House of Bathory

by Linda Lafferty

  “What is this?” said Betsy, shaking the small book at him. “What does it have to do with my father?”

  “My dear. That is why I had to kill him.”

  Grace twisted hard in the chair, her feet thumping the stone floor. Her eyes were wide and white. She shook her head violently.

  Betsy stared back at the Count. She zipped the book back into her pocket, her hands moving mechanically.

  “You? You killed my father?”

  Betsy could hear the thud of her mother’s shoes, her heels beating against the stone. A warning.

  But the mention of her father pulled Betsy toward the man crouched on the floor.

  “What are you talk—”

  The Count snatched her ankle and brought her down. Morgan’s switchblade was in his hand.

  Betsy struggled and kicked at the knife. “No, this isn’t for you,” he cried, surging to his feet. The knife clattered to the floor. “Bathorys die encased in stone, for eternity.”

  With the strength of a lunatic, he dragged her by the leg toward the shadows of the room. A large opening loomed black in the corner. She felt the cold air, heard rushing water in the darkness below.

  “This is how a true Bathory dies,” said the Count, rolling her off the edge. “Buried in the rock.”

  John heard Daisy’s voice in the corridor below. He pushed past the butler, Whitehall, and the police officers, clattering down the stairs.

  “Daisy! Where are you?”

  “Down here!” she screamed. “Help us!”

  Her voice trailed off. She had returned to the dungeon.

  Daisy saw that Morgan was soaked in even more blood than before. Her hands were slick and crimson, her face splattered.

  And the Count had disappeared.

  Morgan’s eyes had a haunted look.

  “He’s gone,” was all she said. Then she was silent.

  Daisy touched her sister’s cheek. She put her arms around Morgan, rocking her against her shoulder.

  “It’s all right, Morgan, it’s all right. You saved me again. Let me take care of you.”

  Morgan stared glassy-eyed past Daisy’s shoulder.

  Just steps behind Daisy, John rushed in.

  “Where’s Betsy? Is she here?”

  Daisy stood up. “No! She was here, John. When I ran to unlock the door. She couldn’t have left—she—”

  They stared at Morgan. She flicked her eyes at the dark opening in the corner of the dungeon.

  “Oh, my God” John said, running.

  John threw himself on his stomach at the edge of the precipice. A cold draft of air chilled his face.

  “Betsy! Betsy!” he called.

  All he heard was his own voice echoing back, and the rush of distant water.

  From the corner of the room, John heard sobs. He twisted around to see two policemen cutting the ropes and setting Grace free.

  “Oh, John,” she said, stumbling toward him. “My Betsy!”

  Chapter 117

  BATHORY CASTLE UNDERGROUND CAVES

  HIGH TATRA MOUNTAINS, SLOVAKIA

  DECEMBER 29, 2010

  The icy-cold water was beginning to numb the searing pain in her shoulder, but Betsy knew her situation was life-threatening. She had landed on a rock and she could feel the jagged edge of her broken collarbone just beneath her skin. For a moment, she closed her eyes and relived the terror of her fall and the moments after, as she slid down the rocks and into the eddying pool of the underground spring—and then the horror of watching another falling body blot out the light far above her, the echoing screams filling the dark space and stopping abruptly as the body hit, headfirst, skull splitting against the stone.

  She opened her eyes and looked again, just to be certain. Yes. The Count lay motionless, eyes wide-open, Morgan’s knife sticking out of his neck, buried handle-deep.

  Even through her pain, Betsy felt a grim satisfaction. Morgan had protected her sister. And in a moment of sudden clarity, her own life hanging in the balance, Betsy’s analyst mind solved a problem. She understood what Morgan had been talking about just moments before—and she knew how Morgan had protected her little sister years ago.

  Betsy screamed for help, but no answer came. The tug of the icy current weakened her, and she knew it would soon carry her away.

  The water no longer felt cold. It burned, a scorching heat. As she clung to the rock, she felt as if her mind was already drifting with the current, floating gently away into a dream.

