Black as Night: A Fairy Tale Retold

by Regina Doman

  The door closed behind her quick footsteps. Bear tried again to jerk his hands free of the wires, and looked helplessly at the computer screen. He prayed that Blanche would sense evil coming, and escape again. Even if I can’t.

  IV

  The girl blinked. The walls felt as though they were closing in on her. A throbbing began in her head. An echo of footsteps.

  I felt a funeral in my brain…

  “Blanche, are you sure you’re all right?” Mr. Fairston asked.

  She got up, and grabbed the back of the chair to steady herself. “Yes,” she assured him. “But I think I should go now.” She licked her lips, her throat swelling in fear. It was coming. Closer.

  The door opened, and the wife stood there.

  “Well, hello. This is certainly a late night visit, isn’t it?” Her voice was chilly. She had an electrical cord bunched up in her hand, and the girl wondered why. But she felt as though it almost didn’t matter to her. The footsteps were coming…

  And then Sense broke through. She went down, and, like Alice, fell a long way into the dark, absurdly, disjointedly. She felt herself sinking, and yet the floor never rose up to meet her. She just fell, through oceans and past planets, spinning head over heels, slowly, ominously.

  There was a terrified rattle of voices above her, and she still knew what they were saying. The wife’s voice came shrilly, “Are you all right? What’s wrong?” And Mr. Fairston saying, “Oh God! Oh God!” as though he really were speaking to God for once.

  And she finished knowing, then—

  V

  Bear, his throat dry, fixed his eyes on the monitor. Blanche was slumped over the chair—barely conscious. Had something happened to her because of her heart condition...?

  But no, it was something worse than that. Far worse. He had seen it.

  He saw Elaine shaking her shoulders, slapping her face, a look of panic crawling over her features. There was no response. Blanche’s head lolled to the side, her black hair falling sideways over her face.

  Elaine said something to his father, and the man twisted forward and seemed about to argue. But instead, he just jerked his head in a nod. Apparently he believed whatever she had said. Putting an arm under Blanche, Elaine half-carried, half-dragged her from the room.

  Bear twisted towards the door, listening. But the suffocating carpet deadened all sound of footsteps. He could not hear if they had gone. He could not hear them returning.

  He struggled once again to see if he could loosen the cord on his hands, but all he did was give it the chance to gnaw deeper into his skin. Giving up, he studied the wire that tied his feet to the thick leg of the couch. He braced himself against the settee, curled his knees to his chest as far as he could, stretched his legs out again, and yanked them back with a ferocious jerk that wrenched his ankle joints painfully. The settee moved, but the cord didn’t break. No good.

  He glanced at the monitor again. His father had rolled over, and was staring at the wall. Nothing moved. He wondered if his dad, lying weakly in his bed, knew what was going on, and if so, could he have done anything about it. There was no phone in his room. No way for his father to get help for Blanche...his father was in a trap, shut off from the world, unable to get out, bound by his disease and the insane control of his second wife...

  And Blanche had walked into that trap. And may not come out alive, he thought bleakly.

  And unless something happened, neither would he.

  There was a tremor in the air. The door swung open silently and he realized that he was still desperately caught.

  Elaine stood in the doorway. Alone. Her face was blank, expressionless. She shut the door behind her, walked over to him, and looked down.

  “You tried to take the king,” he said steadily.

  The blue eyes stared at him, and the red lips twisted but made no reply.

  “What was in that stuff Blanche ate? It was meant for my dad, wasn’t it?”

  “I don’t know what you mean.” Elaine’s voice seemed to come from far away.

  “You tried to murder him.”

  “No, I didn’t!” she snapped, suddenly vicious. “It’s not murder to put someone into a coma. Your father is dying already. The doctor says he’ll be in a coma any day now, and when that happens, he’ll die within the month.”

  His wrists were numb, and he struggled to stay upright. “Blanche wasn’t dying.”

