I wandered for a while, aimlessly, shivering and crying. The Cat growled within, not liking or understanding the despair. She knew only the night and the forest and the taste of blood. “Let me out,” she wailed again, “and I will kill them. It will be easy, we are stronger than they are, older and wiser.”
“No, my pet. There will be no killing.”
It only needed the cold October rain to complete my misery. The trees provided no protection from the storm. And I was chilled, with a deathlike cold that penetrated beyond my flesh and bones and burrowed deep into my soul.
“Oh, God, how could I have been so wrong?”
It came as no surprise when I found myself mounting the steps to Elly’s cabin and knocking on the door.
She threw the door open. “Deirdre? Oh, my dear, please come in. You’re soaked to the skin.” She peered past me into the darkness. “Isn’t Mitch with you?”
At the question, I collapsed into Elly’s arms, incapable of speech. She let me cry for a while, then led me into the warmth of her cabin and sat me down in a chair next to the fireplace.
I shivered. “You’d better get those clothes off,” she said. I fumbled with my shirt, but my hands trembled far too much.
“Help me. Please.”
She couldn’t have heard the words clearly through my sobs, but she understood and knelt down in front of me, taking off first my boots and socks, then my jeans and panties. Her touch as sexless as that of a mother, she unfastened the buttons on my shirt, undid my bra and pulled me to my feet.
“Stand there in front of the fire and dry off. I’ll get you a blanket.”
I did as I was ordered, comforted somehow by her command. It was a relief to let go of all the decisions and cares, to deliver myself into the hands of someone I trusted. Elly’s cabin was plainer than ours, but homier somehow. I never walked into her place without feeling peace descend on me; from the candles always burning on the mantel to the braided rugs on the floor the room exuded a welcome, even for such as me. As I watched the dancing of the flames, my sorrow subsided slightly and I felt warmed.
Elly entered the room again, bearing a heavy blanket, and gasped when I turned around.
I managed a smile. “What?”
“You are so perfect. Like a goddess.”
I laughed—a wild and desperate sound. “I am not a goddess, Elly.”
“No? Are you sure?” She held out the blanket to me, an offering.
“Positive,” I said, and took the blanket, wrapping it around me as I sat back down. “Not a goddess, just a bedraggled and miserable creature of the night. Thank you for taking me in. I had nowhere else to go.”
“No problem, you are always welcome here.” She showed no surprise at my words, but merely repeated hers. “You’re always welcome. Can I give you a cup of tea? Or”—she gave me a shy smile—“something a little stronger?”
“Something a lot stronger would be great, thank you.”
She nodded and headed out to her kitchen, coming back with a large bottle of red wine and two glasses. “Will this do? I have scotch instead,” she said as she uncorked the bottle, “but as I remember, that is Mitch’s drink. Dare I ask? Is he okay?”
I felt my mouth clench. “Mitch is fine, I daresay. And the wine is, too.”
She poured the wine and held a glass out to me. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“Not particularly.”
“Ah.”
The fire crackled and sighed. Beyond the cabin’s walls, the storm continued, accented now with great booms of thunder. It was exactly the sort of night that had always made Mitch and me abandon all thoughts of the world outside; we’d make slow love by the fire for long, lazy hours, needing only each other.
I choked back a sob and drained my glass.
“More?” Elly’s glance was curious, but kind.
“Keep filling them. Please.”
She did so and we were silent for a while, drinking and listening to the rain.
“So,” Elly said as she poured the last of the wine into my glass, “we’re not to talk about Mitch. What shall we talk about?”
“What would you like to talk about?”
She threw back her head and laughed. “Oh, what couldn’t we talk about? There must be a million questions I want to ask you.”
“Questions are good,” I said, finishing my glass, “but what if you don’t want to hear the answers?”
“Deirdre, I always want to hear the answers. More wine?”
“Yes.”
