“If you are coming with me, we have to go now,” he stated, his voice devoid of any emotion besides urgency. He must have sensed my confusion, because he added, “People will start to wake up soon. I doubt your parents would be happy to see you’ve escaped.”

I just stood, motionless and mute, still trying to take in my rapidly changing circumstances. The greatest obstacle was imaging myself escaping with the most notorious sorcerer in the kingdom… or, rather, imagining what he might do to me once we were alone. Those images of dread kept me rooted where I was almost as surely as the metal bars had just a few moments ago.

Andreas sighed and closed his eyes. “You do not have many options right now, little witch. You either take your chances with me, or you take your chances with them. Which one gives you more hope?”

Almost to my surprise, a rivulet of impudent anger wormed its way through my paralysis and sprung out like a leak in a dam. I spoke weakly, but with more force than even I expected at that moment.  “My name is Lana, not little witch,” I said, fixing my eyes on him in a glare.

Andreas seemed both surprised and amused at this new voice from me.  “I am sorry, Lana,” he said, with a play at a formal bow. “Lana, make your choice.”

When he had pulled those bars away and freed me from the terrible cage, I had thought that the decision to leave with him would be easy.  Almost any fate would be better than what awaited me at the palace.  But Andreas Grigoli was not covered by that “almost.”  Everything about him – his reputation, his powers, and even his manner in person – practically screamed danger. But Andreas, fiend though he may be, was, in his own way, right about one thing.  There was something he could offer that no one else in my present circumstance could: uncertainty. In every important way, all of my life to this point had been prescribed, and proceeded according to that plan.  I had known what I would do and who I would be from the time I had learned to speak.  I had never known any other way.  I could even say that I had come to like it, as one comes to like familiar things.  Stability was a comfort, and effectively knowing what to expect from each day brought the most basic kind of stability.  But now the prescribed boundaries of my life were rapidly collapsing, to a point I could see and feel, and that brought a dread certainty that was as far from a comfort as could be imagined.  My thoughts returned to the metal bars that had so recently surrounded me.  And I could see that I had actually been in a cage much longer than I knew.

“I don’t have much patience. Choose now, or I will choose for you.”

Andreas’ sharp tone snapped my attention to him again.  I had no idea what would happen if I went with him.  Perhaps he was as vicious as the rumors told, capable of delivering on all the actions that had recently paralyzed my imagination.  Perhaps he encouraged those stories only because he wanted to keep people at arms’ length, wanted fear more than adoration or love.  Perhaps he was altogether different once you got to know him.  There was no way to know.  Maybe if I went with him, my worst fears would come true.  But there was one thing I knew for sure right then, one thing that broke my paralysis and propelled me forward onto an uncertain path:  at this moment, “maybe” was the most important word in my life.

“I’ll go with you.” My voice was barely above a whisper, uncertainty etched into my words still.

“Are you sure?” He quickly recovered a grave tone. “Once you make that decision there is no going back. I cannot promise not to hurt you. I cannot promise to protect you. All I can promise is, for now, you will live.”

His flinty words tried to reignite a small flame of doubt in my mind, but I did not let the sparks land. His promise was a lot more appealing than the stake.

With more confidence than I felt, I locked my eyes with his. “I’m sure.”

His arm around my waist tensed, almost as if he wasn’t so sure anymore. The gesture passed almost as quickly and his expression turned stony once more.

“Then we should get going. It’s going to be a long walk.”

I nodded and he started leading me away. I vaguely recalled hearing a frantic voice from somewhere behind me call my name with an urgency I had never heard before. But I shrugged it off as my imagination. Thinking back, perhaps I should have listened.  But something else that had been suppressed in the whirlwind of the last few minutes pushed it out of my mind.  As Andreas and I stole into the rising morning light, it was that question I carried like a weight: what does Andreas Scott Grigoli want with me?

