The Taker

FOURTEEN

The trip south in the provisioner’s wagon took two weeks. It skirted the eastern edge of the Great North Woods, went wide enough of Mount Katahdin to keep us from seeing the snow-capped mountaintop, then picked up the Kennebec River, which we followed down to Camden. It was a lonely trip through that part of the state; not widely settled now, it was practically empty then. We’d passed trappers and occasionally camped with them for the night, the wagon drivers anxious to have someone to share a bottle of whiskey with.

The trappers we met were generally French Canadians and were often either stoic or strange, the trade suiting those who were hermits or fierce independents at heart. A few of them seemed to me to be half mad, gibbering to themselves in an unsettling way as they cleaned and oiled their tools before settling down to work on the game they’d caught. Frozen animals would be set by the campfire until they’d thawed enough to be malleable, and then the trappers would take out their narrow-bladed knives and set to skinning. Watching the men peel back the skin and reveal the wet, red bodies made me nauseous and uneasy. Having no desire to sit with them, I’d slink away to the wagons with Titus and leave the drivers to pass the bottle with the trappers in the warm embrace of the campfire.

While unhappy about my exile, I’d always wanted to see something of the world outside my village. St. Andrew might not have been sophisticated, but I had assumed it was civilized in comparison with most parts of the territory, which were largely unsettled. Aside from the trappers, we saw few other people on our journey to Camden. The Indians who were native to the area had moved on years before, though there were a few living in the white settlements or working with the trappers. There were tales of settlers who’d gone native, leaving their towns to set up camps in imitation of the Indians, but they were few and generally surrendered during their first winter.

The trip through the Great North Woods promised to be dark and mysterious. Pastor Gilbert warned of evil spirits that lay in wait for travelers. The axmen claimed to have seen trolls and goblins-to be expected, as most of them were from Scandinavian lands where such folklore was common. The Great North Woods represented the wild, the part of the land that had resisted man’s influence. To enter was to risk being swallowed up, reverting to the wild man who was still inside each of us. Most of the people of St. Andrew would claim not to put much stock in this talk in public, but it was a rare soul who went into the woods by himself at night.

Some of the drivers liked to try to frighten one another by telling tales around the campfire, stories of ghosts seen in graveyards or demons encountered in the woods while driving a route. I tried to avoid them at such times but often there was nothing for it, as we’d have only one fire burning and all the men were hungry for entertainment. Judging from the drivers’ frightening stories, I suppose they were either very brave or terrible liars, because despite their tales of wandering ghosts and banshees and such, they were still willing to drive a wagon through lonely stretches of wilderness.

Most of the stories were about ghosts, and as I listened, it struck me that all the ghosts seemed to have one trait in common: they haunted the living because they had unfinished business on this earth. Whether they were murdered or died by their own hands, the ghosts refused to move on to the afterlife because they felt they belonged in this world rather than the next. Whether to exact vengeance on the person responsible for their death or because they couldn’t bear to leave a loved one, the ghost remained close to the people from its last days. Naturally I thought of Sophia. If anyone had a right to come back as a ghost, it was she. Would Sophia be angered when she came back and found that the person most responsible for her suicide had left town? Or would she follow me? Perhaps she had cursed me from the grave and was responsible for my current unhappy situation. Listening to the drivers’ stories only reinforced my belief that I was damned for my wickedness.

And so I was cheered and relieved when we started to come across small settlements with more frequency: it meant we were approaching the more populated southern part of the territory and I would not be at the mercy of the wagon drivers much longer. Indeed, within a few days of finding the Kennebec River, we arrived in Camden, a big town on the seacoast. It was the first time I would see the ocean.

The wagon dropped me and Titus off at the harbor, as that was the agreement with my father, and I ran out on the longest pier and stood staring at the green water for a long time. What a singular smell, the smell of the ocean, salty and dirty and coarse. The wind was very cold and very strong, so strong that it was almost impossible to catch my breath. It buffeted my face and tangled my hair, as though it were challenging me. Then, too, I was taken with the vastness of the ocean. I’d known water, yes, but only the Allagash River. Wide as it was, you could see the riverbank on the far side and the trees beyond that. In contrast, with its never-ending horizon the flat expanse of ocean looked like the very end of the world.

“You know, the first explorers to travel to America believed they might fall off the edge of the world,” Titus said, reminding me that he was at my elbow.

I found the raking green tide frightening but mesmerizing as well, and I couldn’t tear myself away until I was nearly frozen to the bone.

The tutor escorted me to the harbormaster’s office, where we found an old man with frightening leathery skin. He pointed the way to the small ship that would take me down to Boston, but cautioned me that it wasn’t sailing until near midnight, when the tide would be going out. I wouldn’t be welcome onboard until shortly before it would make sail. He suggested I spend the time in a public house, get something to eat and perhaps convince the innkeeper to let me pass the hours napping on a spare bed. He even gave me directions to a tavern close to the harbor, taking pity on me, I suspect, because I could barely make myself understood, tongue-tied from nerves and so obviously unsophisticated. If Camden were this big and intimidating, how in the world would I find my way in Boston?

“Miss McIlvrae, I must protest. You cannot stay unescorted in a public house, nor can you walk the streets of Camden by yourself at midnight to find your ship,” Titus said. “But I am expected at my cousin’s house and can scarcely remain with you the rest of the day.”

“What other choice do I have?” I asked. “If it would ease your conscience, walk me to the public house and see for yourself if it is respectable, and then do as your mind dictates. That way, you won’t feel as though you’ve betrayed your assurances to my father.”

The only public house I knew was Daughtery’s tiny homespun place in St. Andrew, and this public house in Camden dwarfed Daughtery’s, with two barmaids and long tables with benches, and hot food for purchase. The beer was considerably tastier, too, and I realized with a pang that the people back home were deprived of so many things. The unfairness of it struck me, although I didn’t feel privileged for being introduced to it now. Mostly, I felt homesick and sorry for myself, but I hid this from Titus who, anxious to be on his way, agreed that it didn’t seem to be a place of ill repute and left me to the innkeeper’s care.

After I’d eaten and had my fill of gawking at strangers who came into the pub, I accepted the invitation of the innkeeper to nap on a cot in the storage room until my ship was ready for boarding. Apparently it was common for passengers to pass the time at this particular inn and the innkeeper was used to providing this service. He promised to wake me after the sun set, in plenty of time for me to get to the harbor.

I lay on the cot in the windowless storage room and took stock of my situation. It was then-curled up in the dark, arms hugged tight around my chest-that I became aware of how alone I was. I had grown up in a place where I was known to all and there was no question of where I belonged or who would take care of me. No one here or in Boston knew me or cared to know me. Heavy tears rolled down my face in self-pity; I didn’t imagine, at the time, that my father could have come up with a more brutal punishment.

I awoke in darkness to the rapping of the innkeeper’s knuckles on the door. “It’s time you got up,” he called from the other side of the door, “or you’ll be missing your ship.” I paid with a few coins I pried out of the lining of my cloak, took his offer of an escort as far as the harbormaster’s office, and retraced my steps down the waterfront to the pier.

Evening had fallen quickly, along with the temperature, and a fog started to roll in from the ocean. There were few people on the street and the ones who were about hurried home to get out of the chill and the fog. The overall effect was eerie, as though I was walking through a town of the dead. The innkeeper was friendly enough despite the late hour and we followed the sound of the lapping ocean to the harbor.

Through the fog I saw the ship that would take me to Boston. Its deck was dotted with lanterns, illuminating the preparations being made to set sail: seamen clambered on the masts, unfurling some of the sails; casks were rolled up a gangplank for storage in the hold, the ship buoying gently under its shifting weight.

I know now that it was a common cargo ship, but at the time it was as exotic as a full-masted British ship-of-the-line, or an Araby baghlah, the first real seagoing vessel I’d ever seen up close. Fear and excitement rose up in my throat-they would be my ever-constant companions now, fear of the unknown and an irrepressible willingness for adventure-as I strode up the gangplank to the ship, another step further away from all I knew and loved, and another step closer to my mysterious new life.

FIFTEEN

Several days later, the ship closed in on Boston’s harbor. By afternoon we had docked, but I waited until dusk to creep out on the ship’s deck. It was quiet now: the other passengers had disembarked as soon as the ship was made fast in its berth and most of the cargo, it appeared, had been unloaded. The crew members, at least those faces I remembered, were nowhere to be seen, probably out rediscovering the benefits of being on land by visiting one of the taverns that faced the harbor. To judge by the number of such establishments on the street, taverns were an integral part of the business of shipping, more important than timber or sailcloth.

We had docked far ahead of schedule owing to good winds, but it was only a matter of time before the convent was notified and dispatched someone to fetch me. As a matter of fact, the captain had eyed me curiously once or twice as I lingered belowdecks, wondering why I hadn’t left already, and even offered to find transportation to take me to my destination if I was unsure of the way.

I didn’t want to go to the convent. In my mind, I’d built it up to be something between a workhouse and a prison. It was to be my punishment, a place designed to “correct” me by any means possible, to cure me of being in love with Jonathan. They would take my baby away from me, my last and only connection to my beloved. How could I allow such a thing?

On the other hand, I was terrified of striking out on my own. The uncertainties I’d faced in Camden were a hundred times worse in Boston, which seemed like a vast, teeming city. How would I find my way about? To whom would I turn for help, a place to stay, particularly in my condition? I suddenly felt every inch the unschooled country girl from the wilderness, completely out of her depth.

Cowardice and indecision had kept me from fleeing the ship immediately, but in the end, it was the thought of losing my child that made me decide to leave. I would rather sleep in a filthy alley and earn my keep scrubbing floors than let someone take this baby away from me. Thoroughly worked into a frenzy, I took to the streets of Boston with only my little satchel, abandoning the trunk to the harbormaster’s office. Hopefully I would find it later when I had secured a residence. That is, if the convent didn’t confiscate it on my behalf when they found out I was missing.

Even though I’d waited till dusk to sneak off the ship, I was surprised and frightened by the amount of activity still going on. People spilled out of public houses and into the streets, they packed the sidewalks, or rattled by in carriages. Wagons loaded with barrels and boxes as big as coffins rolled through the busy streets. I trudged up one street and down another, sidestepping other pedestrians, ducking wagons, unable to absorb the layout of the roads in any meaningful way, unable to tell after fifteen minutes of walking which way the harbor lay. I began to think Boston a cheerless and harsh place: hundreds of people had streamed past me that night but not one took notice of my fear-struck expression, the lost look in my eye, my aimless wandering. No one asked if I needed help.

Dusk gave way to darkness. Streetlamps were lit. Traffic began to thin as people hurried home for the evening, while shopkeepers drew curtains and locked doors. Panic bloomed in my chest again: where would I sleep that night? And the next night, and the night after that, for that matter? No, I told myself, I mustn’t think too far ahead or else I’d fall into despair. Getting through that first night was worry enough. I needed a good plan or I would start to wish I’d surrendered to the convent.

The answer was a public house or an inn. The cheapest possible, I thought, fingering the few coins I had left. The neighborhood I had stumbled into seemed residential and I struggled to recall where I had last passed a public establishment. Had it been closer to the docks? Probably, yet I hesitated to backtrack, thinking that would only confirm that I didn’t know what I was doing and that I’d put myself in the worst possible situation. I was unsure of which direction I’d come from, anyway. Psychologically, it was best to keep moving into new territory.

So frazzled was I that I stood in the middle of the road pondering my next move, oblivious to the traffic that in a busier part of the city would have run me over. In my preoccupation it took me a minute to realize a carriage had pulled beside me and that I was being hailed.

“Miss! Hello, miss,” a voice called from inside the coach. And a handsome coach it was, finer by degrees than any coarse country wagon I’d ever seen. The dark wood glistened with oil and all its appointments were extremely delicate and well crafted. It was drawn by a pair of heavy bays, groomed as ornately as circus horses but fitted with black harnesses like a funeral trap.

“I say, don’t you speak English?” A man appeared at the window of the coach, wearing an extraordinarily fancy three-cornered hat, edged with burgundy plumes. He was pale and blond with a long, aristocratic face, but had a withering, pinched set to his mouth, as though he was eternally displeased. I looked up at him, surprised that such a fine stranger was addressing me.

“Oh, let me try,” a woman said from within the coach. The man in the hat withdrew from the window and a woman took his place. If the first man was pale, she was far paler, her skin the color of snow. She wore a very dark dress of maroon moiré taffeta, which was perhaps what gave her skin its bloodless quality. She was lovely but frightening, with pointed teeth concealed behind lips stretched in a tight, insincere smile. Her eyes were of a blue so pale that they appeared lavender. And what I could see of her hair-she, too, sported an ornate hat, riding high on her head at a daring angle-was the color of buttercups, but heavily dressed and worn close to the skull.

“Don’t be frightened,” she said before I even realized that I was, a little. I stood back as she opened the carriage door and descended to the street, rustling as she moved owing to the stiffness of the fabric and the fullness of her skirt. Her dress was the fanciest garment I’d ever seen, adorned with miniature ruffles and bows, drawn tightly around her tiny wasp’s waist. She wore black gloves and reached a hand toward me slowly, as though she was afraid of scaring away a timid dog. The hatted man was joined by a second man who took her place in the carriage window.

“Are you all right? My friends and I couldn’t help but notice as we passed that you seem at a loss.” Her smile warmed by a degree.

“I-well, that is…,” I hemmed, embarrassed that someone had found me out, while at the same time desperate for any assistance and a touch of human kindness.

“Are you newly arrived in Boston?” the second man in the carriage asked from his perch. He seemed infinitely nicer than the first, with dark features and exquisitely kind eyes and a gentleness that invited trust.

I nodded.

“And do you have a place to stay? Forgive me for presuming, but you have the air of an orphan about you. Homeless, friendless?” The woman stroked my arm while he asked this.

“Thank you for your concern. Perhaps you could point me in the direction of the nearest public house,” I began, shifting the weight of the satchel in my hand.

By then, the tall, haughty man had descended from the carriage, too, and snatched my bag away from me. “We’ll do better than that. We’ll give you a place to stay. Tonight.”

The woman took my arm and steered me toward the coach. “We’re going to a party. You like parties, don’t you?”

“I-don’t know,” I stammered, my senses tingling in warning. How could three people of means just come from out of nowhere to rescue me? It seemed natural-prudent, even-to be skeptical.

“Don’t speak nonsense. How can you not know if you like to go to parties? Everyone likes parties. There will be food and plenty of drink, and fun. And at the end of it, there will be a warm bed for you.” The haughty man heaved my satchel into the coach. “Besides, do you have a better offer? Would you rather sleep on the street? I think not.”

He was right and, intuition aside, I had no choice except to obey. I even convinced myself that this chance meeting was a matter of good fortune. My needs had been answered, at least for the time being. They were expensively dressed and it stood to reason, well off; they could hardly be planning to rob me. Nor did they look like murderers. Why they were so eager to take a stranger to a party with them was a complete mystery, however, but it seemed risky to question my good fortune too strenuously.

We rode along in tense silence for a few minutes. I sat between the woman and the convivial dark-haired man and tried not to notice as the blond man picked me over with his eyes. When I couldn’t contain my curiosity any longer I asked, “Excuse me, but why is it, exactly, that you require my attendance at this party? Won’t the host be annoyed to receive an unexpected guest?”

The woman and the haughty man snorted, as though I’d told a joke. “Oh, don’t worry about that. The host is our friend, you see, and we happen to know for a fact that he enjoys entertaining pretty young women,” the blond man said with another snort. The woman rapped her fan across the back of his hand.

“Don’t mind these two,” the dark-haired man said. “They are making merry at your expense. You have my word that you will be entirely welcome. As you said, you need a place to stay the night and, I suspect, to put your troubles aside for one evening. Perhaps you’ll find something else you need there as well,” he said, and he had such a gentle way about him that I softened. There were many things I needed, but most of all I wanted to trust him. Trust that he knew what would be best for me when I myself didn’t know.

We rattled up and down streets in the dark trap. I kept watch out the window and tried to memorize the route, like a child in a fairy tale who might need to find her way home. It was a waste of time; I couldn’t hope to retrace my journey, not in the state I was in. Eventually, the carriage pulled up in front of a mansion of brick and stone, lit up for a party, so grand it took the breath from me. But apparently the party hadn’t started; there was no activity to be seen, no men and women in evening dress, no other carriages pulling up to the curb.

Footmen opened the doors to the mansion and the woman led the way as though she was the mistress of the house, pulling her gloves off finger by finger. “Where is he?” she snapped at a liveried butler.

His eyes briefly rolled skyward. “Upstairs, ma’am.”

As we climbed the stairs, I felt more and more self-conscious. Here I was, dressed in a shabby, homemade frock. I reeked of the ship and of seawater and my hair was tangled and tossed with salt spray. I looked down at my feet to see my simple, rustic shoes crusted with mud from the streets, the toes curling up from hard use.

I touched the woman’s arm. “I shouldn’t be here. I’m in no state for a fancy affair. I’m not even fit to be a kitchen girl in this fine house. I will take my leave-”

“You will stay until we give you permission to leave.” She whirled and dug her fingernails into my forearm, making me gasp at the pain. “Now stop being a ninny and come along. I guarantee you will enjoy yourself tonight.” Her tone told me that my enjoyment was the last thing on her mind.

The four of us burst through a set of doors into a bedchamber, a massive room as big as my family’s entire house back in St. Andrew. The woman led us straight into the dressing room where a man stood with his back to us. He was obviously the master of the house, a valet waiting at his side. The master was dressed in bright blue velvet breeches and white silk stockings, fancy slippers on his feet. He wore a lace-edged shirt and waistcoat to match the breeches. He hadn’t donned his frock coat, so I had a clear view of his true form without a tailor’s tricks to enhance his build. He wasn’t as tall and athletic as Jonathan-my yardstick for the masculine ideal-but nonetheless possessed a magnificent physique. A broad back and shoulders blossomed from his narrow hips. He’d be terrifically strong, judging from those shoulders, like some of the axmen back in St. Andrew, stocky and powerful. And then he turned around and I tried not to show my surprise.

He was much younger than I expected, in his twenties I would have guessed, older than I by only a few years. And he was good-looking in an unfamiliar way, vaguely savage. He had an olive complexion, which I’d never seen before in our village of Scots and Scandinavians. His dark mustache and beard were wispy along a square jaw, as though they’d not been growing in for long. But his strangest feature was his eyes, olive colored and struck through with gray and gold. They were like two jewels in their beauty, and yet his stare was wolfish and mesmerizing.

“We’ve brought another entertainment for your party,” the woman announced.

His appraising gaze was as rough as a pair of hands; after one look, I felt I had no secrets from him. My throat went dry, my knees soft.

“This is our host.” The woman’s voice drifted over my shoulder. “Curtsy, you simpleton. You are in the presence of royalty. This is the Count cel Rau.”

“My name is Adair.” He stretched a hand toward me, as though to keep me from bowing. “We are in America, Tilde. I understand Americans will not have royalty in their country and so they will not bow to anyone. We must not expect Americans to bow to us.”

“You’ve just arrived in America?” Somehow I found the courage to speak to him.

“A fortnight ago.” He dropped my hand and turned back to his valet.

“From Hungary,” the short, dark man added. “Do you know where that is?”

My head swam. “No, I’m afraid not.” More snorts of laughter sounded behind my back.

“It’s not important,” this Adair, the master of the house, snapped at his minions. “We cannot expect anyone to know of our homeland. Home is farther away than the miles of land and sea we have put behind us. It is another world from this place. That is why I have come here-because it is another world.” He gestured toward me. “You-do you have a name?”

“Lanore.”

“You are from here?”

“From Boston? No, I just arrived today. My family”-I stumbled over a hitch in my throat-“lives in the Maine territory, to the north. Have you heard of it?”

“No,” he answered.

“Then we are even.” I don’t know where I found the nerve to joke with him.

“Perhaps we are.” He let the valet adjust his cravat, eyeing me curiously before addressing the trio. “Don’t just stand there,” he said. “Get her ready for the party.”

I was led to another room, this one filled with trunks stacked on more trunks. They threw back lids, rummaging until they found clothing that would fit me, a nice dress in a red cotton and a pair of satin slippers. It made for a mismatched outfit but the clothing was still much finer than anything I’d ever worn. A servant had been ordered to prepare a hasty bath and I was instructed to scrub thoroughly, but quickly. “We’ll burn these,” the blond man said, nodding at my homemade clothes, now lying discarded on the floor. Before leaving me to my bath, the frightening blond woman pressed a goblet in my hand, good red wine sloshing inside. “Drink up,” she said. “You must be thirsty.” I drained it in two gulps.

I could tell the wine had been drugged by the time I left the washroom. The floors and walls seemed to shift and I needed all my powers of concentration to make it down the hall. By then, guests had begun to arrive, mostly well-dressed, bewigged men with masks obscuring their faces. The trio had vanished and I had been left alone. In my daze, I went from room to room, trying to grasp what was going on, the raucous bacchanalia spilling all around me. I remember seeing card games in a huge room, men sitting four or five to a table, amid roars of laughter and anger as coins flashed as they were tossed in the pot. I continued to roam, randomly drifting in and out of room after room. As I stumbled through the halls, a stranger would try to take my hand but I would pull away and run off as best I could, given my disorientation. There were confused young men or women without masks, all very pretty, being led off by partygoers in all directions.

I began to hallucinate. I was convinced I was dreaming, and that I’d dreamed myself into a maze. I couldn’t make myself understood; words came out in mumbles and no one seemed inclined to listen to me, anyway. There seemed to be no way out of this hellish party, no way to the relative safety of the street. Just then, I felt a hand alight on my elbow and then I passed out.

When I woke up, I was lying on a bed on my back, and I was nearly being suffocated by the man hovering over me. His face was unnaturally close to mine, his hot breath raking my face. I shuddered under his weight and the insistent slamming of his body against mine, and heard myself moan and cry in pain, but the pain was detached, blunted for now by the drug. I knew, instinctively, that it would all come back to me later. I tried to call out for help and a sweaty hand covered my mouth, salty fingers pushed past my lips. “Quiet, pet,” the man on top of me grunted, eyes half closed.

Over his shoulder, I saw we were being watched. Masked men sat in chairs pulled up to the foot of the bed, goblets in hand, laughing and urging the man on. Sitting in the middle of the group, one leg crossed over the other, was the host. The count. Adair.

I awoke with a start. I was in a large bed in a dark, quiet room. Just the act of waking sent bright sparks of pain shooting through my body. I felt as though I’d been turned inside out, stretched and raw and stiff, numb from the waist down. My stomach churned, a sea of bile. My face was puffy, my mouth, too, with lips dry and cracked. I knew what had happened to me last night, my pain all the evidence I needed. What I needed now was to survive it.

Then I saw him lying next to me on the bed. Adair. His face was almost beatific in sleep. From what I could see, he was naked though covered by sheets from the waist down. His back was exposed to me and mottled with old scars, hinting of a horrific beating once upon a time.

I leaned over the edge of the bed and, clutching the mattress, threw up on the floor.

My retching woke the host. He moaned at his hangover, or so I assumed, and raised a hand to his temple. His green-gold eyes blinked uncertainly.

“Good God, you’re still here,” he said to me.

I lunged at him in anger, raising a fist to strike him, but he knocked me aside with a lazy, powerful arm. “Don’t behave stupidly,” he warned me, “or I’ll break you in half like a stick.”

I thought of the other young men and women I’d seen last night. “Where are they? The others?” I demanded.

“Paid and gone, I hope,” Adair muttered, running a hand through tangled hair. He wrinkled his nose at the smell of my fresh vomit. “Get someone in here to clean that up,” he said as he lurched off the bed.

“I’m not your servant. And I’m not a-” I groped for a word I didn’t know existed.

“Not a whore?” He pulled a blanket off the bed and wrapped it around his body. “You were not a virgin, either.”

“That doesn’t mean I want to be drugged and savaged by a group of men.”

Adair said nothing. He held the blanket closed at his hip, walked to the door, and bellowed for a servant. Then he turned to face me. “So, you think I wronged you? What will you do about it? You could tell your story to the constable and he will lock you up for being a prostitute. So I suggest you take your pay and get a meal from the cook before you go.” Then he cocked his head as he looked me over a second time. “You’re the one Tilde found on the street, the one with no place to go. Well… let it never be said that I am not a generous man. You can stay a few days with us. Rest up and get your bearings, if you like.”

“And am I to sing for my supper the same as last night?” I asked tartly.

“You are impertinent, aren’t you, to speak to me like this? All alone in the world-no one knows you’re here, I could eat you up like a little rabbit, a little rabbit in a stew. Doesn’t that frighten you in the least?” He smirked at me but with a glimmer of approval. “We’ll see what comes to mind.” He sank onto a sofa, wrapping the blanket around him. For an aristocrat, he had the manners of a ruffian.

I tried to stand and search for my clothes, but my head went light and the room swirled. I fell back onto the bed as a servant came in with rags and a bucket. He paid no attention to me as he got down on his knees to attend to my puddle of sick. It wasn’t until then that I felt the throbbing pain at my gut, just one sensation lost amid an ocean of hurt. I was covered, head to toe, in scratches, welts, and bruises. The pain inside had undoubtedly come the same way as the pain outside: at the hands of a brute.

I intended to flee the mansion if I had to crawl on my hands and knees. But I didn’t make it beyond the foot of the bed; I collapsed dead away in a faint of exhaustion.

Months would pass before I’d leave the house.

SIXTEEN

The dawn this time of year has a characteristic hue, the dusty yellow-gray like the rime on the yolk of a boiled egg. Luke could swear it hangs over the land like a miasma or a ghost’s curse but knows it’s probably nothing more than a trick of light playing on the water molecules in the morning air. Whether it is light waves or an ancient curse, it gives the morning a peculiar appearance: the yellow sky a low ceiling of clouds in ominous shades against which nearly bare trees stand in grays and browns.

After seeing the police car in the rearview mirror, Luke decided that they can’t continue the trip to the Canadian border in his truck. It’s too recognizable, with its MD plates and bumper sticker from Jolene’s former school proclaiming the driver’s child to be an honor-roll student at Allagash River Elementary. (Since when, Luke had wondered when Tricia insisted they put the sticker on his old truck, were there honor rolls in elementary schools?) So they have spent the past half hour backtracking to St. Andrew, hurtling over single-lane roads to get to the house of someone he believes he can trust. He called on his cell phone first to see about borrowing a car, but mostly he wants to see if the police have been asking around about him.

He stops in front of a large reconditioned farmhouse outside the St. Andrew city limits. The house is a beauty, one of the biggest and best kept, with touches like pussywillow wreaths decorating the wraparound porch and solar lanterns lining the driveway. The house belongs to a new doctor at the hospital, an anesthesiologist named Peter, who moved up from the city so he could raise his children in the country, where he believes there is no crime or drugs. He is a pathologically nice guy, even to Luke, who, prickly and still grieving from all his recent trouble, had withdrawn from everyone in the past few months.

When Luke knocks at the front door, Peter answers it in bathrobe and slippers, a grave look on his face. He seems to have been rousted out of bed by Luke’s phone call, for which Luke is inwardly embarrassed.

Peter puts a hand on Luke’s arm as they stand in the doorway. “Is everything all right?”

“I’m sorry to ask, it’s a strange request, I know,” Luke says, shuffling from foot to foot, head down. He’s practiced this lie in his head for the last ten minutes. “It’s just… my cousin’s daughter has been staying with me for a few days and I promised her mother I’d get her home in time to make the bus for some school trip. Only my truck is acting up and I’m afraid it won’t make it up there and back…” Luke’s tone blends the right amounts of ineptitude and apology for inconveniencing a friend, projecting a sort of bumble-headed, well-intentioned haplessness that only an ogre would refuse.

Peter looks over Luke’s shoulder at the truck parked at the end of the long driveway, where-Luke knows-he will see Lanny standing beside the truck, her suitcase at her feet. She is too far away for Peter to get a good look at her, in case the police come by later with questions. She gives Peter a little wave.

“Didn’t you just get off shift?” Peter peers back at Luke, so closely that he might be inspecting him for fleas. “Aren’t you tired?”

“Yeah, but I’m okay. It was a quiet night. I got a little sleep,” he lies. “I’ll be careful.”

Peter pulls the keys from a pocket and drops them in Luke’s hand. When Luke tries to give him the keys to the truck in return, Peter balks.

“You don’t need to leave your keys with me… You’re not going to be gone long, are you?”

Luke shrugs, trying to appear nonchalant. “Just in case you have to move it or something. You never know.”

