Girl Desecrated 1984: Vampires, Asylums and Highlanders, page 26
I tried to open my own eyes and was relieved when my lashes parted at my request.
I was still on the floor in Angus’ bedroom. No idea how long I’d been unconscious, I could still hear the voices chanting.
Turning my head toward the sound, I saw Colin, Duncan, and the other Scotsmen from the Albion standing in a half circle. Their bodies blocked the door, and they sang together while keeping their eyes on me.
Their words were of the Irish Sea and how it was rising, and I understood, that I, Rachel, was the “Irish sea”.
I was clueless how I could grasp their language, for by now, it was obvious they were not who they claimed to be. Neither was I. And, neither was Magda. She stood among them, singing the words as if the song had been her childhood lullaby.
Rolling over onto my stomach, I pressed my palms against the wooden floor and unsteadily pushed myself onto my knees. My short captivity within my body had left me an unsure director of my limbs. Shakily, I got both feet planted, and stood.
My glance lit on Angus, twisted in the sheets.
Staggering to his side, I faced the damage I had done. They didn’t try to stop me, just shadowed my movements, keeping a ring of their bodies blocking my escape.
The blood at Angus’ neck was no longer oozing from the wound. I was horrified at the size of the stain on the sheets. Touching his chest with a trembling hand, I longed for the rise of a breath, the beat of a heart, but his skin remained cool.
I had killed the ox from my dreams! Gut-wrenching regret tore a hole in my being.
I longed for Angus to wake up and comfort me. I wanted his wide hand on the back of my head. I wanted to hear him “shushing” me. But I would never feel his hands on me again.
Tears rolled down my face and over my mouth. I licked my lips, accidently tasting Angus’ blood still wet on my mouth. The ironic taste of it burned like judgement on my tongue, crucifying the madness in my brain. Bringing my hand to my wet lips, I fingered them like I was the village idiot. They came away red with Angus’ blood.
I shrieked like the madwoman I was. Stumbling across the room, my foot caught on Lennox’s body and I fell, hitting the wall with my shoulder. Dazed, I slid down the wall to land on all fours, facing Lennox’s bloodied face. His head was turned my way under the sheet, his death mask a mocking mirror of my twisted mouth as I screamed in horror. The sound of my terror climbed in pitch until I was sure I would shatter like crystal.
The others moved in, closing the half-circle and increasing the tempo of their chanting. Each word tore pieces of grief from me. Each note swathed me in a sense of calm until I was floating on a soft mist of uncaring mindlessness. I could still see Lennox, but as they continued to sing, my emotions drained, and I was left numb and pliant.
They called to me, those impostors, demanding me to speak.
Foreign words spilled from my mouth.
“Chì mi gun dàil an t-àite san d’rugadh mi. (I see straight away the place of my birth). Is fanaidh mi tacan le deòin. (And I will willingly remain there for a long while).”
Magda squatted before me and lifted the lid of my eye, peering at me like a doctor checking a concussed patient.
My tongue lay immobile within my mouth, languishing in the aftertaste of Angus.
She appeared satisfied, then took my arm in a rough grip, yanked me onto my feet.
Speaking to Colin, Magda commanded, “Get it cleaned up. I’ll meet you at the airport, once I get her settled.”
My friend’s voice was sharp and military, her speech clashing oddly with her cleft chin and heart-shaped face.
Colin gathered Angus’ clothes from the chair in the corner. Three of them wrapped Lennox tightly in the white sheet, grunting as they rolled his body across the floor. Duncan and Colin tugged Angus’s heavy body to one side of the bed, and Magda pushed me out the door.
CHAPTER 31: SPIES AND THEIR LIES
~
FALTERING ON THE THRESHOLD OF my basement apartment, I banged my hip on the door jamb and stumbled against Granny’s old chesterfield. I was muted by shock on the ride to my apartment, but now, in my home, the paralysis left my tongue
“I killed him,” I whispered in wonder.
