If I live to be a thousand years old I hope I never feel that anguish again. She was so broken, so afraid and horrified, and I was the cause of it. I took her firmly by the hand, vowing that she should not be harmed. Not on this night and not by my wickedness.
“Wait here.” I dashed through the little door and down the stairs. Only four steps down, I could see the black slick of water that waited there like a midnight pool. I crouched and peered out. The water had swamped everything; the chairs and the table floated in the darkness. I estimated that the water would come to my thighs once I descended the stairs.
My aunt screamed again, “What’s happening?”
“I don’t know.”
I ran back up the stairs and took her into my arms. Not knowing exactly what to do, I reasoned that the best course would be to abandon the house. But then what? I wasn’t sure.
We made our way arm in arm down the stairs and entered the dark water. The river was strangely warm, and swirled around us. Moonlight lit the house in an eerie silver light and I gasped to see the water rushing through the open windows. I pushed against the current, holding her behind me with both hands, guiding her and explaining every step to her.
Our progress was too slow. The water now reached my waist and was still rising. But finally I coaxed her to the porch. Water rippled and glistened under the moon. A serene picture on any other day. But it was my worst nightmare right then. What were we going to do?
Suddenly, I knew. The roof. It was our only chance. “We’re going to the roof, Aunt Cleo. And then I’ll go and get help.”
“I won’t make it,” she said, and I didn’t answer her because I didn’t know if either of us would make it. From the porch, we emerged into the dark water, and I could feel the current tugging gently, sweeping across our bodies. My hand grasped the tin roof, and with the other hand, I held my aunt by the waist. “Aunt Cleo,” I said to her. “Here, grab the wood. Help me push you onto the roof.”
“This is so scary.”
“You can do it,” I urged her.
She struggled to lift herself. With a quick decision, I climbed to the roof. Grabbing my aunt beneath her armpits, I heaved her beside me. But she slipped from my fingers, and I both saw and heard her head hit the corner of the roof. A surge of panicked energy helped me try again and I hoisted her onto the tin slab. “Are you okay?”
She seemed dazed. “I think so.”
Her tone was not convincing, but there was nothing I could do about it. I had to leave her and run to get help. “Don’t panic,” I told her. “I’m going to get help. No matter what I promise you that I’ll get help and save you. Just don’t let go.”
She grabbed my arm. “From them?” she whispered. “Maybe they sent it. Maybe that’s what caused it.”
I hated her words because they scared me to the bottom of my soul.
“God could have caused it,” she said. “Like the pastor said. To get rid of the sinners. Maybe God is trying to purge them away.”
Or maybe God is trying to purge me away, I thought. God could try to take me, but not my aunt. I must save her. “I have to go, Aunt Cleo. Please, don’t move, not even an inch. I will be back for you, with help, but you can’t move. If you fall in the water…”
She grabbed hold of me with and held with all her might. “Don’t let me die.”
“I won’t. I promise. I swear to you. Please, you promise me that you won’t move, okay?”
She clutched me even tighter, “Zara. Be careful.”
“I will.”
I pushed away from her, dropped into the water, and then the blackness embraced me.
Swimming between trees, I grabbed their coarse trunks and pushed against them, propelling me toward the road. The current was weak. A gentle but deadly reminder. Sharp objects snagged my nightgown. Eventually, just before I came to the bridge, the water shallowed to a shore and I emerged from it drenched, scratched and bleeding and very much afraid.
There was no choice. I had only one place to turn, one man to turn to.
I saw the bridge in the moonlight. The waters were swollen, moving faster here, carrying things along that bumped and scraped beneath the bridge.
The gate was locked and chained shut. I looked up and saw the jagged teeth of the gate’s spires against the moon. There was no way I could climb it.
Almost as if from a dream I heard Navarre’s voice in my head, “I left the fence down for you…your own personal doorway.”
