The Brownstone, page 31
“What was that?” asked Fein, stopping in the kitchen doorway.
“The cat,” Justin said unpleasantly, ushering Fein to the front door.
“What are you going to do now?” Fein asked, smoothly slipping his hat on and straightening the brim. He looked preoccupied and kept glancing back into the kitchen.
“Ask around. Make a few phone calls. There’s always work for a good director.” Justin wondered if Fein believed him about the cat.
“We could try again, you know.” He shrugged. “I never fail at anything. I want a hit show. You could give it to me, if—”
“If?”
“You calm down, get help. Something’s bothering you that isn’t right. Maybe it’s your wife. So she leaves for California. Am I right?”
“That’s right,” Justin said.
“And now maybe everything will be okay. In a few weeks, we find another show. I got friends, big friends. This time—Broadway.”
Justin suddenly found it amusing that the producer had only one thing on his mind—to have a hit play. It would have been nice, Justin thought. Maybe back—when? It all seemed so damn long ago. The hope, the enthusiasm. Within the great barn-like theater, the crowd seated row after row waiting for the great event. The play. Justin’s play, the one he had just directed. The play that he loved like a child, cheering for it to take flight, hoping that it would be loved. Through sleepless nights, endless rehearsals, huge scenic backdrops, half-walls, a limbo of mirror images, a world that had never lost its third dimension, Justin had only one thought. I hope they love the play.
But he soon discovered that the theater was not born out of love; it was born out of hollow cliches. When you’re hot, you’re hot. A star was born tonight. The play’s the thing, and who you’re sleeping with, who your agent’s sleeping with, which critic was a friend of a friend, and if you are circumcised. Money talks, and bullshit walks. Well, not anymore.
Justin smiled. “Broadway. If sounds nice. Any script I choose?” he asked, toying with Fein.
“If I like it.”
“What kind of budget?”
“Million. Million and a half.”
“No shit, that’s terrific!”
“I think it is.”
“To tell you the truth, things have sure changed in one day. Yesterday, you dump me from an Off-Broadway show. Today, you get me on Broadway with a budget of a million and a half!” He moved his body close to the producer. “Tell me, what would you say we’ve been doing?”
“I don’t understand?”
“Jerking each other off, pal. I mean, if we’re going to do it, let’s do it until we get it right!”
“You son-of-a-bitch!”
“Get out,” Justin said calmly.
“Okay, all right, suit yourself. But the next time you’re looking for work, don’t come to me!”
Justin slammed the door in his face.
Chandal waited for Justin to make the next move toward her; he didn’t. Instead, he slowly climbed the stairs to the second floor, opened the door without knocking, passed down the long hallway, and entered Magdalen’s bedroom.
The spare room was quiet, dark, and cold.
Chandal switched on the light; it didn’t work. She went to the dresser to find something warm to wear. Instead, she found the drawers stuffed with old magazines, back issues of Playboy, Vogue, and House Beautiful. Next she went to the closet, got down on her knees, and plowed through the cardboard box tucked away in the corner. Silently she pulled up the rags and bits of blanket from where they’d been thrown out onto the floor. She stopped suddenly, lifted out a crumpled sweater, put it on. Next she found a ragged jacket and wrapped it around herself. She stuffed the remaining bits and pieces of clothing into the window. Her hands were nearly frozen.
She didn’t try to do anything after that—just waited. Better not do anything foolish, she thought. Her mind wandered. What are you thinking?
She couldn’t hear her own thoughts. Her brain felt dizzy, stunned.
What are you remembering?
She removed her hands from her pockets. Blew on them to warm them.
There, there, everything will be all right now. Her mother’s warm hand brushing against her cheek as she straightened the covers. First memory as a child. Near dawn, she must have had a nightmare.
She drew a trembling breath.
Where was Billy?
She closed her eyes. The spare room had grown colder.
Gathering darkness, the day was slipping by. Chandal could do nothing to stop it.