“It was his destiny,” Magda spoke as if she was telling me the price of a market hen.
She pushed the bolt across the inside of the front door, and then moved by me to put on the kettle.
Turning from the stove, she gave me a calculating look. “You need to wash. I’ll take those clothes and burn them.”
“I killed him.”
My brain was caught in a replay of the horror like a scratched record.
Magda let out a hushed curse and lit a cigarette. “Christ! Listen up, cause I’m only going to tell you once. The first born male McNab of every century’s third generation is destined to bring out The Fergus She. Angus knew it from birth. We all did.”
“The Fergus She?”
My ‘alter’ twisted and grasped at my guts, trying to climb up my entrails and tell me something. I pressed her down with will power grown strong over the many years of fighting her.
Magda looked at me as if I was an idiot.
“The Fergus She?” I repeated, not understanding why she would name my alternate personality, or why Angus had anything to do with her.
“You’re so dense.” Her voice was scathing.
“I need to know,” I begged.
“You’re The Fergus She. She’s in you.”
I moved my head back and forth, still not understanding what she was saying.
Magda was enjoying her role of all-knowing deliverer of truths. “Angus was here to do a job. He had seven days after your eighteenth birthday. The job was you.”
“Angus knew?” I left the support of the couch and shuffled towards her. “He knew I’d be...that she would do that?”
Magda sneered at me, basking in my pain. “He wanted her to rise. He wanted her to take you over.”
She popped a few smoke rings out into the air between us, and I thought back to grade nine when she had shown me how to make them.
“Who are you?” I asked, feeling duped.
“Magdalen McNab, at yer service, m’lady,” she curtsied low, looking at me with mocking eyes.
Her Scottish accent, which she had used as a joke in the past, rang authentic.
“You’re Angus’ wife?”
She barked out a laugh, then choked on the smoke. “You’re so insecure, it’s pathetic.”
“Who then?” My voice was louder. Stronger. I made it to the kitchen table, and leaned heavily against the painted rose gracing the tabletop. “Who are you?”
She smirked. “He’s my cousin.” Then her eyes dropped as the smile faded. “He was my cousin,” she mumbled.
“Your cousin…” I slumped into a kitchen chair.
“Angus was the cure to what ailed you, Rachel,” Magda, the Canadian, was back. “You don’t have to fight anymore. Just let her take over. You’ve royally screwed up your life, now it’s time to let her have hers.”
I carefully, deliberately swallowed that pill of truth.
“Seven days…” Patrick had made me promise to wait seven days. He had made me vow, no fights, no sex, no men… seven days. Seven days in exchange for a normal life. If only I’d listened…
“It will be easier, this way.” She dropped her cigarette onto my kitchen floor and ground it out beneath her black Peter Pan boots.
I should have hated her for her casual acceptance, but I was too busy trying to not come undone. If I lost it now, I knew all the King’s men would never be able to put me together, again.
“And Angus…” I dragged in a ragged breath before forcing out the question. “Is it easier for him, now?”
Finally, she let her hatred show. “It’s you who’s done this.”
She turned her back on me while she washed her hands in the sink, speaking the whole time the water ran. “You and your family hosting that ungodly filth inside your DNA for centuries.”
She turned around, drying her hands on the tea towel as if she were wringing my neck. “You’re demon filth.”
My eyelids were sweating.
“Worse, you’re not even purebred. I trained all my life and I didn’t even get a purebred.” She shook her head at me.
“I…”
“Your people could have ended this curse long ago. You could’ve killed yourselves off.” Her mouth was twisting like a rubber band, exaggerating her words. “You could have stopped having babies, stopped giving the She a line to live in… but “oh no”, you ignored the truth. You play the victims, and you blame my family...?”
Her eyes were brimming with angry tears.
I closed my mouth and swallowed.
She threw the tea towel at me. It landed on my shoulder.
“You’re as stupid as Angus. He lived to serve the queen bitch that’s going to take you over Rachel.”
