“Oh, I am so glad to see you, Mrs. Smythe!” she bubbled. “And you, Lucian. Oh, I forgot, Mrs. Blackwell!”
They sat sipping tea in the sitting room. The master and mistress of the house frequently traveled, leaving the care of the children to Katrina.
“It has been glorious here. The children complete their studies and then I am free to do as I please. I have had so many gentlemen callers since I arrived, I can barely count them all! I have two that I favor, one is named Anthony Thomason, and I am afraid you quite know the other well—dear Edward.”
“Teache?” sputtered Lucian, losing half the mouthful of tea back into his cup. “Katrina, you can’t be serious.”
Her eyes narrowed. “Oh, I am deadly serious, dear brother. Although Anthony is beautiful to look at, I am afraid he is poor as a church mouse. Edward, on the other hand...well let’s just say he can provide me with the means to a secure life. Look, he brought me back this from his last voyage.”
Around her neck was a beautiful gem of unrecognizable origin to Stanzy. She looked gravely at Lucian from behind Katrina’s back when she turned to address him.
Constanza took a deep breath before speaking and silently said a prayer so that she might be articulate and reach Katrina’s heart with her meaning. She knew deep down, however, that as much as you might love someone, you cannot change inherently who they are. So, even as she spoke the words, she was certain they would fall on deaf ears.
“Katrina, darling. I understand the practicality of marrying into a more favorable station and arrangement. You know that I am nothing if not pragmatic. But, one must be sure of the character of the betrothed, because if the character is heavily flawed, then the amount of heartache will far outweigh any benefits of a comfortable living.”
Lucian held very still, not commenting on what she’d just spoken. She caught the briefest twitch under his eye.
Here it comes...
“Oh! I should have known you could not just be happy for me! Just because he did not meet your high standards, does not mean he is not worth considering as a match! You are jealous of me! You always have been.” Katrina leaped off the settee and set to pacing back and forth in front of Constanza, her hands balled into fists.
Jealous of what? Your oblivion of all things necessary? That I cannot live in your dream world? Maybe I am jealous of that!
Inhaling deeply, Constanza exerted a level of self-control she saved exclusively for Katrina and Will. By the look on Lucian’s face, he was clearly amazed she’d held her temper in check. Probably thinking she wouldn’t have hesitated to unleash an onslaught of words on him had he acted like Katrina.
He stood. “Ladies, I am going to take a turn on the grounds.”
After he departed, Constanza grabbed her sister’s hand. “Kitty, I am not jealous. I only want what is best for you. Yes, I would have you marry so that you were secure, but also for love. If the young man you described has not taken your heart, then perhaps neither of these suitors is right for you. Let us be honest, you are beautiful and intelligent. Many more offers will be made to you.”
“You do not understand, Stanzy. I want out of here. I cannot stand being a governess! I have no other profession that is more favorable, however. If I marry Edward, I can leave here, and have servants of my own.”
Stanzy tried to think quickly, how to make someone so young see that the easy decision was rarely the correct one? That having a marriage with who knows what horrible toils, would hardly be worth having servants?
“Katrina, I know you are not going to believe me, but nothing ever worth doing is easy—there may be a few exceptions, but it is usually true. Marrying Edward would be easy, and a quick answer to a problem you have, but over the course of time, I am certain a much more favorable alternative will present itself. Have patience. Have faith.”
At this, Katrina managed a real smile. “Dearest Stanzy. You have always been the one with all the patience. When we were children, you were the one who could wait for dessert, and wait to open a present ‘til everyone else had done so first. I think mother gave you all of the patience, and had none left to give me when I came along. Please stay a few days. Edward is to return soon, and I would love for you and Lucian to sup with us.”
Stanzy conjured this picture in her mind and almost laughed out loud. The recollection of Lucian with his pistol pointed at Teache's head, firmly fixed in her mind.
