by SA Sidor
“I get paid to return men to inescapable places.”
Oscar jerked the door open. “Would you care to test it?”
McTroy did not move.
“I have the keys,” Oscar said, giving it a jingle. “Perhaps you have a fear of confinement? Some men do. It is nothing to be ashamed of. But we would never leave you in the cage. It is only for our amusement. Please, McTroy. Get inside. I’ll pay you five hundred dollars. No? A thousand? One thousand dollars for five minutes locked in my cage. Do we have a deal?”
“I’ll do it,” said a woman’s husky contralto voice.
We all turned to spot her in the corner by the last window of the row.
A young woman emerged from the Persian silk brocade drapery. Her wine-colored dress provided her camouflage, since the drapes were likewise plummy and dark, and her stillness rivaled the predators in Oscar’s macabre zoo. She did not resemble either of her parents. Her heart-shaped face was far too exotic. The young Adderly’s enormous amber eyes were spaced too far apart to be labeled conventionally beautiful, and yet what might have been unlovely in others was mesmerizing in Cassiopeia. She wore her sleek butterscotch hair shockingly short, cut like a boy’s. But her shapely figure left no doubt as to her sex. No jewelry of any kind adorned her. She glided to the cage. I was surprised to see her walking barefoot. As she embraced Oscar one of her feet flexed up, revealing a sole as black as smoke.
“This is my daughter, Cassiopeia,” Oscar said for our benefit. He held her face and kissed her cheeks. “The offer is only for McTroy, Cassi.”
“But why can’t I play. I would like a thousand dollars.”
“Why do you need money? You have everything.”
“I would go away. And seek my fortune in the world. I would roam,” she said.
“Speaking of roaming, where is your brother?” Oscar glanced about the trophy room to check if his male offspring might be hiding there too.
“Claude went outside.”
“Went outside alone? Does the boy have a wish to die? It is near midnight and cold and, in case you haven’t heard, wild beasts are on the prowl.”
“He’ll be fine.”
Oscar sighed. “How do you know that?”
“Because he always is,” she said. While her father hung his head in disappointment, Cassi took the opportunity to grab the cage door and shut herself in. She rattled the door to make sure it had locked.
It had.
“I am a prisoner!” she shouted. Her laughter rang in the trophy room. I was sure no woman’s laughter had ever been louder in that hunter’s den. I hid my smile behind my fist, feigning a cough. But Cassi heard everything, missed nothing. Once I drew her attention, she laughed again, the full sound of her booming throughout the lodge.
“Who will save me?” she cried, widening her eyes at me in particular.
Her father produced the keys, and in his frustration fumbled them. Practically purple-faced with anger, Oscar lurched to catch the falling keyring, and kicked it instead. The trophy room’s polished floor offered as much friction as an icy pond. The ring skimmed over to me.
I scooped it up with my stick.
The keys dropped into my hand.
In a few steps I stood at the cage. Cassi kept her chin tucked low and her eyes up. If I didn’t know better I might’ve feared that releasing her would be a mistake – that this lively, odd young lady would enjoy nothing so much as to pounce on me. She smiled a sharp-toothed grin.
“Now if I let you out, will you promise to be good?”
She shook her head – No.
“Despite your answer, I’m opening the cage.” I inserted a key, felt the heft of the well-oiled mechanism tumble smoothly, and with a decisive chock! the weighty door swung free. I stepped back. Cassi offered me her hand. I took it, and feeling the rough callouses on her palms, became momentarily distracted. She yanked me into the cage with her. Then she relieved me of the keys, tossing them far into the room where they slid under a towering mound of bison skulls.
“We are both prisoners now,” she whispered in my ear. Her breath felt warm on my neck, yet I shivered. Then she cried out to the others, “Whatever shall we do?” She slunk to the rear of our cage, dropping to the floor and curling her legs under her. There she reclined against the bars.
“Cassi!” Oscar yelled in dismay.
Vivienne appeared entertained by my predicament.
Wu watched with his mouth hanging open.
