The Devil's Cauldron

by Michael Wallace

  But Meggie grew increasingly nervous the longer she went without spotting Benjamin’s cousin on the grounds or in the buildings. Her eyes darted around whenever she was out, and she startled at every strange movement. Without moving, of course.

  Get a hold of yourself. What is wrong with you?

  But every day she grew more anxious. Her heart started racing sometimes without warning, and it took forever to get to sleep at night. The second night after Kaitlyn’s appearance, she was drifting to sleep when it felt like a man was sitting on her chest, only there was nobody there. She couldn’t breathe, and she couldn’t move to push him away. Eventually, the feeling passed.

  The following afternoon, she was finally calming when that friendly, mentally handicapped young man found her in the butterfly garden. He was cheerful, with a wide, pleasant smile, but scatterbrained, and with a memory like mush. He introduced himself as Eric (the way he said it sounded like ‘Ruc’), asked her questions, then remembered she couldn’t move or talk, before trying to engage her again.

  Exasperated, her attention wandering as the novelty of a new resident wore off, she was searching the corners of the butterfly garden, terrified to spot a familiar face, when he said something that hooked her attention.

  Not my brother. He says I’m smart like Sherlock Holmes. He and Becca got married. She’s pretty, like you. She has a baby growing in her belly.

  A baby growing in her belly? Immediately, Meggie remembered the young hiker who had stumbled through the gates last week. That woman had been pregnant, and Usher acted hostile and suspicious at her story of getting lost looking for a shortcut to the hot springs.

  And what was that bit about Sherlock Holmes and a brother? How strange was that? Probably a coincidence, but maybe not. Too bad Eric lost his train of thought. He’d been struggling to tell her something, and not just that he thought she was pretty.

  Meggie looked for him at dinner, but he never passed into her field of vision. When they wheeled her away for hydrotherapy that night, she gave up hope of seeing him that day.

  The facility clung to the side of a long-dormant volcano. If the mountain ever blew its top, it would probably suffocate the village of Santa María del Lago on the other side of the lake, burying it in ash like a modern-day Pompeii. Here on the volcano itself, the few dozen people and staff living at Colina Nublosa might waken to a rumble, but then hell would rain down and burn them alive. Fortunately, the experts agreed that the mountain would never wake again.

  But the superheated rock deep inside the mountain sent up bubbling torrents of water that flowed out through the massive bowl of the Devil’s Cauldron. There was a steep path through the forest from Colina Nublosa—where the pregnant hiker had supposedly got herself lost on their grounds, inside the gates—and a second, more gentle path up from the lake on the opposite side of the mountain. The lake path was wheelchair accessible, and Costa Ricans from Santa María del Lago would come across the lake with their children and their abuelas to hike up and bathe in the pools. But to use it from Colina Nublosa meant forty minutes by car around the mountain to the lake, then crossing the lake, then a trip up the backside. And so the residents used the shorter, steeper path for their weekly excursions, and that meant the ambulatory patients, not the wheelchair-bound.

  She’d only seen the cauldron once. It was part of a longer field trip down to the beaches on the coast. Staff had pushed the chairs up from the lake. By the time they arrived, the mobile residents were already bathing and playing in the hot pots.

  Placed in an overlook above, Meggie looked down at the churning cauldron. A duck flew over the cauldron and, apparently misjudging the water, came in for a landing. By the time it tried to pull up, it was too late. It flapped helplessly two or three times before the boiling water overcame it. Then it floated grotesquely, a mass of twisted feathers, before eventually spilling over the edge.

  Not all of the water emerged at the Devil’s Cauldron. Some seeped out in hot springs all along the mountain. Here at Colina Nublosa, it bubbled from the ground at a perfect 106 degrees Fahrenheit, like a hot tub turned up to max. They piped it into tiled rooms for hydrotherapy. Meggie had to admit that it, together with traditional physical therapy, had kept her limber so she wasn’t twisted up like a piece of beached driftwood.

