by Davis, SJ
“Wait a minute…you’ve lost me. How did you end up in Greenville? You said that Odin – Ares – took you in Portland.”
“He did, but the search for me was so extensive that he got worried. He decided to relocate to be on the safe side. He wanted to start again in a more rural area. The mountains seemed like a good bet. He found the house in Burnt Jacket on-line and rented it direct from the owners. It was the only occupied place on the road. Other than his truck, the only vehicle to pass by our driveway all winter was the snowplow.”
“And that’s when he met Annie?”
“He didn’t meet her so much as contrive to meet her.” Aurora twisted the cuff as far as it would go and twisted it back. “He looked up names in the phone book to see if there were any likely prospects and Annie – Diana – popped up. After he got a look at her, he decided she’d be the next in line. He followed her for a while to learn her habits. After that, it was easy…a pair of snowshoes and a few bottles of wine and she was his.”
“Don’t tell me no one in town noticed him.”
“Why would they?” Aurora said. “Everyone’s so bundled up in January and February that it’s easy to walk around without actually being seen, particularly after the lake’s frozen and Greenville’s full of sledders. At least that’s what he said.”
“I never thought about it that way,” Lena said. “He’s right. Where were you when all of this was going on?”
“He kept me in the basement of the house after he started dating her,” Aurora explained. “I could hear them above me on the nights she stayed over. He used a funny accent when he spoke to her - kind of Canada meets the mid-west. It surprised me at first…when we’d met, he’d had an English accent. He called me “love,” and everything was “brilliant” or “grand”. Anyway, when Annie became his new recruit, I was relegated from the library on the first floor to the basement.”
“Why didn’t you get her attention and escape?”
“How?”
“You could have screamed, couldn’t you?”
Aurora shook her head. “He kept me bound and gagged. It was particularly frustrating to be so close to help and be unable to access it. In the end though, I didn’t have to scream. Annie found me on her own.”
“How?”
Aurora began to pace. Three steps in one direction, turn, three in the other. “He’d gone to town to get supplies.”
“Greenville?”
“No, he never shopped in Greenville. As with me, he’d asked Annie to keep their relationship secret, and because of his plans for her, he couldn’t be seen there. As far as I can figure, he went back down to Guilford for groceries, gas, and wine. There’s a hardware store there, too. If he needed anything major, he’d have gone further away… Dover-Foxcroft, Dexter, or Newport. Maybe even as far as Millinocket or Skowhegan.”
Lena nodded. “He goes to Dexter now. It’s where Maeve lives.”
“He was gone the day that Annie found me. She’d stayed over the night before and forgotten something…her cell phone, I think. He drugged me before he left but I was still conscious when I heard the outer door open. At first, I thought he’d returned. Then I heard her heels on the floor above. For once, he’d been careless and left me ungagged. I yelled and she followed the sound to the basement.” Aurora stopped before the bucket of water and scooped a handful, swallowing quickly. “She found me in a makeshift room in one corner. He’d set me up like this, with a bed and a portable toilet. I was chained, but instead of the rings to hold me, he’d drilled into the overhead beam and passed them through, locking the chains to themselves with padlocks. For a minute, we just stared at each other. Then, she came to help me.”
Aurora shook her head. “It must have been hard for her, the shock of it all. I told her who I was and what he’d done and begged her to go for help. She refused to leave me and insisted on looking for the key instead.” She blinked rapidly and continued. “He came back before she found it. Apparently, he, too, had forgotten something and had to return to the house. What are the odds of that, huh?”
“What happened next?”
“He caught her, and beat her, and chained her up beside me. Then he went to her place and cleared out her things.” Aurora snapped her fingers. “Just like that, Annie Janson disappeared.”
“If only she hadn’t gone back there, she’d still be alive.”
Aurora shook her head. “He’d already planned to take her. He’d given her the necklace and earrings and told her he loved her. All he was waiting for was for her to say it back. You see, at that point, you’d already been here to check out your camp. Annie had told him all about you, and he was intrigued. She called him the day you arrived in town, did you know that? He followed you up to Breakneck Ridge.”
