Chapter 39: THE SILENT ONES
by khammer
Voiceover: Eliot Stokes
"Tradition has it that the dead have no voice, no ability to protest or praise
the matters of the living. For this reason the ancient Greeks called them, "the
silent ones" and Silenus, or Seilenus, the old Nature God, was their guardian
and protector. From this elderly satyr came the ability of the dead to
prophecy...and the craving to indulge in the desires of the living world.
"Such facts never fail to conjure a small feeling of dread inside me. My
personal experience has proven that the dead *can* speak, if the cause is great
enough. And while I am not afraid of the dead, the circumstances that cause
them to batter through the barrier between Life and Death can be cataclysmic.
For in order to speak freely, most ghosts need a feast of blood (as the example
of THE ODYSSEY) and *any* blood will do."
--from T. E. Stokes' personal diary, 1954
"The twelvemonth and a day being up The dead began to speak: O who sits weeping
on my grave And will not let me sleep?
"Tis I, my love, sits on your grave, And will not let you sleep; For I crave
one kiss of your clay-cold lips And that is all I seek."
--trad. ballad, still sung in Maine
"My love is like a red, red rose..." She could remember no other words, but
that was all right; she could just murmur-sing it over and over again.
Nicholas remained wary as the madwoman hummed under her breath. Waste was
always distasteful to him, and the insane had to be the most wasted of all
individuals. How Dr. Hoffman could make a career out of it...well, he could
admire without the desire to aspire, as the rhyme went.
(At least this hasn't been a *complete* waste.) Nicholas glanced at the empty
Room with the same amount of trust he gave to Jenny (none.) This was a strange
little town, he mused, (and not for the first time). Why was it his life kept
returning to Collinwood, where no one person could be aware of everything
happening?
Jenny's head shot up, eyes round and white, her lips open but stilled. Blair
spun on his heel, alarmed, saw nothing--but then FELT the shock of the force
that rippled down the deserted hall as harsh and unstoppable as a wave crashing
upon a rocky shore. He flinched; his gloved hands flew up and a calm
surrounded him, protecting as the force rattled and rustled around his
inviolate self.
(Greed)
The thing stank of it; stank of a hunger to slake its desires on such a level
that Nicholas Blair, who considered himself above common desires, was
overwhelmed.
(Kill/hunger)
Killing for its own sake. That, too, was alien to a man who did nothing
without two purposes to back up his every move.
(Blood/gorged)
Fresh and dripping death was the source of the stench. And the source of its--
--(power)
Like the hunger to kill--the lust existed for its own sake and questioned no
further.
(Hate)
Mindless emotion that fueled all other impressions that whirled past the
warlock like a filthy whirlwind.
(Madness)
*That* at least, he was familiar with. The strength of this entity depended on
the power of its own mind--it never conceded to failure, could not imagine it.
Therefore its force of will was unfathomable. Nicholas was impressed in an
analytical, detached way; but the thing was very dangerous and he could not
afford to let his mind wander, not any emotions to dominate.
"My love is like a red, red rose..." Jenny stumbled, her soft lips parted, and
stayed open. As Blair watched, a horror of awareness dawned over her
consciousness.
"Like a red, red..." Jenny whispered, then the madwoman was fading away as the
rank wind tossed about her clothing--he saw how it stroked at her skirts
suggestively--replacing itself with a sharper mind and will.
"Red...red..." She blinked.
She smiled.
"Red is my blood," she sang. “Red is my heart. Lucky in love Never keep us apart."
Blair had no time to wonder why she had suddenly started to sing a Gypsy love
charm. She was straightening, her magnificent body erect and proud. Her eyes
gleamed; color blushed her cheeks.
"Yes, yes..." she sang. "Lucky in love..." Her green dress swished around her
long legs. "Yes, I know...yes...him...yes..."
Silver scissors slipped from the deep folds of her sleeve and fell into her
palm; her fingers curled comfortably around the handles and she was running,
running down the hall. Blair could hear her laughing as the eldritch force
whirled her red hair back. He understood that whoever this "him" was, would not
likely profit when she found him.
She wasn't the only one laughing. To Blair's otherwordly eyes, the wind was
coalescing, gathering form and substance but whatever it was it was not quite
complete. Muddy smoke gathered to a shape and size of a big man, and large
gleaming disks hung in the place of eye sockets.
{SO YOU CAN SEE ME CAN YOU BOY}
Blair grimaced in open distaste. He didn't see himself as a "boy" nor was he
impressed at the crude battering of this mental voice.
"Not a difficult task." His lip curled under his dark mustache. "And who
might you be?"
{AS IF YOU DIDN'T KNOW? I'M SHOCKED AT YOU, EVAN. YOU USED TO BE A BETTER LIAR THAN THAT. BETTER BY FAR.}
Evan? Blair's mind prickled warningly "Humor me then, whoever you are." Oh, but
he *hated* stalling for time, but something was nagging at his mind, demanding
attention when he needed all of it on this spectral mass. "What are you
called?" He asked coolly enough. There wasn't *enough* information here--the
thing had some kind of control over the Gypsy woman--
--had to be a Gypsy; outsiders didn't sing Gypsy songs--who was this then?