The door to the three-bay garage rises slowly and Luke checks the key fob to find that Peter is entrusting him with a new luxury SUV, gleaming steel gray. Heated leather seats and a DVD player for the second row to keep the children appeased on long road trips. He recalls how people at the hospital gave Peter a hard time the first day he drove up in it, as the vehicle was so uncharacteristic for the area, its shiny coat likely to be eaten up by road salt by the end of its third winter.

Luke backs the car out of the garage and waits at the mouth of the driveway for Lanny to scramble into the passenger seat. “Nice car,” she says as she reaches for the seat belt. “You know how to trade up, don’t you?”

She hums to herself as Luke guides the car down the road, once again headed for the Canadian border-crossing station-this time, half hidden behind darkly tinted windows. He feels guilty for what he’s done. He can’t quite put his finger on why, but he suspects he will not be turning right around once they’ve crossed the border, which is why he left the keys to his dented old pickup with his friend. Not that Peter needs the truck; he obviously has other vehicles if he must go somewhere. Still, it makes Luke feel better, as if he has posted bond or left a token in good faith, because he knows Peter will think less of him soon enough.

Lanny catches Luke’s eye as they coast into an empty intersection. “Thank you,” she says with heartfelt gratitude. “You seem like the kind of man who doesn’t like to ask for favors, so… I want you to know that I appreciate what you’re doing for me.”

Luke just nods, wondering how far he will go and at what cost to help her escape.

SEVENTEEN

I woke in a different bed in a different room, the dark-haired man from the carriage sitting at the bedside with a bowl of water and a cold compress for my forehead.

“Ah, you’re back among the living,” he said when I’d opened my eyes. He lifted the compress from my brow and dropped it into the water to soak.

A cold light was visible through the window behind him, so I knew it was day, but which day? I checked under the coverlet to see that I was dressed in a plain night shift. They had given me a room to myself that was clearly meant for a senior member of the household staff, small and dutifully appointed.

“Why am I still here?” I asked, groggy.

He ignored my question. “How are you feeling?”

The pain came on dully, sour and hot in my abdomen. “Like I’ve been stabbed with a rusty blade.”

He frowned slightly, then reached for a soup bowl sitting on the floor. “The best thing for you is rest, complete rest. You’ve likely got a puncture somewhere, in there”-he pointed obliquely to my stomach-“and you need to heal as quickly as possible, before infection sets in. I’ve seen it before. It can become serious.”

The babe. I pulled myself upright. “I want to see a physician. Or a midwife.”

He pushed a spoon through clear broth, metal ringing against china. “Too soon for that. We’ll watch awhile, to see if it gets worse.”

Between daubs of the compress and spoonfuls of clear soup, he answered my questions. First, he told me about himself. His name was Alejandro and he was the youngest son of a fine Spanish family from Toledo. Being the youngest son, he had no hope of inheriting the family’s property. The second oldest had joined the military and was captain of a fierce Spanish galleon. The third oldest served in the court of the Spanish king and would shortly be sent as an emissary to a foreign land. Thus, the family had fulfilled its customary obligations to king and country; Alejandro was free to decide his own way in the world, and through various incidents and twists of fate, he eventually found himself with Adair.

Adair, he explained, was bona fide royalty from the old world, as wealthy as some minor princes, having managed to hold on to property that had belonged to his family for centuries. Tired of the old world, he’d come to Boston for the novelty, to experience the new world for himself. Alejandro and the other two from the carriage-Tilde, the woman, and Donatello, the blond man-were Adair’s courtiers. “Every royal keeps a court,” Alejandro said, the first of many circular arguments. “He must be surrounded by educated people of breeding, who can see that his needs are met. We are the buffer between him and the world.”

Donatello, he explained, had come from Italy, where he had been an assistant and muse to a great artist whose name I’d never heard. And Tilde-her background was a mystery, Alejandro confessed. The only thing he knew about her was that she’d come from a northern land as snowy and cold as mine. Tilde had already been with Adair when Alejandro joined the court. “She has his ear and her temper can be formidable, so be careful around her at all times,” he warned, dipping the spoon for more broth.

“It’s not like I’ll be here a minute longer than I need to,” I said, reaching with my mouth for the spoon. “I’ll be gone as soon as I’m feeling better.” Alejandro made no comment, appearing to be concentrating on conveying the next spoonful of broth to my open mouth.

“There is one more member of Adair’s court,” he said, then hastened to add, “but you probably won’t meet her. She is-reclusive. Just don’t be surprised if you think you see a ghost flit by.”

“A ghost?” The hairs rose on the back of my neck, memories of the wagon drivers’ ghost stories rushing back to mind, the sad dead looking for loved ones.

“Not a real ghost,” he chided. “Though she might as well be one. She keeps to herself, and the only way you’ll see her is to stumble across her, like coming upon a deer in the wood. She doesn’t speak and she won’t pay any attention to you if you try to talk to her. Her name is Uzra.”

As grateful as I was to Alejandro for sharing his knowledge, each bit of his information sat uncomfortably with me, as each was further evidence of my ignorance and isolated upbringing. I’d never been told about any of these foreign lands, didn’t know the name of one famous artist. Most unsettling was this Uzra-I didn’t want to meet a woman who had made herself a ghost. And what had Adair done to keep her from speaking? Cut out her tongue? I didn’t doubt he was cruel enough to do it.

“I don’t know why you bother to tell me these things,” I said. “I’m not staying.”

Alejandro observed me with the beautiful smile of an altar boy and a glittering eye. “Oh, it’s just a way to pass the time. Shall I get you more soup?”

That night, when I heard Adair and his minions sweep down the hallway, preparing to depart for the evening, I crept out of my bed and to the landing to watch. How beautiful they were, swathed in velvets and brocades, powdered and coiffed by servants who had spent hours fussing over them. Tilde, with jewels pinned in her yellow hair, her lips painted red; Dona, with a spotless white cravat wound up to his jaw, accentuating his aristocratic neck and his long chin; Alejandro, in a black frock coat and forever sorrowful look-nattering at one another in their sharp-tongued way and aflutter like regally plumed birds.

But mostly I gazed at Adair, for he was captivating. A savage buttoned up in a gentleman’s finery. Then it struck me: he was a wolf in sheep’s clothing, going hunting tonight with his pack of jackals to flush out the quarry. They hunted for fun, as they’d hunted for me. He had been the wolf, I the rabbit with the tender, downy neck easily snapped by that remorseless maw. The valet placed the cloak on Adair’s shoulders, and as Adair turned to leave, he glanced up at me, as though he’d known I’d been there all along, and flashed me a look and a slight smile that sent me staggering backward. I should have been afraid of him-I was afraid of him-and yet I was transfixed. A part of me wanted to be one of them, wanted to be on Adair’s arm as he and his minions went out to enjoy themselves, to be fawned on by admirers as was their due.

That night, I was half awakened by the party as they returned home and not surprised when Adair came into my room and carried me to his bed. Despite my illness, he had me that evening and I let him, surrendered to the thrill of his weight over me, his thickness in me, and the feel of his mouth on my skin. He whispered in my ear as we coupled, more moans than words, and I couldn’t make out what he was saying aside from “cannot deny me” and “mine,” as though he was staking a claim to me that night. Afterward, I lay next to him, shaking as the thrall passed through me.

The next morning, when I awoke in my quiet little room, the pain in my lower body was markedly worse. I tried to walk, but each step was punctuated with a sharp jab in my abdomen and I leaked blood and feces; I couldn’t imagine getting as far as to the front door, let alone finding someone to take me in. By evening I became consumed by a fever and over the next few days dropped in and out of sleep, each time waking up weaker than before. My skin grew pale and tender, my eyes rimmed in pink. If my bruises and scratches were healing, it happened more slowly than could be perceived. Alejandro, the only person who came to my bedside, delivered his prognosis with a shake of his head. “A puncture of the bowels.”

“Surely that is a trifling illness?” I asked, hopefully.

“Not if it goes septic.”

Ignorant as I was of the complexities of anatomy, if pain was an indication of the severity of the problem, the baby had to be in peril. “A physician,” I begged, squeezing his hand.

“I’ll speak to Adair,” he promised.

A few hours later, Adair burst into the room. I didn’t see even a flicker of acknowledgment of the pleasure we’d shared the previous night. He dragged a stool beside the bed and began examining me, pressing fingers to my forehead and cheeks to judge my temperature.

“Alejandro said your condition has not improved.”

“Please, send for a physician. I’ll pay you back someday, as soon as I am able…”

He clicked his tongue as though to say that the cost was of no consequence. He lifted one of my eyelids, then felt the pouches of flesh under my jaw. After he finished, he rose from the stool.

“I’ll return in a moment,” he said and swept out of the room.

I’d nodded off by the time he returned with an old, pitted tankard in his hands. He pulled me into a sitting position before handing me the tankard. The contents smelled like dirt and weeds stewed in warm liquid and looked like swamp water.

“Drink it,” he said.

“What is it?”

“It will help you feel better.”

“Are you a doctor?”

Adair gave me a look of mild disgust. “Not what you’d consider a doctor, no. You might say I’ve made a study of traditional medicine. If that had simmered longer, it would be much more palatable, but there was no time for it,” he added, as though he didn’t want me to think less of his prowess because of the taste.

“You mean you’re like a midwife?” It should go without saying that midwives-though they were often the only practitioners of medicine in any village-had no training, as women were not allowed to attend medical classes at college. The women who became midwives learned about child birthing and ways with herbs and berries through apprenticeship, often learning from their mothers or other relatives.

“Not quite,” he said sourly, apparently not taking midwives any more seriously than doctors. “Now drink up.”

I did as he ordered, thinking he wouldn’t agree to bring in a doctor if he was piqued at me for not trying his remedy. I thought I would throw it all up in front of him; the concoction was so grassy and bitter, with a grit that I couldn’t clear from my mouth. “Now, get some more rest, then we’ll see how you are doing,” he said, reaching for the tankard.

I put my hand on his wrist. “Tell me, Adair…” But then I was at a loss.

“Tell you what?”

“I don’t know what to make of your behavior toward me last night…”

He twisted his handsome mouth into a cruel smile. “Is it so hard to understand?” He helped me to ease back against the pillows, and then he drew the blanket up to my chin. He smoothed the blanket down across my chest and touched my hair, very gently. His mocking expression softened, and so for a moment all I saw was his boyish face and a trace of kindness in his green eyes. “Did you not think that I have grown a little bit fond of you, Lanore? You have turned out to be a bit of a surprise, not just a ragamuffin Tilde dragged in from the street. I sense something about you… you’re a kindred spirit in some way that I haven’t figured out yet. But, I will. First, you must get well. Let’s see if that elixir does any good. Try to rest now. Someone will check on you later.”

I was surprised by his revelation. To judge from that one night, what existed between us was mutual attraction. Lust, to put it simply. On one hand, it went to my head that a nobleman, a man with wealth and a title, might be interested in me, but on the other hand, he was also a sadist and egotist. Despite the warning signs, I accepted Adair’s affection, even if it was a substitute for that which I desired from another man.

My stomach calmed, the taste of the bitter elixir forgotten. I had a new conundrum to puzzle over. My curiosity was no match for Adair’s curative, though, and before too long I’d fallen peacefully asleep.

Another night and day dragged by but no doctor came to see me and I began to wonder what game Adair was playing. He hadn’t been back since his confession of interest in me; he sent servants to my room with additional servings of the elixir but no doctor materialized at my door. After thirty-six hours had passed, I’d become suspicious, again, of his motives.

I had to get out of this house. If I stayed, I would die in this bed, the baby dying with me. I had to try to find a doctor or someone else who would bring me back to health or at the very least, keep me alive until the baby could be delivered. This child would be the only proof of Jonathan’s love for me and I was adamant that this proof should live on after my own death.

I stumbled out of bed to search for my satchel, but as I groped under the bedstead and in a cupboard, I became aware of the icy wetness of my underclothes, clinging to my legs. They’d taken away my linen and swaddled me in a length of fabric instead, to catch the foul discharge coming out of me. The fabric was soiled and evil smelling; there was no way I could travel on the streets like this without being mistaken for a lunatic and taken to an asylum. I needed clothing, my cloak, but they had taken everything away.

Of course, I knew where I might find something to wear. The room full of trunks, where they’d taken me on the first fateful night.

Outside my room, it was quiet, only the murmur of a conversation between a couple of servants wafting up the stairwell. The hallway was empty. I staggered to the stairs but was so weak and feverish in my limbs that I had to resort to my hands and knees to climb to the next floor. Once there, I leaned against the wall to catch my breath and regain my bearings. Which corridor led to the room of trunks? The corridors looked all the same and there were so many doors… I didn’t have the strength or time to try them all. And as I stood there, near tears from frustration and pain, struggling to hang on to my resolve to escape, I saw her. I saw the ghost.

I saw movement from the corner of my eye. I assumed it was a kitchen girl on her way to the servants’ loft, in the highest part of the attic, but the figure who stood on the landing was no common servant.

She was very small. If not for her full bosom and curvy hips, you might mistake her for a child. Her womanly shape was draped in an exotic costume made of tissue-thin silk, billowing pantaloons, and a sleeveless tunic too small to fully cover her breasts. And gorgeous breasts they were, perfectly round and firm and high. You could tell by looking at them how heavy they’d be in your hand, the kind of breasts that could make any man’s mouth water.

In addition to her luscious form, she was aesthetically beautiful. Her almond-shaped eyes were made to look all the bigger by a ring of kohl. Her hair was a multitude of shades of copper, auburn, and gold, and hung in untamed ringlets all the way to the small of her back. Alejandro had described the color of her skin perfectly: cinnamon, seemingly flecked with mica to make her glisten, as though she was made of some precious stone. I recall all this now with the benefit of having seen her many times after this episode and knowing she was made of flesh and blood, but at the time, truly, she could have been an apparition, conjured up by the male mind as the perfect sexual fantasy. The sight of her was startling and breathtaking. I feared that if I moved, she’d dart away. She stared back at me cautiously as I stared at her.

“Please don’t go. I need your help.” Tired from standing, I leaned on the banister. She took one step backward, her bare feet silent on the carpet.

“No, no, please, don’t leave me. I’m ill and I need to get out of this house. Please, I need your help if I’m going to stay alive. Your name is Uzra, right?” At the sound of her name, she danced backward a few steps more, turned, and disappeared in the gloom at the top of the attic stairs. I don’t know if my strength gave out at that moment or if it was my resolve that faltered as she ran away from me, but I slipped to the floor. The ceiling spun overhead, like a lantern twirling free on a twisted cord: first spinning in this direction, then in the other direction. Then everything went dark.

Then, murmuring and the touch of fingers.

“What is she doing out of her room?” It was Adair’s voice, gruff and low. “You said she wouldn’t be able to leave her bed.”

“Apparently she is stronger than she looks,” Alejandro muttered. Someone lifted me and I felt weightless, buoyed.

“Put her back in there and lock the door this time. She’s not to leave this house.” Adair’s voice began to drift away. “Is she going to die?”

“How the bloody hell should I know?” Alejandro muttered under his breath, then called out, much stronger, so Adair could hear, “I suppose that’s up to you.”

Up to him? I wondered, even as I was slipping back into unconsciousness. How could it be up to him whether I lived or died? I had no time to further contemplate this perplexing conversation, however, as I sank back into the vacuum of a lightless, soundless oblivion.

EIGHTEEN

She’s dying. She won’t make it through the day.”

It was Alejandro’s voice, his words not meant for my ears. My eyelids fluttered. He stood next to Adair at my bedside. Both had their arms crossed over their chests in resignation, grave looks on their faces.

Here it was, the absolute end, and I still had no idea what they meant to do with me, why Adair had bothered to mislead me with a declaration of affection, or ply me with homeopathic potions but refuse me a doctor’s care. At that point, his strange behavior made no difference: I was about to die. If it was my body they were after-for medical dissection or experimentation, to use in a satanic ritual-there would be no one to stop them. After all, what was I but a penniless and friendless vagrant? I wasn’t even their servant; I was less than that, a woman who let strangers do what they pleased with her in exchange for shelter and a meal. I would have cried for what I’d become but the fever had dried me up, leaving me without tears.

I couldn’t help agreeing with Alejandro’s conclusion: I had to be dying. A body could not feel this bad and live. Inside I was on fire, every muscle burning. I ached. With each breath, my rib cage creaked like a rusty bellows. If I weren’t sorry to be taking Jonathan’s baby with me and so afraid of the heavy weight of the sins for which I would be judged, I would have prayed for God to show me mercy by letting me die.

I had only one regret, which was that I’d never see Jonathan again. I’d believed so strongly we were destined to be together that it seemed inconceivable we could be separated, that I would die without being able to reach out and touch his face, that he would not be holding my hand as the last breath escaped me. The gravity of my situation became real to me at that moment: my end was here, there was nothing I could do, no entreaty to God that would change that. And the thing I wanted above all else was to see Jonathan.

“It’s your decision,” Alejandro said to Adair, who hadn’t spoken a word. “If she pleases you. Dona and Tilde have made their positions clear-”

“It’s not up for a vote,” he growled. “None of you has a say in who joins our household. You all continue to exist at my pleasure”-did I hear him correctly? I thought not; his words slurred and boomed in my head-“you continue to serve me at my pleasure.”

Adair stepped beside me and ran a hand over my sweaty brow. “See the look on her face, Alejandro? She knows she is dying and yet she fights. I saw that look on your face, on Tilde’s… it is always the same.” He cupped my cheek. “Listen to me, Lanore. I am about to give you a rare gift. Do you understand? If I do not intervene, you will die. So this is to be our bargain… I am ready to catch you as you die and bring your soul back to this world. But that means you will belong to me entirely, more than just your body. To own your body, that is an easy thing, I can do that now. I want more from you; I want your fiery soul. Do you agree to this?” he asked, searching my eyes for a reaction. “Prepare yourself,” he said to me. I had no idea what he was talking about.

He leaned close, like a priest about to hear my confession. He held a silver vial as slender as a hummingbird’s beak and pulled a stopper out-more like a needle than a stopper. “Open your mouth,” he commanded, but I was frozen with fright. “Open your damn mouth,” he repeated, “or I will crack your jaw in two.”

In my confusion I thought he might be offering last rites-I was from a Catholic family, for all intents and purposes-and I wanted absolution for my sins. So I opened my mouth and closed my eyes, waiting.

He smeared the stopper against my tongue. I didn’t even feel it-the instrument was minute-but my tongue immediately went numb and was seized with the most vile taste. My mouth watered and I began to convulse; he pushed my mouth shut and held it, pinning me to the bed as I was racked with seizures. Blood welled in my mouth, made bitter and sour by the potion he had put on my tongue. Had he poisoned me to hasten my dying? I was lost in my own blood and could feel nothing else. In the back of my mind, I heard Adair mumble, words that made no sense. But panic had replaced all else, especially logic. I didn’t care what he was saying or why he was doing this, I was completely in shock.

My chest squeezed, the pain and panic excruciating. My lungs no longer worked-pump rusted bellows, for God’s sake. I couldn’t breathe. I know now that my heart was stopping and was unable to make my lungs work. My brain flailed. I was dying, but I wouldn’t die alone. My hands went instinctively to my belly, cupping the small mound that had just begun making itself undeniably evident.

Adair froze, realization breaking on his face. “My God, she is pregnant. Did no one know she was with child?” he roared as he spun around, flinging an arm at Alejandro behind him. My body was shutting down, piece by piece, and my soul was terrified, searching for a place to go.

And then it ceased to be.

I woke up.

Of course, the first thing I thought was that the terrible episode had been a dream or that I’d passed the peak of my illness and was recovering. I found momentary comfort in these explanations, but I couldn’t deny that something terrible and irrevocable had happened to me. If I concentrated very hard, I remembered blurred visions, of being held against the mattress, of someone carrying away a large copper basin filled with thick, foul-smelling blood.

I woke in my pauper’s bed in the tiny room, but the room was ghastly cold, the fire long since died out. The curtains over the sole window were drawn, but there was a sliver of overcast sky visible where the panels met. The sky had that gray cast of a New England autumn to it, but even those tiny chinks of light were bright and chalky, and painful to look at.

My throat burned as though I’d been forced to drink acid. I decided to go searching for a draft of water, but when I sat up, I was thrown immediately to my back as the room circled and spun. The light, my equilibrium… I felt terribly sensitive, like an invalid altered by a prolonged illness.

Aside from my throat and my fiery head, the rest of me was cold. My muscles no longer burned with fever. Instead, I moved sluggishly, as though I’d been left to float in cold water for days. One very important thing had changed and I didn’t need anyone to tell me what it was: I no longer carried my baby with me. It was gone.

It took me about a half hour to leave the room, slowly acclimating to standing, then walking. As I inched down the hall toward the courtiers’ bedchambers, I heard the quotidian noises of the household quite precisely, with an animal’s keenness: whispered conversations between lovers in bed; the snoring of the head butler napping in the linen closet; the sound of water being drawn from the giant cauldron, perhaps for someone’s bath.

I stopped in front of Alejandro’s door, swaying on my feet, steeling myself to go in and demand that he explain what had happened to me and to my unborn child. I raised my hand to knock, but stopped. Whatever had happened to me was serious and irrevocable. I knew who had the answers and I decided to go right to the source: the one who had placed poison on my tongue, spoken magical words in my ear, and made everything change. The one who, in all likelihood, had taken my child from me. For my lost child’s sake, I had to be strong.

I turned and strode to the end of the hall. I raised my hand to knock and again thought better of it. I wouldn’t come to Adair as a servant, asking for permission to speak with him.

The doors parted with one push. I knew the room and the habits of its occupant, and went straight to the bower of cushions where Adair slept. He lay under a sable blanket, unmoving as a corpse, his eyes wide open, staring at the ceiling.

“You’ve rejoined us,” he said, more a declaration than an observation. “You’re back among the living.”

I was afraid of him. I couldn’t explain the things he’d done to me, or why I hadn’t run from Tilde’s invitation at the carriage, or why I’d let any of this happen. But the time had come to confront him.

“What did you do to me? And what happened to my baby?”

His eyes shifted, settling on me, as baleful as a wolf’s. “You were dying from infection and I decided not to let you leave, not yet. And you didn’t want to die. I saw it in your eyes. As for the baby-we didn’t know you were with child. Once you’d been given the unction, there was nothing to be done for the child.”

My eyes welled with tears, that after everything-the exile from St. Andrew, surviving despite the hellish infection-my baby had been taken away from me so thoughtlessly. “What did you do… how did you keep me from dying? You said you were not a doctor…”

He rose from the bed and slipped on a silk robe. He grabbed my wrist, and before I knew what was happening, whisked me out of the room and down the stairs. “What has happened to you cannot be explained. It can only be-shown.”

He dragged me to the common rooms in the back of the house. As we passed Dona in the hall, Adair snapped his fingers at him and said, “Come with us.” He took me to the room behind the kitchen where the giant cauldrons used to cook for crowds and the other pantry oddities were kept: fish grills, shaped to fit a fish like an iron maiden; cake tins and forms; and the half barrel of water drawn from the cistern for household use. The water glinted, black and cold, in the barrel.

Adair shoved me into Dona’s arms and gestured to the barrel with a toss of his head. Dona rolled his eyes as he yanked up the sleeve on his right arm and then, as swiftly as a housewife snatching up the chicken that is to be the evening’s supper, he grabbed the back of my neck and plunged my head into the water. I had no time to prepare and swallowed a lungful of water immediately. By the strength of his grip, I could tell he didn’t mean to let me go. All I could do was thrash and struggle in the hope I might knock the barrel over or that he’d relent out of pity. Why had Adair saved me from infection and a fever if he meant to have me drowned now?

He shouted at me; I heard his voice through the splashing but couldn’t make out his words. A long stretch of time seemed to pass, but I knew this must be an illusion. The dying were said in their panic to experience each of their last seconds clearly and distinctly. But I had depleted the air in my lungs; surely death would come at any moment. I hung from Dona’s hand in the water, numb with cold and terror, waiting for my end. Wanting to join the lost child, wanting-after all that had happened to me-to give up. To be at peace.

Dona yanked my head from the barrel and water coursed from my hair, down my face, and over my shoulders, spattering all over the floor. He held me upright.

“So, what do you think?” Adair asked.

“You tried to kill me just now!”

“But you didn’t drown, did you?” He handed Dona a towel, which he used to wipe his wet arm, disdainfully. “Dona held you under for a good five minutes, and here you stand, alive. The water didn’t kill you. And why do you think that is?”

I blinked the frigid water from my eyes. “I-don’t know.”

His grin was like a skeleton’s. “That’s because you’re immortal. You can never die.”

I crouched by the fire in Adair’s bedchamber. He gave me a glass and a bottle of brandy, and lay on his bed while I stared at the flames and avoided the hospitality of his alcohol. I didn’t want to believe him and I didn’t want anything he might give me. If I couldn’t kill him for taking my baby from me, then I wanted to run away from him and out of the house. Again, however, fear kept me from thinking clearly, and the last shreds of my common sense warned me that I shouldn’t leave. I had to hear him out.

Next to the bed was a curious instrument, with tubes and chambers made of brass and glass. I now know it to be a hookah, but at the time it was only an exotic contraption that bellowed sweet smoke. Adair drew on the pipe and exhaled a long stream toward the ceiling, until his eyes grew glassy and his limbs were languid.

“Do you understand now?” he asked. “You are no longer mortal. You are beyond life and death. You cannot die.” He offered the hookah’s mouthpiece to me, then pulled it back when I didn’t take it. “It doesn’t matter how someone might try to kill you-neither bow nor rifle, knife nor poison, fire nor water. A mound of earth piled on top of you. Neither disease nor famine.”

“How can that be?”

He took another long draft on the pipe, holding in its narcotic smoke for a moment before releasing it in a thick cloud. “How this came to be, I cannot tell you. I’ve thought on it, prayed on it, tried to dream on it using all manner of drugs. No answer has come to me. I can’t explain it and have come to stop looking for answers.”

“You’re saying you cannot die?”

“I’m saying I’ve been alive for hundreds of years.”

“Who in God’s universe is immortal?” I asked of myself. “Angels are immortal.”

Adair snorted. “Always the angels, always God. Why is it that when one hears a voice speak to them, they always assume it is God talking?”

“Are you saying it’s the work of the devil?”

He scratched his flat stomach. “I’m saying I have searched for answers, and no voice has spoken to me. Neither God nor Satan has taken the trouble to explain to me how this-miracle-fits into his plans. No one has commanded me to do his bidding. From this, I can only deduce that I am no one’s minion. I have no master. We are all immortal-Alejandro, Uzra, and the rest. I have made all of you, understand?” Another long draw on the pipe, a gurgle of water, and his booming voice lowered. “You have transcended death.”

“Please stop saying that. You’re frightening me.”

“You will get used to this, and very soon, you’ll never be frightened again. There will be nothing to be frightened of. There is only one rule for you to follow now, one person you must obey, and that person is me. Because I have your soul now, Lanore. Your soul and your life.”

“I must obey you now? Does that mean you are God?” I snorted, too, being as brazen as I felt I could be with him.

“The God you were raised on has given you up. Do you remember what I said before you received the gift? You are my possession now and forever. I am your god and if you do not believe me and care to test what I tell you, I invite you to try to defy me.”

By then, I had let him lead me to the bed and didn’t protest as he lay beside me. He fed me the mouthpiece and stroked my damp hair as I sucked in the heavy fumes. The narcotic wrapped around me, cradled me, and my fear collapsed like an exhausted child. Now that I was worn down and sleepy, Adair was almost tender. “I have no explanation to give you, Lanore, but there is a story. I’ll tell you that story, my story. I’ll tell you how I came to be, and perhaps then you’ll understand.”

NINETEEN

As soon as Adair saw the stranger, he knew with the unmistakable chill of premonition that the old man had come for him.

The end of the day was the time when they celebrated, the nomadic laborers with whom Adair’s family traveled. As night descended, they built giant campfires to enjoy the one piece of the day they could call their own. Their long hours working in the fields were over and so they gathered to share food and drink and entertain one another. His uncle would not yet be drunk and so would play folk tunes on his peasant’s violin, accompanying Adair’s mother and the other women as they sang. Someone would bring a tambourine, another would bring a balalaika. Adair sat with his whole family, his five brothers and two sisters, along with the older brothers’ wives. His happiness that night was complete when he saw, on the far side of the leaping fire, Katarina approach the circle with her family.

He and his family were wanderers, as were Katarina’s family and everyone in the caravan. Once upon a time they had been serfs to a Magyar lord, but he had deserted them, leaving them to bandits. They fled from the villages in their wagons and had lived in their wagons ever since, following the harvest as itinerant workers, digging ditches, tending fields, taking whatever work they could find. The Magyar and Romanian kingdoms were fighting then, and there were too few Magyar nobles spread over the countryside to protect the vagabonds, should they even be inclined.

