The Taker-Taker 1

by Alma Katsu

  Donatello, he explained, had come from Italy, where he had been an assistant and muse to a great artist whose name I’d never heard. And Tilde—her background was a mystery, Alejandro confessed. The only thing he knew about her was that she’d come from a northern land as snowy and cold as mine. Tilde had already been with Adair when Alejandro joined the court. “She has his ear and her temper can be formidable, so be careful around her at all times,” he warned, dipping the spoon for more broth.

  “It’s not like I’ll be here a minute longer than I need to,” I said, reaching with my mouth for the spoon. “I’ll be gone as soon as I’m feeling better.” Alejandro made no comment, appearing to be concentrating on conveying the next spoonful of broth to my open mouth.

  “There is one more member of Adair’s court,” he said, then hastened to add, “but you probably won’t meet her. She is—reclusive. Just don’t be surprised if you think you see a ghost flit by.”

  “A ghost?” The hairs rose on the back of my neck, memories of the wagon drivers’ ghost stories rushing back to mind, the sad dead looking for loved ones.

  “Not a real ghost,” he chided. “Though she might as well be one. She keeps to herself, and the only way you’ll see her is to stumble across her, like coming upon a deer in the wood. She doesn’t speak and she won’t pay any attention to you if you try to talk to her. Her name is Uzra.”

  As grateful as I was to Alejandro for sharing his knowledge, each bit of his information sat uncomfortably with me, as each was further evidence of my ignorance and isolated upbringing. I’d never been told about any of these foreign lands, didn’t know the name of one famous artist. Most unsettling was this Uzra—I didn’t want to meet a woman who had made herself a ghost. And what had Adair done to keep her from speaking? Cut out her tongue? I didn’t doubt he was cruel enough to do it.

  “I don’t know why you bother to tell me these things,” I said. “I’m not staying.”

  Alejandro observed me with the beautiful smile of an altar boy and a glittering eye. “Oh, it’s just a way to pass the time. Shall I get you more soup?”

  That night, when I heard Adair and his minions sweep down the hallway, preparing to depart for the evening, I crept out of my bed and to the landing to watch. How beautiful they were, swathed in velvets and brocades, powdered and coiffed by servants who had spent hours fussing over them. Tilde, with jewels pinned in her yellow hair, her lips painted red; Dona, with a spotless white cravat wound up to his jaw, accentuating his aristocratic neck and his long chin; Alejandro, in a black frock coat and forever sorrowful look—nattering at one another in their sharp-tongued way and aflutter like regally plumed birds.

  But mostly I gazed at Adair, for he was captivating. A savage buttoned up in a gentleman’s finery. Then it struck me: he was a wolf in sheep’s clothing, going hunting tonight with his pack of jackals to flush out the quarry. They hunted for fun, as they’d hunted for me. He had been the wolf, I the rabbit with the tender, downy neck easily snapped by that remorseless maw. The valet placed the cloak on Adair’s shoulders, and as Adair turned to leave, he glanced up at me, as though he’d known I’d been there all along, and flashed me a look and a slight smile that sent me staggering backward. I should have been afraid of him—I was afraid of him—and yet I was transfixed. A part of me wanted to be one of them, wanted to be on Adair’s arm as he and his minions went out to enjoy themselves, to be fawned on by admirers as was their due.

  That night, I was half awakened by the party as they returned home and not surprised when Adair came into my room and carried me to his bed. Despite my illness, he had me that evening and I let him, surrendered to the thrill of his weight over me, his thickness in me, and the feel of his mouth on my skin. He whispered in my ear as we coupled, more moans than words, and I couldn’t make out what he was saying aside from “cannot deny me” and “mine,” as though he was staking a claim to me that night. Afterward, I lay next to him, shaking as the thrall passed through me.

  The next morning, when I awoke in my quiet little room, the pain in my lower body was markedly worse. I tried to walk, but each step was punctuated with a sharp jab in my abdomen and I leaked blood and feces; I couldn’t imagine getting as far as to the front door, let alone finding someone to take me in. By evening I became consumed by a fever and over the next few days dropped in and out of sleep, each time waking up weaker than before. My skin grew pale and tender, my eyes rimmed in pink. If my bruises and scratches were healing, it happened more slowly than could be perceived. Alejandro, the only person who came to my bedside, delivered his prognosis with a shake of his head. “A puncture of the bowels.”

