A Toast to Starry Nights (32 page)

Mara arose with the grace of a queen and
walked towards the Englishman.

The door swung shut and bolted tight.
Darkness reigned.

I crawled on my hands and knees over
cold, worn stone to the priest. I did not know if he was even alive, as he lay
upon the floor shrouded in black and silent as the night.

“Are you yet with the world of the
living?” I asked gently as I crept forth into the Stygian dark. Finally, I felt
a hair-covered leg. The priest moved his limb when I touched it.

“Aye, though I wish I was not.” The
voice more raspy than before, held a deep sadness far within. A moment of
silence. “I am sorry, Ona.”

“You had no choice.” Desperate people do
desperate things, and this was a desperate situation all the way around.
Although it was a fine line, rape is preferable to being tortured to death. I
forgave this man because he was as much a victim as I.

“Yes I did have a choice. I could have asked
you to marry me long ago. Maybe we would have been in Paris by now, Moire,
Bride and the Bishop still alive. I failed to act and everyone has paid for
it.”

My mind froze as knots twisted my
innards. Could it be? He wasn't dead? “Padraic?” My throat clenched tight, as
my unwilling mind tried soaking in the knowledge he still lived. “You are
alive?” Hot tears welled up and poured down my face in a deluge of relief,
sorrow and angst. He was beaten to the point I could not even recognize him. My
heart wept at what he suffered.

Padraic didn't answer.

“Thank God and all his angels you are
alive! I thought they killed you along with Uncle Sean! Oh Padraic....” In the
darkness my hand sought his. When I found it, we entwined our fingers and I
crawled closer to him. “Tell me what happened after you told us to ride.”

“Your Uncle is the bravest man I know.
He rode straight for the Englishmen, I think he was trying to buy some time
before they rode after you all. The pikes stopped the Bishop in his path.
Gutted his horse, did the same to him. I don't think they realized who he was.
Some of their men broke off and surrounded Maeve and myself. They ran her
through when she ran. I have no idea why they think I'm a priest, other than I
traveled with the bishop.”

I sat in the darkness with Padraic's
head upon my lap, his face turned to the side as he lay upon his belly. That
bastard who killed my family and raped my cousin hurt Padraic's backside with
his attentions. Sitting hurt him too much.

Padraic's voice broke the silence. “They
wanted to me abuse Cook's boy. I wouldn't do it. They beat the boy with a belt
and sent him away. Then...” his voice faded away for a moment then returned. “I
will kill Landross myself. For what he did to Mara, you and I. For your
sisters, their nurse and your uncle.”

I spoke in whispers, should a guard lurk
outside, “The cook is going to get one of Mara's herbs, a poison. She will mix
it into their food tonight. Then we escape.”

“As good a plan as any...but will we
survive that long?” His question hung in the darkness as an invisible sword
over our heads.

It scared me that Padraic's thoughts
echoed my own. “I do not know.”

Hours passed as my husband and I waited
for what was to come. The only warmth we gleaned was from each other as we
huddled close to keep the stone's ice from claiming our bones.

The need for creature comforts grew. I
banged upon the door and yelled for water until I grew hoarse. It did no good.
There were no more sounds of drunken revelry. Hours ago, the house quieted and
I knew naught if it were from sleep or poison. Surely though, if Cook were able
to slip wolfbane into their food, she would have released us by now. What was
going on out there?

We were alone. Trapped. Weakened by
thirst and hunger, Padraic more so, from being beaten and abused. Was it day or
night? How long had it been... a day or two? We had no bucket to relieve our
selves, so I made do with squatting in a corner furthest from the door.

It seemed hours before Padraic spoke
again. “We must escape from here. Something is amiss.”

“How can we escape? We are barred in
here. I don't think Mara's plan worked, else she or Cook would have freed us by
now.”

“There must be a way. Help me up.”

I stood and reached out into the
darkness for Padraic's hand. He held tight and I helped pull him into a
standing position which led him to releasing an enormous groan that seemed to
shake the core of him. He limped toward the light seeping beneath the door
while still holding my hand. The beating the English gave him did some terrible
hidden injury. Padraic's breath came in rasping pants interspersed with coughs.
Did a broken rib stick his lungs?

When we reached the door, Padraic said,
“Find the hinges. If they are on this side of the door, we may be in luck.”

Hope arose as my hands sought the worn
edges of the wooden door. I felt timbers smoothed by time, but no cold iron.
Padraic checked the other side, seeking the prize. I could not find what I
sought on my side of the door.

Dejected, I spoke. “Nothing here.” Tears
of fear and frustration welled up in my burning eyes.

“Nor here.” Padraic heaved a deep sigh
then slid down the wall to the ground.

“What do we do?” I sat next to him,
mindful of his hurt body.

“What can we do? We can do naught but
wait.” Anger seethed in Padraic's voice.

“I thought I would die old and gray with
you. Toothless and doddering.” Softly I revealed what lurked on my mind. We
would die locked in this room. That was the sum of my marriage to Padraic. One
night of bliss then a life time of horror.

“I wanted that too, Ona. More than you
know. But I did tell you we would be together again.” I could almost see him
smiling in the dark at the irony. How could he smile still? Landross had not
killed his spirit, evidently.

“Not like this! This... this... Oh
Padraic!” I burst into soulful tears for all that I knew and lost. Family,
ideals, hope... all gone. Ripped away in the span of minutes. How quickly fate
can weave a web of destruction around one. Padraic gathered me into his arms.
On any other given day I would have enjoyed the touch, but today it was a
reminder that I would lose him, too. Already our flesh grew cold. We were
weakened by no water or food. Not even a bucket for our waste-- the smell of
which grew from the furthest corner to blanket the small chamber in
putrescence.

