Summoning the whole of my supernatural strength, I fought him—wrestling, twisting, jabbing, kneeing, even biting. My desperate efforts would have made a wildcat proud. Yet, without a weapon, I was no more of a threat to the denizen of Hell than a kitten was to a pit bull. Against his demonic bulk and might, my supernatural strength availed me nothing.
In the end, he was a monster . . . while I was merely a woman.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Alone in Dreams of Sorrow
I will not linger on what came next, except to say: there was pain and more pain. The demon reverted to his stockier “Osae” shape, for which I was grateful, as I did not wish to have my memory of Ferdinand sullied. His ghoulish hair spikes stank of dried blood, and his breath stank of worse things. The stench so overpowered me I feared I would be sick.
Nearby, out of the corner of my eye, I spotted my little violet reticule laying among the dirt and leaves, where it had fallen during the struggle. My wrists were pinned to the ground, but by stretching my fingers to their utmost, I managed to reach it, open it one-handed, and find within the dried remnants of the moly leaf I had plucked in the Wintergarden. While Osae was distracted, I stuffed the moly into his shirt cuff, which I knew to be actually a part of his substance.
It was not much, but it was all I could do.
Of all my brothers, Caliban reached me first. He came loping through the forest, his footsteps thundering against the ground. Bellowing like an angry bull, he seized Osae the Red about the waist, lifted him, and smashed him against the bole of a large oak.
Osae snarled, twisting in his grasp. Had he been able to turn into a bird, or a mammoth, or a serpent, he might have escaped or done Caliban harm. However, the moly leaf lodged in his cuff hindered him, much as that herb had protected Odysseus from Circe’s magic long ago. His attempts to alter his shape availed him nothing.
While his man-form had been strong enough to overpower me, it was no match for my giant gorilla of a half-brother. Osae’s howl of terror was cut short, after his third violent encounter with the oak sent him into unconsciousness.
Erasmus came pelting through the forest, sliding to a stop as he reached the opening in the trees. His staff hummed in his pitted Urim gauntlet. His eyes traveled from my torn dress and bloodstained body to Caliban and the unconscious cacodemon. As I sat there beneath his scrutiny, my arms and the remaining shreds of silk insufficient to cover my exposed flesh, I wished Osae had killed me.
Only Erasmus did not sneer. Instead, a cold black anger such as I had never seen took hold of him. Without speaking, he strode to where Caliban was still slamming the unconscious demon against the oak and struck Osae with the full force of the Staff of Decay. The shapeshifter’s body collapsed upon itself, expelling a cloud of dust. When the dust cleared, Osae’s mortal seeming was gone. Some part of the demon was immune to the ravages of time. Only a black slimy something remained, twitching feebly upon the dried leaves.
I had managed to sit up, but was still half exposed, with blood and dried leaves stuck to my skin—which gleamed under the moonlight with unnatural, almost frightening paleness—when Theophrastus came running out of the forest, his staff humming on his shoulder. He stopped, panting heavily, and looked down at me. As comprehension dawned in his eyes, I realized there were worse things than being found thus by Erasmus.
“I’ll finish off the abomination, Erasmus. You take her back,” Theo commanded, when he found his voice. Then, he stalked forward, unlimbering the Staff of Devastation as he went.
“That abomination is Osae the Red,” said Erasmus as he returned to my side. “Watch out for starfish.”
He took off his velvet jacket and helped me slip into it. Then, he lifted me up like a child and carried me back through the dark woods. I heard him give orders to Apple Blossom to follow with my flute and saw the brilliant flash as Theo’s staff illuminated the forest, but I was aware of little else during that midnight walk. I remember being placed in a soft bed, feeling an odd vibration against my head, and hearing the concerned voices of Mab and Logistilla coming from far away. I fell asleep to the improbable fantasy of Logistilla clucking over me as she had cooed over Titus and Gregor.
When I awoke, bright sunlight streamed through my floor-length window, revealing large yellow and orange orchid blooms on the balcony beyond. The windows were open, and the sweet scent of the orchids mingled with a whiff of sea air filled my bedchamber.
