Where the Summer Ends

The River of Night’s Dreaming



Everywhere: greyness and rain.

The activities bus with its uniformed occupants. The wet pavement that crawled along the crest of the high bluff. The storm-fretted waters of the bay far below. The night itself, gauzy with grey mist and traceries of rain, feebly probed by the wan headlights of the bus.

Greyness and rain merged in a slither of skidding rubber and a protesting bawl of brakes and tearing metal.

For an instant the activities bus paused upon the broken guard rail, hung half-swallowed by the greyness and rain upon the edge of the precipice. Then, with thirty voices swelling a chorus to the screams of rubber and steel, the bus plunged over the edge.

Halfway down it struck glancingly against the limestone face, shearing off wheels amidst a shower of glass and bits of metal, its plunge unchecked. Another carom, and the bus began to break apart, tearing open before its final impact onto the wave-frothed jumble of boulders far below. Water and sound surged upward into the night, as metal crumpled and split open, scattering bits of humanity like seeds flung from a bursting melon.

Briefly those trapped within the submerging bus made despairing noises—in the night they were no more than the cries of kittens, tied in a sack and thrown into the river. Then the waters closed over the tangle of wreckage, and greyness and rain silenced the torrent of sound.



She struggled to the surface and dragged air into her lungs in a shuddering spasm. Treading water, she stared about her—her actions still automatic, for the crushing impact into the dark waters had all but knocked her unconscious. Perhaps for a moment she had lost consciousness; she was too dazed to remember anything very clearly. Anything.

Fragments of memory returned. The rain and the night, the activities bus carrying them back to their prison. Then the plunge into darkness, the terror of her companions, metal bursting apart. Alone in another instant, flung helplessly into the night, and the stunning embrace of the waves.

Her thoughts were clearing now. She worked her feet out of her tennis shoes and tugged damp hair away from her face, trying to see where she was. The body of the bus had torn open, she vaguely realized, and she had been thrown out of the wreckage and into the bay. She could see the darker bulk of the cliff looming out of the greyness not far from her, and dimly came the moans and cries of other survivors. She could not see them, but she could imagine their presence, huddled upon the rocks between the water and the vertical bluff.

Soon the failure of the activities bus to return would cause alarm. The gap in the guard rail would be noticed. Rescuers would come, with lights and ropes and stretchers, to pluck them off the rocks and hurry them away in ambulances to the prison’s medical ward.

She stopped herself. Without thought, she had begun to swim toward the other survivors. But why? She took stock of her situation. As well as she could judge, she had escaped injury. She could easily join the others where they clung to the rocks, await rescue—and once the doctors were satisfied she was whole and hearty, she would be back on her locked ward again. A prisoner, perhaps until the end of her days.

Far across the bay, she could barely make out the phantom glimmering of the lights of the city. The distance was great—in miles, two? three? more?— for the prison was a long drive beyond the outskirts of the city and around the sparsely settled shore of the bay But she was athletically trim and a strong swimmer—she exercised regularly to help pass the long days. How many days, she could not remember. She only knew she would not let them take her back to that place.

The rescue workers would soon be here. Once they’d taken care of those who clung to the shoreline, they’d send divers to raise the bus—and when they didn’t find her body among those in the wreckage, they’d assume she was drowned, her body washed away. There would surely be others who were missing, others whose bodies even now drifted beneath the bay. Divers and boat men with drag hooks would search for them. Some they might never find.

Her they would never find.

She turned her back to the cliff and began to swim out into the bay. Slow, patient strokes—she must conserve her strength. This was a dangerous act, she knew, but then they would be all the slower to suspect when they discovered she was missing. The rashness of her decision only meant that the chances of escape were all the better. Certainly they would search along the shoreline close by the wreck—perhaps use dogs to hunt down any who might have tried to escape along the desolate stretch of high cliffs. But they would not believe that one of their prisoners would attempt to swim across to the distant city—and once she reached the city, no bloodhounds could seek her out there.

The black rise of rock vanished into the grey rain behind her, and with it dwindled the sobbing wails of her fellow prisoners. No longer her fellows. She had turned her back on that existence. Beyond, where lights smeared the distant greyness, she would find a new existence for herself.

