"Shut up, will you?" Lucas said. "Have some respect."
"Have some respect!" she repeated quietly. "Are you kidding?"
"Shhh!"
Gwendolyn turned to Adrienne and said, "Bring him forward."
Adrienne tugged gently on the rope and began herself to move to the front of the altar. Jeremy Sloan followed numbly behind her, his vacant eyes registering nothing, his blank face remaining expressionless. Adrienne's face was white and drawn, and her lips trembled as she said, "Abby, 'tis not necessary, 'tis a—"
"Hush!" Gwendolyn said. "Hand me the rope."
Adrienne extended the end of the rope hesitantly toward Gwendolyn and then retreated a few steps, looking from Gwendolyn to Jeremy and back again, the trembling of her lips seeming to spread to the rest of her body. Gwendolyn pulled the rope gently and Jeremy moved in response, shuffling numbly forward until he stood in the same spot which Karyn had occupied a moment before. Simon leaned over to Gwendolyn and whispered, "Gwen, what are you doing?"
"Be silent!" she snapped.
"But—"
"Simon, we are in the midst of a ceremony of great significance. Be quiet and strive to be worthy of it." She walked up to Jeremy and put her face close to his. "Jeremy Sloan," she said in a quiet but firm voice, "can you hear my voice?"
"I hear you," the boy murmured.
"Open your shirt," she commanded.
Jeremy's hands moved slowly and mechanically upward the row of buttons, and he began to release them one by one. When he had unbuttoned the last of them, his hands fell heavily down to his sides and he stood motionless. Gwendolyn reached out and pulled the shirt open, baring his smooth, muscular chest. She lowered her eyes reverently and said, "Suscipe, Pater insancte, potens aeterne diabole, hanc immaculatam victimam, quam ego indigna ancilla tua offero tibi. Accept, unholy father, powerful and eternal Devil, this pure victim, which I, thine unworthy servant, offer to thee—"
"Hey!" Simon said very loudly. "What are you talking about?! What do you mean about a victim? Gwendolyn—!"
"Jeremy!" a high voice screamed, and Simon turned his head to see his daughter Rowena rushing toward them from the entrance of the impromptu place of worship. "Jeremy! What do you think you're doing?! Gwendolyn, get away from him!" The expression of hurt anger on her face shifted in an instant to one of terror as she drew close and saw what was about to transpire.
Simon turned back to Gwendolyn and began to speak, but whatever words he had been intending to say stuck in his throat as she ripped the dagger from the silver chain and raised it high above her head, her large green eyes flashing madly as her throaty voice continued to intone its arcane supplication. He made a jerky, spasmodic motion toward her, as if seeking instinctively to obstruct her even as his brain attempted to comprehend her actions.
He moved too slowly.
The glinting dagger swept downward in a murderous arc and the cold blade tore with an audible rip through Jeremy's chest. A spring of purple blood was loosed, and it began to spurt out and drench both Simon and Gwendolyn in its sanguine flood. A sudden glimmer of awareness filled Jeremy's eyes, and then the light of consciousness died in them as the boy slumped to the floor and lay motionless in the crimson puddle which was spreading out upon the floor beneath him.
Gwendolyn fell to her knees and scooped some blood up with her cupped hands. She lowered her head to her palms and licked up some of the liquid. Then, laughing, she spread the rest over her breasts and thighs as she screamed, "Ave Satanas!"
Not five seconds had passed, but to Simon it had seemed an eternity. He shook his head and blinked his eyes, as if he were attempting to rouse himself from a dream, and he had the distinct, conscious physical sensation of having just passed from the then into the now, from a vaguely fugue-like state into one of horridly clear awareness.
He looked down at the floor.
It was real. It was true. She had just killed the boy.
A split second of stunned and total silence was followed by pandemonium as Rowena's screams were joined by screams and cries and shouts of disbelief from all sides. Mark Siegal fell to his knees and grabbed Jeremy's wrist with one hand while pressing down upon the bloody slit in his chest with the other. He was seeking both to find a pulse and to keep the wound from spilling any more blood. Both attempts were futile and desperate, for there was no pulse to be found, and the eruption of blood had ceased the moment that death had descended upon Jeremy. The blade had struck deep, between the ribs, into the heart.