Groaning, I took stock of my aches and injuries. My arms and back muscles were sore from the struggle. Other parts of my body felt even worse. I closed my eyes and turned to my Lady for solace.
She was gone.
Shaken and panicked, I sat up. My Lady, the fount of peace and wisdom whom I followed and obeyed with total faith; She upon whom I had depended since I was a child of five; She who led me through obstacles and over hurdles; She who protected me from harm; She who was to lead me through Hell to rescue my father . . . She was not there.
She had abandoned me. The place within me where Her peace and warmth had dwelt was empty. A great gaping chasm had been ripped in my soul.
I was alone.
For the space of a breath, or maybe a thousand breaths, everything stopped. I lay absolutely still, unable to move or even think. The horror, the abject starkness of my new reality, was too much to bear.
No nightmare had ever been this bad.
As my thoughts thawed and sluggishly began to move again, recriminations rained down like hail. If only I had recalled Mab’s warnings about the Summoning spell attracting bad spirits! I would not have been so stupid as to wander off alone. I could picture Mab perfectly, his face screwed up as he scratched his five o’clock stubble, “I hate to say it, Ma’am, but I told you so.”
If only I had raised my flute immediately instead of walking toward the demon. I even knew it was a demon, a demon from Hell! But I walked toward it. Why? Because I thought it was Seir, who had beguiled me once before? I heard Erasmus’s icy laughter so clearly in my thoughts, that I wondered if he was out there right now, mocking me before the others. I pictured him, seated in the music room, in one of the green plush armchairs, with one leg crossed over the other, smugly telling the others, “Who would have thought it, our ice princess of a sister, swept off her feet like a schoolgirl . . . by whom? A prince? A wise man? Hardly, an incubus!”
If only I had thought to inquire of my Lady when I first saw Ferdinand. She could have warned me and protected me, and it would never have come to this. In fact, I realized with a lurch of dismay, she had warned me. I remembered the horrible roiling feeling in my stomach. I had ignored her, mistaking her guidance for girlish folly. Instead, I had thought I could finesse the demon. Why? Was I such a fool as to believe his protestations? Did I think the demon, rather than the part he played, had affection for me? That he would pause in his demonic purpose for my sake?
How could I have been so naïve?
If only I had remembered Osae’s previous attacks. If only I had not discarded my enchanted dress for some flimsy ballgown . . . if only . . . if only . . . if only. . . .
Much later, I finally stirred upon my bed and sat up. I must have slept longer than I had realized, for the sun shone stubbornly into my chamber. It annoyed me that the glaring orb had not even had the decency to cover its face with dark clouds in mourning for sympathy for my loss.
It amazed me that life could go on. Yet, it did. Outside, orchids bloomed, and birds brazenly sang their songs. The storm petrels cried, and the breakers crashed against the bluffs. Somewhere in the mansion, Mephisto’s sweet tenor rang out, accompanied by the sounds of a mandolin. He was still singing “Onward Christian Soldiers,” but the words had mutated under his ministrations:
Onward Christian Soldiers
Marching as to war
With a slice of pizza
Going on before.
His cheerful irreverence seemed horribly at odds with my sorrow. I covered my head with my pillow and wept.
Several times
, someone had knocked on my door. I had ignored them. The most recent would-be visitor knocked longer and more fiercely than the rest. I did not answer the summons, but once the visitor withdrew, I rose, slowly and painfully, and hobbled across the wide chamber to the mahogany dresser upon which my violet reticule now lay.
I opened the reticule, thinking to ease my aches with a drop of Water of Life. I had actually taken out the crystal vial and was starting to draw out the stopper, when the horrible truth struck me.
We were mortal again. We were, all of us, going to die.
Horrified, I let the vial drop unopened back into the reticule and quickly put the little bag back on the dresser with unsteady hands. Our immortality required Water of Life. Only a Handmaiden of Eurynome could reach the Well at the World’s End where the Living Waters flowed. I was no longer a Handmaiden. As soon as the small supply I kept in the chapel ran out, we would begin to age.
