by Teddy Hester
Out of this chaos slowly rises an eerie apparition. A creature, with a shining globe of a head atop a deformed, lumpy body, pulls itself to sitting amidst the frozen, fiery miasma. As if sensing a presence, the dark, shiny globe slowly rotates, its axis the creature’s thick, unseen neck.
To my horror, the globe continues its garish pivot until, finally, its sightless visage locks purposefully into place. The inhuman gaze penetrating the storm swirling ‘round it, empty sight trained on its recipient, me.
In spite of my fear, I feel the creature’s loneliness. His voice, incongruous in its mellow resonance, slices through my fear, in slow, deliberate, intense tones delivers a message that is more promise than threat:
“Prepare yourself. I am coming for you.”
I jerk awake with a gasp and sit straight up in my bed. After a moment, I bury my face in my hands.
Damn The Dream. When will it ever stop? What does it mean? Is it somehow connected to my parents’ death?
As always, my predominant feeling—over the fear, over the revulsion—is sadness. The creature seems scary, but his abject loneliness stabs at my sensitive heart, while its solemn vow is filled with such longing, I want to weep with despair.
Eventually, with the discipline of repeated practice, I’m able to regulate my breathing to a connected series of deep, slow inhalations and exhalations. The calming rhythm soothes me and allows the remnants of the nightmare to wash over me instead of lodging themselves inside my body and mind. Finally, they dissipate altogether in the freshness of the early morning air.
I drop my hands back into my lap and relax my breathing. It’s early yet, but I know I’ll never get back to sleep. I never can after The Dream. It’s been recurring for years, so I’m well aware of the pattern by now. I just wish I knew how to stop it. I've tried psychoanalysis, sleeping pills, hot baths before bed, even sleeping sitting up. Nothing works. The Dream still comes, in spite of everything, three or four times a week. Sighing, I push back the soft covers and climb out of the ancient, elevated bed, sliding my feet into fuzzy, pink slippers.
The wooden floor is cold. March in Germany is normally the beginning of spring, but this morning’s air holds a promise of something less mild. I need to check the wood supply for the fireplaces.
Quickly skittering across the floor to my massive, carved wardrobe standing solidly along one wainscoted wall, I pull out a long, heavy velvet robe over my nightgown before going to the modernized bathroom adjoining my bedroom. As the streaming water trails over my chilled body, I smile at a fleeting image of how much my von Sternau ancestors would have appreciated a hot shower.
The occupants of the family manse prior to two generations ago thought themselves advanced because their wastes were flushed with buckets of scented water out a hole in the side of the thick, stone walls. Before that, they had noxious chamber pots stowed under the raised bed for the maids to empty later. I finish rinsing my hair, and once again thank the merciful heavens that I was born in a kinder, more convenient period.
I throw on honey-tan suede slacks and a matching oversized sweater, hand-knit with cranberry silk ribbon and gold-shot stripes. Thick, wet blonde hair streaked with pale russet gets ruthlessly slicked back and anchored before being quickly plaited and curled into a tight knot at the back of my head. I clip on big, gold twisted earrings, a gift from my father for my twelfth birthday in spite of my mother’s laughing protests that I was too young for such ostentation. My heart clutches again for an instant. I miss my mother and father every day.
“Guten Morgen, Liebchen. I thought I heard you up already.” Birgitte, whose once-vibrant blonde hair is now faded and streaked with white, smiles at me as she enters my chamber after a light, perfunctory knock.
“Good morning, Birgitte. I couldn’t sleep.”
“The Dream?”
I sigh and nod. “It was particularly vivid today.”
Birgitte tsks and touches my arm. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“No, thank you. If I keep busy, it’ll fade. After breakfast, I thought I might go into town. Can I get you or Alfred anything while I’m there?” A sparse application of make-up, designed primarily to highlight the near-invisible brows and lashes which surround my wide, blue eyes is completed with customary haste, and I apply shimmery lipstick across my mouth, its color harmonizing with the soft splashes of color running across my chest.
