In the vehicle, Sam and Nina sat waiting. Both were positively worn out and they sat slumped against each other, listening to the radio Stefan left on for them, even though they did not understand a word and the music sucked more than the bad reception. Other than the crackle of the AM frequency, it was dead quiet. The two of them did not need to converse. Both of them were still in shock from the strange and terrifying ordeal they had suffered, each knowing what the other was feeling.
Suddenly Nina said, “Do you reckon we stepped into another time loop because of the weird forest being some worm hole or do you…” she sighed and shoved Sam to see if he was awake. He looked at her in anticipation, so she continued. “Could it have been that deck, perhaps?”
“What do you mean?” he asked. He shifted so that he could face her properly.
“If that deck of cards can really rearrange events by throwing the world into a déjà vu, into a time lapse, time loop, whatever,” she said, “don’t you think maybe that was what happened with us? Could it be that someone, the same someone who has been causing our reliving before we came here, was doing it again? Maybe they were using the cards and that was why we ended up….god, I can’t believe what I am saying here…in the future before coming back through the hole into the short time we were gone here on this side.”
Sam looked at her. He said nothing, his face remained unchanged, and for a long pause he just stared at her.
“For fuck’s sake, Sam!” she shouted suddenly, shoving him again just to see him move from his static state. He smiled.
“Sorry, I was caught in time for a second.”
Nina was not amused. Her dark eyes glimmered with passionate annoyance and he welcomed her familiar look of threat.
“Look, it sounds ludicrous at best, but if such a thing was at all possible, then how the hell would what they did influence just us; just you and I, lassie? How would that person isolate us, and why? I really think that is a stretch, Nina,” he answered.
She gave it some thought. Sam was right. Scientifically, or even by the reaches of remotely possible physics it remained absurd. No matter how she rolled it, whatever cosmic components the world had not yet unlocked, could still not explain how a deck of cards could accelerate or lapse time. It made her head hurt, this odd superstition founded in the closets of antiquity and esoteric calculations.
“Aye, suppose you’re right,” she sighed. “Why are we so damn tired?”
“We moved forward in time by a few hours. In essence we have lived an extra few hours in this day’s quota. Christ, what am I saying?” he frowned, still caught between what he knew happened for real and what his logic rebuked as fallacious at the same time. He could not believe his own words, his own thoughts, but there was no other perception.
“I know. And I thought I was nuts when all this lapse shit started happening to me. I thought it was the toxins in my body wreaking havoc with my senses…and my sanity. Some of the side effects could very well have been all this warped perceptive shit, you know?” she mumbled as she rummaged through the junk on the minivan’s floor and door pockets.
“What are you looking for?” he asked.
Nina stopped delving and busied herself with something in the shelter of her chest. Sam heard a flicking sound and then, when she turned to him, he cried out in elation. Between Nina’s lips she had a joint pinched.
“One of Mihail’s?” he asked, and she nodded as she pulled a deep tuft of smoke and satisfaction into her throat.
“Bless you, Mihail the Eye!” Sam shouted out in his best evangelist rendition. Nina smiled and passed the skewed joint to him. “So, how are you feeling? I mean, with the arsenic treatment bullying you and such while you are still tough and hard headed enough to go out and put yourself at risk,” Sam asked Nina.
It reminded her that she had not felt any weakness or burning like she normally did. As a matter of fact, she had totally forgotten about her scarred arm and the deadly compound that sat stubborn in her flesh.
“Wait a minute!” she exclaimed. She sat up and hitched up her sleeve, where the makeshift bandage still secured the herbs Mihail’s wife had applied for her. Under the ribbing of her long sleeve the handkerchief peeked and with careful excitement Nina pulled it back until the awful circular scar appeared. But it was less inflamed when she wiped off the last of the crushed herbs and the maroon scarring had turned to a healthy pink inside the bruising that surrounded the rough stitching lacerations. Nina’s mouth fell open as she slowly lifted her eyes to Sam. His big dark eyes narrowed with warmth as his lips curled into a smile.
“No way,” she gasped. “That chick is a genius! I have to know what this stuff is!”
“What chick?” he asked.
“Mihail’s wife. She put this on…with spit,” she pulled up her nose and Sam chuckled at how cute Nina looked when she was grossed out. “This is awesome, Sam. Do you realize that with this stuff I’d never have to be subjected to the clinic’s torture chamber and Dr. Death again!” Nina yelled like a schoolgirl and lunged forward to wrap her arms around Sam. She did not care what he thought, what he made of it, because he would probably be right anyway. Having no pain and seeing her arm healing after thinking it was going to have to be amputated, Nina was truly elated.
Sam held her tightly as she shrieked with glee. But he did not let her go once the initial thrill had passed; and she did not mind. Their laughter died down and the only sound left over the static of the radio was their breathing. Sam wanted so desperately to kiss her. He felt Nina’s elegant fingers sink gently deeper onto his skin as she lifted her chin to find his lips. Sam’s heart jumped violently as Nina breath graced the skin under his stubble and warmed his mouth. Without thinking, as if by instinct, Sam’s lips parted to receive Nina’s. His hand cradled her jaw as their lips locked for a moment before the driver’s side door of the car clacked open and jolted them from their sweet delirium.
Petra climbed in on the passenger side as the vehicle roared into life, while Stefan looked at Sam and Nina in the rear view mirror.
“You two need a bed!” he remarked.
“What?” Nina frowned, while Sam simultaneously exclaimed, “Excuse me?”
Clearly they were still in a different state of mind.
“You are completely…pooped!” Stefan said. “You both need to get to bed and sleep off the bad things of the forest, eh?”
Sam and Nina looked relieved at his clarification and agreed overzealously with their guide’s advice as the vehicle pulled away from the small crooked police shack. It was well into the evening already and they switched off the dirty roof light of the van as it started to navigate the bumpy road towards the commune where Stefan’s family lived.
Chapter 29 — Full Circle
When Greta’s jet landed in Cluj, she had prepared her journey into the Baciu forest already. Half an hour before reaching their destination, the crew had served a small meal too her and her adopted son. The boy looked better than the day before but the cabin crew had their reservations about the boy’s continuing health, especially after they learned that his mother did not intend to get him to the doctor, but instead asked for a rental car to drive directly towards the Baciu communes to meet her other son there.
However grave their concerns, they were paid to shut up and serve. The boy was not as pale as the day before and he had even grown some appetite today. Greta woke him as they crossed the border and told him to dress warmly. She had a splitting headache from the slivovitz and cognac she drowned herself in during the more quiet part of the flight and it only worsened her medical condition. The exhilaration of finally reaching the last stretch of her long drawing plan urged her onward regardless of the devastating pain she was in constantly.