by A. R. Cook
David awoke the next morning to the smell of something delicious. He blinked open his eyes wearily, not remembering where he was at first. He took in his surroundings, and then recalled the events from the previous night. The sphinx was not at his side, but he was still tied up. He craned his neck to look over at the camp. Everyone was having breakfast. There was a large pot cooking over the bonfire, brewing a thick hearty stew. Baskets of fruit and bread were placed near the fire pit, and a jug of milk was being passed around from person to person.
Each gypsy took his or her fair share of food: half a loaf of bread, one or two choices of fruit, and a decent sized bowl of the stew. What was peculiar was that the sphinx was the one serving the stew with a wooden ladle in her paw. The toes of her front paws were more elongated and flexible than those of a typical lion—they were like stubby fingers with claws at the tips. The stew smelled so intoxicating, David was drooling a river. He sighed, realizing that he would probably get no breakfast, or any meal for that matter, until he was willing to give in to the foul animal. He tried again to see if he could wriggle out of his ropes, but his muscles ached too much to make a good effort. He laid his head back against the side of the bronze bowl, his mind racing with thoughts of how he would get out of this mess.
A bowl of stew was placed on the pillow next to him. He looked over at the sphinx, which had approached so quietly he had not noticed. The beast had half of an orange in her teeth, and she laid the fruit on David’s lap. The young man looked down at the food, and wondered if the sphinx intended to hand-feed him. She nudged him to turn a little, and then used her claws to cut through the ropes binding his hands. David sat up, rubbing his reddened wrists. The sphinx did nothing to free his ankles, however, and the knots were so strong that David could not untie them.
David took the bowl of stew and slurped it slowly, casting suspicious glances at his host. She just sat there watching him, tilting her head from side to side occasionally. When David finished, he set the bowl down and crossed his arms. The sphinx leaned forward and nudged the orange in his lap.
“I don’t want it,” David huffed. He picked it up and tossed it at her feet. The sphinx looked down at the fruit, and then glanced over at the others. The caravan folk had finished their breakfast as well, and were now cleaning up camp. She picked the orange up in her teeth and sucked the juice out of it.
Strange, David thought, for a supposed man-eater to eat fruit. It doesn’t look like she touched any of the stew at all. Was she waiting to be sure everyone else got their share first before she had her meal?
The caravan folk packed up everything quickly but efficiently. Two of the men lifted up the platform and heaved it up back into place, closing the wagon. The sphinx pulled a cord hanging over her nest, opening a small window in the ceiling for light.
“What’s going on?” David shouted, hoping that maybe one of the people might tell him. Instead of getting a verbal response, he felt the wagon start to move. “Wait! You can’t leave! Let me out of here! Can’t any of you hear me? Por favor! Ayudame! ”
He shouted a bit more, in French, English, and Spanish, but it was no use. The people were under the sphinx’s possession. David held his face in his hands, anger and panic shaking him. He couldn’t believe that he was being kidnapped, especially right before the start of his apprenticeship! The worst of it was, no one knew he had gone looking for the gypsies, so no one would know what became of him. His parents would start to worry when there would be no letter from him, but it would take them days to realize this, and by then who knew what would become of him?
The sphinx cooed gently to him, curling up at his feet. David was very tempted to lash out and strike the beast. She could at least act like a sphinx should, instead of all this tender torture. The wagon was noticeably crowded, full of baskets of merchandise, performance props, and food. David began to wonder under which category—merchandise, tool or food—the sphinx considered him.
“You can’t keep me like this,” he barked, more so to vent than to get a response. “There are people who will find out that I am missing. They’ll have authorities searching in every city in France. And sooner or later, you will make a mistake and I will escape, and the first thing I will do is …”
He stopped when he realized that the sphinx had not been listening to what he was saying. Her attention was on the necklace of garlic cloves that he was still wearing. She swatted at it gently with her paw, like a kitten playing with a ball of yarn. David rubbed his forehead in irritation. He removed the garlic and threw it at the sphinx, but she only caught it in her teeth and started chewing contentedly on it.