Still, it hadn’t been so long ago that they had been forced from their home that Adair couldn’t remember what it was like to sleep inside a house at night, to have that small bit of security. His brothers Istvan and Radu had been babies, though, and had no recollection of the earlier, happier life. Adair felt bad that his younger brothers had never known those times, but then they seemed in their own way to be happier than the rest of the family and were perplexed by the melancholy that haunted their siblings and parents.

The stranger had appeared suddenly, at the edge of the gathering that evening. The first thing Adair noticed about him was that he was very old, practically a shrunken corpse leaning on his walking stick, and as he got closer, he looked older still. His skin was papery and wrinkled, and dotted with age spots. His eyes were coated with a milky film but nevertheless had a strange sharpness to them. He had a thick head of snow white hair, so long that it trailed down his back in a plait. But most notable were his clothes, which were of Romanian cut and made of costly fabrics. Whoever he was, he was wealthy and, even though an old man, had no fear of stepping into a gypsy camp alone at night.

He pushed through the ring of people and stood in the center of the circle, next to the bonfire. As his gaze rippled over the crowd, Adair’s blood stood in his veins. Adair was no different from every other boy in the encampment: uneducated, unwashed, underfed. He knew there was no reason for the old man to single him out, but his sense of foreboding was so strong that he would have leaped to his feet and run from the circle if his youthful pride hadn’t stopped him-he hadn’t done anything to this old man, so why should he run?

After a silent search of the faces illuminated in the fire’s lambent glow, the old man smiled unpleasantly, lifted his hand, and pointed directly at Adair. Then he looked over at the group of elders. By now, all activity had stopped, the music, the laughter. All eyes fell on the stranger and then moved to Adair.

His father broke the silence. He pushed through Adair’s brothers and sisters and grabbed Adair by the forearm, nearly yanking it from its socket. “What have you done, boy?” he hissed through his gaping teeth. “Do not just sit there-come with me!” He pulled his son to his feet. “The rest of you-what are you staring at? Go back to your storytelling and your foolish singing!” And as he dragged Adair away, Adair felt the stares of his family, and Katarina, on his back.

The two went to a dark overhang under a tree, out of earshot of the campfire, followed by the stranger.

Adair tried to deflect whatever trouble had found him. “Whoever you are looking for, I swear it is not me. You’ve mistaken me for another.”

His father slapped him. “What did you do? Steal a chicken? Take some potatoes or onions from the fields?”

“I swear,” Adair sputtered, holding the fiery spot on his cheek and pointing at the old man. “I don’t know him.”

“Do not let your guilty imagination run away with you. I’m not accusing the boy of any crime,” the old man said to Adair’s father. He beheld both Adair and his father with contempt, as he might beggars or thieves. “I have chosen your son to come work for me.”

To his credit, Adair’s father was suspicious of the offer. “What use could you have for him? He has no skills. He is a field hand.”

“I need a servant. A boy with a strong back and sturdy legs.”

Adair saw his life taking an abrupt, unwelcome turn. “I’ve never been a house servant. I wouldn’t know what to do-”

A second slap from his father stopped Adair short. “Do not make yourself out to be more worthless than you are,” his father snapped. “You can learn, even if learning is not among your strengths.”

“He will do, I can tell.” The stranger walked around Adair slowly, appraising him like a horse for sale in the thieves’ market. He trailed a scent in his wake, smoky and dry, like incense. “I do not need someone with a strong mind, just someone to help a fragile old man with the demands of life. But…” Here his eyes narrowed, and his countenance became fierce again. “I live a distance away and will not make this trip again. If your son wants the position, he must leave with me tonight.”

“Tonight?” Adair’s throat tightened.

“I am prepared to pay for the loss of your son’s contribution to your family,” the stranger said to Adair’s father. With those words, Adair knew he was lost, for his father would not turn down money. By this time, his mother was approaching them, keeping to the tree’s shadow, wringing her skirts in her hands. She waited with Adair, as his father and the stranger haggled over a price. Once a sum was settled upon and the old man left to ready his horse, Adair’s mother flew to her husband.

“What are you doing?” she cried, even though she knew her husband would not change his mind. There would be no arguing with him.

But there was more at stake for Adair and he had nothing to lose, so he turned on his father. “What have you done to me? A stranger walks into camp and you sell one of your children to him! What do you know of him?”

“How dare you question me!” he said, lashing out, knocking Adair to the ground. The rest of the family had come down from the bonfire by now, and stood beyond their father’s reach. It was nothing new for them to watch a sibling being beaten, but it was unsettling all the same. “You are too stupid to know a good opportunity when you see it. Obviously, this man is wealthy. You’ll be the servant of a rich man. You’ll live in a house, not a wagon, and you will not have to work in the fields. If I thought the strange man would agree to it, I’d ask him to take one of the others as well. Maybe Radu, he is not so blind that he cannot see when a good thing falls in his lap.”

Adair picked himself off the ground, shamefaced. His father cuffed him again on the back of the head for good measure. “Now, pack your things and say your good-byes. Do not make this man wait for you.”

His mother searched her husband’s face. “Ferenc, what do you know of this man you are entrusting with our son? What has he told you of himself?”

“I know enough. He is a physic to a count. He lives in a house on the count’s estate. Adair will be indentured to him for seven years. At the end of seven years, Adair can choose whether to leave or remain in the physic’s employ.”

Adair calculated the figures in his mind: in seven years, he would be twenty-one, halfway through his life. As it was, he was just coming into marrying age and was impatient to follow in his older brothers’ footsteps and take a bride, start a family, be accepted as a man. As a house servant, he wouldn’t marry or be allowed to have children; his life would go into suspension during this most crucial time. By the time he was free, he would be old. What woman would want him then?

And what about his family? Where would they be in seven years? They were itinerants, moving to find work, shelter, to escape the bad weather. Not one of them could read or write. He would never be able to find them. To lose his family was unthinkable. They were the lowest class of society, shunned by everyone else. When he left the stranger’s employ, how would he survive without them?

A cry broke in his mother’s throat. She knew as well as Adair what this meant. But his father stood firm in his decision. “It is for the best! You know it is. Look at us-we can barely earn enough to feed our children. It is better if Adair took his burden on himself.”

“You mean that we are all burdens to you?” Radu wailed. Two years younger than Adair, Radu was the sensitive one in the family. He ran up to Adair and wrapped his thin arms around his brother’s waist, blotting his tears on Adair’s ragged shirt.

“Adair is a man now and has to make his own way in the world,” their father said to Radu, then to all of them. “Now, enough of these hysterics. Adair must pack his things.”

Adair traveled all that night, riding behind the stranger, as instructed. He was surprised to find that the old man had a magnificent horse, the sort of horse a knight would own, heavy enough for its hoofbeats to shake the ground. Adair could tell they were headed west, deeper into Romanian territory.

Toward morning, they passed the castle of the count by whom the physic was employed. There was nothing lyrical about it. It was meant for siege-squat and solid, foursquare, surrounded by a scattering of dwellings and pens of sheep and cattle. Cultivated fields stretched off in all directions. The two rode for another twenty minutes through a dense forest before coming upon a small stone keep, almost hidden by trees. The keep itself looked dank, overgrown with moss that ran wild without sunlight to keep it in check. To Adair, the keep appeared more dungeon than house, seemingly without even a door cut into its daunting facade.

The old man dismounted and instructed Adair to take care of the horse before joining him inside. Adair lingered as long as he could with the giant equine, stripping off the saddle and bridle, fetching water for it, rubbing its sweaty back with dry straw. When he could avoid it no longer, he picked up the saddle and went into the keep.

Inside, it was almost too smoky to see, a small fire burning in the fire pit and only a miserly narrow window to let the smoke escape. Looking around, Adair saw that the keep was one large, circular room. A woman slept next to the door on a bed of straw. She was easily ten years older than Adair and matronly, with large florid hands and almost sexless features. She slept surrounded by the tools of her gender: mixing bowls and clumsy wooden spoons, pots and buckets; a slab of a wooden table, worn and greasy; stacks of wooden chargers that served as plates; crocks of wine and ale. Garlands of peppers and garlic hung from hooks in the stone walls, along with ropes of sausage and a string of hard circlets of rye bread.

On the far side of the room was a desk covered with bottles and jars, sheaves of paper, an inkstand and quills and an oddity Adair had never laid eyes on before: books, bound with wooden covers. Baskets holding strange artifacts from the forest stood ready behind the desk: dusty dried roots, cones, handfuls of nettles, tangles of weeds. Beyond the desk, Adair spied a staircase leading downward, possibly to a cold cellar.

The old man was suddenly at Adair’s side, peering at the peasant boy. “I suppose you want to know my name. I am Ivor cel Rau, but you shall refer to me as ‘master.’” As he took off his heavy cape and warmed his hands at the fire, the physic explained that he came from a line of landed Romanian nobles, the last male in his family. Although he would one day inherit the family’s castle and property, as a young man he decided to pursue a career and had gone to Venice to study medicine. In his decades as a physician, he’d served several counts and even kings. He was now at the end of a long career, in the service of Count cel Batrin, the Romanian nobleman who owned the castle they had passed. The physic explained that he had not hired Adair to teach him the healing arts, but expected Adair to assist him by gathering herbs and other ingredients for salves and elixirs, in addition to doing chores and helping the housekeeper, Marguerite.

The old man rummaged through an open chest until he found a tatty old blanket of rough woven wool. “Make up a bed of straw by the fire. When Marguerite awakes, she will give you food and your orders for the day. Try to rest some, too, because I will want you to be ready tonight when I awaken. Oh, and do not be surprised when Marguerite neither heeds you nor speaks to you-she is deaf and dumb, and has been since birth.” And then the old man took a candle, which had been burning on the kitchen table in wait for him, and hobbled toward the dark stairwell. Adair followed his orders and curled by the fire, and was asleep before the light from the physic’s candle had faded down the stairs.

He woke to the stirrings of the housekeeper. She stopped what she was doing to stare at Adair openly as he rose from the floor. Adair found her a disappointment, more so than when she’d been asleep: worse than plain, she was ugly, with a mannish face and the broad body of a field worker. She gave Adair a meal of cold gruel and water, and when he’d finished, led him to the well and gave him a bucket, pantomiming her instructions. In this way, she had him chop firewood, as well as haul water for the kitchen and the livestock. Later, when she went to scrub clothing in a big wooden tub, Adair tried to nap, remembering the old man’s admonition.

The next thing Adair knew, Marguerite was shaking him by the shoulder and pointing to the stairway. Evening had fallen and the old man was rising downstairs in his chamber. The housekeeper went about lighting candles around the main room, and presently, the old man came up the stairs, carrying the same stubby candle from the early morning hours.

“You have risen-good,” the physic said as he shuffled by Adair. He went straight to his desk and riffled through pages of indecipherable writing. “Build up that fire,” he ordered, “and fetch a cauldron. I must make a potion tonight and you will help me.” Ignoring his new servant, the physic started searching the rows of jars, each covered with waxed cloth and string, and turned each in the firelight to read its label, putting a few aside. After the cauldron had been hung and heated above the flames, Adair helped the old man carry the jars to the fire pit. Sitting to the side, he watched the physic measure ingredients in his withered hand, then toss them into the pot. Adair recognized some plants and herbs, now dried to ash, but others were more mysterious. A bat’s claw, or was it a mouse’s paw? A rooster’s comb? Three black feathers, but from what bird? From one tightly lidded jar, the physic poured an oozing, dark syrup that emitted a foul smell as soon as it was exposed to air. Lastly, he poured in a pitcher of water, and then he turned to Adair.

“Watch this carefully. Let it come to a full boil, but then knock the fire down and take care that the unction does not seize up. It must be thick, like pitch. Do you understand?”

Adair nodded. “May I ask, what is this potion for?”

“No, you may not ask,” he answered, then seemed to think better of it. “In time, you will learn, when you have earned such wisdom. Now, I am going out. Mind the pot as I instructed you. Do not leave the keep, and do not fall asleep.” Adair watched as the old man took his cloak from a peg and slipped outside.

He did as he was told, sitting close enough to inhale the foul fumes coming off the bubbling liquid. The keep was quiet except for Marguerite’s snores, and Adair watched her for a while, the rise and fall of her broad stomach under the blanket, straw crackling as she turned in her sleep. When he tired of this miserly entertainment, he went to the physic’s desk and studied the pages of handwriting, wishing he had the ability to read them. He thought about trying to persuade the old man to teach him to read; surely the physic would find it helpful for his servant to have this skill.

From time to time, Adair poked at the contents of the pot with a wooden spoon, gauging its consistency, and when it seemed right, he took the poker and knocked down the burning logs, scattering them to the edges of the pit so only the embers remained under the cauldron. At that point, Adair felt it was safe to relax, so he wrapped himself in the threadbare blanket and leaned against the wall. Sleep nibbled at his ear, a delicious ale of which he’d been given a sip but knew he could drink no more. He tried everything he could think of to keep awake: he paced the floor, gulped cold water, did handstands. After an hour of this, he was more exhausted than ever and on the verge of falling to the floor in a stupor when, suddenly, the door was pushed open and the old man entered. He appeared invigorated by his excursion, his milky eyes almost bright.

He peered into the cauldron. “Very good. The unction looks fine. Take the cauldron off the spit and let it cool on the hearth. In the morning, you will pour the unction into that urn and cover it with paper. Now you may rest. It’s almost dawn.”

Several weeks passed like this. Adair was glad for the routine to keep his mind off the loss of his family and his lovely Katarina. Mornings he assisted Marguerite, and the afternoons he rested. Evenings were spent preparing potions or salves, or being taught by the old man to recognize and gather ingredients. He would lead Adair into the woods to hunt for a specific plant or seed by moonlight. Other evenings, Adair bundled cuttings and hung them from the rafters near the fire pit. Almost every night, the physic would disappear for a few hours, always returning before daybreak, only to withdraw to his chamber underground.

After a month or two had passed, the physic began to send Adair into the village that surrounded the castle walls to exchange a crock of ointment for goods, some cloth or ironwork or pottery. By this time, Adair was desperate for the company of people, even to hear his own voice. But the villagers invariably kept their distance once they learned he worked for the physic. If they saw that Adair was lonely and desperate for company and a few kind words, they were unmoved and kept the transactions curt and unfriendly.

Around the same time, a change occurred between Adair and Marguerite, to his shame. One afternoon, when he’d woken from a nap and started to dress, she came up to his bed and put her hands on him. Without waiting for encouragement, she pushed him on his back onto the straw, feeling his chest under his tunic, then went to his breeches and searched for Adair’s manhood. Once she’d gotten it sufficiently engaged, she lifted her dusty skirts and squatted over him. There was no tenderness in her movements, nor in Adair’s, no pretense that it was anything other than a physical release for them both. As Adair grasped handfuls of her flesh, he thought of Katarina, but there was no way to pretend that this great bear of a woman was his delicate, dark-eyed love. When it was over, Marguerite made a guttural noise in her throat as she rolled away from Adair, lowered her skirt, and went about her business.

He lay back against his straw bed, looking up at the ceiling and wondering if the physic might have heard them, and if so, what he would do. Perhaps he took his own pleasures with Marguerite-no, that didn’t seem possible, and Adair figured the old man visited a wench in the village to satisfy that itch during his nocturnal prowling. Perhaps in time, he would be able to do the same. For now, he seemed to have fallen into a strange way of life, but it wasn’t as difficult as working in the fields had been and there was the promise of betterment, perhaps, if he could persuade the old man to teach him about the healing arts. Though Adair still missed his family terribly, he took comfort from these facts and decided to stay a while longer and see what his fortune might hold.

TWENTY

After months had passed in the physic’s employ with only the sparest contact with anyone besides the old man and Marguerite, the night came for Adair’s first visit to the castle. Not that Adair wanted to go to the stronghold of a Romanian nobleman. He had nothing but hatred for the devils who raided Magyar villages, destroyed their homes, and captured their land. He couldn’t easily dismiss his curiosity, however; Adair had never been in the abode of a rich man, never been inside castle walls. He’d only worked the fields. He figured he would be able to bear it if he pretended the owner of the castle was Magyar, not Romanian. Then he could marvel at the grand rooms and finery all the same.

His job that night was to carry a huge jar of a potion they had worked on the previous evening. As usual, the potion’s purpose was kept secret from him. Adair waited by the door as the physic fussed over his appearance, finally choosing to dress in a fine tunic embroidered with gold threads and studded with colored cabochons, signifying that it was a special occasion. The physic rode his charger and Adair trudged behind, lugging the urn on his back like an old grandmother who could no longer walk upright. The drawbridge over the moat was lowered for them, and they were escorted into the great hall by a squad of the count’s soldiers. Guards lined the walls.

A feast was in progress in the great hall. The physic joined the count at the head table and Adair squatted in the back of the room against the wall, still hugging the jar. He recognized some of the emblems on the shields decorating the walls; they were from the estates where he’d worked. The count’s dialect sounded familiar, but Adair couldn’t understand what they were talking about because the conversation was peppered with Romanian. Even a simple boy like Adair understood what this combination of facts meant: this count was originally a Magyar, but he had allied himself with the Romanian oppressors to save his own skin and preserve his fortune. That had to be why the villagers shunned him: they figured Adair was a Romanian sympathizer as well.

He’d just stumbled on this realization when the old man summoned him over with the urn. Dismissed with a wave of the physic’s hand, Adair went back to his place at the wall. The physic removed the oiled cloth cover so the count could inspect the contents. The nobleman closed his eyes and inhaled deeply, as though the foul-smelling stuff was as sweet as a field of wildflowers. The count’s courtiers laughed with anticipation, as though they knew something exciting was about to happen. Adair was holding his breath at the prospect of learning the purpose of at least one of the physic’s mystical potions, when the old man’s sharp gaze fell on him.

“This is not the place for the boy, I think,” he said, motioning to a guard. “Perhaps you can find something better to occupy his time, teach him a thing or two about soldiering. He may have to help defend this castle one day, or at the very least, save my old and worthless head.” Adair was led away amid mocking laughter from the onlookers, and taken to a courtyard where a handful of guards lazed about. These were not knights or even professional soldiers, just simple guards, though far more experienced with a sword or a spear than Adair. Under the guise of “training,” they took brutal pleasure in abusing Adair for two hours as he tried to defend himself with these unfamiliar weapons. By the time he was allowed back into the great hall, his arms ached from swinging a dull broadsword, the heaviest one the guards could find, and he was nicked and bruised.

The scene in the great hall was not what he’d expected. The count and his vassals seemed to be merely intoxicated, lolling in their seats or fallen to the floor, eyes closed, childish smiles on their faces, ropy muscles gone slack. They paid little notice as the physic made his farewells, leading Adair through the courtyard. In the gray predawn, they picked their way over the drawbridge and through the forest. Adair trudged behind the old man’s horse, and exhausted as he was, was grateful not to be carrying the urn.

The mystery of the physic’s ways slowly began to coalesce in Adair’s mind. On one hand, Adair was grateful for the warm, dry place to sleep and not to be working himself to daily exhaustion and an early grave as a field hand. Unlike his family, he had three meals a day, nearly all he could eat: stew, eggs, the occasional strip of roasted meat. He had sexual companionship, so he would not go insane with unsatisfied desire. On the other hand, Adair could not help but see it as a deal with the devil, even if it had been made against his will: there was a price to pay for a life of relative ease, and he sensed he would be given the bill eventually.

He received the first hint of the payment due one evening, when the physic took Adair and Marguerite to the woods. They walked for a long time, and since they were engaged in nothing more than putting one foot in front of the other, Adair saw the opportunity to ask a few questions of the old man.

“May I ask, master, why it is that you do all your work at night?” he asked, careful to sound as timid and guileless as possible.

At first the old man harrumphed, as though he wouldn’t dignify the question with an answer. But after a few moments-for who doesn’t like to talk about himself, no matter how trivial the questions-he cleared his throat to answer. “It is a habit, I suppose… It is the sort of work best done away from the prying eyes of others.” The physic breathed heavily as they went up a slight incline, and it wasn’t until they reached a level path that he continued. “The fact of the matter is, Adair, that this work is best done at night, for there is a power in the darkness, you know. It is from the darkness that these potions draw their strength.” He said this so matter-of-factly that Adair felt it would only reveal his ignorance to ask the old man to explain, and so he resumed his silence.

Eventually, they came to a place so wild and overgrown that it looked as if it had never been seen by human eyes. Around the roots of the poplars and larches was a proliferation of a strange plant, the broad and fan-shaped leaves standing on willowy stems high above the ground cover, waving to the trio of visitors.

The physic motioned for Marguerite to follow him. He led her to one of the plants, wrapped her hands around it, and then signaled for her to wait. Then he walked away from her, calling Adair to come with him. They walked until the maidservant had almost disappeared in the dimness, her white smock glowing in the moonlight.

“Cover your ears and be sharp about it, or you will be the worse for it,” he instructed Adair. Then he pantomimed for Marguerite to pull, which she did, throwing all her weight into one jerking movement. Despite having his hands clasped tight over his ears, Adair swore he heard a muffled noise erupt from the plant as it was ripped from the ground. Adair looked at the physic and lowered his hands, feeling conspicuous.

Marguerite trotted up like a dog following its master, carrying the plant in her hands. The physic took it from her, brushing away the dirt clinging to the hair roots. “Do you know what this is?” he asked Adair as he inspected the thick, five-pointed knob, bigger than the span of a man’s hand. “This is a mandrake root. See how it’s shaped like a man? Here are the arms, the legs, the head. Did you hear it scream just now, as it was pulled from the ground? The sound will kill any man who hears it.” The physic shook the root at Adair. It did look like a stubby, misshapen man. “This is what you need to do to gather more mandrake root-remember this well when I send you out for more. Some physics use a pure black dog to pull up the root, but the dog will die when he hears the scream, like any man. We don’t have to bother with killing dogs since we have Marguerite, do we?”

Adair didn’t like that the physic had included him in his comment about Marguerite. He wondered, ashamed, if the old man knew about their trysts and condoned Adair’s casual treatment of her. Indeed, the physic might liken it to his own brusque treatment of the housekeeper, using her like an ox to pull a stump from a field, and, though she was deaf and dumb, he clearly had so little regard for human life that it didn’t matter to him if she lived or died by pulling out the root. Of course, it was possible that the mandrake’s shriek wouldn’t really kill her even if she had been able to hear it, and that the old man had only told Adair the story to frighten him. But Adair filed the tidbit of knowledge about the mandrake away in his memory, with the other morsels of wisdom the physic had shared with him, for use another day.

What little enjoyment Adair took from his new life began to fade as he grew increasingly unhappy with his solitary routine. Boredom gave way to curiosity. He made a thorough inspection of the bottles and jars in the physic’s study, then took inventory of the wider room, until he knew every inch of the upper floor of the keep. He had enough common sense not to venture into the cellar.

Without asking the physic’s permission, Adair started taking the horse on afternoon rides into the countryside. He reasoned that it was good for the horse to be exercised between the physic’s infrequent rides. But sometimes, when he’d put many miles between him and the keep, a voice would tempt him to flee, to keep riding and never return. After all, how would that old man find Adair without a horse to carry him? However, Adair also knew that with the time that had elapsed since he’d arrived at the keep, he wouldn’t be able to find his family, and without a family to return to, there was no point in leaving. Here he had food and shelter. If he ran away, he’d have nothing and would be a fugitive for the time he still owed the physic. After a long moment looking at any road that led away from his prison, he would reluctantly turn the horse around and ride back to the keep.

Over time, Adair thought the physic was beginning to warm to him. At night as they worked on a potion, he’d catch the old man staring at him less harshly than usual. The physic started to tell Adair a little bit about the things in the jars as he crushed dried seeds or separated the herbs for storage, such as the names of the more obscure plants and how they might be put to use. There was to be a second visit to the castle over which the old man was practically ebullient, rubbing his hands as he paced around the keep.

“We have a new order from the count, for which we shall start preparations tonight,” he chortled, as Adair hung up the old man’s cloak on a peg by the door.

“Start what, master?” Adair asked.

“A special request from the count. A very difficult task, but one I have performed before.” He scurried back and forth across the timber floor, gathering jars of ingredients on the worktable. “Fetch the large cauldron, and build up the fire-it has almost gone out.”

Adair watched from the hearth. First, the physic selected a sheet from his handwritten recipes and read it over quickly before propping it against a jar to consult. He glanced at the paper from time to time as he measured ingredients into the warming pot. He took down things from the shelves that he’d never troubled with before: mysterious bits of animals-snouts, leathery pieces of skin, mummified nubs of flesh. Powders, shiny crystals of white and copper. He poured in an exact amount of water, and then had Adair hang the heavy pot from the spit. As the water began to boil, the physic took a handful of yellow powder from a vial and threw it on the fire: it flamed in a puff of smoke, emitting the unmistakable stench of brimstone.

“I’ve never seen this mixture before, have I, master?” Adair asked.

“No, you have not.” He paused. “It is a potion that makes anyone who drinks it invisible.” He searched Adair’s face for a reaction. “What do you think of that, boy? Do you believe that can truly happen?”

“I have never heard of such a thing.” He knew better than to disagree with the old man.

“Perhaps you will get to see it with your own eyes. The count will have some of his best men drink this potion, and they will become invisible for one night. Can you imagine what an army can do when it cannot be seen?”

“Yes, master,” Adair replied, and from that moment, he began to think of the physic’s spells and potions in a different way.

“Now, you must watch this cauldron, and let the water boil down, as you have done before. When it has boiled down, you must take it off the fire and let it cool. When you’ve done that, you may go to sleep, but not before. These ingredients are rare, and that is the last of a few of them, so we cannot afford to ruin this batch. Watch the pot carefully,” he said over his shoulder as he descended the staircase. “I will see how well you’ve done at dusk tonight.”

Adair had no trouble staying awake that night. He sat bolt upright against the hard stone wall, realizing that the old man had lied to him and his father. The old man was not a physic, but an alchemist, maybe a necromancer. No wonder the people in the village avoided him. It wasn’t just because of the turncoat noble. They were frightened of the old man, and with good reason: he was very likely in league with the devil. God knew what they suspected of Adair.

This potion was not like the previous ones and took forever to shed its moisture. Dawn started to break before an appreciable amount had evaporated. But through the last hours of the night, as he watched a slow vapor rise from the cauldron’s depths, Adair’s gaze kept wandering back to the stack of handwritten papers on the desk. Surely there were formulas in that pile more intriguing-and more profitable-than the ability to turn men invisible for one night. The old man probably knew how to make fail-safe love potions and talismans to bring great wealth and power to the owner. And surely any alchemist should know how to turn base metal into gold. Even though Adair couldn’t read the recipes, he didn’t doubt that he could find someone who would, for a piece of the profits.

The longer he thought about it, the more restless he became. He could hide the papers in the sleeve of his tunic and sneak past Marguerite, who would rise at any minute. Then he’d walk all day and get as far from the keep as he could. He thought fleetingly about taking the horse, but there his courage failed. To steal property as valuable as a horse was a death offense. The old man could justifiably seek Adair’s life. But the recipes… even if the old man could track his servant down, he probably wouldn’t dare take Adair before the count. The physic wouldn’t want the villagers to know how powerful he really was, or that his mystical knowledge was written down where it could be stolen or destroyed.

Adair’s heart pounded, until he could no longer ignore its wild exhortation. It was almost a relief, giving in to this desire.

Adair tightly rolled as many papers as he dared take at once and slid them up his sleeve just as Marguerite began stirring. Before leaving, he hoisted the cauldron off the spit and left it to cool on the hearth. Once outside, he chose a path he knew, one that would take him to Hungarian territory, to a stronghold where Romanian sympathizers would hesitate to go. He walked for hours, cursing his impetuousness, for he hadn’t thought to bring provisions. When he started to get light-headed, and the sun had started to slip on the horizon, Adair figured he’d traveled far enough and took refuge in a barn in the middle of a hayfield. It was a desolate place with nothing about, not even livestock, so Adair felt he’d traveled a safe distance and no one would search for him here. He fell asleep in the hay a free man.

He was jarred awake by a hand at his throat, jerking him to his feet and then, inexplicably, off the ground. Adair couldn’t see at first who had him, the air thick with night, but as his eyes adjusted, he refused to believe them. The figure holding him was slight… wizened… but in less than a minute Adair knew it was the old man by the smell of him, the stink of brimstone and decay.

