The Bloodstone, page 29
Ron’s jaw slackened. “You’re not serious,” he muttered hoarsely. “You can’t possibly intend to put her through that again.”
“I think if we go about it in the right way, it won’t be at all violent and we may—”
“I won’t permit it,” Ron stated coldly.
Luther leaned forward on the table, an indomitable truth visible in his calm eyes. “Would you rather,” he inquired gently, “have her keep all that misery and confusion locked up inside where it’s been all this time?”
Ron hesitated, stunned past the feverish haze, the dull headache, even the panic inside. After a long moment, he shook his head.
Luther rose and began to reach for his coat. His mind tried to search for the exact words to put Ron’s mind at ease. He found himself immeasurably touched but at the same time frightened at Ron’s zeal to help Chandal at any and all cost. Encouraging Ron to get a good night’s sleep, he slipped quietly into the night.
But Ron did not sleep.
Not by dawn.
Not by noon.
By nightfall Luther had returned to the carriage house and entered quickly into the session.
Surrounded by deep shadows, the two pale lights seemed to blink like eyes on opposite sides of the bed. The thick vapor of lilac and the pungence of mildew filled the air, and Chandal sat propped immobile on her bed, tapping out the passage of time with a single finger, tapping slowly a death-march cadence on the ornate blue-black quilt of her bed.
The dim illumination sent shadows downward across her face, patterns that mocked her loveliness and distorted her features. A sharp pinpoint of white light set deep within her irises shattered her once calm eyes, now half-shut in trance, and seemed to diminish the pupils to an alarmingly small size. Her face was at once young and old. Timeless.
Chandal turned her head slowly to stare up through the skylight, past the tree branches that resembled bars, to the fifth-floor window of the brownstone. Yes, the old woman was there. Chandal smiled. The old woman smiled back.
There was a long silence as Luther considered the rightness of his decision to conduct this session with Chandal lying in her bed. The depth of his concern did not delight him. How much easier, safer—he could not help but think—to have taken Chandal back to Lakewood where conditions were clinically safer. Still he had no choice. Lakewood did not recognize hypnosis as therapy for its patients. Besides, Chandal was in such a weakened condition that return to Lakewood would most likely cause regression.
Chandal turned her gaze from the skylight and let it rest on Ron’s ashen face. She smiled a sad smile. “How long—how many hours do you think we’ve spent in this room together? Like a blink of the eye—gone, yet it seems like forever. The trouble is, I really don’t know the time involved because there is nothing to use as a marker—a sign. Like being on a train, looking out the window into darkness. Seeing... only darkness. You don’t know if you’re really moving or not, where you are, only that you feel yourself in motion. You can’t determine the direction even—is it backward, forward?”
She paused for a moment, then sighed.
“I don’t like trains....” she breathed. “I never told you that, did I? I suffer from claustrophobia. I’m terrified at the thought of one day being laid to rest in a coffin. Yet I don’t want to be cremated either. It’s so definite. Final. If I die, Arthur—don’t let them bury or cremate me. All right, Arthur? I want to be able to see myself in the hereafter.”
Ron buried his face in his hands.
“How are you going to see yourself in the hereafter, Chandal?” Luther slipped in smoothly.
“I suppose I’ll have to die first.”
“Then?”
Her lips curled into a tight smile. “We’ll see.”
With a shudder, Ron rose and began to pace. “Are you telling me that’s Chandal?” He glared at Luther.
“She is acting out what she had seen the sisters do. Elizabeth had probably told her these things.”
“What about the other things? The room she said they locked her away in, the mannequins, the ceremony she spoke of?”
Abruptly, Chandal began to hum. A song of sorts. Unhurried.
“Why are you humming that song, Chandal?” asked Luther.
“Mother’s favorite.”
“Your mother?”
“Yes.”
“She liked to hum it?”
“To me, yes. I was her favorite. She always preferred me to Magdalen.”
“Magdalen?”
“My sister.”
“Are you Elizabeth?”
Chandal smiled.
“Where is Chandal?” Luther asked.
“I’m here.”
“Where is Elizabeth?”
