The dream always starts the same way. It is night and she is moving through the trees, trying to reach a glow somewhere off in the distance. But it isn’t just night, it is darker than dark; her eyes strain to see, her legs are leaden, thighs aching with each step as though she is struggling through thick mud. And that damned light is always just past the next stand of trees, just beyond her reach.  

Jess squinted in the afternoon sunlight and gazed at the trees without really seeing them. She’d been driving around this city forever; weeks, at least, though not quite a month. She didn’t think so, at any rate. It was one very long, very frustrating game of Marco Polo. Or Zen Hide and Seek. But she kept coming back to the park. As much for solace, to see some green among the endless ribbons and rows of concrete, as for the lodestone draw of him. Her? No telling yet. 

She didn’t expect it to be easy; important things never were. Not with Kari.  

The park was surrounded on all sides, its wildness kept on a tight rein by the sprawl of suburbia. Sure, someone had designated the thirty-plus acres a Preserve at some point, but she knew it was just a matter of time before they’d start carving out bites of the woods and draining the wetlands. Pity.

Jess slung her pack over her right shoulder and started across the manicured ball field, each stride sloughing away another layer of strain and stress. There were too many people around here, and they gave her a headache.

Once beneath the deep green skirts of conifer and oak, she paused, head tilted back, eyes closed, and just soaked it all in. She stood that way for several long, indulgent   minutes, not moving, simply breathing and feeling the forest breathe with her.

She had already taken a dozen steps before she opened her eyes and settled the backpack across her shoulders, her curiosity piqued by something she couldn't quite pin down. She was walking in a different direction than she’d taken before, and she was eager to learn what this little slice of wild had to offer. No paved path, no hiker’s trail, nothing but the trees and the birds and the wind stirring the branches above her.

The cache several hundred yards in was a surprise. In a hollow at the base of a particularly large oak, between two roots that spread like hands in supplication, someone had been leaving offerings: stones worn smooth and shiny by rushing water, a blue jay’s feather, one of those lacquered hair sticks with gold-painted glass beads dangling from the end, a handful of pinecones no bigger than her thumbnail, half a tortoise shell hair comb, an acorn cap, a lock of dark hair tied with hunter green eyelet ribbon and a bright yellow buttercup flower, not yet wilted.  

Oh!

Jess looked around, first with opened eyes, and then closed. Nothing. Figures.

She fished around in the bottom of her pack for a treasure to add, her fingers closing on a loose button that…hell, she didn’t even know where that blouse was anymore. As she bent to add the circle of jet to the pile, Jess noticed the curled leaf cupping a small measure of water and the unmistakable ash of spent incense.  

A careful scouting for sign revealed that a single person had done this, gathered little bits of precious together at the foot of this tree…in offering. Maybe just a local pagan. Maybe not.

She was willing to bet a night out under the stars on “not.”

~ ~ ~

Jess pulled her favorite duffle from the back of the ’74 Cherokee. If it was possible to love a vehicle her Jeep was worthy of the emotion. Sure, it wasn’t much to look at on the outside, but she had rebuilt the engine over a couple of winters and the beast ran better now than in its heyday. Of course, she’d made a few mods, like the built-in storage system in the back and the six inches of additional ground clearance. Jess wouldn’t think of owning anything she couldn’t work on herself.  

She checked the radio for an update on the odd weather that had moved in. “Odd” seemed to be the norm of late. She added the Heatsheet blanket, a couple more Nalgenes of water and a half dozen ration bars to her backpack, checked the charge on her phone and locked up the Jeep. It took almost no time to get back to the first solid lead she’d had since the start of this Search.

Jess headed deeper into the trees, finding a bit of a rise for her camp. The bivy tent was ready in less than five minutes under her practiced hands. She’d written a couple of gear reviews for Backcountry and Backpacker magazines, and Black Diamond had been pleased to sell her one in a less obtrusive color than the standard emerald green.

She loved the crispness in the air, especially in mid-July, the comforting scents of cold and pine took her right back to the Forest. The temperature plummeted when the sun went down and a fire would have completed the memory, but that wasn't an option. Particularly with the bitter wind rushing through the trees. Jess wriggled down into her sleeping bag fully dressed, put her near-empty duffle on top of her boots, and settled in to watch, her breath pluming softly in the darkness.

