Blood Roots

by Richie Tankersley Cusick

  She unbuttoned her blouse and slid it from her shoulders, dropped her skirt to the floor and stepped out of it. In the mirror her movements were graceful … mysterious. She slipped out of her bra, and she was only in her panties now, her body like a dream … soft and white in the darkness. She let her hands glide over her breasts … the round, soft fullness of them, gleaming in the mirror … in the glass of the doors and windows … yes … yes … this is me … here and all around myself … here in this house, in this place where I belong.

  She walked to the bed to get her nightgown. It slipped from her hands onto the floor, and she bent slowly to pick it up. She went back to the mirror and raised her arms above her head, feeling the soft flow of cotton against her bare skin as the nightgown enveloped her like a cloud.

  Behind her reflection the shadows shifted once more … dissolved … then stirred restlessly, as if trying to rearrange themselves into some definite shape.

  And it was a human shape, Olivia could see it now, forming in the mirror, forming right behind her, a human shape—a head—a human face—indistinct again … fading …

  As she stared in disbelief, two unearthly glimmers of light peered back at her from the darkness … a warm trail of breath slid down the back of her neck …

  The candles flared wildly.

  One by one, they went out.

  Without warning something pulled her away from the mantel and flung her across the bed. Kicking and flailing at the darkness, she felt herself being pinned on her back, and something pierced the inside of her thigh, causing her to scream in pain. Terrified, she tried to roll away, but she couldn’t move, couldn’t see, and her thigh—burning—throbbing—warm blood running down between her legs—

  “Oh, God, help me!”

  But whatever had been holding her was gone, and the shadows settled, calm and empty, around the bed. Moaning softly, Olivia managed to drag herself to the edge and get up. As she stumbled across the floor, blood oozed down over her foot and she slipped, grabbing out frantically for the wall.

  But it wasn’t the wall she touched there in the darkness …

  It was someone’s face.

  5

  “I CAN SEE IN the dark,” a voice hissed. “And you can’t.”

  Panic-stricken, Olivia ran. She heard a loud scraping sound shooting toward her across the floor, and in the next instant she collided with a chair that slid into her path.

  “Ring around the rosy … the night is dark and cozy …” The voice chuckled softly. “One—two—we all … fall … dead.”

  “Yoly!” Gasping in pain, Olivia turned in the direction of the door. As she groped wildly through the darkness, she felt something tall and solid blocking her way.

  “Yoly won’t come. She’s deaf as a brick once she goes to bed, and she prefers to sleep through the night. Not like other strange things at Devereaux House.”

  “Get away from me!” Olivia recoiled violently, her voice rising. “I’ll scream—I swear I will!”

  “Go ahead.” The laugh again, but then it faded, and when the voice came once more it was pensive. “Screams don’t mean anything here. You’ll see.” It was another male voice, another Southern accent, but not the one she’d heard downstairs. “Scream your little heart out.”

  Olivia backed farther away, but she could feel his eyes on her, following her through the dark. She could feel their unhurried inspection and the way her skin began to prickle with a strange, consuming heat—and it was a heat she’d felt before and not so long ago. She stopped abruptly, and a fierce rage began to grow inside her.

  “Whoever you are, if you don’t go away right now, I’m going to call the police.”

  “The police!” This time it was a full-fledged laugh, and as Olivia stared toward the mocking sound, she saw the tiny spurt of a match flame. “Yes … yes … that’s a good one. The police.”

  After flaring, the match went out, leaving a lighted candle in its place. As the wick sputtered, the room seemed to draw in upon itself, but then a portion of the darkness receded, leaving the tall outline of a young man with his flickering shadow on the wall behind him. Olivia’s eyes swept the room, searching for a weapon.

  “The police,” he murmured, and again there was the scratch of a match, the hiss of a flame. Another candle sputtered to life, and more of the shadows slithered away. “I don’t believe in rules,” the voice said, and it was a deep voice, gravelly and slow. “But … just this once … I’ll make it a little more even. Just for you.”

