Wicked Forest

  "What's wrong with me?" I cried, wiping my brow with my hand. I thought I felt clammy. "Maybe I should go see a doctor."

  "Oh, you're just tired. Willow. I told you. It's not uncommon. After a night's rest, you'll feel fine." he said.

  He continued to guide me up, practically canvilla me the rest of the way. When we got to my suite. I stopped to take a deep breath. He helped me to the bed.

  -"Get me a cold, wet washcloth, please. Linden.' "Of course." he said, and went to fetch it.

  I lay back on my pillow and closed my eyes. I don't know if he ever got the washcloth because, seconds later. I was asleep.

  .

  When I awoke, it was pitch dark. I was under my blanket. naked. I had no idea how I had gotten undressed and under the covers. My neck felt so stiff. Everything ached. There was a strange new odor in my room. familiar but so unexpected, it didn't register for a few moments. I turned to see what time it was. My clock had one of those illuminating faces so I could see the hands well in the dark. It read seven, which of course meant seven in the morning, but it was pitch dark!

  Now more confused than ever. I threw off the blanket and sat up, swinging my legs off the bed and looking at my windows. The curtains weren't drawn, but--

  It came like a cold wave of utter shock and terror. My windows had been painted black, just as thickly as the ones in Linden's studio and suite. Why had he done this? How could I have slept through it all? I put my hand against my forehead because I felt myself spinning. My fatigue, my passing out... could he have put one of his own medications in my food?

  I fumbled about to turn on the lamps, then made my way to my closet to find my robe. It wasn't hanging- on the door where I had left it In fact, my closet was empty except for a few naked hangers. Where were all my clothes? My shoes were gone as well. All I had were my slippers by the bed. What had he done?

  Why?

  For a moment. I staggered. The room took a spin and I had to grab the closet door to keep myself from falling. Whatever he had put in my food still lingered in my body. I had a great thirst and went into the bathroom to get some water. After that, I felt a little better and wrapped a towel around myself Then I went to my phone. There was no question I had to have Linden committed, I thought. This was too much. Miguel was so right. I decided I would begin by calling him.

  When I lifted the receiver, however. I heard no dial tone. I was puzzled about it only for a moment, because I immediately realized the wire from the phone to the wall jack was gone.

  "This is maddening." I muttered, and went to my door. I feared it, but was still surprised to discover the door had been locked. A hasp had been installed on the outside. The door opened only an inch or so, permitting a small shaft of light. I put my mouth to the narrow opening and shouted.

  "Linden! Linden, where are you? What have you done? Linden!"

  I heard nothing. I called again and again and listened, but heard only the same deep silence.

  "Linden, please," I cried. "I'm sick. This is no good for the baby. Please, let me out."

  Again. I heard only silence, Slowly, I sank to the floor and rested my head against the wall. My eyelids were still so heavy. I closed them and rested, opening them every few minutes to look into the hallway while I shouted for him. Suddenly, I heard the sound of a vacuum cleaner. From the direction and volume. I thought it was being used on the stairs. Shouting over it was useless. I waited and waited. It seemed to go on interminably. When it stopped. I listened and then shouted for him again.

  Still, he did not respond and he did not come.

  Exhausted and very uncomfortable. I returned to the bed. I needed a little more rest. I told myself. Stronger. I would rip that door open if I had to_. I thought. I closed my eyes and fell back asleep.

  This time when I woke. I found a serving table and a tray beside the bed, the silver dish covered. There was a glass of orange juice, a pot of coffee, milk, toast on a plate, and my prenatal vitamins. Under the silver cover were two poached eggs. I touched them and realized they were still warm. He had just been here.

  Hoping he had left the door unlocked. I rose and went to it, but the hasp was still there, the padlock still closed in it.

  "Linden!"

  I could see only a small piece of the corridor, but I realized that it, too, was very dark. Moving to the right and angling myself. I was able to catch a glimpse of one of the windows. It was painted black.

  "Linden, please. Linden!"