"My God!" Simon muttered. "My God!"
So deep was his shock, so profound the disbelief which had fixed his eyes on the pale body which lay at his feet, that he was oblivious to the loud crash of the camera as it dropped from the hands of the stunned cameraman up in the loft and fell to the floor of the barn. But Gwendolyn was not thus distracted, and she turned her eyes toward the loft, her quizzical expression rapidly becoming one of anger. She turned to the side when she heard a scream of shock come from behind the west wall, noticing for the first time a hole through which she could discern movement. She spun Simon around to face her, her hands displaying physical strength which surprised him. "You have betrayed my trust!" she screamed.
Simon gazed at her numbly as Rowena threw herself upon Jeremy's lifeless body, as Strube ran from the barn to call the police, as the cameraman in the loft sidled down the ladder and then rushed out the door, as Siegal upon his knees and Mahoney and Herricks and Lucas and Karyn upon their feet remained in impotent, stunned silence.
"You have betrayed my trust!" she repeated.
Adrienne Lupescu knelt down beside the body and placed her arm comfortingly upon Rowena's shoulder. So great was the girl's grief and confusion that she did not think to refuse the solace which was being offered her by one who had played a role in the murder.
Gwendolyn's hand swung around and landed a resounding slap upon Simon's face. It was sufficiently forceful to knock him off balance, and he stumbled to the side. "You have betrayed my trust!" she said for a third time. "I told you, Simon Proctor that this was not to be for public eyes! Do you think I am so silly and easily tricked that you could ignore my wishes?" She was trembling with anger and her face was flushing red. She closed her eyes and clenched her jaw as if attempting to calm herself, and when her eyes opened again a moment later and she spoke, her tone was gentler and less excited, though it was apparent that her anger remained. "If we are to be wedded, dear Simon, we must not attempt to deceive one another. I have been honest with you in all things, and I expect—"
The stinging pain upon his cheek seemed to rouse Simon from his shock, and his face contorted in fury as he grabbed Gwendolyn by the shoulders and began to shake her mercilessly. "Do you realize what you've done?!" he screamed.
She pushed his hands from her easily. "Aye, right well! I fear that I have given my trust to a man who cannot be trusted!"
"You maniac!" Simon shrieked. "You just killed a man!"
"Do not take that tone with me!" she said firmly, her barely repressed rage bubbling to the surface. "I offered a sacrifice to the Master, a sacrifice to call his blessings upon our marriage. She folded her arms imperiously upon her breast. "And if you cannot bring yourself to commit yourself to the service of the true ruler of this world, then I fear that our wedded road will be a thorny one! There is no room for doubt or halfhearted devotion, Simon. Our devotion to the Master must be as firm and full as our devotion to each other. We must—"
"'Devotion!" he spat. "Devotion! I'm not devoted to you, you goddamn mental case! I would never marry a lunatic like you!"
She gazed at him with blank incomprehension. "What—what are you—?"
"This isn't a marriage ceremony, you stupid fool! This is another video, another film, another performance!"
The meaning of his words slowly became clear to her, much as she seemed to struggle against them. "No," she stammered, "no—you love me—you must love me, as I love you—you must—"
"I don't love you!" he shouted, plac
ing his hands upon her shoulders and pushing her roughly away from him. "Are you kidding? Me, love a nut, an insane asylum outpatient? You mean money to me, Gwen, money, nothing more than that!"
She stared at him coldly. "Such a fool I am, such a fool! Money! All you care about is money! How dare you, Simon Proctor!"
"Goddamn it, Gwendolyn!" he shouted back at her. You just killed Jeremy! Don't you understand what you've done?!"
She replied as if she had not heard him. "You could have had wealth, and power, and me, me, and yet you chose to betray me and use me—use me!—like a foolish serving wench!"
"Gwendolyn, for Christ's sake, will you shut up?" he screamed. "This isn't a fucking game here! You just killed a human being!"
