Bedbugs (22 page)

So I suppose it’s understandable that Elizabeth would want to look into the mirror, if only to see if what I said could possibly be true.

How did I find out about it?

Oh, that was simple. That very next afternoon, the day before the funeral, as I was walking through the entryway to go upstairs to change, I noticed that the white cloth I had used to cover the mirror had fallen to the floor. When I bent down to pick it up, I—well, I happened to see something.

No, not on the floor. . . .

In the mirror!

Bright afternoon sunlight was pouring in through the front door window; but in the mirror, I saw a dark blot, as if the sun had disappeared, and a hazy shadow was being cast across the floor.

Heavens, yes, I was
terrified!

I turned and looked at the door but saw nothing there at all. Just God’s pure sunlight streaming through the window and reflecting off the wooden floor. But when I looked into the mirror again, I saw that the shadow had thickened. It had taken on depth. I swear to you, it was so
real
looking . . . as if a huge puddle of black ink had splashed across the wooden floor. And even as I stared at it in the mirror, I saw it deepen and spread until it covered nearly the whole front entryway. And then I—saw. . . .

I saw.

No, no—I’ll be all right. Just give me a sip of my tea.

There, that’s much better.

No, I’m fine. I honestly feel as though I have to talk to someone about it. You’re so kind to sit here and listen to me. I know that I can trust you to understand.

So anyway, I just stood there, staring as the stain rippled across the floor, and then it began to take on a distinctive shape.

It didn’t take me long to realize what I was looking at.

It was the silhouettes of two people.

Not one. Two!

And I knew in an instant who those two people were!

Yes, you’re absolutely right! They were the shadows of my daughter, Nancy, and her daughter, Elizabeth. They were invisible except for their shadows, standing side by side in the entryway. I watched, absolutely terrified, unable even to breathe as their shadow hands slowly rose and extended toward each other.

My gracious, yes! I nearly fainted! They were just about to touch, to clasp hands when I—well, it wasn’t me. It was the Good Lord who gave me the strength to act. I was barely aware of what I was doing as I clenched my fist and smashed the mirror.

“No!” I screamed. “You can’t have her! She’s mine now!”

Glass exploded everywhere, and my hand—well, you can see the bandages. My hand was cut quite severely.

No, thank Heavens, the artery wasn’t cut. The doctor here tells me that the stitches will simply dissolve, and he’ll take the bandages off in a few weeks.

Well, yes—of course it’s a bit difficult to do anything. But let me finish telling you what happened.

The instant I broke the mirror and screamed, I heard another scream that truly frightened me. It was as if . . . as if someone in the house was dying. To tell you the truth, it sounded like the echo of the scream Nancy had made when she fell down the stairs and banged her head so hard on the floor.

It was terrible! Frightened me half to death. I was absolutely terrified about what I had done—about the consequences of breaking a mirror—when I looked around and saw Elizabeth. She was in the living room, sitting up on the couch and staring at me, her eyes wide open. Her face was ghostly pale.

“Gramma,” she said, her voice high-pitched, almost a wailing sound. “What on earth—? Look! You’re hurt! Your hand is bleeding!”

I was numbed to the pain, probably close to being in shock. It felt almost as if I wasn’t even inside my own body as I looked down at the large drops of blood that were falling to the floor and splashing onto the shattered glass around my feet.

“Are you all right, dear?” I asked her.

Even at the time, I remember thinking how odd and shaky my voice must sound.

“Of course I’m all right,” Elizabeth replied.

I remember how badly her voice trembled, too.

“I was just taking a nap here on the couch,” she said.

Poor thing. She wasn’t even the slightest bit aware of the mortal danger from which I had just rescued her. I went quickly over to her and hugged her to me, unmindful of the blood dripping all over my carpet and couch.

Yes, I’m afraid the stains didn’t wash out entirely, but I didn’t care. I hugged my granddaughter to my breast and kissed her, too frightened to let myself believe that she was truly all right. At the time, I was too choked up with emotion to tell her what I had just done to save her life.

Oh, yes, absolutely! You bet your lucky stars I believe I saved Elizabeth’s life that day! If I had waited even a few more seconds before smashing that mirror, her mother would have taken her by the hand and brought her soul to Heaven with her that very day. I would be alone now . . . all alone.

What? Oh, no. I’m not worried about that. My Heavens, no. I’m nearly eighty years old. I probably won’t even live long enough to get my full seven years of bad luck for breaking the mirror. Besides, the Good Lord knows I’ve certainly had my share of bad luck already!

So all in all, it’s been a few weeks since I arrived here, and, as I told you, I guess I’m getting by. I’m sure that, with time, Elizabeth will get over the worst of her grief, too. But you know, I just wish you people would let her come up here to visit me. I get
so
lonely sometimes, and you must understand that I wouldn’t be dangerous to her. Oh, no . . . not to her!

Oops! My goodness, you certainly are clumsy today. Look, you’ve knocked over the saltshaker.

What was your name again? Benjamin?

You seem so young to be working in a place like this. Be a darling, will you Benjamin? I can’t reach that spilled salt with this straitjacket pinning my arms down.

You know, it never hurts to be too careful. Would you take a pinch of that salt and throw it over my left shoulder? That’s a nice boy.

—for Peter Crowther

T
he castle was isolated from the rest of the world for at least six months out of the year, sometimes as long as eight months. In the winter, heavy snows sealed off the narrow mountain passes. In the spring, the roads either washed out or turned into knee-deep quagmires of mud from the runoff of melting snow and ice. Although in autumn the mountains looked their most beautiful, very few people ventured into them for fear of being caught in an early blizzard. In the nearby villages and farmhouses, however, other, darker reasons to avoid the castle were also whispered about. Only in the summertime did visitors of any sort arrive at the castle, and over the years—especially following the death of the mistress of the castle—the number of visitors each year could most often be tallied on one hand.