I did a quick calculation in my head. There was enough Water to keep us immortal, including Father and Caliban, for about fifty years, maybe less. Erasmus’s staff could keep us young, but it could not heal our wounds, make us strong, or protect us from disease. Erasmus had performed many experiments along these lines. Humans kept young by the Staff of Decay alone, without Water of Life, died from accident and illness even more often than ordinary mortals. His magic might help extend our lives a few years. Alone, it was not enough to preserve us.
A shiver ran up my spine. The prediction of the Angel of the Bottomless Pit was coming to pass. Within a hundred years, whether Father died on Twelfth Night or not, the Family Prospero would perish from the Earth, and our great works would be undone.
A doom had fallen upon the Family Prospero by Twelfth Night after all.
How strange to come to this realization in this room, the room of my childhood, almost as if I had come full circle, returning to die in the place of my birth. It was much as I had left it the day we sailed for Milan, so many years ago: the lacy canopy bed (recently refurbished by Father), the mahogany dresser, the wide window leading to the orchid-strewn balcony. A green velvet armchair, a more recent addition, sat beside the hearth. Next to it stood a small end table fashioned to look like a chessboard. Upon it, dusty pieces still stood in a half-completed game—the last game my maiden self had played with Ferdinand, the real Ferdinand, over five hundred years ago.
On the mantelpiece stood a tall oval mirror with a gold-speckled frame that Father must have added recently, along with armchair, for I could not recall anything like it from my youth. Flanking the mirror were my favorite childhood playmates, two smooth, featureless wooden dolls Father had carved for me. One was winged; the other had gentle curves indicating a woman.
Seeing them brought a faint smile to my lips. I recalled many happy days playing on the bluff. Sometimes, the woman was my mother and the winged doll was an angel who watched over her in Heaven. Other times, I pretended the woman was me, riding the Unicorn, commanding the lightning bolt, and doing other great things I intended some day to do, while the angel, my mother who was now with Our Lord, watched over me from her place in Heaven. Seeing them again brought me a meager bit of comfort.
I started toward the mirror, then hesitated. I did not want to look at myself this morning and see myself, unchanged. Oh, my face might be temporarily marred by a cut or a few bruises, but fundamentally, I would see the same self I had seen yesterday, and last year, and last century . . . when She had been with me. This struck me as wrong, as if I were beholding a lie.
I glanced at the mirror anyway.
A stranger regarded me, a pale young woman with large eyes as green as emeralds and hair as black as the feathers of a raven’s wing. I thought I must have mistaken a portrait for a mirror, until her lips parted in sync with mine.
Erasmus!
He had returned the color to my hair. That vibration I had felt must have been him running his staff over my head when he placed me in the bed. Most likely, he had meant this as a peace offering, or a sign of his compassion during my hour of woe. Only, I wished bitterly that he had not done it.
Coming so quickly on the heels of my Lady’s desertion, this new youthful me was more disconcerting than the familiar silver-haired reflection I had dreaded beholding only moments ago. I turned away, dismayed.
On top of the mahogany dresser, in a neatly folded pile, lay the belongings I had left at Erasmus’s house: my white winter cloak, half a dozen other items I had brought with me, such as the silver circlet inset with horn Father Christmas had given me, a second pair of shoes, and my emerald tea dress. Apparently, someone had made use of Ulysses’s staff to retrieve our things.
Slowly, I reached out and touched the shimmering green satin of my tea gown. The cloth felt cool and smooth beneath my bruised fingers. Reaching into the pocket of my cloak, I drew out the silver fan and laid it across the enchanted dress.
How differently last night—and the rest of my life—might have been, if I had just had these two things with me.
Seeing the circlet caused yet another pang of pain. While I had been telling myself that I would never see Astreus again, in my heart I had believed otherwise. I had secretly hoped that if I merely waited long enough, we would chance to meet again: perhaps during another Christmas feast, or when his tasks in the Void were finally complete and he was again left to his own devices.