  I heard music. It grew louder. The stereo had been turned on and one of Linden's favorite Mozart concertos was playing. Shouting over it was futile.

  My stomach churned. I returned to the bed and looked at the food. Toast couldn't be harmful, and neither could the eggs, but I was afraid to drink the juice or the coffee. They could easily disguise one of his sedatives. I thought. I drank water from my bathroom faucet instead. The food did give me some strength. and I looked for something to use to pry the door open. There really wasn't anything that recommended itself immediately. but I realized if I could remove one of the metal poles used in the closet. it might serve like a crowbar.

  That was easier said than done. A bracket held it on both ends. I found something in my nail-file case that I could employ as a screwdriver and began to work off the brackets. That completed. I pulled and pushed on the metal pole until it came loose. The effort was exhausting. He'd given me quite a dose of his sedatives. I thought. Now I was driven by rage as well as terror. When it came to my health and the health of my baby, I would not be tolerant.

  Placing the pole as close to the hasp as I could. I began to pry away. I had just begun to make some progress-- I could hear the hasp coming loose-- when suddenly, the pole was seized

  and pulled out of my hands. It happened so fast and so unexpectedly, I gasped and stepped back.

  "Stop it," I heard him say in a loud whisper.

  "Linden! Linden, what are you doing to me? Let me out of here."

  "I've got to help you." he replied. "I've got to be sure you are not disturbed. Our Hannah is coming. We cannot permit anyone to get between us."

  "Linden. What did you do with my clothing? You can't keep me imprisoned in here. Let me out now. You're making trouble for us and especially for yourself. Unlock the door now," I demanded.

  "You will understand."' he said. "And later, you will thank me for everything. I have a new idea. I am going to paint something about it Just be patient" he said. I heard him walking away.

  "Linden! Don't do this. Linden!"

  The music became even louder. I retreated to my bed and sat sobbing and then screaming my rage. After that. I sobbed again.

  "He'll realize what he's doing soon.' I told my image in the mirror. "He'll realize it and unlock the door."

  The face in the glass that looked back at me was almost unrecognizable. My hair was wild, my cheeks streaked, my eyes frantic. It took my breath away. Stay calm, I told myself. Keep calm, Willow. It does you no good to become hysterical now. Miguel will surely call soon, and even if he doesn't, he's coming at seven, I remembered. This won't go on much longer.

  Every hour seemed more like ten. I dozed on and off, afraid that I wouldn't be awake when he opened the door again to bring me something else to eat and drink. He either didn't think of it or didn't remember. By now he was surely so deeply into his own world that what was real and what wasn't were indistinguishable to him. I thought. A madman was my keeper. He dwelt on another level. He might even have forgotten he had locked me in here. I realized. There was no longer any logic. There were no rules in his existence, at least no rules I would recognize.

  In order to keep my own sanity more than anything else, by midafternoon. I decided to take a shower. I felt grimy anyway and needed to do something to revive myself. Either he had been watching me and waiting for the opportunity, or he had just happened by when I was in the shower, but after I came out and dried myself. I found a new tray of food by the bed.

  "No!" I screamed, and charged the door, pul
ling and kicking it. It didn't budge. "Linden, you let me out of here now. I swear if you don't... Linden. Mother would be very angry at you for this."

  "No," he whispered. Again he was just outside and to one side of my door. "She told me to do it."

  "Stop it! Stop it!" I screamed. "Mother is dead. She couldn't have told you anything of the sort. Let me out. Linden. I'm getting very sick. I'll lose the baby."

  "No, you won't," he said confidently. "You would if you married Miguel, I bet. He would want you to have an abortion. Why would he want our baby? He would want his own baby."

  "Hannah is not our baby, Linden. She is my baby, Mine."

  "You don't have to say that anymore. Willow. It's all right now. It doesn't matter. Everyone can know about us."

  "What are you talking about. Linden? The baby can't be yours too. We're brother and sister."

  He laughed.