“Thief! This is how you reward my patronage and trust?” the physic roared with outrage, and threw Adair to the ground with such force that he skidded all the way to the back of the barn. Before he could regain his breath, the old man was on him again, clutching him by the shoulder and again lifting him off the ground. Adair was aflame with pain and confusion: the physic was ancient, how could a weak old man lift him so easily? It had to be an illusion, or a fantasy induced by a blow to the head. Adair had only a minute to ponder this before the old man threw him to the ground a second time, then began hitting and kicking him. The blows were tremendously powerful. Adair’s head chattered in pain, and he was sure he would black out. He felt himself carried, felt the movement of air all around. They were traveling at a great rate of speed, by horseback, but it seemed unlikely that the old charger would be capable of such speed. Surely it must all be a delusion, he told himself, produced by some elixir the old man had forced on him in his sleep. It was too magical and frightening to be real.

Still in a stupor, Adair felt the air slow, their bodies again take on a human weight. Then the smells came to him: the musty dankness of the keep, the residue of burning herbs and brimstone hanging in the air. He felt curdled with fear. Dropping to the floor, he opened his eyes a crack and was crushed to see that he was indeed back in the keep, returned to his prison.

The old man walked toward him. He had changed: perhaps it was a trick of angle and perception, but he seemed tall and foreboding, not the old physic at all. The physic’s hand snaked out for the poker, and then he leaned over to fish the ratty blanket from Adair’s straw pallet. Slowly, deliberately, he wound the blanket around the poker as he advanced on Adair.

Adair watched the arm rise, but averted his gaze as the poker came down. The blanket cushioned the blow, kept the iron from breaking the boy’s bones outright. But the blows were like nothing he’d felt before, not the punches and slaps he’d endured from his father, not like willow switches or the lash of a leather strap. The iron bar compressed muscle, smashed the flesh until the bar came in contact with bone. It came down again and again, across his back, shoulders, and spine. He rolled to escape the blows, but the weapon caught him anyway, striking his ribs, his stomach, his legs. Soon Adair was beyond pain, no longer able to move or even to flinch as the poker continued to rain down. It hurt to breathe; white-hot lashings of flame laced his sides with every breath, his insides awash in runny, hot liquid. He was dying. The old man was going to beat him to death.

“I could cut off your hand, you know, that is the punishment for thieves. But what good would you be to me then, with only one hand?” The physic stood upright stiffly, throwing the poker to the floor. “Maybe I’ll chop off your hand when your service is over, so that everyone will know what you are. Or perhaps I won’t release you, when your seven years are over. Perhaps I’ll take another seven years, as punishment for your crime. How could you ever think you’d escape me, and steal from me what is mine?”

His words made little difference. The old man was deluded, Adair decided, to think his servant would live. He’d not see the sunrise, let alone seven years. Hot liquid worked its way around his intestines and organs, up Adair’s throat, into his mouth. Blood seeped over his lips and onto the wooden floor, oozing toward the old man’s feet in a dark, trickling stream. Blood was escaping from every orifice in Adair’s body.

Adair’s eyes flickered. The old man had stopped talking and was staring at him again in that intense way of his. He began creeping on the floor toward the boy, like a snake or lizard, close to the ground, until he was very near Adair, his mouth open, his tongue inching forward, straining. He took one long, bony finger and dipped it in the stream of blood flowing from Adair’s mouth. A long red trail dribbled down his finger as he brought it to his face and wiped it over his tongue. He rolled his tongue in his mouth and a faint, excited sigh passed over his lips. At that point, Adair passed out and was relieved for it. But the last thing he discerned, as consciousness left for what he was sure would be the last time, was the old man’s fingers stroking the side of his face, and running through Adair’s sweat-soaked hair.

TWENTY-ONE

Marguerite found Adair in the morning in a terrible state. In the night, his body had prepared for death: his bowels evacuated, his blood-soaked clothing had stuck to the floor so stubbornly that the housekeeper had to swab the spot with rags steeped in warm water to pry him loose.

He lay on his straw pallet, unconscious, for several days, and when he awoke, he found he was covered with large patches of black and violet edged with yellow and green, his skin hot and tender to the touch. But somehow Marguerite had cleaned away all outward traces of blood and dressed him in a fresh linen nightshirt.

Adair drifted in and out of consciousness, his thoughts incoherent as they danced in his head. In the worst of the twilight moments, he imagined someone was touching him, that fingertips glided over his face and lips. Another time he fancied he was being rolled onto his stomach and his clothing disturbed. The latter could be explained if Marguerite was cleaning him, as he was unable to move with sufficient coordination to use the chamber pot. Incapacitated, he couldn’t move or resist, could do nothing but accept this violation, real or imagined.

Smell was the first sense to return and then taste, the tang of iron from blood and the unctuousness of beef tallow. Once his eyes opened-and it took a few moments for his vision to focus and to be assured that he hadn’t lost his sight-his surroundings became real again and the sensation of pain came back to him. His ribs ached, his gut went wobbly and loose, and every breath stabbed into splintered ribs. With pain came his voice. He flailed at the blanket, attempting futilely to rise.

Marguerite hurried to his side and felt Adair’s forehead, and flexed his feet and hands, looking for signs of discomfort that foretold broken bones, to see which parts he could move by himself and which parts were injured. After all, what good was a laborer without the use of arms or legs?

She fetched broth and then ignored Adair for the rest of the afternoon while she moved through her chores. He had no alternative but to stare at the ceiling and watch time mark its passage as a square of sunlight working its way down the wall, counting off the hours until nightfall when the old man would awaken. Adair spent the time in fearful anticipation: it would have been better to have died that night, Adair decided, than to awake trapped in a wrecked body. How long would it take to recover, he wondered: Would he be whole when his bones had mended? Would the parts mesh correctly? Would he limp or be hunchbacked? At least his face seemed free of scar or disfiguration: the old man had spared his head-had he struck it with a poker, he would have split Adair’s skull open.

When the square of light faded, signaling the end of daylight, Adair knew his time had run out. He decided to pretend to be asleep. Marguerite, too, sensed a confrontation was near and she tried to hurriedly prepare for bed as the old man came up the stairs, but the physic interrupted her, catching her arm and pointing toward Adair’s bed inquisitively. But she had seen Adair close his eyes and settle into a pose of unconsciousness, so she only shook her head and withdrew into her bed, pulling a blanket over her shoulder.

The old man went to Adair’s bed, crouching low. Adair tried to keep his breathing even and calm and to control his trembling, waiting to see what the old man was going to do. He didn’t have to wait long: the old man’s cold, bony hand touched the young man’s cheek, then his Adam’s apple, then slid down his chest, but only briefly before settling on Adair’s flat stomach. He barely touched the bruised spots and yet it was all Adair could do to keep from curling up in pain.

The hand did not stop, but continued gliding downward: to the abdomen, then lower still, and the shock almost caused Adair to cry out. Somehow he managed to lie stoically while the old man’s fingers found what they were looking for, caressing the irregular piece of flesh, massaging, kneading, coaxing. But before Adair’s manhood could respond, the fingers withdrew, and without a backward look, the old man turned and drifted through the door and into the night.

The panic was almost enough to cause Adair to leap out of bed despite his condition. He was seized by the urge to flee but could not: he had little control of his arms and his legs were entirely unresponsive. The old man was considerably stronger than he appeared; Adair was defenseless against him in good health, never mind in his current state. He couldn’t even crawl across the room to find a weapon to use to defend himself. Sour with despair, Adair realized there was nothing he could do for himself, not now. He could only endure whatever the physic wished to inflict upon him.

He passed the days by thinking of the work he’d done for the physic, the elixirs and salves he’d made, wondering if perhaps there might be something there he could use for his defense. Such thoughts were hopeless; though they served to strengthen his memory of the ingredients that went into these powerful things-as well as the proportions and smells and textures-he was still ignorant of their purpose, for all except the one that conferred invisibility.

He managed to keep up the charade for two more days before the physic realized Adair had regained consciousness. He tested his limbs and joints in the same way Marguerite had done, and prepared an elixir that he poured down the young man’s throat. It was the elixir that gave Adair away, for the potion burned and stung, and he couldn’t help but choke on it.

“I hope you have learned a lesson, so at least some good may come from your deceit,” the physic growled as he stumped around the desk. “And that lesson is that you can never escape from me. I can find you no matter where you go. No journey would be far enough, no hiding spot deep enough to elude me. The next time you try to cheat me out of the service I have paid for or steal any of my things, this little episode will seem like the lightest of punishments. If I so much as sense you are being disloyal, I will chain you to the walls of this keep and you will never again see the light of day, do you understand?” The old man wasn’t disturbed in the least by the hateful look Adair gave him.

Within a few weeks, Adair was able to rise from bed and hobble around the room with the use of a walking stick. As his ribs creaked with pain every time he lifted his arms, he was still worthless to Marguerite, but he could again assist the physic in the evening. However, all conversation between them ceased: the old man barked his orders and Adair slinked from his sight as soon as he had fulfilled them.

After a couple of months, with regular doses of the burning elixir, Adair had healed considerably, to the point where he could fetch water and chop wood. He could run, though not for long, and was sure he would be able to ride, if the chance arose. Sometimes, when he gathered herbs in the woods and strayed to the edge of the hill, he’d look over the valley and think about trying to escape again. He wished, fiercely, to be free of the old man and yet… A sickening feeling came over Adair at the prospect of punishment, and with near-suicidal thoughts, he would turn back to the keep.

“Tomorrow, you are to go to the village and find a young girl child. She must be a virgin. You are not to ask anyone for information, or draw attention to yourself in any way. Just find this child, return, and tell me where she lives.”

Panic clawed at Adair’s throat. “How am I to know if a child is unspoiled? Am I to examine-”

“Obviously you must find one who is very young. As for any examination, you will leave that to me,” he said chillingly.

The old man gave no explanation, and by then, Adair needed none. He knew any order from the physic was surely a diabolical request and yet Adair was not in a position to refuse. Usually, he viewed trips to the village as rare treats, when he got to be around the familiar bustle of family life, even if not his own family, but this trip portended no good. In the village, Adair lingered near the houses as inconspicuously as he could to spy on the villagers, but the village was small and he was not unknown to them. As soon as he found some children playing or attending to chores, the parents would usher their children away or threaten Adair with menacing stares.

Afraid of the physic’s reaction to his failure, he took an unfamiliar path on his way back to the keep, hoping it might bring him luck. The trail took him to a clearing where, to his surprise, a number of wagons stood, wagons not dissimilar to the one his own family had lived in. A troupe of Roma had come to the village and Adair’s heart swelled with the hope that his family had come looking for him. As he searched through the itinerant workers, he soon realized that he recognized not one member of this group. There were children of every age, however, red-cheeked boys and sweet-faced girls. And because he was of the same descent, he could move freely among them, though he was obviously unknown.

Could he do such a terrible thing? he asked himself, heart pounding as he cast about, glancing from face to face. He was about to flee, overcome with self-hatred-how could he choose which one was to be delivered into the hands of that monster?-when he ran abruptly into a child, a little girl who reminded him so much of his own Katarina. The same creamy white skin, the same piercing dark eyes, the same winsome smile. It was as though fate had made the decision for him.

The physic was delighted with the news and instructed Adair to go to the Roma encampment that evening, when all were asleep, and bring the girl back to him. “It is fitting, is it not?” the old man cackled, perhaps thinking it would make Adair feel better for what he was about to do. “Your people cast you out, gave you away without a second thought. Now is your chance for revenge.”

Instead of persuading Adair that it was within his rights to steal the child, it only made him bristle. “Why do you require this girl? What will you do with her?”

“It is not your place to think, only to obey,” the old man growled. “You have just started to heal, haven’t you? It would be a shame to break your bones all over again.”

Adair thought to beg God to intervene, but at that moment prayers were useless. Adair had every reason to believe that he and the girl were doomed and that nothing would save either of them. So, late that evening he went back to the encampment. He went from wagon to wagon, peering through windows or through the tops of open Dutch doors until he found the girl, curled up like a kitten on a blanket. Holding his breath, he pushed back the door and scooped up the sleeping child, half wishing she would cry out and alert the mother and father, even if it meant he would be caught. But the child slept in his arms as though bewitched.

Adair heard nothing behind him as he ran off: no footsteps, no telltale noise of any kind coming from the parents’ wagon, no cry of trespass from the encampment. The child grew restless and began to fuss, and Adair didn’t know what to do except hold her closer to his wildly beating heart in hopes that it would calm her. As much as he wished for the courage to disobey the old man’s ominous orders, Adair crashed through the woods, crying the entire way.

However, as he approached the keep, a desperate courage came to him. He simply could not fulfill the physic’s wishes, no matter what it meant for his own safety. His feet slowed of their own accord and within steps, he had turned around. By the time he reached the edge of the clearing, the girl was awake though trustingly quiet. He set her on her feet and knelt next to her.

“Go back to your parents. Tell them they must leave this village immediately. There is great evil here and it will bring tragedy if they do not heed this warning,” he said to the girl.

The girl reached up to his face and touched his tears. “Who should I tell them has given them this message?”

“My name is not important,” he said, knowing that even if the Roma had his name and came for him, looking to exact punishment for stealing into their encampment and kidnapping a child, it wouldn’t matter. He would be dead by then.

Adair remained kneeling in the grass as he watched the girl run toward the wagons. He wished he could run, too, run toward the open forest and keep running, but he knew that it would do no good. He might as well return to the keep and accept his punishment.

When Adair pushed back the door to the keep, the old man was sitting at his desk. The slight eagerness on the physic’s face gave way quickly to the familiar expression of scorn and displeasure when he saw that Adair was alone.

The physic drew himself up, suddenly very tall, like a towering tree. “You’ve failed me, I see. I can’t say I’m surprised.”

“I may be a slave to you, but you can’t make me a murderer. I will not do it!”

“You’re still weak, fatally weak. Cowardly. I need you to be stronger. If I thought you were incapable of this, I would kill you tonight. But I am not convinced, not yet… so I will not kill you this evening, merely punish you.” The physic struck his servant so hard that he fell to the floor and blacked out. When Adair came to, he realized the old man had lifted his head and was shoving a goblet to Adair’s mouth. “Drink this.”

“What is it-poison? Is this how you will kill me?”

“I said I would not kill you tonight. That doesn’t mean I do not have other plans. Drink this”-he said, eyes glinting ruthlessly-“drink this and you will feel no pain.”

Adair would have welcomed poison at that point, so he gulped the contents the physic fed into his mouth. A strange feeling overtook Adair quickly, not unlike the dizzy stupor brought on by the old man’s healing elixirs. It started with a tingling in his limbs, then quickly overtook him. Unable to control his muscles, Adair fell slack, eyelids drooping like a victim of palsy, his breathing labored. By the time the tingling had reached the base of his skull, a numbing buzz foretold that something supernatural was about to take over.

The old man stood in front of his servant, appraising him in a cold, unsettling way. Adair felt himself be lifted and carried, felt his weight drop with every step. Down, down the stairs, to the cellar where he had never been, the old man’s chamber, and the realization filled Adair with cold panic. It was dank and airless, a true dungeon, and filthy. Vermin crawled busily in the corners. The old man dropped the young man on a bed, a stinking old mattress of mildewed down. Adair wanted to crawl away but was trapped in a body that would not respond.

Unmoved, the old man climbed on the bed and began undressing his captive, pulling the tunic over his head, loosening the belt at his waist. “Tonight, you will cross the last threshold of your reserve. From tonight, there will be nothing I cannot make you do.” He pushed the young man’s breeches down, and reached for the thin linen covering his groin. Again, Adair closed his eyes as the physic searched with his fingers, digging through the pubic hair. Adair fought not to be aroused as the old man manipulated his penis. After what seemed a very long time, the old man released his plaything, but let his hands travel up to Adair’s face. His fingers pressed against Adair’s cheekbones, then in the valley under his eyes. The young man fought as best he could, in this narcotic state, against this horrific trespass.

“Now, foolish boy. I’ll smother you if you do not obey me. You have to breathe, do you not?” He closed a hand over Adair’s nose, cutting off all air. Adair held out as long as he could, wondering in a disoriented state if he would die or black out… But in the end, reflex took over and he gasped for air. Once his mouth was open, the old man forced himself past his captive’s slackened jaw. Mercifully, the drug began to pull the shade of incoherency over Adair’s horror and humiliation, and the last thing he would recall was the old man saying that he knew about the trysts with Marguerite and that they would stop. He would not have Adair expending his energy and wasting his seed on another.

TWENTY-TWO

In the morning, Adair awoke on the upper floor on his skimpy pallet of straw, his clothes in disarray. Racked with nausea and traces of the narcotic, he recalled the old man’s warning but had no idea if other liberties had been taken. He was seized with the urge to rush downstairs and stab the old man to death in his bed, the idea flaming up in his mind for a dazzling second. He knew something mysterious and supernatural was afoot, however; the old man’s strength and powers were beyond reasonable expectation and he would be powerful enough not to let himself be killed in his own lair.

He spent the day trying to summon the courage to flee. But a familiar fear chained Adair to the spot, the cold ache in his knitted bones a reminder of the price of disobedience. So, when the sun had traveled across the sky and darkness began to settle in, Adair sat in a corner, gaze fixed on the top of the staircase.

The old man wasn’t surprised to find his servant still there. A sly smile crossed his face but he didn’t try to approach Adair. He went about his business as before, retrieving his cloak from the peg. “I am going to the castle tonight, for a special function. If you know what is good for you, you will be here when I return.” When he left, Adair collapsed by the fire, wishing he had the courage to throw himself into it.

Life continued like this for countless months. The beatings became routine, though the old man didn’t use the poker again. Adair quickly saw that there were no reasons behind the beatings; he was so docile that there could be no excuse for them. The beatings merely served to keep him obedient and so there would never be an end to them. The molestations continued, unevenly. The physic had Marguerite drug Adair’s food or drink to facilitate these sessions, until the young man became wise to this tactic and refused to eat. Then the old man would beat him and force him to swallow debilitating narcotics until he was in a helpless state.

The physic’s decadence accelerated. Perhaps he’d opened some sort of floodgate: now that he’d indulged in these immoral acts, there was no stopping him. Or maybe this was how the old man had always been. Adair wondered if the old man had killed his last servant, and had sought out Adair to start over again. The count began to send a maid occasionally for the old man’s enjoyment, some unfortunate young woman captured by the count’s men during their raids into the Hungarian countryside. The young woman would be taken to the physic’s chambers and chained to his bed. The maid’s cries would waft upstairs during the day, haunting Adair, punishing him for not going down to the physic’s lair to help her escape.

Occasionally, after the old man had left on his nightly wanderings, Marguerite would send Adair below with food for the poor prisoner. He remembered the first time, creeping reluctantly into the chamber to see the poor woman, naked under the bedding, shivering in shock and fear, and unable to acknowledge his presence. This first one didn’t beg the young man to release her. Paralytic with fear, she didn’t move toward the food. Adair was ashamed to find he was aroused, staring at her feminine form under the blanket, her flat stomach rising and falling with each terrified breath. His sympathy for her plight and his own horrible memories of what had happened to him in this bed were not enough to keep him from filling with lust. He didn’t dare force himself on her, as she was the old man’s property, and so, shaking with desire, left her untouched and retreated upstairs.

The maidens usually died within three days and the old man made Adair dispose of them, retrieving their cold bodies from the bed and carrying them into the woods. They would lie on the ground like toppled statues as he dug their graves, sprinkled them with lime, covered them over with dark earth. The first maiden’s death filled him with shame, self-hatred, and despair, so much so that he couldn’t look at her as she waited for her anonymous grave.

But after the first one, and the third, and the fourth, Adair found that something had changed within him, and his yearning-which he knew to be abominable-outstripped his fear of trespass into the profane. His hands trembled as he surrendered to the desire to touch their breasts, now hard and inhuman, or run his hands over their curving bodies. Each time he lowered one of them into the ground, he brushed against the torso and thrilled at the stiffening in his body. But he never went further, never committed an act he found more repulsive than fascinating, and so the bodies were spared further molestation.

Several years passed like this. The beatings and rapes dwindled, perhaps because Adair had grown bigger and stronger and gave the old man pause. Or perhaps, because he was no longer a boy, he didn’t appeal to the physic.

After one particularly brutal winter, the old man announced they were traveling to Romania to visit his estate. Word was sent ahead to the vassal who ran the property so the accounts could be put in order and everything made ready for the physic’s review. Leave was secured from the count, and a second horse was purchased for Adair to ride on the journey. When it was time to go, only a few provisions were packed, some clothing and two small, locked trunks. They departed after the sun had set, riding eastward into the night.

At the end of seven nights of travel, they were deep in Romanian territory, having traveled through a pass in the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains to get to the old man’s estate. “Our journey is over,” the physic told Adair, nodding toward a light glowing faintly from a castle in the distance. The castle had high turrets at each corner, the forbidding shape sharply visible in the moonlight. The last stretch took them through fertile fields, vineyards clinging to the mountainside, cattle sleeping in the fields. The huge gates were thrown open as the pair approached and a coterie of servants waited in the courtyard, torches held overhead. An older man stood at the head of the group, holding a fur robe that he wrapped around the physic’s shoulders as soon as he dismounted.

“I trust your lordship had a safe journey,” he said with the solicitousness of a priest, following the physic up the broad stone steps.

“I am here, am I not?” the old man snapped.

Adair drank in details of the estate as they made their way inside. The castle was massive, old but well tended. Adair saw that the servants wore the same look of terror he fancied he did. One servant took his arm and led him to the kitchen, where Adair was given a meal of fancy roast meats and fowl, and afterward was taken to a small chamber. He sank into a real feather bed that night, nestled under a fur-edged blanket.

Adair came to love this time away, living more grandly than he ever imagined possible for anyone, let alone a peasant boy. Freed from the regime of life in the keep, he spent most days roaming the castle, as the physic was immersed in the running of the property and lost interest in Adair’s whereabouts.

The overseer, Lactu, took a liking to Adair. He was a kind man, and seemed to recognize the unspoken burden the physic’s servant carried. Because Lactu also spoke Hungarian, Adair was able to have a real conversation for the first time in all the years he’d worked for the physic. Lactu had come from a line of servants who had been in the physic’s employ for generations. He explained that he didn’t find it strange that the physic was away most of the time: the lords of this property had been absentee landowners for generations, traditionally taking up service to the Romanian king instead. In Lactu’s experience, the physic returned only every seven years or so, to tend to important matters.

Through the overseer, Adair gained entrance to all the special chambers in the castle. He got to see the room that held the old man’s ceremonial robes, packed away in chests, and the buttery, filled with stocks of all the foods made on the estate. The most eye-popping, however, was the treasure room, filled with the cel Rau family’s share of conquest: crowns and scepters, gem-studded adornments, coins of strange mint. The sight of so much property and so many possessions put Adair in mind of the written alchemic recipes: the gigantic castle in the faraway land was such a waste. It was criminal to have such treasure and not put it to good use.

Weeks passed with Adair rarely seeing the physic, though one night the physic sent word for Adair to attend a ceremony in the great hall. The young man watched as the physic signed declarations that would have a binding effect on everyone who lived on the estate. Next to the old man’s right hand stood a heavy seal. Lactu brought out each proclamation, read it aloud, and then laid the sheet before the physic for his signature. Then the overseer would drip scarlet wax below the physic’s scrawl, into which the old man would press the seal with the family crest-a dragon wielding a sword. Later Lactu explained to Adair that it was the seal that conveyed the cel Rau rule of law: because the lords often died while away from the property and without their heirs properly introduced to the Romanian authorities or even the overseer, signatures were meaningless. Whoever held the seal was recognized as lord of the estate.

Weeks turned into months. Adair would have been happy never to return to Hungary. He enjoyed the dual benefit of being treated like a favored son while escaping the physic’s attentions. In his free time, he practiced swordplay with the guards, or rode through the hamlets. He discussed what he saw with the overseer, deepening his understanding of the property and its many aspects, such as the cultivation of crops, the production of wine, the care of livestock. Adair believed Lactu came to hold him in regard, but the young man didn’t dare share any details of life back in the keep. He returned Lactu’s affection tenfold but greatly feared what the overseer would think of him if he knew what he had suffered, or that he helped the old man in his practice of the dark arts. He longed to tell Lactu of their master’s evil nature, but couldn’t think of a way to do so without implicating himself, and he was loath to lose the overseer’s affection.

One night, late in the season, Adair was woken by a presence in his bedchamber. He knew as he lit a candle that he wasn’t alone, but nonetheless was startled to find the physic standing at the foot of the bed.

His heart pounded at the memory of the horrors the man was capable of. “Master, you surprised me. Are you in need of my services?”

“I have not seen you in so long, Adair, I wanted to look upon you but, I swear, I would almost not recognize you,” he said in his brittle rasp. “Life here has agreed with you. You’ve grown. You’re taller-and stronger.” There was a look, a flash of the old temptation in the physic’s eyes that Adair didn’t wish to see.

“I’ve learned much in my time here,” Adair said, wanting to show the physic that he hadn’t been idle while out of the old man’s gaze. “Your estate is magnificent. I do not understand how you can bear to be away from it.”

“Life here is too quiet for my tastes. I think you would find it so yourself, in time. But that is why I have come tonight, to tell you that we will not stay much longer. Summer is fast approaching, and I am needed back in Hungary.”

The old man’s words alarmed Adair. He’d known this time would end but somehow had deluded himself into believing that it would go on forever. Adair tried to keep the panic from showing on his face. In the meantime, the old man glided to his servant’s bedside, searching his features. He reached over and drew the blanket away, exposing Adair’s chest and abdomen. Adair steeled himself for the touch, but it did not come. Instead, the old man looked at the young man, his hunger palpable, but he seemed content with just the sight of Adair’s body. Or maybe Adair’s maturity gave him pause, for after a long minute, he turned and left the room.

TWENTY-THREE

Upon returning to the physic’s keep, Adair expected that life would continue as it had before, but that proved to be impossible. Too much had happened to him. He was controlled by a notion that he could not expunge from his head, especially during the daylight hours when the physic wasn’t around to dominate his thoughts. Adair could not forget what he’d seen at the old man’s estate: the massive stronghold itself, the bountiful fields, the treasure, the servants, the serfs… The only part missing was a liege, and all that stood in his way were two simple things: the seal, now hidden somewhere in the keep, and the old man’s death.

The seal could be found with a little persistence. Killing the old man was another matter. Adair had thought about it many times during his years of imprisonment, turned it over in his mind and tinkered with each detail, but dismissed it in the end as a mad dream. Every time the old man had laid a hand on Adair, either in anger or lust, the servant had smothered his humiliation by vowing that one day he’d make the physic pay. But it was the memory of that brutal attack with the poker and the months of agonizing recovery that had kept Adair from acting.

Years had passed since that beating, however, and Adair had grown considerably. The physic was no longer quick to raise his hand and, while he continued to look at Adair with desire, his approaches were few and calculated. And Adair’s hatred of the old man had been with him for so long, it was as natural as breathing. His thoughts had grown more precise, the need for revenge more ferocious and undeniable. He hadn’t realized how completely he had changed until one evening as he buried another dead wench. He looked on her lovely body and realized that this last taboo had fallen away. He could easily assault that empty form-but what he really wanted was to ravish the lifeless body of the physic before burying him in the wet ground. And, what’s more, he would be glad for having done it. He felt no fear and no revulsion. He had forsaken the last shred of his humanity. All reserve had been stripped away, layer by layer, like an animal skinned by a hunter. He had become a ready match for the old man, and the thought made Adair happy for the first time in years.

The first step was to secure assistance. Adair needed allies, villagers who already hated the physic, who was in league with their Romanian oppressor. Adair had to find those villagers who held a grudge against their overlord and would be willing to take their fury out on the physic, an easier target than the count. If he could prove the physic had committed crimes against the villagers, crimes the count could not defend, then the count would be forced to look the other way if their vengeance took the form of murder. It was a matter of finding the right people, choosing the right trespass, and producing the necessary proof.

Adair went into the village one day to look for the religious authorities, who seemed a likely choice for his purpose. In the abbey, Adair found a young monk, spared from the rigors of the field and pink all over, like a newborn. The cleric seemed surprised to find the wicked physic’s servant standing in his doorway, but when Adair fell to the cleric’s feet, begging his counsel, the young monk could hardly refuse. They sat together in the solitude of the abbey and he listened as Adair poured out his remorse for being a servant of the village’s oppressor. Adair explained that he was forced to serve against his will. Without dwelling on the circumstances, Adair went on to express repulsion for serving such a wicked and unrepentant despot. When the monk started to reassure him-hesitantly at first, but then the words coming more freely-Adair knew he’d found the ally he was looking for. As a final touch, Adair hinted at dark sins the physic and the count had committed. The monk assured Adair that he could return at any time to further unburden himself.

And so Adair did. The second time he went to see the monk, he described how he’d been sent by the physic to kidnap a child. The monk’s face grew pale and he drew back, as though confronted with a viper, when Adair described the location of the gypsy wagons; the monk confirmed that the gypsies had fled without an explanation. “I assume he intended to use the child for one of his fiendish potions but to what effect, for what cause, I cannot say. It must be the devil’s work, mustn’t it, to require a human sacrifice?” Adair asked in an incredulous voice, making himself sound as innocent and repentant as he could muster.

