The indians were screaming in the night.
Crouched between a couple of man-sized boulders around which he had stuffed dried brush and tumbleweeds, Daniel Johnson wished he could chance a quick drink from his waterskin and thought longingly of the lush, green forests on the east coast. The people there were soft and placid and knew nothing about the harshness of life in this arid western wasteland. They moaned about the cold and the winter and having to dry and store food to make it through the long, dark months; let them come out here, Johnson thought with a scowl, where people spend entire lives just making sure their families have water and shelter from the blistering sun. Let them come out here and learn about dying.
Eight feet in front of his hiding place, a young Hopi warrior lay dead, his battered spear fallen from his slack grip. His eyes were full of blood as they stared at the night sky, his spirit gone on to greet whatever great thing he'd been taught to believe waited beyond this world. Thirteen hours earlier Johnson had talked and traded animal pelts with him, and he could still remember the suspicion with which the man, destined to be the next leader of his tribe, regarded the trapper. A lot of that was attributable to the fact that Johnson's eyes kept straying to the group of woman grinding flour off to the side--one young maiden, in particular--but death had come not from Johnson but from a band of Navajo raiders. Their battle cries still filled the village as the men fought their enemies and the thirsty sand soaked up the redskins' blood.
CHAPTER ONE - 1825
Quickly she snicked the flesh at the tip of her right forefinger, not deep, just enough to gain a small, crimson flow. The left hand was harder; she'd always been partial to her left hand and her right fingers didn't want to hold the razor properly. Besides that, the small cut had pained her worse than expected and it was harder doing the second cut when she knew what was coming. But finally it was done and her age-thin blood dripped miserly from both fingertips onto each end of the elongated semi-circle of hair on the table. With both forefingers at the same time, she wrote her name in blood within the curve of the braid, making a double signature that was quite a feat of coordination. Then she wrote his name, the way she'd learned it from folklore books and whispered old women's tales. The instant she spelled out the last letter on the table's surface, she felt the change in the room around her.
Jezebel and her litter must have felt it too, and the cat sat up and hissed nastily while her kits whimpered and tried to burrow underneath their mother's belly, looking for safety rather than suckle. The cat's yellow-flecked eyes reflected the candle's glow with a nightshine all her own.
The old cabin seemed to draw in and around its occupants, holding them nervous prisoners within its walls. The air went cold first, then hot, then cold again--like going in and out of a cook-warmed kitchen on a bitter January day. Abruptly Jezebel went silent, and the only sound was Mae's breathing, each inhalation more like a struggling gasp. Occasionally one of the kittens mewled, but the mother cat ignored the cry, staring at the woman instead.
After a five-minute span that felt like hours, he finally came, to sit across from Mae, silent and dangerous, as he listened to her proposal. In another ten minutes--such a short time!--they reached an agreement and Mae rose from the table, razor in hand. Her soul quailed at what she was about to do, but she was an old woman and her mind was too made up to change now, especially after nearly two decades of planning. He stayed at the table, watching, his long, delicate fingers twining about each other in rapt anticipation. Once he reached a thin finger forward and dipped it into the drops of blood smeared within the circlet of hair on the tabletop, then brought the finger to his lips and slowly licked the blood from it. His tongue was black and overly long.
Mae stepped toward Jezebel, her pulse fluttering. The cat gazed up at her, silent, not bothering to run, as if knowing all along what its purpose in life had been. The old woman bent and picked up the animal with one hand, feeling the feline heart beating strongly beneath the soft, warm fur. She swallowed and pressed Jezebel close as her stomach knotted in on itself. Pet in hand, she turned back to the table and faced her visitor. She desperately wanted to close her eyes, but she needed to see.
In spite of the agony, Jezebel did not scream.
CHAPTER TWO - 1691
"You girl! What say you for thyself?" The man's voice sounded like thunder in her ears, so used to the quiet these past weeks. Rachel winced and fought the disrespectful urge to cover her ears. Her mother was right on the man's heels, followed by a husky man she instantly knew was her husband. Primed for her death, his expression was stunned and happy; her heart warmed a little.
"Please, Reverend Parris, don't shout so! The child is still ill--she just woke a few minutes ago. Can't you see how pale she is?"