  A third match struck … another dim glow … and even as he was speaking he was moving around the room like some dark ghost, lighting candles, so that at last Olivia was totally surrounded by dancing droplets of fire.

  “And there you are,” he said, stepping away from the final candle. He was behind the circle of flames, and she couldn’t make out his features, yet she saw him lean back against the wall and fold his arms over his chest. “There you are,” he whispered. “And here am I.”

  Her voice was surprisingly steady now, much steadier than her racing heart. “Are you going to kill me?”

  “Kill you?” There was no laughter now, yet he sounded oddly amused. “Well … at least not yet. If I killed you now, you’d be no fun to play with.” He sighed and straightened up. “And anyway, what makes you think I’d try to kill you?”

  Wincing, Olivia put one hand to the inside of her leg, pressing her nightgown against her throbbing wound. To her shock, it was high up on her thigh, very near her groin, and as blood seeped through her gown, she could feel torn flesh beneath the fabric. It took her a few seconds to even realize he was bending over her.

  “Ahhh …” He drew his breath in slowly, and his voice lowered. “So now I see … you’re hurt—”

  “Of course I’m hurt—get away from me—”

  “And … I see.” The voice grew thoughtful. “You think that I …”

  Before she could grasp what was happening, he squatted on the floor in front of her, and she looked down into his upturned face.

  A fox was the first thing she thought of—a sly, clever fox with a long thatch of brown hair over his high, wide forehead and a thin line of mouth and a narrow chin. In the flickering shadows his eyes looked deep and close set, cunningly narrowed, and there were dark hollows beneath the high, sculpted bones of his cheeks. As he stared at her, one eyebrow began to raise, and his mouth moved in a secret sort of half smile.

  Olivia felt herself looking back at him, helpless to turn away. Still holding her eyes with his own, he slid her nightgown up her leg and put one finger on her thigh. He ran his fingertip leisurely through the thickening blood. He lifted his finger to his mouth and slowly licked it with his tongue.

  “Good,” he whispered, and the eyebrow arched even higher, the eyes gleaming with a strange light. “Very … very … good.”

  Reacting at last, Olivia tried to shove him away, but she found herself instantly pinned to the floor, his body on hers, his face just inches from her own.

  “I didn’t try to kill you—which isn’t to say that I wouldn’t, if the mood struck me.” His warning came out with a mocking smile, and as she fought to turn her head away, he forced it back to look at him. “So you want to work, do you? Work magic? Work miracles? What?”

  “How do you know about that—”

  “Oh, I know lots of things. Things you’d never ever want to know.”

  “Let me go! You’re hurting me!”

  “Wrong.” He shook his head, still smiling. “I don’t hurt.”

  Without warning he rolled off and jumped to his feet. Olivia saw his arm reach down, his fingers moving, coaxing her.

  “Come on. Get up.”

  She tried to pull away, but he grabbed her arms and lifted her easily. Then he smiled and moved toward the open door.

  “You should get that looked at, he said. It’s not safe to bleed around here.”

  To Olivia’s amazement, the doorway was empty.

  Limping across the room, she
looked up and down the deserted gallery, then sank back against the wall, closing her eyes.

  Someone tried to kill me … someone was hiding in my room … it must have been him—

  If not him … then who?

  “What you doin’ to yourself up here, child?”

  Olivia’s hand flew to her throat, and she spun around. Yoly was framed in the doorway, her long black robe trailing around her feet, her head still swathed in a kerchief. She was holding a basket and a roll of bandages, and her eyes took a quick inventory of the room before they finally came to rest on Olivia’s bloody nightgown.

  “Lord have mercy—”

  Olivia stared back stupidly. She looked down at her hands and was surprised to see how they were shaking.

  “Someone was here in my room,” she said. “Someone tried to—”

  “Who was? Ain’t nobody up here but you.”

  “Someone was. I didn’t imagine it.” Olivia felt a shiver go through her, and she hugged herself tightly. I’m not the one who imagines things—it was Mama who did that—always her … “I don’t imagine things like that,” Olivia said again. She pointed at Yoly’s basket. “How did you know I was hurt?”

