House of Bathory

by Linda Lafferty

  Betsy shrugged and looked down at his old beat-up duffel bag. She knew it from their college days. “I always do when it starts turning cold.”

  “Hmmm,” he said, holding her at arm’s length in order to study her better. “Not usually until mid-January after you’ve had a few weeks of skiing under your belt.”

  Betsy looked away. She wanted to straighten the collar on her flannel shirt, but she knew that would indicate she had something to hide. During their marriage, she had taught him a lot about psychology. What she was studying, but also what her father had taught her over the years. She didn’t want to give him clues to interpret.

  “What was so engrossing in the local rag?” he said, jerking his chin at the paper. “You looked like you had just read your own death notice.”

  Betsy shrugged.

  John looked down at the paper.

  “Bathory?”

  “A punk band. Goth, maybe. I don’t know.”

  “Huh. I’ve heard of those guys—Bathory. Back in the eighties, I think. Come on, let’s grab a bite to eat. I couldn’t eat the crap they served in those snack packs.”

  Typical John, thought Betsy. It didn’t rattle him that the name Bathory would appear in the newspaper, or that the paper was flipped to the exact page where the ad was.

  Coincidence, he would say if she pressed him.

  After their marriage broke up, he had earned a PhD in Advanced Mathematics and Statistics from MIT. He did not believe in meaningful coincidence, only numerical patterns. Coincidences were merely a matter of probability, little p in statistics. Wipe the slate clean and start a new problem, a coincidence wasn’t worth examining. Not statistically important.

  An outlier.

  A wave of bitter memories swept over Betsy—the uber-rational mind of her ex-husband clashing with her intuitive Jungian training. She thought back to their last argument, the one that would end their marriage.

  “My father! My father is in danger, I can sense it.”

  “Nonsense,” he had said. “You’re nervous and tired, studying for your exams. There is nothing wrong with your father. Your mother would have called us if there were.”

  “But John—”

  “What’s wrong with you? Get over yourself and your premonitions. You are completely irrational, Betsy. And self-indulgent! The world doesn’t spin just because you dream it so.”

  “Me? What about you? Not everything is logical in life, John. There are outliers on a scatterplot, phenomena you can’t predict. You never look beyond the world of reason and probability. I know something is wrong.”

  “You are hysterical,” he said. “You let your emotions rule you. How can you practice psychiatry when you think like this?”

  “Why won’t you ever venture beyond the rational? Maybe you should do some self-exploration yourself.”

  “What total horseshit!”

  And when they learned of Betsy’s father’s death, John turned away. He did not know how to console Betsy. It was the beginning of the end for them.

  They drove down the valley and stopped at the Woody Creek Tavern for burgers and a beer. It was empty, except for a table of tourists and a crowd of local yahoos at the bar, their baseball hats on backward, watching football on TV.

  “Not the same crowd,” said John, looking around. The old photos tacked on the wall had faded now, a lot were gone. Someplace there were photos of the two of them nearly two decades ago—two college ski bums, raccoon-eyed from days on the slope, in full party mode.

  “It’s a weekday, people are working. But you’re right, since it changed hands, the crowd isn’t the same.”

  John tipped back his draft beer—Flying Dog Doggy Style, brewed locally. He didn’t recognize anyone behind the bar, though Betsy could tell he was searching for a familiar face.

  “Tell me what you have found out about your mom.”

  “Nothing. The embassy was useless. She was last in Bratislava on Sunday. She was going to one of the castles that Countess Bathory owned at the turn of the seventeenth century.”

  “Castles?”

  “She had half a dozen of them. Mom mentioned Beckov and Čachtice. But Čachtice seems more likely.”

  “Why?”

  “Because that is where the Countess did most of her killings.”

  “Are you still planning on going there?”

  “Yes. I’ve been online looking for last-minute fares. They are astronomical.”

  “I’m going with you.”

  “What? No, you can’t. You—”

  “Thank you. Come back and see us again,” interrupted the waitress, dropping their check on the table. “And have a good day!”