"Aye, I can see, all right. I see a chid of the devil, I do! Brought back from the dead, yanked from the Good Lord's embrace by some impish play of Satan!" The preacher was so close Rachel could smell his breath--like burned venison--as he spit the words at her. That and the unwashed smell of his heavy black clothes pressed into her nostrils, try as she might to breathe only through her mouth. Her stomach roiled threateningly.
"Oh no, that's not it at all! Why, it's clear she wasn't dead at all, just heavily sleeping while my own silly panic made me think she was gone for good." Her mother's voice was strong and confident, and Rachel saw a flicker of hesitation gain ground in the reverend's stern eyes. He stared at her, his gaze turning curious.
"Well, perhaps," he said, then bent towards her again. "How do you feel, girl?"
The proper words came automatically. "Not very well, sir."
"Hmph. I should expect not, after being sick all this time. It seems to me that you being alive at all is miracle enough," he glared at her mother, who raised her chin stubbornly, "without you showing a quick recovery to boot." He jammed his hat onto his head. "I'll be going on now, Mary Esty." Rachel's mother held the curtain for him as he stepped through. "But I will be keeping a close eye on this family, I promise. God speed."
CHAPTER THREE - 1943
She woke alone in the dark, face-down on the floor and with dirt in her mouth. The first thing she felt was the pain, like a hundred needles sliding deep within her right side and stomach; the second was heat, searing her skin from behind and singeing the hair on her arms. There was no time to wonder where she was or how she'd gotten here. Instinct sent her hands forward, making them search for something to grab onto. She found a chair and a table and hauled herself to her knees, then managed to lurch upright. In the short span of seconds it had taken her to stand, the darkness had become lit by a fierce red glow.
She was in some kind of tiny room or shack. Fire was spreading rapidly around the walls in her direction and blocking what might have been a door, the flames in a wild race against themselves as they jumped from a mini-inferno that had once been a stuffed chair to a small bed, then onto the side of a rickety wooden chest of drawers. She stumbled, then hissed in fear and rage and pain; she would not die-- again --in this hell-hole and be roasted like a butchered pig! Smoke swirled in heavy clouds around her head and she thudded back onto her knees, cursing the invisible wasps that were bent on torturing her side. Barely detectable off to her left was a small window with no glass--if she could get there before the ravenous fire, she might be able to escape.
Scrambling forward along the dirt floor, she made it to the window and summoned the strength to hoist herself up, feeling the fire licking at her bare feet and ankles, like the flashes that leapt from a campfire. Jesus, she was tired! And hurting, too. Falling rather than climbing over the sill, she landed on the ground, gasping at the new rush of pain and holding her side, her hands finding the area wet and sticky. She rolled on tough, scrubby grass, putting distance between herself and the flames that were busily consuming the small structure. It was night and except for the fire, she could see no other light; above her the trees parted to show sky but the stars were blocked by roiling clouds of smoke even blacker than the night sky. She could hear voices calling out in the woods; dazed, she wondered who they were and if they were calling for her. She wondered who she was.
CHAPTER FOUR - 1585
She struggled up from sleep's seductive grasp, fighting to be free of the tight bedcovers as much as to escape the blackness that sucked at her with promises of unconcerned oblivion. Why, her foggy brain wondered, must I always awake to the sensation of pain? Why can I not open my mind and eyes to a normal morning and nothing more annoying than a missing blanket?
Her throat hurt fiercely; she couldn't prevent herself from groaning aloud and the startlingly loud echo of her own voice made her eyelids fly open. Where was she-- who-- was she? The sense of background was still vague; as always, it would take time--how much she didn't know--to bring enough things to the surface so that she could get her bearings. Struggling into a sitting position, she peered at her surroundings in the pre-dawn light.
Filmy curtains had been draped from thin beams around the bed. Beyond them, stone walls hung with heavy tapestries disappeared into shadows far above her head.
Stone walls?
CHAPTER FIVE -- 1585
Awareness was instantaneous. There was none of the expected pain or any leftover sleepiness pulling at her with heavy, enticing arms, just an overwhelming feeling of disorientation and a slight brush of hunger deep within her belly. While she did not know where she was, she did take a little comfort in the spontaneous realization that she was still Gwendolyn of Báthory.