{DON'T MOCK ME DEAR BOY I KNOW YOU--THE SMELL OF BLACK MAGIC HANGS UPON YOU LIKE OLD LINT!} Ruddy rage gleamed behind the floating white disks. Eyeglasses, Blair intuited. {STILL SELLING YOUR PALTRY SELF TO DEVILS IN EXCHANGE FOR POWER--STILL BEING THE LAZY MAN.} Dripping contempt sank into the entity. Whoever it thought Blair was, he was obviously a slug beneath his notice.
{ONLY THE SHEEP SELL THEMSELVES FOR POWER--AND SPEAKING OF, SACRIFICED ANY BLACK LAMBS LATELY?}
Nicholas' father had sold him to his Master when an infant; ergo, he didn't
think the accusations had anything to do with him. He treated the scathing
words with the scornful laugh they deserved.
"Oh, my, we have ourselves a magical Deist, don't we." Now that he knew what
kind of ability he was up against, he lowered his hands and let his protections
die down. He laughed again. "Whoever you are..."
{YOU MOCK ME, BOY? YOU PATHETIC DABBLER?}
The wave lifted; it crashed downward. The force threatened Blair's formidable
willpower and he staggered back, a shine of sweat on his olive face.
The spirit laughed, full of power. {YOU CANNOT DEFEAT ONE WHO HAS RECENTLY FED UPON HUMAN BLOOD!}
Blair snarled. "Not only mad, but a fool in the bargain." His right hand
lifted, fingers expanding outward. "Hear me, you foul and stubborn spirit I
abjure the watchful shades to her my plea!" His blood hummed as the current of
power that slept inside him woke up and faced the challenge.
The voice roared over the last rumble of the dying storm outside. {WHAT PALTRY
GOD WOULD YOU INVOKE AGANIST ME?}
Nicholas' teeth gleamed white and wide in the dark. "I invoke a power you
cannot deny. I call ALAKO!"
As he spoke the Name, his own power rushed in, focused tight and controlled,
the difference between the two forces like a stone thrown through a coil of
smoke. And it howled, a sound that was not the least human, and a frail old
window, boarded up and paper-thin form age, broke as easily as ice in spring.
Moonlight flooded in, moonlight RACED in, sterling over the world. It bathed
Blair, rendering him from dark to stark white and bottomless shadow. It filled
every crack and corner of the dusty hallway, and sliced open the murky smoke.
It rolled, like clenching intestines. It rolled in anger.
"Alako knows you're here" Blair laughed; sweat shone on his swarthy skin,
exuberance filled his voice. "And wherever Alako shines, you must hide. Run
from the God of the Gypsies! Run from the Moon!"
He was deeply disappointed when it made no sharp response to his taunt but
fled, swift as a leaf on a high wind. Blair found himself standing alone in
the moonlight.
Exhilarated, the warlock wiped his face with a grin, and pocketed his
handkerchief. There was something uniquely satisfying about squashing puffed-up
bullies, he thought. He had been mostly guessing about the use of Alako; but
the Romany world was small and it did please him to use his intuition in bad
straits. Then a dark thought flitted over his mind; a mystery, a clue to haunt
him.
Human blood...
That could mean only one thing with a ghost so greedy. There had been a
killing and that could bring about some very unwanted attention. He made a
thoughtful sound to himself, and tugged on the end of his gloves--a nervous
habit he would repress if he knew it existed.
The warlock was a moment gathering his composure. (How often must I clean up
other people's messes?) He closed his eyes, his mind reaching out, exploring...
Dust and cobwebs, contagion and stasis...locked up rooms gone bad from
stagnation. Corruption that lingered in the swirling motes in the beams of
moonlight...
A tendril. The spirit was gone but a trace remained, just as a snail could not
avoid leaving a trail of slime behind it.
A trace of blood-stench, sweet and sickening. Something not quite in the
physical world, but in the less tangible planes as well.
He opened his eyes, but with a slightly unfocused expression, as he followed
the tendril of a retreating foe.
***
Quentin's mood was unbearably sour, even to himself. Damn Eliot for not taking
better care of himself Angrily he reached up, swiping cold leaves away with his
hands as he stalked along the trail. The storm had passed as swiftly as it had
arrived, which was the least it could do, seeing as how it wasn't in the
forecast at *all*.
Cold rainwater sprayed his face; he flinched backward and cursed Eliot again.
Of course it never crossed his mind that he was the last person to criticize
the way someone treated their body. That god-damned portrait had taken care of
that. How many nights had he stayed up simply to drink himself crosseyed and
curse his personal devil?
(Eliot, if you die from this...) Collins grimaced. Only once had Eliot Stokes
failed him as a friend in any way; when his daughter Alexis died. And that had
been understandable. Eliot had been in shock for months. He'd come damn near
to burning his books and giving up his studies from the trauma, but his
friends, thank God, had stopped him. His own mortality he'd accepted years ago,
with a grace Quentin envied. But Alexis dying had been an impossibility; the
mountains had tumbled into the sea.
