The Gentling Box

by Lisa Mannetti

  “Do you know the work of the disciples of a German physician named Franz Mesmer? No? Then let me explain.”

  I hung on every word.

  ***

  It was Mimi—hollow-eyed and weary—but it was clearly Mimi who unbarred the carved door and let us in.

  I saw the old man’s dark brilliant gaze scrutinizing her, then he nodded. “It’s her,” he said, raising one thin hand to touch her cheek lightly. He swung the cape from his shoulders and said, “You understand I couldn’t be sure until I saw her for myself.”

  Mimi blushed.

  “I know my own wife—” I began to say, but he cut me off.

  “Perhaps. But another mind—a very cunning one—has access to hers now.”

  “Are you saying Anyeta could imitate her to fool me?”

  He nodded, and turned his attention to Mimi. “Tell me what you can. She has been out since Imre left?”

  Mimi nodded slowly. “I feel a pressure, here” she said, bringing one hand to her head. “A kind of storm—like snow swirling and rushing faster and faster, and a cold, burning pain; then everything gets blotted out in all that white.”

  “Can you see her—see what she does?”

  “Yes.”

  “Hear her?”

  I saw her slim throat tighten, and she swallowed. “In my head, she says things, taunts me—like the voice in a nightmare that never stops.”

  “Can she hear you, see you?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Can you feel her now, or see her?”

  Mimi’s eyes took on a faraway misty look. She lifted her head, whispering, “She’s veiled, hidden.”

  Joseph sat back, considering. “Anyeta will use the secret byways of the mind to push you aside. Think of Zahara, how she used the woman’s old longing for Imre against her. There may be things inside you that you don’t know about yourself—and yet, she will do the work silently, burrowing deeper to get at dreams, fears, desires. Forewarned is forearmed, we must find out all we can.”

  “Yes.” Mimi placed one small hand across her chest. “I feel her chipping at me. Do you know that old tale about eternity? That it’s like a great silver ball, as large as the earth, and a single bird circles it, tipping it with one wing; and that as long as it would take the bird to wear out that monstrous orb—that is the beginning of eternity.” Mimi’s face went fierce. “I feel her will inside me—iron hard, determined, saying, ‘And if it takes that eternity, so be it. In the end I will break you and laugh when I crush your bones in my fist.’”

  “There will be things Anyeta fears,” Joseph said. “And those fears can be used against her.”

  “Mesmerism,” she said, and her eyes flashed onto his. She took his gnarled hand in her small one, and I saw their minds were meeting in a place I could not go. “Put me in a trance, then.”

  Joseph looked grave. “You may not remember what happens when you wake—”

  She nodded. “But you’ll tell me.”

  “If she comes out, we could lose you.” He paused. “You know that?”

  Her eyes fluttered closed, and I saw the line of her dark lashes against her pale cheek. “Say my name. If I can hear it, I’ll come back.”

  -37-

  I didn’t like what they were up to. It seemed too dangerous, too risky. I paced back and forth in the caravan.

  “You never told me she might be called forth!” I shouted at the old man, but he only shook his head. I rounded on Mimi. “If all it takes is saying your name, why did she laugh at me? Don’t let him do this,” I said, pleading, grabbing her hand. “Why are you doing this?”

  “She’ll get out, Imre,” Mimi said. “And I have to find a way to keep her back.”

  “How do you know she will?” I folded my arms.

  “Because I know what she did to Zahara.”

  “And what was that?”

  “Terrified her until Zahara retreated so far, she was a speck; Anyeta took the last of her powers, and then for Zahara there was nothing.”

  “Nothing?” I kept after them, but they ignored my objections and went about setting up the caravan, drawing the shutters closed, lighting one short candle.

  Joseph had made an easy chair out of the wooden bench by stuffing it with pillows and blankets for her to sink into, and now he answered me. “Nothing but the dark place that was the sum of her fears.”

  I shivered, feeling gooseflesh breaking in cold waves over my skin. But there was no time to protest further, they were ready to begin. Mimi settled in the chair, facing Joseph, and I watched anxiously. He counted backwards from ten, led her gradually and slowly to a place deep inside herself, while I sat peering at her still face in the gloom of the caravan. I chewed at my fingers, wishing I’d kissed her smooth brow while I’d had the chance.

