“Pandora, are you all right? Are you there?”
“Yes, Jacob, I’m here,” she replied tonelessly. “I don’t know where Angelica is, but wherever she’s gone, she’s taken Meraiah with her. Jacob, we must find them. My baby is in grave danger!”
Chapter Twenty
Ward had been walking for hours, trying to sort out his feelings. Now, suddenly he found himself on the beach, a solitary figure in the darkness. He stood still for a time, gazing out at the phosphorescence of the restless waves. The night wind was hot and moist as if a storm was brewing somewhere out there beyond the horizon. He turned and walked on, his mind still churning.
Pandora! Pandora! he thought. What are we going to do?
It seemed plain to him what she planned to do. She would simply accept and believe whatever she happened to see—dreams, visions, or reality; they were one and the same to her. Ward worried that now her fantasies seemed to be replacing reality.
Ward’s logical mind made Pandora’s visions difficult to understand. However, there was no denying what his heart said: He loved Pandora! Nothing flesh and blood could change that, so certainly no phantom from beyond the grave should make any difference in the way he felt about her. He knew that and he kept repeating it to himself but the thought of Jean Laffite’s ghost visiting his wife in her bed made him sick with fear—fear for his wife’s sanity. If only Pandora didn’t believe so firmly. But she did. He felt as if he’d just found out that his wife had taken a lover.
All this nonsense about reincarnation; he didn’t believe it for an instant! Ward kicked at a shell on the beach in his frustration. If he had lived before, surely he would remember. Perhaps it wouldn’t be a total, conscious memory, but some things would have stayed with him. Sights, sounds, feelings of another life. Then again, he could barely remember his early years in Galveston in this life, so how could he be expected to remember things from a previous life?
Ward glanced up. He was passing his old cottage. He’d never gotten around to selling it. Somehow, remembering that the little beach house was the first place he and Pandora had been together, he hadn’t been able to part with it. So there it sat on its shaky stilts, the windows shuttered, giving it the appearance of peaceful slumber.
Suddenly, an idea struck Ward. He brightened, letting the troubling thoughts slip from his mind. He quickened his pace, hurrying toward the boarded-up cottage.
“Yes!” he said, smiling. “Yes, it might just work!”
Quickly, he mounted the stairs and unlocked the door. A rush of hot, musty air that smelled of mildew hit him in the face. He went from one window to the next, throwing them open and unlatching the wooden shutters. Soon the cozy cottage was filled with fresh sea air. He pulled the dustcovers from the furniture, then stood back, giving the place a quick once over. It looked just the same.
“Cassie can take care of the girls tonight,” he said with a chuckle. “I have an appointment with my wife! I’ll bring her back here, open a bottle of my best wine, and make love to that woman until I’ve exorcised every ghost in the place.”
When he went back out on the porch, headed home to get Pandora, he saw it, there down the beach. His heart thudded loudly. He set out running—not to the castle on Broadway, but toward the eerie glow reflected in the sky.
Jacob whipped his horse to breakneck speed as he raced his buggy toward the Gabriel castle. What in hell was going on? Pandora had sounded hysterical on the phone.
It was bad enough that Angelica was missing—anything could have happened to her. She hadn’t been herself for months. He’d hoped that the change in her was real, but he had guessed that it might be only the calm before the storm. Now Pandora said that Angelica had actually taken one of the twins—just as she had planned to do all along, he reminded himself. Why hadn’t he watched her more carefully? Why hadn’t he warned Pandora of this possibility? If anything happened to Meraiah, he would never forgive himself.
Jacob hitched the buggy out front, then took the front stairs two at a time. He had no chance to knock. The door flew open just as he raised his hand. Pandora stood before him—her face pale and drawn, her eyes red-rimmed from weeping.
“Pandora, what’s happened?” he demanded.
“Jacob, have you seen Ward?” Her voice trembled and her tears were barely controlled.
“Don’t tell me he’s missing, too!”
She nodded. “We had a terrible row. He’s been gone for hours. I didn’t discover Meraiah’s disappearance until long after he stormed out of the house. Oh, Jacob, I need him so. Where can he be? I have to find him and tell him about the baby. He’ll know what to do.”
