Fyrea's Cauldron

by William Maltese

  “A flock of them, all kinds, airborne, after dark,” Marie said.

  Charles came up out of bed and made a grab for his pants.

  “Get downstairs!” he said. “Now!”

  Marie didn’t understand; she sensed, though, the urgency in his voice, and she obeyed, soon headed for the door.

  Charles caught up with her at the head of the stairs, taking her hand and leading her down. Marie stumbled during the headlong dash, but Charles was quickly there to keep her from falling.

  Halfway down, Marie saw the large crystal chandelier in the foyer begin its swing.

  Less than a second later, the whole house was obviously moving violently beneath, around, and above her.

  * * * * * * *

  Marie had never been in an earthquake. Her instincts, though, told her she was in a building composed of several million tons of granite that could tumble down around, or on, her and on Charles, at any minute. Therefore, she saw the openness of the great outdoors as their best salvation. As a result, she struggled frantically to get free when Charles jerked her to a sudden stop inside the Château’s open front doorway and tried to anchor her to the spot.

  By that time, the distinct earth rumbling verged on deafening. The only audible counterpoints to that frightening sound were the shrill screams of the servants.

  Julie, the parlor maid, was out on the lawn, squealing like a banshee and careening round in a mad dance, like a drunk, as she desperately tried to maintain some semblance of balance on ground that was bucking beneath her.

  Marc was out there, too, falling, first, here, and, then, there, obviously disoriented by what was happening under and around him.

  Madeleine (poor, frightened girl) made her appearance, with a screech of pure, unadulterated terror, as Charles finally succeeded in collapsing Marie into a position up close and personal to the doorjamb.

  “It’s safer here!” he kept screaming in Marie’s ear as his wife continued her attempts to follow the servants out onto the lawn.

  If Marie didn’t believe him, she soon did.

  With a loud crack, like the rending of a very thick and brittle tree trunk, the ground began to split. It began in the distance and raced from the jungle toward the Château. As the leading point of the crack commenced an even faster marathon across the lawn, its tail opened wider, forming a virtual canyon to which there was no apparent bottom.

  Marc paused in an obvious daze while the earth split like an overripe melon beside him. For just an instant, Marie thought the crack had opened directly beneath the butler. Then, seeing that it hadn’t, she assumed Marc was miraculously saved. Only to witness the ground beneath him collapse sideways into the steadily widening slit.

  Marie screamed to warn him, but he was already only too aware of his dire situation to need any reminding by her. He tried to escape, but he lost his footing. He tried to claw for some kind of support, but, each and everything of which he attempted to take hold simply was more content to join him in his slide.

  Marie tried to go to him, but Charles held her where she was. In the end, what could she have accomplished? Had there been any chance to offer reliable succor, Charles would have gone. Even a novice, though, could tell there was no rescue for the butler unless Marc rescued himself.

  The black man clung tenaciously to the very lip of the crack, his feet dangling into the abyss.

  Then, within seconds, he fell, and the canyon that had opened wide from him, closed in on him, giving the final impression that neither it, nor Marc, ever existed.

  The loud noise of the earth in flux stopped, leaving a silence filled with thick dust and the sounds of people still in panic.

  * * * * * * *

  When the quake was over, there was no way to recall the exact terror experienced while it had been in process. Marie had to remind herself that it had happened at all: so little had seemingly changed in its aftermath. The lawn was back to one, large, well-manicured rectangle of grass, no headstone even to suggest Marc Demerol, butler, was buried there.

  The house stood as if it had long stood, no noticeable chinks or cracks in its façade. If, inside, dishes and glassware were shattered and cracked, even that evidence of the cataclysm would soon be cleared away.

  Marie soon realized she probably could have remained safe and snug in her bed, without all of the muss, fuss, and bother of waking Charles and fleeing downstairs.

  “I hate to leave you, darling,” he told her, having ushered Marie into the den and given her a glass of sherry to calm her shattered nerves, “but I have to check on death and damage in the surrounding area. Can you handle things at this end?”