I was off through the brambles, splashing in the now ankle-deep water. I saw the tree ahead of me, a haggard shadow in the night forest. When I reached it the tree seemed wraithlike, ominous, and no longer just ugly. Gripping my hand on a limb I hoisted myself up, fought through the brittle branches and stood on the trunk. I clawed forward until I crossed the fence and jumped.
I landed in a painful heap, righted myself and began to run once more. How had I ever thought this ground was soft and velvety? Dry, brittle undergrowth stung my bare feet. As I sped past the archway of the glade, I stole a look. The trees hovered over the pool like a coven of witches. The silver moonlight covered the water with an evil visage. The foliage knotted tighter and tighter around me, and I lost my courage for a moment. I looked back; the forest had closed behind me, forcing me farther, closer to Navarre.
It would have been so much easier to stop and scream, to cover my ears. To slip into madness. But I persisted, pushing and pushing, because I knew why the river flooded the bank. And I would make it right with my aunt. No matter what the cost. No matter what it took.
I saw a light in front of me bobbing in the distance. Encouraged, I ran faster still, and broke free only to spill out onto a lawn that was lit by numerous torches. Behind those torches the mansion loomed. I had arrived at the Lucian compound.
For a few precious moments, I stood gasping for breath. Then I stumbled forward, raced toward the steps of the house. I felt no thrill to the house this time, only a choking panic and a desperate need. I didn’t run now; I flew. Up the wide set of stairs guarded by stone columns. My muddy feet slipped as I raced up and stood before the double doors. One door was ajar. Only a few inches. I nudged it open farther. “Hello?” I called out shakily.
My voice echoed back to me. I took a few steps inside, feeling the slick, cooling marble floor beneath my feet. The room, a grand hallway, felt hollow. A mirror flanked an entire wall, and candles flickered orange light across the room.
“Hello?” I called out again and took a few more steps. Movement caught my eyes. Only my own image in the mirror. I looked like a ghost, my eyes wide and afraid. My drenched and mud-splattered nightgown revealing every contour of my body.
“Think,” I told myself before walking across the big empty space of the entry hall toward an archway on the opposite side. When I reached it, a gust of wind welcomed me, and I saw patio doors at the far end of a long room. I can scarcely remember crossing it, only the few items I saw. A piano covered in books, a fireplace large enough for me to step inside. Dark furniture.
Ahead of me curtains billowed in the night breeze of the open double doors. As soon as I stepped outside I saw the gardens, dark and mysterious. Beyond them, the bay glistened silver beneath the full moon. I heard drums then, and knew exactly where I had to go.
I raced across the terrace, down into the gardens, past the still and broken statues that stared impassively as I raced by them. As soon as my feet hit the sandy beach, I turned and headed toward the standing stones. The drums grew louder, a low-pitched thumping that droned on and on.
I saw the light from a bonfire stretching toward the sky, and the familiar archway that I had explored earlier. Just before I entered the archway, a man sprang from the shadows and grabbed me. His tall body was adorned with a white tunic, his face hidden beneath a mask of gold with only dark hollows for eyes.
“Zara,” he said.
“Everett? Is that you?” I was shocked to see the affable geologist dressed as one of them. “What have they done to you?”
“Nothing, Zara. I’m one of them now,” he said. “I understand so much now.” He came toward me, a looming specter with a familiar voice. “You’re the one?” he asked incredulously. “You?”
“Everett, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I spoke quickly, in a rush. “I need your help. The river has risen, or changed course, or something very strange, and it’s swamped our house. Aunt Cleo, she hit her head, and she’s on the roof, and I need your help.”
“You are the one,” he said with certainty. His gold mask remained frozen and impassive. Then he said the words that turned my blood cold: “You have been prophesied. ‘And one shall return to the flock, a broken woman seeking help.’ That’s you.”
“Everett,” I pleaded. “Please stop.” I could see that he was almost delusional, and would be of no help to me. I began to run toward the archway, to where I heard the drums and the hushed voices of people, but he grabbed me and easily lifted me into the air. “Please.” I squirmed and begged. “Stop, Everett, you’re scaring me.”
