Damned by the Ancients

by Catherine Cavendish

  With her daughter engrossed in her artwork, Yvonne returned to the kitchen, her mind full of conflicting thoughts. None of them good. How did Heidi know the door had been opened? She couldn’t unless someone had told her. She hadn’t. That left…

  Her attention strayed to the basement door. They had to find out what lay behind it but the terrible smell couldn’t indicate anything good. The more she thought about it, the more certain she became they would find something dead down there.

  Her conviction only increased throughout a frustrating afternoon of trying to concentrate on extracting the Marquand Sisters from their palace dungeon. After two fruitless hours, she stared at the result.

  Alicia Marquand turned to her sister. “Well, Victoria, this is a fine mess we’ve found ourselves in. Now what do we do?”

  “Oh, I haven’t a clue, you silly bitch. Work it out for yourself.” Yvonne realized she had spoken the words out loud. Not only that, she had typed them. She hit the delete key. “Dammit!”

  She shut down the laptop and found Heidi, who had finished drawing and was once more engrossed in her book as she sat under the tree. Yvonne didn’t disturb her, returned to the library, and climbed the spiral staircase.

  Leather-bound editions of Plutarch’s Lives, works by Tacitus, Herodotus, Cicero, and many more of the greats, in more than one language. English, German, Latin, Greek, and those were the ones Yvonne recognized. Moving on, she came across an extensive collection of works on ancient Egyptian archaeology, history, and art. Looking up, the shelves towered above her head, reachable only by means of a sliding ladder. The entire collection must be priceless. Strange it should be left here at the mercy of the tenants of the day.

  She looked at her watch. Three thirty already, and not one decent word written. Time to put that straight. Those Marquand Sisters would not defeat her.

  She stepped carefully down the staircase and over to her laptop. While she waited for it to boot up, she looked again at her daughter’s picture. Heidi really did have talent. The animal looked so much like a statue of the Egyptian cat goddess. She couldn’t remember her name. Within a minute of booting up she had keyed in the search term “Egyptian cat goddess” and multiple images of the goddess Bast flashed onto the screen. She compared them with Heidi’s drawing. Not all, but most, presented a clear match. In some, the cat wore an ankh, in others an ornate jeweled collar, but it was the cat’s features that were so strikingly similar.

  Yvonne reduced the images on the computer and selected her current manuscript. How to free the Marquand sisters and their royal charge? With great effort of will, she managed to write something that started to make sense. By five o’clock she had solved the puzzle. Alicia Marquand was always up for a bit of bribery and she used her feminine wiles to charm the jailer. While he was distracted, Victoria stole his keys. Alicia felled him with a karate move she had learned on their trip to Japan and left the unconscious man locked in his cell while the women fled with the tsarevitch. This time, as Yvonne backed up her work onto her memory stick and shut down the laptop, she did so with a feeling of triumph. Tomorrow they would return the boy to his grateful parents, who would reward them generously. Enough to fund their next exciting adventure.

  Job done.

  * * * *

  She had finished preparing the cold poached salmon they would enjoy with salad and crusty bread when she heard the front door open. Heidi, who had come in an hour earlier, raced down the stairs. “Dad!”

  “Hello, sweetheart.”

  Yvonne watched them from the kitchen doorway. They were so close. Just as a father and daughter should be. Her own childhood had lacked a father figure, as hers had deserted them when Yvonne was little more than a baby.

  Ryan held his daughter’s hand and she skipped along beside him into the kitchen. He kissed his wife. “Good day?”

  “Interesting,” Yvonne replied. “I’ll tell you about it later.” It wouldn’t do to start mentioning strange smells and frightened locksmiths in front of their impressionable daughter.

  “Show Dad my picture,” Heidi said, clapping her hands.

  “What picture is this, then?”

  “I’ll get it for you.” Yvonne retrieved it from the desk in the library.

  “Very good. Very good indeed,” Ryan said. He waved it at Yvonne. “Is this what I think it is?”