  The two exchanged looks—their meals were still in front of them. John snorted a laugh. “Definitely not the same Woody Creek Tavern. Hunter Thompson probably would have shot her.”

  “John, really. How could you miss work?”

  “I have vacation time. I’ve just submitted another grant and actually the timing is good.”

  Betsy bit a french fry in half, chewing in contemplation. She heard a roar from the crowd at the bar as the Broncos scored a touchdown.

  John took the other half of the fry gently from his ex-wife’s fingers and put it into his mouth. He chewed it, still looking at her.

  “Let me help, Betsy.”

  She closed her eyes tight to keep from crying. She nodded, her body trembling with emotion.

  “Come on,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”

  When they got back to the office, Betsy could see movement inside.

  Was the intruder back?

  Betsy took a deep breath and opened the door quickly. Her heart beat hard against her chest.

  Daisy sat on the floor of the office, with an enormous book spread in front of her. Betsy saw a colorful image filling the page.

  “Oh, my God,” said Betsy, her hand flying to her chest. “Daisy, what are you doing here? I cancelled our session.”

  Daisy looked up.

  “I just wanted to see you again. Hey, you should lock your doors, Betsy. Especially after that burglar ransacked the place.”

  She shifted her eyes to John. “Who’s the guy? Your boyfriend?”

  Stop intruding on my private life, Betsy thought. You are totally screwing up the patient-therapist relationship.

  “He—he’s an old friend. John, this is Daisy Hart.”

  John approached, twisting his head to see the image on the floor.

  “Is that a mandala?”

  “Yeah, I guess. It’s something Jung drew. He was discovering his soul,” she pronounced ghoulishly.

  Betsy suddenly realized exactly what Daisy had on her office floor. The Red Book.

  “I saw it was inscribed to you from your mom, Betsy,” said Daisy, as if reading her mind. “Your birthday was just a few weeks ago—that makes you a Scorpio. Me, too!”

  Betsy swallowed hard. The tarot reader’s voice rang in her ears.

  Talk about nightmares!

  Betsy shook her head, dismissing the thought.

  “Why did you—what are you doing?”

  John made a funny face at Betsy. Are you all right?

  “I saw it on your shelf,” said Daisy. “And I was like, ‘Wow! What a coincidence.’ My sister just sent me a copy a couple of days ago. Like synchronicity—”

  “Your sister?” Betsy said.

  “I told her how cool Jung is. She went to this show in the city, where these celebrities are analyzed on stage, looking at Jung’s art.”

  “The Red Book Dialogues…” Betsy murmured.

  John squatted next to Daisy and his finger traced the image of a jewel-colored mandala.

  “Jung was quite an artist,” he said. “I had no idea. It’s like a medieval illuminated manuscript.”

  “Exactly!” said Daisy looking up into his eyes, beaming. “This is really the first time Morgan and I have ever had any common interest. And I mean ever.”

  Betsy saw the white makeup buckle as her p
atient emphasized the last word.

  “So Gothic looking,” said John, staring down at the page. “It reminds me of the ancient Book of Kells—”

  “Right? He should be crowned King of the Goth world,” said Daisy. “Look—”

  She turned the page gently.

  Another illustration appeared, this one of a boat with a colossal golden orb and a man at the tiller. Below the boat was a giant fish or sea monster with bulldog teeth.

  “Wow,” whispered John. “Will you look at that!”

  Betsy swallowed, watching her old lover—her ex-husband, the man who was mesmerized only by numbers and mathematical formulas—stroke his open palm over the image.

  “What do you see?” Betsy said, kneeling down beside them.

  “A huge gold gong and sea monster,” began John.

  “He’s not a monster,” said Daisy, offended. She twisted her crucifix cord around her fingers.

  “What are you talking about? Look at those fangs,” said John.

  “It’s an underbite—the opposite of fangs. The fish has a benevolent look in its eye. It’s not attacking the boat—it’s protecting the voyager.”

  “And what do you make of the shipwreck underneath?” asked John.

  “What shipwreck?” Betsy said.

  “Look, in the depths. There’s a boat that hit the rocks and sank.”