“Pandora, I have an idea where he might be. Sometimes when he’s troubled, he goes to the cottage.”
“Oh, Jacob, of course!” she cried. “Why didn’t I think of that?”
Quickly, Pandora dispatched one of the servants to the beach house. “I can’t leave here,” she explained to Jacob. “I’ve called the sheriff and he has men out searching already. He promised to telephone the moment there’s any news. Oh, Jacob…”
“Try not to worry, Pandora,” Jacob said softly. “Meraiah will be all right. We have to believe that.”
She swiped angrily at her streaming eyes. “Why would Angelica do such a thing?” she demanded. “The woman must be insane.”
Jacob took Pandora’s trembling hand and held it, staring down at her wedding ring. “Yes, Pandora, I’m afraid that’s exactly it. I’ve known for a long time now that she was on the very brink. This is all my fault. I should have done something sooner. But I never guessed she would go this far.”
Pandora gasped and her hands flew to her face. “You mean my baby is in the hands of a mad woman? Oh, Jacob!” She lapsed into uncontrollable sobs.
Angelica hadn’t meant to fall asleep. But Meraiah, after taking her bottle of milk, drifted off and the room grew so still that she found her eyelids growing heavy. The kerosene lamp burned on, lighting their cubbyhole hideout, the last place anyone would look even if they came searching for her. The lamp’s flame made the room too warm and thick with dizzying fumes. Twice, Angelica caught herself nodding off. The third time, she slipped away completely. Relaxing in sleep, she stretched out next to the baby, until her crisp, black bombazine gown spread over the floor, one edge of it touching the hot, glowing lantern.
Coming awake with a jerk, Angelica screamed. The tiny pantry was thick with smoke and the hem of her skirt was afire. She kicked at the lantern as she scrambled up, beating her flaming gown. It tipped over, spilling its flammable contents across the floor. Angelica wrestled with the locked door, finally flinging it open before she and the baby suffocated. Her skirt was out, but now the fire spread across the heart-pine planks of the floor and up the dry walls. The pantry became an instant inferno the moment Angelica opened the door. She scooped up the baby and hurried out into the dark corridor.
“Hush now, Meraiah,” she crooned. “I’ll take care of you. We’ll be out of here soon. Don’t cry, baby, don’t cry!”
Thick smoke was boiling out of the room they’d just left. The weather had been hot and dry these past weeks and the wooden hotel was a tinderbox. Angelica looked back to see raging flames chasing her down the hallway. With a scream of sheer terror, she tried to quicken her pace. Her burned leg was throbbing painfully. The smoke was swirling around her now. The baby was screaming and squirming in her arms. She felt like she had opened the door to hell.
Pandora sat by the telephone, each moment crawling by as she stared at the clock on the wall. “Where is Ward?” she murmured. “What’s happened?”
Cassie rushed in just then, her eyes wide. “Miss Pan, there’s a big fire down to the beach. Come look!”
Pandora rose and hurried out to the porch. The night sky was lit up like a sunset. She stared at the brilliant, horrible sight for a long time. The dark shapes of frenzied seagulls soared against the backdrop of flames. Suddenly, the blazing hotel vanished
. Pandora felt herself drift off, flying through the night sky with the gulls. When she looked down it was another Galveston Island she saw, another woman, another horror.
Flames lit this new scene as well. The woman below her choked on the thick, black smoke. The wild whoops of savages pierced Pandora’s hazy consciousness.
“Isabel,” she murmured. “You shouldn’t have defied me.”
Pandora tried to close her eyes against the awful scene, but it would not go away.
The woman was naked, tied to a post with burning driftwood piled all about her feet. The smoke from the smoldering wood grew thicker and blacker by the minute. She coughed and gagged, gasping for breath. Agony etched her beautiful face as she felt the flames licking about her ankles.
“No!” Isabel screamed. “Please! Have you no mercy? Kill me first!”
