Hemlock Veils (2 page)

The heavens scourged the car, and despite the sensation of drowning, she contemplated waiting out the storm. But this was Oregon, and waiting out a storm could mean waiting out your own starvation. Just she and the rain existed now, and a dense, larger-than-life forest. She hadn’t let herself feel real fear in more years than she could remember, and now was no different. But there was something life-like about the night and the pines that protected her from every side. She popped open the glove box and felt for the flashlight she’d stashed there last month. A cold, metal thing, just small enough for emergencies.

She squinted when it came on, targeting the money with its ring of light. She deliberated before stuffing the envelope into her leather shoulder bag, as well as the keys and a change of clothes from her suitcase in the back seat, all while holding the flashlight between her teeth. She put on her jacket, flipped the hood over her head, grasped the bag, and heaved a sigh. The flashlight’s circle of light targeted the windshield, where rivers streamed. She may not be able to make it all the way to Rhododendron on foot before the light’s batteries would give out, but by then, hopefully, her eyes would adjust to the darkness.

Upon her exit, the brisk rain brought her to attention, nearly shocking her nervous system. She gasped, locked the door behind her, and shivered. She swept the flashlight around her, its small beam turning raindrops into falling shards of light. Hemlocks grew snug with statuesque firs, and plant life blanketed the forest floor. If she were to venture deeper into the forest, she would also find alders and cedars, just as lofty as the firs, with trunks blanketed in green moss. Her father had spent hours teaching her this vegetation, showing her picture upon picture of the indigenous trees, but it was something different entirely to be standing before them, feeling so small in their breathtaking splendor.

She raised her flashlight beam from the base of a fir to the narrowing top of its trunk, at least two hundred feet above. It froze her in place, the grandeur along with the chilling rain. At one time, her father may have even stood where she did now.

A distant and undecipherable noise sounded behind her, muffled by the static of rain: a howl, a yell—she couldn’t tell. She swept her light over the forest that lined the opposite side of the highway—just as green and only slightly less dense than the side she’d been studying. It was the forest that contained Salmon-Huckleberry Wilderness somewhere far inside its barrier.

Another howl lifted from the forest and for the briefest instant a light flashed deep within the trees, their dancing shadows backlit by the panicked beam. Tightening her drenched strap around her shoulder, she crossed the asphalt and stopped in the mud at the other side. This forest was different than the rest, even different from its companion across the highway. Something lingered here. Some
one
, maybe. And if someone was here—a Good Samaritan, perhaps—it might save her the three-mile trek to Rhododendron. Taking just a half-step closer, she peered into the trees.

“Hello!” she called, trying to make her voice boom, but rainfall swallowed the sound. Her teeth chattered and water poured from the rim of her hood, impairing her vision. “Anyone there? My car broke down and—” She cut herself off.
I’m a helpless woman,
she may as well be shouting.
Alone, with only my father’s rusty pocket knife to defend myself!

The forest didn’t respond, and she should have been relieved. Turning, she folded her free arm over herself and walked the slick shoulder, heading in a westerly direction and trying to avoid the largest puddles. A bend in the highway lay just ahead. Surely she would find something beyond its curve, maybe some sign of civilization.

Vegetation rustled behind her. Heavy heels scraped on the gritty, wet road.

She twisted, readying her stance—wishing her pocket knife wasn’t buried inside her bag—but what the beam of her flashlight caught wasn’t what she expected. A slender, elderly man with a coarse, whitish beard that came to his waist shielded his eyes from her light. His skin hung with wrinkles almost as pale as his beard. A large spotlight dangled from his neck, amidst the bristly facial hair, and lit his black leather boots. He wore a flannel shirt beneath fishing waders, an open yellow slicker, and a yellow sou’wester hat, the large rim falling down the back of his neck. He looked like a fisherman taken right off the Pacific Ocean and planted in the middle of Mt. Hood National Forest.

His hand still shielded his red-rimmed eyes, but it wasn’t until he cursed that she realized her light blinded him.

“I’m sorry,” she said, dropping the beam.

“Do you have
any
idea what you just did?” His vocal cords sounded compressed, perhaps from old age, making his voice thin and high. He took an irate step toward her.