  The woman paused a moment before answering. “Skyler told me.”

  “Who’s Skyler?”

  “Sit there.” Yoly nodded toward the bed. “Let me take a look at you.”

  Olivia did as she was told, trying not to flinch as Yoly held a candle up close to the wound and pressed on it with her big, strong fingers.

  “Someone came up behind me,” Olivia said. She was suddenly so very, very tired, and her voice began to sink. “I saw them in the mirror.”

  “Who did? Who come up behind you?” Shaking her head in annoyance, Yoly rummaged through her basket.

  “I didn’t see his face. He pushed me down on the bed and—”

  “You done it yourself,” Yoly broke in, and Olivia stared at her.

  “I didn’t. I couldn’t have.”

  “You done it. Yes, you did. Most likely when you fell,” Yoly insisted. “Have a look.”

  To Olivia’s dismay, Yoly took a candle from the nightstand and lowered it near the floor beside the bed. A hand mirror lay there, glass broken in its frame, silver shards scattered over the rug. As Olivia raised her eyes, Yoly gazed back at her.

  “No,” Olivia said. “That’s not what happened.”

  “Seven years bad luck,” Yoly grumbled under her breath. “As if we need any more of that around here.”

  “That’s not what happened,” Olivia said again, but Yoly didn’t seem to hear. She reached for the curtains of mosquito netting and began swirling them out around the bed.

  “You use this tonight, girl. We got mosquitoes that’ll eat you alive.”

  “Someone came up behind me,” Olivia broke in. Her voice dropped even lower now, her words almost mechanical. “They pushed me down on the bed. They cut open my leg. Then some horrible person came out of the dark—”

  “Skyler,” Yoly said calmly. “That was Skyler.”

  “But who is he?”

  Yoly got very still. She was quiet for such a long time that Olivia began to wonder if she’d even heard the question. It seemed to require great effort when Yoly finally roused herself. She shifted the basket in her lap and looked at the wall.

  “You be gone tomorrow,” she said quietly. “That’s all. You just be gone.”

  “What do you mean?” Olivia bit her lip as Yoly held a wet cloth to her wound. The pain was excruciating, and she gripped the edge of the bed, trying not to cry.

  “Not too deep.” Yoly seemed to be talking to herself. “Not too bad.”

  Olivia shook her head. “No broken mirror could have cut like that.” Another wave of pain rushed through her, and she eyed Yoly accusingly. “You know it couldn’t.”

  “I knows you did it,” Yoly said firmly. “That’s what I knows.”

  She clammed up. Only when the injury was finally cleaned and bandaged did Olivia venture to speak again.

  “You still haven’t told me about Skyler. You still haven’t told me what he was doing in my room.”

  “You just forget about Skyler,” Yoly said abruptly. “Your food’s cold.” She put everything back into place in her basket and stood up. “You ain’t took a bite.”

  Olivia looked over at the tray. “I’ll eat before I go to sleep.”

  Yoly shook her head and turned away. She was halfway out of the room when Olivia’s voice stopped her.

  “Yoly,” she said quietly, “who else lives here besides you and Miss Rose?”

  Yoly froze, her broad shoulders stiff and straight. As she slowly turned to look back, Olivia saw her mouth open, saw the flicker of hesitation on her face, saw her expression closing in again, unreadable.

  “Better get that glass off the floor,” she said, and was gone.

  Olivia sat there for a moment, thinking. Then she eased herself off the bed and hobbled to the door, closing it tightly against the night.

  She hadn’t realized she was still trembling. She picked up the matches and went around the room, lighting more candles, making sure every single one was ablaze.

  Light pulsed into each corner.

  There was no way anyone could hide in here now.

  Yet as she slid down between the sheets, Olivia felt every shadow watching her with hidden eyes.

  6

  “MORE …”

  From some distant realm of consciousness, Olivia knew that she was dreaming—and yet, when the breathless whisper intruded on her sleep, it didn’t seem to be part of her nightmare.