At that point, the monk begged him to stop, not wanting to believe what he was being told. “I swear it’s true,” Adair said, dropping to his knees. “I can bring proof. The parchment on which the spells were written, would that be proof enough?” The monk, stricken, could only nod his head.

Adair knew it was a simple enough trick to smuggle the papers out of the keep during the day while the physic was asleep, but the next day as he went to gather his evidence, his hands still trembled as he reached for them. Don’t be foolish, he chastised himself. It’s been years. Are you a man or still a frightened boy? Tired of being haunted by fear and humiliation, he snatched up the papers with a certain ruthlessness, rolling them tightly before slipping them in his sleeve. Without a word to Marguerite, he set out for the abbey.

The young monk’s eyes lit up when he read the faded words written on the parchment. He apologized to Adair for doubting him as he handed the papers back and instructed Adair to return them swiftly to the keep, and alert him should the physic begin planning another murderous crime. However, he needed time to work up a scheme to capture the heretic who was, after all, an ally of their liege. Adair protested: the physic was in league with the devil and didn’t deserve one more day of freedom. But the monk’s resolution was tottering; he was obviously having trouble screwing up his courage for so bold a move against the count. To shore up the monk’s resolve, Adair promised to be back with more proof of witchcraft.

That evening, the physic’s company was agony. Adair jumped whenever the old man gave him the slightest look askance, sure the physic could sense that Adair had touched his precious parchments. While the old man searched through his papers for the spell he needed, Adair fidgeted, certain that the physic would find something amiss: a bent corner, a smudge, the smell of burning lavender and incense from the abbey. But the old man continued calmly about his work.

Shortly after midnight, the old man looked up from the worktable.

“Do you still wish to read, boy?” he asked, pleasantly enough. It seemed strange to Adair that the old man would bring this up, so suddenly. Still, if Adair gave any other response, the old man would know something was wrong.

“Yes, of course.”

“I suppose tonight is as good as any to begin. Come over here, and I will teach you some of the letters on this page.” The physic crooked a finger at him. Chest squeezing, Adair rose from the floor and walked to the old man.

The physic eyed the small space left between them. “Closer, boy, you will not be able to see the paper from there.” He pointed to the spot next to him on the floor. Sweat broke out across Adair’s brow as he sidled closer. No sooner had he slid next to the old man and bowed toward the paper than the old man reached up and grasped Adair’s throat with an iron claw. He couldn’t breathe as the fist closed around his windpipe.

“Tonight will be a very important night for you, Adair, my fine boy. Very important,” he crooned, rising from his seat, lifting the young man into the air by the throat. “I did not think I would keep you in my employ this long. I had planned to kill you long ago. But despite your one serious offense, you have grown on me. You’ve always had a certain savage beauty, but you have also been more loyal than I thought possible. Yes, you’ve done better than I would have guessed from that first night I saw you. And so I’ve decided to keep you as a servant-forever.” He slammed Adair into the stone wall as though he were a rag doll, Adair’s head cracking against the rocks. The strength left his body. The old man lifted him, carrying him down the stairs again, to the privacy of the subterranean chamber.

Adair fluttered in and out of consciousness as he lay on the bed, aware of the old man’s hands on his face. “I have a precious gift to give you, my rebellious peasant boy. Did you think I could not see it in your eyes, but of course I could…” Adair panicked at the old man’s words, worried that the physic could read his mind and knew of the pact with the monk. “But once you have received this gift, you will be unable to refuse me anything ever again. This gift will bind us together, you will see…”

The old man drew very close, studying his servant in a terrifying way. It was then that Adair noticed an amulet hanging from a leather cord on the physic’s neck. The old man wrapped his hand around the amulet and snapped the cord, protecting the amulet with his two hands from Adair’s view. But Adair had gotten a glimpse of it in the meager candlelight: it was a tiny silver vial, detailed with the minutest fretwork and its own miniature lid.

Somehow, with his withered fingertips, the physic managed to pull off the lid, revealing a long needle that served as a slender stopper. A viscous copper-colored fluid clung to the needle, forming a fat droplet on the tip. “Open your unworthy mouth,” the physic ordered, holding the stopper over Adair’s lips. “You are about to receive a precious gift. Most men would kill for this gift or would pay vast sums. And here I am about to waste it on a clod like you! Do as I tell you, you ungrateful dog, before I change my mind.” He needn’t have struggled: the needle was slight enough to force over Adair’s lips, and he jabbed the needle into Adair’s tongue.

It was more the shock than the pain that made Adair thrash against the physic, the shock of a strange numbness taking over his body. It froze the young man’s heart in terror, and with the instantaneous appreciation that he was in the grasp of something demonic. As pressure dropped in his body, his heart began to beat more and more rapidly, desperate to push the dwindling supply of blood to his starving limbs, his brain, his heart. All the while, the old man pressed down on him, heavy as stone, mumbling unintelligibly and certainly in the devil’s tongue as he performed another strange act on him, this time with needles and ink. Adair tried to throw off the old man but could not budge him, and within a minute no longer had the strength to try. His lungs collapsing, he could no longer draw breath. Convulsing, choking, bucking against the bedding in the throes of death and bluing cold… Adair felt as though he were being buried alive, locked inside a body that was spiraling downward, failing.

A fierce will inside Adair resisted death. If he died, the old man would never be punished, and more than anything else, Adair wanted to see that day.

The physic studied Adair’s face in the throes of death. “So strong. You have a strong will to survive, that is good. Glower with hatred for me. That is what I expect, Adair. Your body will go through the final stages of dying; that will hold your attention for a while. Lie still.”

When Adair’s body could not save itself, it began dying. It started to stiffen, trapping Adair’s consciousness inside. As he lay there, the physic spoke of how he’d been drawn into alchemy-he didn’t expect Adair, a peasant, to understand the allure of science-how his training as a physic had opened the door. But beyond alchemy, he had joined the few, the most astute, who moved beyond the secrets of the natural world to the supernatural world. Changing base metals to gold was an allegory, did Adair understand? The true seers sought not to change materials of the earth into finer things, but to change the nature of man himself! Through mental purification and applying himself solely to the knowledge of alchemy, the physic had moved into the ranks of the most knowledgeable, the most powerful men on earth.

“I can command water, fire, earth, and wind. You’ve seen as much-you know it’s true,” he boasted. “I can make men invisible. I have the strength of my youth-that has surprised you, hasn’t it? Actually, I am stronger than I used to be; sometimes, I feel as strong as twenty men! And I have command over time, too. The gift I’ve given you”-his face broke into a hideous display of superiority and self-satisfaction-“is immortality. You, my near-perfect servant, will never leave my employ. Will never fail me. Will never die.”

Adair heard the words as he was dying and hoped he’d misunderstood. To serve the physic forever! He begged for death to take him away. In his panic, he blocked out the rest of what the physic was telling him, but it didn’t matter.

There was a last thread he heard as the blackness swallowed him up. The physic was saying there was only one way to escape from eternity. There was only one way to be killed, and that was by the hand of the one who had transformed him. By his maker, the physic.

TWENTY-FOUR

When Adair awoke, he found he was still in the physic’s bed, the old man lying close in a deathlike slumber. Adair sat up, feeling peculiar. It was as if everything had changed in his sleep, but he couldn’t say precisely how. Some changes were evident: vision, for instance. He could see in the dark. He saw rats milling about in the corners of the room, climbing over one another as they ran the length of the wall. He could hear every single sound as though he were right beside the source of the noise, each sound separate and distinct. Smell was the most overpowering of all, though; odors clamored for his attention, most of all something sweet and rich, with a hint of copper, on the air. He couldn’t identify it, no matter how it teased him.

Within a few minutes, the physic stirred, then bolted awake. He noticed Adair was in a stupor, and laughed. “Part of the gift, you see. Wonderful, isn’t it? You have the senses of an animal.”

“What is that smell? I smell it everywhere.” Adair looked at his hands, the bedding.

“It is blood. The rats, they are fat with it, and they are all around you. Marguerite, sleeping above. You can also smell minerals in the rocks, in the walls surrounding you. The sweet dirt, the clear water-everything is better, cleaner. It is the gift. It elevates you above men.”

Adair dropped to his knees on the floor. “And what about you? Are you also like me? Is that where you got your powers? Can you see everything?”

The old man smiled mysteriously. “Am I the same as you? No, Adair, I have not put myself through the transformation that you have gone through.”

“Why not? Don’t you wish to live forever?”

He shook his head as though he was talking to a fool. “It’s not as simple as granting a wish. It might be beyond your comprehension. In any case, I am an old man and suffer the indignities of age. I would not wish to live through eternity in this form.”

“If that is the case, then how do you propose to keep me now, old man? Now that you’ve made me strong, there will be no more beatings. God knows there will be no more violations. How can you hope to keep me in your company?”

The old man walked to the staircase, looking archly over his shoulder. “Nothing has changed between us, Adair. Do you think I would have given you the sort of power that would set you free? I am still stronger. I can extinguish your life like the flame of a candle. I am the only vehicle of your undoing. Remember that.” The physic disappeared in the gloom.

Adair remained on his knees, shaking, not knowing at that moment if he believed what the old man had told him, if he believed the strange power that surged through his limbs. He looked at the spot on his arm where he’d seen the physic at work with needles and ink, thinking he might have dreamed it, but no, there was a curious design there, of two circles dancing around each other. The design had a strange familiarity to it, but he couldn’t recall where he’d seen it.

Maybe the physic was right: perhaps Adair was too stupid to grasp something this complex. But eternal life-it was the last thing he cared about, at the moment. He didn’t care if he lived or died. All he wanted was to convince the monk to carry out his plan, and it didn’t matter if he perished in the bargain.

Adair found the monk praying by candlelight in the chapel. Standing in the doorway, he wondered if his seemingly supernatural condition would bar him from entering a sanctified place. If he tried to cross the threshold, would he be thrown back by angels and denied entry? After taking a deep breath, he slipped over the oak threshold with no ill effects. Apparently God had no domain over whatever creature he’d become.

The monk saw Adair and rushed over, taking his arm and hurrying him to a dark corner. “Come away from the doors, where we might be seen together,” he said. “What’s the matter? You seem agitated.”

“I am. I’ve learned something even more terrifying than what I have told you already, something about the physic that I didn’t know until last night.” Adair wondered if he was playing with fire. Still, he was convinced that he was clever enough to take down the physic without incriminating himself.

“Worse than being a worshipper of Satan?”

“He is-not human. He is now one of Satan’s creatures. He revealed himself to me, in all his evil. You have been trained by the church, you know of things not of this world-wicked creatures unleashed on poor mortals for Satan’s amusement and our torment. What is the worst you can imagine, Friar?”

To his relief, Adair didn’t see skepticism in the monk’s round face. The cleric had gone pale and held his breath in fear, recalling perhaps the terrible stories he’d heard over the years, the unexplained deaths, the disappeared children.

“He has made himself a demon, Friar. You cannot think what it is like to have such evil up close, at your throat, the stink of hell on his breath. The strength of Lucifer in his hands.”

“A demon! I’ve heard of demons who walk among men, that they take many forms. But never, never has anyone confronted one and lived to speak of it.” The monk’s eyes bulged in his pale face and he drew away from Adair. “And yet, here you are, alive. By what miracle?”

“He said he wasn’t ready to take me. He said he still needed me as a servant, the same as with Marguerite. He warned me not to flee, that there would be severe penalties if I tried to escape, now that I knew…” Adair didn’t have to pretend to flinch.

“The devil!”

“Yes. He may be the very devil himself.”

“We must get you and Marguerite out of that house this instant! Your souls are in jeopardy, to say nothing of your lives.”

“We can’t risk it, not before a plan is in place. Marguerite is safe enough. I have never seen him raise a hand to her. As for me-there is little more he could do to me that he hasn’t already done.”

The monk drew in a breath. “My son, he can take your life.”

“I would be one among many.”

“You would risk your life to rid this village of such a fiend?” he asked.

Adair flushed with hatred. “Gladly.”

Tears welled in the cleric’s eyes. “Very well then, son, we will proceed. I will speak to the villagers-discreetly, I assure you-and see which can be counted on to move against the physic.” He rose to escort Adair to the door. “Keep watch on this building. When we are ready to act, I will tie a white cloth to the lantern post. Be patient until then, and be strong.”

A week passed, then two. At times Adair wondered if the monk had lost heart and fled the village, too cowardly to stand up to the physic. Adair spent as much time as he could searching the keep for the seal the old man had used to authorize documents back at his estate. After the ceremony at the physic’s castle, it seemed to have vanished, though Adair knew the physic would not risk storing it where he wouldn’t be able to get his hands on it when needed. At night, once Marguerite had gone to sleep and the old man had slipped out on his nightly excursion, Adair went through every box, basket, and trunk, but did not find the heavy gold stamp.

Just as Adair was afraid he’d not be able to contain his impatience any longer, the night came when the white cloth fluttered from the church’s lantern post.

The cleric stood in the entrance to the abbey. He’d suffered since Adair had last seen him, and was feckless no more. His cheeks, once full as a squirrel’s, were now hollow. His eyes, guileless and clear the first time he and Adair had met, were clouded and sorrowful because of the knowledge he now possessed.

“I have spoken to the men in the village and they are with us,” the cleric said, as he took Adair’s arm conspiratorially and drew him into the shadows of the vestibule.

Adair tried to hide his glee. “What is your plan?”

“We will gather tomorrow at midnight and march on the keep.”

“No, no, not midnight,” Adair interrupted, laying a hand on the cleric’s arm. “To surprise the physic, it would be best to come at high noon. As with any fiend, the physic is active at night and sleeps during the day. Approach the keep by daylight for your best chance.”

The cleric nodded, though the news seemed to trouble him. “Yes, I see. But what of the count’s patrol? Do we not risk being discovered in the light of day?”

“The patrol never comes out to the keep. Unless an alarm is sounded, you have nothing to fear from the count’s guards.” This wasn’t strictly true. The guards had visited the keep during the day several times but for one reason only: to deliver a wench for the old man. Such deliveries were infrequent, however. The count had not sent a maid for some time, so the chance was greater, but… Adair figured the odds were still against it and the risk was not worth mentioning to the monk, who might use it as an excuse not to proceed.

“Yes, yes…” The monk nodded, eyes glazed.

He is slipping away from me, Adair thought. “And what do you propose to do with the old man, when you have captured him?”

The cleric looked stricken. “It is not up to me to determine the man’s future…”

“Yes, Father, it should be your duty as God’s representative. Remember what the Lord says about witches: you shall not suffer them to live.” He squeezed the man’s arm firmly as he spoke, as though pushing courage along the man’s veins.

After a long moment, the cleric cast his eyes down. “The crowd… I cannot vouchsafe that I will be able to control the crowd’s anger. After all, there is much hatred of the old physic…,” he said, his voice stiff with resignation.

“That is right.” Adair nodded, coaxing. “You cannot be responsible for what happens. It is God’s will.” He had to stifle the wild laughter that bubbled up within him. The hated old man would finally get his due! It might be beyond Adair’s power alone to vanquish a man with the devil on his side, but surely the physic wouldn’t be able to fend off half the village.

“I’ll need another day to inform the men of the change in plans, that we’ll go to the keep by daylight,” the cleric added.

Adair nodded.

“The day after tomorrow then, at noon.” The cleric gulped and crossed himself.

A day. Adair had a day to find the seal, or risk having it discovered by the villagers. He returned to the keep, fending off panic. Where could the object be? Adair had searched every shelf, every drawer, gone through every item of the physic’s clothing, even going so far as to go through every trunk to be sure the seal hadn’t been hidden among them. Failure only compounded Adair’s despair and he saw all his plans fall apart, one after the other: he would never escape the physic, never live in the distant castle, never see his family or his beloved Katarina. He might as well be dead, he figured. So complete was his frustration that he might have asked the old man to end his existence out of pity, if his hatred for the physic were not so raw.

The old man was at his desk when Adair returned from his secret appointment, glancing up when his manservant entered the room.

“I will need to go to the village tomorrow, to get feed for the horses,” Adair said to the old man, and a split second later a thought, a possibility, bloomed in his mind.

The old man drummed his fingers on the table. “Your errand must wait a day. I will make a poultice that you can take, to trade with the quartermaster for the oats…”

“My apologies, but due to my inattentiveness, the grain stores are depleted. There has been no feed for several days, and the grass is too sparse to satisfy the horses for much longer. It cannot wait. With your permission, I will purchase only a small amount, enough to get the horses through this week, and meet with the quartermaster next week when you have had time to make your poultice.”

Adair held his breath, waiting to see what the old man would do, for if he refused him, it would be hard to come up with another way, in a short amount of time, to trick him into revealing where he hid his money and valuables. The old man shook his head at his servant’s incompetence, then rose and went down the staircase. Adair knew better than to follow but listened with the attention of a hound, picking up every sound, every clue. Despite the thick timber floor, he heard digging, then the sound of something heavy being moved. The clink of coin, then the sound of movement again. Finally, the old man climbed back up the steps and threw a small deerskin pouch on the table. “Enough for the week. Make sure you get a fair bargain,” he grunted in warning.

When the old man left for the night, Adair flew to the cellar. The filthy floor looked undisturbed and it was only after a careful search that Adair found the place where the old man had been working, along the wall, in a dank, mildewed spot littered with rat droppings. Dirt had been scraped away from one of the stones. Adair dropped to his knees and gripped the stone’s edges by his fingertips, pulling it out of the wall. In a small recess, he could just make out a burlap bundle, which he extracted and unrolled. There was a fat money bag and, wrapped in a square of velvet, the seal of the kingdom of his dreams.

Adair took it all and pushed the stone back into place. Kneeling in the dirt, he was flush with success, happy to have found the seal, happy to have one victory over his oppressor after all the injustices that had befallen him.

Adair should have killed his father rather than let him beat his mother or siblings.

He should not have let himself be sold into slavery.

He should have taken every chance to escape and never given up trying.

He should kill the wicked count. He deserved death as an enemy of the Magyar people, and a heathen in league with an emissary of Satan.

He should help Marguerite escape, take her to a kindly family or a convent, find someone to care for her.

The way Adair viewed the situation, it was not a matter of stealing. The physic owed Adair his kingdom. And the physic would either give it to Adair, or die.

On the appointed day, Adair watched the sun overhead as closely and covetously as a hawk eyes a field mouse. The cleric and his mob would be at the keep in an hour or two. The question for Adair was whether he should remain in place and bear witness to the physic’s undoing.

It was tempting. To watch as the villagers dragged the old man from his filthy bed and into the sunlight, his face contorted with fear and surprise. To listen to his screams as they beat him to the ground, pummeled him with clubs, cut him to ribbons with scythes. To urge them on as they ransacked the keep, plundered his trunks, smashed the bottles and jars of precious ingredients to the floor and ground the contents underfoot, and then burned the unholy fortress to the earth.

Even though he was in possession of the seal, Adair could hardly go riding off to the estate without knowing for sure that the physic wouldn’t come after him. But there was one good reason for disappearing before the mob arrived-what if the old man escaped death somehow? If the mob’s courage failed or the old man had given himself immortal powers as well (a possibility-the physic had never said he hadn’t, not outright), Adair might be implicated in the attack if he remained. There would be no denying it to the physic later if his alliance was discovered. It might be most prudent to preserve that last shadow of a doubt.

He went up to Marguerite as she stood scrubbing potatoes in a bucket of water, took the potatoes from her hand, and started to lead her to the door. She resisted, earnest soul that she was, but Adair prevailed, and had her wait beside him as he saddled the old man’s aging charger. He would take Marguerite to safety in town. That way, she’d not be present during the melee. That would be best. He’d come back to see the outcome for himself.

The sun was fading by the time Adair retraced his way to the keep. He took his time, letting the charger meander on a loose rein down unfamiliar paths through the woods: he wasn’t anxious to run into the party of villagers on their return, flush with excitement and bloodlust.

Adair noticed a plume of black smoke on the horizon, but by the time he drew close to the keep, it had thinned to a miasma. He urged the horse on, through the envelope of wood smoke, until he came to the familiar clearing before the stone keep.

The door was missing off its bolt and the ground in front was churned frightfully. The corral was knocked down and the second horse was missing. Adair slid off the old charger’s back and cautiously approached the open door, black and ominous as a skull missing an eye from its socket.

Inside, streaks of soot ran up the walls as though clawing for escape. The ruin was as he’d imagined it: shards of glass and pottery underfoot everywhere; overturned cauldrons and pots and buckets; the desk broken into pieces. And all the recipes were gone, along with the old man’s remains. Unless… Adair’s blood ran cold instantly at the thought that perhaps the mob’s courage had failed. He began to sift through the rubble, lifting furniture, searching through clothing left on the floor and the few items left from the ransacked trunks. But he found nothing of the old man, not even an ear. Surely there’d be some remains-a telltale piece of bone, a charred skull-had the villagers been successful in bringing about his demise.

Other, more frightening alternatives came to Adair: perhaps the physic had managed to escape to the woods or hide somewhere in the keep itself. After all, if there was a small vault behind a stone in the wall, who was to say there wasn’t a bigger hidden chamber? Or perhaps-more dangerous still-he had delivered himself away by means of a spell, or been spared by the dark master himself, moved to intervene on behalf of a faithful servant.

Panic rising in his throat, Adair ran down the stairs into the old man’s chamber. The scene below was even more horrific than upstairs. The air was thick still with black smoke-apparently the main fire had been set down here-and the room was completely empty, except for a smoldering bed of ash where the physic’s mattress and bedstead had been.

But Adair could smell death hidden deep within the smoke and he went to the black pit of ash, crouched down, and raked his fingers through the remains. He found pieces of bone, slivers and nuggets, still hot to the touch. And finally, most of the skull, with a patch of charred flesh and long, wiry hair still attached in one spot.

Adair stood and dusted the soot from his hands as best he could. He took his time in leaving the keep, looking one last time on the place of his five years of misery. It was a pity the stone walls could not have burned down, too. He kept nothing except the clothes on his back and, of course, the seal and a pouch of coin in his pocket. At length, he left through the gaping doorway, gathered up the charger’s reins, and headed east, to Romania.

Adair was able to live on the physic’s estate for a good many years, though ownership did not pass directly to him as he’d hoped. When he arrived at the estate alone, without the physic, Adair presented himself to the caretaker, Lactu, and told him that the old man had died. The wife and son had been fabrications, Adair explained, a story to provide the physic with privacy for the true reason for his bachelorhood: his peculiar leanings. With no heir, the physic had left the estate to his faithful servant and companion, Adair said, and held out the seal for the caretaker to witness.

The caretaker’s doubts were plain on his face, and he said the claim would have to be presented to the king of Romania. If Adair was not a blood descendant of the physic, the king had the right to decide the disposition of the property. The king’s decision took years but ultimately was not resolved in Adair’s favor. He was allowed to remain on the estate and to keep the family’s title, but the king took ownership of the lands.

The day came when Adair was no longer able to remain. Lactu and everyone else had withered and aged with time, while Adair had remained the same as the day he’d returned to the castle. So as not to arouse suspicion, the time had come for Adair to disappear for a while, lay low, perhaps to return in a few decades’ time pretending to be his own son, golden seal in hand.

He decided to go to Hungary, as his heart directed, to track down his family. Adair longed to see them-not his father, of course, whom he hated only second to the physic. By now his mother should be old and living with the eldest son, Petu. The rest would be grown, with children of their own. He burned to see them and to know what had happened to them.

It took Adair two years to find his family. He started at the estate where he’d been taken from them and painstakingly reconstructed their route based on threads and scraps of information from former neighbors or overlords. Finally, as the second winter was setting in, he stopped at Lake Balaton and rode through the village, searching for faces that were like his own.

As he came to a gathering of huts on the outskirts of the village, a feeling passed over him, a feeling that someone he knew was very close. Adair dismounted, crept through darkness toward the huts, and peered through the windows. Pressing an eye to a chink in the shutters, where candlelight was barely visible, he saw a few familiar faces.

Though they had changed with time, had gotten rounder, wrinkled, and worn, he recognized those faces. His brothers were gathered around the fireplace, drinking wine and playing the fiddle and the balalaika. With them were women Adair didn’t recognize, their wives, he supposed, but no sign of his mother. Finally, he caught sight of Radu, grown up, barrel-chested, tall… How Adair wanted to rush into the cottage, throw his arms around Radu, and thank God he was still alive, that he’d been spared all the hell and torment Adair himself had been through. Then it struck him that Radu looked older than Adair did, that all his brothers had passed by him in time. And then he saw a woman come up to Radu and smile, and Radu slipped an arm around her shoulders and drew her tight. It was Katarina, a woman now and beautiful, and in love with Radu, the brother who looked just like Adair. Except older.

As he stood in the dark and cold, Adair still burned with the desire to see his family, to embrace them and speak to them, to let them know that he hadn’t perished at the physic’s hands-when the terrible truth settled on him in its fullness. This would be the last time he would look on them. How could he explain all that had happened to him and what lay ahead still? Why he would never age. That he was no longer mortal like them. That he had become something he could not explain.

Adair went to the front of the hut and slipped a bag of coin from his pocket, leaving it before their door. It was enough money to end their wandering. It would be hard for them to fully trust in this miracle, but in time they would accept their good fortune and thank God for his generosity and mercy. And by then, Adair would be several days to the north, losing himself in the crowds of Buda and Szentendre, learning to cope with his fate.

By the end of the story, I had withdrawn from Adair’s arms, the narcotic smoke’s effect worn off. I didn’t know if I should be in awe of him, or fear.

“Why did you tell me this?” I asked, recoiling from his touch.

“Consider it a cautionary tale,” he replied cryptically.

TWENTY-FIVE

Luke turns off the highway and onto a shaggy dirt road, letting the engine’s low torque pull the SUV along over the ruts. When they come to a bend, he parks just off the access road but lets the engine run. Their view is clear owing to the nakedness of the winter trees, and both he and his passenger can see the U.S.-Canadian border crossing in the distance. It looks like a child’s play set of a construction site: an enormous span of booths and bays clogged with trucks and cars, the air above it heavy with the fug of exhaust fumes.

“That’s where we’re going,” he says, gesturing toward the windshield.

“It’s huge,” the girl replies. “I thought we’d be going to some backwater outpost-two guards and a bloodhound, inspecting cars with a flashlight.”

“Are you sure you want to go through with this? There are other ways to get to Canada,” Luke says, though he’s not sure that he should encourage her to break the law any more than she already has.

The look she gives Luke goes straight to his heart, like a child turning to a parent for assurance. “No, you brought me this far. I trust you to get me over the border.”

As they approach the checkpoint, Luke’s nerves begin to falter. The traffic is light today but still, the prospect of sitting in a queue for an hour is daunting. There must be a police bulletin out on them by now, for the murder suspect and the doctor who helped her escape… He nearly jerks out of line, but stops himself, hands shaking on the wheel.

The girl glances over, nervous. “Are you okay?”

“It’s taking too long,” he mutters, sweating despite the chilly winter air outside the car.

“Everything’s fine,” she croons.

Suddenly, a green light snaps on over a booth the next lane over, and with surprising speed, Luke cuts the steering wheel and stomps on the gas, throwing the car toward the border police benignly waving traffic in. He cuts off a car that was waiting two vehicles ahead in line and the woman behind the wheel gives him the finger, but Luke doesn’t care. He brakes hard in front of the border agent.

“In a hurry?” the official says, disguising his interest with nonchalance as he reaches for the doctor’s identification. “We normally take the next person waiting in line when we open a new lane.”

“Sorry,” Luke says abruptly. “I didn’t know…”

“Next time, okay?” he responds, amicably, not even looking up as he goes over the driver’s license, then Lanny’s passport. The agent is middle-aged, in a dark blue uniform, his utility vest bristling with a walkie-talkie and pens and whatnot. In his hands are a clipboard and an electronic device that seems to be some kind of scanner. His partner, a younger woman, walks the perimeter of the car with a mirror on the end of a long pole, as though they expect to find a bomb strapped to the underside of the SUV. Luke watches the female guard in the side-view mirror, a new round of nerves breaking over him again.

Then it dawns on him: if they ask for the vehicle registration, he’ll be in trouble. Because it’s not registered in his name. Don’t you own this vehicle? the agent will ask.

People borrow cars every day, Luke tries to tell himself. Nothing criminal there.

