FOUR KINGS: A Novel

by M. D. Elster

  The wolves begin to growl. It is a deep, hateful sound. I know it is only a matter of seconds before they will lunge.

  But then, all at once, a horse breaks through the trees and dense underbrush. I am surprised to see it is the Raven King, alone on his horse. He has tracked me, and is the first to have caught me up. He reaches to his hip and produces an antiquated-looking revolver. But as he points it in the air and shoots, the revolver does the trick. The wolves take heed and go yelping away, turning cowardly, as if they have been shot and not merely warned.

  I stand there, still crouched over, staring up at the strange, sadistic creature of a man who has just saved me.

  “Well,” says the Raven King, “you certainly decided to add some… shall we say, spontaneity, to tonight’s hunt?”

  “I don’t know what you mean,” I reply.

  “Oh, come now,” the Raven King says. He slides down from his horse and approaches. “I don’t think you fooled anyone with that ruse. You had a plain view of Lord Rigby up in that tree, didn’t you?”

  I don’t say anything. He is standing very near me. My eyes go to the revolver in his hand, the dagger still at his hip.

  “Pish-posh, girl — don’t look so frightened of me! The first key to being clever is to know your enemies. I have no interest in doing you injury! I amuse myself with clever games and witticisms, and you are far too boring and banal for me to risk the kind of accusations I might endure if I were to touch one hair on your human head!”

  I think about this, but before I can reply, the rest of the hunting party catches up. They come stamping towards us in the snow.

  “Anaïs!” Mr. Fletcher exclaims. “Are you all right?”

  He jumps down from his horse and rushes to my side. Lady Albin, I can’t help but notice, eyes me warily from atop her white mare.

  “Of course she’s all right,” the Raven King retorts. “And she has me to thank for it!”

  Mr. Fletcher gives me a look. I comprehend immediately.

  “Yes, I meant to thank you, Your Highness,” I rush to say. “I am very indebted to you for coming to my aid.”

  He waves an annoyed hand. “Take her back to the castle, Mr. Fletcher. Her kind are not cut out for the hunt, and as we have so little time left, I don’t want her getting in the way again.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty. Right away.” Mr. Fletcher gestures for me to follow him to his horse.

  “I do believe this silly human has cost me my victory tonight!” the king adds irritably.

  “Everyone knows you were on the cusp of triumph, Sire,” Lady Albin comforts him.

  They turn to go, and Mr. Fletcher escorts me back to the castle. I know the Raven King has shamed me; I feel nothing but relief.

  Back at the castle, Mr. Fletcher escorts me back to the Silver Room, where earlier I had my bath and got dressed.

  “The Silver Room is one of Raven’s nicest,” Mr. Fletcher says. “You’ll sleep well tonight.”

  “I doubt it,” I say.

  “Why is that?”

  “That hunt!” I say. “The Raven King seems like he wouldn’t hesitate to kill one of his own courtiers — and all just for sport. That… that would be unheard of in the human world.”

  “Humans do very cruel things to each other too, Anaïs,” Mr. Fletcher argues. “Very cruel things.” I consider this, and think again of the war back in my own world.

  “I suppose you have a point,” I say.

  “And anyway, I promise I will stand outside and guard your door if you wish it. At the very least, you do trust me, don’t you?”

  “I do,” I say.

  “Well, here we are,” he says. He stops in front of a large door gilded in silver. He bows deeply at the waist, and as he does, something falls from his breast pocket and clatters to the rug. My eyes dart immediately towards the object.

  “The Raven King’s amulet,” I say, recognizing the jeweled necklace with its heavy, blood-red stone.

  “Ah!” Mr. Fletcher exclaims, “yes. He dropped it during the hunt. I picked it up, and was going to return it to him. I’d nearly forgotten! How fortunate to be reminded.”

  “Oh,” I say. “That is considerate. I’m sure he will appreciate it.”

  “My dear, you look tired.”

  “I am.”

  “I shall bid you adieu.”

  “But Mr. Fletcher,” I say, “Will Lord Rigby be all right?”

