Sepia and Silver (Tragic Silence Book 3)

by E. C. Hibbs

  “These are ravings,” József declared, but not nastily. “Calm yourself, my child.”

  “He’s right,” Erik nodded. “You lost a lot of blood. You have been asleep for almost two days now. You witnessed things that were not real.”

  To an extent, I wasn’t surprised by this reaction; I had always shown a tendency to be something of a daydreamer. When I was younger, I was convinced my doll could speak, and that I could see the sprites in the forest. Claiming I had been in the presence of an angel could be hardly a large leap for me to make.

  But I knew what I had seen. I clutched at Zíta, feeling exhaustion beginning to creep over me again.

  “You believe me, don’t you?” I begged, struggling to stay awake. “Believe me...”

  “That’s enough,” said József. “Rest now. You have suffered greatly and must recover your strength. You are safe. Nothing can harm you.”

  His voice slurred as I let my eyes close. Zíta carefully released my grip from her sleeve; then I felt her bend over me a little to plant a small kiss on my forehead.

  “The wings,” she whispered in my ear. “Were they like a bird’s?”

  “Nem,” I replied with a tiny shake of my head. “Like a bat’s.”

  I heard Zíta suck in a fearful breath before I drifted away.

  *

  The next few weeks dragged by. Trapped in my bedroom, I was shocked that time could move so slowly, and contented myself by imagining the mortar in my room was a series of paths connecting the ceiling to the floor. Countless suns rose and set; I gradually conquered my erratic sleep pattern and brought it closer to normality.

  The wounds healed quickly, and soon Zíta removed their dressings to leave them open to the air. My arm was enflamed just below my elbow: a violent red slash across my skin. Unable to see the gash on my neck, I constantly ran my fingers over it, feeling all the small bumps of the forming scar.

  October arrived, and I peered out of my window to see the farmers bringing in the final harvests. I longed to be able to help them, but my cousins firmly told me to stay inside. Zíta worked constantly to ensure I recovered well, while Erik spent more time than ever in the forests, chopping wood so the village could stockpile for the coming winter. I noticed that he was still using his old axe, although he had taken care to clean every speck of blood from the blade first.

  The Izcacus was dealt with accordingly: a stake was driven through his heart and all his remains burned, before they were scattered across the creek at the border of the village. That would carry them into Romania, where there was no chance of return. Convinced the danger was passed; everybody took their whitewash again, and repainted the doors with a clean coat, covering the crucifixes.

  We received more correspondence from Norman Calvin, relaying the details of my journey to England. Every letter sowed the seed of discontent deeper in my heart, and I quietly hoped I might be too ill to travel. I prayed the schooner would be forced to depart without me, but Erik said that even if that were the case, my grandfather would simply arrange a cabin for me on another ship. And despite the huge volume of blood that had obviously been stolen from me, I recovered with several days to spare.

  In my disorientation, I had been oblivious to the mounting sombreness that always accompanied the anniversary of the Final Purge. But as the day itself finally arrived, I could feel it seeping into my bones in preparation for all that was to come. I tidied my bed and searched through my clothes-chest until I found my Sunday dress. I pulled on the white blouse and a skirt, and braided my hair around my head, securing it with pins.

  I went to the door, but paused when I heard hushed voices from the other room. My hand rested on the handle.

  “It will be for the best,” Zíta was saying. “I know she does not want to go. I certainly don’t want her to go.”

  “Then why have you been acting so strange?” asked Erik.

  “It’s... nothing. I have been upset about today. That is all.”

  “That is not all. Tell me the truth.”

  “You will not believe me. You didn’t believe Éva when she mentioned it; and you even doubted me when I knew there was an Izcacus.”

  “Put your faith in me, Zíta. Why are you so desperate to see Éva leave?”

  There was an uneasy silence. I pressed my ear to the wood, feeling a frown forming on my brow.

  Zíta finally spoke, keeping her voice low. “Because he is in the village.”

  “What?” Erik exclaimed. “That’s impossible.”