"One of many, Simon Proctor!" she spat. "Murder is not new to me. From the day my actions led your ancestor and eighteen others to the gallows, I have served as the angel of death to many of the—"
Simon struck her across the face viciously. She recoiled but did not fall as he shouted, "You fucking maniac! You goddamn fucking nut!"
"Guard your tongue!" she said. Tears seemed to be welling up in her eyes, but none poured forth, as if her white-hot anger was evaporating them unshed. "I have suffered too much for too many years to be treated thus by you or any man, especially by a Proctor! For three hundred years I have—"
He grabbed her by the shoulders. "Listen to me, goddamn it! You are Gwendolyn Jenkins. You are not Abigail Williams. You are mentally ill, you are crazy, you have some insane delusion about yourself, about me, about the Devil, about all of this! You are Gwendolyn Jenkins, Gwendolyn Jenkins! You are not Abigail Williams. You are not a witch! There is no such thing as witchcraft! There is no Devil, no Satan! It's a game, it's all a game, nothing but a game, nothing but a way for us all to make money! My God, don't you understand?!"
She pushed him away from her and stepped back. Her voice was cold and hard as she spoke. "So. I see. All is for sport, all is pretense. You think me a madwoman, and you used me to line your purse and warm your bed, and you have no feelings for me."
"Hey, if you're trying to make me feel guilty, if you're looking for sympathy or something, forget it!" he spat. "You just committed a murder, Gwen! Can't you understand what that means? Don't you realize what's going to happen to you now, what's going to happen to me? Jesus, Gwen, wake up! This is reality!"
She laughed bitterly. "Ah, no, Simon Proctor, 'tis but a game, 'tis but a hard and bloody game." She turned and walked away, grabbing her cloak from the floor. As she wrapped it around herself she said, "I play games with great skill, Simon, and I never lose them. I play by rules, and I play honestly. But if I am cheated, then the rules be damned!" She strode to the door and flung it open with an angry snap of her arm. "I told you, but you would not listen. I explained, but you did not understand. Satan answered one of my two prayers, and I had believed it to be the prayer I wished answered, not the prayer I feared answered. Remember my other prayer, Simon Proctor, remember it well, for it is your death warrant!"
"Don't you threaten me!" he shouted, his body trembling with rage.
"Your ancestor John used me to gratify his lusts and then cast me aside like so much soiled linen unworthy of the washing! Elizabeth Proctor, your ancestress, caused me to be driven out of Salem, led me to be cast upon the streets of Boston where I had to sell my body to strangers in order to stay alive! So great was the misery those Proctors caused me that my life ended at the end of a noose which I had plaited myself! And you, most recent of Proctor bastards, you have used me and abused me, lied to me and laughed at me!" Her green eyes blazed. "But no more, do you hear me? No more! This breed of Proctors has plagued me long enough! I shall wipe you from the face of the earth, all of you! I shall visit upon you all the pain which your family has caused me to suffer, all the torments I have endured! Count your days, Simon Proctor! They are few!" She spun around and walked out into the cold winter air. Adrienne Lupescu scurried after her, grabbing her cloak and exiting without putting it on.
Simon ran to the door of the barn, shouting, Come back here, goddamn it! Where the hell do you—?" He stopped the moment he stepped out into the snow. Neither Gwendolyn nor Adrienne was anywhere to be seen. It was as if they had simply vanished.
Simon walked slowly back to the altar. Rowena was lying upon Jeremy's chest, her tears mingling with the already drying blood, her face pressed against his cold skin. Simon knelt down beside her and placed his hand upon her arm. "Row—" he said gently.
"This is your fault!" she screamed at him with a sudden ferocity. "This is all your fault!"
"Rowena, try to calm down," he said softly. "This is a terrible thing, a terrible, tragic thing, but we have to—"
"You go to hell, Daddy!" she screamed, and then collapsed in tears upon the body of her boyfriend. Simon remained beside her on his knees, not knowing what to do. He looked at his hands and he shuddered. They were covered with Jeremy's blood.
