“MacAllister and his sons were hated by most everyone,” Markham says, using the tip of the blade to lift up the hem of my shift. “Including his own clansmen. He was a traitor, you see. So…it wouldn’t be too far out of the realm of belief that he’d be killed to silence him. A torch thrown in the night? Quick and easy, and it puts an end to a known informant.”
Conrad’s chest is rising and falling quickly, heavily, as if he’s readying himself for action. I shake my head at him. Don’t, I plea, silently. Don’t.
His eyes only narrow, and I see his muscles clench and tense.
“So then I’m presented with a unique opportunity. The King’s justice is too good for you, Killian. Far too good by half. The reward is a pittance compared to the joy I’ll have watching you suffer. Oh, I’ll torture you well enough, have no fear on that score, but the suffering I’m speaking of?” He palms my breast over the wool of the shift, his grip rough and harsh. “It’ll be her doing the suffering, and you watching.”
He gestures at me, and two men grab my arms, dragging me toward a noose. I shake, fight, kick, scream, thrash, but it’s useless. Futile. All I get for my efforts is a slap across the face.
Markham joins me and the two soldiers at the noose they’ve positioned me under. One of them lowers the noose a bit, and Markham fits it around my neck. Tightens it. Gestures again, and the slack is pulled taut enough that I’m forced up on my tiptoes or risk choking—it’s tied off once Markham is satisfied.
“Once I’ve had my fill of her,” Markham says, gesturing at me, “Well, it wouldn’t do to deprive my men, would it? Oh, no. Wouldn’t do at all. I imagine we’d all like a turn or two, wouldn’t we, Miller?”
One of the soldiers at my side nods eagerly and paws at my buttocks. “Oh, quite, sir, quite,” he drawls with an eager leer.
“And you?” Markham shrugs. “I’ll finish you off once you’ve watched your woman here get raped a few dozen times. When I tire of the game, what then? Well, you’re guilty of so much no will care I’ve hung you without trial.”
I can’t breathe. I can’t stay on my tiptoes for very long either, or my calves and thighs will give way. It’s a balancing act, a trade-off. Let the slack take over and choke, or fight to remain on tiptoe.
Markham tosses his coat aside, tugs at the laces of his leggings. “You don’t mind if I go first, do you lads?”
It’s a rhetorical question, of course, and no one answers.
He’s in front of me, hands lifting my skirts, dirty fingers digging at my crotch, scraping sensitive skin. I clench my thighs together and try to twist away, determined to resist to the last, even if I die in the act. Markham’s hand lashes out and he smacks me across my cheek in a vicious blow that spins me around and leaves me gasping and gagging as the noose tightens and digs into my throat. I’m off balance, choking…
The moment is broken by a shrill, piercing howl and the wild blare of bagpipes, and the air is rent by shouts and screams, and muskets fire and chaos reigns.
I’m dizzy from not being able to breathe, but I see a flash of kilts and red hair, and see Angus swinging his broad sword and stabbing with his dirk, and there are too many other Highlanders to count, a dozen at least, maybe twenty or more.
Claymores, broadswords, an axe, a long spear-like axe…they’re all screaming, snarling madmen, these Scots, knees flashing in the evening light. I see more than one fall in a spray of blood as the redcoats gather wits and fire muskets, but the surprise attack has already won the battle before it’s joined. The initial broadside of musket fire dropped half a dozen, and then the subsequent rush overwhelms the stunned English soldiers.
Markham is a devil, though, saber drawn in his uninjured hand and swinging and thrusting, turning aside blades, and dancing and dodging, skillful even with his off-hand, though not as deadly as he’d be had he the use of his sword arm.
I’m tripping and tiptoeing, trying to find my balance so I can breathe, so I can at least catch a breath, but I’m dizzy and the world is darkening, shadows snatching at the edges of my vision.
There are fewer and fewer redcoats with each passing second—and then there’s only one remaining, Markham.
Angus is in front of me, dirk arcing over my head to sever the rope. He catches me, lowering me gently to the ground. “You’re safe now, lass.”
