The Curse of Deadman's Forest

  He couldn’t fathom why he felt so drawn to Océanne. The attraction to her was unlike anything he’d ever experienced. He’d never thought of girls as anything but mildly amusing and sometimes even annoying. Theo was the only girl he held much respect for at the orphanage, and not one of the other girls at the keep had ever commanded his attentions.

  So what was it about this young lady that captivated him so completely? He had no idea, but he did know that he simply couldn’t tolerate watching her affection for his best friend grow. And if he was to have any sort of future with her—as Theo had all but promised—then he needed to keep his distance from both her and Carl. At least until they could escape back to the keep, which he hoped would be soon now that the professor had finished translating the prophecy within Sir Barnaby’s journal.

  As the last rays of the sun were painting the sky beautiful shades of pink, lilac, and purple, Ian finally rose from his log and made his way back to the main house. He entered quietly through a side door and stopped short. Madame Lafitte was standing just inside the doorway, looking almost as surprised to see him as he was to see her. “Ian!” she greeted him with a smile. “We’ve been quite worried about you.”

  Ian cleared his throat and shuffled his feet. “I’m sorry, ma’am,” he said. “I was down by the creek and I must have lost track of time.”

  “I see,” she said, and Ian couldn’t tell if she believed him. He was saved from further scrutiny when she ushered him into the kitchen and pointed to a small table. “Sit,” she ordered, and hurried over to the icebox. “We’ve still got quite a bit of ham and leftover potatoes. Oh, and I believe one or two of the rolls may have survived Carl’s appetite.”

  She said this with a wink and Ian couldn’t help smiling, his spirits lifting just a bit. “He eats like that at home too,” he told her.

  “I’ve never seen such a thin lad eat so much!”

  “I know,” Ian agreed. “We’re not sure where it all goes.”

  They made small talk while Madame Lafitte continued to fuss over him, giving him a plate loaded with ham, potatoes, and peas. Between bites he answered her many questions about the keep and Dover. “And the earl,” said Madame Lafitte lightly. “He’s happy in his castle at Dover?”

  Ian thought that was a rather odd question. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, wiping his mouth with his napkin. “He seems quite happy.”

  Madame Lafitte traced small circles with her finger on the table where they sat. “And does he have a female companion that he might be fond of?”

  Ian blinked. “I’m sorry?”

  Madame Lafitte laughed as if she was embarrassed to have asked. “Nothing,” she said. “Of course you wouldn’t know, now would you?”

  “Are you asking me if the earl has a girlfriend?”

  Madame Lafitte seemed to want to look anywhere but at Ian, and her finger stopped making circles on the tabletop and moved to pat her hair. “Why, no,” she said. “That would be a most improper question to ask, of course!”

  Ian squirmed in his chair. He wondered why his hostess was suddenly uncomfortable, and tried to reassure her by answering the question he thought she wanted to ask. “The earl doesn’t have a girlfriend,” he said. Madame Lafitte’s eyes shot up to meet his. “At least, no one that I’ve ever seen, ma’am. He’s always been a bit of a loner as far as I can tell, and he’s more enthusiastic about hunting and his duties at parliament than trotting round with the ladies.”

  Ian couldn’t be certain but he thought he saw a bit of relief in Madame Lafitte’s eyes. And he thought she might ask him something else, but at that moment the earl himself walked right into the kitchen. “Ah,” he said when he saw the two of them. “Ian, I’ve been looking for you.”

  “The lad’s been out exploring the grounds, Hastings,” said Madame Lafitte sweetly. “The poor dear missed dinner and I’ve just made him up a plate.”

  Ian was surprised at the earl’s reaction. Without looking at her, the earl replied in a rather formal tone, “Yes, I heard from the professor that while I was out, Ian had gone wandering off. Theo assured me that you were fine and would be back soon, but as it’s becoming dark, I thought I’d attempt to find you myself.”

  “You’ve been out looking for me, my lord?” Ian asked, guilt settling about his shoulders.