She liked garlic. So much for warding off evil.
The sphinx crept over to David, turned over and lay down on his lap. She laid her head back, exposing her belly and wagging the tip of her tail. David leaned away, recoiling from her as if she were a poisonous serpent. It took him a good minute to realize that the sphinx was asking for her belly to be rubbed.
“No, I’m not scratching you,” David said darkly, crossing his arms and slouching into himself. The sphinx looked up at him, making a purring sound in her throat. David turned his head away. She pawed at his ear, but he flinched away from her. Her long tail flipped up and smacked him in the head like a whip.
“Ow!” David uncrossed his arms to rub his head, but as soon as he did, the sphinx reached up and grabbed his wrist in her paw. She forced his hand down towards her stomach, and did not let go until he moved his fingers in a scratching motion. She grinned and laid her head back again, purring.
David sighed, lightly rubbing the sphinx’s stomach as he rested his chin in his other hand.
“Yesterday, I was the next great aspiring architect,” David mumbled. “Today, I’m a beast’s belly scratcher. Could this possibly get any worse?”
The caravan journeyed a good distance that day, leaving the forested land and entering into wide open plains of golden grass. The caravan stopped at midday to have a quick lunch of fried eggs. After they finished eating, the women went about plucking the feathers from a few reserved ducks that they would cook for dinner. Once again the sphinx ate nothing until everyone else finished. David wondered what she would do if he should decide to skip a meal. Would the sphinx refuse to eat if he refused as well? He couldn’t afford to test that theory right now, however. If he was to escape, he needed all the food and energy he could get.
That evening, after they set up camp and consumed a delectable dinner, the caravan folk presented a series of performances to entertain one another—or entertain the sphinx, at any rate. The group sat in a circle while the animals lolled around the camp. The musicians played lively nimble pieces as dancers twirled and laughed around the fire. David was placed next to the sphinx, his legs still bound together, and his waist in the grip of the creature’s curved claws. The sphinx watched the entertainers with pure devotion, her eyes wide and bright, bobbing her head to the music.
The young magician that David had seen before performed his few clumsy tricks, which the sphinx enjoyed, revealing her sharp teeth. David rolled his eyes, thinking that she must have seen the boy do the same tricks over and over. Everyone applauded, and it did not sound completely artificial. David was beginning to wonder just how hypnotized these people really were. None of their eyes were glazed over, as he had learned in his books. Maybe rather than any enchantment, they were scared into submission, with the threat that the sphinx could possess them to do something regrettable or horrifying.
A little brown-haired girl sat on the other side of David, and she tugged gently on his sleeve. “Do you do anything?” she asked softly.
Everyone turned and looked at him for an answer. David froze, not expecting to actually be called upon to perform. “I … don’t have any talent to entertain, if that’s what you mean,” he said. “I was never a very good musician—” He cut himself off, swallowing back the remainder of his thought.
The sphinx nudged him so he would turn to her. She stared into his ey
es, not with any hypnotic intent, but she seemed to be searching for something. Her paw pressed ever so lightly on his left shoulder and under his chin, which caused David to jerk away, thinking she might claw his throat out. She continued her examination of him by taking hold of his left hand, rubbing her paw pads lightly over his fingertips. She suddenly arose, bounded to her bronze nest, riffling under her pillows. After a moment, she produced a viola and bow. It was polished to a shine, as though it had barely been touched.
David’s heart plummeted. Somehow, she had figured out he used to play the viola years ago. Had she guessed that simply from the slight crick in his shoulder from when he had difficulty as a child supporting the viola under his chin, and the calluses on his fingers from years of handling the strings? He had given up the instrument a while ago, and simply looking at the viola made him pale. He glanced over at the other musicians, hoping they would offer to play instead. By the eager way they were looking at him, they clearly wanted to hear what musical gift he might have.