She was on the floor; her mother, wearing a long silk dress, was speaking into a wall telephone. Chandal had tugged at her mother’s hem; a shaft of sunlight crossed her mother’s shoe. Second memory as a child.
The lights were coming on all over the city now. Lights in the windows of the stores, taverns, and on street comers.
Chandal’s eyes started to shut. No! She couldn’t allow herself to sleep. Moonlight slanted in through the shutters, past the broken glass, and seemed to filter through her lashes straight into her eyes. Inside her head, thoughts continued to churn around and around. She was cold and frightened, but wouldn’t allow herself to sleep. Yet, after a while, she must have dropped off. If she hadn’t, how could something wake her up?
And it did.
“Night... night,” sighed the young girl who stood near the open doorway.
Chandal opened her eyes wide. She saw the young girl, her face half-illuminated and half-shadowed by the light coming from the kitchen.
“Don’t be frightened. I want to speak with you” she said in a whisper.
“Go away” Chandal mumbled weakly, her arm hanging limp against her body.
With the street noise unintelligibly distant, the young girl shut the door. She was almost impossible to see now as she laughed, a high-pitched snarl, an animal noise. Chandal looked with frightened eyes at the young girl, who had now transferred herself to the far comer of the room in a single instant.
“When you hear the sweet, thin sound of the tin whistle, the ceremony will have begun. Justin and I will be together then—for life” She paused for a moment to look out the window. She now wore the smile of an idiot. “Steven and I will be together again. My sister, Elizabeth, has promised me that she will not kill him like she did the last time. She has promised to let us be happy. To live together in this house like before. She will be gone. But Steven and I will still be here.”
“Justin is not your Steven!”
She smiled. “Not the sniveling coward who went crying to you, no. But there is a new Steven now—the way I want him to be. We will be happy and you can be part of that happiness—do you understand?”
Slowly, awkwardly, Chandal rose to her feet. “What do you want of me?”
“I want you—to become me.”
Chandal’s eyes were glazed. She could barely make out the young girl, who seemed lost to the shadows of the room. Chandal pushed the thought from her lips. “Who... who are you?”
The young girl drifted softly forward into the half-light that clustered near the center of the room. The train of her white lace dress floated ghost-like behind her, swirling about her ankles and tiny bare feet.
“Magdalen. I’m Magdalen as I used to be. I will be dead soon, but you must take my place.”
Chandal looked back at her and slowly—Oh, God!—she understood. She wasn’t going crazy. Magdalen stood before her—younger, but underneath it an old woman panting for life, and that was the object of it all—wasn’t it?—staying alive. Take Chandal’s body—use it as her own. Transfer her soul into another’s body, and now Chandal’s stomach was starting to cramp slightly, and that would be funny—to die before Magdalen, but Chandal would not let that happen. She tried to speak but couldn’t because she was in a terrible sickening pain, around and around, but this time she knew the cause. Suddenly she vibrated in a high-pitched scream, “Never!” She gasped for air, as if hit by a fist across the throat. “Never,” she murmured, barely able to speak.
Chandal’s head was suddenly jerked back, held in place by the wrenching of her hair, back against her neck. Her body jerked in short movements—receiving electrical charges. Then the stillness came as the girl descended on her.
“You have no one to help you. You are alone,” she hissed.
“Billy...” Chandal could hardly get the word out.
“No.” The girl smiled. “Billy has been ours for some time. He belongs to us now. Sheila, foolish girl—she is gone. All of them gone.” The girl drew closer, lovingly looked into Chandal’s face, almost as if to reach out and kiss her. “It is you... and me now.”
Chandal reached down into her stomach, drew deeply upon the poisonous hatred inside herself, and spat in the girl’s face.
The girl laughed. A demented laugh.
Again, the girl had changed positions; she stood by the door. “You will do as I ask. In a few days, the fasting will purify you, the cold will seduce you, and I will always be present, in one shape or another.” With the greatest contempt, she laughed and left the room. The door slammed shut and locked itself in one swift motion.