  Tonight was hydrotherapy. Two female aides pushed her into the first room, undressed her, then lifted her to a chair at the edge of a ceramic basin sunk into the floor. It was roughly twice as wide as a bathtub, but deep enough for patients to stand in. Those who could stand. The aides strapped in her arms and legs and fastened a band around her head so it wouldn’t flop forward. Then they left.

  Meggie waited in the chair with her toes inches above the water. She breathed in the thick, sulfurous air and tried to relax. Normally, this was her favorite part of the day, calming and somnolent, but today her heart was racing. What was wrong with her?

  The door opened behind her, then shut. A hand reached for the crank and lowered her into the water. The first touch was always scalding and Meggie’s breathing accelerated of its own accord. Every inch burned, but after a few seconds her body adjusted and the water soothed her. Still her heart kept thumping away.

  “Here we are,” a woman said from behind. “Alone at last.”

  She knew that voice. It was Kaitlyn.

  Meggie tried to cry out. No sound emerged.

  No. Please, God. No.

  “I own you, Meggie. You are my possession. When you are good, I reward you.”

  Leave me alone.

  “And when you are bad, you are punished. You have been very bad lately. Is your heart racing? I would expect so. We have been experimenting with your medication.”

  That was why. First the tranquilizer, then some sort of stimulant. Too much of it.

  Kaitlyn leaned around and stared her in the eyes. A smile spread across her face, cold and without joy, only evil satisfaction.

  Meggie’s stomach turned to liquid. She was staring into the face of a psychopath.

  “Are you ready for your water therapy?”

  What do you want?

  Kaitlyn lowered Meggie until the water was up to her waist, then let go of the crank and came around the side of the ceramic tub. She kicked off her shoes and sat on the tiles with her feet dangling into the water.

  “Ouch, that’s hot.” She looked at Meggie, now at eye level. “Good, I can see that you understand. I can also see you don’t believe me, but it’s true.”

  Believe what?

  Kaitlyn wore white linen pants with a tight fit that didn’t conceal her figure, still as trim and attractive as it had been seven years earlier. She rolled up her pant legs and eased further into the water until it came up to her calves.

  “I have taken care of you, Meggie, whether you believe it or not. Who do you think put you in this place, where your every need would be coddled? Where you would receive the finest, most expensive care? It wasn’t Benjamin, he was worthless after the accident. I merely suggested, and he agreed to do anything I asked, if it would make you comfortable. That’s why he went through with the marriage.”

  You liar, it was so the two of you could control me, that’s why. He needed to be my husband so he could sign my life away.

  The marriage was fraudulent. Paralyzed or no, Meggie never would have gone through with it. Not after what happened in the desert. She barely remembered coming to Costa Rica; the nearest she could piece together, they must have sedated her, put her on an air ambulance, and brought her down under a forged power of attorney. Then there had been some sort of hastily arranged marriage under local laws while she was still in intensive care. She vaguely remembered seeing a government official in the hospital room, then hearing Kaitlyn and Benjamin discussing a marriage license. What a sham.

  Tropical Beans had extensive contacts in Costa Rica, but it was still stunning how easily Benjamin and Kaitlyn could subvert the laws down here, as if the country were still a banana republic, under corporate contro
l.

  “But if I can take care of you,” Kaitlyn continued, “then I can make your life miserable, too.”

  She rose to her feet and put her hand on the crank. The chair creaked lower, and the water rose above Meggie’s navel. Another half-turn and it rose to lap over her breasts.

  Meggie was suddenly conscious of how deep the water was. How low did this chair go? There were men living at Colina Nublosa, many of them taller than her. Normally, they would lower Meggie until the water touched her chin, but if they could do the same for the men . . .

  Kaitlyn said, “Why didn’t you leave well enough alone? You have everything you need here—it’s a paradise.”

  You psychotic monster.

  “You know what I’m talking about. Tapping your finger. Trying to blink out messages. That worried me. I thought maybe someone was trying to find you. Only I was wrong. Do you know why? Because nobody is looking for you. Nobody cares. Not your uncle and aunt—they forgot about you long ago. Not your coworkers, either. They think you’re dead. Your old friends, too. Or maybe they do know you’re alive and can’t be bothered. How pathetic is that? The point is, you’re all alone here, with nobody to look after you except me.”

