Temptation: A Novel (26 page)

79. Destiny

I finally manage to talk to Kelsey at school. I’ve seen her in the halls, but she’s either avoided me or I’ve been talking with Lily and didn’t want to suddenly go chasing after another girl. I know this about girls—they’re impossible to figure out. So if things are going fine with even one of them (à la Lily), then that’s great.

“Are we still practicing today?”

Kelsey looks at me as if I’m speaking a foreign language.

“I got your email—I didn’t reply because I wanted to talk in person.”

“I got someone else.”

“Seriously?”

She nods.

“But I thought—look, I don’t mind being your partner.”

Kelsey raises her eyebrows. “Oh, you don’t mind? Well, gee, thanks.”

“I didn’t mean it like that.”

“It’s fine. It’s all taken care of.”

Her bold blue eyes look away, and for the first time I notice how utterly distant Kelsey appears to be.

Do all girls have this ability to just completely shut down?

“Kelsey?”

“Yes,
Chris
?”

And do all girls have this snarky tone down pat?

I shake my head. I’m trying. I’m really trying.

“I just—what do you want?”

She looks at me, her expression softening and her head shaking gently. Those pretty eyes lock back on mine. “Nothing. Nothing at all.”

The cute little girl who always used to look away doesn’t look away right now.

And I gotta admit—it’s kinda hot.

I see her friend Georgia coming and am smart enough to say good-bye. As I leave, I see her brush her hair back as if she’s just gotten rid of a mosquito that’s been hovering around her.

I always said that I was no good for her, and I still feel that way. I guess this just makes things easier.

Yet as I walk away to my next class, I can’t get the image of her feisty stare out of my mind.

I’m walking out the doors of the school talking with Harris, who is in my last class of the day. He’s become a pretty good friend. Not someone that I can tell everything to … but still someone I can talk to and laugh with and share our mutual love for Lily.

Lily isn’t waiting here like she usually does, and we talk for a while as we wait for her. When she doesn’t show, and the buses all file out of the parking lot, Harris takes off. It’s Friday afternoon, and Lily and I were going to “hang out.” I wasn’t sure what that meant, but it did mean we’d be together. Now she’s nowhere to be found.

I call her but get her voice mail. Then I text her, but don’t get a reply.

Just as I’m about to get on the motorcycle and head toward town to see if she’s anywhere around, a car pulls up along the edge of the sidewalk. It’s a black Audi, a high-end Audi that seems a bit out of place around here. The window is rolled down, and I hear my name.

I glance in to see Pastor Marsh. He’s wearing sunglasses and looks like he’s off to go pick up chicks or something in his casual, hip clothes.

“Have a minute, Chris?”

No, not really. Please come back in seventy years.

“Why don’t you get in?”

“Mom told me never to take rides from strangers,” I say in a weak attempt at a joke.

“And how often have you listened to your mother?”

Good point.

“My bike is here.”

“Your
bike?” he asks as if to prove a point.

What’s that word for someone who knows all and sees all?

“Don’t worry—nobody will touch it,” Marsh says. “We need to talk.”

“Why?”

“Because it’s September 30, and the timetable has been changed.”

The timetable? For what?

“I’ll explain, Chris. That and other things. Please—just get in.”

It would have been strange to picture this months ago when I was chasing after this guy in the woods with a knife. But everything about Solitary has been strange. And I’ve continued to find surprise.

Opening the door and sitting on the soft leather seat, I know that some of the surprises have included my own actions.

As we drive toward downtown Solitary, I feel like a prisoner even though he’s not technically holding me against my will. He has no gun or knife that I know of. But I really don’t want to be here.

“I see your father managed to make his way here.”

I nod.

“You’re not having any ideas about suddenly becoming best friends with him, are you?”

I shake my head.

I can’t see behind his shades, but I know those eyes are looking right at me when he’s talking.

“Chris—you have to be very careful around your father. Do you understand that?”

I nod.

Suddenly a hand jerks my wrist, and I look at him and say yes.

“We don’t have any more time for you to play dumb, do you understand?”

I take my hand back. “Where are we going?”

We’re heading out of Solitary, away from the downtown.

“I’m going to show you something. Prove something to you. Okay? And then, maybe—just maybe—you’ll start listening to me and start preparing.”

“Preparing. For what?”

“To take over the work your great-grandfather is doing.”

I look Marsh’s way. He takes off his sunglasses to make sure I can see his glare.

“I’m going to prove to you once and for all that you are different. It’s just one example, but it’ll do. I can’t show you everything. You’ll have to learn it as you go. With your father here, and with all the things that have been happening—a date has been set, Chris.”

“A date for what?”

He doesn’t answer, but instead just whips the car around the curves of the mountain road. Maybe he’s taking me back to the burnt-down Crag’s Inn.

I could only wish.

Instead, he slows down and finds one of those nondescript dirt roads heading into the woods. Unmarked and barely visible unless you’re really trying to get there. He carefully drives around the potholes in the road.

We drive maybe five minutes before he reaches a large boulder sitting on the side of the road and parks right next to it.

“It’s a little hike from here, but nothing you can’t handle,” Marsh says. “It’s all downhill.”

