Bound & Bound – the Curse and the Captives – - 37. Chapter 37: Hoia-Baciu

Chapter 37: Hoia-Baciu

"YOU'RE SURE IT WAS A CIRCLE CLEARING within a forest?" Silviu asks me this for like the hundredth time while he's driving.

"Yes, so how do you know we're heading to the right place?"

Sil takes his eyes off the road to stare me down a second. "Because, there's only one in Romania, babe – the haunted circle of Hoia-Baciu."

We're travelling on small country roads, heading north-west, and towards the woods that Silviu thinks holds all the answers. It's about midday now, and as soon as the rental shop was open, we were on the road with a trunk-load of camping gear.

"But, Sil – what do you think it all means?"

"Your vision?"

"Yes."

"I'm not sure, Emeric, but I am sure this clearing in Hoia-Baciu holds the key. You would not have been shown it otherwise."

He begins to slow down and crane his neck forward to read a rickety route marker. In another 50 metres, he turns onto a dirt road. The forest immediately comes up to us on the margin, and the path begins to snake over serpentine waterways, curves, and little hillocks and vales.

"But, what's so special about a clearing in a forest?"

Silviu takes a curve and slows down. I see him automatically, and nervously, glance in the rearview mirror. He wants no repeats of our 'accident.' But, although the sky is a single mass of cloud cover, it is a light grey that seems to bode neither thunderhead nor raindrop.

Sil gets scholarly, which is fucking adorable. He crinkles his nose and instructs me on the subject at hand. "This perfect circle is strange because no vegetation other than grass will grow within it. It was not discovered until about three hundred years ago when the first people made it out to report its existence, but it's nothing new, and in fact the whole forest seems to be dominated by it, and its high strangeness, in a sort of subordinate way – as if the woods are chiefly there to hide it."

"What do you mean by 'high strangeness'?" I ask, feeling a puzzling scowl come to my lips, and letting my fingers roam on top of my sexy professor's thigh. I hope to be the teacher's pet later on in the tent.

"I mean that even the name of the place – Hoia-Baciu – speaks of weird happenings. Hoia means forest, but Baciu was the name of a man. Centuries ago this Baciu was a shepherd. One day he walked himself and two hundred head of sheep into the woods, and neither he nor his flock were even seen or heard of again. Poof! Vanished."

"Well, that's weird, but – "

He free hand lands on mine, making me look up and see the sternness on his face. "Not only him, Em. They say many go missing every year – they just walk in, and never walk out. That is if they are lucky."

I laugh. "So, the unlucky ones return?"

"Yes. Exactly. Some of the missing persons just 'show up' again."

"They do," I say, interlacing our fingers. "But, how?"

"If I had that answer, I could solve the mystery, but the truth is, some people who have been lost for years just wander out one day. The weird thing is that although many have been gone for years and years, they have not aged a day. Their relatives take them back in, but the returnees have changed. They do not know who or where they are. When asked how they lived all that time out in the forest, they have no answer, but only stare out with empty eyes. They seem half-mad, and are not very safe to be around. Most of them are given over to the state to place in mental wards, poor buggers. They are just like the spit-out, empty husks of the human being they used to be."

"Well, that is creepy."

"People who go to the circle at night, and come out all right again the next day, report all manner of experiences – seeing glowing balls of light, hearing weird animal sounds, and other more mysterious noises too."

"Noises, like what kind?"

Silviu takes another curve, and I use my free hand to brace myself on the dashboard, because he suddenly stops, or I should say the road suddenly stops. He had warned me that we'd have to hike it in. My man shakes the gearshift into neutral, sets the handbrake with an authoritative jerk, and turns off the engine.

Holding my eyes firmly, he finally answers my question. "They hear pulsations."

"Pulsations?! What do you think they are really hearing?"

"I'm not sure, babe."

I smirk, scanning the nearly blue-black interior not 3 metres before our front bumper. "But I guess we will be finding out for ourselves, eh?"