  “Oh!” he says. “Yes, yes. I meant to tell you — after we returned here, I heard the servants gossiping downstairs: Lord Rigby was not captured when the clock struck midnight. So the hunt is over, and he is no longer their prey. At least, not tonight, anyway.” Mr. Fletcher pauses. “I’m sure he would like to thank you, if only he could without revealing your generous act of kindness.”

  I breathe a little easier. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “No, no. Of course not. Don’t mind me. Just making idle chatter,” Mr. Fletcher says. He smiles, then the smile vanishes from his face and he turns serious. “If the Raven King had wanted to harm you in any way, Anaïs, he had ample opportunity tonight. I daresay he is not our suspect.”

  I nod and sigh.

  “Goodnight, my dear human child,” he says, and his muzzle twists with that characteristic sly smile of his. “I’ll be right outside. Pleasant dreams.”

  The door latches shut and I am alone in my chambers.

  I take a look around the decadent room. I notice a cozy sitting area with a plush chaise and rows upon rows of novels lined up on a bookcase. Beyond the dark window, white snow falls against a night sky. A fire crackles in a fireplace near the foot of the enormous bed, and that’s when I realize: I have little energy for anything more strenuous than sleep. I am suddenly so overcome with exhaustion, I almost feel the way I felt not so long ago, back in the asylum, when Nurse Kitching injected me with Thorazine.

  I slip out of my riding clothes and into the nightgown laid out on the velvet bench at the foot of the canopied bed. I climb up and onto the mattress, which feels like a luxurious pile of feathers. A sensation of release spreads throughout every muscle in my body and my eyes roll back into my dizzy head.

  I am out like an extinguished lamp, before my head even touches the beautiful silk pillow.

  CHAPTER 13.

  The first thing I feel when I wake up is thick ropes of pain shooting from my back and neck up to the top of my head.

  “Well, well, now… ça va, chèrie?”

  I look over to see Nurse Baptiste reading a book in a chair next to my bed… She has, I suppose, been charged with watching over me.

  “I feel dreadful,” I say. I try to sit up.

  She reaches for a pitcher and pours me a glass of water. “I do not doubt it, chèrie. Nurse Kitching had to administer a full syringe of Thorazine to stop your tantrum. She had no choice. Your behavior — it, too, was dreadful.”

  I blink at her, trying to remember.

  “You had to be stopped. You attacked the lady who came to see you.”

  “Colette?”

  “Mais, oui. You were like a wild thing, screaming like a banshee, scratching for her eyes.”

  I am quiet, contemplating this, considering how much to tell Nurse Baptiste.

  “I… I am frightened of her,” I say finally, remembering the flash I’d had of Colette laying out my tarot, dealing me XIII, La Mort.

  “Hah,” Nurse Baptiste laughs. “Well, you have it backwards, then, ma chèrie. I think she is more frightened of you now.” Nurse Baptiste looks at me, but she can see that I am not convinced. “Why would you be frightened of her, anyway? She means you no harm. I understand, chérie, you are suffering from the trauma of seeing your stepfather shot, but she did not shoot your stepfather. It is plain she cares about you. And about him.”

  I am not certain any of those assumptions are true.

  “Who did shoot my father?” I ask now. “Nobody will tell me about the man on trial.”
>
  “Ah,” Nurse Baptiste nods. “Yes. They narrowed it down to four suspects; all of them worked for your father, and finally one young man was arrested and is to be put on trial. The lawyer is coming today. I am certain there will be talk of that young man. And it is best if the lawyer handles this matter.”

  “Nurse Baptiste… lately, I feel afraid a lot of the time. I… I can’t explain it. But do I have any reason to be afraid?”

  “I don’t know, chèrie — it depends on what took place during that hurricane. They are confident they have caught the criminal, and he is safely behind bars. Only you can say, and only when you have fully regained your memory. But I can tell you: I believe you are safe here.” She pats my hand. “Rest easy for now. I will bring you some breakfast here in bed. You have a session with Dr. Waters in an hour.”