“Whatever happens, Ona, I love you and I
am sorry I could not protect you and yours better. Perhaps we will see each
other at the Pearly Gates. Perhaps we will get another chance with the odds in
our favor, then.“

A knot seized my throat. “Perhaps.” What
else could I say to him? Numbness set into my mind. One minute was an hour long
in the cold black. An hour or a day, it was all the same to me.

Padraic and I huddled together in an
effort to stay warm, but the stones stole any heat away. We shivered together
and tried to sleep. Naught else to do but wait.

As impossible as it seemed, I managed to
drift asleep only to arrive in a nightmare land. Death and torture. Violence
for the joy of it. Screams and moans. I awoke with a start and reached for
Padraic's hand.

It was like ice. “Padraic?”

Nothing.

“Padraic? Padraic? Nooo!” My husband
died while we slept. Nothing but the husk of his being left. Perhaps he is
already waiting at the Pearly Gates for me to join him.

Perhaps.

Tears I thought I no longer had flowed
like a river towards the bay. I do not care any more. What do I have to live
for? Did my cousin yet live? Or did they torture her to death? Where was she?
Where was anyone? The thought of being locked up in an abandoned building
created a shiver bone-deep. Alone with death.

Until I grew too weak to raise my fist,
I kept pounding on the door, begging for my freedom. Then, when I could not
muster the strength to echo another thud through the house, I sank to the floor
and curled next to Padraic's icy body.

There I stayed, three days at least. The
raging thirst I once had, faded into dull acceptance of my fate. I welcomed the
pain. I welcomed the feeling of my navel nibbling on my backbone. I welcomed
the lightheaded feeling, and the anger that my situation gave me a reason to
indulge in fury. Glorious fury which reminded me I yet lived.

Most of all, I welcomed death when it
finally came to claim me.

Chapter Seventeen-

Neilsinhaur held a small wastebasket
aloft for me to retch in once I opened my eyes from the mindfuck. The wisdom of
having a puke receptacle handy must have been learned from hard experience.

The good doctor's voice broke through my
dry heaves. “I know you saw a lot in your past life, but without thinking of
certain incidents, can you liken any of the emotions felt with what you
experienced with either Mike or Dmitri?” He set the wastebasket down once my stomach
settled from the synaptic roller coaster.

My mind still swirled at the glimpse of
another life, a lifetime away.

“Yeah... a couple of instances.” All the
eyes on Ona when she lay atop the table... that's the way I felt in the
restaurant, all those patrons looking at the show Dmitri and I put on as
engagement dinner theatre. Like a thousand percent dead on, no doubt in my mind
that those sensations don't differ.

I didn't want to close my eyes nor look
at the mural on the wall before me. So I stared at my jeans, noting the weft
and warp of indigo-dyed cotton threads as my mind tried finding its figurative
landlegs after that rough voyage in the mental sea.

“Okay, that's a good start. Please
explore these instances with a focus on your emotions... especially the
anxiety. Let's see if you can link emotions to the people in that past life
that gave you trauma. See if you can reconcile the past life people to those
who are important to you in this life. Here,” Neilsinhaur reached out to hand
me a composition book. “Use this to journal. I don't know if you free write,
but if you do, get it out.”

Gee, thanks. I love to write, but not of
horror or terror or rapine so potent that I feel gnarly to my toes. I held the
little notebook on my lap and asked, “So... I delve into a traumatic past life
and relive the experience, journal about it and then I'm magically healed? I
just want to be on the same page with you.”

Neilsinhaur slowly shook his head. “Not
quite. The journaling is intended to give you an opportunity to work things
through. Find the parallels from that life and this, common threads that still
weave around you and yours. For example, was Dmitri or Mike a part of your past
life? Or your mother? Did you recognize personalities in that life you know in this
one? The type of trauma itself, have you experienced a variation of it in this
life? Things like that. See what echos in this life than that. After you
process your trauma, address it... then you will be on your way to healing.
There is no magical button that instantly fixes everything. It's a process that
differs for every person.”

“That's kinda fucked up, ya know?
Because what I just experienced in my mind was really not cool. I don't watch
movies with a quarter of the crap I just 'relived' or whatever it was in it
because I really fucking hate that sort of violence and shit. It was so horror
show, I don't even know if it could be real.” And if it wasn't real and I
imagined it all... then I've got some fucked up nooks and crannies lurking in
the folds of my brain.

Neilsinhaur smiled slightly. “Are you
familiar with the medical term
debridement
?” At my nod, he continued.
“Look at this experience like that. You are addressing the rot, you are working
to remove the rot. It hurts like a sumbitch, but that is life and its
experiences for you. If one lives in an ivory tower, away from all pain, they
are depriving themselves of the Human Experience. You have been hurt, you will
continue to be hurt. But it’s how we deal with such things that help to define
who we are as people.” After a moment, he spoke again. “Do you think your
avoidance of such movies and the like could be the result of experiencing a
similar situation in a past life?” He raised his eyebrow high at the end of his
question. “I'm just throwing that out there as food for thought.”

Yeah, well I gorged at the all you can
eat trauma buffet, thank you very much. I don't really need seconds of Food for
Thought.

“Maybe I don't watch them because I find
violence in general, distasteful.”

“That's a possibility, too.” Neilsinhaur
leaned forward with his elbows propped on knees and hands clasped together. “It
is up to you to decide whether what you experienced in that chair to be real or
not. I did not guide you on that journey. I led you to the door, but you went
through portal by yourself with nothing more than instinctual guidance. I want
you to keep this in mind: are you a student of the time period you were in? If
not, then go and do some research. See if what you saw is factual for that time
period. It's easy to sort out whether outside stimuli helped form your journey
or whether it was completely internal.”