  The earl nodded. “I needed to drive into town earlier to send a telegram and wait for a reply. There’s some good news from the keep,” he said. “Lizzy Newton, who, as you might recall, left our orphanage two years ago, has come back to collect her two siblings. She’s just been married and her husband is welcoming her brother and sister into their home.”

  Ian felt his spirits rise even further. Lizzy Newton was a pretty, bright girl who’d been at the keep until she’d turned sixteen. Ian remembered that upon her release from the orphanage, the earl had worked diligently to find her employment and had finally convinced a duchess acquaintance of his to take Lizzy on as a personal secretary.

  Since then, Ian had heard that Lizzy was getting on quite well at the duchess’s, and that she’d even become engaged to a rather wealthy merchant. He was thrilled that her two much younger siblings, Jon and Emily, would be joining her and her new husband.

  “That is excellent news, Hastings!” said Madame Lafitte with a clap of her hands. “It’s a marvelous thing when your children receive a happy ending.”

  The earl seemed to stiffen and Ian was confused by his reaction. Again he watched as the earl carefully avoided looking at Madame Lafitte and directed the conversation back to Ian. “It is excellent news,” he agreed. “And the timing could not be more to my liking. I’ve two orphans in mind who might fit perfectly in with you all at the keep.”

  The earl spoke as if his words held a double meaning, but Ian was really more interested in hearing about how soon they might be able to escape back to England. “So we’re setting off for the keep soon, my lord?” Ian asked hopefully.

  “Tomorrow,” said the earl. “I’ve just arranged for our passage, in fact. We leave promptly at noon.”

  With this new information, Ian felt the tension leave his shoulders. He relaxed for the first time in days, and as he shifted in his seat, his eyes caught Madame Lafitte’s face. Strangely, even though she was smiling, Ian would have sworn that their hostess appeared disappointed.

  “That’s excellent, my lord,” he told the earl. He quickly added for Madame Lafitte’s benefit, “Although I’ve quite enjoyed my stay here, ma’am.”

  Her smile widened and she gave a gentle pat to his hand before rising. “Hastings, would you care for some dinner? We’ve plenty of ham and potatoes left if you’re hungry.”

  The earl gave a tight smile, but still he did not look at her when he answered. “Thank you, Madame, but no. I was fortunate enough to have a meal in town. Now, if you will excuse me?” Without even waiting for a reply, he gave a small bow and hurried out of the kitchen.

  Ian looked at Madame Lafitte as if to say, “That was odd,” but he held his tongue when he saw the hurt look on her face. As quickly as it had appeared, however, it was gone and she’d forced a smile to her lips and asked, “And you, Ian? Are you up for more?”

  Several hours later, Ian lay awake and restless after everyone else had gone to sleep. He finally sighed and sat up in bed. Enough moonlight filtered in from the window that he could just make out the figure of Carl sleeping soundly in the bed across from him. Seeing his friend brought back the shame he’d felt earlier about how he’d acted right after his dinner. On his way up to their room, he’d caught Carl and Océanne playing a game of checkers at a table in the front hallway. He’d wanted to leave his jealous feelings behind and had fully intended to approach the pair and be nice, but when he saw Océanne’s head tilt back with a laugh as Carl said something funny about her last move, Ian found himself stomping off up the stairs.

  He was positive that they had seen him. Especially when he passed Theo coming down the steps and she looked at him with such disappointment that
he didn’t think he could bear it any longer. He offered her a grumbled “Goodnight” and continued up to the room he shared with Carl, where he feigned sleep when the other boy came in a bit later.

  Now, as he stared across the room at the other bed, Ian regretted his awful behavior and quietly got up and padded out into the hallway.

  On tiptoe he made his way along the corridor and down the stairs to a large sitting room with a lit fire and large plush chairs that looked so comfortable they practically begged for him to come sit for a time and ease his troubled mind.

  He also noticed with delight that one of the walls in the room held shelf after shelf of books—just the thing he needed to take his mind off his worries. He walked to the bound volumes and squinted in the glow of the firelight at the titles, finally selecting one that had an interesting title. The Hobbit by some chap named Tolkien. Ian pulled the weighty novel off the shelf and opened it immediately. By the first paragraph he was already absorbed and sat down in the chair closest to the fire, pulling up his legs akimbo while he quickly lost himself in the land of Middle Earth.