Silviu opens his door, and I have to say the cool air feels good, so I open mine too, but we continue to sit there, focused on one another. The little overhead light sends halos across his dark spikes of hair.

"Yes, Emeric." He squeezes my fingers. "We must find out."

I chuckle. "When I left Toronto to go on a curse-killing mission to Romania, the last thing I suspected was that I'd be going camping in a haunted forest. But I guess I should have known."

Silviu spreads my fingers flat, lays them on his thigh – high up, close to the crease of his lap – and gently rubs over the top of my hand. His tone smiles at me as he draws out his suggestive line of inquiry. "You never thought you'd be camping…in Romania…with..?"

"Camping with…" I tease. "A bloody mad Romani stud? Is that what you mean?"

He deflates, and I guess I have hurt him. I move my fingers slowly towards his enticing fly. I also bring my body closer to him. "Let me re-phrase that, fiancé," I say soft and low. "I never thought I'd have the opportunity to go camping with…" My hand strokes his goodies through his denim. "A gorgeous man, who makes me feel safe and protected – "

"And?" he cuts me off.

"And, one who I want to keep safe and protected as well."

"And..?" he asks softly.

"AND, do it all with the man I want to be mine forever. Because…" Now it's mine turn to let him play 'fill in the blanks'.

"Because you sorta like, and/or tolerate my presence..?"

I get right up to his cheek, and Silviu pretends to be enthralled by the hazards of the forest he's peering up through the windshield at, and thus cannot afford even the tiniest glance in my general direction. "Nope. Wrong." I kiss him. "Wrong, it's because I love you, Silviu."

His right hand comes up from the wheel to cup my right cheek and press my head momentarily against his. He lets go then lays a quick kiss on my lips. "Good," he says, cool as an arctic cucumber. "Always good to hear you say that."

"I love you; I love you; I love you." I make sure his bulge feels the adamancy of my sentiments, and in return I can easily feel things getting tight for him in there. Hmmm, maybe I will be able to do something about that a bit later on, in the tent. In the meantime, I kiss his cheek, and say, "You are my full motivation and reason for fighting this curse thing."

His hand strokes the top of mine.

"Yes, baby. We will kill this thing, together."

"Or die trying…but, ok fiancé, I still have to warn you that camping is not my idea of fun."

"Oh yeah? I find tents extraordinarily intimate places." He attempts to tickle me with a radiant grin on his face, but the simple movement of my hand towards his zipper tab wipes the smirk straight off his face.

I begin to ease his 'little Sil' out and lower my head towards his lap. I tell him seductively, "I find cars extraordinarily, intimate, places." Fuck the tent; I want him to take me right here and now.

˚˚˚˚˚

As I said, camping is not my idea of fun!

When you hear about pitching a tent in a 'primeval forest,' you still imagine adjacent parking and crappers, but you'd be wrong!

We've been hiking for an hour now, and this rucksack on my back and tent bag under my arm are getting heavier and heavier. The woods are dense, and the trail through nettles and thorny brambles is narrow. The filtering light of an overcast high-noon bespeckles our path and occasionally gives Silviu an attractive halo as he trudges ahead of me.

My yoke is easy and burden made light by the thoughts and lingering sensations of lovemaking. My sexy Romani thrilled as I kneeled on the ground and pleasured him orally where he still sat in the driver's seat. I worked the lever and lowered his chair, which also automatically sent it back as far as it would go. That left me delicious room to prop my hands on the backseat and gasp as Sil's skillful tongue readied me to receive him, his hands on my cheeks spread them wider to pummel me good and deep with a maddening combination of kisses and licks. Spitting on my hand, and moistening his cockhead, he knew what was next and I slid down to receive my man in the most intimate way possible. In his amazing fervor to give me what I want, his knees would come up occasionally and tap the horn; I would have laughed, but the sensations of pure connection were too intense, too immediate to feel anything but my man inside of me. I leaned down to prop my elbows on either side of his head and kiss him. "Ready, babe?" he asked. I let him hear his favorite refrain of "I love you, Silviu." And in another deep-seated stroke or two, we climaxed helplessly together.

