At any rate, I didn’t have a clue as to what was going on.
* * *
Dinner did not help. We had an early supper because Magda was hungry. Her bus trip was a long one, without food. There was not enough time to prepare a meal.
So we shared a cold ham and salad. But I deviate.
I had been mulling over what had been said between Magda and me. Moreover, I had been reenacting, in my mystified skull, my meeting with Ruthana. And, for the life of me, I could not recall a single instance of her behavior conveying menace, much less evil, to me. In my mind, I heard her gentle, musical voice. I saw again (visualizing it distinctly) her running me through the woods, gripping my hand so tightly. I relived, in thought, the magical moment in which, standing on her toes, she’d kissed me (yes, passionately!) on the lips and whispered, “I love you, Alex.” If, indeed, she had “marked” me, that was the moment when it happened. Again—and again—I reheard that wonderful whisper too soft for A. Black, too romantic. What? MIDNIGHT WHISPER? That would never sell. No horror whatsoever. A. Black would get a summarily instant rejection. But I deviate once more. Shame on the storyteller.
“Magda,” I said at dinner, girding my loins in advance; I hoped.
“Yes, Alex?”
“What did you mean, Ruthana placed her mark on me?”
“Who?” she asked, immediately adding, “Oh, is that her name?”
“Yes,” I said, a tinge of bristle in my immature voice. (I must cease this, harping on my age! So I was eighteen, so what? I should have been more acute? Yes, I should have.)
“And something else,” I went on. “You said you weren’t sure she was—is—a faerie. What else could she be? If not a faerie, how could she place a mark on me? What is a mark, anyway?”
Her amused smile aggravated me. “Which question shall I answer first?” she asked.
I let the faint sarcasm in her question pass me by. “What else could she be?” I asked. Not too politely.
“I don’t know,” she said. “I think she probably is a faerie. From the way you described her.”
Had I done that? There was no memory of it. “Did I describe her?” I asked—or, rather, challenged.
“Yes, you did,” she answered. “I saw it in your mind. Three feet tall, golden hair, slender, naked. Were there wings?”
Was she taunting me? I wasn’t smart enough to know. I couldn’t dwell on the possibility, anyhow. My mind fell over itself, trying to analyze how she could describe Ruthana at all. Was she psychic? Were all witches psychic? Wings? Had there been wings? I hadn’t noticed. It seemed unlikely—but the entire incident seemed unlikely. Had it really happened? Had it been only a hypnotic dream, an unaware hallucination? No! My brain rebelled against that explanation. It happened! Just as I remember it, God damn it! Who was Magda to tell me otherwise? The fact that I knew full well it was my own mental confusion seeking an answer, I did not allow.
“No, there weren’t wings,” I finally managed to say. “I would have seen them.” Irrelevant! screamed my mind. We’re losing direction here! “All right, she’s a faerie,” I said. “We agree on that. Why didn’t she harm me? Why take me out of the woods? Why defy her brother that way?”
“You’re so sure it was her brother?” she asked. “This Gilly?”
A whole new kettle of fish. “What do you mean?” I asked; all I could say.
“Did you see him?” she probed.
I thought I had her there. “Did we see him when you were … rescuing [I had difficulty mouthing the word] me that day?”
“No, I didn’t,” Magda said. “Neither one of us did.”
The significance of her reply didn’t strike me for a few seconds’ time. Then it did. “You’re saying—?”
“I’m saying, dear boy, [Don’t call me that! my mind resisted] that, on both occasions, you didn’t see this Gilly. You accepted this—Ruthana’s word that it was her brother chasing you.”
“And who was it?” I opposed her. “Ruthana?” I grimaced at using her name so callously. “The girl? The young woman?”
“Can you deny the possibility?” demanded Magda. Like, I imagined, a court lawyer challenging her opponent with an unanswerable challenge.