  As her fingers finally lost their grip, she heard a shout.

  “Betsy! Betsy!”

  In her dream, it was John’s voice.

  We could have been happy.

  She let it go—along with everything else she remembered about her life—and as the stream swirled her away, she heard her father’s voice in her mind again. Nothing human is alien to me.

  Chapter 118

  BATHORY CASTLE DUNGEON

  HIGH TATRA MOUNTAINS, SLOVAKIA

  DECEMBER 29, 2010

  Grace sobbed as she clung to John.

  “John! Betsy—he pushed her—”

  John held her tight enough to feel her heart beating.

  “There is an underground river,” he said. “I can hear it.”

  The police were questioning half a dozen girls they had freed from the dungeons. John broke in.

  “Are any of you from here?”

  “I am,” said Draska.

  He pointed at the dark opening. “Where does this river go?”

  Draska shook her head. “I do not know. Waters come out of rock everywhere.”

  John looked at Grace, then Daisy.

  “Daisy, can you look after Grace—this is Betsy’s mother.”

  John stopped. Daisy’s face was taut, haunted with grief.

  “Are you OK?” John asked.

  “Go, John. I’ll look after her, I promise.”

  “You are Betsy’s mother?” said Daisy.

  Grace covered her eyes with her hands, crying silently.

  “Then you have to find her.”

  Grace didn’t answer.

  Daisy gently pulled Grace’s hands away from her eyes.

  “You can, you know.”

  “Leave me alone, please.”

  “I can’t do that. Time is running out.”

  “You are as insane as the rest of them. There is nothing I can do now.”

  “Yes, there is. I had dreams that led me here. But I never dreamed the ending.” Daisy searched Grace’s eyes. “There’s a piece missing, and I think you have it. You know the ending. Don’t you?”

  “I don’t have any information,” Grace said, fighting her sobs. She turned away. “Leave me alone.”

  Daisy looked down at her bandaged wrist. She winced with grief, her stray tooth exposed.

  “Are you ready to live with the fact that your daughter is dead?”

  Grace snapped her head around, outraged.

  “You are cruel!”

  “No, I’m not. I think you have the answer, and you’re not sharing it. The Red Book says we are all connected,” said Daisy. “The collective unconscious, pooled universal knowledge—”

  “Shut up! You’re making no sense!”

  “You have the missing piece of the puzzle, I know it!” Daisy shouted at her.

  “You are delusional. The blood loss. I’m not like my daughter. I’m not like my husband. I don’t dream. And I am not a Bathory.”

  “Neither am I,” Daisy said. “But you are her mother, she came here searching for you. There has to be a connection, I know it.”

  “You know nothing about me.”

  “Please, Grace, help me! Come with me. Please?” Daisy began to tremble, her teeth chattering.

  “This girl is in shock!” said Grace, but no one heard her, except Draska.

  “For your daughter’s sake!” pleaded Daisy.

  Daisy took Grace’s arm and led her to the edge of the pit. Grace shuddered when she heard the rush of the river below.

&
nbsp; “Think,” said Daisy. “No, don’t think. Remember. Where does this river flow?”

  “I don’t know. How could I—”

  “Have you ever dreamed of a river? A river flowing beneath rocks?”

  “Go away!” Grace said, turning away from her. “Don’t touch me.”

  Draska watched Grace walk away from Daisy.

  The Slovak girl approached Grace, putting a comforting hand on her shoulder.

  “Listen to her,” she said. “She is trying to help.”

  Grace lifted her face from her hands, looking at the girl who had risked her life to send a message to her daughter. Draska’s breath was sour with fear and adrenaline.

  “You try now. Yes?” asked Draska. “For daughter?”

  Daisy took Grace’s hand in hers. She pressed it gently but urgently.

  “You love your daughter,” Daisy whispered. “I do, too. Please try. Please?”

  Grace closed her eyes. She nodded.

  “Come outside,” said Draska. “Come. We help you.”

