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Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five

Christine sat frozen in her bed, staring at the man who was walking confidently in through the passage in her wall. She had thought that Radek was out of the castle. That’s what Gervis had told her yesterday.
Lord Radek didn’t look as pleased with her today as he had yesterday. His hair still hung limply around his face, and there was a sardonic twist to his mouth.

“Expecting someone else?” he asked slyly, a hostile glint in his unusual green eyes.

Christine didn’t know what to say. He obviously knew about Gervis’ visit the day before. His words, combined with the comments made by Giselle earlier, made that all too obvious. She pulled the blankets up tightly around herself and just stared at him.

“Relax sweetling,” he cooed dryly, “I know it was not your fault. Gervis is a bit soft in the head for girls sometimes.   I should have
known that he could never resist you.” He chuckled. “I have to say though, I did not know that he was aware of this passage. That was rather precocious of him.”

Christine felt a wave of relief pass over her. He didn’t sound too angry with Gervis either. Lord Radek reached down, grasped her chin between his rigid fingers and turned her face upward, so that she was looking into his intense, emerald eyes. A flash of fear shot through her, but it only lasted for a moment.

She suddenly felt an overwhelming longing to please Lord Radek sweep over her, overcoming the fright that she had initially felt at his touch. The last thing she wanted was for him to be angry with her. He was so fascinating and mysterious. She wanted to learn everything there was to know about him. She wanted … she wanted … his love. That’s all she really wanted – to be worthy of Lord Radek’s love. Some part of her knew that this was wrong, that these feelings were not her own, but she was unable to resist the strong urge to please the man in front of her.

Christine found herself smiling radiantly at Lord Radek and he smiled back.

“Oh, how lovely. Sweetling, you have the loveliest smile. I wish I could see it more often.”

Christine’s smile widened. She was so happy he was there! She jumped up from the bed and threw her arms around Lord Radek, burrowing her face in his shoulder.

“Please don’t be angry. I don’t want you to ever be angry with me,” she begged.

Lord Radek chuckled. He took Christine’s hand and led her back to the bed. He lay her down on her back, and began gently running his fingers up and down her legs and her arms very sensuously, lifting the hem of her nightgown and sliding his fingers underneath.

“You are so very lovely, Christine,” he murmured, “I could never be angry with you.”

Christine’s mind drifted back to her wonderful dream. She realized now that it hadn’t been a dream at all. It had been Lord Radek. His wonderful kisses. His sensuous touch. She felt like she would never need another man as long as she had Lord Radek. Any romantic thoughts of Gervis had evaporated from her mind.

“That is right, my sweet. You will never need anyone else. Until the day you die, I will be your everything.”

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

When Christine opened her eyes, she could tell that it was late afternoon by the change in the angle of the sun’s rays through her window. As she looked around her room, wondering if Radek was still there, she found Giselle looking down at her with a look of disgust on her face.

“Are you going to stay in bed all day? You’ve only been here one day. I hope you don’t think I’m here to wait on you hand and foot.” With that comment, Giselle stormed out of the room, carrying the morning dishes with her. Christine took note of the sound of her locking the door behind her.

She was in bed. How had she gotten there? She remembered having breakfast, then looking for some way to access the passageway. Then she had decided to take a nap. But … something else.

It all came flooding back and Christine felt the colour rush to her face. Lord Radek had been there! Her mouth twisted in disgust as she remembered her behaviour towards him. Had she really fawned over him like that? What the hell had come over her? Maybe she really did have a concussion! The warmth from her face spread as she remembered what she had let … no … encouraged … Lord Radek to do to her. It could have been worse – she didn’t remember actually having sex with him – but what she did remember was bad enough. She felt dirty and violated and yearned for some way to wash herself to somehow get clean again.

She had to get out of there, that’s all there was to it. This place was doing strange things to her mind. Christine sat up in bed, then lay immediately back down as a wave of dizziness enveloped her. Concussion seemed to become a more likely explanation by the minute. And she was so very tired. She knew that Giselle was right, and she shouldn’t spend all day in bed, but she didn’t see that she had anything else to do in her luxurious prison. A bit more rest couldn’t hurt. When she was more awake she could think up an escape plan.

Christine closed her eyes, and she was fast asleep in seconds.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

When Sarah awoke, the light was already growing dim. She sat up quickly, which set off a fit of coughing. Hillard came quickly over and handed her a cup of tea in a tin cup.
When the fit finally passed, Sarah sipped the tea. It wasn’t black tea, it smelled strongly of ginger. It had the combined effect of warming her chilled bones and soothing her raw throat, which felt like it was lined with razor blades. Her cold was definitely developing into something worse.