The sphinx returned with the viola, placing it gently into his lap. David stared dully at it. She leaned her head down and bit clean through the ropes on his ankles, fully freeing him.
“Go on, boy. Play us a little tune,” one of the musicians shouted.
“No, thank you,” David replied, pushing the viola away.
The other caravan folk pressed him to rise and play too. The sphinx got behind him, pushing her paws against his back, thrusting him towards the inside of the circle.
“I said, I don’t want to!” David retorted, but the shouts for him to perform crescendoed, and the sphinx shoved him almost violently. With a look of utter disgust on his face, he stood up and walked into the circle. He raised the viola to his chin, tuned it, readied his bow … and lowered it again, his body going rigid.
“I get terrible stage fright,” he hissed between his teeth. “I can’t play in front of so many people.”
Everyone was silent, as some of the gypsies gave each other baffled looks. The sphinx, with a sigh of disappointment, raised a paw as a gesture of dismissal. She patted the ground where David had been sitting, and he promptly sat back down, not caring that the others cast him curious glances. He dropped the viola at the sphinx’s feet, not giving it—or her—a second look. The performances carried on, now with two of the gypsy girls displaying a lively dance to the beat of drums, but David’s mood was too sour to enjoy any of it.
At some point during the festivities, the sphinx’s eyes glowed, and she breathed a blanket of sweet-smelling serenity over the audience. All the people and animals in the circle began to drift off into a deep sleep, slumping over onto the ground—all except David. The sphinx moved forward to him, sitting squarely at his feet. David gulped, thinking that he was about to be delivered some punishment for having refused to play along. But the sphinx looked up at him as a child looks up at a beloved parent. She picked up the viola in her paws, and offered it to him again.
David threw his gaze back and forth between the viola, and the sphinx’s imploring expression. “No, I still don’t want to play.”
The sphinx pushed the viola at him, cooing at him earnestly.
“When I said I couldn’t play in front of so many people, that didn’t mean I’d be fine playing it for a private performance. I don’t play anymore.”
The sphinx frowned in impatience. Now she was hissing at him, and she stood up on her hind legs, puffing out her wings to look bigger and menacing. David instantly got up onto his feet, more confused than scared—even on her hind legs, she was only an inch or two taller than he was. He had the viola in his hands, and glowered at her in indignation.
When he didn’t play, she thwacked his legs with her tail.
“Stop that!” David demanded. “I’m tired. I haven’t got the energy to play. Just let me sleep like everyone else.”
The sphinx narrowed her eyes, thumping her tail demandingly on the ground.
For Pete’s sake, why wasn’t he making a run for it? True, running through an open field from a sphinx that could fly and dive down on him did not seem like a good idea, but anything would be worth getting away from being treated like a trained monkey. He held the viola tight in his hand, strangling the neck of it. “Look, I already told you, I’m not your slave. You can’t make me do everything you want. I refuse to play for you!”
The sphinx’s jaws were well in range to clamp onto David’s neck. She did not make a sound, nor made an attempt to hypnotize him. Instead, she tossed her nose in the air and made a snooty snort.
David was so enraged by this display of conceit that he threw the viola on the ground, finishing it off with a powerful stomp of his boot. He then kicked the mangled instrument into the fire.
The sphinx stared into the fire as it devoured her wooden songbird of strings. She sank down slowly onto her haunches, a tiny whimper hanging on her lips. David turned and walked away, away from that cursed camp, away from the caravan, away from that beast. He did not get very far before he heard an enraged snarl behind him. He did not even look back—he took off like a bolt out of a crossbow.
David had barely sprinted ten feet before he was rammed to the ground by a heavy pounce from the sphinx. He covered his head, feeling the sphinx’s claws tearing at his shirt and pants, all the while she was hissing and growling for blood. Her jaws fastened around the nape of his neck. Her hot breath stung his skin. David squeezed his eyes shut as he waited for his throat to be ripped out.
