by A. R. Cook
His cough resonated through the room. It was quiet enough to hear a mouse breathing at the far end of the hall. The patrons did not notice, however, and they remained huddled together without acknowledging the newcomer in the doorway.
David cleared his throat, hoping he could contain his coughing to speak. “Excuse me, might one of you tell me where I could find the keeper of this inn?”
His voice withered into silence when no one looked up to regard him. Maybe he had unwittingly interrupted a private dinner party, and they were irritated with him. Everyone was dressed finely enough, in satin gowns and waistcoats, although their apparel looked like they could stand a good washing and mending. There was no music, no decorations, and nothing to indicate that there was any merrymaking. The only party décor were the large porcelain punch bowls sitting on each table, to which all the people leaned in close. David was extremely parched, and he approached one of the tables.
“Please, I have just been through a terrible ordeal, and I am so thirsty. I hope you don’t mind if I share in your drink?” he asked one of the lady patrons wearing a tattered brown dress. She kept her head down, staring at the bowl, not speaking a word. David thought to himself that she needed to tend to her hair, which was a matted, wild mess hanging like dead vines around her face. As a matter of fact, everyone had the same wild, straggly tresses trailing from their heads, even the men.
When he looked into the punchbowl, he could see it was full of a deep, red wine. But it didn’t smell like wine. It was also thicker than wine. And chucks of meat and skin were floating in it.
David gasped in horror, his lungs unable to pump any air. He let out a bark in panic as the lady in the brown dress lashed out with her hand and grabbed his arm. The instant she touched him, he felt his blood chill, the warmth being drained from his body. Her grasp was a crushing vice, and David could not escape her grip. Her hands were not made of flesh, but segmented pieces of splintered wood, and it was snagging his skin. With all his strength, he pulled back to get free of her, and with a loud crack, he broke free—or, more accurately, he broke her hand clean off of her wrist. The wooden hand kept clinging to him until he shook it off so violently, it flew across the room, smacking into a far wall.
David for the first time took a good, hard look at the faces around him. He had thought that the poor lighting of the room had made their features dark and indistinct, but now he could see otherwise. Rows upon rows of gaunt faces, with black empty eyes, turned to stare at David. The hair on their heads was driven into their scalps in chunks, the way one digs a fistful of straw into a patch of mud. Their mouths were void of emotion—no smiles or grimaces—although some had crooked teeth protruding from their lipless gums. David also could see now that their faces were not made of skin and flesh, but paint and clay.
Dolls. Dolls that were alive. Dolls that craved blood.
The guests were standing up, one by one, in stiff, jerking movements that caused their bodies to creak and snap and groan. Slowly, twitchingly, desperately, they extended their wooden hands towards David, their stiff feet shuffling through the dust, grime, and sticky stains coating the floor.
If David’s stories of vampires and demons had taught him anything, such monsters always preferred fresh, warm blood to stale, cold blood. He turned to run out the door, only to find that the door was now gone—only blank wall was behind him.
Blast it! This whole place was a trap!
He furiously scanned the room for a window or means of escape, but the dolls were closing in fast. I should have just played that stupid viola!
He found a sharp piece of broken bone on the floor nearby, and made a mad dash for it. The dolls were on him, grasping at his clothes and searching for his flesh. Their rotten teeth—mismatched collections of human teeth, animal fangs, shards of glass and chipped stone—were bared in ravenous hunger. David slashed out at them with the bone, but realized this did little to faze them.
David kicked one of the dolls straight in the chest, sending it staggering back, but not deterring it as it resumed its pursuit. Running with all his speed, David leapt onto one of the tables and made a strong jump towards the chandelier, which he just managed to grab a hold on. He tried to climb up higher onto it, but the rafter started to give way under his additional weight. He could feel the dolls below snapping at his feet with their teeth, clutching at his boots with their splintered hands and yanking down.
Something came straight through the wall of the inn, tearing through it like paper. Big black wings wrapped around David, pulling him off the chandelier and high overhead, breaking through the sheet-thin roof. The dolls below were enraged, clacking their teeth and tearing out their own hair in starving anguish. David heard a female voice speaking something in an unusual tongue. As he clung to his rescuer, hovering in the air, he recognized the language as Latin, for he had studied it in school. The dialect was very heavy, bestial in tone, but he managed to decipher some of the words …
Away … home … this … one… mine … banish … you …
Then the floor of the inn broke away, like ice flows in the presence of heat, and the blood-drinkers tumbled down into darkness, and the inn itself was sucked down in a whirlpool of blood and bone …
David blacked out.
Chapter Three
“You all right there, boyo?”
David awoke to the sound of wheels rumbling along the ground. He slowly opened his eyes to a room lighted by a lantern. He was inside one of the moving caravan wagons. All along the walls hung rows of rabbits, squirrels, ducks and geese, the spoils of the hunt and several nights’ dinners for the caravan. The room was saturated with the odors of meat and fur. The Scottish juggler was sitting next to him, smoking a long pipe. He had a snide smirk plastered on his face.
“You took my best puller. It’s a pain on the other horses to pull the train without that one,” he spat. “Fortunately the mistress got him back safe and sound, along with you.”