  “If you mean is it a cat goddess, then you’re right. The likeness is remarkable.”

  “We have a talented artist in the family,” he said, kissing his daughter on the top of her head. He looked questioningly at Yvonne.

  “Tell you later,” she mouthed.

  * * * *

  After dinner, Heidi sat in the living room to watch TV before bedtime. Yvonne and Ryan remained in the kitchen where Yvonne caught her husband up on the day’s events. He blanched when she told him what Heidi had said.

  “You told me she was definitely in the garden, out of earshot, while the locksmith did his work. She couldn’t possibly have known what happened unless someone told her. You haven’t been any farther than the door itself yet, have you?”

  “Quite frankly, the smell was enough to put anyone off. That locksmith charged off as if the devil was after him.”

  Ryan went over to the door. Yvonne stood behind him as he turned the handle. She ran her tongue around her dry mouth. Fear of the unknown was the worst kind.

  The door opened with a slight shudder.

  Ryann looked at her questioningly. “I thought you said there was a foul smell?”

  “There was. Maybe it dissipated when the door was opened earlier.”

  They crossed the threshold, stepping onto a concrete floor. Ryan flicked the light switch but nothing happened.

  “I’d better get flashlights,” he said, retreating into the kitchen.

  Yvonne stood at the doorway. The only smell she detected now was a general fustiness, tinged with damp. Surely that was normal in a house of this vintage, especially when part of it had been shut up and airless for so long.

  Ryan handed her a flashlight. “You take this one. Let’s go.”

  The beams danced off the bare walls. Yvonne hung onto the stair rail as they descended into the bowels of the house, into an ancient and long-abandoned kitchen.

  “It’s like a museum down here,” Yvonne said, her voice a whisper. “Look at those copper pans.” She shone the beam on an array of antique kitchenware hanging on the walls. She swung the flashlight round to reveal a dust-covered table and ancient range. “It can’t have been too pleasant for the staff down here. I know it’s beginning to get dark now, but even in the middle of the day, there’s not too much natural light getting in.”

  “Come on, let’s keep going.”

  Yvonne didn’t want Ryan to get too far ahead of her. The place was so silent and made her skin crawl. She hurried to keep up.

  Ryan led them down a corridor, past the butler’s pantry, a wine cellar, and up to a closed door. Ryan turned the handle and it gave, the hinges protesting a need for oiling.

  They both recoiled. “What is that awful smell?” Ryan clapped his hand over his mouth and nose.

  “Dead lilies.” Yvonne retched. “Or something like it.”

  Ryan scanned the room with his flashlight. Ash, broken bits of furniture, and old rags littered the floor. “No one’s been here for years,” he said.

  Yvonne dared to cross the floor, shining her flashlight ahead of her. She reached another door. Locked. “The smell’s worse over here,” she said, before rejoining Ryan.

  “Where did Heidi say she thought she saw someone?”

  “I’m not sure. I don’t think it was in here. Maybe that locked room.”

  “Okay.” Ryan took a deep breath, went over to the door, tried the handle, rattled the doorknob, and put his shoulder to the wood. “Pretty solid,” he said.

  “I don’t thi
nk we should go any farther,” Yvonne said.

  “Why not? Look, I can break this door down, we can find out what’s causing this smell and—”

  “We can’t go breaking down doors. It isn’t our house.”

  “And who’s going to know?”

  “Let’s leave it. Please.” The all-too-familiar sense of unease was spreading rapidly through Yvonne’s body, as if someone had planted it there, determined that it should flourish. Ryan was not the sort of man to go around vandalizing people’s property, yet here he was, proposing to do just that. What could he be thinking of?

  “I don’t know why you’re so adamant, Yvonne. We need to get to the other side of that door and find out what’s behind there.”

  “I don’t think we do. Not tonight, anyway. Maybe another day.”

  Ryan hesitated, looked back at the door, then appeared to make a decision. “Okay. That’s it for tonight. We’ll come back tomorrow.”

