Arcadia Awakens

by Kai Meyer

  She ought to have been surprised. Or scared to death.

  But she was neither.

  They come at night.

  The growl turned to a deep roar.

  Always at night.

  The tiger completed a loop around his prey, while she turned with him, never taking her eyes off him. A few yards up the slope he crossed the path and slipped between the trees to her left again. He was approaching her, not directly but in a spiral, gradually decreasing the distance between them.

  Another circuit, and then another.

  When he crossed the path for the third time, he was only a few yards away. There was something hypnotic about his threatening aura. Rosa stopped turning and stood there facing the ravine. She couldn’t even fathom the thought of making a break for it.

  He was ten times faster than her. She didn’t have a chance.

  The stealthy sound of his paws padding over dry pine needles died away. He was right behind her, just behind her back. So close she could smell his breath. He smelled of the wild. Of animal power. Of the confidence that he could do anything he wanted to her, and there was nothing she could do to stop him. And although she knew he was far more dangerous than the human beasts of prey she had met earlier, she still felt no fear. All her senses were paralyzed, including whichever one set off the panic instinct.

  Very slowly, she turned to face him.

  He stood just three feet farther up the path, his gigantic body tensed, his head lowered. Staring at her.

  She remembered that look.

  She recognized his eyes.

  She still felt no urge to scream and run away, but she began to move anyway, cautiously, nudging backward step by step. And wondering why she hadn’t recognized him before.

  He was going to kill her. That was why he had come here.

  She’d had bad things done to her once before, and since then she’d been ready to defend herself. Against anyone or anything. But why was a strange chill spreading through her body, instead of hot rage?

  The tiger followed her. Slowly, crouching low, he prowled down the path, still keeping the same few feet between them. As she walked backward, her feet felt for support on the springy forest floor. The path was steep here. The slightest wrong step and she would fall. The ravine wasn’t far behind her, perhaps ten steps away.

  She could see that he relished having the advantage of his superior strength. He was watching her, and seemed to be waiting for something. Waiting for her to finally panic? The ice in her veins prevented it.

  She began to tremble as the unnatural chill took possession of her whole body. The tiger narrowed his eyes. She expected him to pounce on her at any minute.

  Rosa opened her mouth.

  There was a hiss. For a moment she thought she had uttered it herself.

  Behind the tiger, the dark path came to life. Its winding bends quivered; the ground was moving. Shadows were gliding down the mountain.

  Rosa stopped, but the tiger kept on coming. He was crouching, ready to leap.

  All at once the darkness lifted from the ground, a black ribbon rose in the air behind the great cat, and it looked like the path itself was changing course, flowing over the tiger and seizing him.

  The beast of prey uttered a high snarl as he realized that he was being attacked from behind. The darkness wrapped itself around the tiger’s body. Its front end gaped open, two golden almond-shaped eyes glittered in the moonlight. The mouth that had just been hovering in the air above the nape of the big cat’s neck shot down.

  The tiger was faster by a fraction of a second. He threw himself aside, his back hitting a tree, and squeezed his attacker between his heavy body and the trunk. The thing had been about to bite, but the force of the impact left its jaws snapping at empty air.

  It was a snake. A snake several yards long, with silvery black scales, a skull the size of a crocodile’s, and fangs as long as Rosa’s fingers.

  It had coiled itself tightly around the tiger’s body and was crushing his rib cage, while its head whipped back and forth in the darkness to keep out of reach of his snapping jaws.

  COLD - BLOODED CREATURES

  THE TIGER AND THE SNAKE rolled on the ground, hissing and growling in a life-and-death struggle, colliding with tree trunks. The big cat tried to pounce but staggered, and the beasts landed back on the path again still entwined. This time they were on the slope just below Rosa, who swung around and tried to keep her eye on the chaotic tangle of yellow and black, claws and sharp fangs.

