Lost Valley Box Set, page 18
part #1 of Lost Valley Series
Stuart stood with a glazed look on his face, not moving. She motioned him to come to the back, but he was frozen, his feet stuck to the floor by an invisible glue of fear.
Again, the helicopter was jolted. The jolt was enough to break his feet free, and he took off running. He reached the back, dove onto the bench seat, and huddled next to her.
She put her arms around him and Kelly.
“It’s all right, I don’t think it can get us in here. I think were safe.”
“What is it?” he asked.
“I don’t know, but let’s pray that Marcus gets back soon,” she said, and pulled them closer.
She realized she was shaking and was exhausted. She wanted to lay her head down on the table, but she was afraid to. She needed to stay alert in case things got worse.
“I’m tired,” Kelly said.
“Lay your head on my lap and rest,” she said and helped her stretch her legs out. Stuart looked up at her and then laid his head down, too.
She held them close to her. “Everything’s going to be okay. Why don’t you try to take a nap until Marcus gets back?”
Over a period of time, she noticed their breathing gradually change, slowing down and becoming more regular. Soon they were both asleep. She sat silently in the rear seat, listening for any hint of Marcus’s return.
As the time passed, she noticed it was getting darker in the cabin. She looked out the window and saw that the sun had fallen behind the trees. A few more hours and it would start getting dark, she thought.
Exhausted, she couldn’t resist the urge to lay her head on the conference table. Overwhelmed by fatigue, she fell asleep listening to the repetitive song of a bird.
Chapter 11
Luc looked around the area in front of Ishki’s cabin illuminated by beams of late afternoon sunlight filtering though the pine trees. The sweet and pungent smell of burning wood filled the cold air.
He led the way up a split log stairway, cut and laid into the hillside that curved around and led up to her log cabin. A simple two-railed log fence surrounded the place and seemed to set it off from the rest of the world.
Smoke rose slowly and curled off into the air from a stone chimney at the side of the cabin, weaving its way through the branches of the trees.
They walked up to the cabin. A long porch made of wood planks stretched along its front and was covered by a roof that jutted out over it and rested on four large rough-hewn posts.
Strips of meat hung from wires strung between the posts. Running in front of the porch was a wall formed of split firewood and logs.
They stepped up onto the porch and Luc knocked on the wooden door several times. They stood quietly and listened.
From inside the cabin, Luc heard the voice of a woman humming an odd tune he didn’t recognize. It sounded alien to him, and for some reason, sent little chills down his spine. The sound of footsteps coming toward the front of the cabin escaped through the thin cabin door. He stepped in front of Kate as the door suddenly opened.
In the doorway stood Ishki dressed in a multi-colored coarsely woven blouse and skirt. Long narrow leather tassels in browns and blacks were stitched at various points on the blouse and hung almost to her knees, making her look like she had been transported from another age.
He immediately recognized her sun-beaten and wrinkled face. Her waist-length gray hair had been pulled back into a ponytail, and he couldn’t help but notice the necklace of small bones hanging around her neck. She hadn’t looked at all like that the last time he had seen her in the back room of the village center.
“I need to talk with you,” he said.
“I know, come in,” she said then turned and walked to a stone fireplace hearth on the far side of the room and began adjusting a log with a poker. Luc and Kate, somewhat hesitantly, walked through the door. Earthy and spicy smells filled the interior of the cabin.
“Don’t take all night, you’re letting the heat out,” she said. “My old bones need the warmth. Lately, I’m always cold. But that’s another story.”
He hurried in and shut the door. He didn’t intend to beat around the bush.
“I didn’t return the objects back to the mountains where I found them,” he said in an almost apologetic tone.
“And you want me to make it all better?” she said, derisively.
“How were you able to draw the picture that led me to the boy?” Luc asked.
“I felt the need to travel with my mind that night. I’m not sure why. I was drawn out to our village’s hunting grounds and sensed the boy’s presence. I was pulled to it. I saw the machine near the peaks. It was so vivid. I knew it was important. I drew what I saw when I returned.”
“My children were in a helicopter that went down yesterday afternoon in the same area. They were looking for the source of the objects I found in the mountains. Can you do it again? Can you travel again and find them?”
“I can’t do it because they’re not close to me, but you can, I think.”
“What do you mean?”
“Your grandfather has told me several times that he thought you had the heart of the hunter. If you possess that, you can drink the Traveler’s Tea and seek them out yourself.”
“That’s ridiculous,” he said.
“No, it isn’t, Luc. She obviously knows something we don’t. We need to listen to what she has to say,” Kate reasoned.
He was beginning to wish he hadn’t come there.
Ishki walked up in front of him and pointed her finger in his face. “You may not know it, but I’ve known you for a long time, Luc. I saw you the day you were born; in fact, I delivered you.”
“You delivered me?”
“Yes. That was before the doctors came to the village. You might say we go way back. Do you think you can trust me?”
“My grandfather said I should.”
“Matooska’s a good man. Hopefully, he won’t be one of those who die because of your foolishness.”