  “It is not impossible and we both know it,” said Zíta. “He has every reason to come back for her. My only shock is that it wasn’t sooner. But she said it herself: that angel she claimed to witness. She is well now; I cannot keep her inside the house any longer. We must ensure nothing befalls her before she leaves.”

  “Zíta, I do not claim to doubt you. But the odds of him being here now are slight. And Éva must not know – we cannot distress her further by planting this in her head. If it quells your distress, then I will take her to Fiume earlier than planned. It will mean there is no chance of her missing the boat, at any rate. And this conversation did not happen, do you understand?”

  “Yes. I shall not breathe a word of it. I swear on my soul.”

  Hearing that, I winced in dismay. Any hope of speaking to Zíta about this in secret was now dashed to pieces. My cousin didn’t say that oath often, but when she did, she never broke it for anything.

  I hung my head, listening to the sounds of the two of them moving about. The subject was clearly dropped, but I waited until I was sure they wouldn’t suspect my eavesdropping, before I eased my door open and joined them for breakfast.

  “Oh, Éva, you are beautiful,” Erik exclaimed when I sat at the table.

  I smiled. “Köszönöm.” Thank you.

  “You look so much like your mother, with your hair like that,” said Zíta.

  “Really?”

  “Yes. She used to wear her hair in a similar way sometimes.”

  Zíta slid a plate of bread and butter across to me. I took it with a grateful nod, and carefully threw her a curious glance. Both she and Erik had disguised themselves well: their faces gave away no indication of what they had been discussing. I played along, pretending I had heard nothing, and the three of us ate in silence before heading to the church.

  We settled in the front pew, hands resting in our laps as the rest of the village filed in behind us. A wreath of birch twigs had been woven together and placed on the altar: the same wood that had been used to drive the dark ones towards the border. József appeared from a side door and moved the garland into a dish before setting the wood alight. Then he climbed into the pulpit, dressed in full priestly garb, and raised his hands in welcome.

  I looked at him in silence. He was a tall man in the middle years of his life, with a large aquiline nose. He was very intelligent, having travelled all over Europe, learning English, Latin and French before coming to Hattyúpatak. I could still remember the day he arrived to replace Alexander Farkas. As József stood before us now, I couldn’t help comparing him to my hazy memories of my great-uncle. It hardly seemed like fifteen years since the night he died.

  And Anya...

  I closed my eyes, vaguely following the course of the service; praying for all the lost souls. But in my mind, I saw the whole thing once again; heard the fervent chanting transform into screams of terror.

  Erik gently prodded me in the leg to get my attention, as we all raised our voices in song, letting Himnusz fill the air.

  “O, my God, the Magyar bless

  With Thy plenty and good cheer!

  With Thine aid his just cause press,

  Where his foes to fight appear.

  Fate, who for so long did’st frown,

  Bring him happy times and ways;

  Atoning sorrow hath weighed down

  Sins of past and future days!”

  After the service was over, everybody walked up the aisle and placed a flower atop the a
ltar. I watched in revered silence as the pile of blossoms mounted; a blaze of the last autumnal wildflowers. József bound them together with a ribbon and handed them to Erik, before allowing him and Zíta to lead the congregation back into the pasty sunshine. The rest of us followed to the graveyard, where my cousins knelt at Alexander’s grave. They spoke a quiet prayer for their fallen father, and laid the bouquet against the stone.

  I lowered my eyes, focusing on a patch of longer grass springing up around the wooden fencepost. A gentle wind whistled through the forest, sending a shower of leaves over the rooftops. There was a bite of coldness on its course, and I shivered beneath my thin blouse. Noticing my discomfort, a nearby woman took off her shawl and draped it around my shoulders. I smiled at her in thanks, and she patted me on the back, eyes shining with understanding. Everybody knew what had happened to me three weeks ago, and were not surprised by how my loss of blood chilled me. They were all simply happy that I had not also lost my life.

  Will I know this kind of hospitality when I depart? I thought acidly.

  “How are you feeling, dear?” József asked in an undertone, arriving at my side.