But every summer, for at least a month at a time, the three sisters—Mara, Ester, and Philipa—always came to visit. They arrived late in June or early July to escape the heat and crowded streets of Buchresti. Sometimes their father would stay with them at the castle for as long as a week, visiting with his brother-in-law and drinking with him late into the night. But for the last several years, particularly following the death of his sister, he would depart within a day or two, leaving his daughters behind.

For the first nine or ten years of his life, the young boy who lived in the castle had thoroughly relished these visits with his cousins. It was a special treat for him to have anyone to play with, even if they were girls and several years older than he. There were a few peasant boys his own age in the nearby village, but their parents would never even consider allowing their sons to play with the boy who lived in the castle. The boy wasn’t sure why. His father told him that it was the peasants’ natural disinclination to associate with their betters; but on one or two occasions while in town, the boy had overheard some of the strange and disturbing comments about the castle, his home, and his family.

As he entered his teen years, however, he became increasingly uncomfortable even being near his cousins. They, too, were growing up, maturing, and he couldn’t help but notice the dramatic changes in their figures—the swelling of their breasts, the gradual rounding of their hips, the delicate curves of their legs and arms and necks. Oddly disturbing feelings stirred within him, making his interest wane in such childish games as “hind-’n-seek” and “one-legged beggar.” He felt increasingly uncomfortable being around the cousins because so many times he’d catch himself staring at them and having secret thoughts and urges that he didn’t entirely understand.

On several occasions, the boy tried to talk to his father about his concerns, but his father was a distant man, and he kept such odd hours, rising after sunset and going to bed just as dawn was breaking, that at night, when he would have an opportunity to ask about such things, the boy lost whatever courage he had built up during the day. Embarrassed and ashamed of the things he thought and felt whenever he saw or, sometimes, even thought about his cousins, he kept everything to himself, bottled up tightly inside himself, like fermenting wine. But it was a wine that was spoiling, rather than mellowing properly as it aged.

One hot July night in his fourteenth year, the boy found it particularly difficult to sleep. The sounds of crickets and night birds in the forest and field kept him awake long past midnight. Not even the slightest stirring of air moved through his opened window. The high whine of a mosquito tormented him, making him swat blindly in the darkness and curse in a childish way. He watched the slow progression of moon-cast shadows swing across the stone window casement, and he measured the passing of time with his slow, even breaths.

At some point—he wasn’t sure when—he became aware of another sound intruding upon the night. It flitted lightly, like the soft whisper of silk in the darkness. Once he was aware of it, he realized that he was hearing the soft, high twitter of a woman’s laughter.

His mother had died more than ten years ago, and the few female servants employed in the castle had all gone back to their homes in the village for the night, leaving as they always did well before dark. So the boy immediately deduced that the sound must have been made by one of his cousins. Thinking about the girls instantly caused a cold, hard knot to tighten in his stomach, and his male member began to stiffen. Before long, it was as hard as a rail spike. Confused and concerned by this new, tingling sensation in his groin, which he found had been occurring more and more frequently lately, he slipped one hand up underneath his sleeping gown and grasped himself, squeezing hard, hoping that the pressure would make the throbbing ache go away.

But it didn’t.

It only got worse.

His ears were ringing as he arched his head forward and listened for the ripple of feminine laughter to come once again. Almost as if it had a will of its own, his hand started moving up and down in tight, choking strokes. A quivering, gushing rush, like hot pins-and-needles, filled his lower belly. His head was swimming as badly as the time two summers ago, when his father had allowed him to drink a full measure of red wine. Finally, unable to stand the pulsating sensation any longer, the boy swung his legs off the bed, stood up, and began pacing back and forth across the cool stone floor of his bedchamber. His thin nightgown whisked at his ankles like a winding sheet.

Then the high laughter came again, like birdsong, fluttering in short, sporadic bursts. It pierced his ears and drove into his brain like a javelin. The sound teased and tempted him, exciting him so much the stiffness in his groin ached even more painfully . . . yet also pleasurably.

Sucking in a deep breath and holding it, the boy tiptoed to the door of his bedchamber, swung it open, and stepped out into the pressing darkness of the corridor. In spite of the hot night air, a shiver tickled between his shoulder blades. Without a candle or torch to light his way, he was momentarily lost, but soon enough his feet, as though moving of their own volition, directed him down to the far end of the corridor toward the chamber door behind which he knew his cousins slept.

But they weren’t sleeping now.

When he was halfway to their door, he heard a hissing rustle of sheets and bedclothes . . . then the fluttering ripple of laughter came again, followed by a deeper groaning that almost sounded like one of the cousins was in pain. The boy wondered if one of them had eaten green apples and was suffering from a stomachache.

His bare feet scuffed the stone floor like tiny whispers as he made his way to their chamber door. The darkness of the corridor enfolded him like soft arms, giving him a measure of security as he leaned forward and gently pressed his ear to the door, trying to determine what was none that he heard, anyway—but the laughter and low-throated groaning sound continued, rising louder now, like a gathering storm wind.

Somehow, miraculously, the boy kept himself from crying out when the door, apparently unlatched, swung open from the pressure of him leaning against it. Like a dagger blade glowing in the fire of the forge, a sliver of light lanced out at him, slicing his left eye. He jerked back, afraid that the subtle shifting of the door might have alerted his cousins to his presence, but the laughter and the other sounds continued to rise unabated. Sweat stood out like morning dew on the boy’s forehead. His throat was raw with tension as he took a gentle breath and held it, still fearful of being discovered, yet consumed with curiosity to see what was going on inside that room.