“Why a cat?”
“I don’t know. You can trust a dog. Cats are…different. And my sister, Morgan—even more of a cat.”
“So you don’t think you can trust your mother or your sister?”
Daisy twisted her mouth. “I didn’t say that, Betsy.”
“And you? Are you a dog?”
“Absolutely,” she said, rubbing Ringo’s side with the toe of her boot. “I’m just a loyal dog.”
The psychologist made a note, her pen gliding over the white sheet of paper.
A cell phone chimed.
“You forgot to turn off your cell phone,” said Betsy.
“Yeah, sorry. I got to take this.”
Daisy fished a black iPhone out of her purse. Then a ruby-red cell phone.
“Hello?…Dad, I can’t talk.… Yes, I am.… I’ll call you later.”
Betsy noticed her patient wince.
“…I don’t know…later.” Daisy punched the END button hard, as if she was trying to kill it.
“Your father.”
“Yeah, it won’t happen again. I forgot to turn his phone off.”
“His phone?”
Daisy hesitated.
“He wants me to have this one with me, all the time. It’s got a GPS tracking device. Like he knows anything about where I go in the Roaring Fork Valley. Big deal. He gives me extra allowance if I take it with me everywhere.”
“Doesn’t he live back East?”
“Yeah, but like, he is so weird,” she said. “It’s part of the divorce arrangement. He wants to keep in contact with me.”
She covered her mouth and coughed hard, phlegm rattling in her throat. Betsy handed her a box of tissues.
“Spit it out, Daisy. Really.”
“That’s gross,” she said, struggling not to choke.
“It’s healthy. Like an athlete does. Don’t swallow, spit it out.”
Ignoring her, Daisy swallowed hard.
Betsy watched her struggle to clear her throat. Then, when she thought the girl had recovered, she asked, “Why do you think your father—”
Daisy turned her face away.
“I don’t want to talk about my dad now, all right?”
Betsy knew she was testing the ragged edge of Daisy’s patience.
“OK. We’ll talk about something else,” she said, scanning her notes. “You said you listen to ripples of the past. Your past?”
“No. No, a long time ago. I dream of a castle. Jutting up into the sky from an outcrop of rock. Like something from a Dracula movie. Very Goth, right?”
“Go on.”
“Red velvet drapes. Heavy dark furniture. Enormous chests with big iron hinges. And—a strange smell, like…”
“Like what?”
“Like a coin purse. Like pennies rubbed together. Metallic.”
Betsy scribbled down Daisy’s words.
“Anything else?”
“I see horses. Most times,” she said.
“Are the horses comforting to you? Or are they menacing?”
“Mostly comforting. But sometimes they are terrified, rearing and whinnying, like they smell a fire.”
“Do they strike out at you?”
“Oh, no. Never.” She paused. “They warn me.”
Chapter 4
ČACHTICE VILLAGE, SLOVAKIA
NOVEMBER 28, 1610
The mud-splattered coach shuddered to a stop at the outskirts of the village of Čachtice. The crossroad led up the hill to the gray-and-ivory castle looming against the sky.
The carriage horses snorted in the cold, clouds of vapor rising into the frigid air. Their eyes were ringed in white as they pranced nervously, straining at their bits.
“Quiet now!” urged the driver. The brass lanterns on either side of the coach swung wildly, banging against the wood as the carriage lurched.
“Passenger Szilvasi, descend at once!” shouted the driver.
A flock of ravens exploded in flight from the castle walls. Their screaming call was answered by the ear-piercing whinny of the horses, rearing in unison, sharp hooves slicing the air.
“Get out!” shouted the driver, wrestling the reins.
Janos Szilvasi jumped down from the coach, throwing his sack into the snow beside the muddy road.
“Let me quiet them,” he shouted up to the driver, as he approached the horses.
“Get away!” said the driver. “They will strike you! Stay away from the mare—”
Janos made a soft whistling sound, staying to the right of the rearing horses. The mare could not see the ravens now. She looked nervously at the human being who approached, her nostrils flaring.
“Easy, now, easy, easy, easy,” Janos crooned in a singsong voice as if speaking to a child. And again came the strange whistle.
The mare reared again, her whinny echoing across the valley.
“Stay away!” shouted the driver.
Janos did not heed him. He steadily worked his way closer and closer to the horse’s shoulder. He slowly placed a hand on the mare’s neck, murmuring as he looked at her from the corner of his eye.
