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He pauses and stops walking. I can feel him looking down at me, so I open my eyes and reach for his face.
“Please let me stay here with you,” I whisper.
After a long minute, he nods. “That’s what I meant, love. This is your home now. You belong here with me.”
Relief fills me, and I close my eyes as he moves out of the forest, back to the house, and upstairs to our room. I hear Mrs. Paughts and some other people come into the room, and soon people are touching me, prodding me, making sure I’m okay.
I barely move as they touch me, instead choosing to keep my eyes closed as they check me over.
“She’s going to be fine,” I hear a male voice say with authority. A doctor. He must be a doctor.
“You’re sure?” Forwal says.
“I’m positive,” the man assures him, and then I hear him leave the room, along with several other people. The bed shifts, and I know Forwal is sitting with me now.
“You saved me,” I whisper.
“Evelyn, how did you end up in the woods? I told you not to go there.” I can’t tell if he’s angry or scared. I force my eyes open despite the pain, despite the inevitable swelling of my face, and I reach for him.
“I didn’t try to run away. I was just walking outside. I promise, I wasn’t trying to leave.”
He looks at me for awhile, as if he’s trying to determine whether or not I’m lying. I’m not lying to him. I’m being perfectly honest. The truth is that I can’t imagine not being with him.
I can’t imagine going back to my own world.
I’m not missing anything. The butcher’s daughter didn’t exactly have a raging social life. I wasn’t popular and I wasn’t interesting and I didn’t do anything. I was just me. I was just ordinary.
Granted, I’m still the same girl, but being here feels different somehow. I feel a bit bolder, braver. I feel stronger than I’ve ever felt before. It’s a bit ironic since Forwal took my virginity and has been molding me into a woman. I should feel weak, taken advantage of.
I don’t.
“I believe you,” he says finally. “But in the future, be more careful, love. I don’t know what I’d do if something ever happened
to you.”
His voice is quiet: a whisper, a promise.
Then he kisses me softly, and once again, everything else fades away.
Chapter 10
Time passes slowly at the mansion and as it does, Forwal and I grow closer. He teaches me how to please him, how to touch him in different ways. He shows me how to use my body in ways that delight him, in ways that bring him the utmost pleasure.
When we’re not playing in his room, we sometimes go to the library together and read. Forwal’s deep voice has a way of bringing the characters from my favorite stories to life. His words have a way of making me forget that I am a kidnapped girl, that I was taken against my will. His words make me forget that I should be upset to be here, but that I’m not. His words make me feel safe.
His words make me feel like I am finally home.
I am finally at peace.
I am finally comfortable.
And then the three moons align and everything changes.
It’s an ordinary day like any other, but somehow, I think I should have known. I think I should have realized that this momentary reprieve from the rest of the world couldn’t last. I should have recognized that sometimes, we don’t always get what we want.
Sometimes the monsters that find us are not the ones we expected.
I’m in the kitchen when I hear the shouts, the cries. I’m with Mrs. Paughts when we hear the disturbance from outside.