I’m just going to have to run this through the system to make sure it’s not stolen…

Don’t ask for the registration, don’t ask for the registration, he thinks, as though by directing this mantra at the agent, he will keep the guard from thinking of it. If Luke’s name is flagged in a database somewhere-wanted for questioning-their chances for escape dwindle to nothing. This glitch makes Luke even more nervous because he has never been in trouble, never, not even as a kid, and so he is ill-suited to try to trick authority figures. He is afraid of sweating and appearing too anxious, and-

“So you’re a doctor?” the agent at the window asks, jolting Luke to attention.

“Yes. A surgeon.” Stupid, he catches himself; he doesn’t care about your specialty. It’s his doctor’s vanity rearing up, demanding attention.

“Reason for traveling to Canada?”

Before Luke can answer, Lanny leans forward, to be seen by the border agent. “He’s doing me a favor, actually. I’ve been staying with him and it’s time for me to go sponge off the next relative for a while. And rather than put me on a bus, he generously insisted on driving me there himself.”

“Oh, and where is the cousin?” the agent asks, a gentle prod hidden in the question.

“Baker Lake,” the girl answers casually. “Well, we’re meeting him in Baker Lake. He actually lives closer to Quebec.” She knew the name of a nearby town, which seems like a miracle to Luke. The doctor relaxes a little.

The agent steps into the booth and, through the scratched Plexiglas window, Luke watches him, hunched over a terminal, filling in a database no doubt. It’s all he can do to keep from stomping on the gas. There’s nothing to stop him, no striped automated arm or strip of metal teeth waiting to puncture the tires, blocking their escape.

The agent is suddenly at his window, the driver’s license and passport in his extended hand. “There you go… have a nice stay,” he says, waving them along, already looking to the next car in line.

Luke doesn’t start breathing until the border-crossing station is shrunken in the rearview mirror. “Why were you so worried?” Lanny laughs, looking over her shoulder. “It’s not like we’re terrorists or trying to smuggle black-market cigarettes over the border. We’re just nice American citizens going to Canada for lunch.”

“No, we’re not,” Luke says, but he is laughing, too, in relief. “Sorry, I’m not used to this cloak-and-dagger stuff.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to laugh. I know you’re not. You did great.” She squeezes his hand.

They stop at a motel on the outskirts of Baker Lake, a nondescript place, not part of a chain. Luke waits in the car while Lanny is in the office. He watches her chat up the older gentleman behind the counter, who moves slowly, stretching out his one chance that morning to speak to a pretty young girl. Lanny climbs back into the SUV and they drive around to a unit in back, overlooking a stretch of trees and the tail end of a neighborhood baseball field. Theirs is the only vehicle in the parking lot.

Once inside the hotel room, Lanny is a blur of activity, unpacking her bag, checking out the bathroom, complaining about the quality of the towels. Luke sits on the bed, suddenly too tired to remain upright. He lies down on top of the polyester bedspread, staring up at the ceiling. His surroundings spin like a carnival ride.

“What’s the matter?” Lanny sits next to him on the edge of the bed, touches his forehead.

“Exhaustion, I guess. On the midnight shift, I usually go to bed as soon as I get home.”

“Then go ahead, take a nap.” She eases the doctor’s shoes off without untying the laces.

“No, I should head back. It’s only a half hour away,” he protests but doesn’t move. “I have to return the car…”

“Nonsense. Besides, it will only arouse suspicion at the border station, turning right around and going home like that.” She spreads a blanket over him, then digs around in her suitcase and pulls out a Ziploc bag filled with the most voluptuous marijuana buds Luke has ever seen.

In less than a minute, she expertly rolls a generous doobie, lights it up, and takes a long, greedy hit. She closes her eyes as she exhales and her face relaxes with satisfaction. Luke thinks that he would like to bring such a look to this woman’s face sometime.

Lanny holds the joint out to him. After a second’s hesitation, Luke takes it, brings it to his lips. He inhales and holds the smoke, feels it spread into the lobes of his brain, feels his ears clog and stop up. Sweet Jesus, this stuff is potent. Fast.

He coughs and hands the joint back to Lanny. “I haven’t done that in a while. Where’d you get that stuff?”

“In town. St. Andrew.” Her answer both faintly alarms and surprises him, reminds him that there are other unseen worlds that exist right under his nose. He’s just glad he didn’t know she was holding when they crossed the border or he would have been even more nervous.

“You do this kind of thing a lot?” He nods at the joint.

“Couldn’t get by without it. You don’t know the memories I carry around in my head… Lifetime after lifetime of things you regret doing… things you’ve seen other people do. Stuff you can’t get away from-without this.” She regards the spliff in her hand. “There are times when I’ve wished I could knock myself out for, say, a decade. Go to sleep, make it all stop. No way to erase the bad memories. It’s not doing that’s so hard-it’s living with what you’ve done.”

“Like the man in the morgue-”

She presses a finger to Luke’s mouth to keep him from saying another word. Time enough for that later, he imagines; in fact, she has nothing but time stretching out before her to realize the irreversible thing she has done to her true love. Not enough pot in all the world to wash that away. Hell on earth.

The things he’s done seem small in comparison. Still, he reaches for the joint.

“I’m going back,” he says, as though he has to convince her. “As soon as I take a nap. It’ll be safer driving if I take a nap. But I have to get back… things to do, waiting for me… Peter’s car…”

“Sure,” she says.

When the doctor wakes, the hotel room is bathed in gray. The sun is setting but none of the lamps has been turned on. Luke lies still, not sitting up, trying to get his bearings. For a long minute, his head is stuffed with cotton, and he can’t remember where he is and why everything is unfamiliar. He’s hot and sweaty from lying under the blanket and feels like a kidnapping victim rushed out of a car, blindfolded, spun around.

Slowly, the room comes into focus. The stranger is sitting in one of the hard wooden chairs at the table, looking out the window. She sits absolutely still.

“Hey,” Luke says, to let her know he’s awake.

“Feeling better? Let me get you a glass of water.” She rises from the chair and hurries through a doorway to the kitchenette. “It’s only tap water. I put some in the refrigerator to get cold.”

“How long have I been asleep?” Luke reaches for the glass; it feels deliciously cold, and he’s tempted to press it to his forehead. He’s burning up.

“Four, five hours.”

“Oh Christ, I’d better get on the road. They’ll be looking for me, if they aren’t already.” He pushes the blanket back, and sits up on the edge of the bed.

“What’s the rush? You said there’s no one at home to wait for you,” the girl replies. “Besides, you don’t look well. That shit might have been too much for you. It’s strong. Maybe you should lie down for a little longer.”

Lanny retrieves her laptop from the chipped veneered chest of drawers and walks over to him. “I downloaded these from the camera while you were asleep. I thought you would like to see him. I mean, I know you’ve seen him, you’ve seen his body, but you might be interested anyway…”

Luke winces at this macabre little speech, not happy to be reminded of the dead body in the morgue and its relation to Lanny, but accepts the laptop when she hands it to him. The images jump off the screen brightly in the dusky darkness of the room: it is the man in the body bag but there is no comparison. Here he is, vividly alive, vibrant and whole. The eyes, the face animated, electrified with life.

And he is so, so beautiful, the sight of him makes Luke strangely sad. The first picture must have been taken in a car, window down, his longish black hair swirling about his head and his eyes crinkled as he laughs at the woman taking the picture, laughs at something Lanny has said or done. In the next picture, he is in bed, the bed they must have shared at Dunratty’s, his head on a white pillow, again his hair falling over his face, lashes brushing his cheeks, the perfect blush of pink across the high ridge of his cheekbone. A glimpse of throat and the protruding knob of a collarbone are visible beneath a creamy white fold of sheet.

After a minute, looking from picture to picture, it occurs to Luke that the beautiful thing about the man in the photos is not the pleasing quality of his face. It’s not his handsomeness. It’s something in his expression, an interplay between the delight in his eyes and the smile on his face. It’s that he’s happy to be with the person holding the camera and taking the pictures.

A lump forms in Luke’s throat and he thrusts the laptop at Lanny. He doesn’t want to look anymore.

“I know,” the girl says, also choked up, giving in to tears. “It kills me to think he’s gone. Forever gone. I feel his absence like a hole in my chest. A feeling I have carried with me for two hundred years has been ripped away. I don’t know how I will go on. That’s why I am asking you… please stay with me a little longer. I can’t be alone. I’ll go out of my mind.” She puts the laptop on the floor, then reaches for Luke’s hand. Hers is tiny and warm in his. The palm is damp, but Luke can’t tell if the dampness is his or hers.

“I can’t thank you enough for what you’ve done for me,” she says as she looks through his eyes and into him, as though she can see what is swimming inside him. “I’ve-I’ve never-I mean, no one has ever been so good to me. Taken a risk like that for me.”

Suddenly, her mouth is on his. He closes his eyes and sinks his entire being into the warm wetness of her mouth. He falls backward into the spot on the bed he had just left, her nearly insubstantial weight falling on him, and he feels a part of him tear in two. He is horrified by what he is doing, yet he’s wanted to do this from the moment he first saw her. He’s not going back to St. Andrew, not yet anyway; he’s going to follow her-how can he walk away? Her need for him is like a hook planted in his chest, pulling him along effortlessly, and he cannot resist. He is diving off a cliff into black water; he can’t see what’s waiting below for him, but he knows there’s not a force on earth that can stop him.

TWENTY-SIX

After hearing Adair’s story, I withdrew to my room in fright. I crawled onto the bed and tucked my knees under my chin. I was afraid to recall the things he’d told me and I tried to push them away.

Alejandro knocked, and when there was no answer, nudged the door back so he could slip in bearing a tray of tea and biscuits. He lit several candles-“You can’t sit in the dark, Lanore, it’s ghoulish”-and then placed a cup and saucer quietly at my elbow, but I wanted none of his hospitality. I pretended to look out the window, but in truth I could see nothing, still blinded by fury and despair.

“Oh my dear, don’t be so sad. I know it’s scary. I was scared when it happened to me.”

“But, Alej, what are we?” I asked, hugging the pillow to my chest.

“You are yourself, Lanore. You are not part of the magic world. You can’t pass through walls like a ghost or visit God in his heaven like an angel. We sleep and wake, eat and drink, go through our day like anyone else. The only difference is that another person might ponder, from time to time, which day will be his last. But you and I, our days will never end. We go on, bearing witness to everything around us.” He said all this dispassionately, as though the endless shuffle of days had washed all the excitement out of him. “When Adair explained what he’d done to me, I wanted to escape from him, even if it meant killing myself-the one thing I couldn’t do.

“But to lose your baby on top of it… well, it is too terrible to contemplate. Poor Lanore. Your sadness will pass, you know,” he continued in his singsong English, accented with Spanish. He took a sip of tea and then looked at me through steam rising from the cup. “Every day your past drifts farther and farther away and life with Adair grows more and more familiar. You become part of this family. Then, one day, you will remember something from your other life-a brother or a sister, a holiday, the house where you used to live, a toy you used to cherish-and you realize you no longer mourn its loss. It will seem like something from long ago. That’s when you know the change is complete.”

I glanced over my shoulder at him. “How long does it take for the pain to go away?”

Alejandro lifted a lump of sugar from the bowl with a tiny pair of tongs and dropped it into his tea. “It depends on how sentimental you are. Me, I am very tenderhearted. I loved my family and missed them for ages after the change. But Dona, for instance, he probably never looked back. His family had abandoned him when he was a little boy, for being a catamite,” Alejandro said, dropping his voice to a whisper on the last few words, even though we were all sodomites in this house. “His life was full of deprivation and uncertainty. Lynchings. Starvation. Imprisonment. No, I don’t imagine he has any regrets.”

“I don’t think my pain will ever fade. My child is gone! I want my child back. I want my life back.”

“You can never have your child back, you know that,” he said gently, stroking my arm. “But why, my dear, would you want your old life back? From what you have told me, you have nothing to return to: your family threw you out. They abandoned you in your time of need. I see nothing to regret leaving behind.” Alejandro stared into me with his dark, gentle eyes, as though he could summon the answer from my heart. “In times of trouble, we often want to go back to the familiar. That will go away.”

“Well, there is one thing…,” I murmured.

He leaned forward, eager for my confession.

“A friend. I miss a particular friend.”

Alejandro was, as he’d said, a tender soul who loved nostalgia. He squeezed his eyes shut, like a cat sitting in the warmth of the sun on a windowsill, eager to drink in my story. “It’s always the people you miss the most. Tell me about this friend.”

Since I’d left St. Andrew, I tried as hard as possible not to think about Jonathan. It was beyond my ability not to think of him at all, so I allowed myself only short indulgences, such as a few minutes before falling asleep, when I’d recall the feel of his warm, flushed cheek pressed against mine, the way my spine tingled when he circled his hands around my corseted waist, claiming me for his own. It was hard enough to control my emotions when Jonathan was only a ghost on the fringes of my memory: to recall him directly was painful. “I can’t. I miss him too much,” I told Alejandro.

Alejandro leaned back. “This friend means everything to you, doesn’t he? He is the love of your life. He was the father of your child.”

“Yes,” I said. Alejandro waited for me to go on, his silence like a string tugging at me, until I obliged. “His name is Jonathan. I’ve been in love with him since we were children. Most people would say that he was too good to end up with me. His family owns the town where I lived-it’s not big or wealthy, but everyone there depends on Jonathan’s family to survive. And then there is his great beauty.” I blushed. “You must think me a terribly shallow person…”

“Not at all!” he said amicably. “No one is immune to the sway of beauty. But truly, Lanore, how beautiful could he be? Think of Dona, for instance. So striking that he enchanted one of the greatest artists in Italy. Is he more beautiful than Dona?”

“If you met Jonathan, you’d understand. He would make Dona look like a troll.”

That made Alejandro chuckle; none of us liked Dona very much-he was so vain he was nearly intolerable. “You must not let Dona hear you say that! Very well, then-what about Adair? Is he not a handsome fellow? Have you ever seen eyes like his? They are like a wolf ’s…”

“Adair has a certain charm.” An animal charm, I thought, though I didn’t say it aloud. “But there is no comparison, Alej. Believe me. But-it’s of no consequence. I’ll never see him again.”

Alejandro patted my hand. “Don’t say that. You don’t know-you may.”

“I can’t imagine going home, not now. Isn’t it as Adair said in his story? How would I explain it to them?” I scoffed.

“There are ways… You couldn’t live among them again. No, that would be out of the question, but a brief visit… if you stayed only a short while…” He toyed with his lower lip, contemplative.

“Don’t raise my hopes. It’s too cruel.” Tears pressed at my eyes. “Please, Alejandro, I need to rest. I have a terrible headache.”

He pressed his fingers to my forehead briefly. “No fever… Tell me, this headache, does it feel like a constant prickling in the back of your mind?” I nodded. “Yes? Well, my dear, you’d best get used to it. That is not a headache: that is part of the gift. You are connected to Adair now.”

“Connected to Adair?” I repeated.

“There is a bond between you two, and that sensation is a reminder of that bond.” He leaned toward me conspiratorially. “Remember how I said that you were changed only in one way, that you were not magical? Well, we are a bit magical, just a little bit. Sometimes I think we are like animals, you know? You must have noticed how everything seems a little brighter, how you can hear the tiniest noise, how every odor stings so sharply at your nose? That is part of the gift: the transformation makes us better. We are enhanced. You will hear a voice from a long way away and know who is coming to visit, you can detect the aroma of sealing wax and know a person has a letter hidden on them. You will cease to notice these powers in time, but to others it will seem like you are a mind reader, that you are magic!

“The second thing you must know is that you will no longer feel pain. It has to do with the ability not to die, I think. You will not feel the sharpness of hunger or thirst. Oh, it takes time for the reflex, the expectation that one must eat and drink, to go away… But you could fast for weeks and not feel hunger gnawing at your stomach, or become weak and faint. You could be run over by a charging horse and feel little more than slight discomfort where you might have a broken bone, but the pain will go away in minutes as the bone heals itself. It’s as though you are now made of earth and wind, and can repair yourself at will.” His words made me shiver with recognition. “And this connection to Adair, the needling in your brain, is a reminder of this power because only he can make you like a mortal again. At his hands, and only his hands, you feel pain. But any damage he causes you to suffer will be temporary, unless he chooses otherwise. He can will anything on you, pain, disfigurement, death. By his hand and intent. Those are the words he uses in the spell. Those are the words that bind you to him.”

I put a hand to my abdomen; he was right about pain. The muted throbbing I’d felt in my purged womb had disappeared entirely.

“He must have said as much to you. Believe him: he is your god now. You live or die at his whim. And”-his expression softened entirely for a moment, as though a shield was being lowered briefly-“you should be careful with Adair. He has given you everything a mortal could want, but only as long as you please him. He will not hesitate to take it away if you anger him. Never forget that.”

I quickly realized that whether I wanted it or not, I was part of this strange household now and it would be to my benefit to figure out my place in it. My life had changed irrevocably and I wasn’t at all sure how to survive. Adair, however, had hundreds of years of experience. The others he had chosen had all stayed with him, probably for good reason.

I also resolved to try to forget Jonathan. I believed I’d never see him again, despite what Alejandro had said. My old life was gone in every way: Boston was as different from St. Andrew as cream from water, and I was no longer a poor country girl with only a dreary future to look forward to. I’d lost the baby, the only thing that would have connected me to Jonathan. Better to put it behind me now, all at once.

Within a few days I saw that the house’s rhythms were unlike anything I’d experienced in my Puritan hometown. First of all, no one in the household besides the servants rose before noon. Even then, the courtiers and their guests remained in their rooms until two or three in the afternoon, though you could hear low sounds behind the doors, murmurs or a shriek of laughter or the scrape of a chair leg as it was dragged across the floor. Alejandro explained that it was the European way: evenings, the most important part of the day, were given over to socializing-dinners, balls, gaming tables-and days were spent getting ready, to be properly appointed, with hair coiffed and the most fetching ensemble donned. They’d brought a few key servants with them from Europe, those skilled in styling hair and maintaining the wardrobes. I thought it a decadent way to live, but Alejandro assured me this was only because I was a misguided puritanical American. There was a reason the Puritans left England in search of a new world, he pointed out.

Which brings me to the second strange thing about Adair’s household: no one seemed to have purpose to their lives. No business concerns or finances were ever discussed in front of me. No mention of the old country, no reminiscing about past lives (as Alejandro told me, “We let the dead sleep”). No letters arrived, only calling cards from members of Boston society eager to meet this mysterious European royal. The tray in the hall overflowed with invitations to parties and salons and teas.

The only subject that interested Adair and his entourage, the only endeavor they undertook with any seriousness, the preoccupation that filled their days, was sex. Each member of the entourage kept a playmate, whether for the evening or for a week; it could be a Brahmin met at a soiree or a comely footman co-opted for the night. There was a stream of women parading through the mansion, too, blowsy prostitutes, as well as daring society daughters. No one in the household ever slept alone. Neither Alejandro nor Donatello seemed interested in me at all, and when I asked Alej if he didn’t find me attractive, he laughed and told me not to be obtuse.

The family was given over to seeking and experiencing pleasure, it was as simple as that. Everything about my surroundings was the antithesis of how I was raised and eventually their lack of industry would disgust me, but at first I was seduced by luxuries I’d had no idea existed. St. Andrew had been a town of homespun linen clothing and raw pine furniture. Now I lived surrounded by finery, each new temptation better than the last. I ate food and drink I had never known existed, wore dresses and gowns made from exotic European fabrics by a professional tailor. I learned to dance and play cards, was given novels to read that would expose me to even more worlds.

Adair was fond of parties, and since he was still a sensation in Boston, we went to one almost every night. He took his entourage with him everywhere, letting Alejandro, Dona, and Tilde charm the Bostonians with their continental ways, outrageous fashions from Paris and Vienna and London, and tales of decadent European aristocracy.

What really stunned the Brahmins, though, was when Adair forced Uzra to accompany us. She would venture outdoors wrapped in a swath of burgundy cloth that covered her from head to toe. Once we had arrived among the partygoers, the wrapping would fall to the floor to reveal Uzra in one of her costumes, tight organza bodice and a skirt of veils, her eyes rimmed thickly in kohl, adornments of brass ringlets circling her bare waist, hands, and ankles. The richly colored silks were pretty, but sheer; she was practically naked compared with the rest of us women in layers of petticoats and corsets and stockings. Uzra jingled softly as she walked, eyes downcast, aware that she was being ogled and leered at like a carnival animal. The women clapped hands over their mouths, now fallen open in shock, and the men-the air would become thick with the musk of their desire, frock coats hastily rearranged to cover their clumsy erections. Adair would laugh later about the propositions he received, men offering huge sums of money for an hour with his odalisque. They would part with their souls if he gave them the chance, Adair would say later, when we had decamped to our house after the party and sat around the cook’s table in the kitchen, next to the still warm hearth, sharing a bottle.

“You could do the same,” Adair said to me in private, as we walked up the stairs to our bedchambers, his voice soft as velvet. “A man’s desire is a powerful thing. It can reduce a strong man to nothing. When he sees a woman who fascinates him, he will give up everything for her. Remember that, Lanore: everything.”

“Give up everything for me? You are mad. No man has ever given up anything for my company,” I scoffed, thinking of Jonathan’s inability to give himself wholly to me. Deep in self-pity, I wasn’t being fair to him, I know, but I had been stung by my faithless lover and was hurting.

Adair gave me a strangled look and said something I had never considered. “That is sad to hear said about any woman, but especially sad to hear said about you. Perhaps it’s because you have never asked for anything in exchange for your attention. You don’t know your own worth, Lanore.”

“My worth? I understand my worth only too well-I am a plain girl from a poor family.”

He took my arm and tucked it under his. “You are hardly plain. You have an appeal for certain men, the type of man who values a discreet freshness and disdains a vulgar display of womanly charms. Too much breast pouring out of a bodice, too prominent a bustle, too voluptuous-do you understand?” I didn’t follow him; in my experience men seemed bedazzled by these very parts, and the fact that I did not possess them had seemed a detriment my entire life.

“Your description of ‘vulgar’ womanly charms sounds an awful lot like Uzra to me, and she never fails to render any man who sees her agog. She and I are as opposite as two women can be,” I said, meaning to tease Adair.

“There is not only one measure of beauty, Lanore. Everyone adores the red rose, and yet it is a common sort of beauty. You are like a golden rose, a rare bloom but no less lovely,” he said, meaning to flatter, but I nearly laughed out loud at his attempt. I was thin as a boy and nearly as flat-chested. My curly blond hair was as unruly as a thistle. I could only think he was flattering me for some purpose of his own, but his sweet words were appealing all the same.

“So if you trust me, let me guide you. I will teach you how to have power over ordinary men. Like Tilde, like Alej and Dona,” he said, stroking my hand. Perhaps that was their purpose; maybe that was their industry. They did seem able to make most people-most men, and they were the ones with power-do what they wanted, and that seemed to be a good skill to have.

“It is not enough to be able to conquer your enemies; in order to control them, you must be able to seduce them as well.”

“Consider me your pupil,” I said, letting Adair lead me into his bedchamber.

“You will not regret it,” he promised.

TWENTY-SEVEN

And so began my schooling in the business of seduction. It started with evenings in Adair’s bed. After that night when Adair opened my eyes, he seemed determined to prove to me that I was worth a man’s attention: his. We continued to go to parties, where he charmed the Bostonians, but he always returned home with me on his arm. He took me to his bed every night. He indulged me and gave me anything I asked for. I had beautiful undergarments made, corsets (though I hardly needed them to hold up my breasts, modest as they were) and stays of colored silks, trimmed with ribbon. Garters decorated with tiny silk roses. Delights for Adair to find when he peeled off my clothing. I devoted myself to becoming his golden rose.

I would be lying if I said I did not think of Jonathan during this time. He was my first lover, after all. Still, I tried to kill the love I felt for him by remembering the bad moments between us, the times he wounded me to the quick. The times I’d heard that he’d taken up with a new girl. Standing next to him on the hill as we looked down on Sophia’s funeral, knowing he was thinking of her. Kissing Evangeline in front of the entire congregation mere moments after I’d given him news of my pregnancy. I tried to see my love for Jonathan as a malady, a fever burning up my heart and brain, and these wrenching memories were the purgative, the cure.

And the attentions of my new lover would be my restorative. Comparing my experiences with the two men, it seemed that the act with Jonathan filled me with such happiness that I felt I would die. At those times, I was barely aware of my body, I could have floated to the ceiling in his arms. It was sublime. With Adair, it was all sensation, a neediness for flesh and the power to have that hunger satisfied. At the time, I wasn’t afraid of this newfound hunger Adair had created in me. I delighted in it, and Adair, instead of judging me indulgent and sluttish, seemed pleased that he brought this out in me.

Adair confirmed as much one evening in his bed, lighting up the hookah after an acrobatic session. “I judge that you have a natural disposition for the business of pleasure,” he said, grinning obscenely. “I’d daresay you enjoy your adventures in the bedroom. You’ve done everything I’ve asked, haven’t you? Nothing I have done has frightened you?” When I gave a little shake of my head, he continued, “Then it is time to expand your experiences, because the art of love is such that the more expert lovers one has, the more expert one becomes. Do you understand?” I greeted this statement with a frown, sensing that something was amiss. Had he tired of me already? Was the bond that had developed between us an illusion? “Don’t be cross,” he said, feeding the narcotic smoke from his mouth to mine in a kiss. “I’ve made you jealous, haven’t I? You must fight feelings like that, Lanore. They are beneath you now. You have a new life ahead of you, one filled with a richness of experience, if you aren’t afraid.”

He wasn’t inclined to explain any more to me at the time, but I found out the next night when Dona slipped into the bedroom with us. And Tilde the night after that. When I objected, protesting that I was too self-conscious to enjoy myself in front of the others, I was given a blindfold. The next morning, when I glanced at Tilde shyly as we passed on the stairs, still dazzled by the pleasure she had given me in bed, she growled, “It was only a performance, you stupid cuny,” and trotted away, dispelling any doubt that it had been anything more. I suppose I was naive, but the pleasures of the flesh were new to me, the sensations overwhelming. I would become numb to all of it, and numb to what it did to my soul, soon enough.

It was not long after this that a most notable event occurred, though I didn’t gather its significance at the time. It started with a lecture on astronomy and navigational arts that we attended at Harvard College. Science was a bit of a fad in that day and sometimes the colleges would host public lectures. These were places to be seen as much as any party, a way to show that even though you were a socialite you still had a bit of brain, so Adair made it a point to attend. The lecture that day was of little interest to me, so I sat at Adair’s side and borrowed his opera glasses to scan the audience. There were many faces I’d seen before even if I couldn’t remember their names, and just as I was thinking the outing was a waste of time, I spied Tilde chatting up a man on the far side of the auditorium. I could see only a quarter profile of his face, and mostly my view was of his back, but I could tell he had a striking physique.

I handed the opera glasses to Adair. “It looks like Tilde has found herself a new man,” I whispered and nodded in her direction.

“Hmm, I believe you’re right,” he said, peering through the glasses. “She is a born hunter, that Tilde.”

It was common to meet up with other socialites after the lectures at a nearby public house. Adair had no patience that afternoon for the small talk over coffee and beer, however, and watched the door. Before long, Tilde came in on the arm of the young man we’d seen at the college. He was quite dashing, with a beautiful face (a trifle on the delicate side), a sharp little nose, a cleft in his chin, and glorious blond curls. He looked all the younger on Tilde’s sophisticated arm, and while Tilde could hardly be mistaken for his mother, the disparity in their ages was hard to miss.

They joined us at our table and Adair spent the whole time peppering him with questions. Was he a student at Harvard? (Yes.) Did he have family in Boston? (No, he’d come from Philadelphia and had no family in this area.) What was he studying? (He had a passion for science, but his parents wished him to continue the family business, which was law.) How old was he? (Twenty.) At this last answer, Adair frowned as though displeased, a quizzical response to so straightforward an answer. Then Adair invited the young man to dine with us that evening at the mansion.

I will be blunt: the cook may have served a saddle of lamb, but it was clear that the flaxen-haired young man was the main course. Adair continued to ask him all sorts of personal questions (Any close friends here at college? A fiancée?) and when the young man became nonplussed, Alejandro would jump in and distract everyone around the table with self-deprecating stories and jokes. More wine than usual flowed, particularly into the young man’s glass, and then after dinner the men were given snifters of cognac, and we all repaired to the game room. At the end of an evening of faro, Adair claimed we could not send the young man back to his rooms at the college in such a state-he would be reprimanded for drunkenness if caught by the tutors-and insisted he stay with us for the night. By that time the young scholar was almost unable to stand without assistance, so he was hardly in a position to refuse.