But, that was when I had imagined I would be around two hundred, three hundred, even a thousand years. With only a scant century left, my chance of running into the elf lord again shrank to naught.
As I pushed the circlet back under my cloak, where its glittering silver would not mock me, something about it caught my eye. I paused and peered at it more closely. It was made of alternating lengths of horn and silver. Only, what I had previously taken for horn looked exactly like the substance that lined Mephisto’s hat—horse’s hoof, according to Mab.
For an instant, I wondered why Astreus had worn this at the Christmas feast instead of his customary crown of stars and what had prompted Father Christmas to give it to me. Then my misery smothered any curiosity, and I put the circlet away.
Beside the pile of garments lay my flute. Picking it up, I lay its cool polished wood against my cheek. Thank goodness, I had not given in to my foolish whim and thrown it into the sea. Without my Lady to calm me and Father to guide me, its music was the only solace that remained.
I could not hide from the world forever. The next time someone knocked at the door, I answered softly, hoping whoever it was would not hear me and go away.
“Who is it?”
“Gregor.”
Gregor! He was alive again! How could have I forgotten! Rushing forward, I threw open the door.
My long-thought-dead brother stood in the doorway garbed in one of Father’s black scholar’s robes. He had been washed and groomed since last I had seen him. His hair now fell to his broad shoulders in a soft black wave, and his black beard had been trimmed close, like Theo’s, emphasizing the strength of his chin. His skin was still swarthier than mine, despite his many years of indoor confinement in the underground bunker Ulysses had apparently imprisoned him in, but his once bulky stature had been replaced by a lithe lean build. While his eyes still retained their old ferocity, the intensity had been muted by a new reflective introspection. All this gave him the appearance of a sixteenth-century priest, or perhaps, a Spanish poet.
Gregor came into my room and spoke. His voice had not changed. It was still the same hoarse near-whisper I recalled from ages passed.
“Miranda, I have come to express my gratitude,” he said. “I have been given to understand I have you to thank for my liberation.”
“Me?” I squeaked, astonished.
“I have been speaking with one called Mab. He tells me you orchestrated the search that led to my release.”
I nearly demurred, explaining that he owed his rescue to Mab’s good detective work, but it occurred to me he was right. Mab had originally been against my investigating the wherea
bouts of my brothers. He had wanted to concentrate on the disappearance of Father. Only my insistence had led to the investigation, which eventually revealed Gregor’s whereabouts.
“You are welcome,” I said, as graciously as I could, and then, tears welling up in my eyes, I burst out, “Gregor, Eurynome has deserted me! W-we are all going to die!”
Gregor stepped forward and took my hands in his. His hands were large and warm. “God works in mysterious ways, Miranda. If it is His will our family linger upon the Earth doing His works, then we shall remain. If not, we shall depart for a better place.”
“But, She was . . . What will I do without Her?” I wept.
“Pray, and your answer will come. The answers God in Heaven gives us may not be as easy to hear as the will of your pagan goddess, but His kingdom is greater, and His blessings more certain.”
“How can you believe that?” I asked, pulling one hand free to wipe my eyes. “You were imprisoned for nearly a century! Do you think your God intended you to suffer like that? Didn’t you lose hope?”
“No,” Gregor’s eyes glittered with stern conviction. “There were dark days, but I knew God would not desert me, whether I made my bed in Hell or on Mars. He would not have allowed me to remain in such a situation unless there was something for me to learn. So, I strove to learn all that I could during my imprisonment.”
“And this comforted you?”
Gregor nodded. “I spend much of the time meditating on the differences between the Catholic and Protestant doctrines and trying to reconcile them in my mind. I believe I have come to some kind of conclusion.”
“But decades in prison! Why would you put up with a god who treats you in such a manner?”
Gregor hesitated, as if listening. A twinkle of amusement appeared in his dark eyes. “If your Lady, as you called her, asked you to spend a century in seclusion for some purpose of her own, would you have hesitated?”
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