The dream always starts the same way. It is night and she is moving through the trees, trying to reach a glow somewhere in the distance. Abruptly, the light is bonfire bright behind her closed lids, and inside the dream she realizes she’s been sleeping. Crap. 

Jess opened her eyes. Despite the deep darkness of the moonless night in the wood, radiance burned through her. She could feel him moving through the trees, bright as a magnesium flare in her mind. She silently unfastened the modifications that would free her of both bag and tent in less than a second if necessary, and waited.

He crouched down about ten feet away, and she felt the shift in his posture, heard the rustle of his clothing, almost tasted his realization that she was awake and that if he ran, she would catch him. Absolute certainty, tinged with something akin to annoyance.

“Why are you following me?” he asked.

§

This isn’t the way it’s supposed to happen.

Jess remained silent as she looked across to where he still crouched in the darkness. His question hung in the frosty air between them. She turned over the possible responses in her head, but said nothing. The air-raid siren of his emotions screamed inside her head, making her eyes water. It was a maelstrom of anger and fear and disgust at being found— no, at her presence in his territory. His woods.   
 
His left hand clenched repeatedly around something small, something that appeared to be the source of his incandescent rage.  He seemed torn between hurling it at her and grinding it to dust in his fist.  

“Whoever hired you to find me, I’m not going back.” No room for discussion. “Not to my family and not to that place. I’m not crazy.”  

His irritation rippled across her skin as something small and black slipped between his fingers.  He caught it before it was lost in the leaf litter at his feet, and Jess realized it was the button she had left at the cache. This is all because I messed with his things?

The breeze shifted, brought her the scent of wood smoke, fallen leaves and pine needles, clothing long unwashed, a pang of loneliness buried deep within a slowly growing swell of curiosity.

Jess sat up cautiously. “Crazy?” she asked.

His breath was a cloud of bitter laughter, ‘Schizophrenic with delusional episodes’ more to your liking? I am not going back there,” he repeated. A shudder ran through him, and she felt the horror of his too-fresh memories like a kick in the stomach. Immobilized by drugs and restraints, unable to block out the maddening cacophony of whispers and moans and screams and… Jess swallowed against a wave of nausea.   
 
She took a deep breath, tasted the promise of snow on the sharp, cold air and tried to re-center herself.  Crap. Kari’s supposed to do this.  She exhaled. “You know that day in  September, when you feel like everything good in the world has just died, the absolute anguish of loss...” How had Kari said it?

Interest tainted his suspicion; he’d never told anyone about that.

“...And the overwhelming feeling of joy that follows?”

He was completely still, and she knew she had his full attention.

“I feel it too. Just one day, every year. For as long as I can remember.”

“What is that?” he demanded, his desperation undisguised.

Jess smiled at him in the darkness. “I could tell you what we call it, but I don't know what it is.  I do know that I feel it.  A bunch of us do. And we are connected in some indescribable way.  And we’re… different.”        

He was quiet for a very long time after that. She simply sat in the dark under the trees, her legs warm inside the sleeping bag and tent. She would wait as long as necessary, now that she’d found him.  And then call in the pick-up.  
   
The clenching of his fist slowly changed, until he was thoughtfully rubbing his thumb around the button’s smooth perimeter as he tried to work it out. Should he trust her? Should he tell her to piss off and make a dash for the trees? No, she would be on him immediately, probably with a gun in his ear or a knife at his throat. But why hadn’t she already grabbed him? She felt capable, resourceful and tough. Should he trust her? Trusted that therapist, and look how that ended. But have to get out of this freezing wood. Why is she here? And how the fuck did she know about That Day? Should he trust her? Maybe just talk, get a feel for what the hell’s going on. Just be careful.  

“My name is Ilya,” he finally said. “Is there some place warmer we can talk about this? I’m freezing my ass off, here.”  

“Sure.” He waited while she repacked her gear, laced up her boots.

