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Chapter Sixteen

Even though I was in a strange place, I had slept better than I had in months. Camden must have been feeling the effects of the jet lag; for seven straight hours he was peaceful. Hunger and wetness got the best of him and his cries pulled me out of a weird state. I couldn't call it a dream, but to describe it as a nightmare would have been wrong as well.

I had dreamt I was walking through a forest barefoot. Even as I picked Cam out of the crib, I could almost feel the moss between my toes. El was walking beside me, a vision of beauty. The sun was sinking low and the last streams of light stole through the thick canopy of trees overhead. We walked until we found out way to an open, perfectly circular, area that was flanked on all sides by trees. The floor looked like a plush green bed. El sank to her knees, her eyes beseeching me to do the same. As I sank down, she brought her lips to mine.

The dream was just getting very good (and very naked) when all of a sudden a hundred loud howls filled the air and we were surrounded on all sides by wolves. The leader of the pack, a wolf with long blonde hair, stalked forward. It eyes were fixed on El. I remember shielding her behind me, but it was no use. The wolf licked its jowls and lunged. The moment it did so, every single wolf raced forward.

That was when Cam had started to cry.

I was still mulling over the dream as I changed Cam's diaper. He looked up at me and for a second I thought he just might smile. Instead, his stomach rumbled uneasily. I scooped him up and pulled out one of the large containers of formula I had brought with me.

I was in the kitchen, Cam gurgling at the sight of the bottle yet to come, when El walked in. Her hair was plaited down her back and accentuated all the perfections of her face. I smiled as I shook the bottle in my hand.

"Hi," I said.

"Guten Morgen," she said. She took out a basket of eggs. "Would you like breakfast?" she said in perfect English. I looked at her in surprise.

"What did you say?"

She looked startled. "I...uh...you eat?" she mumbled.

"You speak better English than that. I just heard you," I said suspiciously. Her face turned an even deeper shade of scarlet.

"I know," she admitted.

With Cam's mouth already open and trying to focus on the bottle that I held just out of reach, he began to wiggle. I sat down in an old chair, stirring up about a hundred year's worth of dust. I stuck the bottle in his mouth and he began to eat.

"Have you lived here all your life?" I asked.

El turned and began to crack eggs. She didn't answer.

"Is that woman your grandmother?"

She opened the refrigerator and pulled out a glass bottle of milk.

"How old are you?"

A long stick of butter resting in a handmade glass dish emerged next. My patience wore thin.

"Are you going to talk to me?" I asked angrily.

When she pulled out a fork and began to whisk, it took everything in me not to stand up and stop her. If it wasn't for Camden's apparent need to suck his bottle dry, I think I would have. Instead, I decided on a different line of questioning.

"Is the Schwdbisch forest around here?"

At the mere mention of the word 'Schwdbisch,' El dropped her fork. She held onto the counter and I saw her take a deep breath.

"Why?" she asked.

"I want to go for a walk this afternoon," I said pleasantly. "I heard it was a lovely area."

"You can't go," she said simply.

"Why not?" I demanded.

The night before at dinner was when I first became suspicious of the beautiful girl. The old lady ate messily and she rambled on in German and expected me to respond. She could have been plotting my murder, but I still nodded my head.

El, on the other hand, was quiet. Extremely quiet. I noticed that as the old lady and I ate an amazingly delicious stew that El picked at a piece of bloody meat.

My connection to her had begun to make sense at that point, but I hadn't mentioned anything. I was too tired and I hadn't felt the desire to get kicked out.

With the morning brought more boldness. El turned around, her eyes flashing.

"It's dangerous."

"What's dangerous? A walk?"

Her shoulders tightened. She turned and glanced out the window as if she expected to see someone peering in.

"Why did you come here?" she asked. She turned back to her eggs and began to whisk.

"Why did you come here?" I asked. By now she had talked enough perfect English for me to detect an East Coast accent. She was no more German-born than I was.