In the attic, Justin and the young girl stood naked before the altar. Strewn before them and about the circle were flowers—red roses and violets. Elizabeth, in her black priestess robe, stood waiting, torch in hand, and mannequins in black tunics formed the coven. The two rings were passed through the flame and placed side by side upon the altar beside the goblet of blood. Elizabeth brought the tin whistle to her lips and began to blow. The Handfasting Ceremony had begun.
From the darkness, the sudden swell of sound: the squealing and squeaking of the whistle. Chandal covered her ears to block out the sound. It was so sharp that her nose opened up and started to bleed. With one hand still covering her ear, she tried to stop the bleeding with her handkerchief. The bleeding continued. She threw herself across the bed and raised her legs into the air. Holding her head back as far as it would go, she wiped the blood from her cheeks. After a moment, the bleeding stopped.
In the attic, Elizabeth proclaimed, “There are those in our midst who seek the bond of Handfasting. Let them come forward.” Justin and the young girl came forward to stand face to face.
“And what is your desire?” Elizabeth asked Justin.
“To be made one with Magdalen Krispin in the eyes of Ahriman.”
“And what is your desire?” she asked the young girl.
“To be made one with Steven M. Rock in the eyes of Ahriman.”
Elizabeth picked up the knife from the altar, raised it high. “Ahriman, here before you stand two of your followers. Witness, now, that which they have to declare.”
Chandal rose from the bed, moved about the room, caged, her eyes darting sharply at every sound, the blood still covering her cheeks. Did Justin know what he was doing? Perhaps he wasn’t aware, didn’t actually know! She ran to the door and screamed, “Justin!”
She clawed at the door until her hands were covered with blood. Her eyes, filled with tears, strained to see. “Oh, God—please! No! Justin!”
“Repeat after me.” As Elizabeth spoke, the young girl and Justin repeated her words. “I do come here of my own free will, to seek the Partnership with thee; I come with all love, wishing only to become one with thee and Ahriman. Each other’s life we will defend before our own. May this knife be plunged into our hearts should we not be sincere in all that we declare. All this we swear in the name of Ahriman. May he give us the strength to keep our vows. So be it.”
Chandal slid to the base of the door completely numb. Her body lay in a heap—she gasped for air. Each breath she took into her chest caused a sharp pain and it felt like she was being stabbed to death by icicles. She muttered over and over again her husband’s name.
Elizabeth took up the two rings and sprinkled them with censes. She then handed the young girl’s ring to Justin and Justin’s ring to the young girl. “Ever love, help, and honor each other and then know truly that you are one in the eyes of Ahriman. So be it.”
Justin and the young girl each placed the ring on the other’s finger and kissed. They then kissed Elizabeth. After this was done, they began the Ceremony of Cake and Ale, followed by games and merriment.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
THE SNOW FELL HARD IN THE BRIGHT SATURDAY morning light. Chandal could see nothing from the crack in the shutters except the falling of the thick white flakes.
As the snow drifted and drove past her eyes, she turned and glanced through the small room; it had been crystallized; a thin veil of white frost covered everything—the floor hard and cold, a danger to walk on.
She had not eaten in three days. She was isolated, behind the shifting wall of snow. She raised her hands before her, palms upward, the dried blood covering them. They were trembling. She looked in terror, tried to move her lips, but no words came. For a moment, the room was quiet. Then from above, she heard the noise of drunken singing and voices bawling and brawling; they had continued to celebrate throughout the night and into the morning.
Lying on the bed, Chandal listened to what sounded like dancing now, heavy footsteps, and the young girl singing. The thumping lasted for almost an hour. Suddenly Chandal began to scream, but the noise above didn’t stop. Screaming like a baby now, she picked up anything she could find and began flinging it at the ceiling. Justin had started to sing now, and, suddenly through it, Chandal heard the long, high, distant cry of Elizabeth which dwindled into silence.
For a moment, the brownstone was still.
