Wicked Forest (DeBeers 2)

Prologue

.

The sound of footsteps in the hallway shook me

out of a deep sleep. The shuffling seemed to begin in a dream and continue even after I was awake, as if something dark and ominous and haunting was strong enough to crawl out of the graveyard of nightmares and follow me into reality. A hand of ice slid its fingers down the back of my neck. Under my breasts, shackles of cold steel tightened.

For a moment I didn't know where I was, I had driven nearly ten hours nonstop on the second leg of my journey from Spring City, South Carolina, intending to arrive at my mother's home in Palm Beach. Florida, at an early enough hour to have dinner with her and with my half brother. Linden. Because of some traffic delays due to road construction and a very heavy March rainstorm, however. I didn't reach the Flagler Bridge and cross into Palm Beach until nearly 11 P.M. Every-thing looked dank and depressed by the weather. Even elegant Worth Avenue reminded me of a glamorous woman caught in a downpour that ruined her expensive hairdo and soaked her haute couture outfit.

Both my mother and I were so excited when I arrived that we stayed up talking until a little after 1 A.M. Linden had gone to sleep before I arrived. and from what my mother had told me, he had not had any reaction to the news of my moving in with them and my decision to continue my college education in

Florida. I thought that if there was any doubt in his mind that I was sincere about moving in with them, it would have been erased when my clothing and all of my personal possessions had arrived days earlier,

"Are you sure he understood what I have decided to do?" I asked her. disappointed. In my heart of hearts I had hoped that my decision would erase the grave depression clouding his mind and help cheer along his recuperation. Was it arrogant of me to believe I could bring sunshine into someone else's life just by being there, especially after all the overcast skies that had dominated my world lately?

What I feared the most was that now Linden resented me. resented what I represented in our mother's past. Fathered by a rogue. our mother's stepfather, who seduced and raped her. Linden was already a bitter, angry young man before he had learned all of it. My story and my mother's story simply had added salt to his open wounds by giving validity to the rumors and accusations flung at our mother. I could see the question in his eyes when he first learned the truth: Why couldn't I have kept my true identity a secret. buried forever and ever? An artist, Linden believed ugly secrets should be kept hidden with a stroke of the brush. Once buried in fresh paint, who saw it, who cared?

"Oh, yes, he understood what I was telling him about your return, but very little gets him excited these days. Willow," Mother said sadly. She leaned toward me to whisper. "Sometimes his eyes are so empty that they are like glass, It's as if he's turned them around and looks only inside at his own dark thoughts." She sat back, shaking her head. ''He never smiles. I haven't heard him laugh once since the sailing accident occurred." she continued, choking back a sob.

She always called Linden's sailing fiasco an accident, even though deep in our hearts we both knew he had set out that day deliberately to hurt himself. As a reminder of it forever, he had a deep scar at least an inch and a half long on his forehead where he had taken the blow from the boom. He had gone off in a depressed, suicidal rage after learning that our mother had given birth to me in my father's psychiatric clinic when she was a patient there and my father's lover, and that I was, therefore, his half sister. After learning all this, lie was a lost soul just hoping to be hit by lightning. At minimum, his deliberate negligence and his anger at what he considered an unfair world put him unnecessarily in harm's way that dreadful day.

After I read my father's diary and learned who my real mother was. I was determined to get to know her and get her to know me. However, when I came here to meet my mother for the first time. I came incognito, pretending to be a graduate psychology student doing a study of Palm Beach society. I was afraid to burst on the scene and announce who I really was, afraid of what reaction my real mother would have, mostly afraid of being rejected.

At first Linden wanted nothing to do with me, even under my false identity, or perhaps because of it. He distrusted me and thought someone had sent me to talk to him and our mother as if they were some sort of Palm Beach curiosity to be exploited and made the subject of gossip and amusement, not only because of our mother's past, but because of his dark, somewhat eerie paintings. He eventually softened his reaction to me, and I agreed to pose for him and permit him to paint me wearing our mother's clothing, if he would permit me to meet and talk to her. He still didn't know who I really was, and even though it was a bit bizarre. I didn't think much about it I was too happy about being given the opportunity to speak to my mother.

What I didn't realize was happening and what I should have realized was that he was falling in love with me, and when he discovered why we couldn't be lovers, his anger and rage were directed at a world of cruel fate, fate he believed he would never escape, never defy. Afterward, both my mother and I blamed ourselves for what he had done to himself, and that was a big part of why I wanted to come back here to live and to pursue my education in Florida.

"Well, we'll just have to change all that," I said, patting her hand. "We'll bring the smiles and laughter back to his lips." It was always easier to give someone else hope, to urge someone else to take a risk and believe in rainbows.

"Maybe." she said, nibbling on the brightness in my voice and face. "Maybe when he finally belieyes you're here, and here for good, it will make a difference." But her voice trailed off as if the whole thought were made of smoke.

"Exactly," I said firmly, building as much enthusiasm for the task ahead as I could, "We'll make him a happy and productive young artist again," It was an Olympian ambition, to restore someone's life and purpose, perhaps even an impossible dream, especially for me at the moment. I had enough to carry on my shoulders with the weight of my own problems, enough to sink another Titanic.

Even though I had come back to Palm Beach to live with my real mother and my half brother. I couldn't help feeling I was returning to an unfriendly world filled with people who would take pleasure in our struggles and our sadness. During my initial visit. I had developed what I believed was a serious relationship with Thatcher Eaton, a prominent young Palm Beach attorney and son of Asher and Bunny Eaton, the couple who were renting the main house on Mother's property. Now that the truth about my relationship to Grace and Linden Montgomery was public knowledge, however, I was no longer confident that the man with whom I thought I was falling in love and who I thought was falling in love with me would want to set eyes on me, would want me complicating his life by forcing him to choose between me and his own family, his position in Palm Beach society, and his ambition.

With all these worries putting folds in my forehead, it was no wonder my hands had trembled as I turned my car toward the gate of the estate Jaya del Mar. the Jewel of the Sea. I could not help wondering if it would be a jewel to me or a home filled with "the dreads." as my nanny. Amou had called dark premonitions.

My mother smiled at me across the table. My unrelenting optimism finally restored the warm hope in her eyes. Then she told me with glee how Thatcher's parents were in denial about her refusal to sell them the estate and to extend their lease for even another day. They had little more than two months to go, but from what she had seen and heard so far, it was a reality they still chose not to face or admit.

"It's gotten so they try never to look my way. As if I were now an eyesore," she told me. "Before this. Asher Eaton would at least nod to me

occasionally and

ask me how I was."

"I wouldn't worry about it. Mother. That's the way of people here. They either ignore anything unpleasant or pretend it doesn't exist," I said. "If they could, they would hire someone to go to the bathroom for them."