“Katrina, that would not be a good idea. I would love to meet your other suitor, however.”
~ * ~
As Hawthorne House receded from view, Constanza glared over her shoulder at it.
That was a waste of time and effort. I feel worse than I did before. With all the foolish decisions she is making, I fear she may turn into our father with a ‘poof’ at any time.
Remorse sickened her gut at having spent half her life trying to keep her sister safe and alive, and now as an adult, Katrina was putting herself in jeopardy. At times like these, she actually wished for a magic wand that could return Katrina to a child. True things were awful then, but at least she knew her whereabouts and that she was safe.
Lucian looked at Constanza’s somber face. “Well, Anthony was quite a good fellow,” he said hopefully.
“Yes. Unfortunately, a lot of good that will do, since he is not Edward Teache.”
~ * ~
Opening her eyes, the child’s breath came in gasps. She stood on tiptoes and craned her neck to see out the carriage window. Immediately she recognized the dark old stones, the chimneys with smoke billowing out of them. Her tiny hands shook with the memories, and what would come next inside that wretched building.
Unable to stop them, the screams flew out of Megan’s mouth.
~ Chapter Ten ~
She lay curled on the cot on the dirt floor. Shaking from the cold, Megan fingered the rough horse blanket. No one else had come in; she was alone. She didn’t like alone. But if the others came, they would scare her. Big like Ma and Pa, they didn’t act like them.
The others pulled her hair and hit her and pushed her off the cot at night.
She didn’t understand why she was so different. Even in little ways. Like Ma and Bess could wear dresses, but when she put one on, her skin came alive, as if bugs crawled all over her. And the pain in her head—it was so great at times, the only way to stop it was to hit it, or push it against something hard.
She could learn some things. Like she’d been taught biting and kicking, they were wrong. But silly things made her so mad, almost every day, and then she had no control of how she acted.
She so wanted to be good.
They would come for her, wouldn’t they? Ma and Pa wouldn’t forget about her and leave her here. She could not tell them what she wanted, the words...they just stayed up there...stuck in her head, which was why she got so angry. Except lately Ma had taught her a way to make her mouth speak, and even her body to do what she told it to do. And then this speaking with her fingers.
Megan, signed Help and then Stop. Bess had said it was a miracle. Whatever a miracle was she knew she liked it.
When she thought Run she could run! It was the best few days ever; until one of the men from the Blackhouse came and made her cry. Since then, she hadn’t been able to get her body to listen to her.
She didn’t know if she would live if they put her in the cold bath like last time.
Suddenly, an old woman was in the cell—pitched in by a pair of hands it almost looked like she’d flown in. The woman fell in a heap onto the floor in front of her. For a while, she just lay there. Then the woman spoke in a funny voice, like the one Ma made sometimes when she read scary stories.
“Who is there? Who is here with me? Is it you, Mary?”
On her hands and knees, the old woman started crawling toward Megan. Her bony fingertips brushed the end of Megan’s boot. She pulled away as if she’d been bitten.
“Who is that? Come closer so that I may see you.”
Quick as she knew how Megan scra
mbled to the corner of the cell, closed her eyes and began to rock back and forth, staying in a safe place in her mind.
In her mind’s eye, the swing behind home came into view. The grass was green and the boys were there. She felt their hands on her back as they pushed her on the swing. She wanted her soft doll, and the way Ma swung her round and round. Tears came from her eyes, which she hated because every drop burned her cheek like she’d been scratched.
Hearing more noise, she opened her eyes. A young ‘other’ was thrown into the room and sprawled onto the floor beside the old one.
“Mary, is that you?” old one said as she moved closer to the new young one, whose hair was matted and so long it hung below her bottom.
“No, you old caw!” younger said, swinging at the old one’s head.
Then on their knees, they locked arms and pushed each other until they were quickly rolling on the dirt. Barely missing Megan, she realized they were fighting. This time she not only closed her eyes, but covered her ears as well.