Suddenly she stopped. She stepped off of him. David remained on the ground for a minute longer before opening his eyes and glancing up. The sphinx was gone. He turned over, and spotted her hidden in the tall grass. She had her wings folded over her head, and she shook terribly. David could hear her soft muffled crying.
There was no text that David had ever read about a sphinx feeling remorse about anything. He was a bit flabbergasted by this.
David got onto his feet, but he did not run. He walked over to the trembling creature, and after a long hesitation placed a hand on her back. A creeping sense of pity seized him before he withdrew his hand. No, he could not let sentimentality get to him. This may be his only opportunity to leave, for the sphinx would not stop him now. He walked over to the front wagon of the caravan train, and unhitched one of the burly white horses from the pulling poles. He took the reins and was just about to mount, when a low moan caressed him from behind. He looked at the sphinx coming up to him. She howled softly, pouring sorrow, shame, and the desire for forgiveness into David’s body. He felt tears forming in his eyes.
“No, stop it! I don’t want to know how you feel.” He angrily rubbed the tears away, and jumped onto the horse. She howled again, and it made David cringe. He kicked the horse, and it began to plod away.
His body jerked as her claw caught him by the pant leg. He looked at her again, straight into her glowing gold eyes. He was not being coerced into sleep, but into that strange state between consciousness and sleep, when people begin to see dreamy thoughts forming in their minds, when their subconscious is wide open but reality has not faded away.
The image of someone he knew, from a long time ago, entered his mind. It was as clear as if she was right in front of him, the same hazel eyes, the warm smile, the slender fingers that would brush strands of mahogany-tinted hair away from her face. Then that someone vanished, like she had all those years ago. The same feelings of abandonment he had felt then resurfaced now.
David was thrust back to full consciousness. The sphinx’s prodding of his memories pierced him to his soul. She did not follow after him, but watched him fixedly. She had been searching for a memory to make him know how she was feeling, but her expression showed that even she had not expected the intensity of loneliness and rejection that he had felt from that remembrance.
He turned away. His horse continued into the night.
Something was strange about this terrain. It became more apparent as David pressed on, urging on his stolen horse. Only a few miles back, where the
caravan had stopped for the night, it had seemed like regular open plain. But now the further he rode on, night distorted the land around him. A mist settled everywhere, making it hard to see if there was any road or civilization up ahead. All that David could make out was the moon in the sky, but even that ceased to look like the celestial lantern he knew so well. It looked like the distant end to a bleak channel that he kept moving towards, or an unblinking eye watching his every move.
There was a roadside inn about five miles away from the camp, which was inviting to David after the wagon he had been confined to the last few days. He paused, however, wondering if he should continue on, despite his commandeered horse being uncooperative and constantly stopping to graze. This inn was the only one around for many miles from what he could tell. If the sphinx sent her collective after him, they undoubtedly would check here. Plus, David did not have money, and he doubted he could argue his way towards a free night’s stay. On the other hand, maybe the innkeeper could barter a night’s lodging in exchange for this horse, or could give him directions to the closest town.
As he rode up to the inn, a young stable boy came out to meet him. The boy took the reins from David and led the horse away towards the inn’s stables. David couldn’t help but notice something seemed unusual about the lad. The boy had said nothing, avoided eye contact with him and had worn no shoes—his feet were mud-caked and his toenails resembled owl talons. David shrugged it off, assuming the boy must be shy—and fairly unhygienic—and he walked through the inn’s front door, over which hung a sign, “Poppet’s Pub and Inn.”
Upon entering, he found the parlor of the inn to be teeming with guests. Groups huddled tightly together at their tables, as if in secretive games of cards. There was a candlelit chandelier hanging overhead, but it cast a dim light down over its shadowy patrons. David instantly noticed the smell—a dank, foul stench that reminded him of bad eggs and stale rotted meat. He coughed, and his face wrinkled as the taste of that stench coated the inside of his mouth.