I couldn’t believe Angus, the ox, had lived his life waiting to be slaughtered. Surely, he had a plan…
Wait. He was dead.
Dead men don’t get to finish their plans.
Angus had spoken highly of destiny. He had encouraged me to embrace it.
Odd grunt-like noises were bubbling up, breaking free of my mouth in uncontrollable gasps. Shaking my head to the sound, I waited for someone to tell me it wasn’t true, to tell me this wasn’t happening. Black dots skipped before my eyes.
Magda broke into her Gaelic song, spitting the words out with a vengeance. She yanked me out of my chair with those angry hands. I cringed as she ripped away my clothing. When she was done stripping me, I stood, naked and trembling, my elbows pressed together over my breasts, my hands clasping my mouth to hold the grunts in.
A hard push forced the stiffness from my knees, and I obediently climbed into the metal shower stall.
Impatient, Magda leaned in and started the water. The cold pellets were like ice on my hunched back.
“Get washed,” she ordered, and then added as an afterthought, “I won’t be here when you get out.”
I took a last look at the face of the person I had thought was my friend. Like the final piece to a puzzle, I realized her eyes were Angus’ eyes, only lighter. How had I not noticed the resemblance between their eyes?
She slammed the door, trapping me alone with my trembling limbs.
The water warmed up, then became hot, burning dashes of pelting liquid striking my breasts. My brain struggled to find reason and logic, it struggled to hold to something, anything that would make sense.
Its struggles resurrected frightening images, memories that did not belong to me, or this life. Memories of a promise made centuries ago; made to The Fergus She, who had once been a living, breathing woman.
A woman so powerful, she had compelled an entire clan to do her bidding for eternity.
CHAPTER 32: SURRENDER TO SURVIVE
~
TIME PUSHED OUT, SQUEEZING REALITY into a glass-bowl shape. I slipped down the edges, sliding away from my life.
I stood with my back to an old, stone tower that tilted against a brilliant, blue sky. The crest of the hill rolled away from my feet, spreading out into miles of rich, green carpet below. The grass was the colour of Canadian forest moss after a spring rain. The green pasture was dotted with grey and black rocks and white sheep, and snaking through was a ribbon of indigo water reflecting the flawless sky above.
“The Fergus She’ll not let us live, if we don’t agree,” a Scottish brogue declared.
“Has she sworn that peace will be left to the night if we agree to her terms?” another voice asked.
“Are we sure her word can be trusted?” a third, lower voice added.
In the tower behind me, the chieftains of the clans had gathered—the Campbells and Stewards, Clan Gregor, Clan Farlane, the MacNaughtons and the McNabs. They had joined together in the McNab’s ancestral castle, to decide what could be done with The Fergus She.
Though they were enclosed within the stone tower, and I stood on the hill with the wind in my ears, I could hear their discussion as clearly as if I were seated beside them in one of the great carved chairs.
I could hear defeat in their sighs, and in the pauses between their words, and in what wasn’t there at the table. Hope was missing. Bravery had fled. She had already won.
They would agree to the binding of her life to a clan’s pedigree. They had only to decide which clan would sacrifice their future generations.
The men came out to the hilltop with their decision, not wanting to invite her into the castle. They were big-boned, with full, scraggy beards, and ruddy cheeks. All except MacGregor, who seemed to be a shadow of the others with his tall, willowy build and straight, black hair.
“We’ll meet your terms,” Old Man MacFarlane growled through his white beard.
“Who,” the She demanded, her voice ringing like crystal next to the gravelly tones of the Highlanders. “Who will meet my terms?”
“Tomorrow will tell,” MacFarlane scowled against the cold wind and turned to re-enter the castle.
“Tomorrow,” another Highlander finished the statement, “we will hold the warrior games.”
A shout echoed from those hearty hearts, “The warrior games!”
The excitement rippled through the chieftains and spread like fire to the men, women and children watching from the castle walls.