  Betsy blinked. Until he said it, she had seen nothing. There it was. A sunken boat. And suddenly a thought shot through her mind as she looked at John and Daisy, their heads close together.

  If we had a child when we were first married, she would be Daisy’s age by now.

  “Wow, John. You are right, the wreckage of a ship!” said Daisy, tracing the dark green swirls. She looked up at her analyst.

  “Come on, Betsy. What do you see?”

  Betsy hesitated. She thought of the visit Morgan had paid her. She thought of her mother lost in Slovakia.

  And from the hundreds of books on the crowded shelves, Daisy had pulled down The Red Book, the birthday present her mother had sent just last month.

  Fuck the patient-therapist relationship.

  “I see eyes. Eyes in the sea, eyes in the sky. Watching,” Betsy said.

  Daisy nodded her head slowly.

  “Yeah. I see them, too.”

  Chapter 23

  ČACHTICE CASTLE

  DECEMBER 17, 1610

  Vida dreamed of eyes, glowing cats’ eyes, watching from the darkness.

  Everywhere she turned, the eyes followed, unblinking.

  She woke with a start, a sudden cold draft curling under her throat. The door had been opened to the dungeon.

  Vida buried her hands deep inside the woolen cloak she wore as a blanket. Her fingertips traced the outline of her ribs, skin stretched tight over bones.

  She sensed an absence, a silence in the corridor. Sometimes the other girls, including the favorite Hedvika, left their servant chambers to accompany the Countess in what was referred to in whispers as “night games.” Tonight must be one of those nights.

  Her stomach groaned. She could stand it no longer.

  Vida pulled herself slowly to her feet, taking care not to make a sound. Her soft leather shoes made little noise on the stone floor and even less on the thick Turkish carpets, looted from Ottoman war camps.

  She descended the winding stairway, not daring to light a torch. In the dark, she might step on a skulking rat. But she was too hungry to care.

  Before she reached the door of the larder, she could smell the pungent aromas of the treasures within. Brona set rat traps next to the clay-lidded bowls, ringed around the vessels like a standing infantry.

  Vida pushed aside the beeswax-sealed pots of preserved fruits, the small kegs of honey. She stood on a wooden cask, her hands searching for the goose fat.

  At last, behind a crate of bacon packed in coarse grains of salt, she saw it. Brown crockery beaded with cold grease. For a moment her head spun. She gasped for breath to keep from fainting.

  One hand seized the small pot, the other sunk knuckle-deep into the yellow fat. She plunged her hand into her mouth, sucking and licking at her fingers.

  Then she heard the buzz of flies and she turned her head.

  A pale-skinned man stared at her. He was dressed all in black velvets and satins, appearing from nowhere. He held an ivory cane aloft and with a sudden sharp movement brought it down and smashed the crock in her hands into bits.

  Her scream echoed through the stony corridors of Čachtice.

  He looked at her hands, embedded with shards of crockery, speckled with blood.

  He met her eyes and smiled, his teeth gleaming in the candlelight.

  Chapter 24

  CARBONDALE, COLORADO

  DECEMBER 17, 2010

  You shouldn’t be here,” Betsy said. “It’s getting late and your mother must be wondering where you are.”

  “It’s not that late. And she doesn’t care.”

  “You still have to go, Daisy,” Betsy said.

  Daisy closed the book and pulled herself to her feet. She made a couple of attempts to speak, but no words came. Only a hoarse rasping rattle. Her hand flew to her throat, her eyes widening like a frightened animal.

  Betsy dropped her arms.

  “It’s all right, Daisy. Look at me,” she said, her hands cupping the girl’s shoulders. “Look at me! Stay calm. Follow your breath in and out of your nose, like you were tracing it with a bright light. See it move in, move out.”

  John pulled out a chair for the choking girl to sit. He put his hand on her arm, guiding her down into the seat.

  Betsy took her hand, coaching. “Stay with it, Daisy. Pull in, breathe out. Think of nothing else. In…out. In…out.”

