Chapter 4

Bolting upright in my bed, sunlight streamed through the window. I tried to clear my mind, weakened from my restless night. Thinking took effort. And with a swift torrent, the dream came back to me, burning vivid in my thoughts. A clammy, fine mist clung to my body, my sheets soaked, and my nightgown lay on the floor in a heap. The vision stuck in my mind. The night’s sensual congress, after all, only a tepid dream, though, I theorized, was it? Nastiness crawled across my skin.

Shaking, controlling my breathing, and pushing all emotions away, I struggled to suppress the lust lingering into my waking state. I reached up to where she had been. I touched my neck, touched two fresh scratches upon my throat, which hurt a bit. I must have scratched myself with my fingernails in my fitful sleep.

Guilt overwhelmed me over Michael. I had betrayed him. Despite only dreaming this, I deceived my love. Thoughts annoyed me, risqué emotions troubled me, unable to ignore the vision in my mind, these unwanted longings the night cultivated. I sat in bed, thinking, brooding over the possible meanings of my sleeping fantasies. Part of me wished I had never learned of Countess Valerie Drago. What had I come to?

What wild place had I journeyed to? And what was debauchery, which tempted my soul? Soul, yes, I had a soul. The other part of me, the scientific side, brushed the irrational thoughts from my head. I reminded myself I am a scientist. Each of us has subconscious thoughts, which appear in our dreams, but this does not mean we act upon them. I calmed my fears, slaying my ‘personal’ boogeyman with the same nonexistent sword I had killed Michael within my dream. For those are the only demons, which exist, the ones our own minds manufacture.

A soft knock intruded the solitude of my sanctum. Jumping from my bed, I pulled the gown from the floor, and flung it over my head, worked the fabric down my body, smoothing out the wrinkles. I took a few shaky steps to the door. The wicked, wild dream appeared to have sapped me of my potency. Stopping, I put my hand on my chest, willing my heart to slow, my breath to calm.

“Yes?” I asked.

“It’s me,” Countess Drago said. “Breakfast awaits you in the room across the hall. I hope the repast is to your liking.”

Unlocking the door, I opened the door and smiled at my hostess. She entered the room, covered in a virginal, white dress with a plunging U-shaped neckline, revealing much of her upper breasts and gathered tight around her waist. A new rose adorned her outfit, pinned next to her heart, and the flower’s color — black, as black as midnight. I didn’t know black roses existed. Perhaps this color, no doubt, was accomplished from some type of dye.

“You have slept late,” she said. “I’m afraid the boys are in treatment today and won’t be around to serve you. They will return shortly after sunset.”

“Oh, what is the treatment?” I asked.

“Deprivation.”

“I haven’t heard of this. What do you withhold from the lads?”

“The treatment was all the rage ten years ago, but now, fallen from grace, replaced by medications which pollute the blood. I believe one can accomplish more without narcotics than with them. The blood must always be pure. After all, life is in the blood. As to my sweet boys, I’m withholding everything from them. Light, warmth, the experience of touching something or being touched, sound, and human companionship.”

Her smile grew broader, and she laughed.

“At this moment, they are as the dead,” she said.

“My word, this sounds quite radical.”

“Unconventional, yes, and the treatment works wonders on them — for them. I think the air is stuffy in here.” Brushing past me, she entered my room, hurled the window open, and let in the fresh air. “Isn’t this better? The house is yours today. I’m afraid I have some business to attend to many miles from here. You’re free to explore my home today. You may freely enter any unlocked room. Of course, you won’t desire to go to any room, which is locked. The locks are secured for a reason. The house is old, and many of the places in which danger lives. Those locked rooms are unsafe.”

“I understand,” I said.

“Find my library. I think you will enjoy the many books. See if you can find the room. Many of the novels are in English, though my books on psychiatry are not. Do you read French?”

“Yes, I do. French is the only language, other than English, in which I’m fluent,” I said.

“Alors façon de ne pas chercher les livres scientifiques en Français,” she said.

I understood her meaning. She wanted me to find her scientific books in the library printed in French.

While she talked, I moved to the dresser and removed my mirror from the drawer. As I held the glass, brushed my hair, gazing into the mirror, I couldn’t find the Countess. Thinking she was near me and out of view, I continued brushing my hair. Again, I scanned the room in the mirror, searching for her.