  “Chess games can get ugly. I warned you. I warned her. I warned you both. But she just had to interfere—if she had just stayed away—”

  “—Then Dad would be dead. I’m sure his suicide would have been convenient for you,” he cut back.

  She turned on him. “You don’t know a thing about your father, Arthur. He wanted to commit suicide—he even wrote it out in his will. Why should you be concerned if I was going to help him to die a swift, merciful death? You don’t know how lonely and tormented he’s been all these months, feeling abandoned by his sons. You got the money from him and went right to Europe, not even bothering to come by and see him. All these months he’s been alone.”

  Bear felt the stabs of guilt thrust through him, silencing his accusations. “I didn’t know he was dying,” was all he could say.

  “Just like you didn’t know that Blanche looked like your mother,” sneered Elaine. “You’re so full of it.” She punched a button on the computer and the screen faded to black.

  He tried once more to brace himself as she walked into the corner of the room. “What did you do with Blanche?”

  She yanked up a corner of the carpet and pulled out a wooden box that was set into the floor. Taking out a key, she unlocked it, and took out a small white envelope. “I put her body in my car. To dispose of later.”

  “Is she dead?”

  “She’s as good as dead.”

  “Elaine, it’s not too late. Take her to the hospital.”

  “They couldn’t do anything for her.”

  He knew what she was doing. And what she was not saying. Setting his jaw, he waited.

  “Still,” Elaine seemed to be rethinking her works as she pulled on a pair of gloves. “I suppose I could let her live. So long as she’s not found anywhere near this house and so long as she stays in a coma, she’s no threat to me. If that’s your idea of mercy—eternal sleep and living death.”

  He didn’t answer her sneer but watched her movements steadily.

  She smiled at him faintly. “You want to come down to the car with me, Arthur? If you come along quietly, you can even pick out the place where I’ll drop Blanche off.”

  This was a feeble attempt to get him to walk to the place of his execution. He shook his head. “You’ll have to drag me,” he said softly. “I’d fight you tooth and nail.” At least a struggle would leave evidence.

  “Just as you like.” Her eyes flickered, and she took out a syringe and sifted the powder from the envelope into it. He watched her as she took out another packet, and emptied that into the syringe as well. And another.

  She went to the bar and poured a glass of water. Then she drew some of it up into the syringe and shook it methodically.

  Now she gazed at the swirling white powder in the syringe.

  “I’m curious,” she said absently. “You always said you never did drugs. Was that true?”

  “Yes,” he said, swallowing.

  “So you’ve never done heroin?”

  “No.”

  “I’m told it’s not a bad way to go,” she said, setting down the needle and pulling a scarlet scarf out of the box. “It will make sense to the police, too. You were high on drugs, and you broke into my house, and I was forced to restrain you, but you had overdosed, and you died while I was getting the police.”

  He saw the abyss she was sliding towards, and for her sake as much as his own, he said, “You don’t want to commit murder, Elaine. You said you didn’t.”

  “It’s too late, Arthur,” she said, fiddling with the scarlet scarf and twisting it into a rope.

 
; “It’s not,” he found himself saying, trying not to be distracted by the scarf.

  She needed to tie his arm in order to get to the vein. “I’m going to have to send you flying to the stars. There’s the black and the white. The checkmate. You’re going to win, and I can’t let you. It’s all black and white, Arthur. There are no switching sides or switching colors in chess.”

  “This isn’t chess. This is life. Everyone has a chance to change sides, even at the last moment of their lives,” he was trying to reach her with his eyes, while being aware of her every movement.

  “Even to a bad girl like me?” She laughed softly as she came forward, sliding her hand into her pocket. “‘From a woman came sin, and so we all must die.’ We’re the ones who began it all.”

  He tried with all his might not to flinch, trying to meet her gaze even as he carefully shifted his position. “But,” he said, “there was the woman who was full of grace, who said, ‘yes.’ And that’s how the end of sin began.”

  He thought he saw a gleam in her eyes. She held out the scarf, but started to pull her hand out of her pocket, the pocket with the chloroform. “Full of grace,” she murmured, “White as snow.”

