Free The Forest's Son by Cyndy Aleo

that of his mind.
    He tries to be quiet re-entering the house. His mother must have gone to sleep long ago, and the last thing he wants to do is wake her, only to have her see him with his hair a mess and his lips swollen from kisses. He isn't certain what he and Donovan are to each other after what transpired in her apartment, but he knows he wants it and has probably wanted it for a long time.
    Still thinking of the feel of her in his arms and the way her body fit when it pressed up against his own, like she was not only meant, but designed to be there, he startles to see his mother sitting on the couch in the family room as he makes the turn for the stairs.
    “I thought you’d be sleeping, ” he says.
    “I was waiting for you.”
    “I can see that, but why didn't you go to sleep? It's late.”
    “Because we have things that can't wait until morning to be discussed.”
    “Look, can't we —?”
    “No, Jakub.”
    He steps away from the stairs and sits in one of the chairs. She’s pretty much confirmed now that he has a different name, and she's not going to let him go to sleep without a fight. He may as well speed up the process.
    “I assume,” he says, “since that's the second time you've used that name, that Vance isn't my real one.”
    She has the good grace to blush before her smirk escapes.
    “I think I know it when I remember things, don't I? I recognize it, a little. We aren't … American, either? We’re from somewhere else.”
    “You could say that.”
    He flexes all ten of his fingers to keep from pulling them into fists. She's the one who wants to have this conversation, but she's being vague and cagey. Mentally, he counts to ten, not trusting himself to open his mouth to ask her anything without letting  angry words free, and he doesn't want to fight with her.
    She doesn't let him get all the way to ten.
    “I'm sorry. I have imagined this conversation for so long, but now that it's here, I'm unsure of how I'm supposed to begin.”
    “How about at the beginning? How long have you been imagining this conversation for, exactly? Considering my memory is pretty much shot at this point?”
    “About 200 years, give or take a few. I wasn't keeping track of time by a calendar when I left.”
    Of anything he was expecting, this is not it. His mother being insane and thinking she was some kind of immortal is not part of the few pieces he’s managed to put together. Next thing he knows, she’ll probably be telling him they’re vampires.
    He all but flies out of the chair and begins to pace the living room. This is crazy. He needs Donovan. He needs the files upstairs on the computer. He needs to know if he's been drugging himself and frying his brain based on the ramblings of a lunatic.
    “Sit back down, Jakub. You are going to exhaust yourself with the pacing. I should think before I speak and remember that you know nothing right now. Will it help if I begin with smaller things?”
    “Smaller than telling me you've been waiting to tell me something for 200 years? Yeah, I think that might be a good idea.”
    He walks to one of the large windows that overlook the porch, his eyes seeking the forest beyond. She leaves her seat on the couch to stand next to him.
    “Right now, it is too dark to see anything out there," she says. "But you can feel it anyway, can't you? The presence out there? The trees and the wind and all the things that rely on the forest for life?”
    He nods. He knew, even this morning, heading down the long driveway with Donovan, that she didn't feel the same as he did when driving out of the trees. She hadn't looked around to listen, hadn't cracked her window just a touch to hear them better. He'd felt a disconnection when they'd reached the main road, but he'd noticed no change in her.
    “We are not like them, ” she continues. “I come from what can probably be called in this language a tribe — a sisterhood — of women. To some, we exist only as story — as myth — but we