Sadness touched his heart through the myriad layers of his own brooding
consciousness. He'd always thought that Eliot would have been a natural father.
His normal brusqueness masked a large ability to care and a deep desire to
nurture that he usually restrained to his hothouse orchids, the occasional
stray cat and his niece Hallie who was usually in England with her parents.
Alexis had been sensitive and often solemn, able to understand her stepfather
very well. Eliot had dreamed of making her his heir in the occult when he
died. Only Alexis had been the one to die, and Eliot was left doubly bereft,
without wife or child or hope of the future of his studies.
(Yeah, I know how *that* feels...) He considered bitterly. (Jenny dead, my son
dead, my daughter never knew who her real father was unless maybe Magda told
her. She never would answer me straight on that...just told me to hush up and
pay attention to the Romani lessons...)
His memory grudgingly conjured up the memory of his sister in law; Magda
deciding to teach him about what it was to be a Gypsy, showing him the patrin,
the kriptas, the languages of the woods and tongues. She ignored his protests
and outright refusals; she would simply refuse to leave until some knowledge
had soaked into his thick head. Even traveling around the world hadn't given
him any respite from the lessons. It was impossible to keep a secret from a
Gypsy.
It had been fun, looking back. When they parted in Egypt it had been with
sorrow because it was one more thread of his life snapping free. Magda had
brushed her skirts with a grin and said good bye with the first words she had
taught him.
(Can you rocker Romani? Can you fake a bosch?)
"Can you speak the Romani?" Collins found himself half-singing his memories as
he strode toward Collinwood. His awful visit with Eliot was fading; memories
of the irrepressible Magda did that. "Can you tell a fortune?" Nothing like her
sister, Jenny. Jenny had been as unlike a Rom as Magda had been hyperRom.
Nothing Romani for Jenny. No words, no clothing...she never even sang anything
that would suggest her blood, and that was especially strict considering how
much Jenny had loved music. She had always wanted to sing, to dance, to feel the
life whirl by her skin...that song she had always sang...he was her love like
the red, red rose...
"My love is like a red, red rose..."
Quentin's heart froze. Moonlight bathed the stunning vision of his green-clad
wife with her flowing red hair. She was smiling at him.
"Jenny..." He stopped breathing. He slashed through a briar and rushed to her.
"Jenny!"
** ** **
Maggie.
Its mad voice rocked his ears: "You cannot defeat one who has recently fed upon
human blood!"
Maggie's blood.
For a shred of time, Blair was struck with shock. He knew it was Maggie only
because he knew her so well. He knew her body...and that body was now nothing
more than a slag of red meat and smashed brain.
Blair forced his emotions to die down before they could form. It crossed him
that he should have made certain that shade was truly finished before leaving
him.
Calm.
His hands were steady as iron. He pulled off his coat slowly and began to wrap
what was left of Maggie Evans in it. Her killer would have to wait. He had a
great deal of work to do tonight.
A *great* deal of work.
** ** **
"Quentin!" Jenny Romano's large eyes gleamed with unshed tears. "Oh, Quentin!
It’s been so long! Where are we?"
Quentin gripped her hand inside his two, pain acid-etching over his face. He
thought nothing of how different she seemed; she had been mad for so long, and
that madness had been his fault. "Please, can you forgive me?" His voice
shook. Even if she forgave him, now, would she forget she had when she went
insane again?
"Sorry?" she repeated, surprised. "Quentin? Where are we?"
"Collinwood." He prompted gently. "We're still at Collinwood. Jenny, listen
to me. I'm sorry for everything that's happened between us--"
"Quentin?" Her voice trembled. "What's happened? Where are we?" A fat tear
streaked down her cheek. "My babies? Where are my babies?"
His heart sank. She was mad again, he thought. He'd only thought she was
momentarily sane. God, he'd been willing to SWEAR she had been the old Jenny
just a second ago--
"Jenny!" Magda Rakosi stood before her sister, raven hair flying under an
intangible wind. "Jenny Romano! Mi tikni!"
Jenny whirled, her wide violet eyes expanding until the color collapsed into
twin black holes.
"Ach!" she screamed. "Magda, stay back! Chovani! WITCH! Back!"
Magda stood sadly, shaking her head from side to side. Silver ran down the
dark vines of henna painted on her cheeks. "Jellin' cross the pani, jellin'
down the drom..."
Jenny recoiled. Gleaming lightning flashed in her had. Once again, Collins
was stupefied that these could be sisters. One small, stern, wiry and clever,
the other fifteen years younger, flower-fair, soft, emotional,
dreaming...insane.
Something cunning twisted over Jenny's alabaster features then; her red lips
parted like wet rose petals.
"Av kitane mansa?" she purred. (Will you away with me?)
Magda did not retreat from that sly invitation, but her eyes narrowed to sharp
slits. Her left hand--her hand of Power--came up, and a six-sides star looked
back from her palm in henna.
"Velling home to find you, as you move along..."
Jenny screamed again and changed her tactic; she whirled away from Magda as if
bitten by a viper. Her white hand stretched out, beckoning to him and her eyes
were luminous blue again.
Blue...
He stared into those blue depths.