Unable to be idle for long, Birgitte makes my bed as we talk. “Ach, nein, Liebling, danke. Alfred went to town for me yesterday. If he had known that you needed something, he would have been happy to take care of it for you.”
“I know, Birgitte.”
The dear woman has been both friend and mother to me since my parents’ boating accident left me orphaned ten years ago, at age twelve. I’d been devastated to lose my mother and father in one fell swoop. The last in my von Sternau line, I depend upon the perennially cheerful Birgitte Kroth and her gruff, efficient husband, Alfred, who work tirelessly at the myriad responsibilities required to keep the family estate running. The fact that they’re also my legal guardians just binds us that much closer.
She hands me my nightgown, which I hang on a hook inside my wardrobe. “Clothes shopping will take most of the day,” I say. “Maybe head upriver to Trier, or downstream to Koblenz. I can’t decide. Would you like to go with me?”
Birgitte’s old eyes sparkle, and her surprisingly smooth, ruddy face glows. “Nein, Menuett. There is too much I want to do here. Besides, you don’t want an old woman slowing you down if you’re really intent on serious shopping.”
I whirl to protest, but catch a suspicious twinkle in Birgitte’s eye. “You know you’re always welcome. And, as for slowing me down? You run circles around me all day long, and you and everyone else here very well knows it.”
We exchange a quick, fond hug, which Birgitte is first to break off so she can peer at me. “How will you meet a nice, young man with an old washer-woman with you? Nein, my girl, best you go into town alone. And if you’re asked to lunch by a handsome, prosperous man, you will go, ja?”
The tired topic halts me at the bedroom door. “You mean someone like Dieter von Weiss?” I ask, naming the suitor currently pitching himself at my head.
Birgitte shrugs. “He’s not a bad choice. But he doesn’t need to be the final choice yet.”
I throw an arm around her shoulders and squeeze before ambling us down the hallway to the stairs. “Rest easy. I shall continue to refuse his proposals. But I might have to take defensive training soon. He’s becoming a pest about it.”
“All the more reason to meet someone else. Someone who can make Dieter understand that you’re young, you need time, and no means no.”
That would be nice. I’d love it if all the fortune-hunting beaus left me alone. “He’ll get the message eventually. Maybe I should take a holiday and go look up some distant cousins in England. Find one of them to marry.”
Blue eyes brighten. “Or they might introduce you to fellow nobles.”
We reach the back stairs that lead directly to the kitchen. The circle of stone steps, each one worn smooth and hollow in the center from centuries of use, are a reminder of the heritage from my parents. Many generations of Freiherrs and Freifraus held the Barony of Sternau before law abolished noble titles a hundred years ago. Now only the “von” of my name marks me as former aristocracy.
The two of us clatter down the steps and into the kitchen, where a warm blaze fills the gaping hearth at the far end of the room, opposite a wall of modern cabinets and appliances. Hanging from a thick, black hook dangled in the middle of the fire, a kettle steams merrily. I sift through yesterday’s mail while Birgitte bustles with our breakfast ritual. The dishes, laden with a meal designed to keep its diners going hard until lunch is barely on the table before a tall, wiry man in dark, slouchy clothes strides in, quickly washes his hands, and sits down to eat.
I smile openly at the man whose stern face is partially hidden behind bushy whiskers, brows,
and beard of snowy white. Glancing at my watch, I note the time down to the second, then at Birgitte, who smiles back with a expressive shrug. The world clock in Greenwich, England, could double-check its accuracy with Alfred’s biorhythm.
“Coffee?”
Birgitte sets a steaming mug before him. “Ready as always, my love.”
He grabs the painted mug as if it were a lifeline, and downs its scalding contents in a few, silent swallows. She stands passively, pot in hand, to refill her spouse’s empty cup when it’s returned to precisely the spot from which it was originally placed in front of him. He once again lifts it, takes two swallows, then puts it off to one side. His wife tops it off and puts the pot back on the hearth before joining us at the table for breakfast.
I grin at him. “Better, Alfred?”