He ignored me, and carried me through the arch. I was now inside the stone circle, among scores of robed people. All with masks of gold. The stones glowed pearly white as Everett brought me to the center of them. An excited murmur rippled through the crowd.
Everett lowered me to the sand. I felt hands cruelly about my body as the gold-faced people crowded me. I was being moved, hoisted upright. A cold slab of stone greeted my back. My arms were yanked above my head and my hands bound together with a single coil of rope. I looked up to see the rope slipped through one of the iron rings. Now someone was pulling on the rope. My body stretched helplessly, arching higher, until my toes barely touched the sand.
I was strung taught and shook all over in fear. It was then that I began to plead, not for help for my Aunt Cleo, I’m ashamed to admit, but for me. I begged in that aimless and desperate way that we never think we would do if faced with such a situation. What words I spoke, I don’t know, but not one person responded. They only looked at me with their golden faces.
Just as I was resigned that my fate would match my aunt’s and that we would both die on that night, the crowd parted and a path of darkness opened up. My gaze lifted. At the end of the darkness stood Navarre.
He wore no mask, only a simple white tunic that was opened to his waist. His face seemed both serene and hardened, perhaps by the shadows. He regarded me with glittering eyes.
At least a familiar face. One that I could plead to. One that scared me so, but he was all I had. “Thank God,” I sobbed. “Navarre.”
He looked otherworldly, strange. Possessed of an intensity.
But I was lost to my fear and mumbled incoherently. “I need your help Navarre, I need your help. Please, please, I’m begging you, say you’ll help me.”
An excited roar came from the robed figures. Navarre lifted his hands. Silence fell over the crowd.
Then, he said the words that would ring in my ears for days to come. “We have been waiting for you, Zara.”
I didn’t understand the significance of his words, only that I had to convince him to help me. Immediately. “Navarre, please, I know you told me to stay away, but I couldn’t help it. I need you to come, the river changed course, flooded, and my aunt… I left her there, and the water, Navarre, the water keeps coming. Please, please, say you’ll help my aunt.”
Now he was standing before me. Staring at me with a kind expression. He reached out and caressed my cheek. “Hush,” he whispered. “Of course I’ll help you.”
I gave a half-shuddered sob of relief. “Oh, thank you. Thank you. I didn’t know if you would. But you did, thank you.”
Up close, right next to me, he seemed so kind, so understanding. I closed my eyes and felt the light touch of his hand, which was reassuring and warm. “Of course I’ll help you. You don’t need to worry anymore. I’m here.” He kissed my cheek and I turned to rest my head against him. “I just need one little thing from you before I can help you,” he whispered.
“What is it?”
He was silent for a moment, and a very strange feeling swept over me. I felt that he might turn around and leave me. I panicked. “Anything,” I whispered.
He leaned close to me, so close that his lips grazed my ear as he spoke. “Zara,” he said. “I need to make an agreement with you. Then I’m free to help you.”
“Hurry, hurry,” I urged, wanting him to stop talking. He just needed to start running, and now. “I need your help right now, right now!”
“Listen,” he said harshly. “In order for me to help you, you must become one of us, a member of our group.”
“Fine. Anything.”
He kissed me then, and I shocked myself by responding desperately to the kiss, almost clinging to him with my lips. When he pulled away, I cried out in protest, needing reassurance.
“But more than that, you have been prophesied, and are destined to become our queen.” A kiss light as a caress over my lips. “My queen.”
His words fell like stones inside me, gave me strange sensations in my stomach. But, whatever nonsense he was saying, I still needed his help. “Yes,” I said, hotly, frustrated. “Whatever you need, I agree to. Now will you help me?”
“You must become mine. All mine, in ceremony and in body.”
“Anything. Anything, Navarre, just please help me.” I yanked on the ropes. “Get me down. She could be drowning right now!”
He kissed me again. “Promise me.”
“I promise.” Two words. Simple.
“No, Zara. You must promise me in blood.”