Evangeline looked cross, though I could hardly guess why.
McTroy said, “Stay locked up, Doc. It will do you some good.”
Evangeline discovered Oscar’s liquor cabinet and refilled her brandy. McTroy retrieved his glass from the antlers and joined her.
Oscar kneeled, peering into the bison skulls for a glimpse of his lost keys.
“Do you not have a duplicate?” Vivienne asked him.
He shook his head. “The locksmith mailed me two. But they are both on the same ring.”
“We are locked in here for good! I shall need a blanket to sleep on for the night. Unless you are warm. What is your name, cellmate?” She patted the floor beside her. I sat down.
“Rom Hardy,” I said. We shook hands. Again I was struck by the toughness of her skin.
“Call me Cassi, Rom. Are you very warm?”
“I am getting there,” I answered truthfully.
“More importantly,” she said, with a look of grave seriousness, “are you willing to share your warmth with me should the situation call for it?” She blinked, waiting for me to answer.
“I am–”
Chock!
Cassi and I saw Evangeline removing a pair of bent hairpins from the opened lock.
“You’ve picked it!” Cassi cried. “I must know how you did that.”
“One of my talents,” Evangeline said, replacing her hairpins. “I’ll show you tomorrow, if you’d like.”
Cassi jumped to her feet and nodded emphatically.
“She learned it from magicians,” I said, afraid I sounded as disappointed as I felt.
“How marvelous,” Vivienne said. “Did the magicians teach you much?”
“The Davenport Brothers? Oh, they were more dedicated to ropes and knots and putting musical instruments where you’d least expect them. Spirit-cabinet mediums – Ira and Henry were also frauds, of course. Their father was a policeman. They knew how to rake a lock. Nimble fingers, a bit of savvy, and the patience that comes with mature men. But I was the better picklock by the time we parted. I brought a lock to bed with me every night. Practice, practice…”
“I should love to hear your stories,” Vivienne said.
I was brushing myself off as McTroy said, “Doc, you look like you lost your best friend.”
“Yet you are still here.”
“Aw, I didn’t know you felt that way. You are the little brother I never wanted.”
“Tears spring into my eyes – I am blinded with emotions.” I tapped along the bars.
Cassi gave me a bewildered look as she left the cage.
“We are not brothers, and I see things perfectly well,” I said.
But her focus had shifted elsewhere, to the trophy room’s threshold, where a man entered, staggering and crashing into the liquor cabinet. He clutched his arm. Blood ran off his fingertips.
“Claude!”
8
A Dangerous Condition
“Claude!” Vivienne repeated her daughter’s exclamation. “You’ve been attacked!”
“It looks far worse than it is,” he said. “Might I bother someone to pour me a whiskey? My hands are sticky with this stuff.” He flicked his hand and sprinkled us with blood. Then he appeared shocked at what he’d done – the gruesome splashes he’d made on everyone. The young man’s face grew ashen. He teetered unsteadily. “Sorry about that. Can’t get my paws clean.” He swung his head loosely. “Who are all these people? Why do they tilt when I try to look
at them?”
Cassi rushed to her sibling, holding him upright. She was strong. His legs had gone rubbery and were useless.
“Brother, you are hurt!” she exclaimed.
Claude laughed weakly.
I brought him a chair from a dining table behind the cage. “Here you go,” I said.
“I do not recognize you. You must be a new friend,” he said. “I would shake, but…?”
I helped Cassi to settle him into the chair.
“You smell of smoky fires, new friend,” Claude said, pulling away from my jacket. “Or is it me?” He gave himself a deep and thorough sniff and ran his gory fingers through his hair.
“And you smell of the bottle,” I said, wrinkling my nose.
“Claude is delirious with blood loss,” Oscar said. “I’ll send for a doctor.”
“He’s drunk,” I said.
“I scraped myself on a tree… a tree, a tree… I did not see. That rhymes, doesn’t it, sister?”
“What were you doing in a tree?” Oscar asked.
“Falling out of it, Father. Hitting all the branches on my way down.”