Adair had a footman help him up the stairs while we gathered outside Adair’s bedchamber like jackals preening before dividing up the night’s kill. In the end, Adair decided he and I would enjoy the young man’s company and dismissed the others. Drunk as he was, he stripped gamely when commanded and followed me eagerly into bed. Here is the curious part: as the boy stripped, Adair watched him closely, not with enjoyment (as I had expected) but with a clinical eye. It wasn’t until then that we learned the young man had a club foot; it wasn’t terribly misshapen and he had a specially made boot that helped him walk without much of a limp. But upon noticing it, Adair seemed visibly deflated.

Adair sat in a chair and watched as the young man swived me. I saw, over the boy’s shoulder, disappointment on Adair’s face, a detachment toward our guest that he fought to overcome. In the end, Adair took off his clothes and joined us, surprising the young man with his attentions, which were nevertheless accepted (he didn’t resist in any case, though he did yelp a little when Adair got rough with him). And the three of us slept together, our guest relegated to the foot of the bed, succumbing to the effects of alcohol and the usual result of a man’s amorous effusions.

The next morning, after the young man was sent off in a carriage, Adair and Tilde had heated words behind closed doors. Alejandro and I sat in the breakfast room and listened-or tried not to-over tea.

“What is that about?” I asked, nodding in the direction of the muffled argument.

“Adair has given us standing orders to be on the lookout for attractive men, but only the most attractive. We are to bring them to his attention. What can I say, Adair enjoys a pretty face. But he is only interested in perfection, you see? And I understand the man Tilde brought to Adair was less than perfect?”

“He had a club foot.” I didn’t see how that made any difference; his face was exquisite.

Alejandro shrugged. “Ah-there you go.” He busied himself buttering a heel of bread and said no more, leaving me to stir my tea and wonder about Adair’s strange obsessions. The thing was, he’d swived that boy as though it was punishment for disappointing him somehow. It made me uneasy to think about it.

I leaned across the table and clasped Alejandro’s hand. “Remember the conversation we had a few weeks ago, about my friend? My handsome friend? Promise me, Alejandro, you will not tell Adair about him.”

“Do you think I would do that to you?” he said, hurt. I know now that his offense was all pretend. He was a good actor, Alejandro was. We all had to be around Adair, but this was Alejandro’s role in the group, to be the one to lull the distressed or uncertain, to assuage and calm the victim so she doesn’t see the blow coming. At the time, I thought of him as the good one whereas Tilde and Dona were evil and bitter, the deceivers, but I see now they each had a role to play.

But at the time, I believed him.

TWENTY-EIGHT

I started to become more curious about my housemates. I had just begun to see them as a pack that worked together, each with a purpose, each performing his or her part with an ease that came from having done a job many times. Flushing out prey, distracting the quarry, running the unfortunate victim to ground, whether it was the club-footed young man or an easy mark at a card game. The three were like hounds held in check on slip collars; Adair had only to loose them and they were off, each confident of what he or she must do. I was the fourth hound, new to the pack and unsure of my role. And, well-tuned instrument that they were together, they were reluctant to make room for me, sure that I would trip them up and detract from their cold grace and efficiency. It was just as well to me: I had no desire to join them.

I expected a backlash from the others regarding Adair’s fondness for me and was surprised when there wasn’t any. After all, I must have displaced one of them as Adair’s favorite and confidante. But none of them was upset. There wasn’t a spark of jealousy in the air. In truth, except for Alejandro, they had little to do with me. Now, all three gave me a wide berth but without malice. They skirted both me and Adair, except for when we traveled to and from parties, and during those times there was an air of forced joviality hanging over us like a fog. When Tilde and I caught sight of each other, for instance, I sometimes noticed the grim set of her mouth combined with a slight furrow to her brow, but what I saw did not seem like jealousy. The three of them drifted through the house like ghosts, haunted and powerless.

One night I decided to ask Adair about this. After all, he was more likely to tell me the truth than were they. I waited as Adair found a bottle of brandy and goblets to take to the bedroom, while the servants helped me slip out of my skirts and bodice and unpinned my hair. As Adair poured the drink into our glasses, I said, “There is something on my mind that I have been meaning to raise with you…”

He took a swig from his drink before handing a glass to me. “I expected as much. You’ve been distracted lately.”

“It’s… the others,” I started, unsure of how to continue.

“Don’t ask me to send them away. I won’t. You may want us to spend all our time with each other, but I can’t have them wandering loose. And besides, it’s important that we stay together. You never know when you will need one of us to come to your aid, someone who understands the obligation. You’ll understand someday,” he rushed to say.

“I don’t want them to be sent away. I’ve just been wondering, Adair, which of their hearts has been broken now that you spend all your time with me? Which of them most keenly feels the loss of your attention? I see them and feel sorry for-Why are you laughing at me? It wasn’t my intention to amuse you.”

I’d expected him to smile at my question, chide me perhaps for my foolish sensitivity and assure me that no one resented me, that the others had each had their turn as his favorite and knew that this pleasure wouldn’t last forever, that the harmony of our household was intact.

That wasn’t the reaction I got from Adair, however. His laugh wasn’t one of appreciation: it was mocking. “‘The loss of my attention’? Do you think they’re upstairs, crying themselves to sleep at night, now that they no longer are the apple of my eye? Let me tell you a bit about the people with whom you share a home. You have a right to know since you are bound to them for eternity. It’s best to keep your guard up around them, my dear. They’re not going to look out for your best interests, not ever. You have no idea about them, do you?”

“Alej has told me a little,” I murmured, dropping my eyes.

“I wager he’s told you nothing of consequence and certainly nothing to make you think badly of him. What did he tell you about himself?”

I started to regret that I had brought this up. “Only that he comes from a good family in Spain…”

“A very good family. The Pinheiros. You might even say a grand family, but you will not find any Pinheiros in Toledo, Spain, today. Do you know why? Have you ever heard of the Inquisition? Alejandro and his family were rounded up by the Inquisition, by the grand inquisitor himself, Tomás de Torquemada. Alejandro’s mother, his father, his grandmother, his little sister-all were thrown into prison. They were given two choices: they could confess their sins and convert to Catholicism-or they would remain in prison, where they would likely die.”

“Why didn’t he convert?” I cried out. “To spare his life, would it have been so terrible?”

“But he did.” Adair poured more brandy for himself and then stood in front of the fire, his face lit by a flickering flame. “He did as they asked. He would have been a fool to refuse them, under the circumstances. The Inquisition was proud of its ability to break a man: they made it a science. They kept him in a cell so small he had to tuck into a ball in order to fit, and he had to listen to the screams and prayers of the other prisoners until the sun came up. Who would not go mad in these circumstances? Who would not do anything they asked, in order to save himself?”

For a moment, there was only the crackle and spit from the fire, and in my heart, I begged that Adair would not go on. I wanted to keep the Alejandro I knew, sweet and considerate, and remain ignorant of whatever evil he kept hidden inside.

Adair tossed back the last of his drink and stared again into the flames. “He gave them his sister. They wanted someone they could make an example of, evil in their midst. A reason to rid the country of Jews. So he told them his sister was a witch, an unrepentant witch. In exchange for his fourteen-year-old sister, the priests let him go. And that is when I found him, gibbering like a madman for what he’d done.”

“That’s horrible.” Shivering, I pulled the sable blanket around my shoulders.

“Dona handed over his master to the authorities when he was arrested for being a sodomite. The man who had taken him in off the street, fed and clothed him, painted his likeness on the walls of Florence. A man who adored him, truly adored him, and Dona gave him up without a second’s hesitation. I’d be a fool to expect any better treatment from him.

“And then there’s Tilde. She’s the most dangerous of all of them. She comes from a country very far north, where there are days in the winter when the sun is out for only a few hours. I came across Tilde one of those frigid nights, on the road. She had been doused with water and turned out in the cold winter evening by her own people. You see, she had set her heart on a rich man in the next village. There was only one obstacle in her way: she was already married. And how did she decide to solve her problem? By killing her husband and her two children. She poisoned them, thinking no one would ever figure out what she’d done. Only, the people in her village discovered her plot and put her to death. She was meant to freeze to death, and by the time I found her, she was already half frozen. Her hair was solid ice, her eyelashes and her skin were frosted with crystals. She was dying and yet she still managed to glare at me with an expression of pure hatred.”

“Stop,” I whimpered, burrowing completely under the heavy blanket of pelts. “I don’t want to know any more.”

“The true measure of a man is how he behaves when death is close.” There was a sneer in Adair’s voice.

“That’s not fair. A person has a right to do anything to survive.”

“Anything?” He raised an eyebrow and snorted. “In any case, I felt you had a right to know that sympathy is wasted on them. Beneath their beauty and their manners, they are monsters. There is a reason I chose each of them. They have their place in my plans… but not one of them is capable of love, except of themselves. They wouldn’t think twice about giving you up if there was something to be gained in the bargain. They might even ignore their obligation to me, if they thought they could get away with such treachery.” He slid beside me into the bed, cupping my body against his, and I fancied I felt a strange neediness in his touch. “That is what I find fascinating about you, Lanore. You have a great capacity for love. You long to give your heart to someone, and when you do, it is with impossible commitment, inexhaustible loyalty. I think you would go to any lengths for the man you love. It is a very lucky man who will win your heart one day. I would like to think that even I might be so lucky.”

He petted my hair for a while before drifting into sleep, leaving me to wonder how much he knew about Jonathan, just how precisely Adair might have read my thoughts. The entire conversation gave me the shivers; I couldn’t see the purpose of giving eternal life to such undeserving people, to surrounding himself for eternity with cowards and murderers, especially if what he sought was loyalty. His plans, for I didn’t doubt he had them, eluded me.

And the worst part, the part that I couldn’t bear to face, was the question of why he had chosen me to join his perverse family. He must have seen something in me that told him I was like the others; perhaps it was written on my soul that I was selfish enough to drive another woman to take her own life in order to have the one she loved. And as for his invitation to love him, I wouldn’t have thought someone like Adair would feel the need to be loved… or that I was the type of woman capable of loving a monster. I lay shivering in Adair’s arms that night as he slept soundly.

What of Uzra? It didn’t take a mystic to see that she didn’t fit the pattern of the others in Adair’s family. She floated above the rest of the household. It wasn’t that the others forgot about her, but she was not discussed. She was not expected to join us when we gathered to drink and talk late in the evening on returning from a party, she never sat among us when we gathered around the table in the dining room for a meal. But we might hear whispers of her pattering overhead or in the walls, like a mouse climbing the battens.

Occasionally, Adair summoned her to the bedroom, where she joined us, tight-lipped, eyes downcast, surrendering but not participating. But she’d seek me out later when I was alone, let me brush her hair or read to her, which I took to be her way of letting me know that she did not hold me responsible for what transpired in Adair’s bed or, at the least, forgave my allegiance to him. One time, I sat still so she could paint my face in her native fashion, with thick rings of kohl encircling my eyes and the line extended out toward my temples. She wrapped me in one of her long, winding cloths so that only my eyes were visible and I must say, the getup gave me a very exotic look.

Sometimes, she’d give me a strange look, as though she were trying to talk to my soul, find some way to convey a message to me. A warning. I didn’t think I needed her to warn me; I knew Adair was a dangerous man and that I risked grave damage to my soul or my sanity if I got too close to him. I thought I knew where the line of control was and that I’d be able to stop myself in time. How stupid of me.

Sometimes Uzra came to my room and held me, as though she was comforting me. A few times she pulled me out of bed, insisting I follow her to one of her hiding spaces. Now I understand that she did this so I would know where to go when the day came that I needed to hide from Adair.

Tilde, on the other hand, gave me no warning when she took me by the hand one afternoon with an irritated sigh and, ignoring my questions, led me firmly to a seldom used room. There, on a table next to the fire, stood a bottle of ink, a number of needles arrayed in a fan, and a much stained old handkerchief. Tilde settled in a chair, tucking stray hairs behind her ears and not regarding me in the least. “Take off your bodice and sleeves,” she said, very matter-of-factly.

“What is this about?” I demanded.

“I’m not asking you, you stupid cuny,” she said, taking the stopper out of the ink bottle and wiping the stain from her fingers. “This is by Adair’s orders. Give me your bare arm.”

Gritting my teeth, I did as I was told, knowing that Tilde delighted in bullying me, and then flounced onto the stool opposite her. She grabbed my right wrist and drew my arm to her, giving it a twist so that the underside was exposed to her, and then she pinned my arm under hers the way a blacksmith traps a horse’s hoof between his knees in order to shoe it. I watched suspiciously as she selected a needle, dipped it into the ink, and then stabbed it into the delicate white skin of the inside of my upper arm.

I jumped even though I felt nothing more than the press of contact. “What are you doing?”

“I told you, it’s on Adair’s orders,” she growled. “I’m pricking a mark into your skin. It’s called a tattoo. I take it you’ve never seen one.”

I stared at the black dots-three, now four; Tilde worked quickly. They looked like beauty marks, formed as the ink spread slightly beyond the puncture. After about an hour had passed, Tilde had completed the outline of a crest about the size of a dollar piece and was starting on an animal-like figure, a bit snakelike and fantastical. It took me a minute to realize that she was drawing a dragon. It was at this time that Adair strolled in. He tilted his head to watch Tilde at her work. He dragged a thumb over the site, now awash in both black ink and red blood, to get a clearer view.

“Do you know what this is?” he asked me, a little proudly. I shook my head. “It’s the crest of my family. Or rather, the crest of my adopted lineage,” he amended. “It’s the emblem on the seal I told you of.”

“Why are you doing this to me? What does this mean?” I asked.

He took the handkerchief and wiped at the tattoo, to better admire it. “What do you think it means? I am marking you-as mine.”

“Is this really necessary?” I asked, trying to twist my arm free, which only earned me a mild slap from Tilde. “I suppose you do this to all your creatures. What about yours, Tilde? May I see it, so I’ll know what it will look like when-”

“I don’t have one,” she said abruptly, not looking up from her work.

“You don’t?” I faced Adair. “Then why me?”

“It is something special I have elected to give to you. It means you are mine forever.”

I didn’t like the proprietary gleam in his eye. “There are other ways of conveying such an intent to a girl. A ring, a necklace, some token of your devotion is the traditional method, I believe,” I said, testily.

My feistiness seemed to please him. “Those are but tokens, trivial and transitory. You can take off a ring. You won’t be able to do the same with this.”

I stared at Tilde’s handiwork. “What do you mean… my skin will be stained permanently?”

At this, he gave me the queer smile I had come to expect when he was about to do something hurtful. He jerked my arm away from Tilde and pinned it under his, took a deep breath, picked up one of the needles, and stabbed it through the center of Tilde’s handiwork, careful to land in the middle of the design. A sharp pain suddenly bit into my upper arm, the stings of Tilde’s needles coming alive all at once. “By my hand and intent,” he said into the air like a proclamation, and then the wound stung as though salt had been rubbed into the open flesh. He twisted my arm sharply to get another look at the tattoo, and I winced in pain before he let go.

“Lanore, you surprise me,” Adair said, though exaggerating for effect. “I thought it would please you to know I value you so highly that I would claim you for eternity.”

The thing was, he was right: it did please the perverse part of me that wanted a man to desire me so badly he would burn his name into my skin. Though I was not so deluded that I wasn’t alarmed, too, at being treated as though I were livestock.

Weeks passed in this way. I was content with Adair most days: he was attentive enough, kind enough, generous enough. We made love robustly. But there were times when he acted cruelly for no reason other than his own enjoyment. At those times, Alejandro, Tilde, Dona, myself-we became court jesters trying to appease a vindictive regent and coax him out of his terrible mood, or at least, trying to avoid being the object of his cruelty. At those times I felt trapped in a madhouse and was desperate to escape, only I didn’t believe I could. The others were still with Adair, even after decades of such nerve-shattering treatment. I had been told that Uzra had tried to run away from him countless times. Surely, if there was a way to escape, they would have done so by now.

Also, despite my preoccupation with Adair, Jonathan began creeping back into my thoughts. At first, it was guilt that I felt, because there was another man in my life-as though I’d had a choice! Nonetheless, no matter how logically I tried to think about it, how vigorously I recalled his poor treatment of me, his callousness, I missed Jonathan and felt I was being unfaithful to him. It didn’t matter that he was sworn to another woman and that he’d abdicated his claim to my heart-sleeping with one man, while loving another, seemed wrong.

And I did still love Jonathan. A thorough examination of my heart told me so. As flattered as I was by Adair’s attention, pleased that a man who’d seen the world would find me intoxicating, I knew in my heart that if Jonathan arrived in town tomorrow, I would leave Adair without even saying good-bye. I was merely surviving. The only hope left to me was to one day see Jonathan again.

TWENTY-NINE

Time slipped past me, immeasurably. How long had I been with Adair-six weeks, six months? I’d lost count and was convinced it didn’t matter; in my new circumstances, I’d never have to keep track of time again. Time in all its infinity was open to me now, like the ocean, and much like the first time I’d seen it, too great for me to grasp.

One blue and gold late summer afternoon, there was a knock at the front door. As I was happening by and there were no servants at hand (sleeping off a binge of purloined claret in the pantry, no doubt), I opened it, thinking it might be a tradesman or someone come to call on Adair. Instead, standing on the steps, satchel in hand, was the wild-eyed charismatic preacher from Saco.

His jaw dropped upon seeing me and his cunning face lit up with pleasure. “I know you, miss, do I not? I recognize your pretty face because a face like yours I would not be likely to forget,” he said, sweeping into the front hall without an invitation. He brushed by me in his dusty cloak, removing the tricorner hat from his head.

“I know you too, sir,” I replied, horrified, drawing back, unable to guess what in the world had brought him here.

“Well, don’t keep me in suspense, then. What is your name and how did we meet?” he asked, still smiling but in a way meant to hide the calculations going on in his head, trying to recall where we had met and under what circumstances.

So instead of answering him, I asked, “Why have you come here? Do you know Adair?”

My guardedness seemed to amuse him. “Of course I know him, why else would I show up on his doorstep? I know him in the same way that you know him, I’ll wager.” So it was true-we were the same now, he and I. Adair’s creations.

And then it came to him, his face lighting up with lurid delight. “Oh, I remember now! That little Maine village not far from the Acadian settlement! That’s where I met you! Without the drab brown dress-you are barely recognizable in blue silk and French lace! It’s an amazing transformation, upon my word. Left the Puritans behind without a regret, have you? It’s always the quiet ones who turn out to be the most wild at heart,” he said, narrowing his eyes to slits and leering, probably guessing that we stood a good chance of ending up in bed together. All he had to do was ask Adair and he was unlikely to be denied.

At that moment, we were interrupted by Adair’s voice booming from the landing above us. “Look who has turned up at my door! Jude, come for a respite from your travels? Come in, come in, it has been too long since I last saw you,” he said as he jogged down the stairs. After embracing Jude heartily, he noticed that Jude was staring at me in gleeful anticipation and so he asked, “What is it? Do you two know each other?”

“As a matter of fact, we do,” Jude said, circling me, making a great show of drinking in the sight of me. “I wrote to you about this young woman some time back. Do you recall a letter describing a promising unspoiled beauty with a feral streak?”

I drew myself up, chin held high. “What do you mean by that?”

But Adair only chuckled and brushed my cheek to assuage my anger. “Come now, my dear. I think his meaning is plain, and you wouldn’t be here at my side if it wasn’t true.”

The unwelcome visitor’s eyes swept over me like a housewife’s hands testing a piece of fruit. “Well, I’ll wager she’s unspoiled no more, eh? So, you’ve made this little spitfire your spiritual wife, have you?” Jude asked Adair in a mocking tone, and then he addressed me. “It must be your destiny, my dear, for you to turn up here, don’t you think? And you are lucky, Adair, that you didn’t have to make the journey all the way up there to get her-trust me, it’s not a trip I would wish on anyone. She made a bit of trouble for me when I was there, too. Wouldn’t introduce me to the fellow I wrote to you about.”

He had to be referring to Jonathan. I held my tongue.

“I wish you would refrain from that ‘spiritual wife’ nonsense, at least when you’re around me. I’ve no use for that religious mumbo-jumbo,” Adair said as he threw an arm around Jude’s shoulder and led him into the drawing room, where our visitor made a beeline for the decanters of wine. “Now, who is this you’re talking about? What fellow?”

The preacher poured a full glass for himself. “Didn’t you read my letters? Why ask me to write about my observations if you aren’t going to pay any attention to them? It was all in my report to you, about what I found in this godforsaken backwater village way up in the northernmost corner of the territory. Your latest acquisition here”-he nodded at me as he took a gulp of wine-“kept me from meeting a remarkable young man. She guarded him most jealously, from what I could see. This man is exactly what you’ve been looking for, if the stories I heard about him were accurate.”

My skin crawled; something terrible was afoot. I stood paralyzed with apprehension.

Adair poured wine for himself, offering none to me. “Is this true, Lanore?” I didn’t know how to respond and, in any case, common sense deserted me at that moment. “I see by your silence that it is. When were you going to tell me about him?” he asked.

“Your spy has it all wrong. This man is not worth your attention.” These were words I never thought I’d say about Jonathan. “He’s just a friend from home.”

“Oh, hardly unworthy of attention. We are talking about Jonathan, the man you bragged of to Alej? Don’t be surprised; of course Alejandro told me. He knows not to keep secrets from me. So, to be clear, this Jonathan, this paragon of beauty, he is the man you love? I am disappointed, Lanore, to find that you are so easily led by a handsome face-”

“Who are you to speak!” I said, outraged. “When it comes to love of beauty, who is the one who gathers pretty creatures to him like an art collector? If love of beauty is shallowness, you are far more guilty than I-”

“Oh, do not be so quick to take offense. I’m only teasing you. The fact that this Jonathan is the man you believe you love is reason enough for me to want to meet him, don’t you think?”

Jude raised his eyebrows. “If I didn’t know better, Adair, I’d say you sound a trifle jealous.”

In a panic to change Adair’s mind, I pleaded, “Spare Jonathan. He has a family who depends on him. I don’t want him drawn into this. As for loving him… you’re right, but he is gone from my life. I loved him once but no longer.”

Adair cocked his head, and appraised me. “Oh, my dear, you lie. You would have given up on him by now, if that were the case. But you love him still. I feel it here,” he said, as he touched my breast above my heart. His sparkling eyes, flecked with a note of pain, bored into me. “Bring him to me. I want to meet the man of amazing beauty who has fascinated our Lanore.”

“If this is about bedding him, it won’t do you any good. He’s not-like Alejandro or Dona.”

Jude blurted out a rude laugh, then covered his mouth quickly, and it seemed for a moment that Adair, bubbling with a spike of rage, might strike me. “You think I am only interested in this man to swive him? You think that is my only use for a man such as your Jonathan? No, Lanore, I want to meet him. I want to see why he is so deserving of your love. Perhaps we are like souls, he and I. I could use a new companion, a friend. I am sick of being surrounded by fawning sycophants. You’re all little more than servants-treacherous, scheming, demanding. I am sick of all of you.” Adair stepped away and slammed his empty glass down on the sideboard. “Besides, what complaints could you have about your life here? Your days are spent in pleasure and comfort. I’ve given you everything you could want, treated you as a princess. I’ve opened your world, haven’t I? Freed your mind from the limitations put there by those ignorant priests and ministers, and introduced you to secrets that learned men spend their lives seeking. All these things I’ve given you freely, my dear, haven’t I? Frankly, your ingratitude offends me.”

I bit my tongue, knowing nothing good would come of pointing out all that he’d put me through. What could I do except bow my head and murmur, “I’m sorry, Adair.”

He clenched and unclenched his jaw and pressed his knuckles against the table, using the silence between us to show that he was coming down from his rage. “If this Jonathan is truly your friend, I would think you’d want to share your good fortune with him.”

That may have been Adair’s view of my life with him, but it only demonstrated the extent of his delusion. The truth was more complicated; grateful as I was, I was also afraid of him and felt like a prisoner in his house. I’d been made into a prostitute and didn’t want Jonathan to see me like this, let alone draw him into this predicament with me.

As he left the room, Adair smirked over his shoulder at me. “Don’t think for a moment that you fool me, Lanore. You protest, but in your heart you want this, too.”

I could not let Jonathan suffer the same fate as me-ever. “Jude is not exaggerating; Jonathan lives far, far away,” I continued, ignoring his slander. “You’d have to travel for three weeks by boat and carriage and have nothing at the end of it but forest and field. No parties, no gaming. Not even a public house to put you up.”

Adair studied me for a second. “Very well, then. I will not make this trip, if it is as tedious as you say. You will go and fetch him for me. That is a fine test of your loyalty, don’t you think?”

My heart sank.

During his stay at the mansion, Jude went with us to parties, but at the end of a night’s carousing, as the group of us made our way to our chambers, Adair would block Jude from following us into the bedroom, throwing a shoulder against the door with a cold smirk and a cheery good night.

Jude’s stay was short. He spent an afternoon behind closed doors with Adair in the study, after which I saw Jude dropping coins into his purse; clearly Adair was compensating him for something.

The day Jude was to leave us, he sought me out as I sat sewing in the morning room, taking advantage of the light. He bowed before me as though I was the lady of the house, holding his hat in his hands.

“Needlework? I’m surprised you take up needle and thread any longer, Lanore. Surely you have servants to attend to chores,” he said. “Although, it’s a good idea to practice your skills. Life with Adair won’t always be like this, you know-the big house, servants, riches at your fingertips. There will be lean times when you will need to take care of yourself, if my experience serves me,” he said, smiling ruefully.

“Thank you for that piece of advice,” I said, icily, making a great show of my tolerance for his presence. “But you see that I am busy-is there a reason you’ve sought me out?”

“I’ll not be imposing on your goodwill any longer, Miss Lanore,” he said, almost meekly. “I take my leave today.”

“My goodwill? My feelings do not enter into whether you are welcome in this house or not. Adair’s wishes are all that matter.”

The preacher chuckled at this, dusting his hat against his leg. “Lanore, surely you know that Adair considers your wishes in most things? He is very taken with you. I think you must be quite special to him. I don’t mind telling you that I’ve never seen him act this way before… He’s never been so smitten by a woman, I daresay.” I have to admit, I was flattered by his words, though I kept my head lowered over my sewing and tried not to show it.

Jude then fixed his maniacal glare upon me. “I’ve come to warn you, too. It’s a dangerous game you’re playing. There’s a reason the rest of us maintain a distance from Adair, and we’ve learned our lesson the hard way. But now you’ve shown him love and that’s given him the notion that he is deserving of such devotion. Did you ever think that perhaps the only thing that holds the devil in check is that he knows how despised he is? Even the devil longs for sympathy at times, but sympathy for the devil is fuel for the flame. Your love will embolden him-likely in a way that will bring you regret.”

His warning rattled and surprised me; it was not something I’d expected from him. But I said nothing, waiting for him to continue.

“I have a question for you and I hope you’ll be honest with me. What does a girl like you see in Adair? I have looked into your heart and seen it to be wild and adventurous. He’s introduced you to the world of carnal pleasures and you’ve embraced it as only a child raised by the puritanical will do-to his delight, I might add. Perhaps your wildness is only foolishness, Lanore-have you considered this? Give your lovely body to Adair, if that is your wish, but why would you give your heart over to a man who will only abuse it? He is unworthy of your loyalty, of your love. You are being reckless with your heart, Lanore. I think you are a little too innocent to consort with the likes of him. Forgive me for speaking my mind, but it is for your own good.”

I was flabbergasted by his words. Who was he to call me foolish; I was trapped like the rest of them, wasn’t I, forced to appease a tyrannical master in order to survive. No, at the time I saw myself as doing the best I could in a terrible situation. I see it differently now, of course; I know I was reckless and unable to speak the truth to myself. I should have been grateful that Jude took the great risk of warning me in Adair’s own house, but I was too suspicious to trust him and instead, I tried to bluff him into thinking I knew what I was doing. “Well, I thank you for your advice-I suppose-but you’ll forgive me if I say I must decide what is to be done for myself.”

“Oh, but it’s not just for yourself, is it?” he asked. “You’re about to bring your Jonathan into it, too, the man for whom you profess such great love. The eagerness with which you agreed to Adair’s proposal makes me wonder if perhaps he wasn’t right. You want to do as Adair instructs you, don’t you? You want your love to be caught in Adair’s trap because it means he will be trapped with you.”

“Do you know what I think?” I nearly shouted, pushing the needlework off my lap as I sprang to my feet. “You’re not here to give me advice at all. You’re jealous. You wanted to bring Jonathan to Adair yourself but you couldn’t. I will succeed where you failed…” For all my vehemence, I didn’t know what I was talking about; I would certainly have more influence over Jonathan than Jude, but for what purpose? Jude knew, but I didn’t.

He shook his head and backed away a step. “I make sure that the people I bring to Adair’s attention are deserving in their way. And they go to him of their own free will. What’s more, I would never give him someone I claimed to love. Never.”