  “Sure.” Marie succeeded in providing a wan smile. “What’s a small earthquake, right?”

  It hadn’t been a small earthquake, though. Despite the evident little damage done around the Château Camaux, Villeneuve suffered extensive destruction, and most of the island villages had been completely flattened. As the quake had occurred during the night, there had been many casualties from buildings collapsing on the sleeping people inside.

  * * * * * * *

  “There must be something more I can do to help,” Marie said to her exhausted husband. Frankly, she was appalled by the stories he’d brought back, detailing the extent of the damage done elsewhere by the earthquake.

  A new day had dawned; hot and murky because of the greenhouse-effect caused by so many particulates still the air from the quake; as if the island was one giant dust mop that had just been shook.

  Charles was slumped into a wing-backed chair, a glass of Scotch in his right hand. Marie would have preferred to see him eat something, but she made no comment. What he’d seen put Father Westbrook’s tragic death in the shadow, and Charles undoubtedly deserved the drink he was having.

  “Help?” Charles echoed after a pause; it had taken a little time for what his wife had said to register on his tired brain.

  Marie was hardly encouraged by the wonderful-thought-but look Charles gave her. Then, again, men in crises seemed to imagine they were the only ones capable of pulling everyone through.

  “Come on, darling!” Marie said with a patronizing lilt to her voice. “You’re no longer talking to that screaming woman you were trying to spirit off to safety. This is your wife who is really very much concerned about people who have fared less well than she has in this catastrophe. I can surely be counted upon to at least render some badly needed moral support until more substantial aid arrives wherever it’s needed.”

  “Yes, I should imagine you could,” Charles admitted, although he still seemed reluctant to expose his wife to the disaster overly evident beyond the Edenesque grounds of the Château. Still, as meek and as mild as Englishwomen could sometimes seem, they weren’t known for shirking in a pinch. There were still tales told, in more than one English pub, about female heroism on the home front during several wars.

  “Marie, maybe it would be better if....” He left off, as if he didn’t know quite how he was going to put what he had to say.

  “I promise not to faint dead away at the first sight of blood and embarrass you, darling,” she promised. “Really, I feel quite my usual self again.”

  “It’s just that Lucie Bruay is rather unofficially in charge of the local native injuries. And well....”

  “That’s not a very complimentary attitude to take toward your wife,” Marie said, trying not to be hurt, since he was obviously only thinking of saving her feelings. “I’m not so petty as to make my obvious dislike of that woman keep me from momentarily putting myself under her authority for the purposes of offering succor.”

  If Lucie Bruay, Marie thought (didn’t say), wanted to put on a show of lording it over Charles Camaux’s wife, then that was Lucie Bruay’s pettiness in the face of her people’s suffering.

  If Marie, though, had even that passing thought of Lucie indignantly refusing Marie’s offer of assistance, it was misdirected. While not exactly welcoming Marie with open arms, Lucie wasn’t her usual haughty, disdainfu
l self, either. She showed Marie just what she wanted her to do (in the beginning, it was only tearing bandages from linen), and she delivered her instructions in a voice that was surprisingly devoid of all emotion whatsoever.

  In the days that followed, Marie gained a definite appreciation of Lucie Bruay she hadn’t had before. While obviously not a doctor in the traditional European sense, the old woman had an excellent bedside manner that never failed to calm and comfort even the most brutalized of the earthquake victims. On occasion, before helicopters began air-lifting in official doctors and medical supplies from Villeneuve (conditions at the capital had made for a two-day delay), Lucie could often be seen emptying contents of one bag of herbs or another into a tin cup and instructing her patients to drink the resulting brews. Whether or not her dosages were pure placebo, or genuine medicines, they usually brought favorable results. Marie, initially lulled into believing the quake had been insignificant, with little accompanying damage, appreciated anything that relieved the multitude of suffering which turned out to be the reality.

