December's Thorn Page 11

  “I’m coming in,” I announced loudly.

  I hunched over and made my way through the opening on hands and knees. I could hear Dr. Nelson doing something similar behind me.

  Once inside, I moved slowly. I could barely see. I raised a hand above my head to make certain there was room to stand, although the little bit of ambient light that came in told me there probably was. I got to my feet.

  “Issie?” I called out.

  Dr. Nelson managed to stand beside me.

  My eyes were adjusting to the lack of light when a sudden shock of brightness blinded me again. Someone was shining a very powerful flashlight in our faces.

  After a second a voice whispered, “It’s all right, David.”

  A youthful grunt was followed by the cessation of light in my eyes. I was barely able to make out the fact that the boy we had seen before, still dressed in white hunting camouflage, was setting down an emergency road torch so that it was pointed upward. Light reflected from the ceiling. The boy picked up his firearm.

  There was a taller, shadowy figure beside him. The orange glare from the flashlight illuminated the cave nicely, if a bit bizarrely, but I still couldn’t make out who was standing beside the boy, though I had hope.

  “What if they’re not alone?” the boy asked his companion. “What if that sheriff is out there?”

  The shadow moved toward some wooden crates and turned on another bright light.

  I made a loud, involuntary gasping sound when I saw her. It caused the boy to twitch, and made the shadow-form smile. Because the shadow-form was Issie Raynerd.

  I turned to Dr. Nelson. “Now do you see her?”

  Dr. Nelson’s enigmatic smile had returned. She nodded in the direction of the woman in black.

  “You’re Issie Raynerd,” she said. “I’ve just seen a picture of you and Dr. Devilin. You look great.”

  “So you can see her?” I asked archly.

  “I can,” Dr. Nelson confirmed.

  “So I’m not crazy.”

  “Jury’s still out on that,” she corrected. “But I see a woman standing over there that looks a whole lot like the woman in that photo.”

  “Give me my picture back,” Issie said, moving toward us with alarming speed. “The sheriff took it. It’s mine.”

  Her swift approach seemed to make the boy nervous, and he aimed his rifle directly at me.

  “The picture’s up in my house,” I said quickly. “It’s in my kitchen. It’s fine. It’s safe.”

  Dr. Nelson took a different tack. She thrust out her hand in friendship. “I’m Ceri Nelson,” she said.

  Issie stared at Dr. Nelson’s hand.

  “You think you can help him,” Issie said, her eyes flickering, “but I’m the only one who can heal him. He doesn’t know how sick he is. He’s mad with his rage, and he’ll do harm before he’s better.”

  Dr. Nelson dropped her hand. “He needs all the help he can get, I’ll grant you that. Why don’t we work together?”

  I could already see what Dr. Nelson was doing. I could hear it in her voice. She was using the same quasi-hypnotic voice on Issie that she had used on Lucinda in my kitchen, and before that, on me. But she was also encouraging Issie to think of her as a cohort, a colleague with a mutual cause. I found that to be clever.

  “Work together?” Issie said weakly. “That— that would be nice. I haven’t— I used to work with my mother sometimes, before. But she’s— she’s gone now.”

  “Well I’m here,” said Dr. Nelson, holding out her hand again, “and I’d like to work with you.”

  This time Issie responded, but not to shake hands. She took Dr. Nelson’s right hand in her left, holding hands. I saw Dr. Nelson exhale, just a little, and I had the impression that she was relieved, but I wasn’t certain why.

  “I don’t trust them,” David said suddenly.

  “You can put your rifle down, David,” Issie said. “Dr. Devilin won’t hurt us, and Dr. Nelson is here to help.”

  The boy grumbled, obviously disagreeing, but he lowered his rifle, then set the safety and leaned it against a nearby cave wall.

  I took a second, then, to survey the cave. It was larger than the interior of my house, and I couldn’t believe I’d never explored it, or even known it was there. Someone, presumably Issie and David, had moved in boxes and crates, some chairs, lots of firewood, and three portable cots. These were arranged, it appeared, completely at random.