  “Surely that is a trifling illness?” I asked, hopefully.

  “Not if it goes septic.”

  Ignorant as I was of the complexities of anatomy, if pain was an indication of the severity of the problem, the baby had to be in peril. “A physician,” I begged, squeezing his hand.

  “I’ll speak to Adair,” he promised.

  A few hours later, Adair burst into the room. I didn’t see even a flicker of acknowledgment of the pleasure we’d shared the previous night. He dragged a stool beside the bed and began examining me, pressing fingers to my forehead and cheeks to judge my temperature.

  “Alejandro said your condition has not improved.”

  “Please, send for a physician. I’ll pay you back someday, as soon as I am able …”

  He clicked his tongue as though to say that the cost was of no consequence. He lifted one of my eyelids, then felt the pouches of flesh under my jaw. After he finished, he rose from the stool.

  “I’ll return in a moment,” he said and swept out of the room.

  I’d nodded off by the time he returned with an old, pitted tankard in his hands. He pulled me into a sitting position before handing me the tankard. The contents smelled like dirt and weeds stewed in warm liquid and looked like swamp water.

  “Drink it,” he said.

  “What is it?”

  “It will help you feel better.”

  “Are you a doctor?”

  Adair gave me a look of mild disgust. “Not what you’d consider a doctor, no. You might say I’ve made a study of traditional medicine. If that had simmered longer, it would be much more palatable, but there was no time for it,” he added, as though he didn’t want me to think less of his prowess because of the taste.

  “You mean you’re like a midwife?” It should go without saying that midwives—though they were often the only practitioners of medicine in any village—had no training, as women were not allowed to attend medical classes at college. The women who became midwives learned about child birthing and ways with herbs and berries through apprenticeship, often learning from their mothers or other relatives.

  “Not quite,” he said sourly, apparently not taking midwives any more seriously than doctors. “Now drink up.”

  I did as he ordered, thinking he wouldn’t agree to bring in a doctor if he was piqued at me for not trying his remedy. I thought I would throw it all up in front of him; the concoction was so grassy and bitter, with a grit that I couldn’t clear from my mouth. “Now, get some more rest, then we’ll see how you are doing,” he said, reaching for the tankard.

  I put my hand on his wrist. “Tell me, Adair …” But then I was at a loss.

  “Tell you what?”

  “I don’t know what to make of your behavior toward me last night …”

  He twisted his handsome mouth into a cruel smile. “Is it so hard to understand?” He helped me to ease back against the pillows, and then he drew the blanket up to my chin. He smoothed the blanket down across my chest and touched my hair, very gently. His mocking expression softened, and so for a moment all I saw was his boyish face and a trace of kindness in his green eyes. “Did you not think that I have grown a little bit fond of you, Lanore? You have turned out to be a bit of a surprise, not just a ragamuffin Tilde dragged in from the street. I sense something about you … you’re a kindred spirit in some way t
hat I haven’t figured out yet. But, I will. First, you must get well. Let’s see if that elixir does any good. Try to rest now. Someone will check on you later.”

  I was surprised by his revelation. To judge from that one night, what existed between us was mutual attraction. Lust, to put it simply. On one hand, it went to my head that a nobleman, a man with wealth and a title, might be interested in me, but on the other hand, he was also a sadist and egotist. Despite the warning signs, I accepted Adair’s affection, even if it was a substitute for that which I desired from another man.

  My stomach calmed, the taste of the bitter elixir forgotten. I had a new conundrum to puzzle over. My curiosity was no match for Adair’s curative, though, and before too long I’d fallen peacefully asleep.

  Another night and day dragged by but no doctor came to see me and I began to wonder what game Adair was playing. He hadn’t been back since his confession of interest in me; he sent servants to my room with additional servings of the elixir but no doctor materialized at my door. After thirty-six hours had passed, I’d become suspicious, again, of his motives.

