House of Bathory(64)

She pushed her chair back, screeching on the tile floor, and folded her arms across her stomach.

“I didn’t bring out The Red Book. She did.”

“Maybe she had a flash of intuition herself.”

Betsy frowned and looked at him standing there—palms turned out wide, the body language of a man who had nothing to hide.

She drew in a deep breath and forced herself to relax. Her face, her shoulders…her back. “Sorry, I am just on the edge. Would you mind if I slept through dinner?”

John studied her.

“Betsy, is there something—anything you want to tell me?”

Betsy looked out the window at the snow falling on the slate rooftops of Old Town.

“When I went to New York to see The Red Book display—you know, ‘The Red Book Dialogues.’ And—”

“And what?”

“There was a tarot card reader. Everyone in the audience pulled a card—I—well, this is stupid.”

“No, come on. Tell me. I want to know.”

“I drew a really disturbing card. The Nine of Swords. It had a picture of a young woman, a girl really, sitting up in bed crying. Over her head hung nine swords that continued off the card, so you couldn’t see their points.”

“What did the tarot card reader say?”

“She said that there were family secrets, things that I was about to discover. A tragedy—and—”

Betsy stopped, cupping her face in her hands.

“I’m afraid, John. My mother—is she the tragedy? Is that what it meant? And what family secrets?”

“Oh, Betsy—” said John, kneeling beside her chair. He pulled her to his shoulder. “Shh,” he said, stroking her head.

“But—”

“You know how I feel about all this psychic stuff. It’s a bunch of baloney. Somebody else must have pulled the same card in the audience, and his or her mother didn’t disappear. It’s all chance. It doesn’t mean anything.”

“A woman came up to me and said the Nine of Swords was known as the Lord of Cruelty.”

“So what? It’s all baloney, you know that! Look, I think you’re overwrought. You have jet lag, you’re worried about your mother. And then that English detective told you about the killer vampire, it fueled your imagination. It doesn’t have anything to do with your mother.”

Betsy wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.

“OK. You’re right. I think I’m going to take a sleeping pill. I’ve been having nightmares. Vampires. And a woman made of stone. They’re Jungian archetypes, but still—they’re so real. It seemed like a memory more than a dream.”

“Hey, Bets, it’s OK,” he said, pulling her close. “You’ve been through a hell of a lot. You want me to stay the night with you?”

Betsy sniffed back her tears. She kissed him on the lips. Tenderly, but not lingering.

“Sometimes I do. But we both know it would be a mistake.”

“I didn’t mean that—I meant to watch over you.”

“Thank you,” she said, getting up from the chair. She hugged him close, then let him go.





Chapter 49

SOMEWHERE IN SLOVAKIA

DECEMBER 23, 2010





Grace slept on a rollaway bed—more than reasonably comfortable, it was made up each night and folded up each morning by a silent chambermaid. She tried rudimentary Slovak with the woman, but the maid did not register even a flicker of comprehension. She just nodded courteously and went about her business, tucking in the sheets and fluffing up the down pillows.

Night was when Grace fell apart. She pulled the lavender-scented sheets close to her face, breathing in the clean scent. There was something about the incongruous luxury that made her sob uncon trollably.

One night she thought she heard an echo of her sobs. She stopped herself in midgasp and listened. The ebbing silence of the great hall and many empty corridors of the castle was all she heard.

Then came another cry—from outside the castle. She stumbled out of bed, the sheet wrapping around her leg and tripping her. She grabbed her glasses and settled them on her nose.

In the glare of the outside floodlight, she saw three figures.

A girl, this one dark-haired, screamed and sobbed as she struggled against two men dragging her toward the building and then out of sight.

Later that night, Grace woke to find herself sobbing, her pillow wet with tears. She had dreamed about her dead husband.

Grace hadn’t dreamed since the night before Betsy was born.

In her dream, Ceslav was sitting beside her, his hand on her cheek, telling her something. His eyes were desperate, wanting her to comprehend.

What was it? Something about a patient. In Vienna, years ago, when he worked at some exclusive institution for lunatics.