They walked through the trees without speaking, his footsteps crunching along, hers silent. The white flare in her head from his anger was shrinking into something more manageable, and she could almost hear the rapid-fire questions he wanted to ask her.

His momentum stalled out when they reached the parking lot. His fear spiked again.

“I told you, I’m not going back.”

Jess unlocked the Jeep, slid across the bench seat to the passenger side and beckoned him in, even as she keyed the ignition and turned the heater on full.

“Christ, it’s colder in here than outside!”

“Just give the engine a chance to warm up,” she said, shivering a little as the frigid air blew across her knees. She looked at him huddled behind the wheel, hands tucked under his arms, just as cold as she was. He was so much like her, at twenty. All bluster and bravado and not enough skill to survive winter.

Finally, the heat blew in through the vents. It accentuated his stink.  

“How long have you been living in the woods?” she asked.

Ilya shrugged, didn’t look at her. “A while.” He uncurled a little in the growing warmth. “How long have you been looking for me?”

“A while,” she smiled, thinking of the miles of circles she had driven around the park.  

“How did you find me?”

“How did you find me,” Jess countered. She met his eyes, saw the same amber hue as her own.

“Are you kidding? Every time you’ve set foot in my woods--” Ilya clamped his jaws shut and looked out the window. Maybe it was the dashboard light that made him look flushed.

It was quiet except for the rumbling purr of the Jeep’s engine and the sound of the heater.

“What?” she finally prompted.  

He gave her a look she had seen on Jade a few times. “What?”

“When you know I’m in your woods… how do you know?”

He seemed to deflate a little, and leaned forward to rest his forehead on the wheel. She could feel his entire story bubbling up, filling his throat until it ached with the need to let it out.

“My name is Jess,” she said. “And you’re not crazy.”

Ilya took a deep breath, coughed it out. “I would kill for a hot shower,” he said.

  ~ ~ ~

In the end, he had allowed her to drive, but only because he couldn’t get the Jeep into gear. Jess headed them back toward the highway, to the little motel she’d found her second week in town. Ilya remained silent and suspicious, looking ready to jump out at the slightest provocation. The rooms were immaculate, with a mini fridge and microwave. There was no room service, but a 24/7 restaurant she’d never heard of shared the parking lot.  

Ilya verified that the lock on the bathroom door actually worked, and that there was no way to open it from the outside, before bolting it behind him. Jess wouldn’t have been surprised if he had balanced one of her toiletry bottles on the knob as an extra measure. Good thing they were all plastic; she wouldn’t hesitate to kick in the flimsy wooden door if necessary.  

Jess tried to call Kari as soon as Ilya was out of earshot in the shower, but she couldn’t get a signal. She stalked the length and breadth of the room with her cell phone without receiving so much as a single bar. No way was she going outside to make the call. Not and leave him alone on the other side of that steel door with its deadbolt. Lovely. Looks like I’m dealing with this myself.  
 
She stood in front of the single window, looking out into the dark parking lot, as the night pressed in and the unseasonable cold spilled out from the glass. Her thoughts went back to that unexpected day when she had first met Jade, almost twenty years ago. The adrenaline cocktail of terror and anger had given her strength as she fled, her knuckles numb from the blow she had landed. He had tackled her to the ground, and she had literally fought him tooth and nail, giving in to her ferocious temper as she kicked and bit and scratched and fought against his hold. In her memory, there were only the sounds of her exertion and of her violent attempts to get free of him. Nothing had been wasted on pleading words or cries for help. She had exhausted herself against his superior strength and skill, had hated that she wept as he had stared down at her, serious as ever.

Jess drew a ragged breath and pulled herself back to the present situation. Did it always have to start with violence?

She pulled out some old fatigue pants, an extra thermal shirt and some good woolen socks. They would fit him well enough.

“Ilya? There’s clothes you can borrow just outside the door, ok?”  She left them folded on the floor.  

His response was muffled and vaguely affirmative.

Jess ran some water through the coffee maker and made two cups of hot cocoa from her supplies. Chocolate solves everything. She left one steaming cup on the little folding table against the wall with one of its two chairs. She pulled the other chair several feet away by the bed, and sat down to wait.