  ***

  Her head lolled toward the cradle of her shoulder. Her closed eyelids fluttered lightly, then stopped. The small hand resting in the lap of her skirt was as motionless as a statue’s.

  “Mimi,” Joseph said. “You can open your eyes, talk, move about the room. Yet you will remain within that safe, silent place inside you, until I call you to waking.” He paused, and she nodded slowly.

  Her eyes opened with the sludgy mechanical lifting of a doll’s. She was waiting for him to guide her; her face was as blank and vacuous as her eyes.

  “All right,” Joseph said. “Can you tell me exactly what she used against Zahara?”

  “Dark, cold.” Mimi whispered, her head tilted backward suddenly, her pale mouth gaped in a silent scream.

  “Where are you?”

  She cringed, huddling deep against the bench. “Don’t leave me,” she whimpered.

  I stared, feeling half-enthralled myself. It was like looking at the image of Zahara. The face seemingly filled out, Mimi’s sharp cheekbones diminished under heavy pads of flesh. The eyes were smaller, darker, filled with the helpless terror of a trapped animal. The shoulders had a rounded, drooping cast to them.

  “Hear them?” she asked, and now I heard a huskiness in the voice, watched her shiver. “They scratch at the wood,” she lifted one hand, miming a claw. “They’ll get in soon.”

  “Earth,” she said, and there was something so desolate in her voice I felt myself go cold. Oh Christ, I thought, she was seeing, feeling that eternal unrest that was the curse of claiming the hand.

  “It’s so hard to breathe, the air is heavy. Rings,” she said, clasping her fingers. “Feel like bands of frozen steel. They hurt. They hurt. It’s always night. Always. And I hear the sound of rain—far off, high up.” She trembled. “The scratchings and the tunnelings of the worms. I hear the first one bore through the wet rotting wood, and the rest pour in like a flood. Swarming. My flesh,” she wept, her body going as rigid as a stone effigy. “They eat my flesh. And I cannot move.”

  Joseph turned to me. “This is the vision the old woman used to terrify Zahara, to shove her aside and weaken her. She will find a more powerful way to get at your wife.”

  “Is that—was it Zahara?”

  “No,” Mimi said. “Only the reflection of a memory behind the sorceress. An illusion.” The voice was toneless, empty, dead—there was nothing human left in it.

  “Where is Zahara?” I cried.

  “Waiting. In the earth. Always,” Mimi said, and I felt Joseph’s hooded eyes piercing me, saw the panged look that said if I’d gentled her, she would have found peace. Afterwards they don’t remember! My father’s voice rattled in my head, and I saw the metal spikes protruding from a horse’s skull and a woman’s brow; saw the punctured flesh, the bright runnels of blood dripping down dazed, confused faces, and I shook my head. Old Joseph was wrong. My father was wrong, I told myself: peace and that the hideous state of un-being were not the same, must never be confused. I was sorry for Zahara but I had no regrets about the gentling cap. I heard Joseph sigh, and I looked up.

  “Now I want to ask you, Mimi, can you see Anyeta?”

  “Yes. She’s sitting in a ba
re room, just beyond the gauze of the veil.”

  “Can you hear her, hear what she’s thinking?”

  “Yes. Run with the wolves when the moon is high. Lope over the fields and run. Into the town to take—take whichever one I want, and I will run.”

  Joseph’s eyes went wide, and I saw his bewilderment. “Take, run,” he repeated slowly. “What does that mean?”

  Mimi got up, and now her face had a sinister look. The dark brows narrowed to a slash, the lips drawn into a cruel half-smile. She began to snicker. “First the animals. Bite deep. The blood fills your mouth. First animals.” Her voice was a growl, thick with saliva as if she was excited at the thought. She made a sucking sound. Her eyes gleamed with a vicious light, and she gave a sudden snort.

  “Animals,” Joseph said. “And then?”

  But the face went sly. “And then we will see, we will see what the other one changes into.”

  “Who are you?” Joseph demanded at the same instant he grabbed my arm, warning me, holding me back just as I was on the verge of saying her name. “Don’t even think it,” he snapped at me. “Who are you?”

  “Heh-heh-heh.”

