Fountain Dead

by Theresa Braun

  “What’re we gonna do?” Her voice was shrill with desperation.

  Dad hiked up the waist of his jeans, which was his equivalent to rolling up his sleeves. “Mark, take your mother upstairs.”

  “And do what?” She blew away a piece of hair that had fallen in her eyes.

  “And stay up there so I can concentrate. I mean it.” As if from thin air, Dad pulled a stool from the shadows and sat under the wheel. “Hang on, Tausha!” Then he shooed the other two away as Salem curled up beside him.

  On the way up, Mark wondered if the ghost referred to his sister’s life. I won’t die this time. I promise…And neither will she. Was that a premonition? A warning? His brain scrambled.

  At the top of the stairs, he glanced back, thought for a moment he saw a shadow blanket his father. He blinked and it was gone.

  Mom sat with her back to the wall and rested her head on the doorframe. Her jaw tensed. “Bring me the phone book.”

  Mark stepped into the kitchen to retrieve the yellow pages and handed it to his mother.

  Following a walk of her finger through the L’s, she paused at a twenty-four-hour ad. Satisfied, she let the book sag into her lap. “He’s got one hour.” She tapped her watch. “One goddamn hour.”

  Her hand patted the space next to her. Mark positioned himself there.

  They both payed attention to every sound coming from the basement, getting ready to jump up and throw their arms around Tausha.

  But that clank of the lock, the squeal of the hinges hadn’t come.

  After a while, Mark felt that the oxygen had thinned out. His lungs didn’t hold enough air, no matter how deeply he inhaled. Light-headed, he couldn’t keep his eyes open. He nodded off, his head leaning against his mother’s shoulder, something he hadn’t done since he was much younger. When he caught himself, he jerked his head up. Did Tausha have enough air in the vault?

  Mom waved him back on her shoulder. “What happened to your hand?” she whispered.

  “I cut it on a broken mirror in the garage.”

  “How bad is it?” She reached for the bandage.

  Too tired to resist, Mark let her take a look. “It’s nothing, really.”

  After binding his hand back up, she said, “You know, I don’t think you should go up there anymore. It’s too dangerous.”

  The kicker: she didn’t even know the half of it. “Yeah, fat chance.”

  That was the last thing Mark remembered until a loud squeak made him jump.

  “Oh, my God! My baby!” Mom sprang to her feet and pulled a groggy Mark to his.

  They raced downstairs.

  January 1862

  At the opening of Jonathan’s door, Emma stumbled into the room. She plunked the lantern on the dresser and toppled onto the empty bed.

  Stepping near the window, he sucked on the end of his pipe, the embers flaring.

  She rested her head in her hands. A heap of tribulations smothered her. No money. No degree. No idea of where to go. Her brothers were of no use right now. She could write to Ollie, but his reply could take weeks, months. That was if he even gave a damn about her anymore—and if he hadn’t enlisted in the wars. Would they be able to rob Papa and get away with it? Residing under the same roof as her father sent a shudder through her. The sight of the skinned face and scalp refused to vacate her thoughts.

  “What’s her name?” Emma asked.

  “Zyanya.” Jonathan paced. Smoke hazed around him.

  “That’s pretty.” Knowing the woman’s name after all this time felt like an untied knot finally tightening. With that came a reminder that she had a home, a family, a life somewhere. Emma sniffled. “She’s as good as dead.”

  “Listen for a spell.”

  Emma thrust her arms over her eyes.

  “We tell your pa that hers is a medicine man, which he is. That much be truth.”

  Emma uncovered her face and propped her head up with a pillow. How long had he been holding onto that tidbit? How much Dakotan could he speak?

  “He wants his daughter home—he thinks I’ve stolen her for my wife. You know, like some prize. Now he’s tracked her here and demands her back.”

  What a solid rationale. Emma’s father could stick Jonathan with the blame, while getting rid of the squaw in his midst. It proved a double win. But she was curious about how far Jonathan had thought this through. “Why would Papa comply?”