  A wild hope rose in Meggie’s breast, because she knew that Kaitlyn was lying. After all this time, there was hope. The pregnant woman—Eric called her Becca—had found Meggie at the hummingbird feeders. Well inside the facility perimeter. And that look Becca gave her was so full of meaning. And what about Eric himself? Someone must be feeding him instructions.

  Kaitlyn put her fingers against Meggie’s throat. “Your heart is racing. Usher’s drugs pack a punch. I told him to cut them off, to get them out of your blood, just in case. But what if I tripled it, instead? How about five times? Ten? Would you go into cardiac arrest?”

  Where was Meggie’s therapist? And what about the aides? She heard people moving up and down the hall, the slap of rubber-soled slippers on tile, the creak of wheelchairs, as other residents were led into their own therapy rooms. If Meggie could do so much as scream, someone would come.

  Kaitlyn took hold of the crank. The chair lowered until the water came up to Meggie’s collarbone. “But there are a million ways to do it. An equipment malfunction in the hydrotherapy baths, for one.”

  The crank turned again. A half-inch at a time, the water rose higher on Meggie’s neck. It reached her chin, then slowed, but didn’t stop. It took several more long seconds until it was lapping at her lips. Her mouth was closed. Kaitlyn slowed the descent, leaning forward now to study Meggie with a look of concentration, as if wanting to raise the water level at just the right pace. Moments later, the water touched the bottom of Meggie’s nostrils.

  Inside, she writhed and screamed. Terrified, knowing that she was going to die if she couldn’t send a signal to her long-dead muscles, she threw all her willpower into moving herself. If she could, if only she could move this one time, she could wriggle her hand free from the straps, then yank them loose and get free. Then throw herself on this vicious, hated torturer with her hand on the crank.

  Her finger twitched and her eyeballs rolled in their sockets. Nothing else moved.

  Water flooded her nostrils. It reached the bridge of her nose, then came to her eyes. Meggie didn’t shut her eyelids, but darted her eyes back and forth even as the water submerged them. Underwater now, she looked wildly from side to side. The water was green and nearly opaque from all the dissolved minerals. Bubbles rose around her face as the last of her air leaked out. But her autonomic nervous system closed her throat and she held her breath underwater.

  Seconds passed. Stretched. How long? A minute, two? Meggie’s lungs burned. Her body ached with the need to breathe. Something black lurked at the edge of her vision.

  Then she was above water. Her mouth opened and she took a huge gasp of air. Kaitlyn cranked the handle around and around while Meggie rose out of the tub. Soon she was completely above the basin, water streaming from her hair, running between her breasts, then down her legs before dripping off her feet into the basin.

  “Interesting,” Kaitlyn said. “I wondered if you would breathe in the water and die. I guess not.” She sounded cool and dispassionate.

  You psychotic bitch. I want you to die.

  “Good thing you didn’t. That would have been inconvenient.”

  The other woman came around the basin and studied Meggie’s face. “Only your eyes are moving. No expression. But I swear I can see emotions. All sorts of things—terror, rage, exhaustion. Am I imagining that?” She looked down at Meggie’s right hand. “Tap your fingers for me.”

  Meggie kept her index finger steady.

  “Tap your finger, to show me you love me.”

  Go to hell.

  Kaitlyn took the crank. She lowered the chair back into the water. Fear clawed its way into Meggie’s chest. She tapped her index finger furiously. The other woman stopped and smiled.

  “That’s good. Now tap it two times to say that you are grateful I brought you out of the water instead of letting you drown.”

  Meggie tapped twice.

  Kaitlyn let go of the handle and paced around the room, chewing on her lower lip. At last she turned back to Meggie.

  “Here is the thing, Megs. I’m almost done with you. I’ve kept you around for seven years because you have been useful, but I’m not into charity. And I’ve never liked you, you know that. You tried to turn Benjamin against me, and I’ll never forgive you for that.”