  The voice was an evil chortling sound, so eerie I felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand out. I held my breath. The face took on a weathered look, and now I saw the hair was paler than Mimi’s. Lank greasy strings lay damply over her shoulders. Her white face shone with droplets of sweat, the eyes were glowing pinpricks in the shadows. “You know,” she crooned. “Say it,” she shouted.

  Joseph shook his head, no, my pulse was racing. I saw her eyes flick toward me.

  “Say my name and I’ll tell you.” She came and sat on my lap, her body like a small hot furnace. She leaned her mouth against my ear, whispering. “Lost. Lenore will be lost.” Hectic fingers stroked the curling hairs at the base of my throat. “Like her beloved Empress. Sisi,” she chuckled. Her son, a murderer and a suicide. Her sister trapped in a theater, killed when a gas lantern explodes. Her life a broken one; a sham marriage and a life of endless wandering.

  “There will be no good death.” She peered into my eyes. “Not for Elizabeth. No. Only an assassin’s knife.” She snickered, tapping her finger against the center of my chest. “Say my name, save your daughter if you can.”

  I closed my eyes, afraid to move, wondering if it could be true; no, the Empress’ son, I thought, was scarcely more than a toddler . . .

  “Mimi wails inside me, waiting in a place more silent than the grave she yearns for. Say my name . . . I have secrets. They can be yours, only say my name—”

  . . . and I felt that hot dry breath, and I thought, Oh Christ is this what Mimi’s hears, the subtle voice of the desert wind, swirling, inexorable, grinding her to dust, to the sand that is the wind itself. Detlene, the dark wind. I thought of the vision I’d had that day, seeing Mimi immobilized like Lot’s wife on the stoop of the caravan; waiting for me. Lonely, frightened, begging me to swear—

  “Say my name,” she breathed, and at that instant I felt my jaw drop, the name rising, coming to my lips and tongue, and I saw something greedy in those obsidian eyes, felt her thin burning body writhing against mine eagerly.

  “Yesss—say it.” She opened her mouth for a kiss. My hand lighted on the back of her head, but the image that rose to my mind was a hard sun-whitened skull filled with sharp teeth. I gasped, flailed my hands and pushed her away.

  She stood up and laughed, seemingly undaunted. “Not now.” She waggled her sharp finger at me. “But I will make you say it.” Her eyes blazed. “And I will make you regret not saying it now.” She turned hissing, seeming to dissolve into Mimi. “Remember, you might have known . . . .” And then she was gone, and Mimi blinked her eyes, twice, and shook her head. Her face was blank, as if she were still looking inward at something.

  “She’s waking,” I started to say, but Joseph cut me off.

  “Quiet,” he commanded. “We must be quick, before she comes out of the trance. What is she afraid of, Mimi?” He pressed, “What does she want?”

  “Sharp,” she muttered. Her shoulders twitched, fingers clenching tight enough to break the skin. “Hand,” she said, gazing down dreamily at the bloody indentations in her palm; and then the blank look was gone and she was staring hard at both of us.

  -38-

  “She wasn’t out all the way,” Joseph said, pacing, hands knotted behind his back.

  I wasn’t so sure. “Christ, she felt like a bag of bones sitting on my lap, even the smell—” I stopped, catching sight of my wife’s face.

  Mimi’s violet brown eyes had a sad, haunted look. “It’s me,” she said, slowly. “My body. And yet you feel revulsion.”

  “It’s you—I know—but it doesn’t seem like you,” I said helplessly. “You look different.”

  She uttered a little “oh,” and I saw I was upsetting her more, making her feel more cut off, adrift. Was there any way to explain the terror Anyeta invoked in me?

  Joseph held his hand up. “I know this is hard. But we have to face it, you especially, Mimi. If she can find a way through your defenses, she won’t rest until she wears you down.”

  He turned to me. “And she will use you, Imre. Any ploy she can think of—if she emerges even part way, you must never say or think her name.”

  “Did she speak the truth—will the Empress—” I swallowed. My God, the sheer power of the thing. I thought of Anyeta raising corpses in the cemeteries, heard their howling voices. Ask. Ask of me what you will.