  He was ten pages into the story when he heard a soft chuckle nearby. “That must be some book.”

  Ian started and closed the novel quickly. “Oh!” he said. “My lord, I didn’t see you sitting there.”

  The earl chuckled again from his seat on the chaise in the far corner of the room. “Yes, lad,” he said. “I watched you enter the room and head straight to the bookshelf.”

  Ian had a moment’s hesitation when he wondered if he might be in trouble for being up so far past his bedtime, so he quickly said, “I’m very sorry to be out of bed, my lord, but I couldn’t sleep.”

  The earl got up and came over to occupy the twin chair next to Ian, noting the title in Ian’s hand. “I’ve heard of that book,” he said cordially. “It’s been quite the talk of London lately. You’ll tell me if it’s worth reading?”

  Ian smiled in relief. “Yes, of course.”

  The earl sat back in his seat and sighed. “My own mind won’t allow me to sleep either, Ian,” he admitted, which caught the young man off guard.

  “My lord?”

  The earl regarded him thoughtfully. “You had a nice chat with Madame Lafitte?” he asked, and Ian instantly understood, so he nodded.

  “She’s quite nice. Monsieur Lafitte told us yesterday that you were the one who introduced them.”

  The earl’s smile turned melancholy. “Yes,” he agreed. “I did. The second-greatest mistake of my life, in fact.” Ian was shocked that the earl would share such a secret with him. “That is why it pains me to come here. Of course, I would never admit such a thing to Leo.”

  Ian cocked his head. “Who?”

  “Monsieur Lafitte,” the earl explained. “We used to be quite close you know,” he added. “Much like you and Carl, in fact. But the moment I discovered Jasmine had feelings for Leopold, I distanced myself from both of them, causing no small amount of hurt, I suspect.”

  Ian said nothing, deciding it best simply to allow the earl to speak. But the earl fell silent and Ian could sense that in the soft glow of the firelight, the earl’s eyes were seeing things from the distant past.

  Finally, Ian said, “My lord, you mentioned that introducing Monsieur and Madame Lafitte to each other was the second-greatest mistake you made. What was your first?”

  The earl focused intently on Ian and it was a moment before he replied. “Allowing a young lady to come between me and my best friend, Ian. That is the biggest regret I have.”

  And Ian realized that the earl knew fully how he’d recently been treating Carl. Ashamed yet again, Ian ducked his chin. “Ah,” he said. “Yes, that would be regretful.”

  The earl reached a hand over to Ian’s head and ruffled his hair. “Read your book, lad,” he said gently. “Then get some rest. We’ve a long journey ahead of us before we’re back home again.” And with that the earl got up and shuffled off to his own quarters.

  Ian sat for a long time afterward, staring into the fire, The Hobbit resting in his lap, as he considered what the earl had said. And after a bit, he was finally able to firm up his resolve. The earl and Theo were right: no matter how he felt about Océanne, Carl was his best friend. Whatever it might personally cost him, he could never lose sight of that.

  So he sat there until he could honestly promise himself that no girl would ever come between him and Carl again. Ever.

  CONSEQUENCES

  Dieter Van Schuft waited nervously in the salon of his opulent flat in Berlin. In the corner sat his beloved wife, Hylda, tapping her finger on the few pages of the journal she’d managed to recover.

  He tried to send her a reassuring smile, but he could tell she was somewhat fearful of the coming meeting. “Tell him nothing of your encounter with the two boys,” he warned for the hundredth time.

  Hylda nodded vigorously. “As we discussed, Dieter, I will only mention the journal,” she vowed.

  Behind Dieter, over the large marble fireplace, the clock struck midnight. Above Dieter’s head the floorboards creaked. Wolfie was out of bed … again. Hylda had clearly heard it too, because she tipped her chin upward and tsked. “What are we to do with that boy?” she whispered.