“He has a long but superficial cut on the back of his hand. A small gash on his cheek. He might’ve knocked his head when he fell, but I think it’s mostly whiskey at fault here,” I said.
“Are you a doctor?” Claude asked me.
“Yes… of archaeology.”
“Am I to be wrapped like a mummy? And buried in a pyramid?” The prospect seemed to alarm him and he clung to his sister’s sleeve, leaving bloody smears.
“Mummies are usually not entombed in pyramids,” I said. “We’ve only ever found parts. Robbers are the likeliest cause. Or the bodies of the pharaohs were moved as a precaution. But yours is a common misconception. That is why more Egyptian exploration needs to be done.”
“Really? Where shall I be buried then?” Claude hiccupped.
I feared his drink would make a second appearance.
“In the snow, you fool.” Oscar threw a fistful of napkins from the liquor cabinet into his son’s lap. “You’re lucky you didn’t break your neck. Climbing up a tree? Laying out there in a snowdrift, freezing to death – that might teach you a lesson.”
“Leave Claude alone,” Cassi said, staring at her father coldly.
Claude, despite his inebriation, summoned the concentration to match his sister’s glaring menace. I saw what Evangeline had mentioned about the twins’ uncanniness: how they mirrored each other not only in physical traits (same height, coloring, bone structure, bearing, etc) but in attitude, and even synchronized movements.
They were like two bodies controlled by a single mind.
Vivienne wheeled herself over to Claude.
“Let me see you, dear. Are you certain I shouldn’t ask Hodgson to fetch the doctor?”
Oscar stormed off, disgusted.
The twins swiveled around and watched until he vanished into the hallway. The tension eased out of them in a perceivable and collective sigh. Their eyes became droopy, as if thoughts of sleep occurred to them suddenly, concurrently.
Claude licked a trickle of blood from his wrist.
“Don’t do that,” Vivienne said. “It’s revolting.”
“It’s only me, Mother,” he said. “I taste like salt and Tennessee whiskey. There are worst things to eat, believe me, I know.”
Cassi slapped his thigh, and he flinched and attempted to bop her but she shifted away too quickly. He fell back into the chair, lounging with his lids closed and a soft burr in his throat.
“I’ll bandage him.” Cassi took her brother’s arm and began to clean the wound with a lace trimmed handkerchief she pulled from her sleeve.
“How did you end up in a tree?” Evangeline asked.
“I wanted a better view. Climbing was the best way to get it. I didn’t think. I just went.”
“And that is why your father is so angry, Claude.” Vivienne shook her head. “You know it is dangerous to be out on the mountain at night.”
“What is it you wanted a view of?” Evangeline asked.
Claude half-opened one eye.
“The Beast,” he said, growing more alert.
“You saw the Beast tonight?” I asked. “Right here, near the lodge?”
“A few leaps and bounds away… there’s a ravine or two between us and it. But I saw something large and strange making tracks in the snow. The breath flew out its nostrils in two great plumes, like a dragon. I could see it breathing from a quarter mile off. I had a telescope in my pocket.” He reached into his pocket and withdrew a brass tube and some broken lenses. “But I was too low. There was pine scrub in my way. That’s why I needed to put myself at a higher elevation. I’m a formidable tree climber. Cassi will attest to the fact.”
“Getting down is another matter,” Cassi said.
“Thus, I am bloodied, drunk, and exhausted by my efforts.”
“If what you said is true, I must tell Oscar immediately,” Vivienne said.
“Tell me what?”
Oscar reappeared, carrying soap and water, towels, and a roll of bandages. He passed the items to his daughter, who gave him a little smile signaling forgiveness for his previous outburst.
“Your son saw the Beast,” I said.
“Where? What did it look like? Are you sure it was the Beast? Speak, boy.”
“Give me a chance.” Claude stretched and took his time relaying the same story he had told us to his impatient father. Oscar hung on his every word.
“To the north?” he asked, as he paced the trophy room. He approached the windows, and then he returned to his children. But he could not keep his feet still and was off again, this time lapping around to the far side of the cage.