  “It be either turn her over in restored health—or this house, this town—be raided by every last Sioux tribe. All damn thirteen of ‘em.”

  Emma sank back onto the pillow. “How in tarnation can we make such a threat?”

  After Jonathan set his pipe on the nightstand, he sat beside her. His palm cradled her knee. “You have to be certain ‘bout this.”

  “What’re you going to do?” She gripped his arm.

  “First, we gauge your pa’s intentions for a few days. He says he’s gonna cure her for me, on account of me standin’ in for your brothers in this house.” He drew in a deep breath. “You know, he be honorable with his debts and all, or so he says.”

  Her head rested on Jonathan’s arm. As a child she believed her father to be honorable. How depressing such a fiction had shattered. “And then? What if Riley or Hugh arrive?”

  “Either way, I locate the shaman an’ tell him where to find his daughter, which be why you must be sure.” He leaned over her, bringing the sweet smell of tobacco. “There just might be thirteen tribes at this door. An’ I don’t want you here for it.”

  She refrained from asking him where he wanted her to be, although she ached to hear him say it was with him. Since his proposed storyline painted himself as the enemy of the Dakota girl, it seemed he hadn’t planned a future with her. But Emma still had reservations about who he really was. Could he be trying to fool her in order to conceal an entirely different agenda?

  “How do you know where he is, if he’s even alive?” she asked.

  “Finding loose lips shan’t be too hard. Never is.” He lowered onto his side, his close proximity summoning a flight of butterflies in Emma’s stomach. “An’ because there be bits ‘bout me you don’t know.”

  “Does it have to do with that business you spoke of? That axe to grind?” Who was it he hated so much? And why? He’d alluded to spending time as a trapper and fur trader, but he’d looked away from her when he discussed it.

  His hand flexed and closed into a fist at her words, his gaze lost in remembering. “Somethin’ like that.”

  Emma placed her hand on his, and he interlaced his fingers in hers.

  The image of the Indian princess clinging to life downstairs raided Emma’s mind. She wrestled with reconciling that with her magnified yearning for Jonathan. Was it wrong to drape her arms around him and to surrender herself body and spirit, without a care about anyone, or anything? Without a care for the future? How she tired of thinking.

  He peered into her eyes, treading there like he’d never look away. She yielded to his investigation of her interior world, while she dived into his without any care of coming back to earth. All thoughts drifted.

  When she focused on lying next to Jonathan, she realized it was akin to the allure of Hugh’s embrace. At last she’d discovered a man other than her brother whose company likened to a protective void. What seemed unattainable literally was right at her fingertips.

  She couldn’t stand the idea of retreating to her room, alone. “Can I—?”

  An answer came in the form of a kiss. His lips gently pressed against hers. The tickling along her spine traveled all the way to her feet, and she sheepishly slid her arms about him. Was this really happening? She tucked her toes.

  Brushing the hair from her cheek, he touched his lips to her brow.

  A grin spread across his face, emitting warmth and bliss. His handsome features brightened. Being the reason for such a rare sight glistened Emma’s eyes.

  As he lay on his back, she rolled to close the space between them. Her mouth reunited with his, and he
eagerly responded. Their breath intermingled while his hands first pushed her tightly to him, but then sought to unravel the confines of her dress, which he peeled away from her shoulders. The layers of clothing fell from her body as his lips explored her neck.

  His hair brushed her shoulders, igniting an army of goosebumps. His skin was the scent of musky sweat and rain.

  She slipped her hands under his shirt. They moved along his smooth chest before she lifted the garment, and he sat up to take it off. A necklace of tiny bright-colored beads swayed across his torso.

  Emma palmed the pendant and looked over the beaded animal. “Where did you get this?”

  A beat passed. “Zyanya. It’s a coyote for protection. The animal be a symbol of resourcefulness and survival.” Prying it from her fingers, he spun the pendant around and let it fall at his back. “Which serves no purpose here and now.”

  His lips tenderly sought hers.