  “Ryan. I don’t think we should. Look, there’s nothing here. Let’s leave it. This place gives me the creeps.”

  “That’s not like you,” Ryan said. “I know you’re spooked. Hell, so am I, but we need to get to the bottom of this for our sanity’s sake, if nothing else.”

  “I know, but the banging, the dents that come and go, the way Heidi’s been behaving. Not to mention the way she dressed that doll. It’s all pointing to something dangerous. Some things shouldn’t be meddled with.”

  “Okay, you’ve made your point, but I still intend to find out what’s behind that door. If that means I have to break it down, so be it.”

  Yvonne said nothing. Perhaps a good night’s sleep would bring him to his senses.

  * * * *

  A good night’s sleep was not something Yvonne could enjoy that night. Three o’clock saw her downstairs, nursing a mug of hot tea in the library. She had switched on a couple of lamps, leaving most of the room in deep shadow. She curled up on the settee and let her mind wander over nothing in particular. A movement caught her eye on the far side of the room where the shadows were deepest.

  A tiny pinprick of light danced like a firefly, twisting and turning. Yvonne watched, riveted. What was a firefly doing in a Vienna library? They weren’t native to Austria. But if it looks like a firefly and behaves like a firefly, then it must be…a firefly.

  Except it couldn’t be.

  Not only was it in the wrong place, as she watched she realized it wasn’t behaving like a firefly at all. Fireflies’ “lights” didn’t remain on. They danced to attract mates. She’d seen a program on the National Geographic channel, caught it by accident when she was waiting for something else to start and then become absorbed by the behavior of these tiny bugs.

  But if it’s not a firefly, what is it?

  The dancing light began to glow. The exuberant dancing slowed to a gentle sway. The light changed from golden to a greenish yellow, then to emerald. It grew brighter.

  Yvonne held her breath. It came nearer as if drawn toward her. She hunched herself up, her knees under her chin, her hands gripping her ankles.

  The light grew stronger, more vivid. It danced its casual way closer. Closer. Sweat broke out on her forehead. The insect was no more than five feet away from her. She daren’t move.

  Closer. She should be able to hear its wings buzzing.

  She heard nothing.

  She held her breath.

  Any second now. She imagined the flimsy, twiglike legs tickling her face, the peering compound eyes, beetle-like body. She repressed a shudder. Insects made her flesh crawl. Her palms sweated. Any second now.

  The light shone in her face.

  And went out.

  Yvonne leaped to her feet and charged over to the main switch, flooding the room with light. Her heart thudded, her breath came in gasps. She searched every inch of the library looking for anything that could have made that light, especially an insect.

  Nothing.

  Yet another thing she couldn’t explain. What next? She shuddered, switched off the light, and ran up the stairs to bed. When she finally slept, nightmares of giant beetles with luminescent wings scared her unconscious self.

  * * * *

  “You look like you haven’t slept again,” Ryan said.

  “I didn’t. Not much, anyway.”

  “You’ll sleep better when we open up the entire basement and find there’s nothing to worry about.”

  “As long as that is what we find.”

  “I don’t doubt it for a second.”

  Maybe if he says it enough, he can believe it. “How are you going to explain the damaged door?”

  “I’m not. As I said last night, no one goes down there anyway.”

  “This isn’t like you.”

  “I’ve never been in this situation before. I’m on a learning curve.” He gave a brittle laugh and swallowed coffee.

  Fraught with anxiety as she was, his attitude grated on Yvonne. “You’d be the first to complain if someone deliberately wrecked your property.”

  “Oh, come on, Yvonne. It’s a door in a basement that no one uses.”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “I’m not going to argue with you. I’m off to work. See you at dinner.” He kissed her on the cheek and left.

  Yvonne went through the motions of washing, drying, and putting away the dishes and then went upstairs.

  She found her daughter sitting cross-legged on the floor, with her dolls arranged in a semicircle in front of her. She appeared to be addressing them. Yvonne hesitated at the door, out of sight of the little girl. She listened.

