Chapter 7: Forbidden Fruit

That confrontation and what happened in its wake shattered me. His being within my place, the threats in his eyes irrevocably destroyed the sense of security. Just then, in his haunted look, those thoughts were shattered brutally. But still, somehow, there was something about him pulling at me—a magnetic attraction that drew me into the danger. It's all days swept and jumbled into one kaleidoscope of fear and wonder now. A diary became a place of safety—a place where one could let oneself go and forget about the terrifying reality. In Eleanor's story, I found an inspiring and heartbreaking passionate love affair. The more I read, the more I found ties to Eleanor. We were both outcasts in a town that had a thousand secrets and clung together over solving a mystery. And that we both hovered around a man who was as complex as he was dangerous. Mysterious he was, with an aura of darkness about him that seemed to be part of his very self. What attracted or maybe even repelled me, I don't know—only that he was intense, raw, and arresting, though blue-flamed power, exciting and filled with danger. At least my mind did, for all the danger he posed to me. Darkness was falling in my house that week; the phone rang. I inhaled forward, rapidly, and reached for the receiver: "Emma?" came Nathaniel's low voice, near-fanged. "We need to talk." There was a breath taking of a breath. "What d'you want?" "I know where you're going," he answered, his voice smoothly lowering, "and what you are looking for." Cold; how did he know? That's what I feel now. I toyed with my phone and tried to sound casual. My voice shook, though, when I answered, "What do you mean?" "Stop being dumb, Emma." His voice raised in the reply. "I've read your diary; I know everything." A frigid wave of dread coursed over me. He must be referring to the diary. How on earth could he know this? "I'd like to propose a deal. When it comes to this, we either work together or you face the consequences." I didn't trust him. But I also knew that I couldn't stand alone against him. I needed help. The next morning, I woke up expecting the town librarian and, in turn, was very much surprised by this quiet and humble man, William Morgan. Well, surely this man projected a knowledge of the history of this town. He listened without speaking a word when I told him all about Nathaniel's visit to me, the diary, and the danger that was nigh upon me. His face showed concern, and it only looked me right in the eye. "The Blackwoods have a long record in this place," he finally said. "A record that is far from glorious." I dipped my head forward, eager to suck in any kind of detail from him. "There is a legend," he went on, "about a dark pact signed by the first generation—a dark pact that stuck them to a sinister force." I shivered. A dark pact? It was straight out of a horror. "I believe Nathaniel is the key to unlocking this mystery," William continued. "But we have to be very cautious: very careful." I knew he was right. A dangerous road lay ahead of me, but with all certainty, I wanted to cruise along, for the truth was far too important to be calling it quits. With my head doing somersaults, I walked back. Nathaniel, the diary, the sinister pact—all that was pretty clear by now; with each piece falling into place, the big picture was yet to be formed. He stood across the street, in the shadows. It was Nathaniel. His eyes locked on mine, and we engaged in silent combat. My pace quickened with each pounding beat of my heart. I should have started running at this very moment. As I turned around the corner, I saw another figure. There she stood in the shadows, watching me—a woman. Who is this woman, and what on earth does she want? Fear and confusion bound my brain. I needed to escape. So, I quickened my pace of walking, making sure she wouldn't follow me. I ran up the steps, and into our apartment, nearly panting, my lungs screaming for air, and there was Liv in the kitchen making her coffee. She looked startled by my less-than-elegant entrance. "Emma, what's wrong?" inquired in a concerned, caring voice. I couldn't find words to say. I didn't think I even had the breath to do it. I gestured with my finger toward the window, showing her the shaking of the finger. Liv's eyes went wide as she turned to face the window. "You see her?" she whispered, the voice that of a phantom's breath. I could only nod, speechless. "We need to leave," she said urgently. "We need to leave before we end up like those first-class passengers." I just nodded. It was a lot to take in. We needed to get out of there. But where? The circle was closing in on us. We were surrounded. Trapped. Cornered by enemies that were unknown and unseen. Packing the suitcase, I could not get rid of the strong feeling that we were being watched. Each house creak resembled footsteps, and each shadow tended to cover a threat. "We can't just sit around," Liv was aching to say