard living shouted, “Enough! We are not facing new demons. Some of us have lived more than half our lives with this shadow. I think the closer we get to death, the more we become like infants, afraid of all we see and hear.”

  A few heads nodded in agreement.

  “I heard something happened to the Graves boy at the house,” a thin woman with dark, heavily lined skin intoned. “What if he has been tainted? He could spread the bad winds. And this new family, this white family, think of what their mere presence will do? It will be too much.”

  “We all know what must be done,” the council leader continued, his voice steady and stern. “The sheriff will do his job and we will do ours. There will come a day when we will not be here to gather like this, and it saddens me to think what will become of Shida.”

  Silence engulfed the room until the sheriff cleared his throat and walked among them.

  “She’s right,” he said. “So why don’t you all go home and let me do my job. I’m sure there’s nothing to worry about.” He turned to go back up the stairs. “And even if there is, you can be sure I’ll take care of it.”

  After a light breakfast via room service, they piled into the Jeep and headed out to Shida. John caught the Glenn Highway, better known as Highway One, and drove for about thirty miles before merging onto the George Parks Highway, or Highway Three. There were only a handful of highways in the enormous land that was Alaska and fortunately one of them would take John and his makeshift family most of the way to their destination.

  They passed by exotic sounding towns like Wasilla, Knik and a place called Skwentna that according to the map was a slight foray off the main road to the west. The world around them was stunning in the summer sunlight, the grass still glistening from last night’s dew. The weather man on a local radio station said they could expect mostly sunny skies with clouds rolling in by eight o’clock that night. High temperatures would reach the mid-sixties with a slight breeze. That breeze carried the scents of wild roses, blue mountain harebells, daisies and the occasional patch of skunk cabbage that popped up every few miles. Eve had been reading nothing but books on Alaska since her decision to join him and had become their expert on Alaskan flora and fauna.