A cloud of steam preceded Ilya’s hasty grab for the clothes through the narrowest possible opening of the door. A few minutes later, he padded out in sock feet, her shirt and pants hanging on his thin frame. A quick glance took in the cup and her position.  

“What’s in it?”

“Just cocoa. I don’t have the kind with the marshmallows.” Jess took a sip from her cup, licked the residue from her upper lip.

Ilya stood beside the chair and looked at her for a long moment. His skin was flushed from the scrubbing he’d given it, and his dark, grown-out hair had that particular look of vigorous toweling. He sighed as he gave in and sat at the table, one fine-boned hand curled around the cup. He took a hesitant sniff, his eyes never leaving hers. Tried one very small taste, and shook as he forced himself to not gulp it all down.

Jess sat calmly as he fought to control himself. She had barely started, and already the kid looked ready to come apart at the seams.

“Ilya--” she started, quietly.

The cocoa abandoned, he leaned forward, head in his hands, shoulders heaving as he struggled against the loss that left him breathless. His anguish was heartbreaking, and she didn’t hesitate. Couldn’t.

Jess crossed the space between them, going to her knees beside his chair as she drew him close, held him as he sobbed. His arms tightened around her desperately, starved for the simple kindness she had shown him. She wept with him, one hand cradling the back of his head, her senses rubbed raw.

“I’ve got you now, Ilya. It’s going to be alright.” She hoped.

§

When I came out from washing my latest meltdown off my face, the woman who called herself “Jess” was sitting across the room again, all nonchalant, like nothing had happened. She looked at me in that still way of hers, relaxed and ready for anything, a mix of practical and tactical, with her short, no-nonsense haircut and ageless eyes.

I made an effort to emulate the quiet way she held herself, to keep all the nervous fidgets and sidelong glances at bay as I sat there. I was used to trying to fit in, but this whole thing was just… weird.

The room was redolent of hot chocolate, and it suddenly reminded me of my mother. I told her so.

She blew across the surface of her cocoa. “She made hot chocolate in cheap styro cups?”  

“No. Whenever I came home with a black eye, or a split lip…” Or that time with a broken finger. “It always helped.”

She stretched her legs out in front of her, cupping the cocoa in her lap, her head tilted slightly to the side as if she were listening to something I couldn’t hear. “You ready to tell me why you’ve been living alone out there in the woods?”

“Christ, where do I begin with that one?”

“The weather’s not getting any better,” she said. “I’ve got all the time in the world.”

I tried to get my thoughts straight. Now that the emotional crap was over, I had the most surreal sense of familiarity, like I’d known her for years. But how could I trust someone I’d only known a few hours? It’s not like she felt things the way I did.

“My whole life has been leading up to that point,” I said, startled by the epiphany. “And not in some hokey destiny way. There just isn’t any other way it could have happened.”

“Care to elaborate?" she asked, and I realized I'd stopped speaking.  

My brain was working overtime as all the pieces of my fucked up life fell together and finally made sense. To me, anyhow. Every loss and humiliation had drawn me to the moment when I had accepted that I am not like everyone else. And not in some angsty teenager way. Alone in those woods I had been truly happy for the first time since it all started. She’d probably think I was nuts. Oh, hell. Beginning is a hard evil.

Sitting there in that motel room, drinking hot chocolate with a complete stranger, I spilled out my secrets like a handful of rubies on a Persian rug.

“I was born too early,” I told her. “Thin and sick, and unwilling to stick around. So my mother named me Ilya, after the epic hero Ilya Muromets. You know him?”

“Never heard of him,” she admitted.

“Because you didn’t grow up in my house, where every story was about the great and wonderful Ilya. The Ilya who didn’t walk until he was over 30 and still saved the Russian people. The Ilya who saved Chernigov from the Tatars. The Ilya who defeated the evil Solovey. The Ilya knighted by Prince Vladimir! My first books were all about his adventures.”

I drank some of her good cocoa to wash away the bitterness. At least Ilya had forged my appetite for literature. I had read everything I could get my hands on; it had been a great escape. I could hole up with a book, crank my Walkman and pretend that they weren’t fighting. Again. About me.

