strange atmosphere in this strange house is starting to play tricks with his mind, but at that moment the voices cease, and there is the sound of footsteps coming towards him. Charles considers for a split second standing his ground and confronting the Baron, but some instinct tells him not yet, not yet. So he turns and retreats the way he came, and there is no trace of him remaining when Von Reisenberg emerges and, once again, locks the door watchfully behind him.
It is not till near two that the storm abates, and a good while after that before Charles slips into a fitful and fretful sleep. He dreams again ofMolly, but she is not, now, in the kitchen in his uncle’s house, but a cold mimicry of life among the Baron’s female figurines. He reaches to touch her face, but it is as if his hand is pushing through thick water—as if he, too, is imprisoned in immobility—but then he is recoiling in horror as the eyes in the fake face brim suddenly with living tears. And when he looks down at her body he sees that she, too, has been flayed to lay bare the unborn child, but these painted wounds gape with real blood-sodden flesh, and the baby—his baby—throbs in her open womb, dying, as she is dying—wax, as she is wax—
He sits up with a strangled cry. The sweat rolls down his back, and his hair is wet against the back of his neck. He takes great gasps of air, willing his heart to slow, his breathing to abate. He has no idea how long it is before he notices there is a line of light slanting across the floor and realises that the door to his room is open, though he’s sure he bolted it before he went to bed. Then the light is gone and the room is drowned in dark. A dark he has never seen so deep before. Dark so absolute that he can see nothing, not the outlines of the furniture, not even the tiny sliver of moonlight between the shutter and the sill. He sits, motionless, alert now to every tiny sound in the room, and his senses start to distrust themselves as the fizzing silence mingles with the sound of—what? Bare feet on the thick carpet? A hand drawing back a damask drape? And then he shudders as if stung. An icy finger is running, slowly, teasingly up his bare arm, so lightly it scarcely feathers his skin, but so piercingly it’s as if a needle of fire is threading his veins. He puts his hands out wildly, blindly, but encounters nothing, touches no-one. Then he hears the sound of laughter—playful, mischievous laughter—that seems to echo all about the room. He makes to get up but finds himself constrained. Something is binding his wrists, holding him down. He tries to wrench his hands free, but feels a cord dig against his skin. And now his arms are being drawn back behind him—he struggles but the grasp is too strong, and his wrists are forced hard against the wood of the bedstead and he hears the rustle of satin being tied. And now he is in no doubt. A woman isclimbing onto his lap and tearing open his shirt with frozen fingers. He can smell her scent, feel the caress of silken ringlets and the tip of a hot wet tongue slipping across his chest and down, down, down. And then there are lips at his throat that sharpen into teeth, and a cold hand that stifles his breathing, and the low murmur of a man’s voice, speaking words he cannot understand.
When he wakes the next morning there’s a tell-tale stain on the sheets that leaves him red with shame. But there is nothing to say he did not dream it entirely—no marks about his wrists, no tear to his shirt, and when he goes to the door it is locked, and from the inside.
But later, when he strips off his night-shirt to wash, he finds two tiny spots of blood at the neck, which were not there before.
CHAPTER THREE
“W HO IS SHE? ”
Charles is standing at the door of the Baron’s library. It is eight o’clock, and the storm has cleared, leaving a sky blanched to pallid washy blue and the Danube running high and turbid brown. Charles has not yet
It is not till near two that the storm abates, and a good while after that before Charles slips into a fitful and fretful sleep. He dreams again ofMolly, but she is not, now, in the kitchen in his uncle’s house, but a cold mimicry of life among the Baron’s female figurines. He reaches to touch her face, but it is as if his hand is pushing through thick water—as if he, too, is imprisoned in immobility—but then he is recoiling in horror as the eyes in the fake face brim suddenly with living tears. And when he looks down at her body he sees that she, too, has been flayed to lay bare the unborn child, but these painted wounds gape with real blood-sodden flesh, and the baby—his baby—throbs in her open womb, dying, as she is dying—wax, as she is wax—
He sits up with a strangled cry. The sweat rolls down his back, and his hair is wet against the back of his neck. He takes great gasps of air, willing his heart to slow, his breathing to abate. He has no idea how long it is before he notices there is a line of light slanting across the floor and realises that the door to his room is open, though he’s sure he bolted it before he went to bed. Then the light is gone and the room is drowned in dark. A dark he has never seen so deep before. Dark so absolute that he can see nothing, not the outlines of the furniture, not even the tiny sliver of moonlight between the shutter and the sill. He sits, motionless, alert now to every tiny sound in the room, and his senses start to distrust themselves as the fizzing silence mingles with the sound of—what? Bare feet on the thick carpet? A hand drawing back a damask drape? And then he shudders as if stung. An icy finger is running, slowly, teasingly up his bare arm, so lightly it scarcely feathers his skin, but so piercingly it’s as if a needle of fire is threading his veins. He puts his hands out wildly, blindly, but encounters nothing, touches no-one. Then he hears the sound of laughter—playful, mischievous laughter—that seems to echo all about the room. He makes to get up but finds himself constrained. Something is binding his wrists, holding him down. He tries to wrench his hands free, but feels a cord dig against his skin. And now his arms are being drawn back behind him—he struggles but the grasp is too strong, and his wrists are forced hard against the wood of the bedstead and he hears the rustle of satin being tied. And now he is in no doubt. A woman isclimbing onto his lap and tearing open his shirt with frozen fingers. He can smell her scent, feel the caress of silken ringlets and the tip of a hot wet tongue slipping across his chest and down, down, down. And then there are lips at his throat that sharpen into teeth, and a cold hand that stifles his breathing, and the low murmur of a man’s voice, speaking words he cannot understand.
When he wakes the next morning there’s a tell-tale stain on the sheets that leaves him red with shame. But there is nothing to say he did not dream it entirely—no marks about his wrists, no tear to his shirt, and when he goes to the door it is locked, and from the inside.
But later, when he strips off his night-shirt to wash, he finds two tiny spots of blood at the neck, which were not there before.
CHAPTER THREE
“W HO IS SHE? ”
Charles is standing at the door of the Baron’s library. It is eight o’clock, and the storm has cleared, leaving a sky blanched to pallid washy blue and the Danube running high and turbid brown. Charles has not yet
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