by Smith, L. J.
Mrs. Flowers poured him another cup of tea. “I’m very worried about you, Matt, dear. It seems to me to be a day of bad omens. Not the sort of day to take chances.”
“Does your mom have anything to say about it?” Matt asked, genuinely interested. Mrs. Flowers’s mother had died sometime around the beginning of the 1900s, but that hadn’t stopped her from communicating with her daughter.
“Well, that’s just the thing. I haven’t heard a word from her all day. I’ll just try one more time.” Mrs. Flowers shut her eyes, and Matt could see her crepe-textured eyelids move around as she presumably looked for her mother or tried to go into a trance or something. Matt drank his tea and finally began to play a game on his mobile.
At last Mrs. Flowers opened her eyes again and sighed. “Dear Mama (she always said it that way, with the accent on the second syllable) is being fractious today. I just can’t get her to give me a clear answer. She does say that the meeting will be very noisy, and then very silent. And it’s clear that she feels it will be very dangerous as well. I think I’d better go with you, my dear.”
“No, no! If your mother thinks it’s that dangerous I won’t even try it,” Matt said. The girls would skin him alive if anything happened to Mrs. Flowers, he thought. Better to play it safe.
Mrs. Flowers sat back in her chair, seeming relieved. “Well,” she said at last, “I suppose I’d better get to my weeding. I have mugwort to cut and dry, too. And blueberries should be ripe by now, as well. How time flies.”
“Well, you’re cooking for me and all,” Matt said. “I wish you’d let me pay you bed and board.”
“I could never forgive myself! You are my guest, Matt. As well as my friend, I do so hope.”
“Absolutely. Without you, I’d be lost. And I’ll just take a walk around the edge of town. I need to burn off some energy. I wish—” He broke off suddenly. He’d started to say he wished he could shoot a few hoops with Jim Bryce. But Jim wouldn’t be shooting hoops again—ever. Not with his mutilated hands.
“I’ll just go out and take a walk,” he said.
“Yes,” said Mrs. Flowers. “Please, Matt dear, be careful. Remember to take a jacket or Windbreaker.”
“Yes, ma’am.” It was early August, hot and humid enough to walk around in swimming briefs. But Matt had been raised to treat little old ladies in a certain way—even if they were witches and in most things sharp as the X-acto knife he slipped into his pocket as he left the boardinghouse.
He went outside, then, by a side route, down to the cemetery.
Now, if he just went over there, where the ground dipped down below the thicket, he’d have a good view of anyone going into the last remnant of the Old Wood while no one on the path below could see him from any angle.
He hurried toward his chosen hide noiselessly, ducking behind tombstones, keeping alert for any change in birdsong, which would indicate that the children were coming. But the only birdsong was the raucous shriek of crows in the thicket and he saw no one at all—
—until he slipped into his hideout.
Then he found himself face-to-face with a drawn gun, and, behind that, the face of Sheriff Rich Mossberg.
The first words out of the officer’s mouth seemed to come entirely by rote, as if someone had pulled a string on a twentieth-century talking doll.
“Matthew Jeffrey Honeycutt, I hereby arrest you for assault and battery upon Caroline Beula Forbes. You have the right to remain silent—”
“And so do you,” Matt hissed. “But not for long! Hear those crows all taking off at once? The kids are coming to the Old Wood! And they’re close!”
Sheriff Mossberg was one of those people who never stop speaking until they are finished, so by this time he was saying: “Do you understand these rights?”
“No, sir! Mi ne komprenas Dumbtalk!”
A wrinkle appeared between the sheriff’s eyebrows. “Is that Italian lingo you’re trying on me?”
“It’s Esperanto—we don’t have time! There they are—and, oh, God, Shinichi’s with them!” The last sentence was spoken in the barest of whispers as Matt lowered his head, peeking through the tall weeds at the edge of the cemetery without stirring them.
Yes, it was Shinichi, hand in hand with a little girl of maybe twelve. Matt recognized her vaguely: she lived up near Ridgemont. Now, what was her name? Betsy, Becca…?