“I’m here.”
Luther straightened up. “Chandal, Elizabeth is dead. Can you understand that?”
Chandal tensed. Tiny jerks vibrated at the corners of her eyes. Her hands and face wrinkled up. She moaned.
“Chandal, can you understand that? Elizabeth died in the fire that night. Elizabeth is dead.”
Without warning, Chandal began to experience both sides of her personality at once. She watched in horror as the core of her being blew open and separated—blackness on one side, a blinding light on the other. Dead center was a whirlpool of bubbling blood. Opposing forces rushed each other, collided—became an intestinal writhing pain, more chaotic than an electrical current gone berserk. Shrieks and shrills echoed, a terrifying scream rose, bees buzzed, flies hummed. Sound became a mass of contradictions, an outpouring of unspeakable terror that rose and dove-tailed into orgasm and lust.
With the innocence of a newborn child she watched a world of spirits enshrined in glass, shattered suddenly by the Holy Ghost. He laughed and the demon strangled him to death. Black crepe and plumes fanned out and everywhere people danced. Chandal was one of them.
In the next instant Chandal’s body went rigid. Her eyes widened.
“Chandal, what do you see?”
“People.”
“Who are they?”
“Evil.”
“Who are they?”
“The woman.”
“Who?”
“Me!”
“You said the woman. Is it Elizabeth?”
“ME! SHE IS ME!”
Suddenly spittle bubbled from Chandal’s lips. Her head snapped forward as her back arched; something unseen lifted her out of the bed and smashed her to the floor.
“Chandal!” Ron yelled.
Chandal screamed, her hands flailing the air as if fighting off an attacker.
Ron rushed to her side. Luther reached out and grabbed hold of his arm.
“No, don’t!” Luther ordered. “Leave her alone. You don’t understand.”
Ron pushed him aside, knelt, and grabbed hold of Chandal’s hands. “Chandal, wake up. It’s Ron. Please—wake up!”
Then a vicious slap as Chandal freed her hand and brought it hard across Ron’s face.
“Chandal! Stop it! STOP IT!” he screamed, again taking hold of her hands.
A rapid quivering sensation shot up Chandal’s body, through Ron’s hands, upward toward her face. Blood began trickling from her nostrils—then flowed. With one last violent jerk, her body lifted from the floor, held for a moment, then dropped into Ron’s arms. In the next instant, she passed into unconsciousness.
Later, down in the living room, Luther went over it all again, Ron probing, the doctor answering his questions as simply and non-clinically as possible.
“When a person suffers a shock as Chandal did the night of the fire, fantasies usually follow.” Luther sighed. “The evil she speaks of could be hallucinations, illusions. They may even be a dream she once had.”
“Dreams or real, she believes it!”
“Chairs and lamps become monsters to a mind racked with despair,” Luther continued patiently. “Chandal’s amnesia is an attempt to relieve that despair. The cause of her trauma is obvious.” He glanced at the metronome he held in his hand and then, with an air of finality, zipped it into its case. “She could not bear to watch Elizabeth Crispin burn to death that night,” Luther continued. “So—” He shook his head. “She took the woman inside her own body where it was safe. And since she had lost part of herself in the fire, her husband, there was room for these two personalities to coexist.”
“But then...” Ron stopped himself.
Luther began to roll down his shirt sleeves. “Chandal is suffering from severe ‘ego-breakdown.’ The distorted images, cut off, detached—without relationship to one another; the limitless space she speaks of; the feeling that everything is strange and evil—it’s all there. And I’m afraid she’s now extending the phenomenon of unreality to herself.” He stopped for a moment to press his fingers into the bridge of his nose, then added, “It is my opinion that Chandal should be returned to Lakewood as soon as possible. I know it won’t be easy. But it will be in Chandal’s best interest.”
Ron was completely taken aback. Questions immediately sprang to his mind, but he found himself unable to speak. With an emotion bordering on panic, he realized that he was totally unprepared for Luther’s sudden about-face.
“I... couldn’t we...” Ron broke off.