Luc’s insides flinched like someone had slapped him. He felt Kate put her hand on his shoulder.
“There’s no way I’m going to let anything happen to my grandfather. I’ll do anything you want that can bring me some answers help me get my children back.”
“Good, then sit down at the table and let’s get started,” Ishki said.
He sat down at a table in the middle of the room and Kate sat next to him. He watched Ishki walk over to the stone fireplace, pick up a potholder, and remove a kettle that was hanging over the fire.
She opened a nearby drawer and pulled out a leather pouch and withdrew a few dried leaves. She broke the leaves into pieces and put them in the bottom of a cup. She filled the cup with boiling water and brought it over to the table, placing it in front of Luc.
He smelled a spicy aromatic scent rising from the cup and realized it was what he had smelled when she had first opened the door.
“We need to let it set for a little while,” she said. “When it’s ready, you must drink it all down.”
A concerned look came over Kate’s face. “Is that stuff safe? It won’t hurt him, will it?”
“Nothing is safe these days,” she said with a faraway look in her eyes. “It won’t kill him.”
“What kind of tea is it?” Kate asked.
“It’s the Traveler’s Tea. If a man has the Heart of the Hunter, and drinks it, he’ll never be the same again.”
“Luc, I don’t think you should...”
“The time is right, you can drink it now,” Ishki said, interrupting.
“It’s all right,” he said giving her a reassuring look.
He picked up the cup and blew on it, then took a sip. It had a bittersweet taste in his mouth, reminiscent of cinnamon, cloves, and almonds. Not bad, but not good either. He took another sip and noticed it made the inside of his mouth tingle, then feel strangely numb.
“Are you going to have some, too?” he asked, feeling slightly different in a way that he couldn’t explain.
“Of course, we’ll have some tea with you,” she said, and prepared two more cups and brought them back to the table.
Kate picked up the cup and smelled it. “Smells like regular tea to me,” she said.
“Ours is regular tea. Orange pekoe,” Ishki said, winking at her. “He’s the only one to be traveling this evening.”
Luc drank a few more swallows of the tea. He decided it was kind of good.
“Tell me what you taste,” she said.
He took another swallow and enjoyed the way it went down. “It’s different,” he said.
“You don’t know how different it is. You won’t find it at the market; I can guarantee you that. How do you feel?”
“I’m not sure,” he said, looking around the room. Everything seemed to look a little different, disjointed, fractured in some strange way. In the corner he saw what looked like a mobile with different-sized bones hanging from leather thongs. They were moving slowly back and forth on their own.
“Why are they moving like that?” he asked.
“He’s being drawn to the bones,” Ishki said to Kate.
“To what?” Kate asked in a whisper.
“The Traveling Bones,” she said, and gestured toward the corner of the cabin where they hung and slowly moved back and forth.
Underneath the bones, spread across the floor, was a large bearskin rug made from the hide of what looked to have been a very big grizzly.
“Luc, why don’t you drink down the rest of your tea for old Ishki, it will make you feel so much better.”
He didn’t feel like paying attention to Ishki anymore. He was too busy listening to a soft buzzing sound coming from somewhere in the room.
“Drink the rest of the tea, Luc.”
He picked up the cup and drank the rest in one swallow. “I’m feeling so...” He forgot what he was going to say.
The buzzing was getting louder and he felt drawn to it. It reminded him of a far-away airplane, high in a summer sky, droning away, the sound undulating and echoing through the atmosphere.
He realized Ishki was suddenly behind him with her hands under his arms.
“Let me help you up. I think you should lie down over there on the bearskin rug. It’s so much more comfortable.”
He stood up and then quickly grabbed the table. The room seemed to be moving all around him.
“Are you all right, Luc?” he heard Kate ask.
He looked at her and thought how beautiful she was.
“I love you, Kate. You’re so beautiful,” he said, and then looked deep into her large, green eyes. He saw the most beautiful sparkles of light emanating from within the pupils.
“He’s telling the truth,” Ishki said.
For a moment, a small smile replaced Kate’s look of concern.
“Help me get him over to the bearskin rug while he can still walk.”
Together, they guided him to the corner of the room where he stretched out on the rug and began watching the slowly swaying bones. He looked to his side and saw Ishki kneeling next to him.
“Picture your children’s faces. Will yourself to be drawn to them.”
“How?”
“Don’t ask me how, just do it.”
He ran his hands through the deep fur and closed his eyes and pictured Kelly and Stuart. He loved them so much and wanted to be with them so badly.
He noticed the buzzing was getting louder; it seemed to fill the whole room and his head. It was dark and relaxing with his eyes closed. Then he remembered he had to picture Kelly and Stuart. He pictured them standing in the distance and imagined himself moving toward them.
The thought occurred to him that he needed to get up and start looking for the children. He tried to open his eyes, but he couldn’t.
“Ishki,” he called out. There was no answer.
“Kate, are you there?” He tried to turn his head and look for her and realized he couldn’t move a muscle. He began to give into the buzzing sound and stopped trying to move.
