House of Bathory(17)

He handed her the wet earbuds and pressed the PAUSE button on his iPod.

“Look, I’m really sorry.”

A hard gust of wind blew the snow sideways. He had to almost shout. Daisy could smell some kind of fruity gum on his breath. A whiff of the tropics in the middle of a snowstorm.

“It’s OK,” she said, mumbling.

“You were hard to see, you know,” he said into her ear.

“What? Because I’m not dressed up in garish colors like some cheerleader?”

“Hey! I didn’t say that. Wear what you want, that’s cool. I just didn’t see you, you know.”

Daisy brushed the snow from her coat, shaking out her hood.

“You want me to walk you to your car or house or something?” he offered. “It’s snowing kinda hard.”

“No, I’m going down to the Slaughterhouse Bridge to catch the bus back to the trailhead. I’ve got my car parked there at the pull-out.”

He looked at her dubiously, swatting the bottoms of his skis with his pole to knock off the ice that had accumulated.

“Sure you’re OK?”

“Yeah, yeah, really.”

Shit, she thought. She didn’t want him to think she was a wuss, just because she wasn’t skiing or doing some kind of hardcore snow sport.

“Look, I used to ride horses and take lots of crashes,” she said. “I’ve cracked ribs, broken my arm twice, and dislocated my shoulder. This is nothing.”

“Yeah?” he said, his face creasing up in a smile. “I know all about bad wipeouts,” he said, cleaning the snow from his goggles. “OK, I’ll see you in Spanish class.”

Was he in her Spanish class?

He waved a pole at her and skied off, disappearing into the swirl of snow.

A long, wet half hour later, she crossed the river and started trudging up the steep Cemetery Lane hill toward town. It was a long hill, but at the top she could catch the bus the rest of the way into town. The street was silent, the houses shut tight against the storm. The only person she saw was a woman sweeping the snow off her car with a broom. She stopped working and stared at Daisy as she walked past.

Daisy could feel the woman’s eyes on her back as she trudged on, stumbling over chunks of ice the snowplow had thrown on the side of the road.

Women seem wicked when you’re unwanted

Streets are uneven when you’re down…

Cemetery Lane. She came to the black wrought-iron fence around the cemetery, ringing the graves and the massive century-old cottonwoods.

A good Goth never passes a cemetery without paying respects. Even in a blinding snowstorm.

It was peaceful under the branches of the cottonwoods, the trunks of the trees packed white with blowing snow. She wound her way through the cemetery, gazing at the stones, reading the inscriptions. The oldest graves dated back to the 1880s.

She always looked for the children. Sometimes she bought carnations or roses at half off at City Market and placed them on the graves.

She stopped to read a newer stone, speckled with flecks of burnt-orange lichens. Ceslav Path. Loving husband of Grace and father of Elizabeth.

My shrink had a father named Ceslav?

Daisy stood shivering in the snow, feeling a strange vibe. Jim Morrison shouted in her ear.

When you’re strange

No one remembers your name…

Daisy pulled out the earbuds and pressed the PAUSE button. She kneeled in the snow, touching the tombstone with her gloved hand in the silence.

And she wondered: What kind of name was Ceslav?





Chapter 8

ČACHTICE CASTLE

NOVEMBER 28, 1610





At dusk, the courtyard of Čachtice Castle slipped into silence. The butchers who stained the cobblestones red with their slaughters had gone home, the geese were locked away in their coops, the clang of the smith’s hammer was silenced. The dairyman’s wagon had creaked down the long rutted road to the village. The sausage maker’s cast-offs had long been consumed by the ravens and dogs, and the last of the blood licked clean by the cats. The soap-maker’s shavings had been mixed with water to make a lather and rinse off the remains of the day, leaving the stones wet and polished, the moon’s reflection dappling the gleaming courtyard. The torches cast shifting waves of brightness across the walls of the castle, and sentries stood watch in the moonlight.

A thin servant with nervous eyes came to summon Horsemaster Szilvasi to the castle.

Janos wore an open-neck white linen tunic over his dark breeches. It was the kind of shirt a wealthy farmer might wear to a horse fair or tavern. He wore no coat, only a boiled-wool riding jacket, threadbare with age.

The servant surveyed him, moistening his dry lips.

“Sir, forgive me. Do you have anything more suitable to wear before the Countess?”