“I think so…” Claude replied, languidly. “I hit my head and have grown fuzzy.”
“You said ‘to the north’. Is that correct? Yes or no? You do know which way north is, don’t you? Damn it!” Oscar pounded his fist onto the table.
We all jumped.
Claude sat forward and grabbed his head. “You’re giving me a terrible pain, Father.”
“The Beast keeps to this mountain as of late… to my mountain. Those idiots gathered at the Starry Eyes can chase their tails in the hills around Raton. The Beast goes higher with each kill. If the Beast decides to move down, they will push it up again. It doesn’t like to be seen, this one. That is our challenge. To probe every crack on this ridge until we drive it into the open.”
A peculiar sound started then, like the whistle we’d heard in the Starry Eyes, only deeper and more richly toned. It did not pierce or shriek. The call was lonesome. But it made the hairs on my neck dance like variety girls. The howl – for it was a howl more than a whistle now – echoed in a nearby canyon. It was not close, but it was not far either.
McTroy, who had not spoken, walked to the windows. I watched as he cocked an ear toward the glass. The howl carried over the ridge. I felt it quaking in my chest. I’d swear I did.
“That’s no wolf,” he said.
“It is a trick of the wind,” Oscar said, “piping through a fissure of stone, a hole perhaps.”
“Have you heard it before? This howl we’re listening to right now?”
Oscar did not answer, and that was an answer in itself.
“Wu, do you know this call? Is it any creature you’ve ever run across?”
Yong Wu shook his head. His parents were creatures of the night, and Wu’s relationship with them brought him into contact with unusual beings: the living, dead, and in-between.
“Deep lungs… a lot of air… it has not taken a breath yet,” Wu said. “It’s big.”
“It’s wind,” Oscar said again. “That’s why it goes on so long.”
“Look out the windows. No trees moving. What kind of wind doesn’t blow trees?” McTroy gazed over the gray peaks, the pearly snow, and the sky like diamonds stuck in tar.
Evangeline knelt next
to Claude’s chair. “Did you hear the Beast? When you were out there tonight, hiding in the tree, did it call to you? Did it make any sound?”
Claude lifted his head as if to tell us something of great importance. His eyes were glazed, his mouth partly open. The breath between his lips, quick and sour, flowed so strong I could taste the flavor of it, like iron mixed with maple sugar. His body bent like a bow.
He vomited a puddle of whiskey onto the floor.
There was blood in it.
And a small lump shaped very like a bird.
Cassi threw a towel over his mess. Oscar called for the servants to clean the floor.
I whispered into Evangeline’s ear. “I saw something in Claude’s disgorgement. I think it might have been a finch of some sort. The colors were… difficult to detect.”
Evangeline did not react as most women would. She raised an eyebrow and asked, “Do you think you could check it again?”
“The idea holds no appeal for me.”
“Certain curses may cause a person to eject foreign objects. Vivienne is a witch. Her son may be the subject of an attack on a level not entirely physical. If you won’t look, then I will.”
She crossed in front of me, but I stopped her from proceeding farther.
“Very well,” I said.
Claude slumped in his chair, his blanched countenance slightly improving, but a greasy sweat matted down his hair and darkened his collar; he’d closed his eyes again, and I could see them rolling around in their sockets. His hands were twitching too, as if he were receiving tiny jolts of electricity. Cassi added a second towel to soak up the whiskey. The smell did not seem to bother her much, but I felt my own gorge rising at the tangy acidic fumes. Yet I approached.
Using the end of my stick, I lifted a towel corner.
“Rom! Stay away, please,” Cassi said. “Back… go back.”
“Might I inspect the evidence of his… sickness?”
Claude moaned and twisted in the chair, drawing up his knees and hugging them to his chest. Sweat soaked his shirt, and I could see the knobs of spine. He was slimmer than his sister.
“Whatever for?” Cassi asked.
A good question. Perhaps an excellent one. Should I venture to say: a possible finch?