His mind was still, more quiet than it had ever been before. The thought occurred to him that it was time to go. He struggled for a moment to get up then realized with a shock that he wasn’t in the cabin any longer.
Chapter 12
Luc looked around the area in which he suddenly found himself. He realized he now stood outside the front of the cabin. A small window through which light exited caught his attention.
He felt a strong desire to look in the window and tried to walk toward the light. Though he felt his legs moving, he stayed exactly where he was. He felt helpless, and then an idea occurred to him. If he couldn’t physically walk, maybe he could will himself to move.
He focused on the panes of glass, willing himself to move to them. He drifted effortlessly up to and just outside the small window. He gazed into the cabin and saw two people kneeling on the floor over someone. It was him. For some reason it didn’t seem odd. He simply accepted it.
The thought occurred to him that he had to find Kelly and Stuart. He spun around and away from the window and pictured their faces again. He willed himself to go to them. He began moving away from the cabin, past the pickup, then out over the trees and into the depths of an incredibly lonely night.
He moved toward the illumination of the village and observed how sharp and clear the pinpoints of the street and building lights were. He was seeing more clearly than he had ever before, no twinkling lights this night.
He moved northward and passed the airport and continued moving out over the tundra, faster and faster. He looked up and saw the perfectly round sphere of the moon. He had never seen it so sharp, so empty, and so cold.
He moved at the speed of thought along the dirt road that led from the village to the hunter’s campground and then into the rift between the western and eastern mountains. Something was pulling him, directing him. He simply let it happen.
He recognized the long narrow trough area where he had found the boy and saw the ATV lying on its side. Moving past it, he flew up the steep side of the mountain that led to the V-shaped peaks. He moved across its top and then down the other side.
At the bottom, he saw a waterfall crashing into a lake. He hovered over the water for a moment then began following a river that emptied the water from the lake and flowed into a valley.
The river split and he was drawn to the left, farther and deeper into the valley. To each place he was drawn, an image seemed to be indelibly burned into his mind.
He slowed and found himself hovering over the edge of a river and looking up a bank and into a forested area. He felt the irresistible urge to enter into the trees and began moving toward them.
He felt himself drawn into the forest. As he moved through the trees, he pushed against, then passed through their branches, feeling only the slightest sensations of resistance.
He broke out of the forest and entered into a clearing. Resting at the edge of the clearing was the helicopter.
He moved to the hatch door. Pushing against it, he passed effortlessly through its metal skin and found himself inside the dark helicopter. There were tree branches intruding into the cockpit.
He looked the other direction and moved to the back. He saw Christie with her head down on a table and her arms resting on Kelly and Stuart. Their heads lay in her lap. She was sleeping and so were the children.
The whole of his existence took in the silent, stark, reality. He watched them as a cold and detached observer might. On some deep nonverbal level, he questioned why he felt emotionless, despite the fact he knew these were the people he loved, worried about, and needed. At that moment, they simply were.
Something distracted him, causing him to turn and move back to the front of the cabin. The head of an impossibly large wolf was protruding through the branches and staring straight at him. It saw him and froze.
Without thinking, he rushed at it. He saw its mouth open but heard nothing as it pulled its head back out of the cabin and struggled to back out of the thick branches.
He followed it as it struggled to get away and saw it fall to the ground. He approached it again as it crouched low and bared its teeth.
Once again, he rushed at it. It turned and ran from the clearing into the trees with its tail between its legs. Then all was still once again. He looked around the clearing and focused on the landmarks as a strong feeling of panic filled his existence. He knew he had to return to his body.
He felt himself being pulled backward, as if some irresistible force had hooked him by the back of the neck and was reeling him back through the trees and out over the river. He felt himself being yanked like a puppet, faster and faster. He saw things whisk by and disappear into the distance behind him.
Then, he was over the lake and rising up the mountainside, moving across its top, past the broken ATV, and then out into the rift. Finally he found himself being pulled backward across the tundra, as all existence seemed to blur.
Everything stopped. Once again he was in front of Ishki’s place, slowly being pulled toward the cabin. Right before he passed through the exterior wall, he took one last look at the clearing and realized he hadn’t been alone. A man in a long flowing robe turned to look at him, as if surprised. Their eyes made contact for a brief moment and then everything ended.
* * *
He floated in the darkness and simply existed. He had no desire to think or try and figure out where he was or what he was doing. Gradually, he realized that something was disturbing him and that he was no longer floating, but was lying on his back.
Panic filled him when he realized he was unable to move. He willed himself to move, to open his eyes, but nothing happened. He tried with all his strength to scream out. “Help me.”
He heard the sound of a voice.
“Luc, can you hear me? Can you wake up?”
He knew that voice from somewhere. It sounded so familiar. He wanted to answer, but his body stubbornly refused. What had he done to himself? He was breathing fast as if he were running a marathon.
The shock of cold water on his face broke the stranglehold of the paralysis and brought him fully awake. He opened his eyes and realized that Kate was kneeling on the floor at his side rubbing his arm and Ishki was standing over him with a pot in her hand. He felt cold water running down his neck and soaking into his shirt.