  “Yes … yes … more …”

  In her dream she was back again, back with Mama, on her way to school, buttoned up tight in a dress too short and too small. And the kids laughing, always laughing, and Mama screaming at them to stop staring and chasing them away. They’re afraid of you, Mama, little-girl Olivia kept saying over and over—they’re afraid of you, everyone’s afraid of you—and Mama’s eyes growing so big and so wild—and they should stare at you, Mama says, they should stare at you ’cause you’re so pretty, Olivia, such a pretty little girl, I want them to stare, but they can’t touch, they can never never touch …

  “Touch me …”

  And that whisper came again—that strange, breathless whisper that wasn’t in Olivia’s dream, and as she tossed restlessly in her bed, painful memories swept over her once more and the nightmare picked up where it had left off—

  You can look, but you can’t touch, and Mama pushing her in front of the mirror and unbuttoning her little-girl dress, and look at yourself, Olivia, look at how pretty you are, I used to be pretty like you, I used to be just like you—

  And don’t Mama, Olivia begging, poor little girl child standing there so cold and crying, I didn’t mean to do it, I won’t do it again—don’t, Mama, don’t—

  “Don’t stop … don’t stop—”

  And the whisper was a moan now, and it got louder and louder, and it was fear and it was pain and it was ecstasy all at once, and as it sliced ruthlessly into Olivia’s nightmare and shattered all the bad, bad memories, she cried out and bolted up in bed.

  Long folds of netting enclosed her, rustling as though an unseen touch had disturbed them, as though something still hovered beyond. Olivia pushed them back and saw that the room was empty. It lay peacefully around her now, bathed in the pearl grayness of early morning and a vast, unbroken silence.

  It must have been me … that whisper … some new detail of an old, old dream.

  Bewildered, she got out of bed and stood for a moment, her hand pressed tightly to her bandaged leg. Well, at least this wasn’t a dream, she thought grimly. She couldn’t remember falling asleep the night before, only lying there, frightened, in the dark. But now, as she took a long, careful appraisal of her surroundings, she saw them in the new perspective of daybreak. It didn’t seem like a horrible place at all—just a shabby, old-fashioned room that had certainly seen better days.

&n
bsp; She began to walk around it, touching each piece of furniture, deliberately pressing her fingers into the layers of dust. She smiled at the marks she left there—mine … mine … my chair … my washstand—and she wondered vaguely who had touched these things before her. Had Mama ever slept in here … or dressed … or sang? Or ever been any different from what Olivia had always known? She paused in front of the mirror and stared at her reflection. For one split second, Mama’s face seemed to look back at her, and Olivia turned away.

  There were no demons in here now, no bottomless shadows for them to hide behind. As a pale bloom of light crept across the walls, Olivia saw that the paper had once been very beautiful, patterned with tiny hearts entwined with violets and roses. Framed pictures hung beneath years of dust. Dead ferns moldered in pots. Olivia stood for a long moment in front of the armoire and then hesitantly opened its doors.

  It was full of old clothes, folded and stacked on shelves, draped on pegs at the back, crumpled in heaps on the floor. A wave of mildew wafted out, and Olivia wrinkled her nose, letting her fingers slide down a cream-colored dress with a wide blue sash. It felt greasy and stiff, and she shook it out carefully, feeling a stir of excitement inside. Holding it up to herself, she went back to the mirror.

  It pleased her, what she saw, her long pale hair, her wide brown eyes, the contours of the dress as though it had been made for her to wear. For just one second it was almost as if the light was playing tricks on her, winking and sparkling across the faded, peeling wallpaper, making the flowers bright and vivid again, the room clean and new … the soft, warm breeze fluttering the draperies on the bed … the lace curtains at the windows … just like my beautiful new dress … and roses to go with it, just like the ones on the wall … pink and perfume-sweet, big bunches of them, streaming with ribbons and fine French lace.

  “Oh!” Grabbing on to the edge of the mantel, Olivia looked down in dismay. There was something wet on the ledge, something that had dripped down into the dust, leaving soft tiny puddles and a dark smudge on the dress where she’d pressed too close.