  To one side of the entrance there was a large fire pit. It was still smoldering; some of the coals were orange and red. Smoke was sucked outward with remarkable efficiency through a small opening in the top of the canvas that covered the entrance to the cave. I couldn’t tell how that was happening exactly, except that there also seemed to be air moving toward the opening from deeper inside the cave.

  Beside the cots there were piles of clothing, and one of the wooden crates had been set up as a kind of dining table. The remains of a recent meal were in evidence.

  “I can’t tell you how happy I am to see you,” Dr. Nelson chirped on. “I was beginning to be afraid that Fever had imagined you.”

  “Imagined me?” Issie stared into space for a moment. “I wonder sometimes if maybe he did.”

  Dr. Nelson and I looked at each other, and she shook her head, warning me, it seemed, not to comment on her strange observation.

  “I can’t understand how I never knew there was a cave here,” I said, trying to sound casual. “Something this big, and so close—not five hundred yards from my house! How is that possible?”

  “There was a big old rhododendron covering up the entrance,” David volunteered, his voice only a little surly. “Nobody would ever a knowed this was here.”

  “No, but that’s what I’m saying. How did you find it?”

  “Ask her,” he said, lifting his chin in the direction of Issie.

  I turned to look at her.

  “I knew about this place when I was little,” she said dreamily. “Mother brought me here.”

  I shot a glance at Dr. Nelson.

  But Dr. Nelson spoke quickly. “Issie, you said that you could heal Dr. Devilin. That’s all I’m interested in. How can you do that? What can you do that would help him?”

  “I have my mother’s knowledge,” Issie said, but her voice had gone a little high-pitched. “I know things. I have my mother’s ways, her potions, and her poisons.”

  “She needs to rest,” David growled, rushing to Issie’s side. “She needs to lie down. This happens after she eats. She just needs a half a hour.”

  He moved toward us, nearly sideways, and took Issie by the arm.

  “Wouldn’t it be better if we went up to the house?” I suggested, stepping toward them both.

  From nowhere the boy produced a vicious-looking blade, some sort of nightmare version of a hunting knife. It gleamed even in the dull light of the cave: it had been polished; it had been cared for. The point moved within inches of my Adam’s apple, but not before I saw the serrated top.

  I froze. There was no telling, I thought, what a wild boy that age would do.

  Issie seemed dismayed at the presence of the knife but was unable or unwilling to say anything.

  “Don’t touch her,” the boy snarled.

  I took a step backward, very slowly.

  Suddenly Dr. Nelson dropped, as if she were going to tie her shoe. Or as if she might be having some sort of fainting spell.

  But instead of collapsing, she grabbed the boy’s ankle, held it firmly, and simply stood up. The boy went backward, a terrible look of surprise on his face, and landed hard on his back, which knocked the wind out of him. The knife clattered to the stone floor and the boy began to grunt and gasp for breath.

  Issie hugged herself at the elbows and swayed, looking around wildly, as if she didn’t know where she was or what was happening. She began to moan.

  Dr. Nelson took two steps, scooped up the hunting knife and tossed it behind her, in the direction of the cave entrance. Then she fe
ll immediately to one knee and put her hand gently on the boy’s chest, patting him.

  “You just got the breath knocked out of you,” she said gently. “You’ll be all right in a second. Breathe slowly, all right?”

  The boy blinked, then nodded.

  “But if you threaten Dr. Devilin or me with that knife again,” Dr. Nelson continued. “I’ll stick it right here until it comes out your back through your spine. You understand that?”

  The boy managed to nod.

  Dr. Nelson looked up at me. “Let’s get him to one of those cots,” she said.

  I nodded and moved toward her and the boy.

  Issie continued to rock and moan, every once in a while singing bits and half phrases from ancient tunes.

  Dr. Nelson and I easily managed to get the boy onto one of the cots. He was very thin, as it turned out, and couldn’t have weighed more than fifty pounds, probably less. We set him down, and Dr. Nelson covered him with a blanket.

  I turned to Issie.

  “Listen,” I began reasonably, not moving too close to her, “why don’t you and David come back with us to the house. It’s nice and warm, there’s plenty to eat, and you could get a good rest.”