  “Better,” I replied, pulling the shawl tighter. “Thank you for coming to see me.”

  “I am astonished you recall my visit,” said József. “You were delirious.”

  I bit my tongue, deciding against insisting that I had been telling the truth. This was not the time or place for it. And for as patient as the villagers had always been with me, I knew that they thought of me as a little strange. They would not believe me.

  “You are a lucky girl, Éva,” Jószef said.

  I threw him a sideways glance. “Why? Because I am going to England?”

  “Nem, not just that. You are alive when you should not be. You have brought all of us nothing but joy since your earliest days.”

  I could not hold back a frown of surprise. “I am simply Éva,” I responded, unsure what else to say.

  “Indeed you are. Éva Kálvin.” József gave me a small smile. “Never forget that.”

  CHAPTER IV

  Following the memorial service, attention turned to final preparations for winter. Zíta kept me barricaded inside the house, only letting me out to feed the chickens and return the shawl. I spent my time contritely organising my few belongings into a bag. I pressed my clothes at the bottom, carefully folded, before adding my books. Then I dug my old ragdoll from under my bed, smoothing back its tattered yellow hair.

  “Come, Mirriam,” I fondly whispered to it, before placing it inside and buttoning the sack closed.

  The day of my departure came faster than I ever would have wished. It wasn’t helped by my silent knowledge that Erik and Zíta had moved the date forward, but I remembered not to press for the mysterious reason. Upon the crowing of the cockerel, I rose with the sun, pulling on a plain dress and slinging my bag across my shoulder. Then I wandered slowly into the main room, running my palm along the table top.

  “Jó napot.”

  I looked over my shoulder to see Erik peering through the window. He was in the yard, hitching up one of the neighbour’s ponies to a wagonette. Sadness stabbed at my insides when I saw it. In the course of a single moment, everything became much more real.

  The sound of footsteps behind me alerted me to Zíta’s entrance. She smiled tightly, and set about preparing food for me and Erik to take on our journey.

  “Have some breakfast, Éva,” she said. I could tell instantly from her voice that she had been crying.

  “I am not hungry,” I replied.

  “Eat anyway.”

  Deciding to do as I was told, I plucked an apple from a nearby bowl and took a despondent bite. The flesh had lost its crunch and I cringed at the texture in my mouth, but swallowed it before tossing the core away.

  Zíta wrapped more of the apples into a cloth knapsack, along with bread and a small jar of jam. Then she came over to me and set about combing my hair. I let her, sitting on my usual stool at the table. I closed my eyes as the stiff bristles of the brush worked through to my scalp, trying to commit these last precious moments to memory forever.

  Neither of us spoke for a while, as she plaited my hair and bound it at the bottom with a ribbon. Then her hands crept around to the front of my face, tidying the messy flyaway strands at my ears, before she took an old chipped mirror and held it before me.

  “Look at you,” she muttered. “Who’d have thought that silly little girl would grow into such a beauty?”

  I gazed at myself blandly. For a while, I had appeared somewhat older than my years: even when I was seventeen, I had occasionally been mistaken for a woman in her early twenties. But I could not deny that I had a pleasant face: oval-shaped with smooth skin turned a little bronze from working in the summer sun. My eyes were large and ice blue; waist-length hair as black as a raven’s wings. On the side of my neck was a small brown mole, directly opposite the fresh scar.

  “Try to cheer up, dear,” Zíta said gently, kneeling before me. “This can only be good for you.”

  I closed my eyes, unable to hold back my sorrow any longer. Tears spilled over my cheeks and I grasped her hands. “How can it be good? I shall never see you again!”

  “You will,” she said firmly. “This is not the end, I promise you. We will be together again. And we will write to you. You will never be without us.”

  “I will not stay in England,” I determined. “I’ll come back here someday. They cannot keep me there forever.”

  “Don’t dishearten yourself so,” said Erik, coming inside and hugging me from behind. “You don’t know what awaits. I have a feeling this will be the best thing to ever happen to you.”