Chapter Twenty
December 29, continued
The two Valiums the doctor had given her were not working. Rowena lay in her bed restlessly, always feeling herself on the brink of blissful slumber, always being wrenched back to full wakefulness by the memory of the afternoon. The image of Jeremy's face filled her thoughts, the sound of his voice filled her ears, and tears continued to stream forth from her sore, red eyes. She had never known it to be possible for one person to produce so many tears, and still the tears came.
Never to hear his voice again. Never to feel his arms around her again, his lips upon hers. Never to make love with him. Never.
Her father was still down at the police station, and she hoped that she could fall asleep before he returned. Great as her anger was, she knew that he was in serious trouble, and she was worried about him. Half of her mind fought to sleep, half fought to remain awake. She hated her father and she feared for him, blamed him and pitied him, wished he would die and feared for his life.
Gwen said she was going to kill him, she thought. She said she was going to kill all of us. Something must be done, something must be done. She's crazy, she's dangerous. The police have to get her, they have to punish her, they just have to! She can't just get away with this! They have to get her before she hurts anyone else, before she hurts Daddy, or Lucas, or me. They have to get her!
She rolled over onto her side and tried to sleep, prayed that the drug would take effect and give her some respite from her sorrow and her fear. She knew that her grandfather was asleep already, even though he had become so upset that she worried about his heart. He had wept and wrung his hands when Simon told him what had happened, he had prayed and cursed, and she had comforted him as he had comforted her, both of them ignoring Simon, both of them blaming him, both of them damning him with their eyes and their words.
But when she had gone to Floyd's room a few hours ago, the old man had already taken his nightly libation and was snoring contentedly. Nothing short of a war could keep old Floyd awake after ten, and perhaps not even that.
The scent of hashish told her that Karyn and Lucas, who had gone to the station with Simon and the others, had returned and were seeking slumber in their customary manner. There were no sounds coming from their bedroom, and Rowena assumed that they had already fallen asleep.
Time dragged on endlessly, and the dark house was silent but for the muted snores from her grandfather's bedroom. Rowena felt herself at last drifting off, felt the thoughts in her mind growing indistinct and foreign. She hovered between sleep and wakefulness, when she heard a voice.
"She means to destroy you all," Adrienne Lupescu said.
Rowena looked around her. She was sitting in a rowboat upon a misty, placid lake. No birds winged through the gray sky, no insects buzzed about in the still air, no fish moved through the silent waters. She floated in a boat upon a dead lake in a dead world.
"She means to destroy you all," Adrienne repeated.
Rowena sat in the bow of the boat and Adrienne in the stern. The older girl wore
a long black dress with a white collar and a small white hat. She sat with her hands folded in her lap and her knees pressed tightly together above the severe black shoes with the silver buckles. She looked as if she had just stepped of the Mayflower.
"Why?" Rowena asked.
"Vengeance," Adrienne replied, her voice a monotone, devoid of expression, her face blank but for the hint of sorrow about her eyes. "Vengeance upon John, upon Elizabeth, upon Simon, upon all of you."
"I have done her no harm," Rowena said.
"You are a Proctor," Adrienne pointed out. "In her anger and her hurt she has sworn to wipe your family from this world. She means to destroy you all."
Rowena paused, knowing somehow that there were questions she had to ask. "How?"
"She will gut you as a butcher, tear you from bosom to belly."
Another interim of silence as the mist which hovered upon the face of the lake began to grow thick and dense, enveloping the small boat. "When?" Rowena asked.
"In thirty-four days."
The mist was now a fog, and Rowena struggled to see Adrienne through the thick clouds. Adrienne seemed to be drifting away from her without moving. "Why then? Why thirty-four days from now?"
"There are four nights of the year when the powers of the underworld are at their height," said the soft, fading voice. "The Eve of All Hallows in October, Walpurgis Night in April, Midsummer Eve in June. The fourth is Candlemas Eve, thirty-four days from today. She means upon that evening to destroy you all."
Rowena could see nothing but fog. Even the boat in which she sat had become invisible. "Adrienne? Adrienne? Wait!"
"I am here," said the distant voice.
"Why are you telling me this?"
"Pity. Sorrow. Regret."
"Adrienne? What can we do?"
Candlemas Eve Page 36