For a while she swam a breast stroke, switching to a back stroke whenever she began to tire. The rain fell heavily onto her upturned face; choppy waves spilled into her mouth, forcing her to abandon the back stroke each time before she was fully rested. Just take it slow, take your time, she told herself. Only the distant lights gave any direction to the greyness now. If she tried to turn back, she might swim aimlessly through the darkness, until...

Her dress, a drab prison smock, was weighting her down. She hesitated a moment—she would need clothing when she reached the shore, but so encumbered she would never reach the city. She could not waste strength in agonizing over her dilemma. There was no choice. She tugged at the buttons. A quick struggle, and she was able to wrench the wet dress over her head and pull it free. She flung the shapeless garment away from her, and it sank into the night. Another struggle, and her socks followed.

She struck out again for the faraway lights. Her bra and panties were no more drag than a swimsuit, and she moved through the water cleanly— berating herself for not having done this earlier. In the rain and the darkness it was impossible to judge how far she had swum. At least halfway, she fervently hoped. The adrenaline that had coursed through her earlier with its glib assurances of strength was beginning to fade, and she became increasingly aware of bruises and wrenched muscles suffered in the wreck.

The lights never appeared to come any closer, and by now she had lost track of time, as well. She wondered whether the flow of the current might not be carrying her away from her destination whenever she rested, and that fear sent new power into her strokes. The brassiere straps chafed her shoulders, but this irritation was scarcely noticed against the gnawing ache of fatigue. She fought down her growing panic, concentrating her entire being upon the phantom lights in the distance.

The lights seemed no closer than the stars might have been—only the stars were already lost in the greyness and rain. At times the city lights vanished as well, blotted out as she labored through a swell. She was cut off from everything in those moments, cut off from space and from time and from reality. There was only the greyness and the rain, pressing her deeper against the dark water. Memories of her past faded— she had always heard that a drowning victim’s life flashes before her, but she could scarcely remember any fragment of her life before they had shut her away. Perhaps that memory would return when at last her straining muscles failed, and the water closed over her face in an unrelinquished kiss.

But then the lights were closer—she was certain of it this time. True, the lights were fewer than she had remembered, but she knew it must be far into the night after her seemingly endless swim. Hope sped renewed energy into limbs that had moved like a mechanical toy, slowly winding down. There was a current here, she sensed, seeking to drive her away from the lights and back into the limitless expanse she had struggled to escape.

As she fought against the current, she found she could at last make out the shoreline before her. Now she felt a new rush of fear. Sheer walls of stone awaited her. The city had been built along a bluff. She might reach the shore, but she could never climb its rock face.

She had fought too hard to surrender to despair now. Grimly she attacked the current, working her way along the shoreline. It was all but impossible to see anything—only the looming wall of blackness that cruelly barred her from the city invisible upon its heights. Then, beyond her in the night, the blackness seemed to recede somewhat. Scarcely daring to hope, she swam toward this break in the wall. The current steadily increased. Her muscles stabbed with fatigue, but now she had to swim all the harder to keep from being swept away.

The bluff was indeed lower here, but as a defense against the floods, they had built a wall where the natural barrier fell away. She clutched at the mossy stones in desperation—her clawing fingers finding no purchase. The current dragged her back, denying her a moment’s respite.

She sobbed a curse. The heavy rains had driven the water to highest levels, leaving no rim of shoreline beneath cliff or dike. But since there was no escape for her along the direction she had come, she forced her aching limbs to fight on against the current. The line of the dike seemed to be curving inward, and she thought surely she could see a break in the barrier of blackness not far ahead.

She made painful progress against the increasing current, and at length was able to understand where she was. The seawall rose above a river that flowed through the city and into the bay. The city’s storm sewers swelling its stream, the river rushed in full flood against the man-made bulwark. Its force was almost more than she could swim against now. Again and again she clutched at the slippery face of the wall, striving to gain a hold. Each time the current dragged her back again.

Storm sewers, some of them submerged now, poured into the river from the wall—their cross currents creating whirling eddies that shielded her one moment, tore at her the next, but allowed her to make desperate headway against the river itself. Bits of debris, caught up by the flood, struck at her invisibly. Rats, swimming frenziedly from the flooded sewers, struggled past her, sought to crawl onto her shoulders and face. She hit out at them, heedless of their bites, too intent on fighting the current herself to feel new horror.