  She still felt the chill inside her, but it had stopped spreading. Her whole body was pulsating as if her heart had swollen to many times its normal size and was threatening to break through her thorax. She was in pain; something was tugging at her limbs, trying to twist and break and then reshape them.

  But all that was in the background, because the struggle between the two creatures demanded her full attention. Rosa, struggling to keep her balance, could not take her eyes off the raging tiger. He was trying to summon enough strength to throw off the giant snake, which had now coiled itself several times around his body. Once again he stumbled, then fell and rolled away down the path, taking the snake with him in a swirling cloud of dust and pine needles. He got to his feet again only when they reached the outskirts of the wood, and through a daze Rosa remembered what lay beyond it. The edge of the rock. And below that the ravine.

  The snake’s skull, half stunned by the impact, swung back and forth above the tiger’s back. Once again the wide mouth gaped open, the curved fangs shining like ivory daggers. The tiger passed one paw over his head and shoulders, almost clumsily, as if a troublesome insect had settled there. He caught the reptile below its head; the supple body bent, elegantly absorbing the force of the murderous blow. But still the snake couldn’t manage to sink its fangs into the tiger’s neck—and it saw, just a moment too late, that the tiger’s blow had also served a second purpose. Its swift evasion had brought its body within reach of the tiger’s muzzle, only for a moment, but that was long enough.

  With a roar, the big cat attacked, sank his jaws into the snake’s body, and pulled. The reptile screamed, but instead of giving in, it continued to fight back. Its curved fangs disappeared in the tiger’s fur, digging in until they met flesh. Its bite couldn’t be venomous, or the cat probably would have collapsed at once. Now the two were more closely intertwined than ever. The tiger tried to free himself, but with his neck twisted he could exert only a fraction of his strength. The snake was throttling him. Its fangs were in his body, and it was nothing short of a miracle that he could still stay on his paws.

  Rosa staggered against a tree near the path, several feet from the two combatants. She pushed herself away from it with one hand, convulsively rubbing her eyes with the other. She could see the tiger and the snake only as a confused blur now; her own body seemed to be shimmering. Maybe the chill was now affecting her vision as well, or maybe it was real.

  The tiger roared with rage and let go of the scaly body. The snake let out a sharp hiss, muffled by the fur and flesh in its mouth. At last its pressure on the big cat’s body seemed to have an effect. The tiger ran out of breath and stumbled aside.

  His feeble leap carried him to the very edge of the rock. The snake, too, knew what was going on, but was much too tightly coiled around his body to escape in time.

  The entangled tiger and snake lost their balance and were carried over the edge. Rosa heard the cracking of dry twigs, followed by the sound of a dull thud at the bottom of the wooded ravine.

  Their images faded before Rosa’s eyes, like a nightmare brought halfway out of sleep before reality finally extinguishes it. The path and the edge of the rock lay deserted again, a patch of wilderness in the pale light of the half-moon.

  Down in the ravine, something was stirring.

  Rosa swung around and staggered up the slope.

  The lights of the Palazzo Alcantara danced in the darkness ahead of her, vanished behind trees, reappeared. She stumbled along the path, fell
, braced her hands on fallen pine needles, and hauled herself up. The outlines of the trunks, gray splinters of the night sky, and the shining dots of the windows all turned into a whirling dance in which she could distinguish nothing. She was chilled through and through and couldn’t stop shivering. The cold was radiating from her heart, forcing the blood out of her veins.

  Broader tree trunks. The chestnuts.

  Her breath was racing, and in her own ears it sounded like reptilian hissing. She couldn’t feel her fingers anymore. Her knees gave way again and again; she had hardly any control left over her legs. Her lips felt dry and cracked, and she moistened them with her tongue. She stumbled again, fell over, almost bit the tip of her tongue. Struggled up and continued on.

  Suddenly there was someone in front of her, a human figure. Rosa tried to push it away—Not me, not again!—but her hands met a void. Then she was picked up and lifted in the air. A man was talking to her. One of the guards.

