Where the Summer Ends - By Karl Edward Wagner Page 0,88

thick black handle of the switch and pulls it down and sends the current ripping through her nerves... she stands naked in shackles before the black-masked judges, and Dr Archer gloatingly exposes the giant needle (“Just an injection of my elixir, and she’s quite safe for two more weeks.”)... and the nurses in rubber aprons hold her writhing upon the altar, while Dr Archer adjusts the hangman’s mask and thrusts the electrodes into her breast... (“Just a shot of my Prolixin, and she’s quite sane for two more weeks.”)... then the judge in wig and mask and black robe smacks down the braided whip and screams “She must be locked away forever!”... she tears away the mask and Mrs Castaigne screams “She must be locked in here forever!”... she tears away the mask and her own face screams “She must be locked in you forever!”... then Camilla and Mrs Castaigne lead her back into her cell, and they strap her to her bed and force the rubber gag between her teeth, and Mrs Castaigne adjusts her surgeon’s mask while Camilla clamps the electrodes to her nipples, and the current rips into her and her brain screams and screams unheard... “I think she no longer needs to be drugged.” Mrs Castaigne smiles, and her lips are bright with blood. “She’s one of us now. She always has been one with us”... and they leave her alone in darkness on the promise “We’ll begin again tomorrow” and the echo “She’ll be good for two more weeks.”

She moaned and writhed upon the soiled sheets, struggling to escape the images that spurted like fetid purulence from her tortured brain. With the next explosive burst of lightning, her naked body lifted in a convulsive arc from the mattress, and her scream against the gag was like the first agonized outcry of the newborn.

The spasm passed. She dropped back limply onto the sodden mattress. Slippery with sweat and blood, her relaxed hand slid the rest of the way out of the padded cuff. Quietly, in the darkness, she considered her free hand—suddenly calm, for she knew she had slipped wrist restraints any number of times before this.

Beneath the press of the storm, the huge house lay in darkness and silence. With her free hand she unbuckled the other wrist cuff, then the straps that held the gag in place, and the restraints that pinned her ankles. Her tread no louder than a phantom’s, she glided from bed and crossed the room. A flicker of lightning revealed shabby furnishings and a disordered array of fetishist garments and paraphernalia, but she threw open the window and looked down upon the black waters of the lake and saw the cloud weaves breaking upon the base of the cliff, and when she turned away from that vision her eyes knew what they beheld and her smile was that of a lamia.

Wraithlike she drifted through the dark house, passing along the silent rooms and hallways and stairs, and when she reached the kitchen she found what she knew was the key to unlock the dark mystery that bound her here. She closed her hand upon it, and her fingers remembered its feel.

Camilla’s face was tight with sudden fear as she awakened at the clasp of fingers closed upon her lips, but she made no struggle as she stared at the carving knife that almost touched her eyes.

“What happened to Constance?” The fingers relaxed to let her whisper, but the knife did not waver.

“She had a secret lover. One night she crept through the sitting room window and ran away with him. Mrs Castaigne showed her no mercy.”

“Sleep now,” she told Camilla, and kissed her tenderly as she freed her with a swift motion that her hand remembered.

In the darkness of Mrs Castaigne’s room she paused beside the motionless figure on the bed.

“Mother?”

“Yes, Constance?”

“I’ve come home.”

“You’re dead.”

“I remembered the way back.”

And she showed her the key and opened the way.

It only remained for her to go. She could no longer find shelter in this house. She must leave as she had entered.

She left the knife. That key had served its purpose. Through the hallways she returned, in the darkness her bare feet sometimes treading upon rich carpets, sometimes dust and fallen plaster. Her naked flesh tingled with the blood that had freed her soul.

She reached the sitting room and looked upon the storm that lashed the night beyond. For one gleam of lightning the room seemed festooned with torn wallpaper; empty wine