"College trip," she said simply, so simply that I sensed it was a lie.

"College?" I said in surprise. El looked nineteen...twenty at most. "How long ago was this?"

"Ten years," she said. I shook my head in disbelief. She knelt down and lit the stove with a match. I saw her toss a huge hunk of butter in the pan which sizzled merrily.

"Why'd you stay?"

Her long fingers flicked through a container holding a bunch of utensils. She plucked out a wooden spoon and began to scramble up the eggs. "I didn't have a choice."

"Why not?"

She didn't answer. Cam was whimpering, his bottle empty. He kept sucking, but all he got was air. I set the bottle on the table and brought him to my shoulder. He let out a loud belch just as El put two large servings of scrambled eggs on the plates. She set one before me and the other directly across from my seat. She went back to the refrigerator and pulled out some orange juice. Only after she sat down, did she begin to speak.

"If you go in these woods, you will die," she said.

"These woods? You mean Schwdbisch forest is right here?" I asked.

"It's about a mile down," she said uneasily.

"Why will I die? Obviously you didn't," I said with a smile. I cradled Cam and picked up my fork. El's lips didn't even twitch.

"I've experienced worse than death," she said sullenly.

"I don't understand," I said softly.

El took a tiny bite of eggs. She got up and returned with a bottle of red sauce. At first I thought it was tobacco, but the moment she uncapped it I smelled a pungent aroma of blood.

"My parents sent me here," she said. "I got pregnant my sophmore year of college. They told everyone I was going abroad for school."

"But you didn't?"

El took another bite and seemed satisfied. "I was to have the baby here. My parents knew a German couple who wanted to adopt. I was seven months pregnant when I came here."

"And the crib?"

El finally smiled, but it was a sad smile. She took another bite and washed it down with some juice. "The old lady, Ingrid, she didn't understand that I wouldn't be keeping the baby. She pulled that crib out of the attic and put it in my room. I had to look at it every night."

"That seems cruel," I said. I shifted Cam into my other arm and picked up my fork awkwardly.

"She meant well. After a month of helping her with this place I began to think that I might just keep the baby. Ingrid told me I could stay here. It didn't hold a lot of opportunity, but I thought at least for a few years..."

She trailed off.

"So what happened?"

El twirled the small red bottle around. She lifted her eyes to mine. "I went for a walk in the woods."

I couldn't wait for her to continue. She had told me enough for me to guess what happened next.

"You were attacked," I surmised. "You became one of them?"

El's lips parted. Her eyes grew moist.

"How do you know..."

"I'm one of them, too," I said. "I was attacked about a year ago."

El's eyes flickered to Camden. "But..."

I gave El the short version of my story, leaving out Howie's death. I couldn't talk about it. I didn't even want to think about it, but that was impossible.

"He lived," she said softly. "You saved him." I had noticed the hunger in her eyes last night when she looked at Cam and it was still there this morning. He was sleeping, his little fist pressed up next to his mouth. I drew him up for a light kiss.

"He's the only piece of her I have left," I said brokenly.

"A handsome man with dark hair stopped me in the forest," El mumbled. Obviously her mind had plunged her back into memory. "He flattered me and I was drawn to him. It was getting late but he kept telling me five more minutes." She ran the back of her hand across her face to brush away the tears. "When he changed I didn't have time to run. I don't remember much, but I must have gone into labor. When I woke up..."

She trailed off. I didn't say a word.

"When I woke up, he was eating my baby."

El began to openly weep. She clutched her hands into fists and banged them on the table.

"I've been like this for ten years," she gasped. "Oh my God...oh my God..."

Watching her fall apart drummed up all of the emotions I had kept inside and the memories of all of the turmoil I had put Lauren through. I stood up and came to El's side. I placed my free hand on her shoulder.

"I'm here to end this," I said.

"I can help you."

The words sounded so confident; I just hoped they were true.