Now as we walk, I feel his energy inside of me still, and I feel strengthened by it. Strengthened, and grateful too to have it for the next challenge we might face from the curse – together, as he always reminds me.

"What?" Silviu asks with a devilish smile.

"Nothing," I smirk, knowing full well he knows exactly what I was thinking about. Maybe he'll get lucky with some reciprocal tent-action later on; he will if I give in to his pleadings for it. And, how can I possibly resist?

We enter a grove where the groundcover suddenly diminishes to nothing, only trees. As we move on a few paces, I can barely believe my eyes, for the forest here is populated with upside down question marks. The trees have no lower branches, and as soon as their trunks exit the ground, they form a broadly sweeping curve before gradually angling back up and growing straight at the top. I have never seen anything like this…oh, wait. I have actually seen these trees before in one of my visions…oh, fuck. Now goose bumps raise an eerie chill all over my flesh as I remember I 'was here' when the werewolves were chasing me. This was in the episode I had right before Cezar and Dida molested me in their Bucharest apartment. I helplessly glance around to the right and left. My pace quickens to catch up with Silviu.

"You all right, babe?"

All I can do is shake my head.

His arm comes out and we walk on through this grove in bodily contact, which works, because even though I note that all the trees are growing curved in the exact direction, I do not freak out.

"Sil, why do you think they are all growing away from the same thing?"

"Look, Em." He points ahead of us. "Up there is the circle clearing. The trees seem to bend in reaction to some energy radiating out from its centre. See? All the trees are deformed in a radius with its center being the clearing."

"Fuck, Silviu. This is scary shit."

He kisses my forehead. "Yes, I cannot lie. This is about the most infamous paranormal place in the world."

We have to separate again, as the trail narrows back down to a meandering path through the woods. I let my fiancé lead again, as he has the GPS on his phone and guiding him. We travel on for a few minutes in silence, and I resist the urge to glance off into the dark heart of the forest around me in case I actually 'see' something there watching me. But then again, I hardly need to look to acknowledge that something is doing just that to Silviu and me.

All at once, my sense of hearing, or my sense of touch – I cannot really say which one – picks up something.

It is accompanied by an harmonic dissonance, and a grating feeling that I do not belong anywhere around here.

As I am struggling to put these discordant elements together, Sil ducks below a thick bower of branches, and disappears from my sight.

I follow him, bowing my head and momentarily seeing only leaves and other forest-floor litter. And then I come out onto grass.

Breaking through 'the circle's' outer cell wall is unnerving. The almost imperceptible build-up of pressure for the last few metres before entering the space with lowered and reverent head is suddenly burst like a soap bubble.

My eyes glance up and around.

A grassy meadow is in every direction.

Silviu advances towards the circle's heart, and I follow trying to swallow down my trepidation.

There is not a thing but grass growing in this clearing, and yet old-growth trees step right up to the edge and halt as if stopped by an unseen boundary. What's more, even from ground level, the perfect symmetry of this one hundred metre oculus is entirely evident.

The radius of the defining circle is broad, gentle and precise. It's almost as if the hand of man and not nature had protracted it.

But being within the circle feels comfortable in its way, an odd experience, I know, but it's almost like breathing in a pressurized environment that you know a too hasty withdrawal from will give you something like the bends. I suddenly have that image before my eyes – the one where I was inundated with water, but was still able to breathe it for life. Weird…

Silviu gets to and stops in the precise centre. He rotates with hands on his hips to find me.

"Well," he says. "This is it."

I come up to him, admitting, "Yes – I know you're right now. This place is key to this whole mess, but what can we do about it? Sit here, like sitting ducks, and wait?"

"Yes, Emeric." He puts his hands on my shoulders and shows me a great deal of the whites of his eyes. "That's exactly what we'll do. Now, let's set up camp and wait until dark. I'm afraid that's all we can do for the moment."