  Zyanya hadn’t worn this piece of jewelry, but maybe it’d been hidden in a secret pocket of her dress. If there had been beads in the house, the young woman certainly had time to create it from scratch. With each moment Emma’s mouth connected with Jonathan’s, her need to investigate her memory for clues dissolved.

  He tasted like some enchanted elixir.

  Nothing mattered but the here and now, just as Jonathan had stated.

  Once their bare chests made contact, and he caressed the sides of her breasts, she hungered for there to be nothing between them. After they kicked away the rest of their clothes, there wasn’t. What’s more, Emma sensed her heart knew no bounds. Hers and his beat as one and the same.

  Summer 1988

  When mother and son reached the mouth of the walk-in safe, it was open wide. A stale smell of the pent up air had permeated the outer atmosphere. There was something about the odor Mark couldn’t quite place, but it was similar to that of a musty Egyptian museum exhibit. By comparison to the rest of the basement, the vault was noticeably cooler.

  Dad stepped out of the blackness carrying Tausha, her arms wrapped around his neck. Each set of knuckles were red and bleeding. In one hand she clung to her tribally clad doll. Tausha whimpered, waking from a deep sleep. Her eyes squinted at the light like she’d been buried alive for a hundred years. She nuzzled her face into her father’s shoulder. “Daddy?” she muttered.

  “It’s okay, honey,” he said, pressing his cheek to the crown of her head.

  Mom ran to them. “Oh, my baby.”

  Barking, Salem spun in circles.

  With his back against the wall, Mark’s breathing stabilized. He watched the scene, feeling a part of the family because he was there, but also feeling excluded. Although it was true he wasn’t a parent, making the impact of the rescue different, he was the only one who viewed this incident as supernatural. While his parents focused on the fact that Tausha was all right, they appeared to have forgotten the unexplained nature of how she ended up in there in the first place. The awareness of that important detail didn’t register on either Dad or Mom’s face. Their failure to acknowledge that fact might’ve been the reason they hadn’t noticed Tausha’s coughing. She was a baby spitting up a spoonful of food, tonguing out the awful taste.

  Mark’s parents were busy embracing and kissing their daughter.

  A chemical odor singed his nostrils. He swallowed the bile at the back of his throat. Where was that coming from? Was it dangerous? But then it was gone.

  Salem pawed Dad’s legs, tail whacking from side to side.

  Due to all of the dreams and hallucinations Mark had suffered thus far, he continued to lose track of what was real and what transpired in his mindscape.

  On that note, Mark got a closer look at what dribbled from his sister’s lips. The liquid was mossy in color, which didn’t surprise him in the least. Not this again.

  —

  Tausha slept for what was left of the night in their parents’ room.

  Lying in bed, Mark listened to Mom and Dad hushing each other, for his sister’s sake. They all needed rest if they were going to be human the next day. Once they’d settled down, Mark was alone with the uncharacteristic silence of the house. None of the joints shifted. None of the windowpanes protested the breeze pushing against them. None of the shingles screamed while being clawed. Mark half-expected some new noises. Maybe the creaking of the attic floorboards, or even outright footsteps up there. Or the clatter of pots and pans in the kitchen. Ghostly voices in the servants’ quarters on the other side of the wall.

  Not one peep from anywhere.

  Mark repositioned himself, twisting in the sheets. The quieter the house got, the more anxious he felt. His blood pressure skyrocketed, when it should’ve been leveling out. He tried telling himself that the vault being open meant the forces needing attention were finally satisfied. The longer he remained awake, the more he felt as if the mattress sucked him into a vacuum. His breath caught in his throat, yet his exhaustion yanked him to sleep.

  —

  Mom was usually a suck it up and get on with life kind of person. But that morning, she’d been coddling Tausha. It was breakfast in bed and “Can I get you anything?”, “You want your toys?”, “You want me to read to you?”, or “What do you wanna watch on TV?”

  Mark was envious, until he recalled that he hadn’t been the one sealed in a would-be tomb. Yeah, he was lucky in that regard. The house might’ve had it in for him, but at least it hadn’t put him in a time out. Not yet, anyway. Was that an indication he was doing something right? Or maybe there was something about him that was more likeable, as far as the old Victorian was concerned. Perhaps the evil forces were saving him for last. Did that Jonathan have anything to do with any of it?