  As she darted forward he ducked his head and hurled himself into her. They collided with such force that she reeled backwards, hit her head against the wall, and crumbled down in a black heap, dropping the chloroform and the red scarf. Immediately he curled into a ball and rolled himself back to a wobbly sitting position again, tense, watching for her next move.

  Stunned, she crawled forward, her bright blue eyes glittering at him in wrath.

  “So,” she said savagely, “this is how you treat a woman?”

  He could tell she had not been prepared for such a show of physical force, and she wasn’t anxious to take him on again.

  “I’m going to take your queen,” she spat at him, “and drop her body on the figure eight ramp to the Henry Hudson parkway. And then I’m just going to go round and round on that figure eight until there’s nothing left but a bloody pulp.”

  She stumbled to her feet, snatched up her mask, wig, and visor, and tore out of the room, slamming the door behind her.

  His heart was racing. He had bought himself some time—but at what cost?

  Blanche, he shouted in his mind, what have I done to you?

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  She was sliding in and out of consciousness, scenes coming upon her in bursts like flashes of light, followed by silent darkness. The darkness had her, and she felt as though she had been running from it all summer, running from it this entire past year, running from it all her life. And all this time it had been gaining ground steadily and was now overtaking her.

  A flash, and then Bonnie was there again, the empty green eyes hovering over her in darkness. “It’s too late,” she said in a dull voice. “If only you had stayed away, this wouldn’t have happened—”

  The black pupils of her eyes seemed to grow out of the bag lady’s face until they consumed her. Consumed everything.

  And that was all. It was over.

  The last thing she sensed was the sound of someone starting a car.

  II

  “Leon, where are you all?” Father Francis’s voice on the phone was tinged with exasperation.

  “Uh...on the corner of Broadway and 96th,” Leon said. “It’s our educated guess that Nora took the subway down here. But we can’t seem to find out where she went from here.”

  “Is Brother George with you?”

  “No, he’s not.”

  “All right. I’m sending Father Bernard with the van to help. He’ll be there in about a half hour, okay?”

  “Okay.”

  “Leon, God will take care of her.”

  “Keep praying,” Leon said, and hung up the pay phone.

  “Where to, Big-Little-Dog?” Charley asked again.

  “Uh, Charley you stake out this corner and wait for Father Bernard. Let him know what we’re doing; Matt, you and I’ll split up and circle round the block again. We should be able to spot Nora if she comes back to this station. Let’s meet back here in about fifteen minutes, okay?”

  All nodded and split up. They had been doing this for the past hour. He was glad no one had complained.

  It was late at night now. He walked through the thinning crowds, the hot wind flapping his habit against his legs. The worst part was the blind searching, not really knowing where to look.

  At last he stopped and forced himself to stand quiet for a moment, looking towards the Henry Hudson Parkway, where an occasional car drove leisurely by, exiting and entering on the figure-eight cloverleaf ramps. Beyond the parkway, the lights of New Jersey glimmered across the river. Inwardly Leon reached out, to trust, to hope...

  As he was turning around, he saw a white car screeching around a corner. It was being driven by a woman with a green eyeshade.

  As though an electric current had run through him, he jumped forward, running hard, his sandals banging the pavement. Come on, come on, he thought to himself. The car was speeding towards the ramps leading to the Parkway.

  He caught a glimpse of Matt and shouted, “Matt! It’s Bonnie!”

  Matt turned and followed, but Leon had a hundred yard lead.

  There was no way they were going to be able to outrun a car. Still, there was a chance she would have to stop at the light first to get to the cloverleaf ramp. Let’s hope she’s going south, he thought, and raced for the lower loop of the cloverleaf.

  He saw the white car starting up the ramp and was close enough to hear its engine churning to a stop. It halted, then jerked forward again with a screech and got onto the Parkway. Leon climbed over the concrete barrier, and looked in the shadows of the darkest part of the ramp where the car had paused. A body lay sprawled on the road, a jumble of blue and pink sheets with black hair. Nora.