“The losing clan will meet your terms,” MacGregor had said, feeling braver as the thrill of the caber toss filled his mind.
The She had nodded and smiled, but had hidden her inner thoughts. She would not be taking the vow from the losing clan.
The next morning, the McNabs had won the games, and the She had bound the strongest clan to her bloodline.
~
Sharing my “Other’s” revelations opened my eyes. She wasn’t my split personality. Casbus had been wrong.
Casbus… I recalled the conversation on the tape… him calling her Mistress.
Casbus hadn’t been wrong. He’d been duping me. He was a servant of hers.
Not only wasn’t she my split personality, she wasn’t even human. Predatory and vicious and long-lasting, but not human.
A revelation forced my eyes open. Though I could not see through the white steam of the shower, I was no longer blinded.
“I’m not crazy,” I whispered.
I hadn’t been crazy all these years.
And this time I repeated it louder, “I’m not crazy.”
“I’m not crazy!” I shouted to the cobwebs drooping with water droplets above my head.
I’d never sought help outside of Casbus, because I’d been so afraid they would lock me up and throw away the key. Just as they had done to my mother.
I’d had no idea what I really should have been afraid of.
“All these years…” I whispered.
Tears rolled down my cheeks and dissolved into the steam condensing on my face.
The tears should have been for Angus, but they were for me. I was crying for the little girl I had been, who had withstood terrifying nightmares of death and blood and war and maiming. And when I had tried to share those horrors, the shock on my friends’ faces had told me I was not normal, and I should keep my dreams to myself.
As a child, many teachers had cruelly struck my knuckles with sharp-edged, wooden rulers because I had not been paying attention. My focus had been on fending off the horrors in my mind, horrors they shrunk from. I allowed them to convince me I was a sick little child who was in danger of hurting others. But it hadn’t been me. It had been her… It was her. It was the She.
My self-pity bowed down to rage and my tears burned against my skin, as years of hurt and frustration found a target.
Magda.
When I had met her, I was overjoyed to have found a friend. Magda had accepted me, she enjoyed listening to my gory tales, had asked me to share my nightmares. She had studied my dreams, providing guidance in the form of “readings”. Interpretations I now realized were for her purpose, to manipulate me into being a player in this ancient lore.
Magda had been one of the few people I had been able to be real with. Now, I had to accept nothing had been real about our friendship. She had known what was happening, had known about The Fergus She and my heritage, and had encouraged my belief that I was insane. And in her sadistic way, I know she had enjoyed it.
I pushed my face under the shower’s spray, holding my grief deep in my chest until stars sparked behind my lids.
Up until now, I’d had some control over the She, had been able to stop her from taking over. She had surfaced during some sexual encounters, and a few times when I had been a kid. She’d always been my inner voice.
She’d even had a name…
The word rose in my conscious like a hand thrusting from a grave, intrusive and frightening, and covered in filth.
Scarlett.
“I have your name,” I whispered.
Scarlett had killed my childhood enemy, Timmy, in the park.
I closed my eyes tight against the memory of Timmy’s little “o” face as he fell from the monkey bars. It had been Scarlett who’d done it, and my mother had paid to protect me.
I leaned my forehead against the shower stall in an effort to still the tremors.
I couldn’t breathe. There was too much horror, too much pain and death suffocating me. My lungs collapsed on themselves. I turned off the hot water and cranked the cold. The change in temperature shocked me into gulping oxygen.
I warmed up the water and opened my mouth to the shower, letting the water wash my molars. The excess ran out over my lips and down my chin.
Scarlett wouldn’t stay down. Now Angus had released her, she was strong, much stronger than before. She was everywhere, peeking over my shoulder, causing my skin to break out in goose bumps, listening in on my thoughts, whispering desires into my ear. I was emotionally exhausted and alone.
I couldn’t fight her. I didn’t have the strength.
With a sense of weary acceptance, I acknowledged Scarlett would devour me. Magda was not here with her song to stop her. Angus wouldn’t be coming. It would happen soon.