  "No, we're not. Willow. That was just a story Grace and you created. She told me. After my boating accident, she told me the truth so I wouldn't be upset. That's why I knew Thatcher and you wouldn't last. So you see, it's all happening as it is supposed to happen. Rest. We'll all be together again and happy."

  What he was saying was so upsetting. I couldn't reply for a moment.

  "Mother would never have told you such a thing. Linden," I said when I gathered my wits, "You're imagining that conversation. I'll prove it to you after you let me out."

  "No, you are the one who is confused. Willow. I'll prove it to you instead. I'll ask Grace to tell you."

  "Mother is dead. Linden. She died. You were at the hospital. You saw her. Think, remember."

  "No," he said, still speaking in that hoarse whisper. "We did all that just to keep those busybodies away from us, and it worked. No one has come here. No one will come. either." He laughed. "Your professor called to confirm his dinner date. and I told him you were gone. You had decided to visit your relatives and you were gone. I told him we had decided to move after all. He was very disappointed, but he won't be bothering us again. It will just be you and I. Willow, just as I've always planned for it to be, And Hannah, of course. Our Hannah. Rest," he said. "Linden!"

  He walked away. I could hear him descending the stairway, and then a deep and hollow silence fell over the big house.

  I wasn't just a prisoner in my suite. I was a prisoner in Linden's very disturbed mind.

  .

  When it was a little after seven o'clock and Miguel had not arrived. I began to believe that Linden had told the truth concerning the phone call. Would Miguel have believed him? If he did. I could be in here for days, maybe weeks before anyone realized it. In his madness. Linden could sound logical and intelligent to anyone who called and asked for me, even my attorney. Manon and the girls wouldn't challenge anything he said. I even wished Thatcher would come by for some reason, any reason, no matter how selfish it was.

  With little to do except think and be irritable. I paced the suite. Vexed to the point of wanting to tear every piece of furniture apart or beat holes in the very walls that contained me. I fixed my eyes on the painting Linden had done for Thatcher and me as a wedding present. How it had annoyed Thatcher. I thought. I shouldn't have tolerated it above our bed like this. In a surge of rage. I reached up and pulled it from its hooks, tossing it to the floor. For a moment I stood over it, breathing hard, and then my eyes went to the wall where Linden himself had hung it For a moment it seemed as if all the air had left my lungs and been replaced with hot, steamy vapor. I thought I would explode.

  There in the wall was a distinct hole. I stood on the bed and peered through it. I could see clearly into the suite Linden had once occupied before he decided to move out and permit it to be used as our nursery. What good was a hole in the wall if a portrait in a frame was hung over it? I thought, and then got down and examined the picture. Very clearly, exactly where the hole was located behind the painting, the picture had an area so thin and sheer it was diaphanous. Anyone could easily see through it. From the angle the portrait had been hung above our bed. Linden could easily look down at us and, most likely, was now periodically looking down at me.

  So this was how he knew when to come into the room to put down a new tray of food. How eerie and terrifying cleverness and logic could be when they were housed within the walls of madness. I thought.

  I struggled to get the picture back on the wall. Surely he would be returning to spy on me. What I had to do now was convince him I was asleep. Then he would unlock that door. I crawled under the blanket, closed my eyes, and waited. Actually. I nearly really fell asleep waiting. Finally, close to seven-thirty, I could hear him in the hallway. I heard him tinkering with the lock and hasp, doing it as quietly and as gently as he could, and then, with my eyes barely open. I saw the door nudged, saw him peer in to study me. I closed my eyes tightly and held my breath.

  Practically tiptoeing across the room, he carried a new tray of food to the serving table. He put it down and lifted the old tray away, bending down to put it aside so he could place the new tray on the table. When he did that. I pushed him forward and he went spilling over the tray to the floor. I didn't wait. With the top sheet wrapped around myself. I leaped from the bed and charged at the door.