it, her voice simmering with want. "We have to go to the cops." I can only shake my head. Not now. "They won't believe us," I said in despair. "We're on our own." We left the house with our loads, all of us, which seemed too heavy to perch on our shoulders. The night went cold and dark, the wind howled like a beast with a wound. We walked distances that must have been taking decades. Our breathing was jerky. Finally, we stopped near the border of a town and checked into a dingy motel. We went inside, checked in, and sighed in relief as our hearts calmed down. There we sat in the motel room, trying to figure it all out, when it dawned on me that my phone rang. The number was unknown. I hesitated for one moment to pick it up. "Run, Emma," the cold and dark voice on the other end said, "but you can't hide." That dread ran through my body. He knows we're here. I dropped the receiver down; my palms were trembling. Liv stared at me, pure terror in her eyes. "We have to leave," she spoke, almost inaudibly. "We can't stay here." I nodded, and my mind went into overdrive; we needed to run, and fast. But where? How were we ever to slip out from under the hunters' hands? My heart raced, and panic seemed to well up inside me. We couldn't stay here; they knew our whereabouts. My hands shivered as I grabbed a few things and shoved them into bags, thinking as fast as any human could. Fear made Liv's eyes grow wide. "Where are we going?" she muttered. I had an answer indeed: nowhere in the world, nowhere but here. It was with our hearts actually in our mouths that we slipped out of the motel room. The weather was making chills run down spines; the wind was howling and flogging our hair. We walked on, the shuffling of our footsteps and the echoes of the buildings pulsing back into both of our ears. Everything seemed like it closed in on us, like the night, on all sides of us. I half-expected to see a car, a shadow lurking behind the shades of darkness. We walked on and on; it seemed forever. At last, we fell on a park bench, our bodies shivering cold. "We can't keep running," she spoke, desperation creeping into her voice. "We have to find a way to fight back." And all I could do here was nod as my brain raced with all we could do. There was no staying hidden; we had to welcome our very terrors by fighting the darkness. I'd started to work out in my mind what I was thinking was a plan. A bad plan. It was all we had left. We had to get back to Eldridge Falls, and we had to stand up to Nathaniel Blackwood. But we had to do it on our terms. First, though, we needed a place to hide. A place in which we could regroup—the answers we'd put about our next move didn't come. We couldn't hang around in the open. We hit the streets, wandering the streets all night to find a refuge. Finally, we found an abandoned warehouse on the rim of the city. The place was dark and cold, but safe. We were all bunched together in this vastness of space, and still, I could not shake the feeling that we were being watched. That great lack of darkness seemed then to crowd in upon us. In my heart, I could feel the presence of evil lurking in the shadows. But I wasn't afraid. Not anymore. I had faced my fears and I had survived. And now, I was ready to fight back. At least the first flickering of resolve in my heart when the sunlight dipped in from the warehouse windows. We were trapped, hunted, but most definitely not defeated. This was our fight, right? And we would face it head-on. Liv squeezed my hand tighter this time, and the light in her eyes seemed to be rekindled this time with more strength. "We're not gonna let them win, Em," she said with a voice dripping with resolution. I nodded as excitement ran through me, my heart hammering in my chest. Now was the time; the hunter would become the hunted, and we wouldn't be prey but on our way to being predators ourselves. As we left the warehouse, the sun was now up and making our shadows long down the empty street. The world was waking up—unaware that in the centre of this world was Eldridge Falls, for which a tempest was brewing. We moved steadily and cautiously, with our eyes peeled for anything around us. Each shadow, each sound, brought tautness to our vigilance. But now, there was a new determination mixed with fear. We had to find a way, really, of flipping the script, of ripping open whatever curtain of goodness had been covering the evil lying just beneath the surface of this seemingly idyllic town. We walked on fast, our minds racing, ideas of what to do next. Turning the corner had hardly straightened us out when a car drove parallel and slowed to match our pace. The face that popped out of the wind-down window made my heart convulse into my bladder. There was Nathaniel Blackwood—cold, eyes of menace. "Game over, Emma," he said with a smirk, and then, as if that was to be the signal, his car sped off into the distance, leaving us standing alone in the middle of the empty street.