  “No”—she sighed, hopelessly—“I have to wait here. I have to stay here. He won’t find me otherwise. I know he’s trying to find me.”

  “Who’s trying to find you?” Dr. Nelson asked softly, coming to stand beside me.

  Issie stopped twitching and moaning for a second and looked at Dr. Nelson. Her face was a mask of impossible despair. “You don’t know my story,” she said, “and Fever, he’s not right. I thought he was tormenting me, but he really doesn’t remember some things. He’s sick. I can see that now. I see that you’re trying to help him, too. But it’s no use. I’m the only one who can help him. You don’t know our story.”

  Dr. Nelson nodded. “Then why don’t you tell me,” she said, her supernaturally mesmerizing tones dialed up to dizzying effect. It was clear that she was in a kind of extreme therapist mode.

  The sound of Dr. Nelson’s voice seemed to overtake Issie’s state of mind. She opened her eyes all the way, her vision seemed to clear a bit, and she dropped her hands to her side.

  “All right,” she said to us, her voice eerily calm, “I’ll tell you what happened. I’ll tell you how I came to be the wife of a man I couldn’t love, no matter how hard I tried. And then I’ll tell you how I died, and how I’ll die again.”

  15

  “I first met Fever as a student,” Issie said. “That’s how it began.”

  The three of us were seated close to the fire coals. The two women were on folding chairs and I was perched a bit uncomfortably on the top of a heavy wooden box. The hem of Issie’s dress was dangerously close to the embers, but she didn’t seem to notice.

  I started to ask her something, but Dr. Nelson, again, gave me a stern look.

  “World mythology class, do you remember that much at least?” Issie asked me.

  I nodded.

  “I loved that class,” she said dreamily. “Oh, there were more than a hundred people in the room, and everyone enjoyed the lectures and the stories and the songs, but no one liked it as much as I did.”

  Beside us I heard a scuffling. I turned to see that the boy was sitting up, still somewhat dazed.

  “He tried not to show it,” Issie continued, “but I think it was clear to one and all that I was Fever’s favorite. He looked right at me when he sang ‘Sweet William and Lady Margaret.’ I love that song.”

  One of the coals popped and red sparks shot in every direction.

  “But it wasn’t until summer that the trouble began,” she said. “Fever went away. He went to Cornwall, that’s in England. Didn’t you go to Cornwall?”

  She looked at me, waiting for a response.

  I glanced briefly at Dr. Nelson, but clearly Issie was waiting for an answer.

  “In fact,” I said, “I finished my doctoral dissertation, or research for the dissertation, in Cornwall, but that was fifteen—more than fifteen years ago.”

  “Oh,” she said, her face beaming for the first time since I’d encountered her, “you do remember. That’s a good sign. Don’t you think that’s a good sign, Dr. Nelson?”

  “I do,” she said curtly. “Go on with your story.”

  “Well,” Issie responded, “I wanted to go along. I thought I could be a research assistant or an intern—they had both at the school. But they said I wasn’t a graduate student. I had just started. So, I went to Mother. She was against my going. She didn’t want me to bother Fever. But I cried and cried, you know how young girls are. And she finally relented. She gave me the money for the trip, and some potions and powders to help me on the way, because I was prone to seasickness. I was prone to seasickness, but I could never fly, never, so we booked a ship’s passage. She gave me medicines for the ocean voyage—and some special powders for another use when I got to Cornwall—but I’m not supposed to talk about that. You understand: everything might have been all right. It could all have worked out. But then she made a mistake, my mother. She insisted—she made him come along with me, to accompany me on the trip—like a chaperone. Wish to God that she hadn’t and I mean that, Fever, with all my heart. You have to believe me. I wish to God that he’d never come with me.”

  “Who came with you?” Dr. Nelson asked softly. “Who was your chaperone?”

  “Tristan,” she whispered violently, as if the name had been ripped from her throat.

  I took in a breath, about to explain to her in no uncertain terms that Tristan Newcomb would most likely have been dead by the time I was in Cornwall, but Issie forged ahead with her story.