There was a faint anguished sound from Sheriff Mossberg. “My niece,” he breathed, surprising Matt that he could speak so softly. “That, in fact, is my niece, Rebecca!”
“Okay, just stay still and hang on,” Matt whispered. There was a line of children following behind Shinichi just as if he were some sort of Satanic Pied Piper, with his red-tipped black hair shining and his golden eyes laughing in the late-afternoon sunlight. The children were giggling and singing, some of them in sweet nursery school voices, a remarkably twisted version of “Seven Little Rabbits.” Matt felt his mouth go dry. It was agony to watch them march into the forest thicket, like watching lambs riding up a ramp into an abattoir.
He had to commend the sheriff for not trying to shoot Shinichi. That would really have caused all hell to break loose. But then, just as Matt’s head was sagging in relief as the last of the children entered the thicket, he jerked it back up again.
Sheriff Mossberg was preparing to get up.
“No!” Matt grabbed his wrist.
The sheriff pulled away. “I have to go in there! He’s got my niece!”
“He won’t kill her. They don’t kill the children. I don’t know why, but they don’t.”
“You heard what sort of filth he was teaching them. He’ll sing a different tune when he sees a semiautomatic Glock pistol aimed at his head.”
“Listen,” Matt said, “you’ve got to arrest me, right? I demand that you arrest me. But don’t go into that Wood!”
“I don’t see any proper Wood,” the sheriff said with disdain. “There’s barely room in that stand of oak trees for all those kids to sit down. If you want to be of some use in your life, you can grab one or two of the little ones as they come running out.”
“Running out?”
“When they see me, they’re going to scatter. Probably burst out in all directions, but some of ’em will take the path they used to go in. Now are you going to help or not?”
“Not, sir,” Matt said slowly and firmly. “And—and, look—look, I’m begging you not to go in there! Believe me, I know what I’m talking about!”
“I don’t know what kind of dope you’re on, kid, but in fact I don’t have time to talk any more right now. And if you try to stop me again”—he swung the Glock to cover Matt—“I’ll cite you for another account of trying to obstruct justice. Get it?”
“Yeah, I get it,” Matt said, feeling tired. He slumped back into the hide as the officer, making surprisingly little noise, slipped out and made his way down to the thicket. Then Sheriff Rich Mossberg strode in between the trees and was lost to Matt’s field of vision.
Matt sat in the hide and sweated for an hour. He was having trouble staying awake when there was a disturbance in the thicket and Shinichi came out, leading the laughing, singing children.
Sheriff Mossberg didn’t come out with them.
22
The afternoon after Elena’s “discipline,” Damon took out a room in the same complex where Dr. Meggar lived. Lady Ulma stayed in the doctor’s office until between them, Sage, Damon, and Dr. Meggar had healed her completely.
She never talked about sad things now. She told them so many stories about her childhood estate that they felt they could walk around it and recognize every room, vast though it was.
“I suppose it’s home to rats and mice now,” she said wistfully at the conclusion of one story. “And spiders and moths.”
“But why?” Bonnie said, failing to see the signals that both Meredith and Elena were giving her not to ask.
Lady Ulma tipped her head back to look at the ceiling. “Because…of General Verantz. The mi
ddle-aged demon who saw me when I was only fourteen. When he had the army attack my home, they slaughtered every living thing they found inside—except me and my canary. My parents, my grandparents, my aunts and uncles…my younger brothers and sisters. Even my cat sleeping on the window seat. General Verantz had me brought in front of him, just as I was, in my nightgown and bare feet, with my hair unbrushed and coming out of its braid, and beside him was my canary with the nighttime cloth off its cage. It was still alive and hopping about as cheerful as ever. And that made everything else that happened seem worse somehow—and yet more like a dream, too. It’s difficult to explain.
