The Welsh Knight
Page 7
Noting the growing angst in her voice, he tried to stall her recitation. “Frankie, it’s okay if you aren’t comfortable —”
“No, I’d like to tell you. Really.”
He waited in silence, but the little table light illuminated a sudden change of expressions. Her countenance altered from being gay and pixie-like, to much darker. Her demeanor now reflected fear, pain, and even anger. Despite all that, her bright eyes reflected inner rebellion and extreme independence.
“I was second oldest. From the time I was sixteen, my father brought men home. For me.”
Sensing what might be coming, he sat up straighter. Still, he waited for her to say what she would.
“I refused every suitor that father pushed on me. I didn’t want my life to be like the lives of all the other women I’d known. As time went on, all my friends were married and were having children. I was growing older and deemed a burden because I wasn’t out of the house yet. You were probably around in those times. At least, I assume you were. You remember what it was like for woman.”
He nodded.
She hesitated for a moment before continuing. “Some of my friends married very early on. A few died in childbirth, attempting to give some man an heir!” She snorted. “My parents persisted in trying to basically sell me off. When that didn’t work, they offered money in the form of a dowry that, even in this day and time, would be a fortune. But I resisted. By the time I was twenty-four, rumors started circulating that I wasn’t worth having. I didn’t care. I wanted to do more with my life than let some man buy me baubles, justifying excuses to force himself on me!”
“It was like that in many places,” he agreed. “Ironically, there were times in history where women were great warriors. I don’t know when men began to tell them they weren’t worthy, or why women began to believe it.”
“Maybe I’d have been better off in ancient times. I could have owned property in some places. I could have pursued business, or —”
“Died an early death from some horrific disease. While some women had more rights, they still died terribly, Frankie. A lot of people did. There’s never been a period in history when things were fair. I don’t think humans have it in them to be fair.”
“I agree with you in that respect,” she told him. “But for my time in history, I wanted more and was willing to fight for it.” She got up and paced away before turning to him again. “I’d read about women who were exploring. They were writing. They were visiting great museums in parts of the world I feared I’d never get to see.” She quickly sat again. “I read about them being scientists and visionaries. That’s what I wanted…a life of adventure…a life that mattered.” She sadly smiled. “I know I had no skills to speak of, but I could at least be more than ornamental. I wanted to do something grand with my life. Was that so wrong?”
“No, Frankie. It’s never wrong to reach for the stars,” he softly told her. “Without people having done so, where would we be?”
“My parents saw things quite differently. They wanted me married to someone who could bolster my father’s business interests. He and my brother were both in shipping and making a fortune. But money wasn’t what I was after. I wanted equality. My brother could do as he pleased. He was two years older than me, but no one ever forced marriage on him.” She clenched her hands. “Scott…that was my brother’s name…had an apartment. I couldn’t. I couldn’t have a life without some man in it, telling me what to do and how to think!” She paused for a long moment before continuing. “My mother was no more than a lovely decoration. Father married her because she was beautiful and her father could back his shipping business. Don’t get me wrong. I loved my mother, but she was singularly useless at household management. Our employees, especially the kitchen staff, constantly needed guidance about when and how to restock. Same with the gardeners and everyone else who made deliveries to the house.” She took a deep breath and shook her head in frustration. “By the time I was twenty-seven, I was deemed useless for anything else but keeping the household books, and prepping for the many parties that Father and Mother gave. By then, I was considered a spinster who was far past my prime. To avoid arguments, my parents simply left decisions concerning the household to me. It wasn’t much of a job, but it gave me purpose.”
“Something tells me you were very good at it.”
“I was,” she admitted with a lift of her chin. “I could organize the flaming hell out of anything. Even my parents couldn’t fault my skills at putting on a party while saving every penny possible.”
“So, life got better?” he suggested.
“It actually did. After a while, my parents left me alone entirely. They’d given up on ever trying to make me into some giant doll, available for the right price to any businessman…of any age or questionable reputation. But then…then it was my sisters’ turn…Amy and Emily.” She frowned and growled before speaking again. “When my younger twin sisters got to the age of sixteen, and my father started pushing men on them, I’d had enough! The twins were…they weren’t as mature as they should have been for the times. They were still playing with dolls when my father started bringing home suitors. The girls needed defending from their own father’s maneuvers. They saw me as their only real guardian.” She sighed heavily. “All either of them really wanted was a pony or a kitten! Not a damned husband. What was worse, some of these men were highly experienced shipping magnates. They were well-traveled and were rumored to have some…exotic…tastes. They literally offered my father contracts for the exchange of his daughters. That the tag of wife came with the offer didn’t change what it was. My old man was pimping his daughters. They were up were up for sale, the same as I’d been.”
Mac held his tongue, though barely. He almost saw the trouble she’d cause in defense of her siblings, and agreed with every fight she likely engaged. He approved every syllable that must have come out of her mouth, on her sisters’ behalf. The light in her eyes showed the fight in her heart, even now, so many years later.
