by Cathy Ace
Regarding the treasure, all I really needed to write down was GOLD, SALT, COAL, FACES, PORTRAITS, WATER, and MIRROR, and I was done.
Next I tackled the question of the vandalism. PORTRAIT, PLATE, RAVELRY, CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS, and MAIR were all I had there, plus the key words DAVID, INVISIBLE, ADVENTURE, and LOVE.
Finally there was David Davies’s death. TIMING? UP OR DOWN STAIRS? IN OR OUT OF DOOR? LEGS? COAL DUST? CHANGING CLOTHES?
This last point needed a lot more thought. But almost an hour had passed, and my brain was truly tired, as well as my body. I turned off the bedside lamp and floated off on a sea of feather pillows and the sound of the wind beyond the windows of my very own turret. I didn’t give a thought to the adventure that my sleep would be.
I am sitting in a boat that’s being pushed along a meandering river, while all about me men are trying to make the river flow in a different direction, using their hands to try to shift soil and water. I laugh as I sail past, because I know they will never succeed. Arriving at a shore made of grains of pure gold that glitter beneath a sun that is etched with the two faces of Janus, I spring lightly onto the sand, only to feel it burn my feet. As if from nowhere a man bumps into me. He is in a full evening dress suit, and is dancing on his toes, like a ballerina. Although he has no face, I know he is David Davies. He whistles at me, and the sound is that of a full male voice choir. I follow him, because that’s what his whistle is telling me to do, and I am crossing the bridge that is painted on a willow-pattern plate. I know I am in that landscape, on an actual plate. I am blue, and the water beneath the bridge is merely blue and white wavy lines. I am laughing that it has been such an easy task for me to cross the river. I shout that I don’t need him to lead me at all, and that I can find my own way.
Gwen Thomas rears up from the water beneath the bridge. The bridge shakes and collapses into the water. I know I cannot swim, and yet I am swimming. Gwen is holding my hand, telling me that this is the biggest favor she could ever do for me. She is saving my life. I thank her as I step out of the river, where Bud greets me, though he looks just like Owain. He hands me a shovel and tells me to dig. He tells me, in Bud’s voice from within Owain’s beard, that if I dig he will marry me, but if I stop he will not. I dig and dig. I dig until my hands are rough and blistered, until my fingernails are ragged. The shovel is very short now, and I am bending as I dig and my back begins to ache, then I feel it begin to snap.
Siân is beside me, as is Janet Roberts. They force me into a wheelchair. I am screaming that I don’t want to stop digging—that my whole future depends upon it, but they are wheeling me away from Owain/Bud, and from the hole I have dug. As they wheel me we go faster and faster. The landscape is a blur. I hear the air as it passes my ears, rushing like a mighty wind. Within the blur of the passing landscape I see scenes as if in a tableau. Janet is slamming the door of the little lift in the great hall against Alice’s wheelchair, but the motion, and the contact between the two, is silent. Dilys Jones drops a plate upon which was balanced the magnificent stuffed head of a spectacled bear—as it crashes to the floor the bear’s head comes to life, grows legs and runs away, a long baguette in its mouth. Bud is lying on the floor of Mair’s room, bleeding from the head—the sight shocks me, and I try to scream, but when I try to turn to Siân and Janet, who I believe are pushing my wheelchair, there’s no one there, and I make no sound.
Again I see David Davies in front of me, but now he is Angus. I will the wheelchair to run him over, and it does, but he pops up again behind me, laughing at my inability to kill him. I will the wheelchair to stop, but I only do so when I crash through a massive mirror that splinters and rains down upon my head. When I get out of the wheelchair the shards on the ground are not from a mirror, but from the puzzle plate. A man in a uniform I do not recognize helps me pick up the pieces. He is speaking to me in a language I do not know or understand. It’s gibberish. As he is laughing at my lack of comprehension, he transforms into the Gryffudd Cadwallader of the portrait I have seen, but he is now a living person, sweating profusely under a suddenly present summer sun, and pointing to something in the clear blue sky that I cannot make out. It comes closer. I see it is a large seagull, about fifty feet across, and it is planning to eat me. I begin to run. I can hear the seagull screech at my back. I don’t look around; I know that when people do that in movies they always trip and fall, and I mustn’t do that, because I will break.