  The two girls took Grace gently by the arms, helping her to the door of the dungeon.

  “You can’t leave,” said a police officer. “We have to question Dr. Path. We must get a statement.”

  “She has to find her daughter. Now!” said Daisy.

  The police officer raised his eyebrow. “The woman who fell into the underground river? There is no—”

  Grace looked at the man, her face crumpling.

  “You really don’t want to complete that sentence,” said Daisy, her teeth clenched, exposing her canine tooth.

  “No,” said the police commander, motioning the officer away. “I will accompany them. Let me get you coats. Come, Dr. Path,” he said offering his arm. “Come upstairs, please.”

  PART

  -4-

  Chapter 119

  BATHORY CASTLE

  HIGH TATRA MOUNTAINS, SLOVAKIA

  DECEMBER 30, 2010

  John stood, paralyzed by uncertainty, ice crystals forming in his hair. In the gray predawn light he could see the tall iron fence and his rented car beyond the gate.

  “Come in,” called a policeman who had taken over the guardhouse. “Come in and rest.”

  “I can’t. I have to find her—”

  “Hot coffee,” said the policeman. “Help you think.”

  The Slovak led John into the guardhouse. “Here, drink,” he said.

  John nodded, accepting the cup. His hands moved with the jerky stiffness of a puppet.

  The policeman pointed. “They come.”

  John saw two figures emerge from the castle entry. Then a third, much larger. He recognized Daisy, then Grace. Then the National Police Captain.

  “They’re trying to find her,” he murmured.

  “But—there is no track,” said the policeman. “How can they find body with no—”

  John turned, shaking with emotion.

  “I am sorry—” said the guard, putting his hand on John’s shoulder. “But chance of survival—”

  John said nothing. He just stared into the milky gray light. Tears welling in his eyes, he left the guardhouse, staggering blindly after them.

  Grace fought through the deep snow. The pale light exposed earlier tracks, but she did not notice them. She walked almost without seeing, searching without looking, stumbling with a blind certainty toward a place she knew from the one and only dream she had ever remembered. The dream she had told her husband so many years ago, the night before Betsy was born.

  And then she was there. The frozen pond. A graceful place, the boughs of the weeping willows coated with ice and snow. It was dawn, and the rosy glow of the sun burned through the remaining clouds, a mist of vapor rising from the silver surface of the pond.

  A few ducks paddled between broken patches of ice. They plunged their heads under the water, looking for food. At the edge of the pond a river flowed over rocks polished smooth from millennia of rushing water.

  She felt a swell of sorrow. She knew this place. She remembered this spot where she had never been. It was not a happy memory.

  “Here,” she murmured.

  She struggled to the frozen shore where the river met the ponds.

  The white, perfect form of a woman lay face up beneath the ice.

  Chapter 120

  ČACHTICE CASTLE

  DECEMBER 30, 1610

  Somewhere in the castle above, a bell tolled a mournful early-morning hour as Janos was lowered into the ice cave on a rope, clutching a burning torch, ignoring the pain in his wounded arm. Thurzo’s men fed the slack slowly as he descended.

  The rippling formation of the walls were a wolf’s mouth closing around him, undulating and raw. Diamonds of light glittered. Ice crystals sparkled. Milky white sheets of ice shimmered in the torchlight.

  He winced, seeing the brown blood staining rocks below. Zuzana was not the first to fall into the abyss. He thought of all the families who had searched in vain for their beloved daughters.

  They lay here, hidden in an icy tomb.

  The air was much colder, blowing over the coursing water carving through the blue-white ice. Mighty columns gleamed in his torchlight. Hanging chandeliers of ice arched to meet with sharp pillars thrusting up from the cave floor.

  And below this glittering beauty, strewn across the rocks, lay the bodies of girls, like broken porcelain dolls, ghostly pale and coated in ice. Their frozen features sparkled, stars shimmering from their translucent skin. In these depths, there were no wolves to ravage their flesh, no rats to gnaw their bones. They were perfectly preserved.