Some sounds, like a baby crying or a dog barking, made her feel like someone was driving a stake into her head.
Like now. The old one howled like a wolf.
She tried not to cry, because then they would take notice of her, and the young one might attack her instead of the old woman.
She filled her mind with Ma and Bess, and her puppy. They had given her one, just like the boys. No one thought she noticed, because she couldn’t speak, but she would look out her window and see the boys with their dogs, and wished she could try to run with the dogs as they did.
Now, the young one sat atop the old one. She held her arms down on the floor. Younger was pulling older’s eyebrow hairs out a few at a time while the wolf-woman howled.
Megan stared. Were her eyes seeing right? Younger had no eyelashes or eyebrows. Seemed she ran out of her own, and decided to now pull out wolf-woman's instead.
With this howl, some of the men came in.
One man grabbed the young one. She kicked out her legs and her teeth bared like a nasty dog from home. Megan peeked long enough to see younger bite down into his arm, and now it was the man's turn to scream. Two other men ran in. One man held younger’s arms across her chest in a criss-cross. She struggled, hanging in the air between the two while a third man grabbed her kicking feet. Carrying her off through the doorway, she arched her back and banged her head—hard—off the door. Megan thought she must have given up because her body went limp.
The old one cried. Megan tilted her head in wonderment. A minute ago they were fighting, now old one was sad. Old one picked up a doll that looked like Megan’s favorite one at home. She sat in the middle of the dirty floor, rocking back and forth, repeating over and over, “Mary, my Mary.”
Megan could hold her own sadness inside no longer, her wailing filled the room and echoed through the cell.
The man’s head shot in her direction and his eyes narrowed. Had he forgotten she was here?
Walking over, he picked her up. Megan didn’t resist. She was at their mercy. He carried her down the hall and yelled to a woman, “All right, this wee one has to get out of there, lest the wicked sisters kill her for certain.”
~ * ~
Megan paced, her feet making sounds off the walls as she stamped on the cold hard floor. She had her own room, so at least it was quiet.
Then the men had taken her to the food place. While there, the two big men had begun to fight and they were on the ground rolling. Many of the Blackhouse white coats jumped in and tried to separate them.
That was when she’d done it—she slipped out the door.
I have to find a way out. A way home.
Now she walked the hallways, passing each door, eyeing the people inside each room.
Door one: Tied to a chair, a crooked man sat staring out the window.
Door two: Arms lifted high in the air, a beautiful woman with grey hair down to her knees twirled as if dancing with someone only she could see.
Door three: A girl maybe her own age chewed at ropes tied to her wrists. When the young girl spied her, she started to scream.
Megan ran.
She ran until she couldn’t hear the screams anymore. Scared...she was so scared. Finally, the fear started to go away and she realized she’d run up the stairs to the next floor.
Slowly she walked, watching all the while for white coats, and the monsters inside of them.
Then she started running again, bent over from fear. She heard noises that meant the Blackhouse Men were looking for her. Opening a door she stared at steps. She climbed to the top level of the Blackhouse. There were no more stairs.
This floor was wet. Looking up she saw holes in the roof. Why were holes up there? Water dripped from the holes and filled the hallways. The steady drip, drip, drip, made her shiver as she remembered the baths here. She looked in each room as she passed, searching for somewhere safe to hide.
A clomp at the end of the hallway caused her to freeze. She saw movement as something passed into the hallway from one of the rooms. She opened a closet and closed the door behind her, willing herself still.
Something whisked past the bottom of her skirt and she clapped her hands to her mouth to keep from screaming. Just rats, just rats, her mind repeated. They are better than the bugs or the cold water.
Then she heard the housemaid pull a bucket past the door. The woman whistled a strange tune Megan thought she’d heard once. Tilting her head to the side she closed her eyes, trying to recall the song.
The door to the stairwell opened and closed. The whistling went slowly away.
