House of Bathory(9)
“Goth,” Daisy said, rolling her kohl-lined eyes. “Totally.”
“It is interesting you would say that—”
Daisy turned back to the shelves of books. “You inherited them? From who?”
“My father.” Betsy swallowed hard. Why was she answering all the questions now?
Daisy’s hand halted in midair. It fluttered down again to her side. She stared over her shoulder at Betsy.
“Your dad was a shrink too?”
Betsy touched her tongue to the roof of her mouth, making herself hesitate. She wanted to answer: My father was a renowned psychiatrist. He was the real thing, a graduate of the CG Jung Institute in Zurich and a faculty member of the Jung Institute in Vienna. He treated some of the world’s most prominent families. He worked with patients with serious psychosis, behind the locked doors of an asylum.
He was a genius, she wanted to say.
“Yes, he worked in the field of psychology. Daisy, please. We need to talk about you.”
“OK. OK.”
Daisy collapsed in her chair, heaving a sigh. She picked up her cup of tea. She studied its depths and tipped it up to her mouth, obscuring her face. Betsy could see the gleam of white skin shining through the part of her dyed jet-black hair.
“What kind of relationship do you and your mother have?”
Daisy looked over the brim of her cup, her eyes hardening.
“What do you think? You’ve seen us. We fight like cats and dogs.”
“Which is your mother? A cat or a dog?”
“Oh, definitely a cat,” she said, nodding. “Oh, yes. A cat.”
“Why a cat?”
“I don’t know. You can trust a dog. Cats are…different. And my sister, Morgan—even more of a cat.”
“So you don’t think you can trust your mother or your sister?”
Daisy twisted her mouth. “I didn’t say that, Betsy.”
“And you? Are you a dog?”
“Absolutely,” she said, rubbing Ringo’s side with the toe of her boot. “I’m just a loyal dog.”
The psychologist made a note, her pen gliding over the white sheet of paper.
A cell phone chimed.
“You forgot to turn off your cell phone,” said Betsy.
“Yeah, sorry. I got to take this.”
Daisy fished a black iPhone out of her purse. Then a ruby-red cell phone.
“Hello?…Dad, I can’t talk.… Yes, I am.… I’ll call you later.”
Betsy noticed her patient wince.
“…I don’t know…later.” Daisy punched the END button hard, as if she was trying to kill it.
“Your father.”
“Yeah, it won’t happen again. I forgot to turn his phone off.”
“His phone?”
Daisy hesitated.
“He wants me to have this one with me, all the time. It’s got a GPS tracking device. Like he knows anything about where I go in the Roaring Fork Valley. Big deal. He gives me extra allowance if I take it with me everywhere.”
“Doesn’t he live back East?”
“Yeah, but like, he is so weird,” she said. “It’s part of the divorce arrangement. He wants to keep in contact with me.”
She covered her mouth and coughed hard, phlegm rattling in her throat. Betsy handed her a box of tissues.
“Spit it out, Daisy. Really.”
“That’s gross,” she said, struggling not to choke.
“It’s healthy. Like an athlete does. Don’t swallow, spit it out.”
Ignoring her, Daisy swallowed hard.
Betsy watched her struggle to clear her throat. Then, when she thought the girl had recovered, she asked, “Why do you think your father—”
Daisy turned her face away.
“I don’t want to talk about my dad now, all right?”
Betsy knew she was testing the ragged edge of Daisy’s patience.
“OK. We’ll talk about something else,” she said, scanning her notes. “You said you listen to ripples of the past. Your past?”
“No. No, a long time ago. I dream of a castle. Jutting up into the sky from an outcrop of rock. Like something from a Dracula movie. Very Goth, right?”
“Go on.”
“Red velvet drapes. Heavy dark furniture. Enormous chests with big iron hinges. And—a strange smell, like…”
“Like what?”
“Like a coin purse. Like pennies rubbed together. Metallic.”
Betsy scribbled down Daisy’s words.
“Anything else?”
“I see horses. Most times,” she said.
“Are the horses comforting to you? Or are they menacing?”
“Mostly comforting. But sometimes they are terrified, rearing and whinnying, like they smell a fire.”
“Do they strike out at you?”