Vida’s stomach pinched up in a spasm. It felt as if her stomach was eating away at itself, folding over its emptiness, searching for nourishment.
She remembered the crock of goose fat and licked her lips.
Chapter 22
CARBONDALE, COLORADO
DECEMBER 17, 2010
John’s plane was delayed in Denver.
It had been snowing hard since just after midnight. The big wet flakes would make an excellent early snowpack on the ski slopes but obscured visibility and made it nearly impossible to land on Aspen’s notoriously difficult runway, which was short and hemmed in by high mountains.
Waiting at the airport, Betsy looked out at the falling snow. Fat flakes swirled, playing tag in the wind. She wandered toward the small airport café to have a cup of coffee.
Why had she finally said yes to him? They had worked hard since their divorce to stay away from each other, to admit that it was a youthful folly, marrying while they were still undergraduates. Now he was an associate professor at MIT with research grants. Betsy had her own practice.
They had come so far.
Damn it! Betsy gritted her teeth, wondering what had possessed her.
The divorce had taken such a toll on her, she could barely stand to visit Boulder anymore. She couldn’t walk across the campus without thinking of their college days, when they would lie beneath the towering oak trees on a blanket in the springtime, drunk on young love.
At weak moments, Betsy still remembered the touch of his fingertips as he traced the line of her jaw, the contours of her shoulders. She felt his warm breath lingering on her neck, intoxicating. He smelled of pine needles and warm, sunny hikes in the mountains.
They kissed tenderly as only the young can, staring candidly into each other’s eyes. Athletic students in cut-offs threw Frisbees and bandana-collared dogs raced to catch them. In the distance rose the Flatiron crags, red rock against a bluebird Colorado sky. When they rolled and faced the other direction to shade their eyes from the bright sun, they looked at the sandstone façade of Norlin Library. Kids with backpacks full of books entered through the turnstile, turning their back on sunshine, Frisbees, and young love.
In towering letters Cicero’s words were engraved over the library entrance. Who knows only his own generation remains always a child. Now those words haunted Betsy.
We were just children, she thought, waiting for John’s plane to arrive. And foolish ones at that.
“May I help you?” said the café clerk.
“A cappuccino, two percent milk,” she said.
The local paper, The Aspen Times, lay rumpled and open on the café table. The last person had scrawled a telephone number in the margin and her eyes focused on an item right below:
HARD ROCK, GOTHS, AND DIE-HARD PUNKS. GET IT ON TONIGHT AT THE BELLY UP. BLACK METAL BAND VENOM PLAYS A TRIBUTE TO BATHORY.
Bathory?
Her heart thumped and she stared at the ad.
“There you are!”
John set down his bag and scooped her up in his arms, his skin smelling of piney soap despite his long plane ride. He held Betsy for longer than was comfortable, and she was sure he could feel the sudden stiffening in her back.
He released her and stared at her face.
“You’ve lost some weight. I can feel your ribs.”
Betsy shrugged and looked down at his old beat-up duffel bag. She knew it from their college days. “I always do when it starts turning cold.”
“Hmmm,” he said, holding her at arm’s length in order to study her better. “Not usually until mid-January after you’ve had a few weeks of skiing under your belt.”
Betsy looked away. She wanted to straighten the collar on her flannel shirt, but she knew that would indicate she had something to hide. During their marriage, she had taught him a lot about psychology. What she was studying, but also what her father had taught her over the years. She didn’t want to give him clues to interpret.
“What was so engrossing in the local rag?” he said, jerking his chin at the paper. “You looked like you had just read your own death notice.”
Betsy shrugged.
John looked down at the paper.
“Bathory?”
“A punk band. Goth, maybe. I don’t know.”
“Huh. I’ve heard of those guys—Bathory. Back in the eighties, I think. Come on, let’s grab a bite to eat. I couldn’t eat the crap they served in those snack packs.”
Typical John, thought Betsy. It didn’t rattle him that the name Bathory would appear in the newspaper, or that the paper was flipped to the exact page where the ad was.
Coincidence, he would say if she pressed him.
After their marriage broke up, he had earned a PhD in Advanced Mathematics and Statistics from MIT. He did not believe in meaningful coincidence, only numerical patterns. Coincidences were merely a matter of probability, little p in statistics. Wipe the slate clean and start a new problem, a coincidence wasn’t worth examining. Not statistically important.