After a moment of mutual silence, Luther said, “You don’t have to come to a decision tonight. Wait until morning. If Chandal appears receptive, broach the subject. But... carefully. Any further excitement could be dangerous.”
Ron nodded dumbly.
“Well—” Luther rose wearily from the couch. “Tomorrow is Wednesday. Give it a day. Perhaps on Thursday.... But it must be soon.”
In the deadening silence which followed this solemn pronouncement, Luther slipped into his coat, after which both men moved into the courtyard. The unanticipated explosion of fresh air left Ron feeling lightheaded.
“And damn it! You get some sleep!” Luther boomed, as though he were trying to breathe new life into Ron’s sagging body.
Ron nodded and unexpectedly felt his eyes moisten. “Don’t worry about that,” he said and forced a smile.
With a brief show of compassion Luther placed his hand on Ron’s shoulder. “If you have any trouble tomorrow, call me.”
“I might just do that. And thanks.”
Luther pushed up his coat collar from habit, then disappeared around the side of the brownstone. His footsteps clicked along the flagstones, faded, then disappeared.
Moments later Ron opened the door to Chandal’s bedroom after knocking gently. Chandal lay asleep on top of the quilt. The moonlight caressed her face softly. One arm was crooked under her head, her legs pulled up tight against her chest in a fetal position.
She moaned uneasily, then turned over so that her face became hidden. She was mumbling something, but Ron could not make out what she was saying.
Transfixed, he watched until the restlessness in her body subsided, and her mumbling ceased. He swallowed, decided not to disturb her. He tiptoed to the window, cracked it open slightly, then hesitantly left the room.
He started to undress, but could only manage to kick off his shoes before flopping on the couch where he stretched out. Awkwardly he threw a light blanket over himself. He lay awake for a long time, every passing minute falling upon him like a stone causing ripples through his mind, until finally—things reshaped themselves, and all that remained in his mind was a large black uncertainty.
And then he slept.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
THE SPRING NIGHT AIR MADE NO MOVEMENT, AND THE clouds pressed inward like a cloak of death. From the far horizon came a faint flicker of lightning, its momentary glare an evocation of Ahriman’s brilliant intelligence, driving light into the cracks and crevices of the room. Objects quickly changed shape, and highlights shimmered on the dark polished headboard of the bed, dresser and small night table.
To Chandal, lying still on her bed, life seemed made up of these sudden flashes of clarity. She stared in her discomfort at the dark shadows of tree branches that contorted on her ceiling. Tiny droplets of perspiration covered her forehead and trickled down across her cheeks, under her armpits, beneath her lacteal and swollen breasts.
The more she thought about it, the more bitter she became. Arthur with sister. The two of them sneaking off together while she lay here alone, always alone and bored. So bored. She blinked, suddenly confused. But all that had happened a long time ago, hadn’t it? Hadn’t it? Why did the past refuse to relinquish its hold on her, leave her in peace to live in the present, where there was no responsibility, no identity, no history.
A groan rolled from her tightly pursed lips. Arthur with Magdalen. She would never be able to leave that image behind her. Yes, it was time she had it out with Arthur M. Showalter, Jeweler. Then, once and for all, the past would be obliterated.
Chandal rose from her bed, another in charge of her thoughts. The smile she smiled was not her own, but that of someone else. It was much easier for her to feel than think. She allowed the hate to rush freely through her body. She would not grope for causes or reasons—she would just do it.
No longer would she allow Arthur to make her “feel like she was not needed. Not loved.” It was deliberate and cruel, Arthur’s treatment of her. He did not even sleep with her anymore. He preferred the couch. He was down there now. Lying there, asleep. Satisfied with himself. Yes, he had been with sister again tonight, while she had been left to tend the baby. Always the baby. She clenched her fists.
Marry me, she had pleaded. The answer had always been no. So she had deliberately set out to make Arthur marry her. It had not been difficult. He was always so passionate. So willing. So eager. At first the baby had pleased her. It had been a great triumph. But she soon realized the baby had been conceived while Arthur had been thinking of sister. He had always been thinking of sister.