"Opre the rooker, adre the vesh..." Jenny's voice was silk rubbing against his
soul, the finest opium upon the sorest pain he ever possessed. She smiled
softly, gently, her hand was gesturing to come and take it, please, please, "Si
chiriklo ta chiriklli...tele' the rook, adre the vesh, Si piramno ta
piramni..!"
And fire licked out between them, blue, not the blue of Jenny's eyes but the
blue of the white-hot summer sky. The blue of the paint Magda wore between her
own eyes against the fascinato. The smell of the desert filled his nose
against the damp cold of Maine: the desert, the myrrh trees heavy with resin,
yellow fennel flowers and the hum of black bees...
Jenny whirled back upon Magda and her husband staggered away, cold at the shock
of his narrow escapee. All his gaze had been upon Jenny's trusting,
outstretched hand...
...never noticing that the other hand held scissors aloft for his heart.
Magda's patience was done. The smaller woman had swelled in power. And *she*
had not finished casting her own spell.
"Return, return mi tikni, Return, come home to me. Sutti no more along the drom
And we will happy be."
A wail escaped Jenny, a cry of a thwarted child, but the calling spell was
finished. Collins scrambled back until his back hit a tree, chest heaving as
his wife stamped small feet, thrashed the air and clawed with talons.
"Hurry, Quentin!" Magda's haggard eyes would haunt him as much as the
emptiness of Jenny's. "You runnin' out of time! Sutti no more!"
She grabbed; Jenny squawked, shredding his ears with her fury, and the ghost was
gone with her living sister. He was left alone, standing and shivering in the
damp grass of the deserted meadow.
** ** **
Deep in *her* room, what appeared to be Carolyn Stoddard sighed with rotten
regret and tapped the smooth glass over Roger Collins' portrait.
"Why couldn't you have waited?" she asked petulantly. "It's not fair." To what
was left of her mind, Roger had been exceedingly selfish to survive her knife,
only to fall off the cliff into the sea. It was a death, yes, but not *her*
death.
She pouted. (The sister. The son. *then* the others...)
But, even rawer than her disappointment was the frustration that seethed inside
her at the knowledge that the loup garou was still untouchable. Chris, so
handsome, had never looked moreso when lying helpless, his face white
with moonlight, vulnerable to her blade.
"Later," she whispered, promising herself. "Later, later, later...the sister,
the son...*then* the others..."
** ** ** **
Not far away, not far away at all, Julia Hoffman was walking out of the West
Wing. The main entrance shut after her with a soft click that echoed before
her into the living rooms and halls. She stopped, as if treasuring the
silence, and looked around with a peaceful, almost-smile on her tired face.
Her hand reached up absently, and rubbed on her left index, as if a ring was
there.
*** *** *** **
Liz Stoddard slept deep under alcohol. She would sleep for a very long time,
without dreams. She never dreamed. Dreams were nightmares, and she only had
them when she was awake.
*** *** *** ***
The basement was dry, well-built and smelled of the sharp, acidic soil the
House by the Sea had been built upon. Blair found it pleasant. Spiders crept
on their hunting paths and scuttled away from the light of the thirteen black
candles he lit from a brass burner. One, then two, then three, then four...one
tiny pool of light burst forth, followed by a chain on its brothers.
Each jewel of light added to the illumination of the wreck that had been a
human being on the stone table in the center.
Widdershins the lighting went; against the Sun, against the One. Black as the
candles, his eyes reflected yellow candlelight.
The last taper linked its flame with the rest; he was enclosed in the brooding
light, he and she.
"Maggie Evans," he murmured, and his voice was soft, softer than a cat's purr.
"I will find who did this to you. Only then can I restore you..."
***
Collinwood, Barnabas thought, was always improved by a storm. It sounded
strange, but it was true. After the violence and harshness of thunder and rain,
the day after was always...well, relaxed feeling, much as a powerful man might
feel after venting his temper out with screaming.
"Still no David?"
Barnabas was indescribably happy to hear Julia's quiet voice behind him. He
felt completely, internally, at odds with his peaceful surroundings, and was
ready to stop musing about it.
"No." He sighed without turning around. "I found him."
She drew closer to him in a whisper of cloth and sandalwood. "Were you able to
talk to him?"
"Yes,” he breathed. That was one way of describing his meeting with the boy.
When had David become so old? He appeared to be just a child...until you
looked into his eyes. When he turned around, the doctor was leaning against
the newel-post as if very tired, rubbing her left hand as if it pained her.
She glanced up and managed a tiny smile at his gaze.
"Julia, let us leave this place for a while."
"You'll get no complaint from me." Julia dropped her hand and reached for her
coat.
"Where have you been?" Barnabas opened the door for her, leaning on his cane
and biding her to emerge first.
"I was looking for Carolyn," Julia answered calmly. A faint smile drifted over
her face, easing the haunted look that was her companion. "I thought she was
in the house but if she was, *I* never saw her." An exasperated sound escaped
form her chest. "That house is far too large"
Barnabas found her complain amusing. "My family has rarely dreamed with small
designs."