“I’m sorry I don’t have anything for you to eat,” Hillard apologized, “but we should be at the cabin of a friend of mine later on tonight. She’ll have something I’m sure.”

Sarah was surprised at the pang of jealousy that shot through her when she heard Hillard use the pronoun ‘she’ for his friend. His girlfriend maybe? Why should she care? He was just some homeless guy who was helping her to find her sister. She reached into her bag and grabbed the sandwiches that Elke had prepared for her and Christine the day before and handed one to Hillard. Sarah was too hungry to worry about spoilage – the sandwiches tasted great, although it was extremely painful to swallow. She used the tea to wash the sandwich down more gently. Once she had finished, Hillard handed the other sandwich back to her, uneaten, insisting that he wasn’t hungry and that she needed the strength to travel and fight off her illness. She took it gratefully and soon there was nothing left but crumbs.

She felt ashamed of her jealous thoughts when she realized that Hillard had kept the fire going for her all day and had left her with all of the blankets as she slept. The crisp November air was chilly and she knew that he must have been cold. So what if he did have a girlfriend? She shouldn’t be surprised. He was attractive, caring, and charming. Besides, what right did she have to be jealous? It wasn’t like he would ever be interested in someone like her.

“Are you sure you’re okay to travel?” he asked, as he looked her over with concern in his eyes. She didn’t look at all well. Her face was flushed with fever and her breathing was ragged. He needed to get her to some real shelter soon, or she would become too sick to walk. He was developing a need for some real shelter as well. He couldn’t spend another entire day out in the sunlight without feeding.

He considered trying to heal her, but suspected that she wouldn’t react well. In fact, if she had any idea of his true nature it was likely that she would panic and flee. Then she would be worse off than she was now.

“I’m fine,” she insisted, crossly. She wasn’t really angry at him for being concerned. She was more irritated with herself for her feelings of jealousy.

Hillard began folding the blankets and putting them back into his bag while Sarah finished her tea. He handed her the folded emergency blanket. Silently, she put it back into her bag. She told herself that she was being silly. She really needed to pull herself together so that she could find and rescue Christine.

That last thought got her moving. She handed the empty cup to Hillard and started walking towards the road, before Hillard had a chance to put the cup in his bag.  She had spent the entire day sleeping! Who knew what was happening to Christine while she was lying around.

They walked down the road in silence for awhile. Sarah was concentrating on breathing – her lungs hurt and she was pretty sure that her fever was still high. For some reason she started thinking about the outrageous hypothesis that Hillard had thrown at her earlier. It was an interesting idea, that the fog was a gate, and she was in a parallel universe. She smiled. It sounded like something that would be a good plot for a fantasy novel.

As she walked, she looked around, trying to identify any familiar landmarks. The small range of large hills that she had thought earlier were part of Mount McKay was similar to what she would expect if she were heading into Thunder Bay. The only problem was the lack of houses along the way and the absence of the two major ski facilities – Loch Lomond and Big Thunder. Normally, the paths for skiers, cut through the thickly forested hillside, were obvious. There was no sign of them here.

About an hour later, they came to a broad river. There was a wide wooden bridge spanning the water. Something about the river seemed familiar, but Sarah pushed all of those kinds of thoughts away. She continued to insist to herself that they were on some road that possibly ran parallel to the highway. She and Christine must have just somehow turned off the highway in the fog. It wasn’t that unlikely. She hadn’t been able to see five feet ahead of her at the time, let alone the sides of the road. She could easily imagine that they had gotten off-track. Any other explanation was just impossible.

Hillard silently watched his travelling companion. She looked really rough. Her cold was obviously developing into some sort of secondary infection and he hoped that she would make it to the cottage. He knew that he could carry her, if necessary, but while carrying a woman and three bags was not something that would tax him or his abilities, Sarah’s reaction to such a feat was not an idea that appealed to him.

The night grew darker and darker and there were clouds covering the moon. Soon, Sarah was having a hard time even seeing a few feet in front of her. It reminded her of driving through the fog. She pushed that thought out of her mind again, not wanting to think about it, or the implications of what Hillard had been trying to tell her earlier.

After almost tripping over some loose stones on the road that she didn’t see because of the darkness, Sarah reached out and grabbed Hillard’s hand. He didn’t seem to have any trouble at all seeing in the dark. She considered using her flashlight, but didn’t want to run out of batteries and thought that they might need it if the night got any darker.

Hillard tried to ignore the feeling of Sarah’s warm hand in his. It was actually quite hot – her fever must be really high. Part of him felt so protective of her, the other part wanted to run away from the attraction he felt towards her. He couldn’t afford to get involved with someone as innocent as she was. He had too many obligations towards Adalaide.