“Yes, I deny it!” I cried, too loud, way too loud. “If you’d spoken to her…” But I knew I’d lost the point. I hadn’t seen Gilly, not once. I’d accepted Ruthana’s words. Never questioned them a single time, I was so enraptured by her presence. Cold teenage cynicism swept across me. Had Ruthana lied about her brother? Did Gilly even exist? Oh, Christ! I thought. Magda was right. I hated her for being right but had no way of conflicting with her. She’d lived in this house a long time. She had known about the Faerie Folk a long time; she was right across the way from them! How could I contradict (or dare to contradict) her?
Dear God, was Ruthana really a “fooligan”? Had she tricked me?
Why?
* * *
Why plagued me into the night. I slept (didn’t sleep) in Edward’s bed. Magda wanted me to sleep with her—undoubtedly to couple. I demurred. Not too graciously, at that. Magda seemed to accept my unwillingness. She seemed (again, “seemed”) to understand my temporizing, only smiling, kissing me, and murmuring, “Tomorrow, then. You know how much I’ve missed your love.” That’s right, make me feel guilty about that as well! I thought, at least having the good sense not to express it aloud.
So I went into Edward’s bed and spent a few plagued hours trying—in vain, of course—to get some sleep. I was surprised how much my body ached. Had the run in the woods taken that much out of me?
Repeatedly, I dredged up the recollection of my time with Ruthana. The more I did, the less able was I to go along with Magda’s words, however logical they were. I could simply not be convinced that Ruthana had some dark purpose in mind. If so, she surely would have enacted that purpose while I was with her. That was the time to “mark” me, if that was what she’d planned. Why try to trick me, telling me that her brother was coming, that he hated human beings? Was that scenario reasonable? What could she gain from it? How could she be sure I would even return to the woods so she could complete her malefic purpose? What was that purpose, anyway? It was all ridiculous. All that mattered was that final moment, and that passionate kiss, and her whispered words, “I love you, Alex.” That was it. Case solved. Court adjourned. She had “made her mark” on me.
I was hopelessly in love with her.
“I love you, Ruthana,” I whispered back to her.
Then twitched in sudden suspense. Something had dropped on the bed beside me.
For a moment—wildly, panic stricken—I imagined some horrific witch-driven creature, sent by a resentful Magda to attack me. I actually visualized, in that dread-filled instant, what that creature resembled, some sort of slime-enveloped growth, unrecognizable by any human standard, with yellow glaring eyes—all six of them—and a panoply of multicolored tentacles—plus numerous pointed teeth. (No wonder I accepted the publisher’s spawning of Arthur Black. He already lived partially inside my all-too-accessible brain.)
Then Magda murmured, “Did I wake you?”
For another instant, I imagined the monster addressing me. Then I knew it was her and knew, immediately, why she was there. “No,” I said after considering, for a moment, making snoring noises.
I felt her hands on my shoulders. The sleeve of her heavy robe touched me, and I knew instinctively that she was naked underneath. Verified as she stood for a second, then threw off the robe and pushed her way beneath the covers, pressing herself against me. Her body felt hot; it probably was. No, don’t, I thought, feeling immediate guilt. I had virtually rioted on her salacious body—encouraged by her to allow myself any uninhibited carnality I chose to indulge in. She had always responded in kind, reflecting each erotic impulse I evoked. Now, how could I—despite the face of Ruthana in my consciousness—rebuff her? But, surprising to say, I did not want to relish Magda’s fulsome body now. Worse, she could easily tell that I was not
to be aroused by her. Even when, with sudden movement, she pushed down beneath the covers and plunged my organ (which, as usual, made no recognition whatsoever of my indecision and was fully prepared for action) deep into her burning mouth and ground down her teeth. Too hard. I gasped and muttered, “Don’t!”
She released me and stood, snatching up her robe. “Never mind,” she told me, sounding breathless, and peeved.
“I’m sorry,” I began. I’m just a little tired, I was going to add. There wasn’t time. She left before I could speak. Oh, God, what have I done? I thought in total dismay. I had the damned erection, why didn’t I just allow it to achieve its obvious goal albeit nonattached to my brain? I hadn’t done that, though. I’d blown it. In contrast to what Magda was trying to do. (Or was she, impulsively, preparing to bite it off? I had definite indentations on the topic under discussion.)
