House of Bathory(21)

“What are you referring to? I don’t understand the question.”

“Let’s say someone dreams about—say, vampires. Like my sister does. Is it possible for me, say, to pick up that dream?”

Betsy said, “What, catch it like a flu?”

“That’s not what I mean. What if the dream world she has at night is the same as mine. Exactly the same.”

Betsy studied Morgan’s amber-flecked green eyes and recognized an emotion.

Fear.

Betsy hesitated, then nodded.

“People who are close, or who are connected somehow to similar emotional feelings, can have similar dreams as a manifestation of a burden they share, especially if they are exposed to the very same experience.”

Morgan shook her head adamantly. “You don’t understand, Dr. Path. What if the nightmare is the same, exactly the same—a castle—identical characters—ghouls with white faces—”

“You may have heard Daisy describe her dreams and unconsciously picked up the detail and emotion—contaminating, if you will, your own dreams.” Betsy felt as if she had gone too far. She shouldn’t be talking about Daisy even this much.

“If you will excuse me,” said Betsy, rising from her chair, “I am expecting a patient.”

Morgan rose from her chair, following Betsy to the door. Betsy swung it open. A few dead leaves blew in circles on the porch, refugees from the earlier snowstorm.

Morgan frowned, making her way out into the unsettled weather.

“There is one more possibility,” said Betsy, called after her. She wasn’t sure what prompted her to continue this conversation, especially as Morgan was a few steps into the wind. “There is a phenomenon called shared dreaming. A sort of astral traveling, an out-of-body experience. Carl Jung himself believed in synchronous dreaming as part of the collective unconscious.”

Morgan nodded, deep in thought. She jingled the car keys in her hand.

“Roger will be in contact soon,” she said. “Good-bye, Dr. Path.” Then Morgan turned and walked back to her car, patches of snow-packed ice crunching under her boots.





Chapter 10

SOMEWHERE IN SLOVAKIA

DECEMBER 6, 2010





Dr. Grace Path wanted to scream, but the hood covered her mouth and she knew screaming would do no good anyway. No one could possibly hear her. She was in a car, hurtling over a road she couldn’t see.

She had struggled, but it was useless. And now, little by little, her mind began to work again, began to think, began to analyze.

The smooth ride made her certain they were on a motorway. It was a luxury car, she could tell by the purring motor, the leather seats. A heater blasted her with warm air, carrying the scent of a new, expensive automobile.

She could see the flash of headlights occasionally as they filtered through the thin material of the cloth that had been thrown over her head.

The two men in the front seat spoke a language she did not understand. It was not Slovak.

The hood smelled of an old-fashioned scent. What was it? Clean smelling, freshly laundered. Had they used this same hood to kidnap other people?

What could they want with her? She wasn’t rich. There was no chance of ransom.

Lavender. The scent on the hood was lavender. And, even now, even here, her mind noted that “lavender” was the root of “laundry”—the flower was used in the Middle Ages to camouflage odors, protecting precious cloth from mildew. Fresh-washed linen left in the sun, strewn with the flower. From the French. Late fourteenth century.

She felt the sting of tears in her eyes. Damn it! What could they possibly want with her?

As the hours passed, they ignored her, except to ask if she wanted water. They spoke in heavily accented English.

“Yes, water please,” Grace finally said. She hated to give them the satisfaction, but she was thirsty.

She heard the crackle of a plastic water bottle being opened, and the sloshing of water into some sort of glass.

The car’s overhead light snapped on just for a minute and she felt the presence of a man stretching back toward her from the front seat. Pale translucent fingers pulled the hood a little way off her face, shoving a thin tube toward her mouth.

“Is straw,” said a young man’s voice. “Hood stays over eyes, lady. Drink.”

The fingers pushing the straw into her mouth were ghastly pale—white bones against the black cloth of the hood. They smelled metallic, inhuman. She shuddered, trying to pull her head away from the fingers.

“You not like water? It comes from the springs deep under castle. Healthy, mountain mineral cures all sickness—”

The driver cursed angrily in the unintelligible language. The man giving her the water said nothing for a few seconds.