An outlier.
A wave of bitter memories swept over Betsy—the uber-rational mind of her ex-husband clashing with her intuitive Jungian training. She thought back to their last argument, the one that would end their marriage.
“My father! My father is in danger, I can sense it.”
“Nonsense,” he had said. “You’re nervous and tired, studying for your exams. There is nothing wrong with your father. Your mother would have called us if there were.”
“But John—”
“What’s wrong with you? Get over yourself and your premonitions. You are completely irrational, Betsy. And self-indulgent! The world doesn’t spin just because you dream it so.”
“Me? What about you? Not everything is logical in life, John. There are outliers on a scatterplot, phenomena you can’t predict. You never look beyond the world of reason and probability. I know something is wrong.”
“You are hysterical,” he said. “You let your emotions rule you. How can you practice psychiatry when you think like this?”
“Why won’t you ever venture beyond the rational? Maybe you should do some self-exploration yourself.”
“What total horseshit!”
And when they learned of Betsy’s father’s death, John turned away. He did not know how to console Betsy. It was the beginning of the end for them.
They drove down the valley and stopped at the Woody Creek Tavern for burgers and a beer. It was empty, except for a table of tourists and a crowd of local yahoos at the bar, their baseball hats on backward, watching football on TV.
“Not the same crowd,” said John, looking around. The old photos tacked on the wall had faded now, a lot were gone. Someplace there were photos of the two of them nearly two decades ago—two college ski bums, raccoon-eyed from days on the slope, in full party mode.
“It’s a weekday, people are working. But you’re right, since it changed hands, the crowd isn’t the same.”
John tipped back his draft beer—Flying Dog Doggy Style, brewed locally. He didn’t recognize anyone behind the bar, though Betsy could tell he was searching for a familiar face.
“Tell me what you have found out about your mom.”
“Nothing. The embassy was useless. She was last in Bratislava on Sunday. She was going to one of the castles that Countess Bathory owned at the turn of the seventeenth century.”
“Castles?”
“She had half a dozen of them. Mom mentioned Beckov and Čachtice. But Čachtice seems more likely.”
“Why?”
“Because that is where the Countess did most of her killings.”
“Are you still planning on going there?”
“Yes. I’ve been online looking for last-minute fares. They are astronomical.”
“I’m going with you.”
“What? No, you can’t. You—”
“Thank you. Come back and see us again,” interrupted the waitress, dropping their check on the table. “And have a good day!”
The two exchanged looks—their meals were still in front of them. John snorted a laugh. “Definitely not the same Woody Creek Tavern. Hunter Thompson probably would have shot her.”
“John, really. How could you miss work?”
“I have vacation time. I’ve just submitted another grant and actually the timing is good.”
Betsy bit a french fry in half, chewing in contemplation. She heard a roar from the crowd at the bar as the Broncos scored a touchdown.
John took the other half of the fry gently from his ex-wife’s fingers and put it into his mouth. He chewed it, still looking at her.
“Let me help, Betsy.”
She closed her eyes tight to keep from crying. She nodded, her body trembling with emotion.
“Come on,” he said. “Let’s get out of here.”
When they got back to the office, Betsy could see movement inside.
Was the intruder back?
Betsy took a deep breath and opened the door quickly. Her heart beat hard against her chest.
Daisy sat on the floor of the office, with an enormous book spread in front of her. Betsy saw a colorful image filling the page.
“Oh, my God,” said Betsy, her hand flying to her chest. “Daisy, what are you doing here? I cancelled our session.”
Daisy looked up.
“I just wanted to see you again. Hey, you should lock your doors, Betsy. Especially after that burglar ransacked the place.”
She shifted her eyes to John. “Who’s the guy? Your boyfriend?”
Stop intruding on my private life, Betsy thought. You are totally screwing up the patient-therapist relationship.
“He—he’s an old friend. John, this is Daisy Hart.”
John approached, twisting his head to see the image on the floor.
“Is that a mandala?”
“Yeah, I guess. It’s something Jung drew. He was discovering his soul,” she pronounced ghoulishly.
Betsy suddenly realized exactly what Daisy had on her office floor. The Red Book.
“I saw it was inscribed to you from your mom, Betsy,” said Daisy, as if reading her mind. “Your birthday was just a few weeks ago—that makes you a Scorpio. Me, too!”