Two slightly rheumy blue eyes are cast in my direction. He doesn’t speak, merely bobs his shaggy head once and reaches out to fill our plates. It’s a lovely custom, filling the plates of his women before his own, and it makes me feel very cherished.
I blink away the sudden moisture and set to eating a good meal from the hearty meat, eggs, potatoes, and hot bread Birgitte prepared. The menu never varies and was probably the same for my ancestors. Alfred insists on specific foods for his breakfast, and neither Birgitte or I have ever dreamed of altering the methodical routine. In the early days after my parents’ death, the routine, which had been performed daily, provided stability to a little girl whose life had been shredded. Later, Alfred’s menu was too ingrained to contemplate changing.
The fire sputters and pops noisily, reminding me of the firewood. “Alfred, is there enough wood stored for the fireplaces today?”
Once again the white head bobs, and I detect a slightly offended look on the weathered face. “Ja. Natürlich.”
“Alfred would never let you run out of wood, dear,” Birgitte assures me. “He knows how much you like a nice fire in your rooms. Don’t worry.”
“No, I never worry with you two looking after me. I’m sorry if I ruffled any feathers. You have always taken very good care of me.”
“That’s because we love you. You’re the daughter we never had,” Birgitte says, her voice momentarily dampened. The melancholy passes quickly, and the older woman briskly stirs sugar into her coffee cup. “Besides, modern heaters are never as pleasant as a real fire, are they?”
“I’ve never thought so, no.” Oh, they do a good job of keeping the worst chill from the thick stone-walled chambers which seem to capture and retain the damp cold of winter year round, but they aren’t very homey. And Birgitte uses an old family recipe for special potpourri added to a little black kettle in each fireplace, which sends a spicy, fresh scent throughout the house.
I don’t require a roaring blaze in every hearth, but I’m glad that my parents left a sizable enough fortune to maintain the place in the style I desire, affording luxuries such as keeping daily fires stoked in my favorite rooms.
Another thought pops into my head. “Alfred, you might double-check the locks to the garage. I understand one persistent fellow managed to wrench it open yesterday, determined to take the tour despite our not being open to the public until next month.”
The white head bobs. Alfred drains his coffee cup and stands up. He puts on his wool tam, pulls the front of it in a silent salute to us ladies, and leaves as precipitously as he arrived. I glance down at my watch. Exactly twelve minutes, as usual.
“As dependable as the trains,” his wife comments, grinning.
I stand, too, and help carry things to the sink. “Yes, and he works as hard, too. I wish he’d let me hire more men to help him around here.”
“Someone else control what goes on here? Not while there’s breath in his body. He works like the Valkyries are after him.”
“Well, at the first hint of his slowing down, I’m hiring someone—more like two or three someones—to come and help out here, and Alfred will just have to come to terms with retirement like any other sixty-something. You, too, Birgitte. You both work too hard.”
She waves me away like I’m a pesky gnat. “I do almost nothing anymore since I agreed to let you hire those girls from town. All I do is run around after them, making sure they get their jobs done to suit, and that nothing is stolen or broken in the process.”
I smirk at her. “Oh, yes, I forgot. That is all you do, isn’t it? Oh, wait, there’s the cooking, too.”
“You know how I love to do that.”
“And the mending.”
“I wouldn’t trust anyone with our things.”
“And of course, there’s the gift shop during the tourist season.”
“You and Ms. Schmidt run that.”
“And we mustn’t forget the—”
Birgitte huffs her disgust. “It is all nothing, I tell you! Now go. Get out of my kitchen. I have things to do here today, and I don’t need you underfoot.”
I give her a knowing grin.
She laughs in return and raises her hands in surrender. “Go, Liebchen. Alfred will have the car ready for you. Drive carefully, and remember what I said about nice, handsome, young men.”
A shadow passes over my heart as an image of the misshapen alien flits through my mind’s eye. Shuddering, I banish the nightmare. “Unless I find a man to love me the way I remember my father loved my mother, you and Alfred are the only family I need or want, Birgitte.”