  I have a long session with Dr. Waters, and then lunch. I’ve remembered a few things I couldn’t before, and Dr. Waters seemed very pleased, so I feel fairly confident about the lawyer’s impending visit. Around three o’clock, Nurse Kitching fetches me in the wheelchair and rolls me into Dr. Waters’s office.

  When we enter, there is a man seated opposite Dr. Waters. They rise upon seeing me, which makes me feel a little self-conscious. The room, stuffed full as it is with Dr. Waters’s collection of curiosities, is especially claustrophobic with the additional occupant.

  “Anaïs, this is Mr. Chester Duval,” Dr. Waters says, gesturing. A young man with dark hair and horn-rimmed glasses steps forward to shake my hand. “He is the attorney prosecuting your stepfather’s assailant.”

  We exchange a nod. The Brylcreem in his neatly combed hair gleams, catching the bluish light of late afternoon coming in from the window. He pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose. He reminds me a bit of Lord Ringtail for some reason.

  “May I ask you some questions, Anaïs?”

  I nod.

  The lawyer clears his throat and takes a seat. He pulls out a notebook and fountain pen from his leather attaché case, and begins flipping through the pages of the notebook until he finds the one he’s looking for. He clears his throat again.

  “Dr. Waters informs me that you may have begun to recover some fragments of your memory pertaining to your stepfather’s business. What can you recall?”

  “Colette,” I say finally. “When I saw Colette yesterday, I remembered something… I must’ve been at the nightclub; I think I can remember seeing her on a stage.” It is one of the few images of which I am certain.

  Mr. Duval’s eyes widen, and he turns to Dr. Waters with a slight shrug of approval. “Well, that’s something: The girl hasn’t forgotten the nightclub completely…”

  “Yes,” Dr. Waters agrees. “There is more. We had an excellent session this morning, and I have every reason to believe that, in time, Anaïs will remember all of it — the nightclub, Jules Martin, the night of the hurricane… It’s only a question of when, and whether her mind will be whole in time for the trial, I’m afraid.”

  Mr. Duval grimaces and nods. “Yes… promising and worrying at the same time.”

  “Go on, Anaïs,” Dr. Waters continues, “— tell him what we talked about earlier today during your session…”

  “I remember seeing a dark figure, and I remember seeing a gun,” I say slowly. It is an effort to draw the images out of my brain, and I must concentrate intensely. “I must’ve been there, too, when it went off,” I say. “I remember seeing the muzzle-flash, and smelling the gunpowder. The sound was ear-splitting.”

  “Well, that certainly indicates you were present in the actual room when the attack occurred. In fact, you must’ve been standing reasonably close to the victim,” Mr. Duval says, nodding and scribbling in the notebook.

  “I… can’t say for certain. But I guess so,” I say. “There was lots of other noise, too — a loud rumbling. It carried on much longer than gunfire, I think. Perhaps that part was the sound of thunder from the hurricane? Dr. Waters says the storm did significant damage to my stepfather’s estate.”

  Mr. Duval frowns. “You mean, you don’t recall witnessing the damage to the roof?”

  I shake my head.

  “A hundred-year-old oak tree toppled over, Anaïs,” he says. “It fell on the house. To be honest, I’m awfully surprised you don’t recall that.”

  “The oak tree crashing into the house… is that how I was struck on the head?”

  “Well, actually, we don’t think so. The tree caused a significant disruption — there would’ve been debris everywhere, and some of it caught fire from several lit candles, but the tree fell some minutes before your father was shot. We believe you both took shelter in another room and he was shot a short time later. We also believe that you were still conscious and that you were trying to administer first aid to your stepfather around the time you were finally struck. That blow could’ve come from a beam falling down… or…” Mr. Duval hesitates, studying my face cautiously. I can tell he does not want to upset me.

  “Or I could have been purposely struck on the head? Maybe by my father’s attacker?” I finish for him.

  “Yes,” he says. “We think there was a good chance you were knocked out on purpose. Which brings me to my next question…” He leans over and retrieves a few more items from his attaché case. “I want you to look at a few photographs for me, Anaïs, and tell me if you can recall any of these individuals.”