A sudden eddy spun her against a recess in the sea wall, and in the next instant her legs bruised against a submerged ledge. She half swam, half-crawled forward, her fingers clawing slime-carpeted steps. Her breath sobbing in relief, she dragged herself out of the water and onto a flight of stone steps set out from the face of the wall.

For a long while she was content to press herself against the wet stone, her aching limbs no longer straining to keep her afloat, her chest hammering in exhaustion. The flood washed against her feet, its level still rising, and a sodden rat clawed onto her leg—finding refuge as she had done. She crawled higher onto the steps, becoming aware of her surroundings once more.

So. She had made it. She smiled shakily and looked back toward the direction she had come. Rain and darkness and distance made an impenetrable barrier, but she imagined the rescue workers must be checking off the names of those they had found. There would be no checkmark beside her name.

She hugged her bare ribs. The night was chill, and she had no protection from the rain. She remembered now that she was almost naked. What would anyone think who saw her like this? Perhaps in the darkness her panties and bra would pass for a bikini—but what would a bather be doing out at this hour and in this place? She might explain that she had been sunbathing, had fallen asleep, taken refuge from the storm, and had then been forced to flee from the rising waters. But when news of the bus wreck spread, anyone who saw her would remember.

She must find shelter and clothing—somewhere. Her chance to escape had been born of the moment; she had not had time yet to think matters through. She only knew she could not let them recapture her now. Whatever the odds against her, she would face them.

She stood up, leaning against the face on the wall until she felt her legs would hold her upright. The flight of steps ran diagonally down from the top of the seawall. There was no railing on the outward face, and the stone was treacherous with slime and streaming water. Painfully, she edged her way upward, trying not to think about the rushing waters below her. If she slipped, there was no way she could check her fall; she would tumble down into the black torrent, and this time there would be no escape.

The climb seemed as difficult as had her long swim, and her aching muscles seemed to rebel against the task of bearing her up the slippery steps, but at length she gained the upper landing and stumbled onto the storm-washed pavement atop the sea wall. She blinked her eyes uncertainly, drawing a long breath. The rain pressed her black hair to her neck and shoulders, sluiced away the muck and filth from her skin.

There were no lights to be seen along here. A balustrade guarded the edge of the seawall, with a gap to give access to the stairs. A street, barren of any traffic at this hour, ran along the top of the wall, and, across the empty street, rows of brick buildings made a second barrier. Evidently she had come upon a district of warehouses and such—and, from all appearances, this section was considerably rundown. There were no streetlights here, but even in the darkness she could sense the disused aspect of the row of buildings with their boarded-over windows and filthy fronts, the brick street with its humped and broken paving.

She shivered. It was doubly fortunate that none were here to mark her sudden appearance. In a section like this, and dressed as she was, it was unlikely that anyone she might encounter would be of Good Samaritan inclinations.

Clothing. She had to find clothing. Any sort of clothing. She darted across the uneven paving and into the deeper shadow of the building fronts. Her best bet would be to find a shop: perhaps some sordid second-hand place such as this street might well harbor, a place without elaborate burglar alarms, if possible. She could break in, or at worse find a window display and try her luck at smash and grab. Just a simple raincoat would make her far less vulnerable. Eventually she would need money, shelter and food, until she could leave the city for someplace far away.

As she crept along the deserted street, she found herself wondering whether she could find anything at all here. Doorways were padlocked and boarded over; behind rusted gratings, windows showed rotting planks and dirty shards of glass. The waterfront street seemed to be completely abandoned—a deserted row of ancient buildings enclosing forgotten wares, cheaper to let rot than to haul away, even as it was cheaper to let these brick hulks stand than to pull them down. Even the expected winos and derelicts seemed to have deserted this section of the city. She began to wish she might encounter at least a passing car.

The street had not been deserted by the rats. Probably they had been driven into the night by the rising waters. Once she began to notice them, she realized there were more and more of them—creeping boldly along the street. Huge, knowing brutes; some of them large as cats. They didn’t seem afraid of her, and at times she thought they might be gathering in a pack to follow her. She had heard of rats attacking children and invalids, but surely... She wished she were out of this district.