  Not that Marie came to “like” Lucie. Nor, she suspected, did Lucie come to like Marie. For some reason, the battle lines had been indelibly drawn in the sand between the two women. What existed between them, for the moment, was merely a truce destined to last only for as long as victims remained in need on the battlefield.

  As Marie moved up and down the rows of injured, giving whatever comfort she could, when and where it was needed, she was surprised to see that virtually every native (man, woman, and child) wore an amulet of the goddess Fyrea around his or her neck. In many cases, the talisman was worn side by side with the Christian crucifix. Just as often as not, though, it hung alone. Usually the victim, as if to gain some kind of comfort from the inanimate object, had one or both hands clasped around it. Many died with their fists never coming free of the figurine.

  It wasn’t easy or pleasant work. On the other hand, Marie found it strangely therapeutic. Granted, there was little time to have Karena whip up any further epicurean meals, but, when Marie was tired to the core, it was surprising how delectable a simple peanut butter sandwich and cup of tepid water could be. If she wasn’t able to see as much of her husband as she would have liked, or if he was too tired to do much of anything but sleep whenever they did manage to climb simultaneously into the same bed, well, that didn’t mean they weren’t drawn closer together by the moment, because of the moment. In fact, as the last of the clean-up operations were finally visible on the horizon, Marie felt closer and more intimately involved with Charles than ever.

  The only fly in the ointment was how Marie, whenever she found herself with Charles sleeping contentedly beside her, became so helplessly keyed up waiting for him, again, to call out Cécile’s name. That he didn’t do it, didn’t keep her from thinking it would happen at any moment. When and if it did, everything would somehow, again, become different between them—even though Marie knew she didn’t want that to happen.

  Many times, she almost asked her husband, outright, the question which would clearly eliminate the mystery, once and for all! After all, for all she really knew, Cécile was an old nanny, or a favorite aunt, or even a cat. Then, Marie’s jealousy would have been ridiculous and for nothing. It was, though, the fearful premise that Cécile was neither nanny, nor aunt, nor cat, which kept the question unasked and forever stuck in Marie’s craw. For, she really wasn’t sure she wanted him to identify the real Cécile. There was decidedly something to ignorance being bliss. On the other hand, she didn’t like the way her jealousy steadily ate away inside her, especially if there was no real reason for it to be there in the first place.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  MIST UPON THE MOUNTAIN

  “Rise and shine!” Charles coaxed, giving Marie a loud good-morning kiss. He followed up by getting out of bed and drawing the drapes with a rustle that revealed a sky filled with the dim twilight of pre-dawn. Although he hadn’t yet officially vacated his suite to take up official residence in Marie’s, he was sleeping over, more and more, in his wife’s bedroom.

  “Charles?” Marie’s eyes were blurry from sleep. She struggled to a sitting position on the bed. “Is something wrong?”

  So often, these days, she feared waking up to birds (now returned) once again gone from their nests...neighing horses once again stomping their sharp hooves to vibrate the stables.

  “This is the day we’ve been promising ourselves, my love.” He disappeared into the bathroom but left the door open so the two could talk while he shaved; an additional eroding of their previous separate sleeping arrangements.

  “What day?” She checked her watch and groaned, albeit silently, when she saw the earliness of the morning hour. Had she slept through the more enlightening first part of his conversation?

  “The day we go up the mountain,” he defined, obviously in good spirit. “It’s about time we did more than just talk about it, don’t you think? I figure today is just as good as any.”

  “Shouldn’t we have let Karena know last night, so she could have fixed up a basket?”

  “I’ll take along a hook, line, and sinker. Even if your husband turns out to be less than an ideal fisherman, we’ll likely find something to eat. Not that Karena and your recent regimens of French meals don’t see me in need of a complete fast to off some of the recent poundage I’ve gained around my waistline.”

  Marie lost the next part of what he said when he turned on sink water to wet down his beard for shaving.

  “...and cook them in the thermal pool,” his voice came back loudly as the water turned off.