Lena shook her head. “He was there the day that I went to look at the place with Marge Quimby?”
Aurora nodded. “Annie had told him everything about you…your name, your history…even about the trouble you were having with Alex. You fit the pattern. He watched you from across the pond. When you put in your offer, he rented this place and the rest is history. You officially became his next goddess-in-training.”
“What happened next?”
“He kept the two of us in the basement of the Burnt Jacket house while he arranged to rent this camp. Then, he made some adjustments to the bunkhouse and moved us up here. We were completely isolated until the day you finally showed up with Jake Morris.” Aurora closed her eyes. “Annie got excited. You were just across the pond. We could hear the sound of your saws and your generator. When the wind was right, we could hear your voices. She figured that once you arrived in Greenville and couldn’t get in touch with her, you’d suspect foul play. Her theory was that you and Jake would investigate her disappearance and put two and two together, then you’d find us and bring help. It seemed plausible.” Her lower lip began to quiver. She brushed her eyes with her sleeve.
“What happened to Annie?” Lena asked softly.
“She refused to give in to him. No matter how badly he punished her, she rebelled. I told her to be patient and stop fighting, but she wouldn’t listen. First he drugged her, then he starved her, then he beat her. Nothing worked. She refused to be his goddess.” Aurora sighed heavily. “He was frustrated and infuriated. I guess he’d never come across someone with a will as strong as hers. I begged her to give in, especially after I learned about the baby, but she said it only gave her incentive to fight harder.
“In the end, it was the baby that killed her. It was the day after you and Jake Morris began work on your cabin. Ares noticed the swell of her breasts and belly. She told him she was more than three months along and he went crazy.” Aurora wrapped her arms around her chest and shivered. “She was supposed to be taking care of the birth control thing. He told me later that her decision to become pregnant was the ultimate betrayal of his trust. Can you imagine that Lena? Betrayal of his trust?”
“What did he do when he found out?” Lena’s hands were cold and bloodless. She rubbed them against her thighs, waiting for Aurora’s answer.
“He beat her. He beat her until she was bloody and broken. She fought him every step of the way. At least she did until she collapsed. Then…” Aurora’s voice broke. Tears flowed down her face in a steady stream.
“Then what, Aurora? What did he do to her?”
“He raped her,” she said, wiping her nose on her sleeve. “He strangled her when he finished.”
“Where were you while this happened?” Lena asked, aghast.
“Right where you’re sitting now,” she said. “I was right there watching.”
“You didn’t help her?”
Aurora shrugged helplessly. “Tell me honestly, Lena…what do you think I could do?”
The opening aria of Madame Butterfly drifted through the cool night air. Lena looked at her watch: seven-thirty.
“He’s coming,” Aurora said. She rushed across the room and tucked herself under the blankets.
L
ena followed suit, turning her back to the door as the lock snicked open. Light flooded the room. She shut her eyes as his footsteps crossed the room, willing her heart to slow.
“Rise and shine, ladies,” he said pulling the blanket away.
Jerking Lena up by her wrists, he locked the neck ring into place and released her arms. “It’s time for your bath. If you’re both good, I’ve made stew for dinner. You first, Selene,” he said, propelling her toward the door.
Without a glance back, Lena followed him out the door into the cool night air. She wasn’t as strong as Annie. She wanted to live, so she’d try it his way.
Chapter 46.
“We’ve got to get inside,” Aurora said.
“It’s not too bad, yet. I’d rather stay here.”
“Look at the water pail, Lena…it’s got a crust of ice on top.”
“I guess you’ve got a point.”
Lena closed her eyes and listened to the wind blow outside the bunkhouse. It was still early in the season, but it felt cold enough for snow. She wondered if she’d live to see the spring.