My throat is on fire, and I cannot answer, but I nod. Angus is bleeding from a dozen cuts to his arms and face and leg and torso, but none of them are mortal, or even dire.
Conrad, I see, when I finally catch my breath enough to look, is still bound with his hands behind his back, forced to stand in place the entire time…
…watching Markham.
“Wait.” Conrad’s order is a bark that cuts through the melee, and all goes still and quiet.
A Highlander has his sword pressed to Markham’s throat, ready to cut him down.
“A quick death is…how’d you put it, Markham? Too good for you by half.” Conrad’s bonds are cut, and he shakes his hands out, and then approaches Markham.
His fist smashes into Markham’s face, and blood sprays. Conrad seizes Markham by the hair and yanks him off balance, draging him across the barnyard by the queue. When Markham fights for his feet, Conrad stops and plants his boot in Markham’s side, and then resumes dragging him across the yard to the nooses.
He hauls Markham to his feet, then fits a noose around his neck and yanks it taut so Markham gags. Then, as Markham did to me, Conrad pulls the slack in the rope tight enough to force the Englishman to his toes. Unbound, Markham can reach up and try to haul himself aloft enough to give himself some slack, but it’s not quite enough…and not for long. The noose is too tight to get his fingers under it, too well knotted to be pulled loose; Markham made sure of that.
Conrad watches Markham struggle for a moment, and then he turns away. He walks over to Angus and pauses at his side, “Watch him die, Angus. And when he quits struggling, sever his head.”
Angus nods. “Nothing would give me greater pleasure, brother.”
There’s a hay bale off to one side, tied with twine. Angus drags the hay bale across the yard and sits on it in front of Markham, crossing an ankle over his knee, pulls a small pipe and tobacco from his sporran. Tamps, lights, and puffs. Markham gags, struggles and attempts to lift himself. He begs, but the noose turns his words into unintelligible gargling.
Conrad scoops me up in his arms and carries me to a horse and sets me on it.
I sit and wait as Conrad converses briefly with the other men, clapping shoulders and nodding, and then he swings up behind me and we’re off at a gallop. A few Highlanders follow behind us, obviously meant as an escort.
It’s an hour before I can muster breath enough to speak. “How did we come to be saved?”
“Angus.” Conrad lets the horse fall into a trot. “Those were Campbells and MacLeods. The clans might bicker between each other like so many squabbling children, but we all share a hatred for the English. How Angus got word to them I don’t know, but he did, and they came.”
“Thank god for Angus, then,” I whisper, my voice hoarse. “And the Campbells and MacLeods.”
“Aye, thank god for them.”
I drowse in the saddle, Conrad firm and solid and warm behind me, his arms cradling me and we ride. Darkness falls and we do not stop, and when I wake again dawn pinks the horizon.
When I wake once more, the sun is making a rare and beautiful appearance from behind the clouds, and Conrad’s little home is in front of us. Our escort waits until we’re dismounted and then, with a wave, they wheel their mounts and gallop away, as if they haven’t just ridden the night through.
Conrad lifts me in his arms and carries me inside and sets me on his bed. I hear him make a fire, and then he’s beside me in the bed, curled up in front of me, between me and the door. He’s so warm, so solid, so strong. I wrap my arm around his chest and cling to him, and shiver until his body heat warms me, and then I delve under the scrim of sleep.
***
To wake is to succumb to light. The darkness is my friend. Warmth. Peace.
I’m floating, drifting, and all is right.
But…no. All isn’t right.
The darkness, the warmth, the peace…it’s a lie. I don’t want it. It’s a prison, this darkness. It’s not merely shadows, an absence of light—this darkness is utter nothingness. It’s wrong. But it’s deep and powerful and tempting, hypnotizing. The darkness wants me, it whispers subtle insinuations, plucks with invisible fingers, twines and tangles and twists and tugs.
The darkness wants me.
But I do not want the darkness—if only I could remember why I don’t…
Hannah…
The voice is deep, musical yet rough, familiar and so beautiful—it’s everything, that voice.