"You don’t mean, camp in the circle?"

He removes his hands, stands up tall and purses his lips. "Why not?"

"I don’t' know…" I look around with trepidation. "It seems the woods have eyes."

Silviu chuckles. "And oh, did I happen to mention the sightings of strange beasts in this forest?"

"No," I say, getting playfully annoyed. "I suppose that slipped your pretty little Romani mind, huh?"

He kisses me briefly. The smacking sound his peck makes on my lips lingers in my ears as I tell him bluntly, "I wouldn't be surprised to see any kind of creature around here."

"So, it's settled then? We'll strike camp in the circle?"

I sigh. "Yes. Okay, but not here. Let's move out of the centre. It's…'highly strange' in here."

"I know what you mean," confirms Sil. "It's almost as if my ears want to pop."

"Yes! Exactly."

"Like…like," he stammers, trying to think of the perfect analogy. "We're on an airplane that's taking off."

"Or," I add slowly. "Like one that's about to crash."

˚˚˚˚˚

It's mid-afternoon, and we’ve set up our tent and arranged some stones to hold a campfire.

Silviu must be good at camping, because he took total charge of everything; he instructed and I followed orders, or assisted him in getting the tent upright and staked down.

Now we're inside, having left our shoes by the zip-flap door, and making the place cozy. Sil undoes one sleeping bag and spreads it flat like a mattress. He has me unzip the second one and then he lays it on top of the first saying it's "our quilt."

He stretches out on top of it to arrange our camp pillows, then turns to me with a warm smile. He opens his arms. "Come on, baby," he says in hushed tones. "Let's rest."

He doesn't have to ask me twice. I kneel down, and then get lovingly pulled down. Now we're lying fully clothed, arm-in-arm, and leg-in-leg.

Silviu strokes my cheek. "We should take a nap until after dark. Nothing will happen until late, so we need to be rested."

"Silviu, I'm scared."

He kisses me and tries to drive some confidence into me with it.

"I know. I think tonight might be hell, but I have a feeling we can drive this thing to a head. I have a feeling 'it' hates the thought of us having come straight into the heart of its powerbase. It's like we are irritating it – "

"You can't protect me till the end, Silviu."

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, this is my curse, and if I cannot succeed in getting rid of it, I don’t want you to throw yourself away on it too."

"Don’t make me sad, baby."

"I just – "

"You just mean that I should go on and forget you, if things don’t turn out well. Is that what you mean?"

I hug him. I savour his all-too exotic and intoxication body scent. "I'm saying Silviu, this thing ends with me – if it comes to that." I kiss the nape of his neck.

"I'm here to protect you." He rocks me in his strong arms a little bit. "I'm afraid a decision like that is not entirely up to you anymore."

I chuckle and push back a little to hold his gaze. "Oh, it's not, is it?"

"Nope."

"Then who's it up to?"

Inexplicably, Sil rises to his knees before me. His eyes drift downwards a brief moment before reestablishing intimate contact with mine; now they look sad and determined that I should understand something profound. His fingers extract my belt flap and undo the buckle.

"Our future kids, babe." He opens my copper rivet button at the waist and unzips me. With one smooth movement, he has me lift my lower back and pulls my jeans off. He latches onto my socks and draws them off one by one. When his blue soul-searchers re-find mine, his tells me sincerely, "You'll be a fantastic father, and they won't let anything happen to you – or to me, for that matter."

He comes up to lift my tee-shirt. I let him, but pull his off immediately afterwards, coming in close to his sweet-spicy flesh to unfasten his belt and button fly, and lower his jeans. As I pull them from his legs, and guide off his ankle socks, I croon to my man, "Okay, let’s rest some."

Silviu stretches out flat, and extends his left arm fully. God, how sexy he is in nothing but his red briefs…I snuggle down to rest my ear over the sound of his heartbeat. My hand wraps around his chest, and my naked legs wrap around his thighs.

