House of Bathory(40)

John pulled out a chair for the choking girl to sit. He put his hand on her arm, guiding her down into the seat.

Betsy took her hand, coaching. “Stay with it, Daisy. Pull in, breathe out. Think of nothing else. In…out. In…out.”

The girl’s mouth sucked at the air, desperate to breathe. Her eyes sought her psychologist’s, looking to be rescued. Betsy had seen a child nearly drown in a swimming pool years ago, and when she plunged into the water to save the struggling girl, the eyes, wide in terror, had been identical to Daisy’s.

Betsy moved her face closer to Daisy’s, locking eyes.

John brought water in a paper cup, offering it to Daisy.

Betsy shook her head. “Not yet.”

Betsy looked down at The Red Book, still open on the floor.

Five minutes later, Daisy was breathing freely, her chest moving rhythmically.

“It has passed, hasn’t it?” said Betsy. “Do you feel better?”

Daisy nodded, still concentrating on her breath.

“We should get you home,” said Betsy. “We’ll drive you.”

“NO!” gasped Daisy. “Not yet! No!”

“OK, OK.” Betsy took the girl’s hand again. “Not yet. Keep calm. Daisy, did you want to talk to me about something?”

“Yes. Yes.”

“OK. When you feel up to it, we’ll go into the—”

“Betsy, it’s a bad time for you to stop seeing me. The dreams are super intense—”

“Intensity is good, Daisy. Write them down, everything. We’ll discuss them when I get back—”

“You can’t leave me now!” she screamed. “You just can’t!”

Betsy sighed. She could feel the girl’s hand sweating in her own, feel the panic in her ragged breath.

Of course, patients think everything is always about them because analysts convince them it is. All they experience, dream, or think is fodder for analysis.

Then Betsy allowed herself a selfish thought.

Now it’s about me. Not about my patients. It’s my mother, who disappeared in Slovakia. This is my nightmare.

Betsy had to disengage herself from her patient, but gently.

“I am going to be leaving town for a few weeks. But I’ll be back, I promise—”

“A few weeks? Wait. You said two weeks. That was bad enough,” she gasped.

“Daisy. It’s a family emergency.”

“What is it?”

“It’s something I must take care of,” Betsy said, gently. “I have no choice in the matter. I have to go.”

“Maybe we should throw an I-Ching just in case. I have this awful feeling,” Daisy said. “There is danger, I’m sure of it.”





Chapter 25

THE GREAT HALL

ČACHTICE CASTLE

DECEMBER 18, 1610





The addled dwarf brought the coins. As he approached, the spittle on his open mouth glistened in the flickering torchlight. He breathed noisily, a grounded fish.

To Darvulia, the witch, he was exactly that: a fish. His eyes registered only movement, not sentiments. There was no compassion, joy, or sadness that touched him as he did the Countess’s bidding. Yet that was no fault of his own. Unlike the dark hooded stranger who taught the Countess new “games” in the dungeon below, Fizko was born what he was, a fool.

The Countess chose three silver thalers.

“Ilona Joo—put these into the fire,” she commanded. “Dorka and Hedvika, fetch the thief. She shall receive her punishment before she steals again.”

Ilona Joo, wet nurse to the Countess’s children—all grown and married now—did as she was bidden. The orange coals sputtered as the three coins eclipsed their glow.

Dorka brought the soot-faced skeleton of a girl toward the Countess. Vida had been locked in a dungeon in the depths of the castle. She had been given a few sticks of wood charcoal, more to drive away the rats than to provide heat. She had kept her pale face next to the heat, blistering her lips.

As she was escorted past the pressing crowd of servants, Zuzana grasped her hand, kissing her fingers. “May God bless you, Vida!”

Dorka yanked Vida away and shoved her hard, sending her sprawling on the ground at the Countess’s feet.

“You have been accused of stealing,” said Countess Bathory, eyeing the girl on the floor. “What do you say?”

“It is true. I tasted the goose fat—but I am starving, good mistress.”

“I have given you food, shelter, and money to take to your mother, and you repay me with your thievery.”

“I am dying of hunger!”

The Countess nodded to the nursemaid by the fire. “Bring me money, coins for our little thief.”

Vida spun around to see Ilona Joo take the tongs from the hearth, pick the thalers out of the coals, and drop them on a metal tray.