  “I didn’t mean to, but we were both so sick,” Issie moaned. “There came up a terrible storm on the sea. The waves were black and the ship— we thought the ship was like to capsize. I knew we were going to die. I was certain of it. But he said it was just a storm, and we should take the medicine and go to sleep. He said we’d feel better. It was his idea. I got the powders, and prayed and prayed. He was sick, but not as wild as I was. He tried to calm me down. He tried. But I was so afraid. And then it happened. I mixed the powders. I got the powders mixed up, I mean. I gave us the wrong one. I could barely open my eyes to concentrate. It wasn’t my fault. It was his idea. I didn’t mean to do it. We were so sick. I got confused.”

  Her voice had grown high-pitched again, and she was reeling, nearly hysterical.

  From behind us I heard an all-too-familiar clacking sound. It sounded very much like the bolt of a rifle.

  “Stop it!” the boy shouted. “Stop making her tell this story! She’s going to have a spell!”

  I turned to see the boy, on his feet, with the rifle pointed at us once more.

  “Maybe I should have collected that gun when the boy was down for the count,” I said out loud, to no one in particular.

  “Shut up,” the boy snarled. “Issie, you come over here. Right now.”

  Issie stood, a little in a trance.

  “She wanted to tell us the story,” Dr. Nelson ventured calmly. “We didn’t ask her to do it.”

  “It makes her crazy,” the boy said.

  Issie looked me directly in the eye. “I’m not crazy,” she said.

  The look in those eyes was terrifying.

  “Come on,” the boy said to Issie. “Come on over here.”

  Issie nodded, still in a kind of trance, and moved, nearly floated toward the boy. I wasn’t certain if I should say anything or try to stop her, because she did seem on the verge of collapse.

  I looked at Dr. Nelson, but she had her eyes locked on Issie, a mix of strange fascination and crooked amusement on her face.

  “I just wanted to tell them,” Issie mumbled as she drew nearer to the boy.

  “Sh,” he said, a little impatiently. “They don’t know.”

  “They don’t?” she asked, completely lost.

  “No,” the boy snapped. “Now, tell them to get along.”
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br />   “What?” she said, looking around the room, once again as if she had no idea where she was.

  “Tell them two to clear out!”

  “Oh,” she answered immediately. “Dr. Devilin, Dr. Nelson—you should leave now.”

  Dr. Nelson folded her arms in front of her. “We could leave, but I’m not sure how that would help you. The sheriff knows you’re here. And now that you’ve accosted us, he’ll have more than a simple trespassing charge against you. I mean, you can’t really stay here, you know that, right?”

  “We stayed here for near a month before anybody knew,” the boy sneered. “You don’t know everything.”

  “Well, I know this,” Dr. Nelson went on. “Now that the sheriff knows you’re here, he’ll cart you off to jail.”

  “If he can find us.”

  The boy took a hold of Issie’s black cloak and pulled her gently toward him with one hand, keeping the other hand on his gun.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Issie said, “until Fever tells me that he doesn’t hate me. Until he forgives Tristan.”

  “I don’t mean to go far away,” the boy whispered, “just go hiding, like we done before.”

  “Oh.” Issie looked over her shoulder, toward the back of the cave.

  That’s when I realized that the slight breeze I had felt at the entrance to the cave, and the unusual drawing of smoke outward, probably meant that the cave had another entrance—that it wasn’t a cave at all, really, but a tunnel.

  Issie started walking, or rambling, toward the inner reaches of the cave. The boy picked up one of the road torches, then moved to turn the other one off. He turned, very suddenly, away from us, and darkness descended. All I could see was the deeper recesses of the cave where the flashlight pointed as Issie and David moved away from the entrance and downward into the deeper part of the labyrinth.

  “Don’t follow us,” David called out, his voice echoing. “I don’t mind if I shoot you and leave you for dead. I think you know that.”

  “He won’t mean to kill you, Fever,” Issie called out, her voice only a little more stable, “but he might do it by accident. Like the deer. In the woods.”

  In my mind’s eye the deer appeared, sleeping in its pool of blood.