Carpathian 23 - Dark Storm

her from carrying out the
     centuries-old ritual. Riley couldn’t tell why, or what was in the mountain. She could
     only discern that it was desperate to get out, to survive, and it would use any means
     available to do so—including killing her mother.
    So this was why her mother was so in tune with plants. She felt them, was connected
     to them, and not in some small way. Riley had never felt that connection before, and
     it occurred to her that some form of awareness and power was being transferred to
     her. That possibility only alarmed her all the more. Was her mother inadvertently
     doing something in her sleep to pass her knowledge on to her daughter, as she’d said
     each generation of their ancestors did before their deaths?
    “What is she doing?” Jubal asked, curiosity in his voice. Curiosity and something
     else. Recognition, maybe?
    Riley actually started, so caught up and absorbed by the myriad plants around her
     and the feeling of being almost transformed, mesmerized by the existence of such intense
     life all around her that she’d nearly forgotten there were witnesses to the ritual
     movements her mother performed up on the mountain. Both Jubal and Gary looked at her
     with far too much knowledge.
    Riley shrugged, reluctant to explain her mother to anyone, although she felt as if
     the two men had earned an explanation—she just didn’t have an adequate one.
    “Have you seen these movements before?” Jubal asked. “The way she’s moving her hands
     is almost ritualistic.”
    “Yes.” Riley had been as honest as possible and felt they had been as well. Both were
     skirting around each other, reluctant to say something they couldn’t take back.
    “I’ve seen similar gestures in the Carpathian Mountains,” Jubal admitted. “When we’ve
     worked in the remote parts of the mountains. Has your mother been there before? Does
     she have any ties to Romania or any of the countries the range goes through?”
    Riley shook her head adamantly. “We’ve traveled to Europe once, but nowhere near the
     Carpathian Mountains. We mostly stay in South America. Mom’s come here many times.
     Most of the women in my family were born here, my mother included. We’re descendents
     of both the Cloud People as well as the Incas so my family has always had a huge interest
     in this part of the world. My mother was raised here and only went to the States when
     she met and married my father. He was from there.”
    “Are you adopted?” Jubal asked. “You don’t look anything like your mother.”
    Riley pressed her lips together. She’d heard that all of her life. She was tall and
     curvy with translucent skin and large, very different oval eyes. Her hair was as straight
     as a board and as black as midnight. Her mother was slender, of medium height, with
     wonderful olive skin and curly hair.
    “I’m not adopted. I look like one of my great-great-grandmothers. She was taller with
     dark hair, at least if the drawings of her can be believed. Mom showed them to me
     once when I was all upset because I towered over everyone in middle school.”
    She was talking too fast, too much, as she sometimes did when she was upset. They
     were asking a lot of personal questions. What did it matter if she didn’t look like
     her mother? Why were they so interested? She just wanted to grab her mother and make
     a run for it. If not for the fact that the forest itself seemed intent on attacking
     them, she might have done just that. Her mother had an amazing sense of direction
     when it came to the mountain. Twice when they’d made the journey and the guides were
     lost, it had been her mother who had found the way.
    But now, with Annabel sick and the attacks on her growing more violent, Riley didn’t
     dare separate from the group. Jubal and Gary offered a level of protection she couldn’t
     afford to dismiss.
    “Thank you both so much for your help. I have to get some sleep tonight. I don’t know
     why the forest has gone silent, but I don’t feel any immediate threat. I don’t want
     my mother to know about this right away. I want to tell her myself and see if she
     has any ideas why these attacks on her are happening.”
    She needed time alone with her mother, and that was nearly impossible surrounded as
     they were by the various travelers. The guides and porters regarded them with suspicion
     now, and that would make privacy even more difficult.
    “Go ahead and sleep,” Gary said. “We’ll keep