  But despite their kind words, it was obvious that they were also bleeding inside, and we soon stopped trying to mutter thin condolences. So we just stayed there, embracing each other, holding tight for as long as we could. I breathed in the scent of my cousins: a fresh earthiness mingling with the sharp clean air. I picked up sugary birch sap from Erik’s jacket; pastry and flour from Zíta’s hair. I let my tears flow freely, not bothering to mask anything anymore.

  When we could delay no longer, we broke apart, and walked slowly to the wagonette. The villagers had gathered to see us off, their faces drawn as they looked at me. Many gave me small nods of the head as I passed them, smiling as best I could.

  Zíta placed the food knapsack and my bag in the back of the cart, and pulled me into a final bear hug before releasing me. Erik climbed atop the driver’s seat and reached over to help me up beside him.

  József drew a cross in the air. “Go well and safely, Éva,” he said. “May God be with you.”

  I wiped at my eyes clumsily, and thanked him. “Köszönöm.”

  “I’ll be home soon,” Erik said to Zíta, kissing her hand. Then he sat back, took the reins, and snapped them with a bark of encouragement. The pony snorted and began walking.

  The wagonette swayed from side to side as it moved, and I bit my lip to avoid sobbing again. Everyone raised their hands, waving to me, but I only had eyes for Zíta, standing there clutching her chest as though terrified she would receive a mortal wound.

  We rattled through the streets and turned onto the single road leading out of the village. I looked back on Hattyúpatak as the horse dragged us up the hill towards the forest. A pair of swans soared overhead, their great white wings spread wide. I turned my eyes to them, desperate for some kind of distraction, as my home disappeared behind the trees.

  *

  Since we had insufficient money to buy train tickets, it took Erik and me several days of constant travelling before we finally reached Fiume. We sheltered at taverns along the route, following a well-trod path to avoid losing ourselves, despite my unvoiced hopes that we would take a wrong turn and miss the boat.

  But, deep inside, I knew that wishing for such things now was a waste of time and energy. This was happening whether I wanted it or not, and no amount of martyrdom was going to prevent it.

>   We traversed the breadth of Austria-Hungary, passing signs for Buda-Pesth, before turning south towards Kvarner Bay. On the seventh day since leaving home, we drove by the Baroque clock tower at the city gate, and made our way through a labyrinth of heaving streets.

  I swallowed nervously as we struggled through. I had never been to anywhere so large: the buildings towered above us and a constant barrage of noise and movement swept at me from all sides. The air was tinged with the salt of the Adriatic Sea, and I wrinkled my nose against it. It was the first time I had caught a smell of the ocean, and I wasn’t sure what I made of it.

  Fiume was the only major port of Hungary, and its waterfront was crammed with all manner of vessels, their masts stretching towards the sky like some kind of bizarre swaying forest. There were also ships belonging to the Navy, and I noticed a few officers walking along the quay. All of the crafts were bound tightly to the land by thick ropes, which creaked and yawned as they were pulled taught and slack.

  Erik left the pony and wagonette in the care of a stable boy, and the two of us roomed in an inn for the night. I barely slept, very aware that it would be my last. Tomorrow morning, the schooner would leave. Unable to find comfort, I quietly fetched a book from my bag and read by candlelight as Erik slumbered on beside me. My eyes ached with a mixture of melancholy and strange fatigue as dawn broke the horizon, and I dressed myself in my best clothes, twisting my hair into the crown braid I’d worn to the anniversary service.

  Erik took my hand and led me along the roadsides, even more bustling than it had been the day before as people hurried to their trades. There was a tumult of movement at the waterfront, all heading towards a single ship. I turned my eyes to it, as cargo was lifted aboard via large cranes and carried down to the hold. There was a British flag flying from the stern, and upon the prow I read the name SS Persephone.

  “Here we are,” said Erik, trying to sound jovial for my sake. “Do you have your letter?”

  I nodded, rummaging in my pocket for the documents of passage that Norman Calvin had sent to us. Somewhere far off in the city, I heard a clock ring out to signal half past the hour. There were only thirty minutes left before the schooner cast off.