David blinked, and sat up on the straw mattress. “I’m sorry for taking the horse, Señor …?”
“Gullin. No Señor, or Mister, or none of that.”
“Now that one of you has decided to talk to me, Gullin, maybe I won’t have to act so rudely. I don’t suppose you could drop me off at the next town.”
Gullin chuckled. “Next town isn’t going to be for a while now. Here, drink up.” He handed David a clay stein. David welcomed the drink gladly, as he was very thirsty. He coughed at the potency of the unexpected liquor, having assumed it would be water.
The drink jostled something in his brain, and he recalled the events of the previous night. “What on earth happened? There was an inn, and there were all these man-sized dolls, living walking dolls! I think they wanted to drink my blood—”
“Ah, the Jenglots. Nasty buggers. They don’t actually ‘drink’ blood. They drink up its warmth until the victim is stone-cold dead. They need the warmth to stay alive. And the younger the blood, the better. ” Gullin stood up and moved to the other side of the wagon, where he rummaged through a wooden chest. “It’s a problem once you start crossing through the Curtain. You can never be quite sure what gates to the unknown you might stumble through when you’re alone out here. Luckily the mistress knows how to handle Jenglots and the like. This should help calm the mind a bit.” He took a small leather pouch out of the chest. He walked back over and gave it to David. “A secret family remedy for the spooks.”
David looked into the pouch, finding it full of pellets that smelled of sage, but he thought better of eating any of them, so he pocketed the bag. “What do you mean, ‘crossing through the Curtain’? I’ve never heard of a territory called that in these parts.”
“Not surprising. Most folks wouldn’t have heard it. You can call it the Veil, or the Gates, or whatever you please. Let’s just say, you best stay with the group. You’re not familiar with what this place can do.”
The younger man took a good look at his surroundings. “I suppose you’re going to gi
ve me some kind of punishment for having run away. She would probably be more than happy for you to do so.”
The juggler grimaced. “She didn’t eat a bite this morning, on account of you. She’s been sick as a dog. If she starves to death, I’ll smash your head against the first rock I find.”
David knotted his eyebrows. “You wouldn’t be happy to be free of her possession?”
Gullin gave him a long hard look. “Boy, you obviously don’t understand a blasted thing.” He sat back in a simple wooden chair, bouncing to the rhythm of the wagon’s movement.
“Do you honestly believe you are not under her control?” David inquired.
“The mistress doesn’t work that way.”
“She enchants you people to do her bidding. Don’t you even remember how she possessed you and the others to tie me up the other night?”
Gullin glared at him. “You were the one who woke us up with your bumbling, and you were holding a dagger up at the mistress. You should be thanking her. If she hadn’t stopped us, we would’ve beaten you to a pulp.”
David scratched his head. “But … she hypnotizes you all to sleep. I saw it.”
“Nothing wrong with sleep when you need it.” Gullin stretched his arms and neck.
“Is that a real Master Huntsmen’s crest on your arm?” David asked, pointing at the tattooed symbol. “Just who are you, anyway?”
The Scotsman sighed. He took the stein back from David and took a swig from it. “Now you want me to be getting personal. Boyo, I was a Huntsman—a very special class of the brotherhood, tells you how I know all about this side of the Curtain—” he gestured around himself with a broad sweep of his arm, “but it ain’t all you think it is. Frankly, it doesn’t provide steady income, ‘specially with monsters and the fairy tale types getting fewer and fewer. Truth is, the day I was on my last coin and about ready to call it quits with it all, this caravan came rolling by. I thought it might need a good pair of arms, and they seemed to be getting good money, so I asked to join up with it.”
“You joined on your free will? Did you know about her?”
“No, not at first, and I was a bit surprised, I can tell you. But the mistress is good. Makes sure we all have plenty to eat, treats us fairly, lets us spend the money we make. We’re like family. ” He took another long drink.
“But … she abducts people for her caravan. She kidnapped me! And she tried to rob me.”
Gullin raised an eyebrow at him.
“She did!” David insisted. “She broke into my room at the inn, and then I scared her off, but she dropped my purse on the floor.”
“Ay, that.” Gullin sighed. “Now an apology does need to be given, but not from the mistress. I’m afraid bad habits die hard for some of us. Isabella, the girl who gave you that dagger, was a pickpocket since she was wee. Only way she could survive on the streets. The mistress has been trying to break her of the habit, but Izzy couldn’t help herself when it was so easy for the taking. The mistress was trying to return your purse to you before you realized you’d been pilfered.”
David was about to argue that he had his purse with him the whole time, but it dawned on him that he hadn’t checked his pockets after his participation in the juggling act. He had gone straight to his room at the inn afterwards, so he hadn’t even thought of his purse before going to bed. Even if it were true the sphinx was only returning the purse, he noted, “Maybe, but she was still thinking about eating me. Why else would she be sniffing at me while I was sleeping?”
“Mibbae you smell funny.”
David furrowed his eyebrows, finding irony that the Scotsman thought he was the one who smelled funny. “So, you say you people are here because you want to work for this … this creature—”
“The mistress,” Gullin corrected him sharply.