When I came into the kitchen the following morning, Magda was sitting at the table, an untouched cup in front of her. Leaning over, I kissed her on the cheek. “Good morning,” I said, as pleasantly as possible.
“You’d better leave,” was all she replied.
Chapter Seventeen
I stared at her, my heartbeat pulsing harder than it had been. “Leave?” I asked. I sounded, I thought, exactly like the little boy spoken to harshly by the Captain. “Why?” I managed.
“I think you know,” she said.
“Because of last night?” I asked, weakly again.
“Because of what it meant,” she said.
“Meant?” I really didn’t know the answer.
“Come on, Alex,” she told me, “use your brain.”
“I’m sorry,” I said, resisting her sarcastic tenor. “I don’t know what you mean.”
“I mean, dear boy”—here we go again, I thought—“whatever happened to you in the woods changed your entire attitude toward me.”
“How?” I asked, although I knew exactly what she was talking about. “Because of last night? I was tired, Magda. It had been a hard day.”
I was relieved that she didn’t comment on the fact that I had little excuse for claiming weariness. What had I been doing, chopping firewood all day? Mowing the lawn? Hardly. I’d been in the woods with Ruthana, was that why I was tired? If so, I could scarcely claim it as an explanation. Above all, I must not reveal, to Magda, what happened when I was with Ruthana. It didn’t tire me, anyway. It left me exhilarated. That, God knew, I couldn’t tell Magda.
While all this confused peregrination was taking place in my brain, Magda only gazed at me in silence. An expression on her face I was unable to read. Doubt? Sadness? Irritation? I couldn’t tell. Probably a combination of multiple reactions to my lame excuse. I waited in anxious diffidence, my heart still beating overtime. No matter I had come to mistrust Magda after finding the awful manuscript. No matter that she seemed, to me, to be ponderous in size compared to Ruthana. No matter all of that. I had no desire to be put from her home. Forced to retreat to the even more ponderous Comfort Cottage.
In vain. When she finally spoke, it was with a shake of her head. “No,” she said, “I don’t believe you. I want you out of my house.”
“Oh, for God’s sake, Magda,” I protested. “Because of one night?” I said it knowing that her words were justified and mine weren’t.
“I’m old enough to be your mother,” she said. “Would you fuck your mother?”
I was startled by her crude remark. I had no idea how to respond.
She reached out a hand and took mine, smiling. For a moment of intense consolation, I thought that she’d changed her mind. Her words soon dashed that hope. “I’m sorry, dear, but you have to leave this morning.”
So I left. Not too happily, but I left. I took my clothes with me; she gave me a duffel bag to put them in, said it belonged to Edward. I trudged down the path, the duffel bag across my right shoulder. If I’d had a full white beard and two hundred extra pounds, I’d have resembled a morose Santa, I looked so ridden with gloom. I passed a man and didn’t even look at him.
And I took up residence once more in that awful structure inanely titled Comfort Cottage.
Where the nightmares began.
* * *
Maybe “nightmares” is the wrong word if you think it refers exclusively to frightening dreams; not so. What happened to me was more, much more. Check your dictionary. Nightmares can also refer to frightening incidents. Check your Synonym Finder (much better than the Thesaurus, so says Arthur Black). Typical similar-meaning words are torture, suffering, horror, terror-fraught, appalling, creepy, petrifying, et cetera. That’ll do. You get the point. A good deal (bad deal, actually) more than scary dreams. As you will see.
It all began the second night I was home—I mean back in “Comfort” (bah!) Cottage. Why not the first night? I don’t know. Perhaps the Initiator—as, I believe, the Sender (my word) is called, chose to give me one night’s grace before commencing the assault.