***

My legs were jelly even though Andreas had been supporting most of my weight the whole way. It felt like I had been running for miles. I was too weak. They hadn’t fed me anything but small bowls of rice while I was in the cage. My body was having a very difficult time with the physical strain of this escape, and was near collapse.

“Andreas,” I said, my voice cracking, “I can’t… I can’t go any further.”

Andreas slowly took in a breath, in annoyance I assumed, but sat me down against a tree. I sighed in relief as I rested my back against it and finally took a moment to gather my bearings. For the last couple of hours, as we had walked, I was too consumed with the pain and worry – and, to be honest, the feel of his arms around me – to pay any real attention to where we were going. I scanned the area and my eyes grew large.

We were in a deep forest. I didn’t know which one, but the sight took my breath away. I had spent just about all my life as a ward of my father’s worry about what might happen to me when no one was minding me. He thought me helpless, so I knew no other way to be.  The place of someone of my standing and future was indoors, in civilization, where I could be protected.  When we traveled, I would only see the land as a blur from the carriage.  When other children went into the woods to play, I was forced to stay inside and read.  Books were my best friends, and pictures of forests replaced real ones.

Because of that, I had never experienced anything like this lush, dense landscape.  Weeping willows claimed almost all the visible space, except where small cherry bushes – their fruit adding dots of red to the predominantly green landscape – fought their way in. Everything was lush and alive. Small tufts of grass dotted the stony dirt ground. There were flowers, lilies and pansies, smiling as they bobbed their heads in the wind. And the smells that I finally stopped to notice, a bouquet of aromas that nearly intoxicated me, were something no picture could ever duplicate.  I believed I had never witnessed a scene more beautiful, and for what felt like a very long time, I didn’t move.

 “What are you thinking about?” Andreas asked, piercing, barely, my reverie.

My voice sounded weak and distant, with an almost dream-like quality to it.  “I’ve never been in the woods before.”

Andreas’ eyes held a question, but he never asked it. “Stay here. You look like you need some food.” With that, he vanished. I did as he said; it wasn’t like I could move anyway and my body was extremely grateful for the rest.

My mind, however, was a different story.  Even though I closed my eyes as soon as he was out of sight, trying to get some sleep, my thoughts were restless. They pulsed with an energy I couldn’t shut down. It was a completely different feeling from the recent night that had turned my life upside down.  This feeling was warmer. I didn’t feel frightened by it. It still kept me from getting rest, and that was something I might like to change; but I was also reluctant to keep my eyes shut, for fear of missing something beautiful that might happen next.

Andreas couldn’t have been gone long, but it still felt like an eternity unfolding before me. Being alone was still not something I was used to. My racing mind leapt to other imagined scenarios.  Andreas bringing me out to the woods, away from immediate danger, tired and hungry, and then leaving me alone out here to be prey for whatever came along. I wouldn’t put it past him. It was less cruel that the things he was known –

“You should eat before you sleep.” Andreas’ voice cut off my thoughts abruptly. I hadn’t heard him approach. It was like he appeared out of thin air.

I was surprised to find my eyes had closed while I was thinking of other things.  Had I had been unaware long? “I wasn’t sleeping. I don’t think I can.”

“You need to try.  We both do.  We’ll be safe here among the willows for a few hours until sunrise.”  It was only then that I realized that night had once again fallen. How long had I been sitting here with only my thoughts as company?

He handed me two bananas and started peeling one for himself. “Where did you get these?” I asked.

He just shrugged and sat down next to me. “Eat up. We have a long way to go and you need the energy. And the rest.”

I nodded and started chewing. As we ate in silence, I idly began wondering just what kind of person Andreas really was.  Already, I was beginning to see aspects in him that were very different from the picture that everyone had painted. The man sitting next to me eating a banana was difficult to imagine as a ruthless killer and assaulter of women.  He actually seemed, in his own way, to care.

But there were still two nagging thoughts I could not get rid of, reminders of the uncertainty I had chosen to embrace by coming here. What does he want with me?