I’m here, Hannah. I—I’m sorry. I’m sorry it came to this. There’s so much I wish I could say to you. So much I should have said already.
The sadness in that voice is unbearable. It’s a deep, abiding, cut-to-the-marrow sadness. Despair. Resignation. Sorrow. He’s…he’s lost everything.
He is lost.
He is why I don’t want the darkness.
Come back to me, Hannah. Please—don’t—don’t leave me. I hear sobs in those words. Ten words, eleven syllables, packed pregnant with sorrow. Ragged and raw.
Haunted.
I—Hannah, I love—no. No! Not like this.
I strain, push, but I can’t reach him. Can’t find him. Can’t even really hear him, or feel him. I just…I know him. I need him.
If only I could touch him, see his face, hold him to my breast and whisper to him and cling to him…
If only—
I push against the darkness, but I am—
I don’t know what I am.
The brutal bitter black sucks me under.
Hannah—please.
I’m trying. I’m trying, I swear.
But the darkness is too strong.
****
Conrad.
I jerk upright, a sob in my throat.
Conrad.
I look around, and despair rifles through me, filling me to overflowing.
I’m in the black room once more. Sitting on the plain white cot, the candle flickering beside me. It’s down to an inch of wax, now. Rivulets and rivers and puddles of wax cover the table, dripping down the legs. The thought of the candle extinguishing fills me with terror. If that candle goes out? All will be dark. I will be lost in this blackness, alone, forever in the darkness.
I throw myself off the cot, the sob in my throat now emerging. There is no echo. It is a loud, ragged guttural sob, but it does not echo, does not fill the black room. The darkness swallows my sob, as it will swallow me when that candle goes out.
The remaining two torches by the last two doors are both nearly extinguished, as well. Guttering, fluttering.
Conrad…
I stumble in a half-run across the empty, dark, featureless black to the second to last door. I stand in front of it and I shake all over. Everything in me rails against this door. I don’t want to go through this door but, at the same time, somewhere within me is the knowledge that this door, somehow, is me.
I am on the other side of this door.
I have to go through.
Conrad is there.
I sob again.
God, Conrad. I didn’t even get to say goodbye or get one last look. I remember…the flight across the highland, his arms around me, a fire crackling in a fireplace, his chest at my back, feeling at home and at peace and content and safe.
I would have stayed there, I think. I couldn’t have gone through the door, couldn’t have come back here, knowing I was leaving him behind.
The door in front of me is not black. It is green and very old. The paint is faded, chipped in places. The handle is plain brass, scratched by countless keys hunting for the keyhole. This door…the sight of it cuts me to ribbons and makes the secret, hidden places in my heart ache. I both hate this door and love it.
Trembling, I place my palm on the brass, let out a querulous sigh, and then turn the knob.
I push the door open and step through.
+
I’m standing in my living room.
This is my home. I feel the truth of this as precisely and deeply as I feel the reality of my name: Hannah Tavistock.
I blink a few times, and the ache in my chest swells to a painful throb. My throat is so tight I can barely breathe.
I look around and take in the features of my living room. The carpet is cream, faded, stained here and there—by the couch there’s a wine spill, sprayed with stain remover a thousand times and scrubbed as many times; just inside the entrance from the kitchen is a coffee stain, also often sprayed and scrubbed to no avail; by the front door is a more nebulous brownish stain, from mud, perhaps.
The couch is old and much loved, pale maroon cloth, the cushions indented, the arms scuffed and worn. A side table to the right of the couch, dark brown oak with a single drawer, the top scratched and marred by coffee rings; there’s a lamp on it, a glass tube with a cream shade, and the shade is torn in places.
A painting hangs on the wall above the couch, a still life: a bowl of fruit on a table, apples, bananas, pears, and a vase full of Gerber daisies beside it. It’s not a very wonderful painting, but it’s striking and lovely in its simplicity; in the lower right hand corner is the artist’s initials: HT. Another painting on the wall opposite the couch, above the medium-sized flat screen TV. This one is a landscape, a lake, and mirror-smooth, reflecting the pine trees ringing the lake. In the center of the lake, the focal point of the painting, is a small rowboat, two figures in it, a man with a fishing pole and a woman with a parasol; there’s an HT in the lower right hand corner, as well.