“Between that and her fear of the Wilas, I’m surprised I ever the left the house.”

“Your mother was afraid of faeries?” she asked.

“My mother was afraid of everything. But especially Wilas. She’d drag me out to the garden so she could leave offerings for them, warning me the whole time to be good or they’d carry me off.  And then my father would come home and yell at her for filling my head with that crap.”

I remembered the sound of her shrill voice and the ugly, guard-dog snarl of his. The house had seemed to shake when they fought, which was most of the time. I shut off the memory, and caught her shudder from the corner of my eye. She tried to cover it by drinking her cocoa.

“And then I was old enough to go to school. At first, I was excited. Then my prodigious imagination was discovered. And when the older kids heard about me, the fun really started. They made fun of my accent, and my vocabulary, and my size and my legendary name. I was soon ‘Ilya the Great Liar,” or ‘Ilya the Great Cry-baby,’ or whatever they figured would push my buttons. I made great efforts to mimic the way my classmates talked, to remove any trace of my parents’ heritage from my speech. Didn’t matter; I was already ‘Ilya the Ruskie.’ At home, I was ashamed of everything I saw in my mother and father, everything that made me different.”

She was composed when I looked over. My story didn’t seem to phase her much.

“Eventually, it was somehow my fault, I was a ‘disruption,’ and I had to change schools. New kids, same bullshit, even after I learned to keep quiet. By then it didn’t matter; I was famous for my inability to defend myself.”

“Sarcasm isn’t much use against bullies,” she said.

“No lie. My father didn’t have much use for it either.” I remembered the shock of his hand as it connected with my already bruised mouth, the way the blow spun me off my feet, the taste of blood and the way it soaked right in to the good carpet in the entry hall, staining the heirloom forever with my father’s disapproval. The one thing she had been able to save from her grandfather’s travels… ruined. My mother shrieked at him, and the way she coddled me distilled his rage into something truly horrible. She had remained defiant even when her blood joined mine on the prized rug.

I saw her wince, as if she had somehow shared the jolting feelings. Yeah, right.

“The next day, my father enrolled me in Systema.”

She nodded. “Good fighting style. Great way to learn pressure points.”

I laughed a little, humorlessly. “Great way for me to get my ass handed to me. Daily.”

“How’d he find an instructor? I thought it was just for Secret Service and Special Forces types.”

“A couple of guys my father played cards with knew someone, who knew someone else. Questioning my father about anything was never smart. Wasn’t long before he decided to help me practice at home. He was certain that when push came to shove I would prove myself, as if I’d learned Systema by osmosis or something. What a fucking joke.”

My cup was empty, and I stared at the residue of chocolate that ringed the bottom. I considered tearing the styro apart to get to it, but didn’t want her to know I was that desperate.

I was surprised that I cared what she thought; I didn’t know her.

I fished the button out of my left pocket and put it on the cheap tabletop where she could see it. I needed to know more before I could unload anything really important.

“What’s the deal with this?”

“It’s from my favorite shirt,” she said.

“And that was reason to desecrate my offerings?” My anger at her interference wanted out again, but I kept it in a chokehold.

She started to answer, then paused, tried another route. “I was under the impression you don’t believe in faeries."

“Look,” I said. “There’s no Santa Claus, no Easter Bunny. There’s no such thing as vampires, werewolves or goddamned faeries.”

“So, why did you leave the offerings?”

Despite everything, my mother had absolutely believed. “Just in case,” I said. I met her eyes, and realized they were the same odd color as my own. She had the whole enigmatic smile thing down solid, and she flashed me one of her best. She took another sip of cocoa, and it hit me.

“You’re left handed?” The oddest sensation settled in my stomach, something like panic.

“Just like you are, Ilya.”

I stood up so fast the chair fell over. My heart pounded as I checked the distance to the door and wondered if I could make it, sock feet and all. Eventually, I got a grip and convinced myself to sit the hell down.

She hadn’t moved. Even so, I could tell she’d been ready, that I wouldn’t have made it ten feet.

“You didn’t answer my question,” I said, and I sounded like a five-year old to myself. Christ, grow a set already.