“Two of the general’s men were holding me when they brought me before him. They were really propping me up more than keeping me from running, though. I was so young, you see, and everything kept fading in and out. But I remember exactly what the general said to me. He said, ‘I told this bird to sing and it sang. I told your parents I wanted to give you the honor of being my wife and they refused. Now look over there. Will you be like the canary or your parents, I wonder?’ And he pointed to a dim corner of the room—of course it was all torchlight then, and the torches had been put out for the night. But there was enough light for me to see that there was a heap of round objects, with thatch or grass at one side of them. At least that is what I first thought—truly. I was that innocent, and I believe shock had done something to my mind.”
“Please,” Elena said, stroking Lady Ulma’s hand gently. “You don’t have to keep on with this. We understand—”
But Lady Ulma didn’t seem to hear the words. She said, “And then one of the general’s men held up a sort of coconut with very long thatch at the top, braided. He swung it casually—and all of a sudden I saw it for what it really was. It was my mother’s head.”
Elena choked involuntarily. Lady Ulma looked around at the three girls with steady, dry eyes. “I suppose you think me very callous for being able to talk about such things without breaking down.”
“No, no—” Elena began hastily. She herself was shaking, even after tuning down her psychic senses to their least extent. She hoped Bonnie wouldn’t faint.
Lady Ulma was speaking again. “War, casual violence, and tyranny are all I have known since my childhood innocence was crushed in that moment. It is kindness now that astounds me, that makes my eyes sting with tears.”
“Oh, don’t cry,” begged Bonnie, throwing her arms around the woman impulsively. “Please don’t. We’re here for you.”
Meanwhile Elena and Meredith were regarding each other with knitted eyebrows and quick shrugs.
“Yes, please don’t cry,” Elena put in, feeling faintly guilty, but determined to try Plan A. “But tell us, why did your family estate end up in such bad condition?”
“It was the fault of the general. He was sent to faraway lands to fight foolish, meaningless wars. When he left he would take most of his retinue with him—including slaves who were in favor at the moment. When he left once, three years after he had attacked our home, I was not in favor, and I was not chosen to be with him. I was lucky. His entire battalion was wiped out; the household members who went with him were taken captive or slaughtered. He had no heir and his property here reverted to the Crown, which had no use for it. It has lain unoccupied for all these many years—looted many times, no doubt, but with its true secret, the secret of the jewels, undiscovered…as far as I know.”
“The Secret of the Jewels,” Bonnie whispered, clearly putting it all in capital letters, as if it were a mystery novel. She still had an arm around Lady Ulma.
“What secret of the jewels?” Meredith said more calmly. Elena couldn’t speak for the delicious shivers that were running through her. This was like being part of some magical play.
“In my parents’ day, it was common to hide your wealth somewhere on your estate—and to keep the knowledge of its hiding place strictly to the owners. Of course, my father, as a designer and trader in jewels, had more to hide than most people knew of. He had a wonderful room that seemed to me something like Aladdin’s cave. It was his workshop, where he kept his raw gems as well as finished pieces that had been commissioned or that he designed for my mother or out of his imagination.”
“And no one ever found that?” Meredith said. There was just the slightest tinge of skepticism in her voice.
“If anyone did, I never heard about it. Of course, they could have gotten the knowledge out of my father or mother, in time—but the general was not a meticulous and patient vampire or kitsune, but a rough and impatient demon. He killed my parents as he stormed through the house. It never occurred to him that I, a child of fourteen, might share the knowledge.”
“But you did…” Bonnie whispered, fascinated, taking the story where it had to go.
“But I did. And I do now.”
Elena gulped. She was still trying to stay calm, to be more like Meredith, to maintain a cool head. But just as she opened her mouth to be coolheaded, Meredith said, “What are we waiting for?” and jumped to her feet.
Lady Ulma seemed to be the most tranquil person there. She also seemed slightly bewildered and almost timid. “You mean that we should ask our master for an audience?”
“I mean that we should go out there and get those jewels!” Elena exclaimed. “Although, yes, Damon would be a big asset if there’s anything that takes strength to lift. Sage, too.” She couldn’t understand why Lady Ulma wasn’t more excited.
“Don’t you see?” Elena said, her mind racing. “You can have your household back again! We can do our best to fix it up the way it was when you were a child. I mean, if that’s what you want to do with the money. But I’d love, at least, to see the Aladdin’s cave!”
