Dark Shadows: Angelique's Descent

by Lara Parker

  * * *

  When the hurricane was mounting its worst assault, Angelique returned to the deserted graveyard with her shovel and, bracing her feet in a wide stance against the power of the roaring wind, began to dig. Palm fronds careened through the air, and dark coconut leaves sailed past her head as she bent to her task. Her arms soon ached, and her back flared with pain. She felt the wind as a physical body, buffeting her bony frame, so weak now from lack of nourishment in Port-au-Prince, and she staggered under each blow. Often her shovel came up with nothing but pebbles the stubborn gale blew back into the pitiful hole she was making, until, finally, she fell to her knees and began clawing with her hands, mindless of her bleeding knuckles as the rocks ripped the skin from her fingers.

  The wind reeled, and the shed by the cemetery gate exploded and collapsed with a clattering crash as pieces of tile crumbled into bits and the wattle walls broke in the mud. It was as if the world were falling apart. Every time she opened her mouth to breathe, it filled with water, and she thought of the many times she had tumbled in heavy surf and lost her sense of the way to the top and had swum instead toward the deep. But now there was no surface to this foaming sea of air that beat her with punishing fists and filled her eyes with grit so that she could no longer see.

  Still she dug at the grave, until at last she could feel her fingers scratching the wood of the coffin, and she began to pray softly, “Mama, don’t wake, I am here, I am coming for you now, and I will lift you out, and this death will be washed away by this hurricane, and all we will remember of its fury will be our resurrection.”

  At last she had the earth cleared from the coffin, as the rain now aided her, washing the clods from the surface of the wood, and, with a surge of joy, she tore the crucifix from the rope around the box and stood and strained for a grip on the slippery surface of the wood as she lifted the lid.

  Her first thought was that the water had penetrated the casket, because the shroud was so thin and collapsed against the bottom, but as she dug at the limp fabric a sickening dread wrapped its menace around her bones. She stared at the gaping receptacle in bewilderment. The coffin was empty!

  “Mama…! Mama!”

  No! How could it be? Where was she? Staggering through the graveyard, stumbling, falling to the mud and rising again, she searched for another new grave, but the scattered debris from the storm covered every piece of earth, and there was nothing but bruised mud lying beneath ripped and mangled branches. She screamed, “Mama!” But the wind whipped the sound from her throat, and there was no answer within the roar. She fell to her knees and sobbed.

  “Somewhere, because of me, somewhere in the bitter darkness, she must die … a second time … and she suffers now, is crying out for me now … and I cannot hear her, I cannot find her … no … Oh, God, please … no…”

  She flung her arms hysterically into the shrieking wind and screamed with the force of the tempest. “What have you done to me? You have betrayed me! Answer me! Devil! Tormentor! Murderer!” The howl of the gale was her only answer, but she could feel him in the turbulent air, as surely as she could hear the two hearts beating within her, and she knew he had found the way to destroy her forever. She looked to the tumultuous sky, and with all her strength she called to him, “Save her! Show me where she is, Fiend! Satan! Where are you? Why have you abandoned me? Come to me!”

  And at last the voice answered in the numbing roar, “I am here.…”

  She spun and raked the darkness for him, but the furious deluge was all she saw. “Save her!”

  “You are a disappointment to me, Angelique,” said the deep, rasping monotone. “I did not move her body. Look to the one-eyed gatekeeper for that. You suffer from pride and crippling fears. You believe only in your own powers. You have rejected me, and now when it suits you, you summon me. I am weary of you. When your heart is stone, then I will come to you. Until then, you will never know when your powers will fail you.”

  “I renounce my powers! Do you hear me? I want no more of them, forever and ever. They are no use to me! They only bring me heartbreak and despair! Leave me, forever, and take them with you when you go!”

  If the screaming wind could laugh, he laughed, a high, earsplitting whistle, and he said, “As you wish, my child, as you wish! You have made your choice.” And he was sucked away into the holocaust.