Shoulders tense, Chandal stood on the bed and wondered what had happened. She waited. The stillness suggested the climax after death. Something had gone wrong upstairs—she was sure of it.
A hissing sound drew her attention to the corner of the room, and there, coiled on the chair, was a huge snake, flat head and neck raised, waiting to strike. Chandal could actually feel her heart stop, then start again; she breathed in short gasps, her breath visible in the frigid air.
The snake’s black diamonds were clearly outlined by a row of creamy scales, and the creature appeared to be at least six feet long. Its loosely attached upper and lower jaws contained two rows of teeth on each side, teeth that curved backward.
The snake, now moving its head from one side to the other, lifted its elastic throat, which stretched out to receive what had been offered to it. Its eyes bulged, the skin of its neck distended, separating from time to time, breathing through a stiff tubular attachment, longing to devour its prey.
Something was slithering in Chandal’s windpipe. Gagging, she tried to open her mouth. Her jaws locked. From inside her body, the thing pushed its way up toward her mouth.
The snake shot out its fangs.
Chandal was caught between two forces: one within, the other without.
Yellowish fluid began to drip from the snake’s mouth, running down its scaly neck. Its eyes lit up like red glowing rubies, as its head moved in a slow circular motion.
Chandal’s hands shot to her throat; she was being strangled to death. She squeezed, trying to rid herself of whatever had taken hold of her. She squeezed, harder. Suddenly something released itself from within, slithered away, sending a rush of shivers up and down her body.
Slowly the snake lowered its head, dropped from the chair, and started toward her. She stepped back against the wall, looking for something to protect herself with. The snake quickly moved under the bed and disappeared. Above, the laughing and singing began again.
Chandal could not bring herself to move. She stood motionless for a long time, her physical discomfort mixed with her fear. Was the snake crawling up onto the bed? She wanted to squeeze closer to the wall, but her body refused to budge.
Shaking miserably, she finally managed to slide along the wall to the side of the bed. Just as she was about to step down, the snake’s head shot straight up and lunged, fangs ready. She jumped back, leaped from the opposite side of the bed, and threw herself into the closet. Slamming the door shut, she frantically stuffed bits of rags into the space between the door and the floor.
She had made it—she was safe again, but she reminded herself that she must be on guard at all times.
Justin stood beside Magdalen’s bed—she was very ill. Elizabeth, in a lazy, offhanded way, rose from the table behind Justin, crossed to the window, looked out. The snow was still falling. If she had any devotion for her sister, she hadn’t displayed it at this time. Nothing reached her now except indistinct sounds, voices from the past. She gazed from the window into the yard below and thought of her sister locking her away in the closet.
“The snow won’t stop. It’s like the last day,” Magdalen said to Justin softly.
He knew that she hadn’t long to live. I won’t allow it, he said to himself. I won’t allow it! He bowed his head and wept.
“No! No weakness. You should be ashamed of yourself,” she said, her gentle eyes reaching out to meet his.
Notwithstanding the calmness with which she spoke, Justin saw how deeply she suffered. He restrained himself from saying what was really on his mind, so that nothing he said would disturb her further. “Magdalen, we will be together again. I promise.”
“She’s killed herself for you already,” murmured Elizabeth, “by staying in that form too long.”
He reached out and took Magdalen’s hand in his. Before him, at that moment, he did not see an old and withered body and face, but the beautiful apparition of the young girl with whom he had fallen in love. He imagined her long flowing red hair, her green eyes, and the softness of her pale and lovely face.
An image came to Chandal of herself inside a casket, the lid being closed. I’m alive! Alive! She shook her head to clear it of the vision. It was being locked up in this closet, this box-like chamber. No, wait. Had Magdalen put the thought there? So that she would leave the closet. The snake! Something brushed across her leg and she was quickly certain that the snake was inside the closet with her! Get hold of yourself. Relax, she soothed. You’ve got to get out of here, that’s all. She reached for the door; her breathing came in short, labored sobs. She was not far from hysteria.