Sarah was starting to feel a little dizzy and was happy to have Hillard’s steady hand in her own. They reached a crossroad and Hillard led her off to the right. She still had no idea where they were, but decided to trust that Hillard was the nice guy he appeared to be. He had taken very good care of her at their last stop. If he had less than innocent intentions, he could have made his move back then. He’d had her at his mercy while she had been sleeping. He essentially had her at his mercy now, too, while she couldn’t see and didn’t have any idea where she was. But for some reason she felt safe with Hillard.

“How long until we get to the cottage?” she asked, after what seemed like an eternity since they had left their resting place.

“We should be there within the hour,” he said. “We’ll reach the lake soon and then we just follow the shore to Adalaide’s cabin.”

‘Adalaide,’ Sarah thought, ‘So that’s what her name is.’ Jealousy reared its ugly head again and Sarah pictured what Adalaide might look like. She was probably a tall, leggy blond, with big breasts and a tiny waist. She most likely had blue eyes and the face of an angel. Unable to help herself, Sarah asked, “Is she pretty?”

Hillard thought for a moment before answering. “She’s beautiful. She’s very full of life and, although she doesn’t always realize it, she has a really good heart.” He looked like he was lost in thought after he answered and Sarah didn’t want to interrupt him by asking any more questions. His tone had answered her next question anyway – it was obvious that he had some very deep feelings for this woman.

Sarah didn’t know why she’d even bothered asking. She’d just met this guy. Besides, she was still married to Paul, the asshole that he was. She just focussed on walking, watching the ground in front of her. It felt as though they had been walking for hours, and perhaps they had – Sarah’s sense of time was as muddled as her stuffy head.  Nevertheless, they must be getting close to the city by now.

She knew she was right when she began to hear the cries of seagulls in the distance.  They must be in close proximity to the lake. The sun was starting to come up and she was relieved to finally be able to see what was under her feet and directly in front of her.

The lake, of course, was Lake Superior, the largest fresh water lake in the world. Whenever Sarah travelled away from Thunder Bay, it was always the lake that she missed most, much in the same way she imagined people who lived next to the ocean felt about their ‘big water.’ It was a majestic sight to see, the water stretching so far out into the distance that you couldn’t see the other side. It really did look like an ocean, if you didn’t know better, and couldn’t tell the difference in smell between fresh water and salt. It was just a few days ago that Sarah had been sitting in Christine’s apartment, sipping her coffee and gazing out, over the lake, and admiring her old friend the Sleeping Giant.

The road Sarah and Hillard were on came to an end, branching out into two paths perpendicular to the original road. Sarah looked at Hillard for any indication of which path to take.

Hillard had paused, an idea tickling at the edges of his mind. Finally he nodded, as if he had made a big decision, tightened his grip on Sarah’s hand and said, “Follow me. I think there’s something you need to see.” Still holding her hand, he led her straight ahead, into the woods. They tromped through the wild woods, no open path available to them, thickets scratching at them, climbing over the big pieces of deadwood that blocked their way. Finally they emerged onto a flat expanse of rock which Sarah recognised immediately as part of the Canadian Shield. It led into the unmistakable waters of Lake Superior. There, far out in the bay, was her familiar friend the Sleeping Giant. The sun was rising behind it and it was as beautiful as ever.

Sarah just stared at it for a moment until she realized that something wasn’t right about her view. The vista she had of the Giant was one that she would have had if she were standing in Marina Park. Normally, the Giant looked different, depending on where you were looking at it from – that’s how she knew that she should have been standing at the Marina.  From the back, and from the top of Mount McKay, the Giant almost looked like a woman, with rock protruding where two breasts might be. From Marina Park, the protrusion looked more like an Adam’s apple.  As she stared out into the bay, she realized that the discomfort she felt was related to the fact that something else was missing from her view – there was no breakwater and no lighthouse – two items that would be visible at any point along the western shore near the city.

She turned around and looked behind her, trying to spot the city that she knew should be there. There was forest – pine trees and birch trees – in abundance. There was a hill, where she knew Port Arthur sloped upward to Hillcrest Park and there, at the top of the hill, where the doctor’s houses normally stood, looking out at the best view in the city, was a castle – a real, stone castle. Sarah turned back around and looked at the Giant. There were no castles anywhere near Thunder Bay, she knew that. She turned back and looked at the castle again, then turned back to the water. Sarah repeated that action several times until, finally, the spinning didn’t stop and she was overwhelmed by dizziness. Darkness closed over the edges of her vision, and her last thought before fainting was ‘Oh my God, he was right. The fog was a gate.’

Read Chapter 7 next Wednesday, November 9th, 2011 . . .

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