"I believe that." Julia rested her hands inside her coat pocket and waited at
the garden fork for him to catch up. Her expression was mixed, revealing her
feelings. "I'm glad that you were able to talk to him. He needed some good
advice."
"And you felt you could not give it?" His eyes were shrewd.
Julia looked down, coloring. Her insistence that he be the one to speak to
David must have gotten his attention. Could she tell Barnabas? Not speaking
had become such a habit to her, even her trusted friends didn't know about
Raymond...most especially, Raymond's death.
And why? Because there was never a *good* way to react to that kind of news.
Shock that a promising young man had taken his life, but pity surfaced when
they learned she had been the one to find him, her own brother. She had cut him
down and waited by his body for the police. And of course the inevitable "why
had he done it?" Julia's mother had once said, curtly: "Because he was the
daughter I never had." A cutting comment, words sharper than a scalpel, but
there had been truth in the slice. Julia's early on independence had
frustrated her mother and Raymond had perpetually smoothed things between
them.
"It was hard to talk to Chris," she admitted. "I never...exactly know how to
reach out to people who aren't certain how to see me." She managed a colorless
laugh. "I'm always aware of my function as a doctor. I just can't decide to
be a friendly professional or a friend."
"I can understand." Barnabas obeyed a compulsion he did not understand as he
offered his arm. It was more than a courtly gesture and she rested her hand
there with mild relief. "I confess, I am unable to understand the censure of
people like Chris."
"Oh?" Very carefully, Julia studied the grass at her feet. "I didn't know your
generation was taught to be very accepting of things."
"Yes, but we *were* a coastal family." Barnabas sounded as if that meant
something. At her blank expression he elucidated. "The sea was a favorite
refuge for Williamites."
Julia had to mentally go backward, to a vague memory of a flaming-effete Prince
William of Wales that had set an example, and his name to men that enjoyed men.
Poor Chris was hardly the type to rouge his cheeks and powder a wig (thank god
for that). If anything, he was concerned with showing his masculinity with
props such as skull rings, woodsman's shirts, and three-hundred-dollar work
boots.
"Mmmn," she commented. "That's a rare phrase nowadays, Barnabas. Someone of
your alleged generation would refer to "the third sex" or somesuch."
"I'll remember," Barnabas promised.
"But I'm not sure what you mean by "being a coastal family."
Barnabas managed to weave with few words a picture of that sub-culture of his
experience. The coast had always been an outpost against the fringes of
society, and sea law could be less censuring than the laws of the land albeit
punishment could be harsher. If a man had the discipline to bear that harsh
rule aboard a ship, they would be accepted in all ways.
Julia nodded to what she had to admit was an informative lecture, without
saying anything. Her brother was a painful subject, and he had the good grace
to sense she was laboring under something difficult without prying.
Raymond...She rubbed at her hand absently, and toyed with a ring that was not
there.
"I have to confess," he lifted his cane and gently pushed aside a branch the
storm had half-knocked before them. "It was not the most fruitful discussion
I've ever had with David." He sighed, returning to the initial topic. "I didn't
think he was paying attention to me all that well. I think his mind was far
away."
"That's odd." Julia frowned. "When he ran by us after seeing Chris and Joe,
you'd have thought the world had fallen around his ears."
"I thought the same." Barnabas scowled. "But he didn't...seem
to...well...*care* anymore. That he had more important things in his life to
worry about."
"Now that's not nor--" Julia's voice rose before it halted. Her step halted
too. Then Barnabas saw.
“Cousin?" he ventured timidly.
Quentin Collins huddled against the stump of a large willow Roger had sawn off
and converted into a sort of Japanse-sen-plant stand that guarded the entrance
to his informal Jeffersonian garden. Blood red reishi mushrooms grew along the
wood, gleaming under their natural lacquer, a shocking contrast against the
supple white birches with black chagas on the other side of the path.
"What's wrong, Quentin?" Julia didn't think anyone could say they were "fine"
or "okay" with that kind of expression on their face.
Quentin's clammy face lifted slowly as he took in the sight of them.
"I've...had an interesting night." He smiled so weakly it alarmed them.
"Maybe you're better sit down?" Julia murmured.
"Sounds...good...yeah, sitting down does sound good." Slightly exaggerated, but
his case of nerves was real enough.
"What's happening with you?" Julia reached for his wrist as she spoke, her
fingers sliding against his pulse.
"Oh..." Quentin shrugged wildly; he needed a shave, and badly. "You know how
it is. Sister in law comes back from the dead to save you from your mad, still
living wife with homicidal scissors...Gypsy spells and a lot of shouting..."
Hysterical laughter clogged his throat. (Oh, hell, why not?) He wondered, and
let it loose while his two companions stared at him.
*** ***
Julia's office adjoined her bedroom, and her bath was currently occupied by a
very stocky Collins while Barnabas prepared a pot of tea by the fireplace.
Julia shook her head and tried to study the papers before her, aware of her
lacking performance. Why was that? Her forehead creased, trying to seize
strange scraps of memory that were gone almost before she could recognize them.
Walking in the deserted wing, dust and cobwebs. Looking for Roger or Carolyn;
no one was there, and the muted rumble of the storm above the roof. She
thought she could remember lemon drops, but that was absurd. None of the
Collinses indulged in candy of any kind. And Julia would never tolerate them.