Elizabeth stepped back. “I’m sorry?”

Drawing his decrepit thumb and index finger together, he grumbled, “I was
this
close!” The double-barreled shotgun in his dropped hand—why didn’t she notice this sooner?—now swung.

“Whoa,” she said, lifting a hand. With the current events of her life, she shouldn’t have been surprised to run into a nut job in the middle of the forest.

“I had it right in my sights! I could’ve changed everything for our town if you hadn’t scared it away!” He exhaled, clouding the air with an angry burst.

“My car broke down and I saw your light in the forest…”

Wiping a hand down his face, he looked in the direction he’d come—through the forest—then in the direction she’d been headed—west—then finally at her broken-down car across the road. His breath puffed at a measured rate. He wasn’t crazy, just irritated. With a tone of defeat, he said, “There’s nothing I can do for you out here, ma’am.”

“Thanks for your time anyway.” She tried not to sound too deflated.

When she resumed her steps, he called from behind, “Not sure if you know this, but it’s a three-mile walk to Rhododendron.”

She turned back, adjusting her leather bag in the hope its contents weren’t completely soaked through. “It’s better than six miles back to Government Camp.”

“You know the area?”

She shrugged.

His eyes narrowed, and his beard dripped. “Walking alone isn’t a smart idea,” he said in that thin, almost backwoods-sounding tone. “Not through these parts, ma’am, not at this time of night. You have any idea what’s out here?”

“More old men in fishing gear?”

He raised a brow then chuckled, and though she hardly saw it through his beard, his smile was warm. “Much worse, ma’am.” Her eyes followed his, but she saw nothing. His jaw rolled rigorously as he chewed, then he spat to the side, leaving specks of brown in his beard; they washed away quickly. Finally, with a twinge of regret, he said, “A town’s one mile south of here, right through these trees.” He motioned to his left, into the forest he’d emerged from. It seemed his admittance of this town was the result of some internal battle being lost.

“A town is…through there?”

“
My
town: Hemlock Veils. We call it Oregon’s best kept secret.” He spat again, giving a proud half-smile. “You feel like a midnight hike?”

She didn’t answer.

“I know a mechanic myself,” he added, “who’d charge you half of what the folks in any of the villages at Mt. Hood would.”

Still speechless, she eyed the trees, trying to feel out the validity of his claim.

“Even if you take the main roads to Hemlock, it’s still closer than Rhododendron. Only two miles.” He pointed east. “You’d just need to go about half a mile back that way, take Road Thirty-Two a mile or so south, where it’ll curve west, until you come to Clayton Road. That takes you right into town. Course…you’re still better off cutting through the forest, time and distance wise.”

“I think I’ll just stick with what I know,” she said, uncertain. “Rhododendron.”

“You want to take the risk of walking alone for so long, that’s up to you.
Or
I could accompany you through this forest you’ve been eyeballing, since I know it like the back of my hand. We’d be in Hemlock Veils before you know it. It’s only one mile, ma’am, and with my trusty Betsy here,”—he lifted his shotgun—“you can be sure it won’t snatch you up.”

Eccentric or not, and cryptic statements aside, there was something she liked about this man, something she trusted. Her instinct told her to stay with him, however strange the idea seemed. One thing she’d always prided herself on was that she was an excellent judge of character. She smiled, just barely. “Are you saying you’ll be my bodyguard, Old Man?”

“Take it or leave it.”

Her breath hung in the dark, frigid air. She’d never heard of Hemlock Veils, and if her father had, he’d never mentioned it. Perhaps it really was Oregon’s best kept secret. Or perhaps this man was nothing but a senile, lost fisherman.

“Ma’am.” The old man’s voice softened, sobered. “Trust me when I say your best bet is coming with me. I’m heading home anyway, since you scared off my prey.”

Chills attacked her lower spine, but her trepidation wasn’t because of him. It was because with no other soul around, a sensation that they were being watched wrapped itself around her, tingling the back of her neck.

“Come on,” he said, guiding her by the elbow. “We’ll have Sheriff Taggart and Brian—that mechanic I was talking about—come back with you when it’s light, and he’ll get your vehicle fixed right up. We even have a motel to rest your pretty head.” He snickered. “Bill hasn’t rented out a room in years. We don’t get many visitors.” He paused, offering a bony hand. “Name’s Bathgate. Eustace Bathgate.”