  While he carried her along as if she weighed nothing at all, he asked many questions, but she couldn’t understand any of them. She was still struggling in his grasp. A stranger’s eyes, a stranger’s hands. A body so close to hers, much too close.

  Then another voice.

  Florinda.

  She was giving angry instructions that Rosa didn’t understand. Her trembling died down slightly, and she was still cold, but not quite as cold as before. There was light all around her. Visions of angels and devils—the paintings on the ceilings of the palazzo. She was in the house, still in the man’s arms, and she looked up as he carried her down the halls. Grave, round-cheeked, pale faces. Among them the thin, bony heads of holy men. Intertwining ornamentation and patterns. She had never before noticed the pictorial power of the frescoes.

  The paintings were superimposed on Florinda’s voice as sight and hearing became one, freezing and sweating, the rattle of her breath and the hissing of the giant snake out in the forest.

  Then a door creaked, and Rosa heard Florinda again, this time sounding furious, beside herself. She felt hands on her body. She wasn’t being carried anymore, she was lying on something soft. Her bed? No, not a bed. She felt grass. Or earth. Was she outside again?

  Not back into the forest! she wanted to cry, but only a faint snarling came out, a hissing as if through breathing holes. Her tongue ran over her dry, rough lips in a compelling rhythm, again and again. She tried to move her fingers and her feet, but if she succeeded she didn’t feel it. Her body reared up, formed a bridge, collapsed again.

  The man had left long ago. Florinda had fallen silent. Was she still there with her? Rosa didn’t care one way or the other, because nothing meant anything anymore. Not where she was. Or what she was. In the staccato interplay of waking moments and darkness, none of that played a part.

  It wasn’t as bright as it had been a little while ago; now her surroundings looked pale and cloudy, a mingled green and blue. Like the light in an aquarium, she thought, dazed. Underwater, like the drowned people of Giuliana. But she could breathe more easily now, she could breathe without taking water into her lungs. There were sounds around her, rustling and a faint cracking, as if something heavy were being dragged through dense undergrowth. Not Rosa herself, because she was lying quietly on the ground. Still not in bed, but on warm earth.

  A scream rose in her throat. A scream like the one she had uttered a year ago. Someone had undressed her then, too.

  She felt her bare skin, stroked her torso, her bony hips, her thighs. She could feel her hands again.

  Her eyes got used to the dim light. She saw plants everywhere, dense, tropical vegetation. Like a jungle. The air was moist and sultry. Diffuse light was reflected in the glass panes above her. There must be lights among the plants.

  Now she knew. It wasn’t an aquarium. This was a terrarium.

  She raised her head, saw movements. Snakes, dozens of them, but none as large as the snake in the forest. She wasn’t afraid of them. She’d rather have them crowding around her naked body than humans.

  The snakes nestled close to her, crawled over her, but they didn’t seem to mean her any harm. They seemed almost afraid of her. When Rosa looked down at herself, they swiftly slid off her body and away into the dense vegetation, hissing.

  Not a dream. She was in Florinda’s greenhouse.

  The snakes withdrew respectfully, hiding in the shadows, staring at her out of the darkness with eyes like jewels.

  Rosa sat up and brushed dry scales off her skin.

  WILD DOGS

  ROSA SLEPT UNTIL EARLY afternoon. Even when she woke up she still wasn’t sure just when reality and dream had merged last night.

  Her body was clean and smelled of soap, although she didn’t remember showering. Her pillow was damp, probably from her wet hair. Remnants of foam were left around the drain in the tub in her bathroom. That was more unsettling than the blurred images of giant snakes and big cats in her mind. Ever since last year, having gaps in her memory had been her greatest fear. She shuddered, and her fingers wouldn’t stop trembling.

  She was wearing pajamas with a gold flower print. Probably Zoe’s. Neutral black clothes, found for her by her sister in Piazza Armerina a few days ago, lay on a chair, along with the dress she had worn on the plane, which had now been cleaned.