  Nineteen

  Barnabas sat staring out the window of his room at a day that bore all the beauty of a passing storm. Heavy clouds hung low in the sky, but the light poured around them, silvering their shadows, and bright rays shone down on the earth. The air had been washed by the rain, and, when the sun finally broke, the color of the grass was a dazzling emerald green.

  It was two weeks since his collapse, and he and Julia now believed that the vampire’s attack had not reversed the cure. Long days spent in bed had left him restless. He was so tense that it was impossible to sleep, and although he felt weak, he could not remain in his room for one more hour.

  Julia was sitting at her desk, working on the journal. She had finally loosened a particularly thick section when she heard a knock on the door. “Yes?”

  “It’s Barnabas. May I come in?”

  She ran to the door and opened it. “Barnabas, you shouldn’t be out of bed.”

  He was propped against the doorframe, smiling, and she could see his complexion had some color.

  “Oh, Julia, I’m bored. I wanted to ask whether I could go for a walk, and if you would join me. I don’t think I’ll need a wheelchair,” he joked. “Perhaps I could just lean on your shoulder.”

  She blushed slightly. “What a charming idea!” she cried. “I’ll come at once.” As she was reaching for her jacket, he caught sight of the book on the table, glowing in the lamplight. He frowned at first, and when he realized what it was, he appeared quite disturbed.

  “Julia, what do you have there!”

  “Oh, Barnabas. It—it is Angelique’s journal.”

  “But … you buried it!”

  “I know I did. I’m so sorry. It was selfish and stupid of me.” He stared at her, more in amazement than reproach, as she continued. “I’ve been planning to return it to you, Barnabas. I’ve been working on it. I saved as much of it as I could. But … the whole center part, I’m afraid, is gone, except for bits and pieces.”

  He walked over to where the book lay and looked down at it as though he couldn’t believe it was there. “You read from the journal?”

  “Yes … I must say she had a fascinating childhood. But so steeped in the supernatural—she was most definitely a witch, a trained witch, a voodoo priestess at fourteen. The parts I read were very disturbing.”

  “And do you still find it … evil?”

  “I must admit I do. I realize it’s only a record of her experiences, but they were depraved and spiritually bereft. Still, she suffered so much, I almost feel pity for her. She never knew her father and—it was heartbreaking—her mother died a horrible death because of her. I think she tried to give up her powers and live an ordinary life.”

  “But you still think the book is dangerous.”

  “Well I think it could be, yes. However, I’ve been reading it for several nights and … it’s had no effect on me … other than finding parts of it repulsive.…”

  “Are you saying that now you think it’s all right for me to read it?”

  “I think … I should not have tried to prevent you from reading it.”

  “Well, the truth is, Julia, I’m not at all interested in the diary anymore. I wish you had left it in the graveyard.”

  Julia shook her head and chuckled.

  “Why are you laughing?”

  “Only because I spent so many long hours drying the pages and separating them. I may have been foolish, but I wanted to return the book to you so that you would no longer be angry with me.”

  “But, Julia, I was never angry with you. I am devoted to you and greatly indebted to you. Come, leave it there. Come for our walk, and let’s
not mention this ridiculous diary again.”

  * * *

  Later that night, as was almost always the case, Barnabas found that he could not sleep. He knocked softly on Julia’s door before opening it. She was deep in slumber, and he thought better of disturbing her. Angelique’s diary lay open on her table. The shape had changed. It was thicker than before, as the pages were warped, the leather cover was blacker and heavier, but the soft moonlight coming in the window fell upon the damaged volume, imbuing it with a ghostly glow. After hesitating a moment, he took it up and, silently closing the door, returned with it to his room.

  His hands were shaking as he opened the book and began to read. An odor rose from the pages, of damp mold and the sea, but almost immediately images began to form in his mind, as though he were caught in a dream.