  The girl’s mouth sucked at the air, desperate to breathe. Her eyes sought her psychologist’s, looking to be rescued. Betsy had seen a child nearly drown in a swimming pool years ago, and when she plunged into the water to save the struggling girl, the eyes, wide in terror, had been identical to Daisy’s.

  Betsy moved her face closer to Daisy’s, locking eyes.

  John brought water in a paper cup, offering it to Daisy.

  Betsy shook her head. “Not yet.”

  Betsy looked down at The Red Book, still open on the floor.

  Five minutes later, Daisy was breathing freely, her chest moving rhythmically.

  “It has passed, hasn’t it?” said Betsy. “Do you feel better?”

  Daisy nodded, still concentrating on her breath.

  “We should get you home,” said Betsy. “We’ll drive you.”

  “NO!” gasped Daisy. “Not yet! No!”

  “OK, OK.” Betsy took the girl’s hand again. “Not yet. Keep calm. Daisy, did you want to talk to me about something?”

  “Yes. Yes.”

  “OK. When you feel up to it, we’ll go into the—”

  “Betsy, it’s a bad time for you to stop seeing me. The dreams are super intense—”

  “Intensity is good, Daisy. Write them down, everything. We’ll discuss them when I get back—”

  “You can’t leave me now!” she screamed. “You just can’t!”

  Betsy sighed. She could feel the girl’s hand sweating in her own, feel the panic in her ragged breath.

  Of course, patients think everything is always about them because analysts convince them it is. All they experience, dream, or think is fodder for analysis.

  Then Betsy allowed herself a selfish thought.

  Now it’s about me. Not about my patients. It’s my mother, who disappeared in Slovakia. This is my nightmare.

  Betsy had to disengage herself from her patient, but gently.

  “I am going to be leaving town for a few weeks. But I’ll be back, I promise—”

  “A few weeks? Wait. You said two weeks. That was bad enough,” she gasped.

  “Daisy. It’s a family emergency.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s something I must take care of,” Betsy said, gen
tly. “I have no choice in the matter. I have to go.”

  “Maybe we should throw an I-Ching just in case. I have this awful feeling,” Daisy said. “There is danger, I’m sure of it.”

  Chapter 25

  THE GREAT HALL

  ČACHTICE CASTLE

  DECEMBER 18, 1610

  The addled dwarf brought the coins. As he approached, the spittle on his open mouth glistened in the flickering torchlight. He breathed noisily, a grounded fish.

  To Darvulia, the witch, he was exactly that: a fish. His eyes registered only movement, not sentiments. There was no compassion, joy, or sadness that touched him as he did the Countess’s bidding. Yet that was no fault of his own. Unlike the dark hooded stranger who taught the Countess new “games” in the dungeon below, Fizko was born what he was, a fool.

  The Countess chose three silver thalers.

  “Ilona Joo—put these into the fire,” she commanded. “Dorka and Hedvika, fetch the thief. She shall receive her punishment before she steals again.”

  Ilona Joo, wet nurse to the Countess’s children—all grown and married now—did as she was bidden. The orange coals sputtered as the three coins eclipsed their glow.

  Dorka brought the soot-faced skeleton of a girl toward the Countess. Vida had been locked in a dungeon in the depths of the castle. She had been given a few sticks of wood charcoal, more to drive away the rats than to provide heat. She had kept her pale face next to the heat, blistering her lips.

  As she was escorted past the pressing crowd of servants, Zuzana grasped her hand, kissing her fingers. “May God bless you, Vida!”

  Dorka yanked Vida away and shoved her hard, sending her sprawling on the ground at the Countess’s feet.

  “You have been accused of stealing,” said Countess Bathory, eyeing the girl on the floor. “What do you say?”

  “It is true. I tasted the goose fat—but I am starving, good mistress.”

  “I have given you food, shelter, and money to take to your mother, and you repay me with your thievery.”

  “I am dying of hunger!”

  The Countess nodded to the nursemaid by the fire. “Bring me money, coins for our little thief.”

  Vida spun around to see Ilona Joo take the tongs from the hearth, pick the thalers out of the coals, and drop them on a metal tray.