  Somehow she managed to brush her teeth as if nothing had happened. Even after she combed her hair it still looked as wild and tousled as before, but she tried desperately to pretend everything was normal. Do everything the same as usual. Don’t show any weakness. You’re in control.

  The problem was that, yet again, the past was eluding her control. What had happened in the woods, the way she had woken up in the greenhouse half-buried under snakes—none of that had been under her control. She didn’t even know what had really happened.

  She made it to the toilet bowl just before she threw up and stayed there on her knees, feeling so weak she didn’t know if she could ever get on her feet again.

  Somehow she hauled herself up, washed the tears from her face, brushed her teeth again, and gargled until she was out of breath. Finally she put on the minidress, a black T-shirt, and black stockings. As she laced up her metal-studded boots, her fingers shook. She thought she’d never finish.

  There was a knock at the door of her room.

  “I’m dead,” she said.

  Zoe came in. “I’m even more so.” And she was right. She looked terrible. Evidently she had tried to cover some of her swellings and injuries with makeup, but was about as successful as if she had set about making a car from the junkyard look brand-new with nothing but some paint and a brush. She had a black eye and a split lip, and Rosa saw the edge of a white bandage under the neck of her shirt.

  “What on earth happened?” Rosa jumped up, which wasn’t a good idea. Her knees gave way, and she immediately dropped back onto the edge of her bed again

  “Look who’s talking,” said Zoe.

  “You’re injured, I’m only crazy. So you start.”

  Zoe managed a thin smile. “I was outside yesterday evening.” She hesitated, obviously not sure whether Rosa had followed her or had just happened to be in the woods by chance. She had to have guessed the truth, but she wasn’t about to broach the subject. “I went for a walk, and something attacked me. A wild dog, probably. Or a whole pack of them. I don’t know anymore, it’s a total blackout. The guards picked me up. I have you to thank for that, by the way—if you hadn’t crossed their path earlier, and if they hadn’t been searching the whole mountain for you, they wouldn’t have found me so quickly.”

  Rosa looked at her hard. “Seems like going for walks around here isn’t a great idea.”

  Zoe returned her gaze. “Seems like it isn’t.”

  How much of her calm composure was just for show? And how much was real coolness?

  “What’s the matter with your shoulder?” asked Rosa.

  “Looks worse than it is. A bite. The doctor from Piazza Armerina gave me an injection. He was here last night�
�for you, too, by the way.”

  There was a lump in Rosa’s throat. “I can’t remember anything.”

  “He gave you a tranquilizer, Florinda says. When they found you on the outskirts of the woods, you were distraught. She put you to bed and then sent the guards out searching. And when she went up to you again, you’d disappeared. You walked in your sleep and ended up lying in the greenhouse, she says. Then the doctor arrived and put you down for the count.”

  Rosa didn’t say a word, but her glance must have spoken volumes.

  Zoe misinterpreted it. “Doctors who treat the families don’t dither and ask questions. They usually have much worse to deal with than a few scratches and bites. They simply do what has to be done and never say a word about it later. Better for all concerned, and they’re well paid for it.”

  “The law of silence,” whispered Rosa.

  “This is Sicily. Omertà is part of it, like the smoke over the burning stubble and the garbage in the roadside ditches.”

  “How poetic.”

  Zoe shifted from foot to foot. Probably to hide the uncertainty that she obviously felt, she went to the window and looked out.

  Rosa waited to see if her sister was going to say anything. But she just stood there, looking out in silence.

  Rosa frowned. “There’s something else, right?”

  Zoe sighed, turned around, and tried perching on the windowsill, but it was painfully obvious that in her present condition she’d better stand. It was clearly difficult for her to answer Rosa’s question, but not because of her injuries.

  “He was here,” she said.

  Rosa had expected something quite different. For a moment she was thrown off balance. “Who was?”

  “Alessandro Carnevare.”

  “Here, in this house?” After Florinda’s ostentatious rescue operation on Isola Luna, he could hardly have done anything more stupid than to turn up here.