  Shouting, Leon ran to her, seized her and tried to drag her out of the roadway, or at least into the light. She was still warm, but unresponsive, her body a dead weight.

  He had been trying to follow the sound of the car. When he heard the whine of its engine, he figured that the owner of the car had gotten directly off the Parkway and was coming around again for another circuit.

  Hurriedly he threw Nora’s arm over his shoulder, pulled her into a fireman’s carry, and raced for his life down the ramp and off to the side. He saw the headlights and they blinded him momentarily. The car wasn’t stopping. It was speeding towards him in fury.

  He reached the bottom of the ramp and scrambled over the concrete barrier, tumbling onto the ground three feet below with Nora on top of him. The white car screamed past him with rage, but couldn’t touch him.

  Stumbling to his feet, he stooped to pick up Nora again, hoping against hope that the fall hadn’t hurt her worse. “Matt?” he shouted. Now he was on the road beneath the parkway, even less traveled, where similar dangers awaited him.

  Shouldering Nora, he tried to figure out the quickest way to safety. He heard the whine of the white car once again, and staggered in the opposite direction. Bonnie would be making another circuit of the cloverleaf, looking for a way to get off and crush him. And this back road would be an ideal place to do it.

  He started back towards busier town streets, lurching beneath his burden. Tires squealed. He had unwittingly stepped out into traffic. Careful! he said to himself, and hurried unsteadily across the road, making another car shriek to a stop to avoid him. He heard what he was certain was the sound of an illegal U-turn. There was a blinding sweep of headlights.

  Then the car swerved aside and pulled to a stop beside him. It was white. He blinked, and recognized a familiar battered Toyota. Inside were Brother George and Matt.

  “Get inside, quick!” the older brother rasped.

  Leon tumbled Nora inside the car, Matt grabbing her shoulders and pulling her in. Leon squeezed in and slammed the door. The Toyota roared to life and sped away from the deadly cloverleaf.

  “You okay, Leon?” Brother
George asked. “What happened to Nora?”

  Leon was too winded to reply. For a few minutes he looked this way and that way, trying to see if the white car was following them.

  But it wasn’t. He didn’t see it again.

  III

  God, help me, Bear begged. Please help Blanche. Please protect her. He worked feverishly at his bonds, until his wrists were hot, wet, and stinging, but to no avail. At last he realized it was useless. He thought of shouting for help, but who would hear him? Fish and Rose might have come to the house, but they would be locked outside on the street, unable to get in. Did Fish have a key? Bear doubted it—his brother didn’t hold onto things like old keys. They might be standing outside the house right now, trying to decide what to do. They might even suppose he had just gone home and leave. Bear’s heart sank.

  There was only his father—could he possibly hear him? And if he heard, could he come? Would he come?

  As desperate as his situation was, he balked at the thought of doing it. But what other choice did he have? He gritted his teeth and made himself move, yanking his ankles upwards, gritting his teeth against the pain. The settee was heavy, but he could pull it inch by inch from the wall. Jerking and dragging this burden bit by bit behind him, he forced himself across the carpet over to the door. At last he put his mouth down to the crack. Swallowing and wetting his lips, he barked hoarsely, “Dad! Dad! Help!”

  There was no answer. He roared with all his might, “Dad!”

  Dizzy with the effort, he leaned his head back, feeling desolation overwhelm him. Elaine would come back, and he would die here, in this suffocating nightmare of a house, unheard. Unseen. Would his dad even know his son had been here?

  “Dad!” he screamed again, and closed his eyes with the pain that heaved up in his chest. I’m like a kid, a crying, sobbing little baby, crying out for his dad, he thought. And it was probably just a pointless prelude to despair.

  As he waited, the minutes passing, he thought for a moment that he heard a noise.

  A faint, scrabbling scraping noise. Like a mouse creeping over the carpet.

  He lifted his head and tried to hear through the ringing in his ears. Minutes went by.