But the question of her location was more serious. A twist of her head showed nearly everything around her was steeped in a cold blackness that yawned nearly out of sight, yet despite the lack of illumination, Gwendolyn's eyes were able to pick out the closest details around her as she looked for an exit; a narrow rise of rough-hewn stairs at the far end of the cavernous room caught her attention.
She seemed to be lying on some sort of stone bench and Gwendolyn sat up, pulling away the coverings wrapped around her. Had she gone down here to sleep? Why would she do such a ridiculous thing? She couldn't recall and she frowned impatiently-- another mind-taxing empty spot, one more in the thousands apparently fashioned just to infuriate her over the ages. She swung her legs down and shivered as her feet touched the floor; if a servant or one of Christopher's men-at-arms had thought it funny to place Gwendolyn in the castle dungeon while she slept, she'd see how amusing they found fifty lashes of the whip. Worst still would be Christopher's price for allowing such a travesty to occur in the first place. Rusted iron chains hung here and there along the rough stone walls, backed by sinister stains in shapes that seemed to move each time her gaze slid past to the huge devices of wood and iron and leather that squatted close by. The smell of the place was musty and thick, and vaguely... red. Something brushed her ankle and broke her train of thought; Gwendolyn looked down and even in the lightless room she could see the rat that rubbed her ankle like an affectionate, filth-encrusted cat. She grimaced and kicked it away without fear as she made for the staircase.
CHAPTER SIX - 1961
She was running, pushing through bushes and brambles and feeling thorns scratch bloody trenches into the exposed tender skin of her face and arms, letting instinct guide her through the blackness of an unknown night as the shrubbery and trees whipped by like flat, black paper cutouts. It was bitter cold and there was still snow on the ground, but they wouldn't track through here, it was too hard on the dogs' feet and too far away from the highway; the ice, sharp rocks and dried, broken thorns would easily cut skin-- as she was finding out-- and the animals were too valuable to take into such unwelcome territory. Much more valuable than the person they tracked.
She had no time to wonder about that strange, disconnected thought. She wanted desperately to stop, to crawl beneath the tangled branches of a dormant blackberry thicket and catch her breath, maybe sleep for just a half hour. She was tired and her throat hurt terribly, far worse than it ever had in times before, and for just a moment she believed she was simply hallucinating the pain, reliving the same injuries over and over. Panting and gasping, she might have been fleeing for hours; she just didn't know. Her body felt strange, heavier and ungainly, as though even the pretense of grace had disappeared from her form. The whiteness of the snow was shattered in all directions by the shadows of bushes, trees, and jagged rocks, and though her legs pushed on, she could make no mental connection as to her destination-- she didn't even know if she was still being hunted.
An indeterminate time later, a house rose in front of her. Small and dark, but she knew this had been her goal all along; there was a tiny, safe glow from one window and her body automatically lurched toward that warmth, drawn to it like a lost ship to a lighthouse beacon. She stumbled up uneven wooden steps and fell, once, twice, then the door was flung open and welcome light spilled onto the shabby front porch, illuminating slowly decaying lawn furniture next to t.v. trays left to rust in the winter moisture. A woman wailed suddenly from the doorway and she opened her mouth to say something, to say Be quiet for God's sake, before they hear, but her throat felt like a mass of bloody hamburger and nothing would come out. The woman's hands were on her then, the touch a curious cross between rough anger and gentleness as they hastily pulled her inside and slammed the door, then released her; an instant later there was the metallically comforting sound of a bolt being shot firmly into place as the door was locked.
"Oh, Nathan," the woman moaned, one hand flying to her mouth. "They tried to lynch you!"
Nathan?
CHAPTER SEVEN - 1961
"Emily?" he whispered. His voice was thick and foreign to his own ears, faraway.
"What?" someone asked urgently. "What'd you say?"
He felt himself being pulled on, then propped against something cold and riddled with lumps, maybe the seat of an automobile.