I was still on the floor in Angus’ bedroom. No idea how long I’d been unconscious, I could still hear the voices chanting.
Turning my head toward the sound, I saw Colin, Duncan, and the other Scotsmen from the Albion standing in a half circle. Their bodies blocked the door, and they sang together while keeping their eyes on me.
Their words were of the Irish Sea and how it was rising, and I understood, that I, Rachel, was the “Irish sea”.
I was clueless how I could grasp their language, for by now, it was obvious they were not who they claimed to be. Neither was I. And, neither was Magda. She stood among them, singing the words as if the song had been her childhood lullaby.
Rolling over onto my stomach, I pressed my palms against the wooden floor and unsteadily pushed myself onto my knees. My short captivity within my body had left me an unsure director of my limbs. Shakily, I got both feet planted, and stood.
My glance lit on Angus, twisted in the sheets.
Staggering to his side, I faced the damage I had done. They didn’t try to stop me, just shadowed my movements, keeping a ring of their bodies blocking my escape.
The blood at Angus’ neck was no longer oozing from the wound. I was horrified at the size of the stain on the sheets. Touching his chest with a trembling hand, I longed for the rise of a breath, the beat of a heart, but his skin remained cool.
I had killed the ox from my dreams! Gut-wrenching regret tore a hole in my being.
I longed for Angus to wake up and comfort me. I wanted his wide hand on the back of my head. I wanted to hear him “shushing” me. But I would never feel his hands on me again.
Tears rolled down my face and over my mouth. I licked my lips, accidently tasting Angus’ blood still wet on my mouth. The ironic taste of it burned like judgement on my tongue, crucifying the madness in my brain. Bringing my hand to my wet lips, I fingered them like I was the village idiot. They came away red with Angus’ blood.
I shrieked like the madwoman I was. Stumbling across the room, my foot caught on Lennox’s body and I fell, hitting the wall with my shoulder. Dazed, I slid down the wall to land on all fours, facing Lennox’s bloodied face. His head was turned my way under the sheet, his death mask a mocking mirror of my twisted mouth as I screamed in horror. The sound of my terror climbed in pitch until I was sure I would shatter like crystal.
The others moved in, closing the half-circle and increasing the tempo of their chanting. Each word tore pieces of grief from me. Each note swathed me in a sense of calm until I was floating on a soft mist of uncaring mindlessness. I could still see Lennox, but as they continued to sing, my emotions drained, and I was left numb and pliant.
They called to me, those impostors, demanding me to speak.
Foreign words spilled from my mouth.
“Chì mi gun dàil an t-àite san d’rugadh mi. (I see straight away the place of my birth). Is fanaidh mi tacan le deòin. (And I will willingly remain there for a long while).”
Magda squatted before me and lifted the lid of my eye, peering at me like a doctor checking a concussed patient.
My tongue lay immobile within my mouth, languishing in the aftertaste of Angus.
She appeared satisfied, then took my arm in a rough grip, yanked me onto my feet.
Speaking to Colin, Magda commanded, “Get it cleaned up. I’ll meet you at the airport, once I get her settled.”
My friend’s voice was sharp and military, her speech clashing oddly with her cleft chin and heart-shaped face.
Colin gathered Angus’ clothes from the chair in the corner. Three of them wrapped Lennox tightly in the white sheet, grunting as they rolled his body across the floor. Duncan and Colin tugged Angus’s heavy body to one side of the bed, and Magda pushed me out the door.
CHAPTER 31: SPIES AND THEIR LIES
~
FALTERING ON THE THRESHOLD OF my basement apartment, I banged my hip on the door jamb and stumbled against Granny’s old chesterfield. I was muted by shock on the ride to my apartment, but now, in my home, the paralysis left my tongue
“I killed him,” I whispered in wonder.
“It was his destiny,” Magda spoke as if she was telling me the price of a market hen.