There were some things in history that were so despicable as to demean all of humanity. That she stood up against a few of them made him feel she’d do so again, throughout time. Even then, with her humanity still intact, she must have been a warrior in her own right. Her next words affirmed all that his imagination conjured.
“It was early morning. Friday. September 7, 1900. It was the day before the storm. I remember the date and will for the rest of eternity.” She stared straight ahead, into the distance. “I’d read a blurb about the storm in the paper. It was nothing. We lived on an island that always had storms. Nobody thought anything about it, and the main weatherman lived right on the beach. He hadn’t issued any kind of hurricane warning at all. We…no one could have known.”
“Are you sure you want to talk about this?
She firmly nodded and plunged ahead. “Several nights before the hurricane, my father brought home two prospective suitors for my sisters. Using behavior that would have driven off a whole contingent of men, I finally insulted them enough that they left. Father and Mother were furious with me. They lectured me about my lack of deportment, and told me to never do such a thing again.”
“But you didn’t listen,” he injected.
She shook her head adamantly. “To keep that same scenario from ever happening again, I made up my mind to confront my parents.” She clasped her hands together. “First, I tried talking to Mother. She simply turned her back on me and trounced upstairs, to her room. So…on that Friday morning before the storm…I made up my mind to take on my father. I marched into his study where he was working. He looked up from his desk, as if I was a mosquito he’d like to swat.” She shrugged. “I was mad, and in one of my more hideously self-righteous tirades. I loudly proclaimed that if he ever brought another male into the house for the twins…that I’d do whatever it took to make him sorry. I told him that I’d drive every suitor from Galveston, and I told him in language that even his dockworkers wouldn’t have used!”
“I didn’t count on his reaction.”
Her hands clenched and she leaned back. He almost knew what she was about to say. In those days, a young woman behaving irregularly—in a very powerful father’s home—wouldn’t have fared well.
“Frankie…”
“He shot from behind that desk like a bullet out of a gun.” She lifted her chin and took a deep breath. “His right fist came out, and he hit me in the face hard enough to put me on the floor.”
“Frankie —”
“I didn’t know how to defend myself then. Certainly not like I do now. All I could remember was screaming. I guess I must have yelled loud enough that someone else in the house heard me. It seemed like everything around me was spinning. I must have lost consciousness. After that, there was just this horrible pain. I don’t know how much time passed, but it seemed I heard Scott’s voice. It seemed like he might have been standing over me, and I think I remember hearing Mother crying. Really hard. Then…everything went dark after that.”
“I’m sorry, Frankie.”
“He’d never hit me before. That one time he did…I’m not sure…I think he hurt me pretty badly.”
“What happened next?” he warily asked.
“I don’t know for sure. The next thing I remember, I was lying on my bed upstairs. My head hurt so much that I could barely see. I couldn’t speak at all. Seems like I laid there for the longest damned time before I could move. Then my eyes focused.” She frowned and tilted her head.
He was sure, at that moment, that she’d never gone into this kind of memory dive with anyone else. Captivated by her story, he kept silent and waited.
She held out her hand, as though she was reaching for something. “As soon as I could see better, I turned my head and saw the clock on my bedside dresser. It was a half past three. At the time, I thought it was still Friday, but I found out later that I’d been unconscious from Friday morning until Saturday afternoon.”
“You must have had a concussion. A very severe one from the sound of it!”
“I finally got out of bed. When I saw myself in the mirror, and viewed the result of Father’s anger, I knew I had to get out of that house and take the twins with me. My whole face was a black and blue bruise. For the life of me, I don’t know how a normal person could hit you once and do that much damage, but that’s what happened.”
He frowned, but let her continue. She had more to tell though he wasn’t sure he wanted to hear it. Historical recollections were one thing. He was about to be regaled with the truth, from someone who’d lived it.
“Finally, I stood and could walk steadily enough, if slowly. So, I moved toward my bedroom door, to get my sisters. That was when I found out my door was locked. From the outside.”
Her head turned into the slight breeze now blowing across the hillsides. She was now in a place and time that would herald the circumstances behind her becoming immortal. That she’d been beaten by her father first was bad enough. Soon, as things always did when one immortal told their sad tale of lost humanity, her story would get much worse.
“The window was shut, but I heard this horrible wind blowing around the house. I heard sounds like loud thuds and bangs coming from outside. I stumbled to my window and finally got it open. Rain and wind all blew in at once. Boards, parts of roofs, and all kinds of debris were being blown into the side of our home, like leaves in an autumn wind. And then…then…”
“What? What happened?”
“Water. Waves and waves of it. Everywhere. People were shouting. I heard screams. Mr. Markesan…our neighbor…he was in his yard shouting. The water came in and went over his head. When I saw him again, he was treading in it. All kinds of wood and sticks and parts of houses were floating everywhere. The sky was getting so dark. It was horrible.”
“You were still locked in your room,” he angrily declared.
