Chapelwood (The Borden Dispatches #2)(93)
I don’t know, Emma. It’s all both better and worse than it appears on the surface.
? ? ?
Night fell as we drove; the faster we pushed the touring car on the inconstant, half-kept roads, the faster the darkness descended. I half imagined that the moon raced us, creeping across the sky as we struggled toward the compound at Chapelwood, but then we lost even that celestial sign—when a low blanket of clouds cut off the day entirely. As the way grew thinner and rougher on the outskirts of the city, we truly felt as if we were disappearing into the woods like Hansel and Gretel.
There were no civic lanterns to encourage us along, only the automobile’s headlamps—which shook and rattled in their sockets. The light they cast did the same, spilling jerky yellow beams across the path in front of us. It dizzied me, and my head hurt from squinting, trying to hold my focus steady against the workings of the road, the automobile, and the dismal, dark scenery we penetrated more deeply with every passing mile.
Simon had given me the map, so that I might play navigator. I held it up to the windshield, trying to siphon off an ounce or two of that front-gazing light, and seeing very little to encourage me. Not all the streets were marked, this far out into nowhere; not all the roads had even a smattering of gravel to set them apart from the wagon ruts or footpaths that one might otherwise call them.
I nearly despaired.
There were no helpful gas stops to pull over and ask, no friendly hitchhikers whose local expertise we might exploit, though when I bemoaned this fact, Simon laughed nervously.
“You wouldn’t want to offer anyone a lift, not out here. We’re as likely to grab a Chapelwood man as a farmer or student hoping for a ride to the city.”
“If someone is trying to escape Chapelwood, I say that’s all the more reason we ought to lend a hand,” I said stubbornly.
“You’ve got me there, but unless that person is Ruth . . . or perhaps George, if that’s where he’s gone off to . . . we ought to restrain ourselves. Discretion being the better part of valor, and so forth.”
I wanted to give up on the map, but it promised a turnoff within the next two miles, so I clung to it like a saint’s medallion—though I’d never owned one, and had only the vaguest idea of how to pray with one. “What should we do when we get there? Do we make some covert effort to get inside?”
“That was the original idea, wasn’t it? You were the one who proposed the darker wardrobe.”
“But is it the right thing to do?” I pressed, increasingly uncertain.
“Rescuing Ruth is the right thing to do. We can be entirely certain she’s being held against her will, and that’s reason enough to try our hand at subterfuge. We must reconnoiter first, I suppose. Since we don’t know where she’s kept.”
I sighed, and set the map down onto my lap. “God, we know almost nothing about this place.”
“Which sets us apart from only a chosen few. They’ve kept it a secret on purpose. There’s no one we could have approached for information . . . except for the dearly departed Leonard Kincaid, in the event you’d like to host a spontaneous séance out in the trees.”
“It’s not the worst idea I’ve heard this week.”
“And what would the worst of those be?”
I almost said, “Mounting a rescue mission blind, at night, and alone except for a cavalry we only hope and pray will follow in our wake.” I thought again of how fear can paralyze and stun, and how even the bravest of men and women might freeze in the face of it. And I did not say the first thing that sprang to mind. Instead, I changed the subject. He was probably thinking the same thing, anyway, and now was not the time to air our discouraging thoughts. “Never mind. Let’s look forward, and do our best to plan with what information we have. Now . . . we’re looking for New Hollow Road, and I’m crossing my fingers that we haven’t passed it.”
“I fear the description of ‘road’ might lead to some disappointment, when we do eventually stumble across it. This is scarcely a road upon which we presently ride, so a side street into the wilderness isn’t likely to be an improvement.”
“Ever the optimist, you are. Wait—there it is.”
He leaned his foot on the brake hard, for we’d almost zipped past before I’d had a chance to speak. He reversed, backed the car up a few feet, and turned off onto a dirt road that ran between the trees at just barely enough width to accommodate us. And once we were firmly off the main path, positioned in this narrow channel between woods and more woods, we stared ahead at the lean black shadows cut sharply on the glare of the car’s unblinking lamps.
Simon let the engine idle and the lights point the way forward, but he did not give it any gas and I did not press him to do so. I think we were both almost too frightened, too full of awful thoughts and uncertainties.
“How far is it from the turnoff?” he asked me.
I retrieved the map and again held it up to the windscreen, which gave me just enough light to read it by. “If this can be believed, we’re within a mile. Under different circumstances, I might suggest that we turn down the lights and approach the place quietly.”
“Under different circumstances I’d agree, but we’d run headlong into a tree trunk in no time, and leave ourselves unconscious, at the mercy of . . . of wolves, or mountain lions, or whatever predator is most common out here. I’m a more ample treat than you, my dear, so forgive me if I’m none too eager to proceed the rest of the way in the dark. I haven’t bullets enough for all the forest’s carnivores and Chapelwood, too. For that matter, we still aren’t sure where we’re going, or what to expect when we get there. With luck, they’ll be too occupied doing whatever it is ridiculous cultists do on a Friday night—and they won’t notice our arrival. Maybe they’ll even mistake us for one of their own, at first.”