The woods are shadowy and strangely silent. The ground is flat and clear where he walks, like it used to be a path but is rarely used anymore.

“Come on—I’m not going to do anything to you.”

But honestly, how in the world can I believe that?

So why are you here Chris?

But I know it’s for answers I’ve continually tried to get.

I hear a sound and suddenly know where we’re going. We pass over flat rocks and boulders sticking out of the ground. Then we come alongside a running creek that leads toward the noise.

“Have you seen Marsh Falls from this view?” he asks.

I don’t like this. Coming to this place with him.

The creek winds around, and then I can see it through the tree and bushes. The crystal-like water falling into a pool below. Boulders of all shapes and sizes jut up around the bottom of these falls—the same place where Marsh fell.

“Come on,” he tells me.

We’re soon standing on a massive flat rock right next to the stream flowing from the pool underneath the falls. It’s warm here. Really warm. I study the water and wonder how deep it is directly under the falls.

Maybe someone could survive if he fell just right and the waters were deep enough.

But yeah, that’s if the person already survived a plunging knife to the gut.

It’s insane. Really, truly insane.

What are you doing here, Chris, get out get away.

“This is why your original great-great whatever first decided to settle down here, Chris. Louis Solitaire. He chose this place, according to the history we’ve been told, because of these falls. Because they’re special.”

I look at him standing by my side. I could take him in a fist fight, I believe this. He’s not that big. I stand my ground, looking at the water but keeping him in my peripheral view.

“When he got here, he had to coax the Cherokee Indians to let him settle. The reason he left his small town in the French Alps—well, that’s a whole other story, one of myths even wilder than those around here. But he came here desperate, his entire family destroyed. He chose these mountains because they reminded him a little of back home. Then he met the Indians and almost ended up dying by their hands. Until he showed them what he could do.”

“What?” I ask. “Magic?”

“To them, he was a magician. A demon. Yet he managed to trick them into believing in his power. They knew these were special waters. But it was what Louis showed them
about
these waters that made them—believe. That made them start following him.”

“I stabbed you. With a knife. And I watched you fall.”

Marsh nods, moves away from me a bit, leans over and touches the water. He brings his hand back up to his face and sucks on his fingers.

“It even tastes different.”

For a second I stare at the falls and the dark pool hovering at our feet. Then I glance back at Marsh and see him coming at me, something in his hand, something short and bright—

I hold a hand in front of me but he grabs it with his own, with a strength that I didn’t know he had. Then he plunges the blade deep into my wrist. He gives it three deep, quick cuts, like he’s trying to make sure he slices something just right.

Oh God no no no.

I grab my hand back and hold my right wrist with my other hand. Blood is gushing like the waters in front of us. My head is suddenly feeling light and woozy. I want to throw up.

Marsh is next to me then, one arm around me so I don’t fall and bash my head into these rocks.

“Stay with me. I hate having to prove a point, but you’re as hardheaded as these rocks around us.”

“Why—what—I’m—the knife—why—”

“It’s okay, Chris. Really.”

I try to get out from his touch, but he holds me secure.

“Come on, now, let’s just wait another minute.”

“No no no …”

More than pain, a cold sick fear takes over me. I know just how bad those cuts were. The blood is everywhere. I’m going to die here right at the feet of this wicked pastor for no reason, none at all.

A part of me wants to cry out for help, for God, but I told Him right above these waters where He could go and what He could do.

“Okay, that’s good, that’s long enough,” Marsh says. “If you weren’t
here,
Chris, you’d die. Just like any ordinary person with a severed vein. But you’ll see. Go ahead.”

He lets me go and scramble away from him.

“Dip your arm into the waters. Go ahead.”

I shake my head, but I’m feeling weak and know I’m not about to run away from him.

“Do it, Chris, or I’ll do it for you.”

I get on my knees and crawl over to the water, dipping both hands in at first and then plunging them in further.

“There you go. Keep them in there.”

I’m on my elbows with both my arms in the water and the sound of the falls above me streaming forth and my heart beating fast and the sounds of the crickets and katydids all make my eyelids heavy and I can’t help but close them just for a moment.

When I open them, I’m sitting up, resting against a rock. It feels like two days later.

“Here, drink this.”

At first as I reach for the bottle he’s giving me I feel pain in my wrist, but then I realize that’s my imagination. I look at the hand that was just cut, the same wrist that was bloody and oozing and spilling out my life.

It’s fine.

I touch it and think I’m dreaming.

“It’s fine, Chris. Just like that.”

“No.”

He nods, then gives me the bottled water. I drink it, finishing it up.

“Good. I took that directly from those waters. Who knows. Drinking that much might give you the ability to fly.”

I stare at him to see if he’s actually serious, but he just laughs and takes the empty plastic bottle back from me.

“Nah, no flying. Not that I know of.”

“What just happened?”

Marsh refills the bottle and comes back to kneel in front of me. He takes a sip, then stares at the falls.

“Louis Solitaire had a gift, the ability to see the spirits surrounding him. This place was full of them. Maybe because of the Cherokees, who knows. There weren’t any white people here yet. He was able to do some tricks and get their attention. But it was only when he healed one of their very sick that they made a deal with him. That they actually began to worship him.”