She pushed the bolt across the inside of the front door, and then moved by me to put on the kettle.
Turning from the stove, she gave me a calculating look. “You need to wash. I’ll take those clothes and burn them.”
“I killed him.”
My brain was caught in a replay of the horror like a scratched record.
Magda let out a hushed curse and lit a cigarette. “Christ! Listen up, cause I’m only going to tell you once. The first born male McNab of every century’s third generation is destined to bring out The Fergus She. Angus knew it from birth. We all did.”
“The Fergus She?”
My ‘alter’ twisted and grasped at my guts, trying to climb up my entrails and tell me something. I pressed her down with will power grown strong over the many years of fighting her.
Magda looked at me as if I was an idiot.
“The Fergus She?” I repeated, not understanding why she would name my alternate personality, or why Angus had anything to do with her.
“You’re so dense.” Her voice was scathing.
“I need to know,” I begged.
“You’re The Fergus She. She’s in you.”
I moved my head back and forth, still not understanding what she was saying.
Magda was enjoying her role of all-knowing deliverer of truths. “Angus was here to do a job. He had seven days after your eighteenth birthday. The job was you.”
“Angus knew?” I left the support of the couch and shuffled towards her. “He knew I’d be...that she would do that?”
Magda sneered at me, basking in my pain. “He wanted her to rise. He wanted her to take you over.”
She popped a few smoke rings out into the air between us, and I thought back to grade nine when she had shown me how to make them.
“Who are you?” I asked, feeling duped.
“Magdalen McNab, at yer service, m’lady,” she curtsied low, looking at me with mocking eyes.
Her Scottish accent, which she had used as a joke in the past, rang authentic.
“You’re Angus’ wife?”
She barked out a laugh, then choked on the smoke. “You’re so insecure, it’s pathetic.”
“Who then?” My voice was louder. Stronger. I made it to the kitchen table, and leaned heavily against the painted rose gracing the tabletop. “Who are you?”
She smirked. “He’s my cousin.” Then her eyes dropped as the smile faded. “He was my cousin,” she mumbled.
“Your cousin…” I slumped into a kitchen chair.
“Angus was the cure to what ailed you, Rachel,” Magda, the Canadian, was back. “You don’t have to fight anymore. Just let her take over. You’ve royally screwed up your life, now it’s time to let her have hers.”
I carefully, deliberately swallowed that pill of truth.
“Seven days…” Patrick had made me promise to wait seven days. He had made me vow, no fights, no sex, no men… seven days. Seven days in exchange for a normal life. If only I’d listened…
“It will be easier, this way.” She dropped her cigarette onto my kitchen floor and ground it out beneath her black Peter Pan boots.
I should have hated her for her casual acceptance, but I was too busy trying to not come undone. If I lost it now, I knew all the King’s men would never be able to put me together, again.
“And Angus…” I dragged in a ragged breath before forcing out the question. “Is it easier for him, now?”
Finally, she let her hatred show. “It’s you who’s done this.”
She turned her back on me while she washed her hands in the sink, speaking the whole time the water ran. “You and your family hosting that ungodly filth inside your DNA for centuries.”
She turned around, drying her hands on the tea towel as if she were wringing my neck. “You’re demon filth.”
My eyelids were sweating.
“Worse, you’re not even purebred. I trained all my life and I didn’t even get a purebred.” She shook her head at me.
“I…”
“Your people could have ended this curse long ago. You could’ve killed yourselves off.” Her mouth was twisting like a rubber band, exaggerating her words. “You could have stopped having babies, stopped giving the She a line to live in… but “oh no”, you ignored the truth. You play the victims, and you blame my family...?”
Her eyes were brimming with angry tears.
I closed my mouth and swallowed.
She threw the tea towel at me. It landed on my shoulder.
“You’re as stupid as Angus. He lived to serve the queen bitch that’s going to take you over Rachel.”