*****
The whine of jet engines overhead is disconcerting. American air bases dot the German landscape, so their maneuvers aren’t unfamiliar, but these sound so close. It adds to the nagging sense of dread I’ve had all day.
While paying for an item at one of my favorite boutiques, I’m struck with a compulsion to leave Trier and drive home. My first thought is that something’s happened to Birgitte or Alfred, but upon reflection, I decide I’m being unduly fanciful. It doesn’t stop me from striding out of the store. Three steps down the sidewalk, I give in to the persistent mental urgings, and alter my course for the car to set out for home. I’m shaking my head and chastising myself every kilometer of the hour-and-a-half drive along the winding two-lane road beside the beautiful Mosel River.
I scour the sky through the windshield as I drive, trying to spot the planes. Yes, there they are—two of them—chasing each other back and forth, up and down, zooming down to the mountains then back toward the forest. It looks like fun. Free and wild.
The feeling of urgent restlessness assails me again, only stronger. I gaze up at the aircraft. One of them is somersaulting. That can’t be right. I pull off the main road onto a dirt track and floor the gas pedal, trying to keep the planes in sight.
I hear the terrible crash before I see it, the blast sending out a shock wave of energy rocking the branches of the pine trees around me. I stamp on the brake pedal and skid to a stop as the black smoke hemorrhages out of the woods ahead of me. I jump from the car, my heart thumping. I’m drawn to the awful wreck to see if there’s anything I can do to help.
A thunderous roar screams out not far away, as the other plane swirls round and round, like a plate on top of a juggler’s pole. It takes out a few trees in its corkscrew to the ground. Out of breath from running, I finally stumble upon the ghastly scene and choke on the thick, oily air regurgitated by the hot flames raging around the mangled metal shells of both planes. I search the mutilated area shaved clear by slicing wings and scorching fire. Burning branches snap and pop all around me.
I can’t stifle a scream when I locate the first pilot. He’s half embedded and dangling hideously from the upper trunk of a huge torn and twisted pine tree. Forcing myself closer to see if he can be rescued, I see blood running steadily from an empty shoulder socket. My gaze probes the spot where the tree is punctured grotesquely by a flight helmet which cracked open under the monumental forces of an ill-timed ejection, and I know there’s nothing anyone can do. The sight of raw, white wood smeared with red, jellied goo makes me gag and retch.
My nightmare will be enhanced
with new scenes from now on.
I turn and force myself to run towards the second plane crash. My legs pumping, I career through the trees following the shredded foliage and stumble onto a small clearing. I stop to take in the new sight when the sudden crack of a falling branch drops me to my knees in fright. Mentally and physically gathering myself, I rise slowly and turn to the flaming wreckage.
It’s the tortured vision of The Dream, brought to grizzly life.
A pulsing blackness threatens to consume me, while angry-colored fire threatens to burn me to death. And while I’m transfixed by the scene unfolding before my eyes, an apparition rises from the flames.
I shove a bent finger in my mouth and bite down, but it doesn’t strangle my whimper. A dark globe rotates toward me, just as it always does in my dream. But, unlike The Dream, this time, the alien doesn’t speak its fateful words about coming for me.
He gets up and walks toward me.
I inhale sharply, and my impulse to flee is strong. But something about the halting way the creature moves makes me hesitate. He didn’t rise straight out of the flames. He came from somewhere on the other side of the wreckage. I can also see, now that my first wave of panic is passing, that the globe I’d always thought was a horrible mutated head is really a flight helmet with a visor pulled down over the man’s face. And his misshapen body is a baggy blue flight suit like I’ve seen other pilots wear.
I shake off my paralysis of terror and rush to get to him. He stumbles and falls heavily against me, threatening to topple us both with his size. But our safety depends upon remaining upright, so I steady my much smaller frame, and through sheer will, carry as much of his weight as I can.
“Are you able to help me walk with you?” I ask. When he doesn’t respond, I try English, raising my voice against the sound of the fire raging behind us. “We need to leave this place quickly.”