  What do you want?

  “So in a few days I’m cutting you loose. How depends on how useful you make yourself when Benjamin arrives. If you obey me, and answer exactly how I want you to, you’ll go free. I will turn you over to someone else, and they can try to penetrate that thick skull of yours.”

  Kaitlyn leaned in closer. “If not, if you defy me, like you did just now, I will torture you until I get bored. Then I will kill you. Is that understood? Tap your finger once for yes.”

  Meggie tapped once.

  “Good, now here is what I want.”

  As Kaitlyn explained her sick and twisted plan, Meggie listened with growing fear. Not just for what the woman was proposing, but because she knew the truth. Obey or not, there was no way that Kaitlyn would ever set her free.

  She couldn’t take that risk. Meggie had always known too much. But what she was learning now, with every word out of Kaitlyn’s mouth, could only seal her death.

  Chapter Ten

  Wes paced the deck of the guest house, gnawing nervously on the tip of his thumb. Green and gold tanagers kept trying to feed at the plate of cut mango and melon put up by Señora Sanchez, and lifted with chirping protests whenever he drew too close, before settling back down when he’d passed.

  “Calm down, Wes,” Becca said. “That’s not helping.”

  “Something is wrong up there.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  He turned to where his wife was sitting calmly, sipping a cup of coffee and typing at her laptop. A trellis rose behind her, covered in flowering vines that attracted hummingbirds. Becca looked calm, but he knew that she was worrying in her own way.

  The guest house sat in the town of Santa María del Lago, on the opposite side of the lake from their more luxurious digs of the previous couple of weeks. The accommodations were basic, with a shared bathroom servicing the five different guest rooms, and the other lodgers seemed to be entirely backpackers on their way to the cloud forest preserves of Santa Elena and Monte Verde. The lodge served full, hearty breakfasts, and offered a path through the forest down to the lake, with a view up at the cloud-covered volcano. Wes’s brother was only a few miles away on the other side of that mountain, but it took two hours to get there from here.

  “He was supposed to send an email by now,” Wes said. “He was supposed to complain about the food and I’d come up and grab the phone and the video. Soon as it checks out, we get him out of there.”

  “Maybe he hasn’t found her yet.”

 
“How many residents are there at Colina Nublosa? Thirty? Forty? They eat their meals together—Eric must have seen her a dozen times by now.”

  “That doesn’t mean he got her alone long enough to ask questions and video her answers.”

  “Doesn’t matter. There’s a signal for that, too, remember?”

  Eric was supposed to email one way or the other. Complain about the food if he had the video, and rave about it if he didn’t. Either way, Wes would get a message and know where they stood. He’d dropped his brother off on Monday morning and given strict instructions for Eric to email no later than Tuesday night. It was now Friday.

  “I’m going to call the administrator.”

  “Don’t make him suspicious,” Becca said.

  “It’s not suspicious. I just dropped him off, so naturally I want to know how he’s adapting.”

  “They said not to do that until he’d been there two weeks. It disrupts the adjustment.” As Wes passed, she took his arm. “Sit down. Please.”

  He obeyed and she poured him coffee. He didn’t drink it. They sat in silence while Becca typed at her laptop.

  “Any word from Davis yet?” he asked.

  “The usual. Emails, back and forth. I haven’t told him where we are, and he hasn’t asked.”

  “What about the money?”

  “He hasn’t noticed it’s missing yet. Or if he has, he hasn’t mentioned it.”

  “And he doesn’t want to know why we never showed up at the house?”

  “Not yet. Kind of surprising.”

  “Yeah,” he said with a frown.

  Maybe his uncle would have given them a pass on Tuesday, figuring they were wiped out from the travel. Maybe as long as Becca kept the emails coming, he would give them a pass on Wednesday, too. Maybe even Thursday. But Davis didn’t like a purely virtual office—being wheelchair-bound, it made him feel doubly isolated. It was now Friday, and he’d expect them in. It was already noon in Vermont, so wasn’t he at least curious as to why Becca and Wes were nowhere to be found?