The street plunged on atop the riverside, and still there were no lights or signs of human activity. The rain continued to pour down from the drowned night skies. She began to think about crawling into one of the dark warehouses to wait for morning, then thought of being alone in a dark, abandoned building with a closing pack of rats. She walked faster.

Some of the empty buildings showed signs of former grandeur, and she hoped she was coming toward a better section of the riverfront. Elaborate entrance-ways of fluted columns and marble steps gave onto the street. Grotesque Victorian façades and misshapen statuary presented imposing fronts to buildings filled with the same musty decay as the brick warehouses. She must be reaching the old merchants’ district of the city, although these structures as well appeared long abandoned, waiting only for the wrecking ball of urban renewal. She wished she could escape this street, for there seemed to be more rats in the darkness behind her than she could safely ignore.

Perhaps she might find an alleyway between buildings that would let her flee this waterfront section and enter some inhabited neighborhood—for it became increasingly evident that this street had long been derelict. She peered closely at each building, but never could she find a gap between them. Without a light, she dared not enter blindly and try to find her way through some ramshackle building.

She paused for a moment and listened. For some while she had heard a scramble of wet claws and fretful squealings from the darkness behind her. Now she heard only the rain. Were the rats silently closing about her?

She stood before a columned portico—a bank or church?— and gazed into the darker shadow, wondering whether she might seek shelter. A statue—she supposed it was of an angel or some symbolic figure—stood before one of the marble columns. She could discern little of its features, only that it must have been malformed—presumably by vandalism—for it was hunched over and appeared to be supported against the column by thick cables or ropes. She could not see its face.

Not liking the silence, she hurried on again. Once past the portico, she turned quickly and looked back—to see if the rats were creeping after her. She saw no rats. She could see the row of columns. The misshapen figure was no longer there.

She began to run then. Blindly, not thinking where her panic drove her.

To her right, there was only the balustrade, marking the edge of the wall, and the rushing waters below. To her left, the unbroken row of derelict buildings. Behind her, the night and the rain, and something whose presence had driven away the pursuing rats. And ahead of her—she was close enough to see it now—the street made a dead end against a rock wall.

Stumbling toward it, for she dared not turn back the way she had run, she saw that the wall was not unbroken—that a stairway climbed steeply to a terrace up above. Here the bluff rose high against the river once again, so that the seawall ended against the rising stone. There were buildings crowded against the height, fronted upon the terrace a level above. In one of the windows, a light shone through the rain.

Her breath shook in ragged gasps and her legs were rubbery, but she forced herself to half run, half clamber up the rain-slick steps to the terrace above. Here again a level of brick paving and a balustrade to guard the edge. Boarded windows and desolate façades greeted her from a row of decrepit houses, shouldered together on the rise. The light had been to her right, out above the river.

She could see it clearly now. It beckoned from the last house on the terrace—a looming Victorian pile built over the bluff. A casement window, level with the far end of the terrace, opened out onto a neglected garden. She climbed over the low wall that separated the house from the terrace, and crouched outside the curtained window.

Inside, a comfortable-looking sitting room with old-fashioned appointments. An older woman was crocheting, while in a chair beside her a young woman, dressed in a maid’s costume, was reading aloud from a book. Across the corner room, another casement window looked out over the black water far below.

Had her fear and exhaustion been less consuming, she might have taken a less reckless course, might have paused to consider what effect her appearance would make. But she remembered a certain shuffling sound she had heard as she scrambled up onto the terrace, and the way the darkness had seemed to gather upon the top of the stairway when she glanced back a moment gone. With no thought but to escape the night, she tapped her knuckles sharply against the casement window.

At the tapping at the window, the older woman looked up from her work, the maid let the yellow-bound volume drop onto her white apron. They stared at the casement, not so much frightened as if uncertain of what they had heard. The curtain inside veiled her presence from them.

Please! she prayed, without voice to cry out. She tapped more insistently, pressing herself against the glass. They would see that she was only a girl, see her distress.

They were standing now, the older woman speaking too quickly for her to catch the words. The maid darted to the window, fumbled with its latch. Another second, and the casement swung open, and she tumbled into the room.