I couldn’t believe Angus, the ox, had lived his life waiting to be slaughtered. Surely, he had a plan…
Wait. He was dead.
Dead men don’t get to finish their plans.
Angus had spoken highly of destiny. He had encouraged me to embrace it.
Odd grunt-like noises were bubbling up, breaking free of my mouth in uncontrollable gasps. Shaking my head to the sound, I waited for someone to tell me it wasn’t true, to tell me this wasn’t happening. Black dots skipped before my eyes.
Magda broke into her Gaelic song, spitting the words out with a vengeance. She yanked me out of my chair with those angry hands. I cringed as she ripped away my clothing. When she was done stripping me, I stood, naked and trembling, my elbows pressed together over my breasts, my hands clasping my mouth to hold the grunts in.
A hard push forced the stiffness from my knees, and I obediently climbed into the metal shower stall.
Impatient, Magda leaned in and started the water. The cold pellets were like ice on my hunched back.
“Get washed,” she ordered, and then added as an afterthought, “I won’t be here when you get out.”
I took a last look at the face of the person I had thought was my friend. Like the final piece to a puzzle, I realized her eyes were Angus’ eyes, only lighter. How had I not noticed the resemblance between their eyes?
She slammed the door, trapping me alone with my trembling limbs.
The water warmed up, then became hot, burning dashes of pelting liquid striking my breasts. My brain struggled to find reason and logic, it struggled to hold to something, anything that would make sense.
Its struggles resurrected frightening images, memories that did not belong to me, or this life. Memories of a promise made centuries ago; made to The Fergus She, who had once been a living, breathing woman.
A woman so powerful, she had compelled an entire clan to do her bidding for eternity.
CHAPTER 32: SURRENDER TO SURVIVE
~
TIME PUSHED OUT, SQUEEZING REALITY into a glass-bowl shape. I slipped down the edges, sliding away from my life.
I stood with my back to an old, stone tower that tilted against a brilliant, blue sky. The crest of the hill rolled away from my feet, spreading out into miles of rich, green carpet below. The grass was the colour of Canadian forest moss after a spring rain. The green pasture was dotted with grey and black rocks and white sheep, and snaking through was a ribbon of indigo water reflecting the flawless sky above.
“The Fergus She’ll not let us live, if we don’t agree,” a Scottish brogue declared.
“Has she sworn that peace will be left to the night if we agree to her terms?” another voice asked.
“Are we sure her word can be trusted?” a third, lower voice added.
In the tower behind me, the chieftains of the clans had gathered—the Campbells and Stewards, Clan Gregor, Clan Farlane, the MacNaughtons and the McNabs. They had joined together in the McNab’s ancestral castle, to decide what could be done with The Fergus She.
Though they were enclosed within the stone tower, and I stood on the hill with the wind in my ears, I could hear their discussion as clearly as if I were seated beside them in one of the great carved chairs.
I could hear defeat in their sighs, and in the pauses between their words, and in what wasn’t there at the table. Hope was missing. Bravery had fled. She had already won.
They would agree to the binding of her life to a clan’s pedigree. They had only to decide which clan would sacrifice their future generations.
The men came out to the hilltop with their decision, not wanting to invite her into the castle. They were big-boned, with full, scraggy beards, and ruddy cheeks. All except MacGregor, who seemed to be a shadow of the others with his tall, willowy build and straight, black hair.
“We’ll meet your terms,” Old Man MacFarlane growled through his white beard.
“Who,” the She demanded, her voice ringing like crystal next to the gravelly tones of the Highlanders. “Who will meet my terms?”
“Tomorrow will tell,” MacFarlane scowled against the cold wind and turned to re-enter the castle.
“Tomorrow,” another Highlander finished the statement, “we will hold the warrior games.”
A shout echoed from those hearty hearts, “The warrior games!”
The excitement rippled through the chieftains and spread like fire to the men, women and children watching from the castle walls.
“The losing clan will meet your terms,” MacGregor had said, feeling braver as the thrill of the caber toss filled his mind.