  "Willow, No!" he screamed after me. I didn't hesitate a moment. I was out of the door and down the hallway, but at the top of the stairway. I stopped and stared down in utter shock. Every window before me had been painted over in black. The sight of it took my breath away. I had no doubt that every single window in the grand house had been so covered in black. Linden in his madness was shutting the outside world away, shutting us up in his own little world. The gates and the high walls around our property were not enough to satisfy his paranoia.

  I heard him scrambling behind me and hurried frantically down the steps, but in my haste, I stepped on the train of the sheet I had wrapped hastily around myself and lost my footing. I spilled forward, desperately trying to break my fall with my extended arms. but I spun too far to the right, smacking my head against the balustrade and tumbling down the stairway, falling like the Humpty-Dumpty I had considered myself to be after I discovered Thatcher's betrayals. My last conscious thought was. They will never put me together again.

  .

  I awoke in Linden's arms. He was carrying me back up the stairway. I groaned. My lower back ached where I had wrenched it. and I could feel the bruise on my forehead swelling into a bump. He walked mechanically, his eyes forward.

  "Let me go," I whispered through a throat sore from shouting and crying.

  He did not respond. I tried to struggle free, but his grip on me was iron firm. I was no better than a goldfish in a plastic bag. We were heading up the stairs, heading right back to my suite, where he would lock me in again.

  "No," I moaned.

  "You shouldn't have done that. Willow. You could have hurt Hannah. You could have hurt our baby. You have to listen to me. I know what's best for us now." he recited. He spoke like someone in a dream and reminded me of what he was like when I had first returned and he had gone sleepwalking on the beach. He couldn't hear anything I was saying. He was last in his own dream.

  Just as we reached the landing. I heard the sound of breaking glass. He did, too, and he paused. There was more of it, and then I heard the most beautiful sound of all. I heard Miguel call out my name.

  Linden's face filled with panic. He turned me as if to start dawn the stairs again, then spun to continue upward.

  "Miguel! Help me!" I shouted.

  In seconds, he was at the bottom of the stairway,

  "Linden," he screamed. "Put her down. Put her down now." Linden turned and looked at him.

  "Go away," he said. "This is our home. You don't belong here. Go away"

  Miguel started up the stairs slowly.

  You have to put her down, Linden. You can hurt her if you don't. Now, just put her down gently. Everything will be all right if you do it slowly. Linden. Go on," Miguel urged.

  Linden shook his head. br />
  "Don't come up here!" he cried. "You don't belong here. No one else belongs here but us. This is our home, not yours. Go away."

  He stepped to his left, bringing me right to the balustrade. Miguel stopped and held out his right arm. Linden lifted me higher and to the left, as if he was going to drop me over the balustrade.

  "Careful with her," Miguel said sharply.

  "Go away," Linden cried in response. "Go away." he repeated, his voice full of threat. He lifted me toward the balustrade again, and I cried out.

  Miguel held his ground, obviously terrified. His fear revved up my own. My heart was pounding so hard. I thought I would pass out and not even know if I was dropped from this height.

  "Okay," Miguel said after another moment. "I'll go away, Linden. You put her down."

  He backed down a step to demonstrate his retreat. Linden didn't budge,

  "I'm going," Miguel said. "but you have to be careful with her.. Remember, she's pregnant. Linden."

  "I know she's pregnant. I was the first to know, Don't tell me she's pregnant."

  "Of course you knew," Miguel said. He smiled. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean you didn't know."

  "It's our Hannah coming. Ours!"

  "Oh, I know. I just stopped by to congratulate you. I want to be your friend, that's all. I'm here to help."

  "We don't need your help and we don't need any friends, not from here. Just leave us alone and tell everyone else out there to leave us alone."

  "Okay. If that's the way you'd like it."

  "Yes, it is."

  -"All right," Miguel said, backing farther down the stairs. "I'll just be going, then."

  "Good," Linden said. Go.

  Miguel and I looked at each other. I gave him a small nod to indicate I was all right and he should continue to placate Linden.

  "Call me if you need anything," Miguel said, and turned, walking down the stairs and to the front entrance.