She knelt in a huddle on the floor, too exhausted to move any farther. Her body shook and water dripped from her bare flesh. She felt like some half-drowned kitten, plucked from the storm to shelter. Vaguely, she could hear their startled queries, the protective clash as the casement latch closed out the rain and the curtain swept across the night.

The maid had brought a coverlet and was furiously toweling her dry. Her attentions reminded her that she must offer some sort of account of herself—before her benefactors summoned the police, whose investigation would put a quick end to her freedom.

“I’m all right now,” she told them shakily. “Just let me get my breath back, get warm.”

“What’s your name, child?” the older woman inquired solicitously. “Camilla, bring some hot tea.”

She groped for a name to tell them. “Cassilda.” The maid’s name had put this in mind, and it was suited to her surroundings. “Cassilda Archer.” Dr Archer would indeed be interested in that appropriation.

“You poor child! How did you come here? Were you... attacked?” Her thoughts worked quickly. Satisfy their curiosity, but don’t make them suspicious. Justify your predicament, but don’t alarm them.

“I was hitchhiking.” She spoke in uncertain bursts. “A man picked me up. He took me to a deserted section near the river. He made me take off my clothes. He was going to... ” She didn’t need to feign her shudder.

“Here’s the tea, Mrs Castaigne. I’ve added a touch of brandy”

“Thank you, Camilla. Drink some of this, dear.”

She used the interruption to collect her thoughts. The two women were alone here, or else any others would have been summoned.

“When he started to pull down his trousers.. .1 hurt him. Then I jumped out and ran as hard as I could. I don’t think he came after me, but then I was wandering, lost in the rain. I couldn’t find anyone to help me. I didn’t have anything with me except my underwear. I think a tramp was following me. Then I saw your light and ran toward it.

“Please, don’t call the police!” She forestalled their obvious next move. “I’m not hurt. I know I couldn’t face the shame of a rape investigation. Besides, they’d never be able to catch that man by now.”

“But surely you must want me to contact someone for you.”

“There’s no one who would care. I’m on my own. That man has my pack and the few bucks in my handbag. If you could please let me stay here for the rest of the night, lend me some clothes just for tomorrow, and in the morning I’ll phone a friend who can wire me some money.”

Mrs Castaigne hugged her protectively. “You poor child! What you’ve been through! Of course you’ll stay with us for the night—and don’t fret about having to relive your terrible ordeal for a lot of leering policemen! Tomorrow there’ll be plenty of time for you to decide what you’d like to do.

“Camilla, draw a nice hot bath for Cassilda. She’s to sleep in Constance’s room, so see that there’s a warm comforter, and lay out a gown for her. And you, Cassilda, must drink another cup of this tea. As badly chilled as you are, child, you’ll be fortunate indeed to escape your death of pneumonia!”

Over the rim of her cup, the girl examined the room and its occupants more closely. The sitting room was distinctly old-fashioned—furnished like a parlor in an old photograph, or like a set from some movie that was supposed to be taking place at the turn of the century. Even the lights were either gas or kerosene. Probably this house hadn’t changed much since years ago, before the neighborhood had begun to decay. Anyone would have to be a little eccentric to keep staying on here, although probably this place was all Mrs Castaigne had, and Mr Castaigne wasn’t in evidence. The house and property couldn’t be worth much in this neighborhood, although the furnishings might fetch a little money as antiques—she was no judge of that, but everything looked to be carefully preserved.

Mrs Castaigne seemed well fitted to this room and its furnishings. Hers was a face that might belong to a woman of forty or of sixty—well featured, but too stern for a younger woman, yet without the lines and age marks of an elderly lady. Her figure was still very good, and she wore a tight-waisted, ankle-length dress that seemed to belong to the period of the house. The hands that stroked her bare shoulders were strong and white and unblemished, and the hair she wore piled atop her head was as black as the girl’s own.

It occurred to her that Mrs Castaigne must surely be too young for this house. Probably she was a daughter, or, more likely, a granddaughter of its original owners—a widow who lived alone with her young maid. And who might Constance be, whose room she was to sleep in?

“Your bath is ready now, Miss Archer.” Camilla reappeared. Wrapped in the coverlet, the girl followed her. Mrs Castaigne helped support her, for her legs had barely strength to stand, and she felt ready to pass out from fatigue.