  He hands me four photographs, fanned out, like a hand of cards in poker. I take them, and look at them carefully, one by one. They are all men, three of them ranging in age from about seventeen to thirty (I’d guess), and one of them much older with white hair. Two are Negro, one is lighter but quite swarthy (Spanish? Italian?), and judging by the older man’s beard and manner of dress, I’d guess he was Cajun.

  I am abruptly overcome with a sensation best described — in the American parlance — as déjà vu. I look up at Mr. Duval.

  “Have I seen these exact same photographs recently?” I ask. “Did I… did I talk to the police at some point?”

  “They took your statement, yes. But you were still in quite a state. Nothing you said made a whole lot of sense, I’m afraid. Which is why I need you to do your best to work with Dr. Waters here. The stronger your mind, Anaïs, the better witness you will make.” He stops, and looks at me, blinking. “You do want to see your stepfather’s attacker put behind bars, don’t you?”

  “Yes, of course,” I answer. “I think the world of my stepfather; he saved me from the war in Europe by arranging for our passage together here to America. He is… he is the only family I have.”

  “Good,” Mr. Duval says, nodding in approval. “If there is a will, there is a way. I’m a great believer in that particular old adage. I know it can’t be easy.” He gives me a smile. I can tell he is straining himself to be patient. “For now we ought to turn our attention to the photographs.” He gestures to the four photographs still in my hands. “Do you recognize any of those men?”

  I look again.

  “Yes,” I say. “I do…” A glimmer of recognition sparks in my mind as I stare; it is faint, but sure. “I recognize all of them. These… these are the four stagehands who work at my father’s nightclub in the French Quarter.”

  “Good!” he snaps his fingers with excitement. “That is very good! Can you recite their names for me, please?”

  I look again, but I can already feel the glimmer dying. I can only recall these men in fragmented impressions. In my memory, most of them are doing busy work around the club: repairing a floorboard in the stage, raising or lowering the curtain, acting as makeshift bouncers for the singers and jazz musicians. I know there is more, that I have talked to these men, that I know their names, but it’s simply as though I cannot access the portion of my brain where this information is stored.

  I shake my head at Mr. Duval, feeling defeated and miserable about letting him down. He looks disappointed.

  “What about…” he says, leaning over, �
��…what about, this one right here?” He takes three of the photographs away and leaves me holding a lone picture. “Do you remember anything at all about that man there?”

  Once again, I take a closer look and do my best to concentrate. The photograph Mr. Duval has left in my hands shows a young Negro man. He is by far the youngest of the bunch, perhaps only sixteen or seventeen years old, and thus not much older than myself. He has a well-cut jawline and cheekbones, and even though the photograph is black and white, I can see he has striking hazel eyes. The photograph does not appear to have originally been a mug shot — perhaps it was for a driver’s license or an employment card, maybe? — but there is something funny in his expression, despite his roguish close-lipped smile, as though he is embarrassed to have his photograph taken. The smile is vaguely endearing, not to mention familiar.

  “Do you know this man?” Mr. Duval asks.

  “Yes,” I blurt out, feeling an inexplicable surge of emotion.

  “How?” Mr. Duval demands.

  I stare hard, then close my eyes and focus. With a jolt, I get a sudden flash of something. I thought I saw this same young man at the nightclub, leaning in as though confiding intimate secrets to… Colette. Could that possibly be true? I feel a strange sense of amity towards the young man, and feel quite the opposite about Colette, and the image of the two of them together has my head spinning.

  “His face is familiar from the nightclub,” I say. “I am certain of that. The rest of it… well, all I can tell you is that it’s jumbled.”

  “Anaïs — listen to me, this is very important: Do you remember seeing him there, at your stepfather’s estate, on the night of the hurricane?”

  “Um,” I bite my lip. I want to give Mr. Duval the proper answer — the answer he is obviously in need of — but I can’t be certain. “I don’t know… Perhaps?” I say, hoping that will satiate Mr. Duval for the time being.

  “Perhaps?” he echoes back to me. He is clearly deflated.

  “Is he… is he your suspect?” I ask. “Is he the man on trial for shooting my stepfather?”