  Any reference to any thermal pool always had Marie reminded of how Father Westbrook met his particular end by being cooked atop one. Thinking of Father Westbrook immediately had her thinking of the earthquake. Thinking of the earthquake....

  Deciding such thoughts were hardly conducive to an enjoyable day with her husband, she decided to cast them aside. After all, there was nothing to indicate the last earthquake was a harbinger of greater catastrophes to follow. In its aftermath, more than one person was quick to point out how it was probably best the quake had come. Like those deadly moving vents that spewed live steam from the mountainside, earthquakes meant dangerous pressure beneath the ground was dissipated, a bit at a time, instead of in one massive big BANG!

  A couple of university scientists had flown in from France and spent a couple of days at the Château while conducting tests.

  “We can’t seem to pinpoint anything to indicate Mont d’Esnembuc is going to erupt,” the one, without the beard, had said casually over dinner one evening. Karena had outdone herself for the occasion, as if to prove one earthquake hadn’t affected her culinary skills. Dessert was farce aux fraises cio-cio-san.

  “The natives seem quite convinced it’s only a matter of hours,” Marie had observed.

  “Then, maybe, the natives know something we don’t,” the bearded one had said, taking another large bite of the cake roll filled with its fresh strawberries, almonds, and kumquats. Just the way he said it insinuated that he hoped he had put any of the superstitious local twaddle to rest. However, a little later on, over coffee and cognac, the same scientist as much as admitted that, despite all of the modern technology available, accurate predictions hadn’t been made to predict the recent eruption of Mt. Etna on Sicily. This, Marie figured, gave the two scientists about as much credibility as local diviners.

  She threw back her blankets and got out of bed, comforted as to how earthquakes over the years on Saint-Georges hadn’t been followed by violent volcanic outbursts. The nearest thing had been the earthquake of 1901, followed by a small river of molten lava which had wiped out a village on the east shore. Luckily, the village inhabitants had been completely evacuated to Isla Charlotte in time, except for a few stray dogs.

  “Ah, you’re up, then?” Charles congratulated, sticking his head through the open bathroom doorway. “I thought for a moment you’d gone back to sleep on me.”

  “Mmmmm,” she
moaned, as if that suggestion was a mighty tempting one—which it was. She sat on the edge of the bed and began searching for her slippers with the tip of her right toe.

  “If you promise not to crawl back under the blankets, I’ll shower in my own room,” he said. “If I stay here, I’m sure to ask you to join me, and....”

  “I know...I know.” Marie laughed with genuine amusement. “Then, we would never get up the mountain. Right?”

  “Exactly,” he readily agreed.

  * * * * * * *

  Marie didn’t believe him. She looked one more time at his amused grin, took another look at the foot-long fish with its olivaceous green hue and knew her husband had to be pulling her leg.

  “Really, it is,” Charles insisted, crossing his right hand over his heart like he would have done had they been children.

  “How can it possibly be a goldfish if it’s green?” She remembered the aquarium once had by a maiden aunt, Mandy, in Walsham. “How can it be a goldfish when it’s as big as a horse?”

  “Culturists induce and strengthen the artificial golden color of the aquarium variety by controlling the amount of minerals in the water. What you see here is a goldfish that has been allowed to return to its natural state.”

  “A foot-long greenfish?”

  “It’s so big, because it now has a larger environment in which to live and grow. What fish do you know would risk growing to this natural size in any fishbowl?”

  “I suppose you’ll next tell me how you’ve a whale-size guppy up the trail just a bit.” Marie watched him prepare the fish for boiling in the pool that dangerously steamed like crazy not four feet from where they sat.

  “Why would I tell you that?” He smiled so wide that his dimples were like bullet holes in his cheeks. “That guppy story sounds like a real fish tale if I ever heard one.”

  He lowered his recent catch into the bubbling water, using the same hook and line with which, just a few moments before, he’d caught the monster, in a small, clear, stream nearby.