Shit, he thought resentfully, pain again, and he could feel a wetness he knew already was his own blood, all over everything. The vehicle started with a jerk and sway much too pronounced to be anything but a truck, the exaggerated movement making it impossible to find a position that didn't cause excruciating pain. A ride that seemed endless, or was at least an hour long; then people yelling and screaming and pulling on him anew like he was in just fine shape, thank you very much, not a thing in the world wrong-- God forbid these quarter-brained folks should treat him a little gently and him half hanging outta the cab of this truck with a bullet hole in his head.
CHAPTER EIGHT - 1986
He woke to the sound of singing: sweet, sappy and piercing as only a soprano on morning radio could be-- Olivia Newton John twittering about something that might have been love but registered only as agony in his abused brain. Groaning, he made the mistake of rolling over beneath a mountainous pile of bedcoverings; the movement sent a surge of nausea through his stomach and up his throat. He suppressed the stream of vomit only long enough to stumble his way uncertainly to the bathroom.
He felt better then, despite the fact that he was sitting on his rump in silk pajamas on cold ceramic tiles in the bathroom and trying to spit away the taste of bile. He tried to stand but his legs were weak and uncooperative, the chill floor soaking through his pants legs like a gigantic, freezing leech. He managed at last to crawl across the threshold of the bathroom and back onto the plush carpeting of the bedroom floor, leaning his head against the wall and panting, resting atop the carpet's warmth as his gaze explored the room and his fingers dug into the carpeting up to the middle knuckles of his fingers.
There were a lot of strange things in here, far more complicated-looking than anything he'd ever experienced. A curved telephone with square buttons and a twenty foot coiled cord, unlike any telephone he'd ever seen, something else with blinking red numbers he assumed was a clock, the strangest artwork on the walls. Although he sat at chin-level next to a huge bed, he could see windows on the other side of it that extended from nearly one end of the room to the other and disappeared out of his line of sight on beyond the bed. Could this be his home, his apartment? While a row of heavy draperies had been pulled open, from this angle he could see only the blue of clear sky. Somewhere outside, he felt sure the sun was shining.
He looked down and ran slender fingers across the nap of the gray carpet, its surface so thick and rich that his lean body, dressed in the deep maroon pajamas, seemed like some accidental bloody spill across its surface. A few feet away was a six-foot-long lacquered dresser a deeper shade of gray trimmed with chrome; beside it was a luxuriously over-stuffed chair covered in a fabric with gray strips exactly matching the color of the furniture. He'd never been in such an expensively decorated room.
Some time later he sat forward with a start, realizing that he had fallen asleep, propped against the wall like some discarded doll. He managed to push to his feet and take a few shambling steps to the edge of the bed before sitting again; he felt better, though feeling good seemed about as far away as the moon itself. A sliver of sunlight had worked its way around the edge of the farthest window and he studied it for awhile, then found the energy to go the window and look out.
He almost threw up again.
The windows were floor to ceiling; hundreds of feet below, water shimmered and spread dizzily across the horizon. How high was this building? For a second he couldn't make his mind comprehend its automatic answer of "thirty stories"---stories were something that in his experience had always come in twos and threes, apartments above general stores in small country towns. Then his brain kicked into over-drive and supplied another fragment or two of memory: Apartment-- condominium, really-- No. 3003, Lake Point Tower. He swallowed his shock and forced himself to look down again, down down down to the people and vehicles moving along Lake Shore Drive and the lakefront of Chicago, grateful for the sealed and unbreakable glass between himself and oblivion.
If it hadn't been for that...
CHAPTER NINE - NOW
It took two seconds--
One
Two
--to realize the screams were her own.
Then she began to fight.
***
"Say, man! Get the fuck away from her! You stupid, fucking dickhead-- you're fucking up my best whore! Yo, whatsa matter? You gotcha dick in your ear, asshole? I said, get the fuck away from my merchandise!"
"Damned bitch! She--"
Someone punched her, but it was just one more dull thud against the battered shell her skull had become. She hissed and grabbed at the blow, but too late. She wanted to stand, yet her head felt too heavy, like a bowling ball mounted on a spring and swinging uncontrollably to and fro. The best she could accomplish was to drag her legs back together, lead-like fingers twisting through the dirty sheets in search of her skirt, or better, her switchblade.
EPILOGUE - THE END OF IT
No, no, no... if you want to find out
how it all ends, you're going to
have to read the book!
***
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