  Merciful death had kissed them with peace, their tortured faces relaxed at last.

  Janos forced himself to close his eyes to the girls long dead. He had to find Zuzana.

  She was not here among the dead.

  He followed the course of the river threading through the cavern. He picked his way along the frozen shore.

  He held his torch high, the ceilings of the cavern now not a wolf’s mouth, but the smooth vaulted arches of a cathedral.

  His lips moved in silent prayer, not daring to speak in the holy silence of the underground. Spirits—far more ancient than mankind—dwelled here, amid the rock, water, and ice.

  As the cave descended less steeply, the river moved more and more slowly. The rush against the stone was muted, the water undecided whether to freeze and join with the icy shelf or to slice its course onward.

  Janos walked on. His torch flickered once, twice. Then it was gone. He was plunged into darkness. He closed his eyes and followed the sound of the cold-blooded waters.

  As time wore on, he heard the water change its heartbeat, moving more rapidly. He opened his eyes to see light playing off long white icicles, the savage teeth of the wolf guarding the way to a small opening—and, beyond that, the glint of the rising sun.

  At last he fought his way through the opening and looked down to the river spilling out into a series of ponds. The branches of the weeping willows bowed low in reverence to winter’s reign.

  It was there he found Zuzana, staring wide-eyed to the rosy dawn, her body lodged under a thick sheet of clear ice.

  Chapter 121

  BATHORY CASTLE

  HIGH TATRA MOUNTAINS, SLOVAKIA

  DECEMBER 30, 2010

  Daisy stared at Betsy’s body, beneath the ice. She stood paralyzed at the sight.

  “Daisy!” shouted a voice. “Grace!”

  John hurried toward them, stumbling through the snow, fighting through the drifts.

  Wide-eyed in horror, neither woman spoke as he reached them.

  He looked down and saw Betsy and, without thinking, he lunged.

  He crashed through the ice, embraced her freezing body, and pulled her from the pool. Her face had turned a pale blue, mottled in white.

  What is the chance of surviving more than thirty minutes in icy water—what is the probability?

  Probability. Chance, margin of error. Statistics—his identity, his life—all that was
his enemy now, logic his foe.

  She was dead. He knew it. Here was the proof, the blue-white flesh, the open eyes.

  “No!” he roared, falling to his knees. “No!”

  He bent over her, his open palm cradling her head. He placed his lips over her open mouth.

  He breathed hard. Breath after warming breath.

  He heard Daisy’s boots crunching next to him as she knelt in the snow.

  She crossed her palms, pushing rhythmically against Betsy’s chest. Tears streamed down Daisy’s face, but she said nothing. Her anguished eyes sought John’s.

  John and Daisy worked silently, blinking dumbly in the glow of sunrise.

  Grace watched them.

  She gazed out over the frozen pond, remembering her dream.

  Detective Whitehall found the three Americans poised over the body. He led the ambulance medics to the scene.

  As the Slovaks pulled the desperate man and girl away, Whitehall turned. He looked out over the pond, the icicles on the weeping willows splintering the glow of dawn.

  The medics allowed John to accompany them in the ambulance. As a matter of protocol, they kept up the artificial respiration for the duration of the ride.

  John held Betsy’s frozen hand, squeezing rhythmically it as if it were her heart.

  “Live,” he whispered. “Live. Against all probability, damn it! Live.”

  He cried silently into her frozen hand.

  He felt a flicker, a slight curling of her finger.

  “She moved her hand!” he shouted. “She moved!”

  The medics looked at each other, and then to the face of the foreigner.

  “No, she could not. She is—”

  “No, listen to me! She did it again. Look!”

  He cradled her hand like a bird in his cupped palms. Her fingers moved tentatively, searching for his.

  One of the medics placed a stethoscope against her breast. He stared into the air, listening blindly.

  His face lit up.

  “Yes, yes, Very little. Heart.”

  Chapter 122

  ČACHTICE CASTLE

  DECEMBER 30, 1610