The chanting savages, their faces tattooed and their long hair braided and tipped with rattles from the island’s snakes, danced around the pyre. Their women, dressed in skirts of Spanish moss, sat by complacently, watching as the Spanish woman screamed and pleaded, writhing on the stake.
Feeling the fire grow hotter, Isabel murmured prayers in her native tongue. She promised God, if He would save her from this Karankawa torture, she would forget Jean Laffite. She wanted him more than life itself, but she could not endure the pain.
“Save me from the flames, Father,” she moaned, “and I swear I will never again lie with the man I love. I will leave him to his Nicolette.”
The next moment, Pandora experienced a feeling of great relief. As if Isabel’s prayer were given instant attention, the Indian braves, still whooping and dancing, brought buckets of water from the shore and doused the fire. Isabel sagged against her deerskin bonds. She murmured a prayer of thanks.
To Pandora’s horror, she soon learned that Isabel’s salvation was only a thing of the moment. The chief, a tall man with cane ornaments through the flesh of his lower lip and the skin of his chest, came to her. With one swift stroke of his knife he cut her bonds. Isabel sank down, burning her feet in the smoldering ashes. He grabbed her long hair and dragged her around the circle. Both men and women jeered at her screams and protests. When he was done with his shameful exhibition, he hauled her off to his tent and flung her down on a rug of skins.
Isabel—weak and bruised and aching all over—lay before him trembling. “Please,” Pandora heard her whisper. But her plea went unanswered. The next moment, the strong chief fell upon her.
He was big and heavy and brutal. Pandora winced each time he thrust into the sobbing girl. Her nostrils flared. She could smell the evil of the man—shark oil and woodsmoke and unwashed flesh. He bruised Isabel’s wrists as he held her down. He bloodied her lips and bit her breasts as he violated her. After a time, mercifully, Isabel lost consciousness, but for Pandora the agony of the scene continued.
Pandora saw ahead, to the days that followed. Others came to the tent, honored warriors invited by their chief to partake of his prize. Isabel seemed lost in some other world, her mind no longer capable of accepting the pain, the degradation.
Pandora was there, too, when Jean Laffite and his men slaughtered the band of savages and rescued the girl. Isabel was only a shell of the spirited woman she had been. Her once-bright eyes were dull and glazed with pain. Her body was tainted by the lust of many men. Pandora, to her horror, knew at last who Nicolette’s murderer was. For, after her trial with the Indians, Isabel’s soul knew only one emotion—hate.
As Pandora’s terrifying vision was fading, Angelica roused from where she lay, overcome by smoke, slumped against one wall of the hotel’s dining room. She clutched the baby so tightly to her bosom that Meraiah screamed in alarm.
“I have to get away,” she moaned. “Far away!” The flames were closing in like a wall around her.
“Is anyone in there?” a voice yelled from somewhere beyond the inferno.
Angelica started to answer, but remembered that she had to slip away. No one must know that she had the baby. No one must keep her from boarding the train. She kept silent, inching across the floor to the doors on the opposite side of the dining room, praying that she could reach them before the flames engulfed her.
Angelica crawled another few feet across the floor. She could feel the heat intensifying. Smoke filled her lungs. Her burned leg throbbed painfully. “Just a little farther… get to the door… out where I can breathe…”
“Anybody there? Answer me, dammit!”
“Ward?” Angelica turned toward the sound of his voice. “Yes, Ward, yes! I’m here. Please, I can’t go any farther. I can’t breathe. The baby…”
Ward heard nothing. Angelica’s dry, smoke-parched throat only managed a raspy whisper before she lasped into unconsciousness.
It was total madness to enter the blazing hotel. Ward didn’t know why he was so sure, but he knew someone was inside. The flames, whipped by the rising wind, were through the dry roof now. Any moment the huge structure would collapse. Something was driving him. Something would not let him give up.
“Dammit, I’m going in there!” he said to the fire chief.
“That’s crazy, Mr. Gabriel! If there is anybody inside, it’s probably just some drifter who set the fire in the first place. Like as not, he’s dead already from the smoke.”
“Ward!” He turned, hearing Pandora’s voice.
“Darling, what are you doing here?” he demanded.