My feet carry me to the short hallway off the living room. A bathroom on one side, a closed door opposite, and an open doorway at the end of the hall.
I peek in the bathroom and see the tub and shower, veiled by a plain white shower curtain. The smell of a recent shower fills the bathroom. There is a dark wood pedestal with a freestanding clear glass sink and black faucet. A red blow-dryer sits to one side of the sink, a hairbrush on the other, long strands of blond hair tangled in the bristles. There is a cup with two toothbrushes, one blue, one pink. A tube of toothpaste sits behind the faucet, Crest Whitening, the end curled up. Old Spice Deodorant, Dove Dry Spray. An orange bottle of pills with a white cap, three little pills rattling around the bottom—Sertraline, 50mg.
I avoid the doorway opposite the bathroom for now and pad on bare feet into the bedroom at the end of the hallway. The bed frame is old, plain, just a flat rectangle of wood and a smaller one at the foot. Messy, unmade. Lots of thin blankets, a thicker comforter and a duvet folded and draped across the end. Flannel sheets. Only the right side is slept in, the left side is untouched.
There are nightstands on either side with phone charger cords, stacks of books, magazines. There is a man’s watch, a Citizen, with a brown leather strap. I don’t have to look any closer to know that there will be a thick gold wedding band nestled inside the curl of the strap.
I back out of the bedroom, because knowing that ring is hidden inside the curled strap of the watch hurts, even though I feel like somehow it shouldn’t.
I can’t avoid the art room any more. The knob is plain brass, worn, and it fits my palm as if made for my hand. It feels warm. It’s soothing to hold that knob. I push the door open; the scent of paint fills my nostrils. Outside the window a huge oak tree fills the view, leaves transitioning from green to orange and red. I feel the cool breath of air from the window and breathe it in.
My easel stands in the center of the room. I step closer to it, hands shaking, knees knocking, lungs seizing, as if the easel and the canvas are things I should fear, things that could cause me pain.
I blink, and the ache shifts, sharpens, deepens. I blink again.
I’m dizzy. So dizzy. I close my eyes, feeling eve
rything twist and warp inside me.
When I open my eyes again, everything feels different. Warped, oily, less real. Less true.
I’m disoriented, wobbling within my sense of self, my sense of reality.
I blink and shake my head—
The dizziness recedes, and the sense of reality reasserts itself. But it’s still not…quite right. Not quite real. But that thought makes no sense to me even as I think it. Real is real, isn’t it?
I don’t know. I don’t know.
I let out a breath, center myself. Close my eyes.
Tilt, shift, toss, spin; dice in a cup.
I open my eyes once more.
And I’m at my easel, in my art room. The window is open wide, even though it’s fall outside and the air is chilly. I’m in an old white button-down of Charlie’s, the hem hanging to my knees, the sleeves rolled up to my elbows to prevent them from dipping into the paint on my palette. The sleeves are crusted underneath with old dried paint, red and yellow and green and brown and blue and orange in a million layers. Dabs and drips and smears and smudges of paint cover my shirt. There’s paint on the backs of my hands, under my nails, on the tops of my feet, and I can feel it crusted in my hair and on my forehead.
I’ve been in here working on this painting for so long I’ve forgotten everything except the brush in my right hand, the palette in my left, the table off to my left cluttered with tubes of paint and a chipped off-white mug full of paint water; “Arnes & Abel Hardware” is printed in blue lettering on the side of the mug. Another mug sits beside the paint water mug, this one much larger and contains coffee, now cold. This mug is my favorite. It was once white, but I painted it with a landscape, trees and a lake and ducks and geese and a moose; it was a project in a university art class I audited a few years ago, when I first got the painting bug.
The door behind me opens, and I feel tension pull at the base of my neck, sending an ache through my skull. I feel him approach, that hesitant shuffle he does when he knows I’m painting and knows how much I hate being interrupted when I’m in the zone.
The Black Room: Door Six Page 7