The skin on her neck quivered under his touch, rippling like a lake surface punctured by a barrage of stones. The harness slowed its jingling as the mare calmed. All the while Janos spoke to her, his breath small puffs of mist in the cold air.
The mare relaxed her tightly bunched neck, slowly lowering her ears closer to the man’s mouth.
“What are you saying to my horses?” asked the driver, his voice full of suspicion. “Are you casting a spell on them? Come away from the horses.”
“Let him, you fool!” shouted a thin passenger, craning his neck through the carriage window. “The horses will overturn the coach and kill the lot of us!”
Janos did not look away from the mare. He moved in front of her, risking a strike from her powerful foreleg—a blow that could easily break a man’s leg. He could feel the warm breath of the second horse, a bay gelding, trying to reach his hand with its muzzle. He ran a hand over the chest of the gelding. He moved to the right of the coach and faced the steep road.
“A horse sorcerer,” said a kerchiefed woman, looking out the window of the coach, She shoved her husband’s head out of her way so she could see better.
“Thank you, sir,” said the driver, blowing out his breath, as he felt the slack in the rein. “You have skill with horses.” He wiped his nose on his ragged sleeve. “The Countess should be pleased to have you.”
“I hope that is so,” replied Janos. Then he nodded to the horses. “Was it the ravens that startled them?”
The driver shook his head, and motioned for Janos to come near. He whispered, “They always sweat and rear when we pass by Čachtice Castle, night or day.”
Janos noticed the driver’s hand tremble in its fingerless glove. He could smell the slivovica, the fiery plum brandy, on the man’s breath. The driver drew a silver flask from his pocket, offering his passenger a draught.
“To steady your nerves for Čachtice Castle,” said the driver.
Janos shook his head.
The driver shrugged and took the drink himself, his body relaxing as the harsh alcohol slid down his throat.
“We must make Beckov before nightfall. I bid you well, Passenger Szilvasi.”
Janos backed away.
“Ya!” shouted the driver, slapping the reins lightly on the horses’ backs. The wheels of the coach churned up frozen mud, leaving Janos at the side of the road.
The remaining passengers in the coach stared wild-eyed at the man who had shared their journey across the Hungarian flatlands to this remote outpost on the flanks of the Little Carpathians.
The kerchiefed woman made the sign of the cross, whispering a silent prayer. She kissed her fingers and extended them in the frosty air, back toward young Master Szilvasi.
Janos watched the coach disappear down the road. He picked up his sack and gazed at the fortress castle rising from the rocky hill above the treetops. The ravens still cawed overhead, circling the fortress in erratic loops.
“Do not let her catch you staring, Horse Sorcerer,” warned an old man, appearing from below the road on a path leading from the dark pine forest. He carried a load of brush and twigs strapped to his bony back. The stranger spoke broken German.
“I beg your pardon?”
“She will cast a spell on you, the evil witch,” the woodcutter said. He spat. “That Hungarian sorceress is the devil incarnate.”
Janos placed a wool-wrapped hand on the old one’s shoulder. “Pray tell me, sir, what do you know of the Countess?”
The old man grunted and shifted the load on his back. “How do I know you’re not a Hungarian spy, sent by the Bathorys?”
“You are right, I am Hungarian. Is it so obvious in my German?”
The old Slovak laughed.
Janos slid the sack off his shoulder and drew out a flask of wine.
“Here, Grandfather. It is the last I have, but I will share it with you. Will you speak to me of the Countess? I swear I will tell no one, by my family’s honor.”
The old man shifted his heavy load of wood. His dirty face was streaked with sweat despite the cold.
“My bones could do with a rest. Let me taste your wine.”
Janos could smell the tang of the old man’s body as he tipped the flask up toward the sky to drink. The woodcutter belched as he pulled the flask away from his lips. He smiled, watery eyed.
The old man was the first Slovak Janos had met who would dare speak of the Countess. He had tried to pry information from his traveling companions, but they only looked at him pop-eyed and silent. At the very mention of Bathory, the stout matron would cross her fingers to ward off the evil eye. She would not let her husband utter a word about the mysterious woman.
This old man was ready to talk.
“There are women—young girls—who go to serve her and never come back,” he whispered. His tongue poked out and touched around his lips, searching for any remaining wine. Then he wiped his mouth with his sleeve.