“But—well,” Lady Ulma seemed suddenly distressed. “I had meant to ask Master Damon for another favor—although the money from the jewels might help with that.”
“What is it that you want?” Elena said as gently as she could. “And you don’t need to call him Master Damon. He freed you days ago, remember?”
“But surely that was just a—a celebration of the moment?” Lady Ulma still looked puzzled. “He didn’t make it official at the Servile Offices or anything, did he?”
“If he didn’t it’s because he didn’t know!” Bonnie cried out at the same time as Meredith said, “We don’t really understand the protocol. Is that what you need to do?”
Lady Ulma seemed able only to nod her head. Elena felt humble. She guessed that this woman, a slave for more than twenty-two years, must find true freedom difficult to believe in.
“Damon meant it when he said we were all free,” she said, kneeling by Lady Ulma’s chair. “He just didn’t know all the things he had to do. If you tell us, we can tell him, and then we can all go to your old estate.”
She was about to get up again, when Bonnie said, “Something’s wrong. She isn’t as happy as she was before. We have to find out what it is.”
By opening her psychic perceptions a bit, Elena could tell that Bonnie was right. She stayed where she was, kneeling by Lady Ulma’s chair.
“What is it?” she said, because the woman seemed to bare her soul most when she, Elena, asked the questions.
“I had hoped,” Lady Ulma said slowly, “that Master Damon might buy…” She flushed, but struggled on. “Might find it in his heart to buy one more slave. The…the father of my child.”
There was a moment of perfect silence, and then all three girls were talking, all three, Elena guessed, trying frantically to do what she herself was working at, which was not mentioning that she had assumed Old Drohzne was the father.
But of course he couldn’t be, Elena scolded herself. She’s happy about this pregnancy—and who could be happy to have a child by a disgusting monster like Old Drohzne? Besides, he didn’t have a clue that she might be pregnant—and didn’t care.
“It might be easier said than done,” Lady Ulma said, when the babble of reassurances and questions had died down a little. “Lucen is a jeweler, a renowned man
who creates pieces that…that remind me of my father’s. He will be expensive.”
“But we’ve got Aladdin’s cave to explore!” Bonnie said gleefully. “I mean, you’ll have enough if you sell off the jewelry, right? Or do you need more?”
“But that is Master Damon’s jewelry,” Lady Ulma said, seeming horrified. “Even if he did not realize it when he inherited all of Old Drohzne’s property, he became my owner, and the owner of all my property….”
“Let’s go get you freed and then we’ll take things one step at a time,” Meredith said in her firmest and most rational voice.
Dear Diary,
Well, I am writing to you still as a slave. Today we freed Lady Ulma, but decided that Meredith and Bonnie and I should remain “personal assistants.” This is because Lady Ulma said Damon would seem odd and unfashionable if he didn’t have several beautiful girls as courtesans.
There is actually an upside to this, which is that as courtesans we need to have beautiful clothes and jewelry all the time. Since I’ve been wearing the same pair of jeans ever since that b*st*rd Old Drohzne sliced up the pair I wore into this place, you can imagine that I’m excited.
But, truly, it’s not just because of pretty clothes I’m excited. Everything that happened since we freed Lady Ulma and then went to her old estate has been a wonderful dream. The house was run down, and obviously the home of wild animals who used it as a lavatory as well as a bedroom. We even found the tracks of wolves and other animals upstairs, which led to the question of whether werewolves live in this world. Apparently they do, and some in very high positions under various feudal lords. Maybe Caroline would like to try a vacation here to learn about the real werewolves though—they’re said to hate humans so much that they won’t even have human or vampire (once human) slaves.
But back to Lady Ulma’s house. Its foundation is of stone and it’s paneled inside with hardwood, so the basic structure is fine. The curtains and tapestries are all hanging in shreds, of course, so it’s sort of spooky to go inside with torches and see them dangling above and around you. Not to mention the giant spiderwebs. I hate spiders more than anything.