  * * *

  Cesaire found Angelique, prostrate and nearly drowned, beside the grave, and led her, dazed and unresisting, back to the sailmaker’s shack. There she keened and mourned, to the very edge of madness, and only his sympathy and constant vigilance kept her from destroying herself. Her daylight hours were seared with guilt, her nightmares a tangle of ghastly visions. She had nowhere to flee, except into a drugged semiconsciousness which Cesaire induced with chamomile tea laced with tafia.

  One day she seemed a bit better when she woke. She looked out the window at the new day with a pale, drawn face. She turned to him, and said, “Tell me, Cesaire, what happened at Basse Pointe?”

  “Why, it has gone to the rats, gal. Everybody left—all the rebellious slaves—all dead. Plantation house deserted. People stay away, say there be roving spirits.”

  “Will you take me there?”

  “Why you want to go back there, gal?”

  “I want my books.”

  So Cesaire borrowed an old horse and together they rode up into the hills, she clinging to his back. There was solace in the closeness of his taut body, sprung like steel, and she buried her face in his hair, which was soft and smelled of dried roses. She wrapped her legs around the mare and let the easy gait rock her, loosening the binds of pain that twisted through her bones.

  She had never realized the forest was so lush, trees reaching into clouds, the dark undergrowth crowded with broadleaf foliage, lianas festooned with orchids, and bright heliconia arching like scarlet birds. There were buzzings and rustlings in the thick patches of ferns, and intense heat rose from fetid pools between the bloodroot trees, where the great fanned buttresses spread into the swamp.

  Every so often, a patch of sky would show through, and she would glimpse Pelée rising to a ceiling of mist, the steep sides smothered in green fur, and Angelique felt a longing she did not understand—as though the mountain were calling to her.

  It was queer walking through the heavy gate, which hung open, and crossing the courtyard. Cesaire had been right when he said the plantation was deserted. The fine windmill revolved slowly like a ghost ship, but it was unhitched from its gears, and the crushers were silent. Stacks of dry cane lay scattered and wasted, the soft breeze rustling their papery stalks.

  As Angelique climbed the silent stairs to her old room, images flashed across her mind. Everything was the same; her books were exactly where she had left them over a year ago, lying in the dust beneath her bed, and she pulled out the journal, a few school-books, and the Shakespeare.

  The room behind the altar seemed smaller and dingier than she remembered, but she carefully selected a variety of healing herbs and powders in small containers and placed them in a satchel she had brought for the purpose. The book of spells was lying in the corner, covered with grime, and she left it there.

  Lifting the curtain, she walked into the sanctuary. She stood for several minutes before the altar, listening to the wind whistling outside the stone walls, and the utter, implacable silence within. For the last time she said good-bye, as she had beside her mother’s grave, to all her dark powers.

  * * *

  “But I don’t want to be a lady’s maid!”

  “Angelique, listen to me, you must go on. What else is there but life and a new adventure? You can’t run the mill with water gone by.” Cesaire sat with her as she ate the dried fish and biscuit he had brought her.

  “Can’t I stay here, with you?”

  “There is nothing for you here.” Cesaire held a paper in his hand, on which was written the name: Countess Natalie du Prés. “Look at this and think in your head. This be a good sign. A fine lady, from Paris, and you educated some, modest, and wise, just what they be wantin’.”

  “But, Cesaire, a servant…”

  “Gal, everybody serve somebody. Those we care for keep us breathing, give us reasons to live.”

  “No. I want to stay here.”

  “You too good for this life. That’s why I’m leaving here, too.”

  “You are? You’re going away?”

  “You know it be my dream to go to sea, and that’s what I aim to do, gal. The pig no min’ the mud he hunker in, but the birds gots to take to the air.”

