Page 31 of The Forest of Lost Souls

His plain face takes on a powerful character it didn’t have before, his features transformed by savage delight. Although he isn’t handsome, he suddenly has a fearsome charisma. “Damn it all, girl, you don’t belong on the farm team your uncle trained you into. You’re quick enough to earn a place with us winners in the major leagues. You see how it can be for you?”

Her hand has closed again around the wineglass, but she doesn’t lift it from the table. “No way I want it to be.”

He says, “You sleep on the situation tonight. In the mornin’, you admit you screwed up, how you treated me here this evenin’. I come back tomorrow, we have us a nice dinner date, and we see how we fit together. You’re gonna like how we fit together. What I can make you feel is somethin’ you never felt before or imagined you could. When we become a team, we can have whatever the hell we want, what with all the money comin’ into this county. Darlin’, strange as it might sound, what you’re gonna find in submission is freedom. You marry me, then with you comes the holy glow of José Nochelobo, which is somethin’ I know how to use. And you get a real life, not a life in books. All the rules your uncle trammeled you with will wither away like spider silk. You’ll be more powerful than you ever thought possible, everyone eager to please you. You’ll dream new dreams—and make them come true. There’s nothin’ you can want you can’t have.”

Except love,she thinks,and true freedom and the peace that comes with virtue.

She says, “You make it sound inevitable.”

“I’m only givin’ you a chance to realize your potential.”

Indicating the house with a sweep of her hand, she says, “This has been my life.”

“This has been your prison. If you choose to have areallife, it can begin tomorrow at dinner.”

He leans back in the chair, both his face and posture conveying confidence that the proposal he has made—the threat of brutal rape and violent death contrasted with the promise of a life of pleasure and transcendence—will result in the submission that he requires. Submission without resentment. Transcendence throughthe eager embrace of nihilism. Like all his kind, he believes everyone is by nature irredeemably corrupt from birth. He’s certain that, if she admits to her corruption, she’ll awaken and become a reflection of him. He has traveled so long in darkness that he can’t even imagine that a path of light exists.

“Now, let’s finish this good wine with whatever dinner you’ve prepared for us. I’m sure it’ll be amusin’.”

With the revelation that he’s the sheriff and that all those who hated José Nochelobo for speaking the truth are Deacon’s allies, this evening has proceeded along none of the paths Vida envisioned. More than ever, her fate depends on how she conducts herself, on maintaining a perfect deception, though every moment provides her with a chance to make a mortal error.

He has to believe, without suspicion, that she’s bending slowly to his intimidation. She needs Nash Deacon to return the following day with the conviction that she is afraid of what could happen to her but is at the same time tempted—although not yet seduced—by the future of power and excess he offers her. Before he leaves this evening, there are things she needs to know to shape her strategy, to evoke in him the state of mind that will make him vulnerable.

Before rising to put dinner on the table, she swallows some of her wine, swallows more, and then drains the glass.

His expression suggests that he infers from this what she wants him to infer.

“I can open another bottle when we need it,” she says as she gets up from her chair.

She’s stone-cold sober and expects to remain that way. However, if the cabernet sauvignon dulls her senses, there is no risk that he will take advantage and assault her. Rape willbe his last resort. He wants her to descend into helplessness and give herself to him tomorrow, whereupon she’ll have surrendered her dignity and traded her self-respect for survival on his terms. He’s fool enough to believe that she could do such a thing.

31

DOG COLLAR

As Vida attends to dinner, Nash Deacon rises from his chair and moves around the table to pour a third serving of wine for her. He could have reached her glass while sitting down, but he means to loom over her and brush against her as he undertakes this task.

He seems even taller and more formidable than when he first entered the kitchen. As her options for resistance have decreased, she feels as if she has been diminished physically.

“Now you put out the meal you first intended, darlin’, whatever you meant to go with paper napkins and plastic cups, before you knew about my new exalted status, before our little come-to-Jesus meetin’ when you got a truer sense of the situation. Don’t fancy it up to please me. I want to see where your mind was at when I arrived.”

After Deacon returns to his chair and freshens his wine, Vida sets out a dish containing a full stick of Danish Creamery butter, and with it a box of saltines. Then she sits across the table from him once more.

He’s smiling, genuinely amused. “No water for the cups?”

“No. They were for wine in case you brought any. But then you knew where to find the glasses.”

He opens the box of saltines and extracts a sleeve of crackers. “Did you think I’d be angry?”

“I thought you’d get the point.”

“The point bein’?”

“This won’t be easy for you.”

“Now you know I’m sheriff, what do you think?”

“This won’t be easy for you,” she repeats.

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