“I don’t know why I left the button. I saw the other things there, and it was simply necessary, and it felt… right. I’m sorry I can’t give you more of a reason. Don’t you have intuitive moments sometimes? Or feel things without explanation?”

“Are you kidding me? It’s all I do!” There. I’d said it. Now would come the inevitable ridicule.

Only it didn’t.

She leaned forward in her chair, forearms slanting across her thighs, the styro cup held between her knees. “Me too.”

I stood up. Sat back down. Listened to her with that part of myself I don’t have a name for, but that is never, ever wrong.

“Mostly, it’s the big stuff,” I said. “Full-on, open tap emotions. I always knew when my father was pissed, when my mother was actually afraid of him.” I tried to steer away from those memories, and saw her eyes narrow slightly.

I raked my fingers back through my hair. It was longer than it had ever been, and I felt like a hooligan.

“It really hit the fan when puberty got a hold of me. Not enough that I couldn’t control my body; no, I had all these extraneous feelings leaking into my head, too. I knew when the bullies were coming from the stink of their hate.” I let myself remember, just a little, like worrying a sore tooth. “They really enjoyed beating the crap out of me.”

I rushed headlong to the best part. “And then That Day kicked my ass in First Period. Apparently, it’s not normal to have a complete meltdown in Phys Ed,” I said. “Naturally, the school recommended therapy.”

My eyes slid her way again, and she was looking right at me. The ache of her emotions dragged through my throat.

“My father was incensed,” I said, and my voice cracked. I could feel her just resonating in her chair. It took a few minutes to break free from the memory of his fists trying to pound out all that was wrong with me, all the disappointment that I was to him.

“The therapist was more like a drug dealer. She got me calmed down, all right. You know that groggy feeling after a nap, when your thoughts don’t quite mesh? That was me at peak performance. And someone really should have read the warning label, because I was looking to settle accounts with life pretty quickly.”

I shrugged, rubbed my palms dry on my thighs. “After the first attempt, it was decided I needed more… direct supervision. And stronger drugs. What a fucking nightmare.”

“They’d ease back on the drugs, and I’d play their game for a while, be a good boy. Some of the people in there were absolute raving lunatics. And sooner or later one of them would get in my face. There was this one guy, Richie, who would wander around a few steps at a time, and then stand for hours staring into space. He kept following me, and then just… loomed. The nurses spoke to him like a child, but the filth and hate just poured out of him.” I looked her straight in the eyes. “The day he touched me I tried to kill him.”

I let the memory blossom between us, wondering if she could feel the suppurating vileness of the contact, the viscous, rotting-corpse horror of his malevolence. I was surprised to watch myself flawlessly execute Systema as I removed his hand from my shoulder, kept forcing it back until he was down, writhing. I had added a well-placed elbow to his face for good measure. There had been a split-second of lucidity in his eyes and the flicker of a blood-smeared smile as they wrenched me off of him, dragged me away.  

“That led to restraints and serious drugs. It was months before I could do more than drool and piss myself in misery. The meds made everything seem far away, except the feelings. Those were fun-house distorted and over-emphasized, and I couldn’t shut them out.” My hands were clenched fists on the tabletop. I made a conscious effort to open them out flat.

“What about your parents? Didn’t they visit you?” She seemed pale and faintly nauseated.

“Not that I’m aware of. I’m sure my father wouldn’t have allowed it. Couldn’t accept the stain on his honor.”

She looked like she wanted to say something, but I pressed on. I needed to get it out, tell someone, even a stranger who seemed frighteningly like me.

“My big break came this spring. One of the crazies managed to set himself ablaze, and we were all evacuated while the fire department took care of it. The drugs had me so sensitive… I could feel that none of their attention was on me. I just slipped away in the confusion.”

She nodded. “And then?”

“Most people go out of their way to not see the homeless in a big city. I won’t say it was easy, but there are places that provide meals, clothing, stuff like that. I kept my head down, never stayed put for long and kept moving further away. Being around too many people gives me a headache.”

“Yes,” she agreed.

“Eventually, I found the woods. I can breathe there. It feels like home more than any other place. Even sleeping under a stolen tarp in all my clothes. And then you showed up.”

§