Our skin is in nearly full contact, and I feel at peace.

He strokes my hair, and speaks to me softly, reassuringly. "Do you know what love is like, Emeric?"

I slightly shake my head against his body.

"Love is like the gift."

"How so?"

"It's not me saying that, mind you, but some very wise and respected old queen. He said – "

"You have to tell me who you're talking about, stud – not RuPaul..?" My hand finds and plays with the gold coin and chain on his chest.

"No, hun, it was Plato. He said both love and insight are given by the Divine; both have their own initiated rationale that outsiders cannot understand. Vision equals love, he says. Love equals vision – both are just aspects of the Divine."

"My God, you are smart, Silviu."

He hugs me so hard, my back pops in a couple of wonderful-feeling locales. He says, "I've never had anyone who'd listen to me like you do, Emeric. You hear what I say and do not try to mask your questions with 'That's dumb,' or 'Shut up, already.' No, you just take it in as something you may be able use one day. Do you know how wonderful that makes me feel?!"

I rub his coin, and nestle in deeper to his scent. His heartbeat is making me all warm and dreamy.

"Anyone who would tell you to 'Shut up' is just insecure, like you said."

"I love you, Emeric," he whispers, and then adds softly. "Through love of you, I am more closely connected to all other things."

"You believe that?'"

"With all my heart, and I know you want to believe it too, so someday soon, you will."

The presence of Silviu's wonderful scent overwhelms me as I slide into the crook of his arm. He hugs me; he kisses my injured forehead.

"I understand now why your scent meant so much right from the beginning, big guy." My hand draws up to link fingers with my partner, and he pulls them into a position over my heart. "It must have been my gift telling me the first time I saw you that this man's smell was totally important to my future; to my happiness."

"Oh, yeah..?"

"Yes, baby. I think it was like you said, between the empathic and divine, there is a secret dialogue going on all the time. It was telling me right then and there, 'You will love this man. You will love him for as long as you shall live.'"

I hear my baby's breath drifting closer to sleep; I'm not even sure he heard what I said, but I know he understands it perfectly.

"Let's sleep, Silviu." I'm nearly drifting off too.

His warmth and fragrance cuddles me into him tighter. And all at once I figure out what it's like. He smells like mellow clove cigarettes and, and…like rose petals.

"Ok, baby…sleep..." he mutters, but even before he can finish this, my eyes close and an inky blackness begins to overtake me.

Through my skin, or through my ears, I know not which, a pulsing sensation imposes itself under the comforting sound of Sil's heartbeat – I force it out and listen only to my man.

˚˚˚˚˚

I think I'm asleep…but…I cannot be completely…entirely…sure of that.

I am alone in a darkened space. Overhead, lightning peels with an almost instantaneous crack. The four high walls of a courtyard dance in slow shadow before fading gradually back to black.

A woman's face flashes before me. It's 'the woman' from my earlier encounter. In the back of my head a word fight to get through to me…up to my conscious level of being able to form words at all. Slowly, sound-by-sound, I remember I have a name for this lady now. I whisper it and my voice sounds hoarse and far away – Gre-tza.

I cannot see her body against the inky-black background; I cannot see if she is sitting, or standing like in her portrait; I cannot see her hands or limbs, but her eyes are clear.

As if she has heard me uttering her cursed name, her sight wanders to me. Those eyes of hers are hideous, for they are only partially open and appear in agony.

My vision falters slightly, and when it refocuses I can suddenly see the top neckline of a diaphanous gown. It is peach-coloured.

She peers at me, and it is with searing hatred.

As she opens her mouth to speak, some blood coughs up as black as vomit.

It courses down her chin, and like gore dribbling down the legs of a butcher's table, it inches along her chin, jaw line, neck and throat. It begins to stain the rich silk of her garment.

A strain of conscious thought reaches me: 'vision,' it says before it goes away and leaves me feeling cold and very, very alone.