As Elly got up and went into the kitchen, I laughed quietly to myself. Which of us was now the cat and which the mouse?
“I’ve got a better idea.” She came back into the room, handed me an open bottle and picked up a carved wooden box from the mantel. “You drink this and I’ll read your cards. Then I won’t have to ask as many questions.”
“My cards? As in telling the future?”
She shrugged. “The future, the past, the present. It’s all in here.” She shuffled the brightly colored deck, larger than normal cards.
“But I don’t believe in such things.”
Elly laughed. “In this case, it doesn’t matter much. The cards don’t care if you believe or not.” She handed them to me. “Just hold them for a minute and think about what you’d like to know.”
I cupped my hands around them; they felt warm, almost as if Elly had transferred some of her human warmth to them. Perhaps she had. I closed my eyes and thought about the question that had been bothering me ever since the dreams started.
What the hell is happening to us?
“Done?” Elly asked. I opened my eyes again and at my nod, she reached out and took the cards from me. “You’re cold as ice, Deirdre. Tuck back under that blanket.” She groaned as she knelt on the floor in front of the fire. “Bad knees,” she said, a note of laughter in her voice. “Oh, I’m getting old, you know how it is.” Then she gave me a sharp look. “Or maybe you don’t. Doesn’t matter, does it? Now”—and she began to deal out the cards one by one, carefully and meticulously setting each one in its place—“let’s see what’s going on.”
She studied the cards for a long time. And as she viewed them, I studied her, trying as always to find an understanding of her. She was probably in her middle or late sixties, her hair gray and curly, her face crinkled with creases imposed by life and laughter. She was every bit as homey as her cabin.
Elly looked up at me, nodded, looked back at the cards and gave a small, nearly imperceptible sigh.
I decided to play along. “What is it? Elly, you are making me very nervous.”
“No need to be. Give me your left hand.”
I held it out to her, palm up. The light of the fire reflected off my golden wedding band, and I sighed. I should have stayed at home, I thought, and given Mitch a chance.
“Probably,” Elly said, staring intently at my palm.
Had I said it out loud?
“No, but it’s an easy enough thought to read. And you just tensed, so I could guess your response. I’ll get you home to Mitch very soon. But here, see this.” She cradled the bottom of my hand very gently in hers and slowly traced a line along my palm. “This is your lifeline.” She stopped abruptly, her fingernail marking the spot. “I have seen them branch out; I have seen them straight and continuous; I have seen them pitifully short. But I have never seen one with such a complete and definite stop. And then a gap; not a very big gap, I’ll grant you, but it’s there nevertheless.” She lifted her nail and set it down on a different spot. “And then here it starts again. By the looks of this you will live for a very long time.” She dropped my hand and shivered, hugging her arms to herself. “A very, very long time.”
“Great.” I hoped the sarcasm was not lost on her. “But what do the cards say?”
She got up from the floor, poured herself another glass of wine and bolted it down. “I thought you didn’t believe in such stuff.”
I smiled and shrugged. “Well, you have gone to so
much trouble, the least I can do is ask.”
“You want a blow-by-blow description? Or just the overall view?”
I looked at the clock on her mantel. It was late, far later than I had thought. Most of the night was gone, with only wine and talk to show for it. I would need shelter during the day; I knew of a cave not too far away, but I had little time to waste on foolishness. “Overall, I think. I should be going soon.”
“You can stay the day here, you know. I have an extra room and I won’t disturb you. It’s small but completely dark. I suppose it was to have been a storage room or something. But I use it for meditation sometimes, so there’s a bed and a lamp and a heavy lock on the door. You’ll be quite safe.”
“Ah.” I gave her a doubtful glance.
“We’ll talk about the cards first and then you can inspect it. How’s that?”
“Fair enough.”