I should have asked him what he meant; but like many a young person, I thought it better to bluff than to reveal that I didn’t know what I was doing. And I didn’t trust Jude; he was showing me a completely different face and I didn’t know what to make of it. Was he hoping to trap me in a moment of disloyalty to Adair, a master he had served far longer than he had known me? Perhaps that was his role among Adair’s pack, to be the infiltrator, the informant.

I forced a glower on my face but was trembling, unnerved. Jude had pushed me to the edge of composure. “I’ve heard enough from you. Leave now before I go to Adair with your deceit.”

He drew back in surprise, but only momentarily, then let his shoulders sink. He bowed again in a mock show of respect as he backed out of the room. “I see that I was entirely mistaken about you, Lanore. You’re far from reckless with your heart… You know exactly what you are doing, don’t you? I hope you’ve made peace with God for what you are about to do.”

I tried to calm my breathing and my racing heart, and tell myself that not one of his words was true. “Get out,” I repeated, taking a step toward him as though I could drive him out of the house. “And I hope to never see you again.”

“Alas, that is not our fate, I fear. The world is a small place, given an eternity, as you will see. Whether you or I wish it or not, our paths will cross again,” he said as he swept out of the room.

THIRTY

Preparations for the trip began immediately, my passage booked on a cargo ship departing for Camden in four days. Dona, only too happy to see me go, helped me choose a sturdy pair of traveling trunks from among the dozens and dozens that had made the trip from Europe. In one we put the best of my clothing and in the other, gifts for my family: a bolt of silk from China; a set of collar and cuffs made of Belgian lace, ready to append to a dress; a gold necklace set with faintly pink opals. Adair insisted I take enticements for Jonathan, to show him what delights were available outside the Great North Woods. I explained that my friend had only one weakness, women, and so Dona shuffled through the boxes and unearthed a deck of playing cards, painted with lewdly explicit figures in place of the usual king, queen, jack of the various suits, with the queen of hearts being depicted in an especially remarkable and daring pose; a book of pornographic verse (though Jonathan had never been one for literature; if any book could make a reader out of Jonathan, perhaps this one could); a figurine of carved jade, said to be acquired from the Far East, of a trio having a sexual adventure; and last, a velvet jewelry roll holding, instead of bracelets or rings, a set of carved dildos, one each made of wood, ivory, and ebony.

I frowned at this last gift. “I’m not sure this would be to his taste,” I said, holding up the ebony one, the largest of the triplets, to study its detailing.

“Not for his usage,” Dona said, taking the dildo from me and rolling it up with the others in the velvet casing. “You’ve made his proclivities plain enough. This could be used, say, to entertain his ladies, a novelty to whet their appetites and put them in a playful frame of mind. Would you like me to show you how they are used?” he asked, then cast me a sideways look, incredulous at my lack of sexual sophistication, thinking that perhaps I was not up to the job.

While Dona riffled through the trunks, intent on finding the specific trinket he had in mind, I amused myself by digging through the chests, too, unwrapping mysterious bundles, marveling at the treasure stored within (a bejeweled music box shaped like an egg, a miniature mechanical bird that flapped metal wings and sang a tinny song). Eventually, in a dusty trunk shoved under the eaves in the farthest corner, I found an item that gave me goose bumps. A heavy seal, golden in color (but made of brass, certainly; an object that size made of gold would be worth a fortune), wrapped in velvet and stored in a deerskin pouch. The seal of the long-dead physic of which Adair had spoken? Had he held on to it as a keepsake?

“There you go.” Dona’s voice called me back and I hastily closed the trunk and pushed it back to its resting place. Dona had wrapped Jonathan’s packages in a square of red silk and tied it with a gold cord. He’d wrapped the presents for my family in a length of blue fabric and some white ribbon. “Do not confuse these two packages.”

I was perhaps lulled into complacency by these preparations. Adair was being so accommodating with the assortment of gifts, the luxurious travel arrangements. I began to wonder if I didn’t have a choice in this, after all, if this wasn’t my chance to get out of his grasp. Perhaps I could not trust myself to consider these mutinous possibilities in Adair’s presence, lying in bed next to him, but surely hundreds of miles away from him I would be safe. Distance must weaken the link between us.

I was comforted by this thought, maybe even emboldened. I began to see this trip as my chance for escape; perhaps I could even convince Jonathan to leave his family and their expectations behind and escape with me.

That is, until the following afternoon.

Tilde and I were returning from the milliner’s with Tilde’s new hat when we saw the girl. She stood in an alley, peeking out at the traffic on the street. From what we could see of her, she was thin and gray, a tiny mouse dressed in limp rags. Tilde went over to the girl, causing her to scurry deeper into the alley.

I was wondering why Tilde had gone after the girl in the first place and if I should join them when they started toward me. In the overcast light of the afternoon, I saw how pitiful the girl was. She looked like a rag that had been crumpled up and discarded, the knowledge that she was disposable stamped everlasting in her eyes.

“This is Patience,” Tilde said, holding the girl’s small hand in hers. “She needs a place to stay, so I thought we would take her home with us. Give her a meal and a roof over her head for a few nights. You don’t imagine Adair will mind, do you?” Her smile was vulpine and triumphant, reminding me immediately of how she and the others had found me on the street a few months earlier. The effect was just as she’d intended. On seeing the alarm on my face, she gave me a sharp, warning look and I knew I was meant to say nothing.

Tilde hailed a carriage and ushered the girl up the steps ahead of us. The little one sat on the edge of the bench, staring out the window with wide eyes, watching Boston spin by. Had I looked like this, so pitiful, nothing more than prey for a predator, practically begging to be eaten?

“Where have you come from, Patience?” I asked.

She regarded me cautiously. “I run away.”

“From home?”

She shook her head but offered no further explanation.

“How old are you?”

“Fourteen.” She looked no older than twelve and seemed to know it, her eyes darting away from my inquisitive stare.

Tilde took her to an upstairs room as soon as we arrived at the mansion. “I’ll send a servant with some water so you can wash up,” she said, causing the girl self-consciously to raise her hand to her dirty cheek. “I’ll have some food brought up, too. I’m going to find you something warmer to wear. Lanore, why don’t you come with me?”

She went straight to my room and began rustling through my clothing without asking permission. “We gave all the small things to you, I think… Surely you have something that will fit the girl…”

“I don’t understand…” I cut in front of Tilde and closed the door of the armoire. “Why did you bring her here? What do you intend to do with her?”

Tilde smirked. “Don’t pretend to be stupid, Lanore. Of anyone, you should know-”

“She’s still a child! You can’t hand her over to Adair as though she’s a toy.” Of all the things I’d known Adair to do, he’d never molested a child. I didn’t think I could stomach that.

Tilde went over to a trunk. “She may be on the young side, but she’s no innocent. She told me she ran away from a workhouse where she’d been sent to have her baby. Fourteen and with a child. Honestly! We are doing her a favor,” she said as she plucked out a narrow set of stays with serviceable cotton laces.

I slumped onto my bed.

“Give these to her and clean her up a little.” Tilde shoved the clothing at me. “I’ll see about getting her something to eat.”

Patience was standing at the window, looking down on the street when I returned to her room. She pushed dirty strands of brown hair from her eyes and looked covetously at the clothing in my arms.

I held it out to her. “Go ahead, put these on.” I turned my back as she stripped. “So, Tilde tells me you are from a workhouse…”

“Yes, miss.”

“… where you had a baby. Tell me, what happened to your child?” My heart thumped in my throat; surely she didn’t run away and leave him behind.

“They took him away from me,” she said defensively. “I never seen him, not since he was born.”

“I’m sorry.”

“That’s done and over with. I wish…” She stopped, perhaps thinking better of sharing too much with these suspect ladies who had swept her off the street. I knew how she felt. “The other lady tells me there might be a job for me here, as a kitchen girl maybe?”

“Would you like that?”

“But she says I have to meet the master of the house first, to see if he approves of me.” She searched my face for some sign that I was in agreement, that a strange trick wasn’t being played on her. Tilde was wrong; the girl was still very much an innocent. Like it or not, I heard Jude’s words ring in my ears: she was too innocent to consort with the likes of Adair. I could not let what had happened to me happen to her.

I grabbed her hand. “Come with me. Don’t say a word or make a sound.”

We ran down the back staircase, the servants’ stairs, which I knew Tilde never used, and through the kitchen to the back entrance. A handful of coins sat on the corner of the chopping block, waiting no doubt for a deliveryman. I scooped the money up and pressed it into Patience’s hand.

“Go. Take this money and keep the clothing.”

She looked at me as though I’d lost my mind. “But where am I to go? They’ll punish me for sure if I go back to the workhouse, and I can’t go home to my family…”

“Then take your punishment, or throw yourself on the mercy of your family. For all the wickedness you’ve already seen, there’s more that you have no knowledge of, Patience. Go! It’s for your own good,” I said as I pushed her out the door, then slammed it shut. The scullery girl entered at this moment and gave me a fishy eye, and I went back up the stairs to the shelter of my room.

I paced wildly. If I’d thrown the girl out for her own safety, what excuse had I for living here? I knew that what I was doing with Adair was wrong, I knew this was a wicked place and yet… fear had held me in place. Just as fear now prodded me in the back; it was only a matter of minutes before Tilde realized her catch had been released, then she and Adair would be on me like a pair of lions. I began throwing clothing into a satchel as every nerve in my body told me to flee. Flee or face a terrible wrath.

I was on the street and in a carriage without thinking, counting the money in my purse. Not much but enough to get me away from Boston. The carriage left me at the office for a coach service and I bought fare on the next passenger coach out of Boston, heading for New York City. “The coach don’t leave for another hour,” the clerk told me. “There’s a public house across the street where some people wait until it’s time,” he said helpfully.

I sat with a pot of tea in front of me, my satchel at my feet, my first chance to catch my breath and think since I’d fled. Even with fear hammering in my heart, I also felt peculiarly optimistic. I was leaving Adair’s house. How many times had I wished to do it but lacked the courage? Now I’d done the deed in haste and there were no signs that I’d been discovered. Surely he’d not find me in an hour-Boston was a big place-and then I would be on the road, untraceable. I wrapped my hands around the white china pot for the warmth and allowed myself a tiny sigh of relief. Perhaps Adair’s house had all been an illusion, a bad dream that only seemed like reality while in the midst of it. Maybe he had no power to harm me out here. Maybe summoning the courage to run out the door was the only test. The question now, of course, was where to go and what to do with my life.

Then, suddenly, I was aware of the presence of several people at my elbow. Adair, Alejandro, Tilde. Adair crouched next to me and whispered in my ear, “Come with me now, Lanore, and do not think of making a scene. There is jewelry, I’ll warrant, in your bag and if you call for help I will tell the authorities that you stole these valuables from my home. The others will swear to it.”

His hand nearly crushed my elbow as he pulled me from my seat. I felt his anger radiate like heat from a fire. I couldn’t look at any of them in the carriage on the way to the house-I just sat withdrawn into myself, my mouth rusted shut with fear. We’d barely gotten inside the front door when he reached out and slapped me hard across my cheek, knocking me to the floor. Alejandro and Tilde swept hurriedly behind me and out of the hall, like birds lifting from a field ahead of a storm.

From the fury in Adair’s eyes, he looked like he wanted to tear me to pieces. “What did you think you were doing? Where were you going?”

No words came to me, but as it turned out, he wanted no answers. He only wanted to hit me, over and over, until I lay in a broken heap at his feet, looking at him through swollen eyes and a haze of blood. His anger hadn’t subsided; that was apparent as he nursed his knuckles and paced in front of me.

“Is this how you repay my generosity, my trust?” he roared. “I take you into my house, my family, clothe you, keep you safe… In some ways, you are like a child to me. So it is understandable, how disappointed you have made me. I warned you-you are mine, whether you wish it or not. You will never, ever leave me, not until I allow you to go.”

Then he lifted me up and carried me to the back part of the house, the kitchen and servants’ domain though they’d all disappeared like mice. He carried me down a flight of stairs to the forlorn cellar, past crates of wine, sacks of flour, and unused furniture stored under drapes, through a narrow passage, its walls damp with chill, and finally to an old oak door, heavily scarred. The light in the room was dim. Dona stood by the door in a robe, tightly cinched at his waist, and he hunched over as though sick. Something terrible was about to happen if Dona, who usually delighted in the misfortune of others, was afraid. In his hand dangled a spider’s web of leather straps, a harness, but unlike any horse’s harness I’d ever seen.

Adair dropped me to the floor. “Get her ready,” he said to Dona, who began to peel off my sweaty, bloodied clothing. Behind him, Adair started undressing. Once I was naked, Dona began strapping the harness to me. It was a design of nightmares and began to contort my body in an unnatural position, a pose of utmost vulnerability. It bound my arms behind my back and pulled my head almost to the point of breaking from my neck. Dona let out a whimper as he notched up the straps, but he did not make them any looser. Adair towered over me, his manner menacing and his intent clear.

“The time has come to teach you obedience. I’d hoped, for your sake, it wouldn’t be necessary. It seemed that you were destined to be different-” He stopped, catching himself. “Everyone must be punished once, so they know what will happen to them if they try again. I told you you’d never leave me and yet you tried to run away. You’ll never try to run away again.” Adair wove his fingers into my hair and drew his face close to mine. “And remember this while you are back in your village with your family and with your Jonathan-there is nowhere you can go that I can’t find you. You can never escape me.”

“The girl…,” I tried to say through lips sealed with dried blood.

“This is not about the girl, Lanore. Though you should learn to accept what goes on in my house-you will accept it, and be a part of it, too. This is about you turning your back on me, refusing me. I will not allow that. Especially from you, I would not have expected that you-” He choked off the rest, thinking better of it, but I knew what he meant to say, that he did not want to regret giving a piece of his heart to me.

I won’t tell you what happened to me in that room. Allow me this shred of privacy, to keep from you the details of my debasement. It should be enough to know that it was the most horrific ordeal I have ever suffered. It was not just Adair who was my torturer: he enlisted Dona, too, though it was clearly against the Italian’s will. It was my taste of the devil’s fire that Jude had warned me about, a lesson that tempting the devil’s love is a great risk. Such love, if it can be called that, is never sweet. Eventually, you will experience it for what it is. It is vitriol. It is poison. It is acid poured down your throat.

I was barely conscious when they’d finished. I opened my eyes a slit to see Adair picking up his clothing from the ground. He was slick with sweat and his hair was plastered to his neck in dark curls. Dona had gotten his robe on, too, and was crawling on his hands and knees, pale and shaky, as though he might be ill at any second.

Adair raked his hands through his wet hair, then tossed his head in Dona’s direction. “Get her upstairs and have someone clean her up,” he said before exiting the room.

I winced as Dona undid the leather straps. They had bit into my skin, leaving me with dozens of cuts, the wounds opening again when the straps pulled against the dried blood. He left the horrible contraption on the floor-the straps shaping themselves into a hollow human form-and picked me up in his arms, the tenderest I had ever seen Dona, before or since.

He took me to the room with the copper bathtub, where Alejandro waited with buckets of hot water. Then Alejandro washed me gently, wiping away the blood and the fluids, but I could barely stand his touch and I couldn’t stop crying.

“I am in hell, Alejandro. How can I go on?”

He took my hand and daubed it with a cloth. “You have no choice. It might help to know that we have all been through this, each of us. There is no shame in what happened to you, not among us.” Even as he washed, my wounds were healing, the tiny slashes disappearing, the bruises yellowing. He dried me and wrapped me in a clean banyan, and we lay together on the bed, Alejandro nestled behind me, not letting me shrink from him.

“So, what happens next?” I asked, my fingers laced with his.

“Nothing. It will go back to as it was before. You must try to forget what was done to you today, but not the lesson. Never forget the lesson.”

The night before I was to depart for Boston was a miserable one. I wanted to be left alone with my worries, but Adair insisted on taking me to his bed. I was now terrified of him, needless to say, but he paid no mind to the change in my behavior; I suppose he was used to this from all his minions and expected I would come around again, in time. Or perhaps he didn’t care that he’d shattered my trust in him. I remembered Alejandro’s advice and behaved as though nothing had happened, trying to be as attentive as ever.

Adair had drunk heavily-perhaps to blot out what he’d done to make me so fearful of him-and puffed on the hookah until clouds of narcotic smoke filled the room. That night in bed I was a distracted, absent partner: all I could think about was what I was going to do to Jonathan. I was about to condemn him to eternity with this madman. Jonathan had done nothing to deserve this.

I had not worked out in my head what I would say to my family on my return to St. Andrew, either. After all, I’d disappeared from their lives when I’d run away from the harbor a year ago. Surely they would have made inquiries of the convent and the shipping master, only to be told that I’d arrived in Boston and promptly vanished. Perhaps they held out hope I was still alive and had run away in order to keep my baby. Had they checked with the authorities in Boston, harangued the constabulary to search for me until they lost hope and were sure that I had been murdered? I wondered if they’d held a mock funeral for me in St. Andrew-no, my father would not let them display such emotion. Instead, my mother and sisters would carry their grief around with them, heavy stones sewn under their skin, close to their hearts.

And what of Jonathan, for that matter-what did he think had happened to me? Perhaps he had thought of me as deceased-if he thought of me at all. Tears flooded my eyes instantly: surely he thought of me once in a while, the woman who loved him most in the world! But I had to face the fact that I was dead to everyone in St. Andrew. Survivors come to accept a loved one having passed away. They mourn for a while, weeks or months, but eventually the memory is consigned to the past and only visited occasionally, like a once beloved toy stumbled upon in the attic, patted lovingly, but then left behind again.

I woke in the half-lit hours of dawn, sweaty and disheveled from a restless sleep. The ship was to sail on the morning tide and I had to get to the docks before sunrise. As I leaned over to search for my discarded linen under the bedding, I drank in the sight of Adair, his head on the pillow. I guess it’s true that even devils look like angels in their sleep, when stillness and contentment are upon them. His eyes were closed, his long lashes brushing his cheeks; his hair tumbled over his shoulders in dark, lustrous curls; and the wisps of hair on his cheeks made him look like a youth, not a man capable of inhuman cruelties.

My head ached from the narcotic I’d breathed all night. If I felt this bad, I figured Adair had to be nearly comatose. I picked up his hand and let it fall, dead weight. He didn’t so much as grunt or shift under the covers.

Then a perverse thought came to me. I recalled the tiny silver vial that held the elixir of life, the drop of demonic magic that had changed me forever. Take it, the voice said, that vial is the root of Adair’s power. This is your chance to get back at him. Steal his power and take it with you to St. Andrew.

With the potion, I’d have the ability to bind Jonathan to me, as I was bound to Adair. The thought flashed through my mind, but my stomach went weak. I could never use it-I could never transform someone into what I was now.

Take it to get back at Adair. It’s all the magic he has in the world. Think how panicked he’ll be when he realizes it’s missing!

I wanted revenge for what he’d done to me in the basement. I resented being sent on this errand, being forced to condemn my beloved to an eternity with this monster. More than anything I wanted to get back at Adair.

I prefer to think that I was possessed by a power far stronger than my reason, for I inched cautiously out of bed, dropping my bare feet silently to the floor. As I slipped on one of Adair’s banyans, I surveyed the room: where would he hide the vial? I’d seen it only that day, never before or since.

I went to the dressing room. Was it on the tray that held the sewing needles, or in the jewelry case, tucked among the rings and stickpins? Perhaps in the toe of a seldom worn slipper? I was on my knees, feeling my way through a row of his shoes, before I realized Adair would never store such a valuable object where his valet might find it and pocket it. He would either keep it on him at all times-and I’d seen him stark naked on many occasions, with no sign of the vial-or he would secret it away where no one would think to look for it. Where no one would dare look for it.

Candle in hand, I scurried out of the room and took the servants’ stairs to the cellar, through the dank subterranean halls that smelled of old standing water, trailing a hand along the thick stone walls. Slowing as I approached the room where no one went and that everyone feared, I pushed back the scarred door and stepped onto the pounded dirt floor where I had recently lain, bleeding.

Holding my breath, I tiptoed to the lone trunk on the other side of the room and lifted the lid. Inside was the hated thing, the nightmarish harness, straps stiff with my sweat, still formed in the shape of my body. I almost dropped the lid at the sight of it, but held my fright in check when I noticed a small bundle in a corner of the trunk. I reached in and lifted out a man’s handkerchief, folded into a tiny pillow.

I peeled back a corner of the handkerchief to see… the vial. In the light of the candle, the silver vial glimmered like an ornament on a Christmas tree, sparkling with the same kind of faintly tarnished luster. The light seemed to pulse ominously, a warning of some kind. But I’d come this far and was not about to turn back now. The vial was mine. I balled my fist around it, pressed it to my heart, and stole out of the dungeon.

THIRTY-ONE

Outside the window of the motel room, the sky has gone blue-black, the color of ink from a ballpoint pen. They’d left the blind up as they tumbled into bed together, and now that the rush to discover each other’s bodies is over, Lanny and Luke lie side by side, gazing out the window at the northern stars. He runs his fingers down her bare arm, marveling at the luminosity of her skin, how perfect it is, cream with a spattering of faint gold freckles. Her body is a series of smooth, low-rising curves. He wants to skim his hands over her again and again, as if by doing this he can carry off a part of her for himself. He wonders if the magic in her has made her more beautiful, enhanced her natural appearance.

He can’t believe his good fortune in having gone to bed with her. He feels faintly like a dirty old man, as he hasn’t held a woman this firm since long before he was married. Not since he was in his twenties, but he doesn’t remember the sex being as good, perhaps because he and his partners were too self-conscious. He can imagine what his ex-wife or friends would say if they saw Lanny; they would think he was in the clutches of an epic midlife crisis, helping a barely legal woman evade the police in exchange for sex.

She looks him over with a smile on her beautiful face, and he wonders what she can possibly find pleasing about him. He’s always thought of himself as an ordinary man: average height, more thin than fat but hardly in any shape worthy of admiration; shaggy, wavy hair on the border between sandy brown and blond. His patients have implied that he’s hippieish, like some of the backpackers who descend on St. Andrew in the summer, but Luke thinks they’ve gotten this impression because he tends toward disarray when there’s no one around to tidy him up. What could a woman like her see in a man like him? he wonders.

Before he can ask, however, there’s a distraction at the window, a rippling of shadows outside the glass that indicates movement on the walkway. Luke just has time to sit up before banging erupts on the other side of the door and a deep male voice barks, “Open up! This is the police.”

Luke holds his breath, unable to think, to react, to do, but Lanny is out of the bed in one leap, sheet wrapped around her body, landing noiselessly on cat’s feet. She holds a finger to her lips and slips around the corner into the little kitchenette area and then into the bathroom. When she is out of sight, he climbs out of bed, wraps a blanket around his waist, and opens the door.

Two police officers fill the open doorway, shining a flashlight into Luke’s face. “We got a call about a man having sex with a minor… can you turn on a light, sir?” one of the officers asks, sounding exasperated, as though there is nothing he’d like better than to drive Luke into the wall, a police baton jammed against his throat. Both officers stare at Luke’s bare chest and the blanket cinched around his hips. Luke snaps on the closest switch, lighting up the room.

“Where’s the girl who registered for the room?”

“What girl?” Luke manages to say, though his throat is dry as desert sand. “There must be a mistake. This is my room.”

“So you registered for this room?”

Luke nods.

“I don’t think so. The desk clerk said there’s only one room rented out on this side of the building. To a girl. She told the clerk the room was for her and her father.” The police officers crowd the door. “A housekeeper said she heard what sounded like people having sex in here, and since the clerk knew the room was occupied by a father and daughter…”

Panic washes over Luke as he tries to recover from his lie. “Oh, yeah, that’s what I mean. The girl, we’re together, that’s why I said this is my room… but she’s not my daughter. I don’t know why she would have told anyone that.”

“Right.” They look unconvinced. “Do you mind if we come in and look around? We’d like to talk to the girl-is she here?”

Luke freezes, listening-he doesn’t hear anything, which makes him think she’s slipped out. In the police officers’ eyes, Luke sees barely controlled indignation; they would probably like nothing better than to knock him to the ground and kick the shit out of him for all the abused daughters they have seen in their careers. Luke is just about to stammer an excuse when he notices that the policemen are looking at something behind him. He turns, twisting the cheap peach blanket around his legs.

Lanny stands with the sheet still wrapped around her naked body, drinking from a battered red plastic glass, a look of surprise and feigned embarrassment in her eyes. “Oh! I thought I heard someone at the door. Good evening, Officers. Is something wrong?”

The two policemen size her up, head to bare feet, before answering. “Did you register for this room, miss?”

She nods.

“And is this man your father?”

She goes sheepish. “Oh goodness, no. No… I don’t know why I said that to the guy at the front desk. I was afraid he wouldn’t rent us the room, I suppose, since we’re not married. He seemed-I dunno-the judgmental type. I just didn’t think it was any of his business.”

“Uh-huh. We’re going to have to see some ID.” They are trying to be dispassionate, trying to dispel their righteous anger now that there is no pervert here to bring to justice.

“You have no right to check up on us. It was consensual, what we did,” Luke says as he puts an arm around Lanny, drawing her against his side. He wants the police to leave now. He wants this embarrassing, nerve-racking experience behind him.

“We just have to see proof that you’re not-you know,” the younger of the two policemen says, ducking his head and making an impatient gesture with his flashlight. There is no alternative but to let the officers look over his driver’s license and her passport, hoping that any police bulletin from St. Andrew hasn’t made it over the border to Canada.

Luke soon realizes that he needn’t have worried: the two officers are so flustered and disappointed that they make the most cursory pass over the identification, quite possibly not even reading either document, before shuffling backward out the door with barely audible apologies for the inconvenience. As soon as they’ve left, Luke pulls the blind over the window that looks onto the walkway.

“Oh my god,” Lanny says before collapsing on the bed.

“We should leave. I should get you to a city.”

“I can’t ask you to take any more chances for me…”

“I can’t leave you here, can I?” He gets dressed while Lanny is in the bathroom, water running. He runs a hand over his chin, feeling stubble, realizing it has been about twenty-four hours since he last shaved, then he decides to see if the parking lot is clear. He hooks a finger behind the blind and peeks out: the squad car is sitting next to the SUV.

He lets the blind fall back into place. “Damn it. They’re still outside.”

Lanny looks up from her suitcase. “What?”

“The two cops, they’re still out there. Running a check on the license plate, maybe.”

“You think?”

“Maybe they’re seeing if we have records.” He rubs his lower lip, thinking. They probably can’t get answers right away on U.S. license plates or drivers’ licenses; they probably have to wait for a reply to come back through the system, through police liaison units. There might be a sliver of time before…

Luke reaches for Lanny. “We have to go, now.”

“Won’t they try to stop us?”

“Leave your suitcase, everything. Just get dressed.”

They leave the hotel room hand in hand and have started walking to their vehicle when the window of the squad car slides down. “Hey,” the police officer on the passenger side calls out, “you can’t leave yet.”

Luke drops Lanny’s hand so she can hang back while he approaches the patrol car. “Why can’t we leave? We haven’t done anything wrong. We showed you our ID. You don’t have any reason to detain us. This is starting to feel like harassment.”

The two officers bristle, uncertain but not liking the sound of the word “harassment.”

“Look,” Luke continues, opening his hands to show that they’re empty. “We’re just going out to dinner. Do we look like we’re going to bolt? We left our luggage in the room; we’re paid up for the night. If you still have questions when your background checks come in, you can always catch us after dinner. But if you’re not going to arrest me, I believe you can’t stop me.” Luke speaks calmly and reasonably, arms outstretched, like a man trying to dissuade thieves from robbing him. Lanny climbs into the front seat of the big SUV, giving the police officers a hostile glare. He follows her, starts the engine, and pulls out of the parking space smoothly, checking one last time to be sure the squad car doesn’t follow them.

It’s not until they’re well down the road that Lanny pulls the laptop from under her jacket. “I couldn’t leave it behind. It has too much damning information on it, tying me to Jonathan, stuff they could use as evidence if they wanted to,” she explains, as though she feels guilty for having taken the risk to save it. After a second, she removes the bag of pot from her pocket, like she’s lifting a rabbit from a magician’s hat.

Luke’s heart warbles in his throat. “The pot, too?”

“I figured after they’d realized we weren’t coming back, they’d search the room for sure. This would give them a reason to arrest us…” She stuffs the bag back in her jacket pocket. “Do you think we’re safe?”

He checks the rearview mirror again. “I dunno… they have the license plate number now. If they remember our names, my name…” They are going to have to abandon the SUV and Luke feels terrible for having borrowed Peter’s car. He must take his mind off it. “I don’t want to think about it now. Tell me some more of your story.”