“Where did he came from originally?” she said. “You thought he was British, Annie thought he was mid-western, and he had me convinced he was Norwegian.”
“He’s certainly not local, I can tell you that much.”
Aurora took the brush and began to work it through Lena’s hair, a chore that had become part of their daily ritual. Lena grimaced as she pulled.
“I agree. He doesn’t have the intonations or vernacular of a Mainer.”
“Maybe he’s from Ohio or Indiana? Illinois. They’ve got a neutral accent out there.”
Lena shrugged. “It’s possible. He could be from upstate New York or Connecticut, too. Hell, he could be from just about anywhere! I wonder how long he’s been at it…kidnapping women?”
“He had another girl when he first took me,” Aurora said. “Her name was Bridget.” She shook her head and laughed. “You’ve got to love the Irish…they’ve provided him with enough goddesses to keep him going for years: Bridget, Eileen, Maeve, and Rhiannon. Throw in a few Dianas and Liliths and he’s good indefinitely. I wonder if he’ll ever find another Aurora or Selene, though? I wonder if he’s ever had an Aphrodite or a Demeter?”
“The other girl, Bridget…where was she from?”
“I don’t know. By the time he locked me away with her, she was too far gone.” Aurora held her finger to her head and rolled her eyes. “She’d completely lost it.”
“What do you mean ‘lost it’?”
“She was crazy, looney-tunes, out of her mind. He’d pushed her around the bend. I tried to snap her out of it, but she was practically catatonic.”
“What happened to her?”
Aurora shrugged. “One day, he left the house and took her with him. When he came back, he was alone.” She fetched the water bucket, punched a hole in the ice, and they both took a sip. He’d left them the lantern; the yellow glow of the light made the room seem cozy despite the cold. “Even if he let her live, which I doubt, she wouldn’t be much help to us. She’s in an institution somewhere, at best.”
“How do you know?” Lena said. “Maybe she wasn’t really crazy…maybe she was faking it.”
“No way. You can’t fake that kind of crazy. One night she started banging her head against the wall. She kept it up until he finally came to fetch her. By the time he got her sedated, half her face was a bloody mess. The next day she woke up and pulled out most of her hair.”
Lena shook her head. She shivered and wrapped the blankets tighter. “Promise me you won’t crack up, Aurora,” she said.
Aurora smiled briefly. Her face was all angles in the glow of the lantern. “Promise me you won’t die,” she responded.
Outside, the wind pushed the limbs of the trees against the bunkhouse. They scratched like claws on the walls and the roof. The last time either of them had been outside in the daylight, the leaves of the Birches and Maples had still been green. Now, with the change of seasons, they’d be orange and gold. Lena counted her days inside. Fourteen. It felt like a lifetime. She could understand how confinement could drive a person mad. “If we can just get inside the cottage, I know we’ll find a way to escape,” she said. “He keeps the drugs there. He keeps an ax and a knife.”
Aurora shook her head. “Our best hope is for someone to find us. It’s coming up on deer season. There’ll be hunters crawling all over this area pretty soon.”
“Not on this land, there won’t,” Lena said. “It’s posted and gated, the same as mine.”
“Oh.” Aurora’s face fell. The mood in the shed turned gloomy.
“Did I tell you he promised to take me with him when he left at the end of the season?” Lena said, faking a jocularity she didn’t feel.
“Where’d you think you were going? I bet it wasn’t to a shed across the pond, huh?” Aurora giggled, then laughed. “I have to say it, Lena, you really lucked out…this room is pretty damn glamorous. What a destination point!”
Lena smiled as Aurora grasped her arms. Tears streaked her face. She hiccupped. “Oh my God,” she said, wiping her face on her sleeve. “I can’t believe I’m laughing! Here we are, locked up by a madman, and I’m laughing. I must be out of my mind.”
“He told me he’d take me to Europe,” Lena said, dissolving into laughter herself.
Aurora slapped her thighs and gasped for breath.
“I actually served my husband with divorce papers and applied for a passport!”