I see Bud in the distance. He is calling me toward a cave, where I know I will be safe. I run inside and find myself atop a never-ending flight of steps. I don’t want to go down them. I turn to run back out again, but the wing of the seagull pushes me and I fall. Down and down I go, bouncing off steps, rolling and banging about, though nothing seems to hurt me. When I stop, I’m in the dining room of the castle, but I know I am not safe. The seagull is trying to follow me. The seagull has found me. It is smothering me. I beat at it. I feel its warmth, and, beyond that, the chill of the winter air.
I woke to find myself tangled in my bedding and in a lather of sweat. I got out of bed, cursing the chill of the room. I pulled open the curtains and shutters and there was the sea, glittering to the horizon where a beautiful sunrise was not quite complete. Sure enough, seagulls were playing on the breeze, calling to each other, and I knew that the storm had passed completely. It would, as Bud had promised, be a beautiful day.
My watch told me it was almost eight o’clock. I rushed through my morning bathroom routine and pulled on some stretchy corduroy slacks and a matching big, baggy sweater. I sat at the dressing table and examined the discoloration around my eye. It wasn’t blackening yet, but it would be soon. I considered whether it was worth putting on any makeup. Maybe some concealer? I decided against it, because I knew I’d want to make a special effort for the wedding later on, if it took place at all. But I decided I’d get my wedding outfit out to let it get some air. I opened the wardrobe, grabbed the hanging garment bag that covered my lovely two-piece, and unzipped it.
Both the pants and the top had been cut to tatters. I couldn’t believe it. It was ruined. I was so upset I didn’t even cry. I threw the bag on the floor and tore out of my room, heading for the dining room.
Nature causing a flood that washed away a river bank and made a bridge collapse I could almost cope with. But this? This was deliberate. This was nasty. And this will not go unpunished.
Un ar bymtheg ar hugain
AS LUCK WOULD HAVE IT, everyone—including the dismissed, but unable to leave, “Nurse” Janet—was already in the dining room when I arrived. Dilys and Rhian were hovering and attending to the tea and coffee.
“Good morning, everyone,” I said very loudly. All heads snapped up. Bud got up from his seat and made to move toward me, but I waved him off.
He was beaming as he said, “I have some news . . .”
“Good,” I said, interrupting him. “So do I.”
The light in Bud’s expression disappeared, and I sighed. I mouthed “sorry” at him before I addressed everyone else. He could sense that something catastrophic was coming, and he left his toast to stand beside me.
I made sure I could see everybody as I announced, “Someone has been into my room and has hacked my wedding outfit to pieces.”
I measured the responses, which ranged from gasps to almost no reaction at all.
“Don’t you mean your wedding dress, Cait?” asked Siân, which I couldn’t help but think wasn’t an appropriate response.
“No,” I snapped. “It was a two-piece. I didn’t want a dress.”
“Why ever not?” asked Siân.
I sighed. “For goodness sake, Siân, that’s hardly the point! The point is it’s ruined. And, FYI, I didn’t want a dress because I stupidly traumatized myself by watching ten episodes of a ridiculous reality program about brides choosing wedding gowns. I swore then I’d never go to one of those bridal salons, so I got a two-piece at a department store.”
“When did it happen?” asked Bud, hi
s arm about my shoulders.
“I don’t know. I didn’t look at the outfit from the time I pulled the garment bag out of my suitcase until just now, so any time since we got here.”
Bud was standing so close to me he was able to almost whisper, “Do you think it might have been when we were out looking for Mair last night?”
I knew he was referring to our having seen the light in my bedroom. “It might have been,” I acknowledged. I squeezed Bud’s arm and motioned that he should sit again. He did.
“Well, I’m very sorry to hear it,” said Dilys as she made her way, with Rhian’s help, toward the door to head to the kitchen.
“Hang on a minute, Dilys,” I said. “You’re not going anywhere.”