The assault, in the beginning, was inordinately subtle. I was lying on my bed, thinking—brooding, actually—about the sorry turn of events. My enchanting visit with Ruthana turned upside down and splattered with bile by Magda, followed by our dreadful evening in Edward’s bed and expulsion from the house the next morning, painful alienation from Magda. It was especially painful to consider the loss of—loss of—what was her name? How could I forget it already? That was maddening. I saw—or thought I saw—her standing in the woods. No, did I? I was wrong. I couldn’t remember what she looked like. Not at all. Now that was really maddening. Infuriating. How could I forget what … forget what? I wondered. Did I forget something? I couldn’t remember. Damn it! What would Mag … Mag … Now what was her name? Her? Was it a woman I couldn’t remember? No, that wasn’t it. I couldn’t remember anything. Where was I now? I could not recall. I was adrift in total memory loss. My brain had been washed of all remembrance.
The realization stunned me. No terror at first, just absolute confusion. All I could think of was knowing that I couldn’t remember anything. Nothing at all! And I knew it. At that moment, I had my first glimpse of the nightmare that had, somehow, been inflicted on me.
Next came the awareness (thinking was slower, too) that I felt as though, suddenly, I’d just undergone a week of heavy labor: utterly fatigued, completely drained. What’s more, an icy coating over my entire body. You don’t think that sounds nightmarish? Try it sometime. No, don’t, it’s too emotionally engulfing. Lying there, immobile, convulsed by shivering, unable to budge, something else began.
Voices.
I tried to determine whether they were male or female, but without success. If there was a way to differentiate, it was beyond my comprehension. For that matter, everything was beyond my comprehension. I was aware only of intense discomfort—both with my body’s ice-sheathed paralysis and my (inexplicable) dread now of the room it was in. What room it was and where that room was, I had no idea; I simply couldn’t remember. And the voices … what were they saying? They did not wish me well. Au contraire, their voices were laden with animosity. In the mental fog I was trapped in, I could pick out only disconnected phrases such as “darkness fill you,” “punish you,” and “suffer torment.” There were others, but I missed them in my physical and mental misery. (I know it’s inappropriate here, but that is a worthy Blackian combo.)
All right. Visualize my plight. Loss of memory, even of identity. Did I mention that? It was part of the nightmare assault. Why I remember so much of it now … Well, I am, at present, in control of my faculties. Then, I wasn’t.
Where was I? Loss of memory and identity. Check. Utter fatigue and frigidity. Check. Frigid fatigue. (No, I won’t say it.) The conviction that someone was watching me. The voices chilling me more than I was already chilled. I forgot to mention the someone looking at me. Well, I’m eighty-two, I don’t remember things in perfect order. I do remember that, however. Basically. And I was terrified, let me tell you. I will add only one fact, and that is God’s truth.
All
this really happened. It was in 1918, and I was the age of the century, the “18” part, I mean. Pardon me for my poetic levity. I’m simply trying to emphasize that all this did occur as I describe it. Well, far more vividly than I was able to portray the nightmare I endured that initial night in Comfort Cottage.
* * *
In the morning, I felt sick. Nothing specific. Just sick; all over. The exhaustion and frigidity had abated, but that was all. I ached. My head felt clogged, as did my nose. My eyes burned.
The downstairs room felt oppressively airless, and I had to get outside. I moved to the door and opened it. Another shock. Good God, an apparition! cried my mind. It wasn’t. It was Joe with a large bag in his arms. “Jesus, Joe, you keep on scaring me,” I told him irritably.
He didn’t reply. Then he said, “You don’t look well.”
“I’m not,” I snapped, “I’m sick.”
“You look it,” Joe observed. Thanks for agreeing with me, my mind retorted nastily. “Thanks,” was all I said. It came out just as nastily.
“What’s wrong?” he asked. Before I could respond, Joe added, “Can I bring this bag inside? I brought you some food.”
“I had some,” I replied, ungraciously.
“It was spoiled,” Joe said. He brushed past me and carried the bag to the icebox. “I brought you more milk and bread,” he told me. “Ham, apples.”
“Let me pay you,” I grumped. You’re trying to make me feel guilty, my brain accused.
“Never mind that now,” Joe said. “Close the door and let’s talk.”
“I was just going outside,” I informed him. “I need some fresh air.”
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