When Betsy reached Daisy’s name in the appointment calendar, she hesitated.
I’ll call her mother last, she thought.
Betsy’s mind worked frantically, worrying about her mother. The last thing she wanted to do was see patients today, but she reminded herself that they had their own troubles and it was her duty to work with them. The day was filled with back-to-back appointments.
By the afternoon, she was exhausted. She had checked her e-mail every thirty seconds between appointments.
Nothing. She slumped over her computer and began to cry.
“Betsy! Hey, are you OK?”
Daisy had appeared silently. Betsy hadn’t heard the door and Ringo hadn’t barked or moved. Now he began to thump his tail.
Betsy looked up, and frantically tried to put on her professional face. A patient should know as little as possible about her therapist’s private life.
“Oh, I am so sorry, Daisy. I didn’t hear you come in—aren’t you early?”
Betsy wiped her eyes on her shirtsleeve. John was right, she thought. She was losing it.
The next thing she knew, there was a silky black sleeve draping over her shoulder. It was like being hugged by Morticia of the Addams Family. Betsy smelled a perfume, something old like her grandmother wore…White Shoulders? Bellodgia?
Daisy set something down beside her on the table. Then she hugged her psychologist close again.
“It’s all right, Betsy. I don’t know what it is, but it will be all right.”
Was this the same girl who had scowled at her in stony silence just a few weeks ago?
“Is it because you are freaked out about the burglar? I’m sorry we let him get away. He, like, just disappeared after I screamed.”
“Thank you,” said Betsy. “You could have been hurt. And, no, nothing was missing as far as I could tell. But it took a long time to put everything back together.”
Betsy tried desperately to pull together her professional demeanor. Damn, damn, damn. A sobbing therapist. What a colossal failure she was! Her mind flashed on her father’s sober face, reproaching her.
Never interject your persona into therapy. You are a blank screen through which the patient focuses on himself.
Daisy stroked Betsy’s cheek, dabbing her tears with her fingertips. The psychologist pulled away from her, humiliated.
“Daisy, I think I may be getting the flu. I’m sorry. I think—I think I’m going to have to cancel our session.”
“Oh.”
Betsy watched as the girl pulled back, rigid. She looked frightened.
“I’m sorry. Really. But I—I think I’m getting a fever.”
“Oh. Can I—can I get you some soup? I can run down to the Village Smithy and get your some of their homemade—”
“That’s sweet. I don’t. No, I don’t think so. I’ll call you later, when I feel better. OK?”
“Right. OK,” Daisy said, nodding her head like a wooden puppet. “If you’re sick, I can run errands for you.”
“No. No. I’ll call you. It’s probably just a twenty-four-hour bug.”
“Sure,” said Daisy, not moving.
“Let me walk you out,” said Betsy, rising from her chair.
As soon as she closed the door, Betsy rummaged through her desk. The tarot card with the sobbing girl lay in the shadows of the drawer.
Chapter 19
ČACHTICE CASTLE
DECEMBER 12, 1610
The Countess did not summon the horsemaster again for many days. Janos Szilvasi spent his days focused on his work, waking before dawn when the kitchen boys dragged in dry logs and kindling from the woodshed and stoked the fire to prepare the morning breakfast.
Often the predawn meal consisted of leftover root-vegetable soup and doughy dumplings from the smoke-black cauldron. Broken loaves of stale bread accompanied the meal, smeared with fat drippings: tasty or rancid, it did not matter to the cook. It was stodgy food to fill a workingman’s belly. At least the morning beer was good: dark, bitter ale, surprisingly better than the breweries in Sarvar produced.
The Countess’s horses thrived under Janos’s hand. Their wounds healed, their lameness diminished as new flesh grew in the deep hollow of their hooves. Szilvasi procured grain for the most starved and, with the help of the stable boys, filed the horses’ teeth smooth to help them chew and digest their feed.
The boys learned to rub the horses with coarse sacks until their coats shone. They collected pine resin from the forest and dabbed it into the cracks in the horses’ hooves. Their backs ached with carrying fresh water in buckets from the courtyard well.
Janos took a deep breath. After a fortnight and half, the smell of the stables had changed entirely. He drew in a lungful of the essence of sweet straw, pinesap, and the intoxicating scent of warm horse—healthy and content. Wholesome.