She hadn't been able too since Raymond died.
She swallowed hard and wondered if that memory was always going to hurt her.
Probably, she thought angrily. There was no one in her life that would share
her confidence. None. They were all dead or far too involved in their own
personal hells.
(Now *that* is unprofessional of you.) Julia castigated herself but the usual
heat of self blame could not reach her today. She sighed and looked up to
watch Barnabas lifting the heavy cast iron pot from the swinging hook over the
coals.
He was graceful for all his size, at first she had thought it a part of his
curse. There was something unnaturally uncanny about it. But he talked of
walking from beam to beam on his father's ships, and climbing ladder-rope races
with other cabin boys. He was simply gifted and agile and she couldn't stop
looking at him when she could.
He...just...*looked*...good.
And her attraction to him could not be more wrong. Tom was barely cold in the
earth. She was still reeling from his and Angelique's attacks. Then that
inexplicably fainting spell in front of Barnabas. No, no, and no, this was
*not* a good idea. If she was his type, he would have demonstrated it. He
hadn't been shy about fastening his gaze on Vicki.
Again, Julia tried not to feel anger.
(Do something useful. Go find Roger when you can get out of here.)
An occasional splash suggested Quentin was trying very hard to scrub his
memories away with the bathwater. Barnabas passed the bedroom cautiously,
balancing a silver tray in his hands.
"He's a long time in there," he reported to Julia.
Julia glanced up from the small paper sea surrounding her desk. "Just as well.
His usual therapy is in a cut-glass decanter." What an actress she was
becoming.
"True." Barnabas set the tea service down and poured. "How do you like yours?"
"Strong." She took the cup and tasted. "Not bad."
"Not bad? This is strong enough!"
"Not in my family." She chuckled. Then that cloud flitted over her eyes again.
Family? More like Hoffman-singular. She was the last one, and you might as
well say her line was dead, because a husband and children were not exactly in
her future.
"He's been in there a long time."
"Something scared the living daylights out of him," Julia said soberly.
"Ahhhh." Quentin breezed in with his hair wet and skin red. "That felt good."
He brazened into the best chair and grabbed a teacup. "Thanks."
"You’re welcome." Barnabas said. It privately amused Julia to see the cousins
were so earnest about burying the hatchet over Vicki. Very Celtic, she thought.
Fighting themselves in peacetime and the world at war.
"So what happened?" Julia leaned her elbows on the foolscap, shaking her head.
"You said Magda grabbed Jenny and they were gone?"
"Jenny was casting a spell of seduction, I suppose is the word. Or
glamour...they call it the fascinato. It would have made me oblivious to
anything but Jenny..." Her husband was carefully picking his way through his
memories. "I almost fell for it, but Magda had been casting a spell of her
own. And Magda's a lot stronger. If I understood my Romani, Magda's was a
binding spell. She made it impossible for Jenny to do anything without her.
So that would put a crimp in her style if she wants to kill me."
"She *does* want to kill you." Barnabas pointed out. "But why is Jenny alive?"
That reasonable query was met with wild shrugging and head-shaking.
"Sutti no more?" Julia scowled. "What does that mean?"
"It means sleep no more. I know very little Romani, but I know some."
"Jenny taught you?"
"MAGDA taught me. Jenny was humiliated at the very thought of being a Gypsy.
She never told me." He stared at his tea.
"Oh." Barnabas glanced at Julia, uncomfortable at witnessing his cousin's dive
into gloom. Julia met his look with a strange impasse.
"I have to go," she said gently.
Barnabas was dismayed. "Must you?"
She held down her irritation. "I promised I'd talk to Roger today. And he
hasn't shown up." Lies like that were easy to come by. They flowed across her
lips. She pushed herself up and reached for her coat. "I'll see you both
later." (Yes I have to go. I can't walk away from this dreadful situation
forever, so I have to settle for taking a break from it.)
"Goodbye."
"Later then, Julia..." Barnabas was sincere in his regret; she
ignored that because it made her feel things she didn't want to. His cousin
was easier to deal with; his blue eyes were comfortably distant.
*** ***
David had nothing left in his mind. Nothing. He was empty, cool and placid
inside. And...it felt good. Feeling hurt, he realized with a detached wonder.
It was an insight, a revelation. Feelings hurt you. And it also hurt other
people. It really was better not to have emotions.
Such knowledge made him very peculiar inside, very...very *adult* he supposed.
Wasn't Aunt Liz and his father and Vicki always telling him not to make such a
fuss about this or that? Not to be so worried? Not to be noisy? Not to show
his feelings? They should be pleased, he considered, and wiped the glass of
his crystal ball on his snow-white handkerchief.
For a moment, a memory whispered, and the boy's small hand flattened over the
pure glass. Then, David silently placed Roger out of his mind.
Forever.
*** ***
Nicholas paced, his movements tight and controlled. His face was smooth but
the energy of his actions were frightening.
Maggie, dead. In his basement. He couldn't leave her in that rotting
hall--nor should he have; the fewer who knew about this the better. He wanted
to find this spirit again, and deal with it accordingly.