Carefully she opened the door, peeked left and right down the hall. No humans in sight. She leapt her way across the puddles in search of a safe place. Some of the rooms looked awful and she didn’t even want to step into them; she hoped no one ever had to go into them. She found a candle and lit it, a skill she’d learned by watching Bess.
Holding it up, she peered into the gloom. Many mattresses were now the homes of families of rats, their eyes gleaming in the candlelight as it shone on their shiny black bodies. She shivered.
She continued down the hall, finally finding a room that seemed to be animal free. At the window she stood, seeing for miles over the beautiful grounds.
If not for the woods, it would look like a garden...but these woods are not like those at home.
Gathering blankets she’d found for warmth, she relaxed and her mind began to drift to home.
She thought of Mother. Not the mother that was small and had the pinched face and wrinkled nose. That wasn’t a mother.
At night, when everyone thought her asleep, she would often look at the picture books in her room. Several contained pictures of women in rocking chairs, holding children close, reading to them from books.
THAT was a mother. She just knew it was.
No matter what anyone else said, the one they called Stanzy—she was Mother. She wanted so much to see her now. Mother would often hold her on her lap and whisper words...words she didn’t understand, but by how she spoke them to her, she knew they must mean something good.
I want to go home, I want to go home. Please let me go home.
Megan cried again, but more softly this time. She drew her legs up to her chest and began to rock. Finally she fell asleep.
She awoke to dogs barking.
Close.
Shaking her head to clear it, she listened—her one sense that worked really well. Tree branches scratched the window. Was a storm coming? A single cricket chirped outside. Now... now she heard dogs clawing at the floors below in search of her.
Scared, she searched for an escape. She saw something she recognized from home. She walked over to it and eased open its hatch. Dishes and glasses were still inside, so she quietly pushed them aside just enough to squeeze her body in. The dumbwaiter slowly began to rumble down, but it squeaked noisily.
She could hear the dogs’ barking move away as she felt herself falling farther and farther down.
At last it hit the bottom with a thump, and she sat...listening. No sounds—she cracked the door open a little.
What she saw next made her close her eyes and rub them vigorously. Surely she must be having a nightmare.
In a room filled with beds and comfortable looking chairs, unlike any she’d seen before in the Blackhouse, sat human statues. Climbing out of the dumbwaiter, she slowly began to walk through the room, fearing if she moved too quickly it might awaken them. And who knew what they would do—perhaps claw at her.
One beautiful woman with black hair sat in a chair at the window, her back straight, an arm raised, her head tilted to the right—posed as if listening. Megan moved around to the front of the chair and stared intently into her face. The woman stared unblinking. In a brief flash, she wondered if this were how she looked to others when she crawled into her mind.
She waved her hand in front of the woman’s face, but the breathtaking statue didn’t stir or blink. Her fingernails had grown so long they curled from each finger.
An old man sat on a chair with both arms raised to the heavens. The man’s head and neck were so tilted that Megan looked up to see if the answer might be on the ceiling. A feeling she didn’t like raced down her spine and she stepped back.
It seemed people could act like this no matter what age or whether a man or a woman.
An older woman lay curled on a bed like a baby. Megan got closer and was tempted to touch her to see if she still drew breath, but she couldn’t make herself do it.
Scratching on the floor overhead awakened her to the current danger. They were coming.
She bolted as quickly as her legs would carry her into the hall and ducked into another room.
Where am I? Where are all the people who act like Ma and Pa? Why do they act like they cannot see me? Have I disappeared? She reached down and patted herself all over to make sure she was still solid.
In the next room all the people moved, but they looked really strange.
Everywhere her eyes beheld old women—all holding dolls in their arms. Several stood in a circle, their weight shifting back and forth in unison, as one sang a lullaby. Others sat in rocking chairs, cradling the dolls to their bosoms and whispering sounds to babies that weren’t real.
The Bride of Blackbeard Page 13