  “I’ll be down there if you need me,” Dad said in the next room before heading down the front staircase. Mark guessed he meant he’d be taking a closer look inside the chamber of doom, since there wasn’t any reason for him to announce he’d be going about his usual routine.

  Still sleep deprived, Mark felt compelled to reach for the shard of mirror. What if the girl in the garage hadn’t pulled down the tower of shelves? He wished he could thank her, to see her. The piece of the lantern reminded him he might never lay eyes on her again.

  Slipping the glass under his pillow, and smashing the other pillow to his face, Mark drifted back to sleep for a couple of hours. When he woke, he stretched and yawned to relieve the grogginess. He felt like when he was in the St. Paul emergency room having morphine pumped into him while his femur poked from his leg—temporarily forgetting where he was and that he even had a name.

  As his awareness crisped into focus, there was someone sitting on the bed. Her hair spilled over her shoulders while her kind eyes regarded his face. The soundtrack to a romance movie seemed to be playing in her head. She touched Mark’s cheek, and that was when he recognized he wasn’t dreaming. Her warm thighs pressed against his side.

  “Wake up, sleepyhead.” Her hand stroked just below his eye, making him flush.

  In this instance she manifested directly in front of him, in the flesh. He wasn’t having to bob and weave to glean her image in the piece of mirror.

  The voltage of their bodily contact woke the rest of him. Did she notice? Was that her intention? Had the perfume made him dizzy?

  The imprint of her lips on his was a trigger point of a million sexual scenarios parading through his head. Every position he’d seen in any magazine or movie was on the brink of shorting out his brain. Somewhere in there was the comfort of coming home, of uniting with a long lost friend. It was even more intense than the longing to see Jack again, who might as well have been a galaxy away.

  Mark’s eyes welled.

  The shower was running down the hall.

  “I—” His words were stuck. She’d said those three words to him more than once. He couldn’t believe he was about to say it back. That phrase he hardly spoke to his parents, to his sister. Much less to someone romantically. And weren’t there rules about how soon to say it a
nd when? How long did she think they knew each other? Wait, what was he thinking?

  “Shh—I know.” She smiled the way most fashion models strive for: radiant and genuine, and full of life. “We need to get her out. It’s not too late.”

  What was she talking about? Tausha was out of the dungeon. Everything was fine. And he wasn’t leaving anytime soon. That made zero sense.

  She kissed him and the kryptonite erased his concerns.

  Mark didn’t remember seeing a woman—or person—so beautiful, ever. That wasn’t because of any particular physical feature. Every part of himself awakened, merely relishing her presence. All of the molecules of his body zinged. His heart and mind dropped their guard. Being this vulnerable was the most incredible sensation. That, and being able to trust her while in this state.

  His hand slid up her thigh, soft and firm.

  She shut her eyes and grinned.

  His other hand traveled to her breast and cradled it.

  As the bathroom door down the hall burst open, Mark flinched. Sitting up, he careened his head to see if someone was coming. What would his mother say if she caught a stranger in his room? On his bed? Touching him? There’d be no rational explanation.

  He turned his attention back to the person next to him: Tausha. His sister’s eyes, as star struck as they were when she watched him play the keyboard, caressed his face.

  “Tausha?” Mom called from the neighboring room.

  “Ah! What’re you doing?” Mark asked his sister. Springing from the bed, he did an animated jig. While shaking the offending hand more briskly, he paused when it struck him that Tausha was as flat as a board.

  Impossible.

  “Tausha?” Mom called once more.

  “She’s in here,” Mark replied, still dancing around, his eyes clamped shut.

  Her expression transitioned back to her childlike self. In a typical Tausha timbre, tinged with sass, she spoke. “Why’re you acting like such a dufus? You’re freaking me out.”

  I’m freaking you out?

  “Oh, and don’t hide this there.” His sister reached under his pillow and set the fragment of mirror on the nightstand where it’d been previously.