I didn’t answer this time. He flashed the smallest knife in the air. I watched in awe as he nicked his palm. A dark drop of blood pooled on his skin.
He took my hand. A quick slice. Another drop of blood.
He was resolute. His voice low and when he spoke a chill went up my spine. “Say you promise me.”
I shuddered.
“Say it.”
“I promise.” My words were thin, papery.
He took a deep, triumphant breath, threaded his strong fingers through mine, and crushed our hands together. Then he lifted our hands triumphantly in the air and said loudly, “Thank you, Zara!” The group of people roared, but he continued speaking. “You have given us hope. Two thousand years, and now the prophecy unfolds before us.” His voice grew bolder, deeper, more commanding. “Do you hear that, Lucians? She promised to become our queen! To become mine! The prophecy is happening!”
The fire blazed wickedly, leaping higher in the wind. “But there is no time to celebrate! We save that for another night. Now we must meet our commitment to her.” Another ripple of excitement in the crowd, except this time it was more somber. Navarre barked out an order in a language that I didn’t understand, and the crowd broke apart immediately. Every person moved with speed and intensity, shedding their robes and masks and streaming toward the path that led to the cottage.
In a flash, Navarre undid the rope that bound me, and I slid into a heap on the sand. “Are you okay?” he asked.
I nodded. “Where is your aunt? Tell me exactly.”
I told him where I left her and about the strange behavior of the river.
“It must have changed course,” he said distractedly. “Don’t worry, I promise you I’ll get her and she will be safe.” He gave me a swift hug. “You can always trust me, Zara.”
Then he was gone.
I got up, moved past the piles of robes and masks and ran. I heard their voices just ahead, calling to each other. I passed the gate, now thrown open, and then on to the cottage. It made me sick to wade in the water that was our land. I stood watching by moonlight, the river coursing across my body, reminding me of the deal I had just struck.
Only the tin roof was visible, like a silver boat floating on a sea of blackness. I saw my aunt, draped halfway onto the roof with her legs dangling over the side. She wasn’t moving and lay perfectly still at an odd angle. Her silver hair fell like a waterfall over
the side of the house and into the water.
Navarre was swimming toward her, men flanking him on either side. I heard the deep tenor of Navarre’s voice as he spoke to her. She did not reply. He swung onto the roof and scooped her up as if she were just a girl. He slid her over his shoulders. Then, with his men around him, he eased into the water and swam back to shore.
When he reached the shore I rushed over and took her hand. It was limp and cold. “Aunt Cleo, are you okay?”
She didn’t answer me. Her eyes were closed. But I saw the shallow rise and fall of her chest.
Navarre spoke to me in his soothing voice. “Don’t worry, Zara. She’ll be okay. Trust me. I keep my word.”
I followed Navarre back in silence to the mansion, all of the events swirling in my head. Somehow I knew he would deliver on his promise. I knew that Aunt Cleo would be okay. But most of all I knew he would expect me to deliver on my promise. How could I keep a promise like that? With a man like him? I did not belong to these people, and their strange world, no matter what they believed about me.
After that, I have only brief flashes of memory. Walking into the strange mansion behind Navarre. Hands at my back gently guiding me upstairs. I remember Aunt Cleo, sprawled on a bed with people gathered all around her. A doctor was examining her head. Briefly I saw her eyes open, and in that strange and disturbing way scout around helplessly for something to lock onto. I called out her name in response, and someone brought me to the bed and laid me next to her. I held her hand.
Most of all I remember Navarre, talking to me, soothing me. Then he was gone, and when he returned it was with a woman who spooned something bitter into my mouth, and I drank all of it without question. I slept then, and was grateful for the pure darkness of a sleep with no dreams.
∗ ∗ ∗
I woke with heavy limbs. My eyes hurt from the bright sunlight that streamed into the room. In a flood of memories, events of the previous night rushed back. Remembering the dark water I hugged the blankets tighter around me, wishing last night was a dream.
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