The cook looked shocked, as did everyone else.
I tossed my head and said, “Today I am a bride, at least I am supposed to be. So I make no apologies for doing what I’m about to do. No, I’m not turning into some sort of ‘Bridezilla,’ so don’t panic on that score, but I am going to, finally, take control, and sort out all this mayhem once and for all.”
The only person in the room who wasn’t puzzled was Bud. I looked at him and said, “You’ll be up soon, officer.” Bud nodded once. He knew what I meant, and I was also confident that he’d know exactly what to do when the time came.
“As for the rest of you? Alice, I’m going to make full use of a bride’s prerogative and invite Dilys and Rhian to join us all at the table for a cup of tea, and even some breakfast, if they’d like. I wonder if I could have a cup of coffee, please. Bud, if you’d be so kind?”
Bud nodded and took action, rejoining me with a perfectly made cup of coffee.
I continued. “So, I hope you’re all sitting comfortably, because I have a story in three parts to tell you. No, it’s not going to be Jackanory—which is something Siân and I enjoyed when we were little. It begins a long time ago, and far away from here, but, I’m sorry to say, it does involve a death—your husband’s death, Rhian—and a rash of wicked, destructive acts, all of which, surprisingly, sprang from a misguided type of love. So, ready or not, here I go.
“I will begin by acknowledging the one thing we all have in common. We are all trapped. Trapped here because of a collapsing bridge, yes, but we are all also individuals within our own, personal traps. I touched upon this when I was talking to Siân yesterday, but I now need to bring it to everyone’s attention because it is at the root of all that has happened here this weekend.”
The logs crackled in the grate. Most people continued eating toast or sipping tea.
“I’ll begin with me,” I said. “It’s only fair, after all. More than a decade ago I met and fell for a dashing, handsome young man by the name of Angus, who I believed to be someone with whom I wanted to share my life and my home. He turned out to be a sociopath with a violent temper and an addiction to alcohol and pretty much anything else he could get his hands on. I’m not going to go into the various definitions of sociopath and psychopath, suffice to say he did some very bad things, and most of them were done because he wanted to have power over people. Mainly me. And I let him. I was trapped by my love for him, and my hope that he would change. I had made a prison for myself. I had constructed it out of self-delusion and an unreasonable amount of self-loathing. I couldn’t see how to get out of it. Because I had built it.”
I noticed that every woman in the room looked uncomfortable. Good.
“It wasn’t until Angus threatened to turn his jealous rage toward a perfectly innocent acquaintance of ours—we didn’t have any friends, you see—that I found the strength to throw him out. I’d told myself he was my problem, but once there was a chance that he would hurt others by his actions, I knew I had to act. I managed to make him leave my home, but he followed me for weeks. He’d show up everywhere I went. He’d stand outside my home at night. I was almost no better off. Then, one day, I confronted him in the street and we had what turned out to be our final row.”
I turned my attention to Gwen. “I believe that’s the fight you saw me and Angus having in Cambridge. I know that ‘If I had a drink in my hand right now I’d throw it over you’ were my last words to him.”
Gwen nodded. “Yes, that’s exactly what you said.”
“Anyway, a few days later he was dead, and what followed was the worst time of my life. If I’d thought that living with Angus was bad, then having him found dead on the floor of my bathroom turned out to be an unimaginable nightmare. I am guessing you all know how that played out. I ended up having to leave the country to escape my new prison, the one the tabloids had built for me—the prison that exists when your face and your name are known and connected to a violent crime, even when you’re later proved innocent. Then, in my new home of Canada, I eventually allowed someone into my life again. Bud. And now I have a chance to build a new life. No more prison for me. No more being trapped by my own choices or by the manipulation of others.”
Alice wriggled in her wheelchair. “But what’s all that got to do with us?”
The expressions around the table told me she was voicing a common query.
I cleared my throat. “I’m not the only one in this room who’s trapped. You all have your own prisons, and you are all trying to make your escape. Siân? You live a rich and full life, with a loving husband and two wonderful, healthy children, and yet you are frustrated. Your life needs to be the way it is, you chose for it to be the way it is, and yet you couldn’t see the joy in that.”