“Elizabeth Ashton,” she managed through chattering teeth, taking it hesitantly. The warmth from his hand settled in her bones, right alongside the wariness she couldn’t pinpoint. He pulled her into the forest on what appeared to be a thin game trail, and the towering firs above caught most the rain.

Once the trees concealed them, he turned to her. His hand grew firm on her arm and graveness transformed his eyes. They penetrated, even in the dark, and that chill snuck its way up her spine. “Stay close, Ms. Ashton. It’ll be curious of visitors, always is.”

Chapter 2

Elizabeth couldn’t swallow. Did she stand in one of the places her father used to speak of—a place where magic existed?

“It?” she asked Eustace. “
What
will be curious of visitors?”

“The beast, Ms. Ashton.” Eustace turned and pulled her along, but she hardly felt there at all. Since her time as a teen when she’d learned life handed out nothing but disappointments and responsibilities, she’d been skeptical of her father’s fairy tales. She was a realist. She knew them for what they were: children’s stories.

Yet here she was, almost thirty and more seasoned than most, and she couldn’t shake the chill in her spine. A beast? She had to have misunderstood.

He traveled fast, too fast, and she nearly tripped. Taking a deep breath, she ripped her arm from his grasp and stopped. She could no longer see the highway through the trees behind them, even when the wide beam of his spotlight shone behind her. He stared at her as though
she
was the crazy one. “What do you mean, Mr. Bathgate?” she said through shallow breaths. Her hood had fallen in their short journey and her hair was soaked through. “You mean an animal, right? Like a wolf?”

He chuckled, spitting to the side. “Would’ve said wolf if I meant wolf. Not that there aren’t wolves in these parts, but the monster keeps most those buggers away. It’s not the wolves you need to worry about. And the longer we stand around, the more vulnerable we become.”

She pulled her wrist away when he reached for it again. “Not another foot unless you tell me what the hell you’re talking about.”

“You’re actually telling me you’ve never heard? I thought when you said you knew the area, you were from somewhere around here. But you’re not, are you, Ms. Ashton?”

“California. I know only what I’ve studied on maps.”

He straightened, eyeing her with a look she didn’t understand. Was he second-guessing his decision to help her?

“That explains it then. I should have known, since no local would wander alone on Mt. Hood Highway, not between Rhododendron and Government Camp.” He stepped closer, lowering his voice. “Have you heard legends about these forests, Ms. Ashton?”

She recoiled. “Actually…” Her tongue tripped over her words. “My father came here a lot, told me legends, but…they’re just legends, Mr. Bathgate.”

“Please. Eustace.”

“If you’re Eustace, I’m Beth.”

“How are legends born, Beth?” He lifted his brow, as though he knew her heart would sink at his word choice.

And it did.
Legends are born from flecks of truth,
her father used to say. But Eustace and her late father sharing the same philosophy didn’t make the philosophy any saner.

“I’m not trying to scare you, Beth, but judging by the look on your face, I’m doing a pretty good job. And you should be scared. Now, I don’t know how things come to be, or what it all means, but anyone who lives in Hemlock Veils can tell you these woods are guarded by a
beast
. No wolf, no werewolf.” He gave a breathy smile. “Oh, we once thought it was, since there was no other way to describe it, but then we realized it wasn’t just out on a full moon. It was out
every
night. And with its features…”

“Then what is it?”

“Now,
that’s
the scary part: we just don’t know. It’s a mix of everything, and then some. So demented that some say it was shunned from the underworld, with those devil ears and razor-sharp fangs. I’m not sure about that myself, but I do know it’s got no soul. Just pure evil.”

Regardless of how far-fetched his description was, Elizabeth began retreating in the direction they’d come as though her feet had a mind of their own. He grabbed her arm. “That’s not a good idea. You can’t be alone. I’m sure it’s smelled you by now.”

She laughed, shaking her head. Her heart beat in her throat. “Is that why you’re suddenly in no hurry? Because it’s too late to hurry anyway?”