Aurora doubled over. “You divorced your hu-hu-husband to become the sex slave of a serial killer! And I thought I was gullible!”
Lena’s laughter died as quickly as it had begun. She shook her head. “God, I was such a fool. He must have been amazed at my stupidity.”
Aurora sobered as well. “Neither one of us was stupid,” she said. “We were up against a master. Who could anticipate an ending like this?” She lay back and patted the bed beside her. “Sleep here tonight. It’s after eleven…he probably won’t be back until morning. The bed’s small, but at least we’ll stay warm.”
Lena crawled beneath the blanket and added her own on top as Aurora reached up and turned off the lantern. She was still hungry and scared, but as long as Aurora lived and The God stayed away, she could bear it. Outside, the coyote howled in the hills and the wind tossed the trees, but inside, there was peace.
“Lena?” Aurora whispered.
“Uh huh.”
“Annie was going to name her baby Jake if it was a boy. If it was a girl, she’d be Ersa. I thought you’d want to know.”
“Ersa?” Lena said.
“It’s Greek. The Goddess of the dew.”
“That’s beautiful.”
“I thought so, too.” Aurora yawned. “Good night.”
“Good night.”
Jake and Ersa. Precious children; precious names.
Lena fell asleep in the cold dark shed with Aurora’s arms wrapped tightly around her, the presence of her slight body warm and profoundly comforting.
***
“What do you think’s going on?” Lena asked. It was the third day in a row that they’d seen nothing of him but a shadow in the doorway, throwing in food and replacing water.
“He’s either impotent, or things are going well with the new girl,” Aurora said. She pulled a board game from beneath her bed and set it up. It had appeared two days before with a Wal-Mart Italian and a fresh pail of water. The boredom was stifling but at least Monopoly was better than nothing, and nothing was better than pain and fear.
Rolling the dice, Aurora moved the shoe eleven squares and landed on Tennessee Avenue. “I’ll buy it.”
“We might as well call the game now and start over,” Lena said. “You’ve already got three monopolies and I don’t have any.”
“Beginner’s luck.” Aurora tucked the deed next to the others of the same color. “You know what your problem is, Lena? You give up too fast.”
“That’s easy for you
to say…you’ve already got Boardwalk and Park Place.” Lena shook the dice and let them fly. “Nine…go directly to jail. Perfect.” She moved her piece across the board and waited while Aurora took her turn, a nine that landed her on Ventnor Ave.
“Can I ask you something?” Lena said, rolling the dice and hoping for doubles. Three, no good. She remained in jail.
“Shoot.” Aurora landed on Philadelphia. “I’ll buy it.”
“How do you feel about him now? You must hate him.”
Aurora separated the deed from its mates and placed it in line with the rest of her properties. “I do, most of the time.”
“Most of the time?” Lena asked. “Eleven. Damn. Only most of the time?”
Aurora shrugged. She moved her piece to “Go” and collected $200. “Every once in a while he treats me like he did before and it brings back some of the feelings I had for him. I know he’s a monster. I know he killed Annie and probably Bridget, and he’ll kill me too, sooner or later - but once in a while, he makes me forget how much I hate him. Sometimes, when he’s especially nice, I almost kind of love him... It sounds crazy, doesn’t it?”
Lena shook her head. “I know what you mean. To tell you the truth, when he first locked me up with you, I was jealous. I’d thought I was special…the only one. Then, I got thrown in here and I realized I wasn’t so special after all. I’m just one in a long line of women with a name that made him want me.”
Aurora leaned forward, her expression serious. “That’s where you’re wrong, Lena. He doesn’t pick just any girl with a pretty face and a special name. We’ve all got other qualities he admires. Haven’t you seen the pictures he painted of you?”
“They still give me nightmares. In most of them my image is a half-naked nymph being stalked or fucked by a crazy god.” Lena shuddered. The portrait of herself as Eostre with the satyr lurking behind still rattled her.