“We could see the blaze from the house. Jacob drove me down. Ward, Angelica’s missing and she’s taken Meraiah!”
Ward didn’t ask any questions or say another word. He turned from Pandora and rushed up the steps to the hotel. Her hysterical cry followed him into the inferno.
“I’m going with him,” Jacob said.
“No!” Pandora screamed. “Come back, both of you!”
Inside, the two men found a sheet of flames before them. Covering their heads with their coats they fought through the thick smoke and flames, but found no one.
“It’s no good, Ward!” Jacob yelled. “Nobody could have lived through this. We won’t either, if we don’t get out of here.”
“You’re right,” Ward said, finally admitting defeat. “We’d better move fast!”
Just as they turned back toward the door, a baby’s cry pierced through the crackling noise of the blaze.
“Meraiah!” Ward said, gripping Jacob’s arm.
The two men dropped down on all fours, searching for clean air to breath near the floor. Crawling, they managed to make their way across the room. Moments later, Ward had his daughter in his arms and Jacob was carrying Angelica out of the doomed hotel. A cheer went up from the crowd when they saw the two men with their rescued burdens.
“Clear the way,” Ward yelled. “We have to get them to the hospital. Fast!”
“Meraiah’s going to be fine!” Jacob announced to the two worried parents who had been waiting in the chapel of St. Mary’s Infirmary for word of their daughter.
Ward grabbed Pandora and hugged her soundly. “Thank God,” she murmured.
“What about Angelica?” Ward asked.
Jacob shook his head. “I just don’t know. She has some burns on her legs and feet. She’s conscious now… has been for the past half hour. But she won’t say a word; she just stares straight ahead and doesn’t respond to anything. I’ve tried to get her to speak to me, but it’s as if she can’t hear a word I say. She’s in deep shock, of course, but that can’t account for everything.”
“She’ll live?” Pandora asked.
Jacob nodded. “Her body will. As for her mind…” He shrugged. “We’ll just have to wait and see.”
Pandora could find little sympathy in her heart for her cousin. She did feel sorry for Jacob, though. After all, what had he ever done to deserve such pain?
Life returned to normal at the Gabriel castle. Meraiah seemed none the worse for her dreadful experience. She remained listless for a few days after that horribl
e night. But soon she was her bright, aggressive self again, making sure that she received the lion’s share of attention at all times.
Angelica did not fare as well. She remained in St. Mary’s until her outward injuries healed but some great, festering wound inside refused to give up its hold on her. Neither Jacob nor any of the other doctors could get through to her. She had locked herself away from the world. She neither spoke nor responded.
Finally, two months after the fire, when Angelica’s mental state still showed no signs of improvement, Jacob was forced to go to her parents with his decision. The Sherwoods and their son-in-law sat in their parlor with Ward and Pandora. Jacob had begged their support in what he had to do, knowing that Angelica’s parents would be against his plan.
Tabitha, her face pale and drawn, asked with feigned brightness, “So, Jacob, you’ve come to tell us you’re bringing our little girl home? When?”
He shook his head sadly and Pandora noticed for the first time the sprinkling of silver at his temples. “No, Mother Sherwood. I’m afraid that’s not why I’m here tonight.”
“She’s not worse?” Horace boomed.
“No, but she’s no better either. I’ve decided to have her moved to another hospital. There’s a good sanitarium in New Orleans where they know how to deal with patients suffering from hysteria.”
Tabitha gasped and clutched her throat. “My God, Horace, he’s sending her to a madhouse!”
“No,” Jacob interjected. “Nothing of the kind, Mother Sherwood, The Ursaline Sisters in New Orleans take excellent care of their patients. I’ve been there; I’ve seen their institution. Angelica will have the best of everything, I assure you.”
Tabitha Sherwood was sobbing now and clutching her husband’s hand.
“Bring Madame’s smelling salts at once!” Horace shouted to one of the servants. Then patting his wife’s chubby hand, he said, “There, there, dear. We want what’s best for Angelica. She won’t be there long, I’m sure.”
Forever, For Love Page 34