Blair's most common complaint against Angelique was her emotions, which
permitted her weakness. A warlock or witch that felt was a useless magician.
Time and again, he had chided, mocked and openly roared at her for letting
herself feel love, hate or sorrow. We deal with forces that have no such
things, he had snarled during one of those times. If we feel, we will be
lost--our focus falters and our enemies devour.
It did not occur to him that he was falling into the trap that held Angelique.
The trap of feelings.
He growled under his breath; He unclasped his hands and clasped them. He
thought.
He would find this spirit again, he promised himself.
Tonight.
*** ****
Quentin tapped his fingernail against his teeth. "Barnabas, may I speak freely
with you?"
Barnabas was automatically alarmed to be asked that. He braced himself for the
worst. "Always."
Quentin risked facing him. "We need to make sure Julia remains safe."
"Not again!" Barnabas groaned out loud. "Isn't that a little...paranoid of
you?"
"I'd like to think that," his cousin answered grimly. "And so would you. But
Petofi likes to take advantage of women, Barnabas. He's confident of his
powers of persuasion, and he's a letch if there ever was one. I'm not just
worried about Julia. I'm worried about Vicki too, and Maggie, and Carolyn and
Liz--even Amy. He's not above using a child. He's not above using anybody.
Julia's tough, but Petofi is an *expert* on overriding people's minds."
"Do you have proof?" Barnabas snapped, then was sorry. His cousin's sad blue
eyes said more than he wanted to see. "I...forgive me, cousin. Angelique is
gone, but we are still...under siege."
"Yes. You're damned right about that. Magda's appeared multiple times now to
warn me of his threat. And if she hadn't been there to interfere with Jenny,
it would have been very, very ugly."
"Sleep no more, though..." Barnabas repeated. "That's vague, cousin.
Could it not mean a number of things?"
The taller man slowly shook his head. "It was Magda's little snap at me when I
wasn't paying attention. I told you, she's warned me before about Petofi
threatening the family. I...you know, I'm beginning to think that wile *I* was
travelling the world in pursuit of occult knowledge, Magda was doing the exact
same thing. She's displaying more power as a mulo--restless spirit--than she
ever did when she was alive. She'd disappear for days, even weeks at a time,
then pop out of nowhere and force some more learning into me, then vanish
again...cursing me was the most intense piece of magic she did while she was
alive. Barnabas, she can do things I've never seen her do before. She caught
Jenny from harming me with just a few words..." He sighed "Well, that's all
besides the point. The fact is, Petofi is out for our blood, and none of us
will be safe."
He stopped talking and jumped as footfalls hammered to the door. It blew open
to find Julia, white as a sheet, her large eyes dark as thunderclouds. Her
lips were as white as her skin and she shook for breath.
"Julia" Both cousins jumped.
"Roger," Julia whispered.
*** ***
There are times when you can ask questions, and times when you don't dare.
Julia's stark white face and wooden lips inspired the latter. Without a word
(but plenty of motion), the Collinses grabbed for their coats and followed her
outside.
Roger's prints were unmistakable in the "sand"--the light yellow, loamy gritty
soil that rested underneath the humus on the estate. He was a big man, bigger
than Barnabas but shorter than Quentin and he was without a doubt the only man
on the estate to wear the broad-toed shoes he did.
Julia stumbled as she led the way, her eyes blurring with burning tears. She
did not cry, but she was swallowing hard, constantly.
At the end of the forest the earth opened in a tiny clearing that edged the end
of the trail: Widow's Hill. Barnabas felt his heart stop as the prints kept
going.
"Oh, no." He heard Quentin pulling in his breath with a harsh dry sound. "Oh,
no...look."
"I see," Barnabas said numbly. Julia leaned her face into her hands.
"No! LOOK!" Quentin grabbed his arm and pointed. Barnabas made no sense in
that direction; then he saw a second pair of prints.
A very small set of prints.
"Oh, God." Quentin swore, or prayed. "David."
"Not David."
But further words dried up in Barnabas' throat.
*** ***
Vicki woke up feeling dreadful; her face was still and clam-hard; the flesh
drawn tight around her bones. She'd not felt that way in a long time, not
since...
Not since the foundling home, when the full horror of her abandonment had let
her to sob herself to sleep.
She mechanically climbed out of bed. She checked her clock and found it still
early. David's lessons wouldn't begin for another hour. She was grateful. She
didn't want the boy to see her like this.
She didn't want *anyone* to see her like this.
Vicki turned the taps on and showered, scrubbing her face raw with soap and
rough washcloths. Her hair soaked up the water and hung dripping coldly down
her bare back, limp as a black rag. She wrapped it in a towel and searched
mindlessly for her hair dryer. She couldn't start her lessons with David
unkempt in any way. Vicki repeated this mantra to herself. It was very
important that she look good. Look professional.
Yes, she was acting without thought. She didn't feel like thinking right now.
Her mirror cast back a barely tolerable reflection: bone-white skin, hollowed
dark eyes and limp, lustre-less black hair. She didn't like what she saw. She
picked her comb up and started pulling it through her scalp.
