Bone House_ A Novel - Betsy Tobin [13]
Once outside my senses returned. My mother chastised me for my behavior, but it was clear that she was relieved that the business was over and done with. And she resolved from thenceforth that we should attend mass every evening, instead of thrice weekly as we had previously, and that she would take me the very next day to meet the lady he had spoken of, who gave Scripture to the poor.
And that is how I first came to the Great House.
My dreams eventually subsided in their frequency, though they did not cease altogether. But I kept them to myself, as the experience with Reverend Wickley taught me to be more circumspect. I know now that the world outside is an uneasy one, where fear and suspicion are as likely to prevail as tolerance and understanding.
The night I left my mother tending Long Boy my dreams returned. I dreamed that it was I who’d given birth to the devil, not Dora, and that my mother had delivered me. The devil himself was not an infant, but a boy child of eight or nine years, with horns and teeth and eyes like blazing embers. He snarled like an animal, and fought and clawed his way out of my body. My mother gritted her teeth and grabbed him by the throat, and before I knew it she had stuffed him in a sack of hempcloth and thrown it on the fire. The flames leapt and the bag burned with a vengeance. My mother smoothed her skirts and picked up a broom and began to sweep the floor, while I lay speechless with shock on the bed. When she was finished she took up the iron poker and jabbed at the still-glowing remains. Satisfied, she planted herself in a chair by the fire, the iron poker clutched tightly in her hand.
In all my life I had never experienced a dream of such vividness, nor one so complete in its conclusion of events. I woke in a cold sweat with a great, pitted feeling in my stomach, as if my insides had been torn from me in sleep. And I wondered what went through Dora’s mind as she plunged toward the ice.
Was it fear she felt, or relief?
Chapter Five
I oversleep, and wake from the dream feeling heavy-headed. Outside my window, the morning sky is gray and threatening. Overnight the snow has turned to freezing rain. The trees are now so thickly iced that their heavy boughs droop and tremble in the wind. The cold reaches through my leaded window and envelops me like a sheath, causing me to shiver as I pull my woolen stockings on. I feel a stab of pain across my bow: the residue from my nightmare. I must speak to Long Boy again as soon as possible. Perhaps he can shed some light on the tale my mother has related.
I finish dressing quickly and go directly to my mistress’s chamber, for she likes me to attend her promptly in the mornings. When I arrive, she has dressed herself and is seated in front of her glass, attempting to arrange her hair, a task she normally leaves to me. I can see at once from her demeanor that her humors have improved and that she has resolved to be well. But to my horror she takes one look at my reflection in the glass and says my color is poor, and bids me sit down immediately. I am still uneasy from the night’s events, it is true, and my eyes are swollen from oversleep, but aside from an agitated spirit I assure her I am well. She listens not a word, as is her custom, but looks me over and pronounces me unfit for work, and insists on sending for Lucius against my protests.
She instructs me to lie down on a chaise lounge in her antechamber, so as to spare both Lucius and me the embarrassment of receiving him in my bedchamber, then orders Cook to prepare an elderflower tonic at once. I tell her this will not be necessary (a sentiment Cook shares, evidently, from the expression on her face) but my mistress will not hear of my protests, and insists on tending me herself. She even undertakes a reading from the Scriptures to pass the time until Lucius arrives, though she struggles to see the page with her