  Joseph would not answer, he only gave me a hard stare, and I thought I saw his jaw tighten, as if he knew, saw. Then he turned to Mimi, hunkered down. He took her hands lightly in his, mindful of the gauze bound over her palms. “You did well, my brave one.” He leaned over kissed the knuckles, in turn. “Can you do a little better, do you think?” His eyes twinkled.

  “This is the worst flattery,” she giggled, and I saw she was feeling better, more at ease. “But, yes, I’ll try.”

  “Good! Don’t listen to him, the sorceress was only out part way. What I want to know is this—were you still linked to her, and if so, can you tell me what she was thinking?”

  Her hands still rode lightly in his, she closed her eyes, concentrating, then exhaled and shook her head. “No,” she said.

  “Patience,” he said under his breath. “Don’t pull back, this time let yourself flow into her thoughts.”

  She moaned softly. “No, I don’t know.”

  I saw tears well up in her eyes. Joseph brought one hand up, brushing at them as delicately as any mother. He smoothed the sweat-damp hair, slowly, rhythmically. I wondered if it was to comfort her or to guide her back toward the relaxed state she felt in the trance.

  “Shhh, all right. Easy, now,” he said, and Mimi closed her eyes. “What does it mean, run with the wolves, to bite animals first?”

  She shook her head.

  “Tell me what comes after animals.”

  “Children.” Her eyes flew open in alarm. “What does that mean?”

  He shrugged it off, then softly moved his big hands round and round her temples. “What about sharp or hand, the words you said when you were coming out of it?”

  “Nothing. Can’t tell,” she said, and I thought that was the end of it, but something struck the old man.

  He stood up, twisting the gold ring on his middle finger. “Can’t tell,” he repeated. “Mimi,” he said, his eyes flashing sparks, “will you let me put you under once more, briefly?”

  “Now?”

  “Please.” He nodded and she agreed. He began to count, before he reached five, she was breathing deeply.

  “What does Anyeta fear? What does sharp mean?”

  “Can’t tell,” she murmured in a high tight voice. “No, mustn’t tell.” She shook her head back and forth, reminding me of a worried child who wants to confess but feels afraid. Was some part of Anyeta holding her back?

  “Then show us,” Joseph said.

  She began to mime seizing a
knife and stabbing at her own chest. A low moan came out of the old man’s throat, and he nodded, slowly, painfully. I looked at him but he wouldn’t meet my eye. “And what does she want, what of the hand?”

  I watched in amazement as she raced lightly up the stairs to the loft, rummaged among the barrels, then returned with the copper box. She opened the glass lid and the room was filled with that inexplicable sweet fragrance—lily of the valley, roses, gardenia. She leaned over, and I saw her fumbling in the inner corner of the box at what appeared to be a small brass button. She depressed it with the tips of her fingers, slid it out of sight. It was a crude release mechanism, I realized, watching her lift away a shallow wooden tray; it was covered with the maroon velvet that outlined the hand of the dead.

  Beneath it was another compartment. But there was nothing in it but a brownish, dry looking substance—like the bark of a tree but twisted into a fantastic shape.

  “Is it a truffle, some kind of mushroom?” I asked, poking one finger out.

  “Don’t touch it,” Joseph said, but the tip of my nail had grazed the surface.

  A drop of blood suddenly welled up, then ran quick and bright over the humped shape, pooling against the copper bottom of the box. Under the rill of fresh blood, the thing took on a pinkish hue.

  “It’s flesh,” he said.

  “What kind of flesh?”

  “What did she say?” Joseph raised his eyes toward the ceiling. “First animals, and we will see what the other one turns into. First animals, then children.”

  Deep in the trance, Mimi moaned, swayed on her feet.

  “Wake her up,” I said, feeling anger roiling inside me.

  “No, let her dream a while. I’m afraid it’s all the comfort she’ll have for a long time.”

  “What does this mean, all this wild talk of knives and wolves and flesh?”

  For the first time in my life I saw him angry. “It means, you stupid man, when the body is controlled by Anyeta she will run gibbering and kill—animals, babies, eat their flesh.” He glared at me a long time, then the hot light in his eyes began to dim. The expression on his gaunt face softened. “Do you remember when I told you Anyeta was looking for a way to take someone who claimed the hand without dying?”