“Yeah. I tried the door again. I found my voice and shouted, but I don’t know if it carried over the din outside. There was this sound like a freight train, coming down the street. I’ve never heard anything like it since.”
“You got out, though.”
She slowly shook her head. “No. The house…it just…it just…”
He moved closer to her and put one hand on her shoulder.
“It began to fall apart. The outside wall to my room collapsed. Then the roof started to come down. After that…I don’t know.”
“What’s the next thing you remember?” he whispered.
She swallowed hard. “I woke up under a huge pile of wood. There was the smell of dead animals and…fish…dead people. I don’t know how I ever figured out what a dead person smelled like, but I knew what it was. I just knew.” Her voice dropped to a murmur. “The stench was thick and everywhere. I’ve smelled it since…during WWII. But that day in Galveston, that was the first time.”
“The water?” he asked. “Were you in the water? Did you come near drowning, Frankie? Is that how you became immortal?”
She faced him. “I’m not sure. If it wasn’t the water, it was all the debris around and on top of me. I cut myself trying to get out of the pile of garbage. I could feel the cuts. They were deep, but weren’t there when I was finally rescued.”
“How did the rescue happen?”
“I-I heard people shouting. I tried to yell. They must have heard me because some men started digging fast and hard. They eventually got down to me. When I saw the daylight again, they were standing over me. Some prayed. Some were crying. One man handed me a jacket. My clothes were gone.”
“I once read that the deaths were catastrophic.”
“I-I wandered with the men. Down to the beach. They were kind. They kept trying to carry me, but I wanted to walk.”
For a long, long time, she said nothing. Mac was afraid she was too far into the story to interrupt; too far to stop her. Eventually, she spoke again.
“They said there were between six and twelve thousand dead. I saw a lot of ‘em. Some were out in the open. Some were on the beach, being burned. There were people burning bodies all over the island. The whole place was unrecognizable. Here and there, a building survived, but not many. Everything on the beach was gone. Everything except the bodies being put there,” she repeated.
“With that many dead, they couldn’t have buried them,” he softly explained. “Disease might have broken out had they not burned the bodies, Frankie.”
“I know. I don’t blame anyone. It was just…it was so hard…that long walk to the beach…”
Without thinking, he pulled her into his embrace. She leaned against him and held onto him. Hard.
He finally let her go again, and asked the hardest question. “What about your family?”
“I don’t know where they were, or what happened to them. I never saw them again. I looked. I did look, Mac. I asked people, but everyone left alive was crying. They were looking for their own kinfolk. Men picking up the bodies were drinking whiskey they’d been given to help make their job easier. Folks…they recognized their kin by jewelry or bits of clothing, mostly.”
“I’m so very sorry, Frankie. An accident is one thing. To have come into immortality like that…I have no words.”
“I stumbled on the beach and a big shard of wood went into my shin. It healed. Right away. A man saw me and he…he went pale as a sheet. I got away as fast as I could. I didn’t know what he’d tell authorities. Back then, there were people who thought immortals were demonic. You know how it was; how the regular population could get. Right?”
“I certainly do.”
“Well, I survived. Whether it was the water or the debris on top of me that did it, I’m an immortal and have been since September 8, 1900.”
“You…you eventually turned yourself in, that’s obvious. But when?”
“I knew my family was dead. Their names di
dn’t show up on the lists, but a lot of people were missing and stayed that way. I did go to Houston, but never heard anything about any of my family from authorities there. The Red Cross tried to help me. I made my way around the coast with their efforts. I couldn’t find anyone I knew who was alive. Eventually, I had no choice. I wasn’t trained to do anything but look pretty, and put numbers into an account ledger. I went to Washington and turned myself in.”
“What a tragedy,” he softly muttered.
She lifted her chin and blinked her eyes as if to ward off unshed tears. “Everyone who turns immortal has a sad tale, Mac. Mine can’t be worse than anyone else’s. At least Washington put me to work. For turning myself in, they treated me very well. I got good at cataloging artifacts under the Smithsonian. When I got better than anyone else, I got promoted, and eventually got to work in the field. I was among the first immortal women to go undercover, hunting magical relics during WWII.” She shrugged. “Of course, in the US, I could have remained anonymous. I had that constitutional right. We don’t have to be outed like you guys here. I never had to have a claviger watching me. Because we have those freedoms, most immortals in my country choose to work with Division 52.”
“Indeed. I wish the powers that be here could take a page from the American book!” He shook his head. “Still, that was a horrible way to have started an immortal life. A horrible way, Frankie.”
She pushed back a strand of hair. “You know…besides Scott, I was the only other one in the family to have enough sense to learn how to swim. We were on a damned island after all, but Father didn’t approve of such things. He thought that ladies swimming was unseemly. Undignified and unwholesome.”
“Sounds like that’s precisely why you did it.”
She half-smiled. “It obviously didn’t help me, nor could it have. There was too much debris in the water. Tons and tons of it. Who could swim against that?”
He moved the terrible conversation to a less emotional, if pertinent part. “When did you meet Merlin?”