  I had to get out of this house. If I stayed, I would die in this bed, the baby dying with me. I had to try to find a doctor or someone else who would bring me back to health or at the very least, keep me alive until the baby could be delivered. This child would be the only proof of Jonathan’s love for me and I was adamant that this proof should live on after my own death.

  I stumbled out of bed to search for my satchel, but as I groped under the bedstead and in a cupboard, I became aware of the icy wetness of my underclothes, clinging to my legs. They’d taken away my linen and swaddled me in a length of fabric instead, to catch the foul discharge coming out of me. The fabric was soiled and evil smelling; there was no way I could travel on the streets like this without being mistaken for a lunatic and taken to an asylum. I needed clothing, my cloak, but they had taken everything away.

  Of course, I knew where I might find something to wear. The room full of trunks, where they’d taken me on the first fateful night.

  Outside my room, it was quiet, only the murmur of a conversation between a couple of servants wafting up the stairwell. The hallway was empty. I staggered to the stairs but was so weak and feverish in my limbs that I had to resort to my hands and knees to climb to the next floor. Once there, I leaned against the wall to catch my breath and regain my bearings. Which corridor led to the room of trunks? The corridors looked all the same and there were so many doors … I didn’t have the strength or time to try them all. And as I stood there, near tears from frustration and pain, struggling to hang on to my resolve to escape, I saw her. I saw the ghost.

  I saw movement from the corner of my eye. I assumed it was a kitchen girl on her way to the servants’ loft, in the highest part of the attic, but the figure who stood on the landing was no common servant.

  She was very small. If not for her full bosom and curvy hips, you might mistake her for a child. Her womanly shape was draped in an exotic costume made of tissue-thin silk, billowing pantaloons, and a sleeveless tunic too small to fully cover her breasts. And gorgeous breasts they were, perfectly round and firm and high. You could tell by looking at them how heavy they’d be in your hand, the kind of breasts that could make any man’s mouth water.

  In addition to her luscious form, she was aesthetically beautiful. Her almond-shaped eyes were made to look all the bigger by a ring of kohl. Her hair was a multitude of shades of copper, auburn, and gold, and hung in untamed ringlets all the way to the small of her back. Alejandro had described the color of her skin perfectly: cinnamon, seemingly flecked with mica to make her glisten, as though she was made of some precious stone. I recall all this now with the benefit of having seen her many times after this episode and knowing she was made of flesh and blood, but at the time, truly, she could have been an apparition, conjured up by the male mind as the perfect sexual fantasy. The sight of her was startling and breathtaking. I feared that if I moved, she’d dart away. She stared back at me cautiously as I stared at her.

  “Please don’t go. I need your help.” Tired from standing, I leaned on the banister. She took one step backward, her bare feet silent on the carpet.

  “No, no, please, don’t leave me. I’m ill and I need to get out of this house. Please, I need your help if I’m going to stay alive. Your name is Uzra, right?” At the sound of her name, she danced backward a few steps more, turned, and disappeared in the gloom at the top of the attic stairs. I don’t know if my strength gave out at that moment or if it was my resolve that faltered as she ran away from me, but I slipped to the floor. The ceiling spun overhead, like a lantern twirling free on a twisted cord: first spinning in this direction, then in the other direction. Then everything went dark.

  Then, murmuring and the touch of fingers.

  “What is she doing out of her room?” It was Adair’s voice, gruff and low. “You said she wouldn’t be able to leave her bed.”

  “Apparently she is stronger than she looks,” Alejandro muttered. Someone lifted me and I felt weightless, buoyed.

  “Put her back in there and lock the door this time. She’s not to leave this house.” Adair’s voice began to drift away. “Is she going to die?”

  “How the bloody hell should I know?” Alejandro muttered under his breath, then called out, much stronger, so Adair could hear, “I suppose that’s up to you.”

  Up to him? I wondered, even as I was slipping back into unconsciousness. How could it be up to him whether I lived or died? I had no time to further contemplate this perplexing conversation, however, as I sank back into the vacuum of a lightless, soundless oblivion.