The She had nodded and smiled, but had hidden her inner thoughts. She would not be taking the vow from the losing clan.
The next morning, the McNabs had won the games, and the She had bound the strongest clan to her bloodline.
~
Sharing my “Other’s” revelations opened my eyes. She wasn’t my split personality. Casbus had been wrong.
Casbus… I recalled the conversation on the tape… him calling her Mistress.
Casbus hadn’t been wrong. He’d been duping me. He was a servant of hers.
Not only wasn’t she my split personality, she wasn’t even human. Predatory and vicious and long-lasting, but not human.
A revelation forced my eyes open. Though I could not see through the white steam of the shower, I was no longer blinded.
“I’m not crazy,” I whispered.
I hadn’t been crazy all these years.
And this time I repeated it louder, “I’m not crazy.”
“I’m not crazy!” I shouted to the cobwebs drooping with water droplets above my head.
I’d never sought help outside of Casbus, because I’d been so afraid they would lock me up and throw away the key. Just as they had done to my mother.
I’d had no idea what I really should have been afraid of.
“All these years…” I whispered.
Tears rolled down my cheeks and dissolved into the steam condensing on my face.
The tears should have been for Angus, but they were for me. I was crying for the little girl I had been, who had withstood terrifying nightmares of death and blood and war and maiming. And when I had tried to share those horrors, the shock on my friends’ faces had told me I was not normal, and I should keep my dreams to myself.
As a child, many teachers had cruelly struck my knuckles with sharp-edged, wooden rulers because I had not been paying attention. My focus had been on fending off the horrors in my mind, horrors they shrunk from. I allowed them to convince me I was a sick little child who was in danger of hurting others. But it hadn’t been me. It had been her… It was her. It was the She.
My self-pity bowed down to rage and my tears burned against my skin, as years of hurt and frustration found a target.
Magda.
When I had met her, I was overjoyed to have found a friend. Magda had accepted me, she enjoyed listening to my gory tales, had asked me to share my nightmares. She had studied my dreams, providing guidance in the form of “readings”. Interpretations I now realized were for her purpose, to manipulate me into being a player in this ancient lore.
Magda had been one of the few people I had been able to be real with. Now, I had to accept nothing had been real about our friendship. She had known what was happening, had known about The Fergus She and my heritage, and had encouraged my belief that I was insane. And in her sadistic way, I know she had enjoyed it.
I pushed my face under the shower’s spray, holding my grief deep in my chest until stars sparked behind my lids.
Up until now, I’d had some control over the She, had been able to stop her from taking over. She had surfaced during some sexual encounters, and a few times when I had been a kid. She’d always been my inner voice.
She’d even had a name…
The word rose in my conscious like a hand thrusting from a grave, intrusive and frightening, and covered in filth.
Scarlett.
“I have your name,” I whispered.
Scarlett had killed my childhood enemy, Timmy, in the park.
I closed my eyes tight against the memory of Timmy’s little “o” face as he fell from the monkey bars. It had been Scarlett who’d done it, and my mother had paid to protect me.
I leaned my forehead against the shower stall in an effort to still the tremors.
I couldn’t breathe. There was too much horror, too much pain and death suffocating me. My lungs collapsed on themselves. I turned off the hot water and cranked the cold. The change in temperature shocked me into gulping oxygen.
I warmed up the water and opened my mouth to the shower, letting the water wash my molars. The excess ran out over my lips and down my chin.
Scarlett wouldn’t stay down. Now Angus had released her, she was strong, much stronger than before. She was everywhere, peeking over my shoulder, causing my skin to break out in goose bumps, listening in on my thoughts, whispering desires into my ear. I was emotionally exhausted and alone.
I couldn’t fight her. I didn’t have the strength.
With a sense of weary acceptance, I acknowledged Scarlett would devour me. Magda was not here with her song to stop her. Angus wouldn’t be coming. It would happen soon.