“You have nothing to fear from me, Deirdre.” She reached over and lightly touched my arm. “I certainly know that you aren’t quite human and I believe I know what you are. We needn’t talk about it. But I have been your neighbor and your friend for over a year—if I’d meant you harm, you’d have sensed it by now. And”—her mouth twisted into a wry grin—“I’d have been dead. Mitch would rip my heart out if he thought I was a threat.”
Just yesterday that comment would have brought me a feeling of security and love. Tonight it made my already cold blood freeze up in my veins.
“I’ll stay. And the cards?”
“Oh, yes, the cards. Things will work out for the best eventually.”
I almost screamed in frustration. “Jesus, Elly, that’s it? Things will work out for the best eventually?”
She snickered. “You did say you wanted the overall view. And that’s it. I can explain what all these cards mean, of course. There are swords.” She pointed to one particularly gruesome card of a dead body impaled with ten swords. “They represent strife and conflict. And the others, well, they represent other powers in the world that seem to be opposed to you. There has been sorrow and confusion. And there will be more to come. But in the end, it will all work out. You must have faith and hope.”
“Sounds easy.” I stood up from the chair, stretched, and the blanket fell away from me. I’d gotten so comfortable, I’d forgotten I was naked underneath.
“So perfect,” she whispered, and I blushed as I hurriedly wrapped back up again. “First things first,” Elly said. “I’ll get you a nightgown, get you set up in your room, and then we’ll talk some more.” She gave me another quick appraising glance. “So very perfect, it’s hard to believe you’ve ever had a child.”
Chapter 9
The room was exactly as Elly described it. It had a single bed, a nightstand with a lamp, an ashtray and a half of a pack of cigarettes. The walls were bare, with the exception of a shelf that held an assortment of candles in cups. Small but safe, the room would be perfect for my daytime sleep. If I could sleep.
I had taken a shower to warm up and while I was drying off, she’d knocked on the door and handed me a plaid flannel nightgown. “Still hot from the dryer,” she’d said, “and probably a bit too big for you, but it’ll do.”
“It will do perfectly.” The gown had a clean fresh smell; I had held it up to my face and sniffed, then smiled. “Thank you.”
“My pleasure,” she’d said. “You get right into bed, now, and I’ll bring you a cup of tea to help you sleep.”
So here I was safely ensconced in Elly’s little meditation nook. I sat on the edge of the antique bed; it rose high off the floor, so high that my feet did not touch the carpet. I swung my legs back and forth, appreciating the still-sweet smell that wafted off the voluminous gown, and I felt like a young child again.
Elly knocked on the door.
“Come in,” I said. “It’s your house.”
“For you,” she said, and handed me a cup of something hot.
I smelled it and crinkled my nose. “What is it?”
“Herbal tea. I brew it myself. In fact, I grow all the herbs in the back garden. This blend is chamomile, mostly. A little bit of rosemary. And catnip.” She sat on a small wooden chair next to the bed.
“Catnip?” I smiled and sniffed at it again, then took a small sip. “It is not bad, actually, all things considered. What will it do to me?”
She laughed. “Nothing. Except perhaps relax you a bit. And, I hope, help you to sleep. I took a chance that your physiological makeup is human-based. Especially since the candles work.”
I looked over my shoulder at the candles flickering on the shelf. “Well, of course they work. You light them and they burn.”
“And how do you feel?”
I thought. “Peaceful. Calm. Remarkably mellow, now that you mention it.”
“And are you hungry?”
It was an interesting question. I hunted deep inside my body for traces of the blood thirst; I knew that I hadn’t fed for days and that I was craving human blood. But the drive wasn’t there. The instinct was buried, covered up with layers and layers of comfort and peace.
I shook my head. “No, I am not hungry. I should be hungry, but I’m not. At least not enough to . . .”
She finished the statement for me. “. . . feed on me. That’s good.”
