Fool's Journey by Comstock Mary Chase

Author:Comstock, Mary Chase [Comstock, Mary Chase]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, pdf
Published: 2011-08-29T21:00:00+00:00

XXI.

Deirdre led Manny out to the dark living room. A shaft of light shone from the kitchen and a glow from the street below. Everything was in shadow.

As he sat down, Deirdre lit a candle. The holder, he noticed was etched with the faces of angels. They looked stern, daunting, not the usual smiling faced cherubs.

She took a seat beside him, then reached up and uncoiled her hair. It fell in a cascade of auburn. As she ran her fingers through it, she reminded him of a subject for a painting, a Victorian perhaps, glints of red on her curls, her expression closed. A stranger might even have described her as serene or thoughtful.

“Where to begin?” she mused. She tapped her fingertips together in the silence and looked straight ahead into the flame of the candle.

“I don’t remember a time before the Nightmare King,” she said. “He was always there, waiting in the darkness. I knew he was everywhere I couldn’t see. Waiting for me to disturb him, to displease him, so he could exact a punishment.”

Turning her eyes to him, Deirdre smiled. “You’re waiting for me to get past the metaphor aren’t you? I’m sorry, Manny. This is real.”

Manny shifted. Fear was real for him, too. In the days of hiding, before the green cards and finally citizenship, the places he and Aunt Rosa had huddled together were full of fear. He often thought that was why his aunt took such pleasure in cleaning. It was a way of cleansing the past. But Deirdre's story was going to be very different from his own. His heart sank at the knowledge.

Deirdre sighed and began again.

“You see,” she said, “it was my father who was the Nightmare King. That’s what I called him in my head. My father, whom the world respected and rewarded, was the nightmare I lived with, the incubus who shared my mother’s bed. Everything we did was driven by the need to please him. I used to try to hide my sins. My mother tried to teach me that there was no hiding. She tried to help me please him, and tried to protect me when I didn’t. No, she never attempted to hold him back, just distracted him with her own transgressions. Sometimes it worked, but when I was old enough I learned the only way to protect her was to help her please him.

“It was a game he played with us. We couldn’t really please him, of course, and the three of us knew it. I think it amused him to see the lengths we would go to avoid his anger. That was at first. Trivial mind games. Later it took more to make him smile.”

In the silence, Manny reached out and took Deirdre’s hand. It was stiff beneath his. He smoothed it softly, and felt it relax a little.

“I . . . I can’t begin to tell it all to you,” she whispered.

“Hush,” he said and continued to stroke her hand. He could sense in his soul how bad it must have been.

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