  “…and you all know what to do. Remember, he is counting on us to do our best. The queen must come back, and we have to help him find her.”

  The words sent chills racing up Yvonne’s spine. Not that again. She coughed and went into Heidi’s bedroom.

  “Well, have I stumbled in on a meeting? This all looks very formal.”

  “No, Mum. We’ve finished now. Can I go out and play, please?”

  “Yes, of course. Stay in the garden as always and don’t forget your sun hat. Or the cream.”

  “I never forget, Mum.” Heidi raced out of the room before her mother could change her mind. Yvonne smiled and started picking up the dolls. The doll who had been dressed as a corpse now looked much prettier in the bright yellow dress Yvonne had fished out of a box of Heidi’s doll clothes—far more appropriate for a young girl.

  Yvonne picked her up and turned her over. The doll’s long, dark hair gleamed. Her eyes shone amber and today they didn’t seem alive as they had the last time she had seen her. Selena’s appearance was so different from the blond-haired, blue-eyed Barbies of Yvonne’s childhood. Even the shape of her face was different. This one looked exotic. Middle Eastern maybe.

  “Ouch.” A thin trickle of blood tracked down her forefinger. Yvonne dropped the doll on the bed and licked the scratch. It stopped bleeding almost immediately, but Yvonne picked up the doll and looked for the cause of her injury. She couldn’t risk Heidi being hurt.

  The doll’s hands were smooth, with no sharp edges. There was nothing prickly on her dress or on any other part of her body. If there had been, surely she would have noticed when she changed the doll’s dress.

  Weird.

  Yvonne carried on tidying the dolls, laying them in a line on the shelf at the side of Heidi’s bed.

  She replaced Selena last, flicking the long hair over the doll’s shoulder. She bent her legs and sat her on the edge of the shelf. She could have sworn the doll’s eyes flashed angrily. Only for a split second. It couldn’t have happened, of course. But she didn’t imagine the long hair creeping back over her shoulder to hang loose.

  Yvonne stared, transfixed. Of course, it could be just that the hair had fallen back naturally. But why hadn’t it simply flopped back? The doll’s hair ha
d gently slid over her shoulder as if an invisible hand had stroked it back into place.

  I need to write. I’m going stir-crazy.

  Ten minutes later, Yvonne had booted up her computer. The book had a beginning and an end, but the middle section needed attention. She let her mind be taken over by the Marquand Sisters.

  Three absorbing hours and two cups of coffee later, Yvonne skipped to the last page and typed “The End.” She sat back and sighed. No more sagging midsection. First draft done and dusted. Now would come the weeks of revising, rewriting, editing, and general polishing. The familiar sensation of satisfaction at typing the words “The End” never failed her. Even if it was only the first draft and the beginning of much more work.

  Heidi had always been good about letting her mother get on with her work. First drafts invariably led Yvonne to lose track of time, but luckily her daughter was happy in her own company. A pang of guilt troubled Yvonne. In England, Heidi would have had her friends to play with. Here she knew no one. That would soon change, of course. In a couple of months, she would be at her new school and the house would be ringing with the sound of girlish laughter.

  Yvonne found her daughter playing happily outside. She had been joined by a glossy black cat. “Where did your new friend come from?”

  “She just appeared from nowhere. One minute she wasn’t here and then she was.”

  “She’s very beautiful. I wonder who she belongs to.”

  “No one. She belongs to herself.”

  Yvonne stroked the cat, wondering how her daughter had come up with that one.

  “It’s true that you never really own a cat, but she’s in beautiful condition. She must have a home nearby.”

  Heidi said nothing. A slight smile played around her lips as she stroked the silky fur.

  Yvonne tickled the cat’s chin. “I wonder if she’s microchipped.”

  The cat nuzzled Heidi’s hand. “I wish I could keep her, Mum. She said she would love to live with us.”

  “Well she’s a very clever cat indeed if she can talk.”

  “She speaks to me in here,” Heidi touched her forehead and her heart. “Like the man in the basement.”