  “Send him to boarding school,” Dieter replied drolly.

  The only thing he and Hylda ever disagreed on was the rearing of their young son. Dieter believed that his wife doted on the boy far too much. Dieter had wanted his son to attend boarding school in Vienna, but both Wofie and Hylda had made such a fuss that Dieter had reluctantly relented.

  “He’s too young, Dieter. The boy still needs his mother,” Hylda argued now.

  Dieter opened his mouth to reply but at that very moment the front door of their flat burst open and a thin haze of smoke wafted in. “He is here!” Dieter hissed.

  Hylda nearly jumped out of her chair and came to stand next to her husband. With annoyance, he noticed she shivered slightly. “Steel yourself, liebling,” he cautioned right before Magus the Black strode into the room, smudging their good carpets as he approached.

  “Dieter,” Magus said perfunctorily. “Hylda.”

  The Van Schufts bowed their chins. “Master,” they said.

  Dieter raised his head and did his best to secure a smile. “I have good news from General Walther von Brauchitsch. He sends his gratitude for your most generous donation, and he has agreed to appoint you civilian strategic advisor to his young nephew, Colonel Kaiser Gropp of the Eighth Armored Panzer Division.”

  Magus pursed his lips. “Where has Colonel Gropp been assigned?”

  “To the Polish border, master. He is charged with crossing just south of the village you mentioned.”

  “Well done, Dieter. You will stay in Berlin while I am advising the colonel and ensure our interests are advanced.” Magus next turned to address Hylda, his eyes as black as a cobra’s.

  “What have you brought me from your journey to Spain?”

  Hylda cleared her throat and extended the hand holding the cover and very few pages from the journal she’d recovered in the streets of Madrid. “The English earl and his companions visited with a Señora Castillo, master. She possessed a journal once owned by her brother, Sir Donovan Barnaby. I did everything I could to recover the journal in its entirety, but I was betrayed by the man I’d hired, who threw the journal into traffic, where much of it was destroyed. As a consequence, I was only able to recover those pages for you.”

  Magus’s expression was skeptical, and he took what remained of the journal and began to read the soiled, torn, and smudged pages.

  Dieter held his breath, hoping that the contents were nothing his master would value. Dieter had read the pages himself and found them to be only the musings of an insipid fool who missed his sister and his homeland while he complained of the heat in Greece.

  “Barnaby was the archeologist who first led me to Laodamia’s prophecy,” Magus muttered while he skimmed the pages. “I can see why the English would want to review i
t; they were likely looking for a clue as to where to find the treasure boxes. But nothing here looks relevant to our cause.”

  Beside him Dieter heard Hylda let go a relieved breath. “It is as I suspected, master,” said Dieter.

  Magus’s head snapped up and he was about to hand the pages back to Hylda when something caught his eye and he drew the pages to him again. At the top of every page, Barnaby had written the precise date and time he’d begun his journaling for that day. It appeared that he wrote in his journal at precisely the same time every night—just past six in the evening. Magus’s finger lingered over the date and time written on one page before he let it move to the top right corner, where the edge had been singed by some sort of fire.

  When Dieter realized what his master was focusing on, the hairs on the back of his neck raised in warning.

  His fears were quickly confirmed as Magus looked up again, his face contorted in rage, and threw the pages to the floor. “You errant fool!” he shouted at Hylda. “Do you realize what you’ve lost?”

  Dieter’s wife clung to his arm, trembling in fear, and neither of them spoke, knowing it was better to remain silent, lest they make things worse.

  Magus glared angrily at Hylda and shook his fist. “This comes from the journal that fool was keeping days before he discovered the scroll I killed him for! If he was writing in it the day he died, and it survived my fire, then there is obviously some clue about the prophecy on the pages you lost!”

  Hylda’s trembling intensified. “Ma-Ma-Master!” she stammered. “It was not my fault! I was betrayed! I was—” Hylda said not one more word. Instead, she collapsed to the floor, writhing in pain.

  “Master!” Dieter pleaded, dropping to his knees to beg for his beloved wife’s life. “Please! Spare her!”