I blinked. Was it good? Of all times, could I afford my instincts to be suppressed now? I set the cup of tea down on the nightstand, picked up a cigarette instead. I saw no matches, so I got up from the bed and lit it from one of the candles, blowing them all out after I had finished. “All the same, Elly, I do not wish to be drugged, so I think I’ll pass. And take my chances on the sleep. Just as you will have to take your chances on the other.”
“Fair enough,” she agreed. “I invited you in knowing what you were. I can hardly throw you out now. I’m sorry if I gave offense.”
“No offense taken.” I inhaled deeply. Already I felt my mind clearing of peace and comfort and the dearth of instinct. I was not so sure it was better this way, but my restless hunger had always been my truth and I did not want it taken away. “You need not fear I will feed on you. I am not that hungry and I have over a century’s worth of practicing willpower.”
“That long? When were you born?”
“Too long ago, Elly. It might as well be eons.”
“And Mitch?”
She was determined to talk about Mitch. I sighed. “Mitch is much younger than I; he is new to the life. Or the death.” I gave a sad little laugh. “He was transformed two years ago.”
“And you brought him over?”
“An interesting way of putting it.” I took a last long drag on my cigarette and stubbed it out angrily. “Almost as if I had invited him to a dinner party.” I hugged my arms to myself. “If only it were like that. A pleasant little invitation to a pleasant event.”
She reached to the nightstand and got a cigarette for herself, lighting it with a pack of matches from her jeans pocket. “And it isn’t like that? All those years, all those endless, wonderful years to spend with someone you love?”
“Love?” I blinked at her again, this time through a cloud of smoke. Anger built up within me and the Cat growled, clawing at the surface of my mind. “We know nothing about love.”
I stopped and put my hands over my face, drawing in a deep breath, forcing calm upon the Cat. Slowly, I brought my hands down to my mouth, exhaling gently. “What I did to Mitch was not done out of love. I did it out of my own selfish need for him, for a companion. Out of desperation and loneliness.”
“Even so, you love him, Deirdre, and he loves you.”
“Does he? Yesterday, I would not have doubted that statement. But now, you see, he wants me dead. Can you blame him? I made him into an inhuman monster, took away his soul and his life.”
Elly got up from the chair, walked over to the shelf that held the votive candles and picked up each cup, sniffing each one in turn and setting it back down. “I make these,” she said. “It involves a lot of work, gathering the h
erbs, blending the scents, making sure that all the elements are in place. And yet, when I pull them out of the mold, they seem so much more than what I’ve put into them.”
“And?”
“And Mitch is more than what you have made of him. He’s himself, his own man. He’s with you because he loves you. I’d be willing to bet my life on that. Why won’t you?”
“Because I heard him say the words. He talks in his sleep.”
“In his sleep? Then he was dreaming? But that’s not the same as saying the words when he’s awake.”
Suddenly I was angry. “What the hell difference does it make? You do not understand. Cannot understand. The dreams are real. And so are the words. I heard his voice, Elly. You did not.”
“And will running away from it do you any good?”
“Of course not. Tonight I will go back and face him.”
“Good. You owe him that, I think.”
We fell into silence. I took another cigarette from the pack and Elly handed me the matches. I pulled one out and closed the cover, glancing at the printing as I did so. A jolt of shock shivered up my spine. “ ‘Meet me at the Ballroom of Romance’?” I read. “Where on earth did you get these?”
“Your place, I think, last time I was there. Why?”
I laughed. “Actually, I suspect the question is, ‘Why the hell not?’ I really should not be surprised. It is his damned legacy after all. I used to dream also, you see, dream of killing my maker.”
“And did you?”
“Yes.”
That one word took me back years. Back to the wet, cold streets of New York City and the terrifying weeks between holidays that held no meaning for one such as me. Weeks that ended with the lifeless body of Max pinned to his office door at the Ballroom. He had been my best friend and my worst enemy. Not a day went by when I didn’t curse his name. I would miss him forever.
“And”—I looked Elly straight in the eye—“do not doubt me when I say I loved him. That is how much love means to me.”
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