  * * *

  The plantation at Trinité was elegantly kept and built on a grand scale. As Angelique approached the plantation house, she was almost blinded by the sun gleaming from the red-tile roof of the verandah. It was a fine, two-storied, plaster edifice, with heavy shutters painted green. A giant wooden wheel turning in a fast-running stream ran the mill, and the sparkling river wound through the pasture. There were four or five slaves—working in the garden, tending the fruit trees scattered across the lawns, and carting wood to the kitchen. Far off on the hillsides the cane fields carved the land into multicolored patches of mahogany, emerald, and gold.

  The Countess Natalie du Prés sat in the wide parlor on a wicker chaise, sipping from a china cup. She wore a dress of crimson taffeta, and her hair hung in red ringlets. Her face was angular, with high cobra cheekbones, and she had an aquiline nose with flared nostrils. Her dark brown eyes fixed themselves disdainfully on Angelique, and she pursed her mouth when she spoke.

  “‘Angelique,’ is it? But you are such a drab, uninteresting child. Why would I want to hire you? You’re obviously an ignorant peasant girl with nothing to offer. Who is your mother?”

  “She is dead, Madame. She worked in the slave hospital. Her name was Cymbaline.”

  “Ah, yes, I remember, tried as a witch.” Her eyebrows drew together. “Do you take after her?”

  “Oh, no, Madame.”

  “You don’t dabble in poison, or practice witchcraft?”

  “No, Madame. Those things frighten me.”

  “No, of course you don’t. You’re much too ordinary for anything having to do with the occult.”

  “But I will work hard, Madame, and I learn fast.”

  “No, no, that’s not the point. I need a girl to be tutored with my niece. You would not be at all suitable. Can you even write?”

  “Yes, Madame, and recite Shakespeare by heart.”

  “Oh, really? You recite Shakespeare? I find that very hard to believe.”

  “It’s true, Madame.”

  “Indeed. Say a piece for me.”

  Angelique thought for a moment. “Which is your favorite play?”

  “Are you trying to pretend you know them all? Or are you stalling because you have lied to me?”

  “I will say something from The Tempest if you like.”

  “Go on.”

  Angelique took a breath and began softly, her voice picking up the melodious cadence as she gathered courage.

  “Full fathom five thy father lies;

  Of his bones are coral made:

  Those are pearls that were his eyes:

  Nothing of him that doth fade,

  But doth suffer a sea change

  Into something rich and strange.

  Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell,

  Hark! now I hear them, ding-dong, bell.”

  The countess was stunned. “Where did you learn that?”

  “I was given a book of Shakespeare, Madame, when I w
as small.”

  “Well, yes, hm-m-m-m. Although memorization is not a sign of intelligence. Imagination and perceptiveness are the hallmarks of a fine mind.”

  “Yes, Madame.”

  “However, it’s impossible to find educated servants on this island. Since I am in need of a proper maid, you might be trainable. And Josette wants a companion. It’s the very devil keeping her at her lessons.”

  “I will study with her, Madame, and do my best to help her.”

  “She’s younger than you are, and much prettier. For that she is indulged by her father. We will make a trial of it, that is all. I warn you, any sign of laziness or insolence, and you are out! You will move into the servants’ quarters, but you will join Miss Josette in the library when her tutor comes, and if you prove to be a decent scholar, who knows? I may allow you to remain.”

  And so began Angelique’s long term as a lady’s maid. She lived an ordinary life, altogether uneventful, though she was comfortable and employed. Innumerable tasks occupied her from dawn until dusk, and only when she was alone in her bed at night did she have time to think of herself, of her memories and her dreams.

  The countess was an exasperating employer, changeable and unpredictable, with a temper. She always demanded more than Angelique could accomplish and insisted on complete devotion to duty. Once a new requirement was met or a proficiency mastered, she took no further notice of it, but complained anew of some clumsiness or carelessness in a skill not yet achieved, her bright beady eyes darting about above her snake-skull cheekbones. She was never pleased and never complimentary. But even though she did not admit it, even to herself, she grew to depend on Angelique greatly, for she was, despite her fine airs, singularly lazy.