“Yes, her,” David replied holding up his hands in defense. “But I don’t want to be. If she isn’t the kind to keep prisoners, then why am I one?”
Gullin sighed. “There are some rules about what to do with folks who ‘see the unseen,’ so to speak. Those who live on the other side of the Curtain went there to remain a secret, to live peacefully without humans trying to muck it up. You have to prove you’re good at keeping the knowledge secret, since if you went blabbing about it to everyone, it would cause a good deal of trouble. Can’t let you go starting up a panic, can we?”
David shook his head. “But no one where I come from believes the stories I tell. If I went back and told them I was kidnapped by a sphinx, who is going to believe me?”
The man shrugged. “Mibbae you’re here for another reason.”
David narrowed his eyes. “Such as?”
“The mistress’s wise. She might be wanting to teach you something. Her kind work in mysterious ways. Sphinxes have made poor men into kings, and been advisors to the greatest minds. Betcha didn’t know that, boyo.”
Actually, David had read a book or two that had said as much, but those were from myths. Plus, the tale of the sphinx in Greece who had led a man to become king also led to that king gouging out his own eyes. “How do you know she wants to teach me something?”
“Mibbae she does, mibbae she doesn’t. She might just want you around for another reason.”
“Like … food?”
Gullin laughed again. “Hardly. Let’s just say, I ain’t seen the mistress take a liking to anyone like she has to you in a long time. She might be feeling a bit lonely.”
“Lonely? She has all of you. Your ‘family,’ as you put it.”
“That’s not the kind of ‘lonely’ I’m talking about. You can be surrounded by people and still be lonely. Sometimes, you need just the right person around. You understand?”
David quickly changed the subject. “So, you’re telling me none of you are really under her enchantment?”
“Well, she had to give some of the others the glowin’ eye to keep them calm—you know, they get antsy around things they don’t understand. But most of us, we don’t cause trouble. We like the three meals a day.”
“And none of you explained this to me earlier because …?”
“The mistress doesn’t like us talking to a new member unless she’s sure he’s going to be part of the group. She don’t want us getting too attached if the guy’s not sticking around.”
“You think I’m going to stay?”
Gullin gave him a smirk. “That’s all up to the mistress now, ain’t it?”
The sphinx had not come out of her wagon even into the afternoon. When one of the gypsies peeked in to bring her herbal tea made from the sphinx’s favorite flowers, the creature stayed curled up in her nest and would not eat. The caravan folk worried that her illness was severe and they should make her some stronger medicine, but Gullin had another theory.
“She ain’t been acting right since she saved you from those Jenglots,” Gullin snarled at David as he grabbed him by the collar and shoved him towards the sphinx’s wagon. “You talk to the mistress,” he ordered. “Or I’ll wring your scrawny neck.”
David sighed, not sure how he was actually supposed to “talk” to her. According to myth, sphinxes were capable of human speech, and he was sure that she had spoken to the Jenglots. He approached the wagon and tapped on the side. “Hello in there. It’s me, David.”
No reply. David cleared his throat, irked that all the gypsies were staring at him. “I … I wanted to be sure that you’re well.” He paused. “May I see you?”
A soft murr came from inside. David and another man took hold of the wagon’s side and carefully lowered it open. The sphinx lifted her head, casting her gaze deep into David’s eyes. She arose slowly, her legs and wings a little stiff, and ambled out of the nest over to him. Her face was pale, her hair matted, her limbs seemed scrawnier, but more noticeably her normally healthy lips were dried and cracked. She more resembled a mangy alley cat than a majestic lioness. She moaned softly.
David wondered if maybe her encounter with the Jenglots had made her ill. He leaned in
close, hoping the others would not hear. “I’m sorry that you are sick. You didn’t have to save me from the Jenglots, but you did. Thank you, for that.”
She smiled weakly.
“I want to make sure you get better. But I’m only staying until we get to the next town. Then I’m gone. Is that clear?” David said this knowing the sphinx would not respond, but he said it loud enough so the caravan folk would also hear.
With her paw, the sphinx picked up an orange from one of the food baskets, and held it up to David. He took the fruit, peeled it and took a bite. He pulled a slice from it and gave it to her. She hesitated in taking it, but then she bit down on it and sucked out the juice. She did not finish the fruit until he was done eating.
After the caravan train rolled across the fields, David and the sphinx sat in the bronze nest, sharing the herbal tea. Then she was treated to another nice, however reluctantly given, belly rub.
That night, David found himself staring out onto a shimmering sapphire ocean. He was lying on a grassy shore under a small birch tree, its leaves green and trimmed in gold. A gentle wind carried fresh fragrances of grass, flowers, and everything pure. He was not sure how he had come to be there, or where “there” even was, but he felt such peace that his whereabouts did not matter.
With him was a woman. He did not know how long she had been there before he noticed her, but she stood patiently, smiling. As she approached, he realized it was the sphinx, only completely human. Her paws were finely shaped hands and feet. She had no tail, and no wings. Her face was different too, particularly the eyes that were now an inviting emerald green. She was draped in a white dress fitted to her sleek shape.