“Vanity,” Valerie Drago said. She tore the mirror from my hand. The Countess tossed the glass against the wall, near the head of my bed. The looking glass shattered, falling in a pile of shards on the floor.

I was speechless.

“Vanity,” the Countess said again, “thy name is woman.” She pointed her index finger at me, accusing me. “You are far too beautiful a woman to primp yourself and admire yourself in such a manner. Beware of your conceit, for a shall come when you despise your reflection, should you live long enough.”

The Countess regained her composure, walked to the broken water closet door. “I will have the boys repair this.”

She turned to me, softening. “I apologize for my outburst, but I cannot stand vanity. This wickedness infects your mind.” She walked toward the door to exit the room. “I must go. I shall not return home until late. When you get hungry, return to the room across the hall. The boys have placed food on the table for you. They have a break scheduled in which to perform household tasks, and afterward, back to their little deaths.”

As she stepped into the hall, she paused, glancing back at me. “I caution you, do not fall asleep without locking the door of your room. And under no circumstance fall asleep in any other room than here. Bad dreams await you outside the walls of this room, for many ghosts dwell here.”

I stared at her. What she stated had the ominous whiff of a threat. Nodding mutely to her, I gazed at her as she departed. I shut the door, threw the lock in the bolt, and quickly dressed. While making my bed, I discovered pale yellow rose petals. Flattened, wilting now, strewn over my sheets. Knots tied inside me. My heart raced wildly in my chest. My head wanted to explode, and my blood pulsed in my temples. I wasn’t dreaming. Last night wasn’t a...

This was wrong; I shook my head. No, wait, we had hugged on my bed before I went to bed when we had shared our platonic kiss. She had a yellow rose pinned to her gown. The petals happened to fall at the time. I sighed, sinking to the bed, sanity teetering on breaking. Oh, how one’s imagination can run wild. Exhaling slowly, I laughed at my foolish thoughts.

My reason restored, I put the stupid notions of my erotic dream from my brain. I could not fathom why someone so wealthy lived, in isolated seclusion, with no servant save a coach driver and the three patients doing menial tasks. I doubted the coachwoman existed. The driver must have been her. I had not seen the face of the driver, only her dark, angry eyes, yet, somehow, those eyes matched Valarie Drago’s own.

I shall not bore you with the details of my cold breakfast. The repast was tasty and pleasant, which is the only thing which matters of food, at least, this type of food. Once I consumed my meal, I set about exploring the maze of rooms in the ancient dwelling.

To my frustration, stifling my exploration, I discovered most of the doors locked. Those open rooms were bedrooms or trophy rooms. I don’t know how else to explain them. Rooms filled with armor, swords, primitive firearms, and shields. Trophies of other kinds, rotted heads, hands, or other body parts one doesn’t mention in polite society, all under glass domes. I didn’t try to count how many, making my exit from those rooms as soon as possible.

Disturbingly, some were trophies from females. The most shocking trinket visible, a nun’s habit nailed above a fireplace in one room, accompanied by a priest cassock. Both bore reddish-brown stains. The stains were bloodstains — these trophies appeared to be more recent acquisitions than most others.

A dreadful trepidation returned, creeping along my spine as I explored the vast castle. The rooms were dark, dank, and a slight stench of decay permeated much of the home. Morning turned to mid-afternoon, I should’ve been hungry, but I wasn’t. Gazing outside of the house, all I saw were the mountains. The opposite view only held varying aspects of the courtyard.

Once, before finding the library, I stared down into the courtyard, where a Lynx gorged himself on a rabbit. The creature gawped at me, hissed and yowled, grabbed up his prize, and ran from my sight. Finally, I found the end of the wing and turned into the structure, which formed the bottom of the U-shape. On one floor, a massive room took up more than half the width and half the length of the wing.

In fact, this one-room took up most of the third floor. An enormous bay window, which at one time must’ve been covered with smallish pains of stained-glass, covered nearly the whole outer wall. A broken window, only a few of the brightly colored shards of stained glass, still allowed light and air into the room.

I strolled to the broken window, stood in the casement of the opening, stared down at the water. Below me, perhaps forty or fifty feet beneath my feet flowed a mountain river. The tributary was thirty or forty feet wide, the water flowed across in a slow drift, or the water appeared lifeless. For this was a deception, those deep waters rushed to a waterfall only a short distance past the end of the fortress.

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Written in Blood: A Dark Awakening

Millie Dynamite

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