(Was Mrs. Stoddard...*drunk* last night?)
Vicki (against her will) began thinking again. Liz Stoddard had *not* been
acting the way one would expect. And Vicki had fled, literally *fled* like a
coward, with no spine to her at all...
She sank her teeth into her bottom lip and pulled her comb. She had been
alone, she reminded herself. No one had been there at all. Just she, and Mrs.
Stoddard. She hadn't found Roger, or Quentin, or Barnabas, or David or Julia
or Carolyn. No one had been around that night. Alone and Mrs. Stoddard
acting, well, crazed.
(Drunk). Vicki firmly reminded herself that Liz had been holding the alcohol
close to her chest last night. (She was drunk. And you can't pay attention to
anything someone says when they've been drinking).
(Can't you?)
(Can't you?)
(No, you can't. And...it's not ethical. People say all kinds of things when
they drink. That's why you try not to. Then next day they usually can't
remember, and they're embarrassed and you tell them you can't remember how they
acted but it’s a lie. You just don't want to humiliate them. So you say you've
forgotten when you never did.)
Her floor mother had drank a lot at the Home. Vicki was drawn to the unwelcome
parallel between the sweet-when-sober Mrs. Creighton and Mrs. Stoddard. She
had liked and trusted both women, but Mrs. Creighton when tippling had been a
different kind of animal; one untrustworthy and maudlin.
Vicki sighed out loud, kept pulling her hair out long and straight. Like a
raven's wing, her Home sisters had called it. Beautiful long, silky hair. Her
best feature.
Louise's beautiful hair.
Vicki had endured a great deal in her life; most than most. Her coping skills
lacked the training of a truly seasoned survivor, and so she wasn't aware that
her mind was trying to stop her from coming to certain conclusions.
She put the comb down, hard. She dressed in a simple green dress and scarf
around her throat. A green clasp held back her hair from her face.
Louise's photograph looked back at her from where she propped it on top of her
vanity, dark eyes fathomless as a well. When Vicki looked at her, she could
easily see Liz' resemblance.
Liz, Louise's sister.
(She hired you to help David.) A little voice whispered in her mind. An ugly little
voice. She didn't know where it had come from. (That's what the bourgeois do,
Vicki. They feel some vague obligation to the family woodscolts and they put
them to useful labor.)
(Stop it) Vicki began searching for her shoes. (It's not like that. I chose to
come. I wanted to come here to find out who I was--what I am.)
(You're a Collins. And they'll never let the world know about it)
(Stop it)
Vicki yanked on her shoes, nearly putting them on the wrong feet. Breakfast,
she thought. Breakfast and then David.
A good governess.
And then, perhaps...Liz Stoddard.
*** *****
Julia's hand reached up, searching for a pack of smokes she'd forgotten she no
longer used. She had nerved herself to look over the cliff, but of course there
was nothing. The rocks and surf had swallowed all.
Her teeth chattered when she thought of it. Roger. Strong, stalwart Roger,
the man whose hidden strengths had come out under Cassandra's predations.
There had been a kinship forged between them since last night. And she felt
terrible for not remaining close to him. Terrible and guilty...if she had been
able to stop him...
(This isn't like Raymond; stop it).
"...doesn't tell the whole story." Quentin was saying to Barnabas. She forced
her mind to return to the present (And what a present it was). "The prints
could mean that David only watched Roger fall. It doesn't mean he pushed him."
"Perhaps." Barnabas was far more cautious than his cousin. So was Julia. She
remembered that father and son were not famous for filial piety. "But either
way, David witnessed what happened to his father. He said nothing to me,
Quentin. Nothing at all."
"Shock," Julia offered reluctantly. She couldn't stand it; she reached over and
pulled the soft pack out of Quentin's blazer pocket. "If he *didn't* do it,
then at the least, he saw it. And what if Roger fell off the cliff trying to
save him? I can easily see David sinking into guilty shock and not saying
anything to anybody."
"Why would David push him?" Quentin persisted. He was aware that he wanted to
give Jamison's line every benefit of the doubt. His own guilt talking, he
supposed. "There's no reason."
For what felt like a very long time, no one spoke. For the moment there were
too many possibilities and not enough information. To learn more, they would
have to search. And ask questions. No one wanted to do that.
"This is already out of our control, isn't it?" Quentin tried to speak calmly.
Julia shot him a sharp, un-fooled look.
"We don't know that." Barnabas snapped firmly. "We cannot know that."
"Well then, cousin, how *do* we know?"
"I hate to say this." Julia rubbed at an itch on her left ring finger. "But we
may not know until it's too late."
"Those under Petofi's control aren't going to say so." Barnabas rested the tip
of his cane against a loose stone. His shoulders slumped, and watching him,
Julia was surprised at a wave of sudden loathing. She managed to stifle it
only by looking away from him. Where had that come from? She wondered, but
could only think of how hopeless and...and stupid...her feelings were over him.
So far it had only gotten her in the worst trouble of her life. What else
would happen if she persisted in staying close to him?
"I'm afraid," one of them said. But they were all thinking it.
TO BE CONTINUED ....
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