She hesitated and glanced at the azure light fixture in the stairwell. The light held her eye. A wry, thin smile twisted her mouth. A mocking smile that carried her forward to the edge of the steps. She peered down into the living room. Quiet. She had to remember to be very quiet. Mustn’t wake Arthur. No, mustn’t wake him.
Slowly, one step at a time, she descended the stairs. Her fists tightened as she viewed his sleeping body stretched out on the couch, a thin blanket covering his wiry frame. He hadn’t heard her come down the stairs. He hadn’t heard the low cry of the child. Sister’s child, not hers. Sister’s lover—not hers. He didn’t even care that sister was married to another man. Neither of them cared.
She moved softly into the kitchen with a kind of possessive fury and reached for the kitchen knife. Far off, lightning flashed again. A dog began to bark in the next yard. She froze. Waited. Would the dog wake him? No. He was too exhausted. He had been with sister for a long time tonight. Sister had consumed him. He was spent.
Outside, the wind rose. Tree branches scratched at the windows. Brittle fingers that sensed an inward itch. An itch to right a wrong. An itch to see the look on Arthur’s face when...
She stood over him now.
“Dear, sweet Arthur,” she moaned. “Dear, sweet sister.” She watched him roll over on his side. A sigh escaped his lips. She leaned forward and placed her knee on the couch. Raising the knife, she allowed herself to feel the weight of his body pressing against her knee. His face wore an expression of anxiety. Yes, sister had woven her magic again tonight, leaving him expectant and vulnerable. So vulnerable.
She tried to imagine them together. Him pouring out his feelings freely, his passion. Magdalen drawing him closer, devouring him completely, as she had devoured all the others. It was always Magdalen’s perverse appetites that kept them apart. It was Magdalen’s fault. Not hers. She was only doing what had to be done.
She gave a guarded look across the room. The baby’s cry had grown louder. Much louder. A disgruntled whine that screeched in her ear. Shut up! Her hand flexed around the knife’s handle. She drew the blade up and touched it to the left side of Arthur’s jaw, just below the corner of his mouth. For a brief moment she thought about running the blade through his flesh.
“Do it,” the voice hissed.
The baby’s cry quickened, came in short gasping howls.
“Do it now.”
“Please... please,” Chandal begged. “No more.”
“Kill him now!”
Chandal turned suddenly and moved toward the den.
“No. Stay out of there!”
Chandal rocked back on her heels. Why doesn’t Arthur wake up? Why doesn’t he hear the baby crying? Why doesn’t anyone hear the baby crying? Can’t they hear it? Can’t they?
But it wasn’t the child crying now, it was Chandal.
She swayed slightly with the knife in her hand. The child raised itself momentarily in the bassinet, hanging on, his two hands clutching the edge of it. The nostrils of his upturned nose glared at her. His mouth glittered in a downcast grimace. Great gushes of blood poured forth from the child’s chest, seeped through his nightgown, turning the blanket into a river of red.
With a last gasp, the child let go and toppled over onto his side. And then lay perfectly still.
Chandal screamed. Awoke suddenly to find herself standing in the den. Ron was beside her now, ashen-faced.
“Del? Del! It’s all right. It’s all right.”
Chandal turned. Stared into his eyes, the knife limp in her hand.
The fear was still visible in Ron’s eyes when he came into the living room a few minutes later. He quickly handed Chandal a glass of sherry. “Here.”
“No, I... I can’t drink it,” she moaned.
“Of course you can. It will help calm you.”
“No, please.” She pushed Ron’s hand aside. “Ron, it happened. You... you must believe me. Elizabeth killed her own child in that room.”
As she spoke, she rose on the couch to a sitting position and groped blindly for something to wipe the perspiration from her face. Her hand fell upon the blanket Ron had been using a few minutes earlier, and she began to daub her face with it.
“Del, please—lie down. I don’t want anything else to happen.”
“Nothing will,” she said. “I’m feeling much better.” She slowly looked around the room until her eyes settled on the door to the den. She rose. Memories suddenly flooded her mind. Dizzily she rocked back, placed her hand on the arm of the couch to restore balance. “Jesus....” She placed the tips of her fingers to her forehead. “I can see it.”
