House of Bathory(2)
“Say the child tangled his hand in a well rope. Or the slip of a kitchen knife as he reached for a carrot piece.”
“So much deception!”
“You must protect your son.”
The mother nodded, her face etched in misery.
“And watch for the signs,” said the midwife. “He will see things we mortals cannot. The Taltos are possessed in a waking dream, going between the human and spirit worlds. And they communicate with animals, especially horses.”
The young mother closed her eyes. “At least his father will be thankful for that.”
PART
-1-
Chapter 1
CARBONDALE, COLORADO
OCTOBER 31, 2010
Daisy.”
Alone in her office, Dr. Elizabeth Path murmured the name of her patient, her chin propped in her cupped hand. Her mother hated it when she did that. “Sit up straight,” she’d snap.
The oak office chair the psychologist had inherited from her father creaked as she hooked her ankles around the base. She gazed out her office window at the light dusting of snow on Mount Sopris.
The fingers of her left hand absently twirled her wavy brown hair into a thick rope stretching below her collarbone. Her mother hated that, too. “Fidgeting,” she called it. Bad enough for a woman nearing forty to have hair past her shoulders, but then to play with it like a child! And such pretty blue eyes—wear some makeup. What are you saving yourself for?
Mom, thought Betsy. What a piece of work.
The digital clock transformed into a new minute, a ghostly parade of time dissolving into the black background. Betsy had exactly thirty-three minutes until her patient arrived. She had no answers for Daisy. No answers for Daisy’s desperate mother, either.
Damn it. An image of her father crossed her mind, a look of disappointment in his sky-blue eyes. “Listen, Betsy. Hear what lingers in the air unspoken.”
Unspoken, yes, Papa. I can hear “unspoken.” But what can anyone hear in utter silence?
Betsy needed to find something, anything to break through the silence of Daisy Hart. The sullen girl refused to offer anything more than listless sighs and shrugs, her black fingernails rending larger and larger holes in her dark fishnet stockings.
She would cough occasionally, closing her kohl-rimmed eyes so tightly she smeared her cheekbones black. Betsy would see a flash of that one canine tooth that hadn’t been corrected with braces, incongruous amid an otherwise perfect row of straight, white teeth.
Session after session, Daisy’s strangled cough echoed in the little Victorian parlor Betsy’s father had converted into an office for his own psychiatric practice years ago. The Viennese clock would chime the hour and her Goth patient would rise without saying a word and leave.
Silent as a ghost.
Daisy was an enigma, all wrapped up in a black crepe bow. And her psychologist had not managed to untie the convoluted ribbon.
Betsy shifted the copy of A Jungian Analysis of Dreams on her lap. Freshness, purity. Daisies symbolize illumination, enlightenment, a reflection of the sun.
That only told her about Daisy’s parents’ state of mind when she was born, but nothing about the girl herself.
Betsy pressed her thumbnail against her front teeth, thinking.
Freud tended to interpret dream symbols literally, but for Jung it was the personal feeling associated with the symbol that was the key.
Betsy leaned over to her laptop, in the autumn light that streamed in the south-facing windows. She typed “Daisy” in a dream analysis website, the kind that would leave fellow analysts sneering in disdain. It was like reading a horoscope in the local newspaper.
Still, when a patient presented a dilemma, it was a sinful pleasure to cast off her formal training and indulge in a quick chuckle.
Her computer screen filled with diet ads: grossly shrinking and swelling bodies beckoned on the right margin. Tarot card readings flashed in neon colors.
TO SEE A DAISY OUT OF SEASON IS TO BE ASSAILED BY EVIL IN SOME GUISE.
She looked out the window at snow-capped Mount Sopris. Almost imperceptibly, she shook her head.
She Googled again.
DREAM MOODS
TO DREAM OF WALKING IN A FIELD OF DAISIES REPRESENTS GOOD LUCK AND PROSPERITY. SOMEONE WILL BE THERE TO OFFER YOU A HELPING HAND AND SOME GUIDANCE FOR YOUR PROBLEMS.
Ha! Betsy thought. Offer me guidance! That’s a good one. Daisy couldn’t guide herself out of a hall closet.
Betsy’s short fingernails clicked over the keyboard. One more try.
TATTOO SYMBOLOGY—WHAT’S BEHIND THE TAT?
DAISY IS THE SYMBOL OF SISTERHOOD.
Betsy snorted, the way her father loved to hear her laugh. The laughter was swallowed in the silence of the empty house.
Winter was near. A few remaining aspen leaves quivered in clusters of bright gold on the branches. Fallen leaves rustled dry and curled, chasing each other across Main Street, crushed to crackling bits under the occasional slow-moving car. Overnight all the remaining leaves could wither and the ground freeze rock hard.