  EIGHTEEN

  She’s dying. She won’t make it through the day.”

  It was Alejandro’s voice, his words not meant for my ears. My eyelids fluttered. He stood next to Adair at my bedside. Both had their arms crossed over their chests in resignation, grave looks on their faces.

  Here it was, the absolute end, and I still had no idea what they meant to do with me, why Adair had bothered to mislead me with a declaration of affection, or ply me with homeopathic potions but refuse me a doctor’s care. At that point, his strange behavior made no difference: I was about to die. If it was my body they were after—for medical dissection or experimentation, to use in a satanic ritual—there would be no one to stop them. After all, what was I but a penniless and friendless vagrant? I wasn’t even their servant; I was less than that, a woman who let strangers do what they pleased with her in exchange for shelter and a meal. I would have cried for what I’d become but the fever had dried me up, leaving me without tears.

  I couldn’t help agreeing with Alejandro’s conclusion: I had to be dying. A body could not feel this bad and live. Inside I was on fire, every muscle burning. I ached. With each breath, my rib cage creaked like a rusty bellows. If I weren’t sorry to be taking Jonathan’s baby with me and so afraid of the heavy weight of the sins for which I would be judged, I would have prayed for God to show me mercy by letting me die.

  I had only one regret, which was that I’d never see Jonathan again. I’d believed so strongly we were destined to be together that it seemed inconceivable we could be separated, that I would die without being able to reach out and touch his face, that he would not be holding my hand as the last breath escaped me. The gravity of my situation became real to me at that moment: my end was here, there was nothing I could do, no entreaty to God that would change that. And the thing I wanted above all else was to see Jonathan.

  “It’s your decision,” Alejandro said to Adair, who hadn’t spoken a word. “If she pleases you. Dona and Tilde have made their positions clear—”

  “It’s not up for a vote,” he growled. “None of you has a say in who joins our household. You all continue to exist at my pleasure”—did I hear him correctly? I thought not; his words slurred and boomed in my head—“you continue to serve me at my pleasure.”

  Adair stepped beside me and ran a hand over my sweaty brow. “See
the look on her face, Alejandro? She knows she is dying and yet she fights. I saw that look on your face, on Tilde’s … it is always the same.” He cupped my cheek. “Listen to me, Lanore. I am about to give you a rare gift. Do you understand? If I do not intervene, you will die. So this is to be our bargain … I am ready to catch you as you die and bring your soul back to this world. But that means you will belong to me entirely, more than just your body. To own your body, that is an easy thing, I can do that now. I want more from you; I want your fiery soul. Do you agree to this?” he asked, searching my eyes for a reaction. “Prepare yourself,” he said to me. I had no idea what he was talking about.

  He leaned close, like a priest about to hear my confession. He held a silver vial as slender as a hummingbird’s beak and pulled a stopper out—more like a needle than a stopper. “Open your mouth,” he commanded, but I was frozen with fright. “Open your damn mouth,” he repeated, “or I will crack your jaw in two.”

  In my confusion I thought he might be offering last rites—I was from a Catholic family, for all intents and purposes—and I wanted absolution for my sins. So I opened my mouth and closed my eyes, waiting.

  He smeared the stopper against my tongue. I didn’t even feel it—the instrument was minute—but my tongue immediately went numb and was seized with the most vile taste. My mouth watered and I began to convulse; he pushed my mouth shut and held it, pinning me to the bed as I was racked with seizures. Blood welled in my mouth, made bitter and sour by the potion he had put on my tongue. Had he poisoned me to hasten my dying? I was lost in my own blood and could feel nothing else. In the back of my mind, I heard Adair mumble, words that made no sense. But panic had replaced all else, especially logic. I didn’t care what he was saying or why he was doing this, I was completely in shock.

  My chest squeezed, the pain and panic excruciating. My lungs no longer worked—pump rusted bellows, for God’s sake. I couldn’t breathe. I know now that my heart was stopping and was unable to make my lungs work. My brain flailed. I was dying, but I wouldn’t die alone. My hands went instinctively to my belly, cupping the small mound that had just begun making itself undeniably evident.