Siân jumped to her own defense. “I can really, Cait, we talked about it. I was just having a bad time with my pain, and my painkillers, that’s all.” I hoped the hurt I’d caused would heal quickly, when she saw more of my method.
I nodded. “Yes, I know, but it’s an example I wanted to share.” Siân looked deeply miffed.
“Bud,” I said next. He looked alarmed. “When your wife, Jan, died, I think you realized the nature of the prison you’d built for yourself.”
Bud swallowed nervously. I knew he would be up to my challenge, and that he’d follow my lead. Eventually, he nodded, resigning himself to taking part. “I lived in a cocoon of work. Total immersion. Of course, it comes with the job. It’s essential. But when you have your life ripped apart like that, it changes the way you look at things. I’m sorry to say, Rhian, that’s what you’re going to be going through now. I packed in my job, and I’ve started to build a new life with Cait. We even have a new home to begin to make our own. It’s hard—but I’m out of my old prison, and I won’t be building another one any time soon.”
“So, because David’s dead, we should all run about giving up work and—what? Starve? Be homeless?” said Dilys. “Stupid thing to say,” she spat at me.
“No,” I replied, “I don’t just mean work. Some people work their whole life and, while their job gets them down, it’s their home life that’s their real prison. Prisons are how we become ‘institutionalized.’ You said it yourself last night, Mair, and you were spot on. You, Owain, Dilys, and Rhian have never known a life lived anywhere but here. Castell Llwyd has become your literal, and figurative, prison.”
“Don’t try to dress it up with fancy words,” snapped Dilys. “You’re being nasty about my life. Belittling me, you are.” She seemed to be the most uncomfortable person in the room. “Have me sit here at the big table, telling me I’m rubbish? There’s nice for you.”
“But you do things that allow you to have an escape, Dilys. Your cooking is excellent, I’m sure you’re highly thought of by those you know in the local community, like your friend Audrey Williams, and your collection of cookbooks shows me you know of a world beyond these walls. Rhian, too. You use your connections with those around the world you do business with to allow you to see outside these walls. Mair, you have your online friends. Owain, you escape into history. Alice, I know you enjoy thinking about times gone by. Janet—well, you gave us a hint last night about how you’ve indulged while living here. Idris and Eirwen—you’re rooted in the world outside because
of, and for, your children. And of course there’s Gwen who, although she doesn’t live here, still will, like all of us, have her very own personal prison. What would you say that is, Gwen?”
Gwen shrugged and looked a little uncertain. “I don’t know. I love my work, I enjoy being with talented, musical people. I don’t have many close friends, but then that’s not so unusual. I don’t think I feel enclosed by anything, or anyone.”
“What about those you admire, Gwen? Those people you put up on a pedestal, and won’t ever let climb down?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” she whimpered.
“Gwen, since we ran into each other here you have acted as though you and I were great chums at school. We weren’t. In fact, we didn’t really know each other at all.”
Gwen looked shocked. “You were a great influence on me, and it’s clear you remembered me. When we met here you recalled me exactly.”
I sighed. “I recall everything exactly, Gwen. I have a very strange and wonderful memory, which hangs onto stuff and never lets go. Whether I want it to or not. But I’ll come back to that.”
Gwen slumped in her chair and glowered at her coffee cup.
“Thanks for the analysis, Cait, but how does all this connect to David, and all the other stuff?” said Siân.
“Because David was trapped in a prison too,” I said, “and he was trying to escape.”
“I never meant to be a part of a prison for him,” said Rhian plaintively. “He loved it here at first, but then he got restless. His rehearsals got longer, he had more meetings away from the castle, he spent more and more time working on his music projects and that flaming car out in the stables. Especially the last few months.”
“He wasn’t working on the car at all,” I said. “He was working with Mair to try to find the treasure he believed was hidden in the Roman temple.”
Rhian looked puzzled, and Owain exclaimed, “With Mair? He’s been working with me, too. More or less blackmailed me into letting him come into my tunnel with me.”