The bathroom was spacious—steamy from the vast, claw-footed tub, and smelling of bath salts. Its plumbing and fixtures were no more modern than the rest of the house. Camilla entered with her, and, to her surprise, helped her remove her scant clothing and assisted her into the tub. She was too tired to feel ill at ease at this unaccustomed show of attention, and when the maid began to rub her back with scented soap, she sighed at the luxury.

“Who else lives here?” she asked casually.

“Only Mrs Castaigne and myself, Miss Archer.”

“Mrs Castaigne mentioned someone —Constance?— whose room I am to have.”

“Miss Castaigne is no longer with us, Miss Archer.”

“Please call me Cassilda. I don’t like to be so formal.”

“If that’s what you wish to be called, of course... Cassilda.” Camilla couldn’t be very far from her own age, she guessed. Despite the old-fashioned maid’s outfit—black dress and stockings with frilled white apron and cap—the other girl was probably no more than in her early twenties. The maid wore her long blonde hair in an upswept topknot like her mistress, and she supposed she only followed Mrs Castaigne’s preferences. Camilla’s figure was full—much more buxom than her own boyish slenderness—and her cinch-waisted costume accented this. Her eyes were a bright blue, shining above a straight nose and wide-mouthed face.

“You’ve hurt yourself.” Camilla ran her fingers tenderly along the bruises that marred her ribs and legs.

“There was a struggle. And I fell in the darkness—I don’t know how many times.”

“And you’ve cut yourself.” Camilla lifted the other girl’s black hair away from her neck. “Here on your shoulders and throat. But I don’t believe it’s anything to worry about.” Her fingers carefully touched the livid scrapes. “Are you certain there isn’t someone whom we should let know of your safe whereabouts?”

“There is no one who would care. I am alone.”

“Poor Cassilda.”

“All I want is to sleep,” she murmured. The warm bath was easing the ache from her flesh, leaving her deliciously sleepy.

Camilla left her, to return with large towels. The maid helped her from the tub, wrapping her in one towel as she dried her with another. She felt faint with drowsiness, allowed herself to relax against the blonde girl. Camilla was very strong, supporting her easily as she towelled her small breasts. Camilla’s fingers found the parting of her thighs, lingered, then returned again in a less than casual touch.

Her dark eyes were wide as she stared into Camilla’s luminous blue gaze, but she felt too pleasurably relaxed to object when the maid’s touch became more intimate. Her breath caught, and held.

“You’re very warm, Cassilda.”

“Hurry, Camilla.” Mrs Castaigne spoke from the doorway. “The poor child is about to drop. Help her into her nightdress.”

Past wondering, she lifted her arms to let Camilla drape the beribboned lawn nightdress over her head and to her ankles. In another moment she was being ushered into a bedroom, furnished in the fashion of the rest of the house, and to an ornate brass bed whose mattress swallowed her up like a wave of foam. She felt the quilts drawn over her, sensed their presence hovering over her, and then she slipped into a deep sleep of utter exhaustion.

“Is there no one?”

“Nothing at all.”

“Of course. How else could she be here? She is ours.”



Her dreams were troubled by formless fears— deeply disturbing as experienced, yet their substance was already forgotten when she awoke at length on the echo of her outcry. She stared about her anxiously, uncertain where she was. Her disorientation was the same as when she awakened after receiving shock, only this place wasn’t a ward, and the woman who entered the room wasn’t one of her wardens.

“Good morning, Cassilda.” The maid drew back the curtains to let long shadows streak across the room. “I should say, good evening, as it’s almost that time. You’ve slept throughout the day, poor dear.”

Cassilda? Yes, that was she. Memory came tumbling back in a confused jumble, She raised herself from her pillows and looked about the bedchamber she had been too tired to examine before. It was distinctly a woman’s room—a young woman’s—and she remembered that it had been Mrs Castaigne’s daughter’s room. It scarcely seemed to have been unused for very long: the brass bed was brightly polished, the walnut of the wardrobe, the chests of drawers and the dressing table made a rich glow, and the gay pastels of the curtains and wallpaper offset the gravity of the high tinned ceiling and parquetry floor. Small oriental rugs and pillows upon the chairs and chaise longue made bright points of color. Again she thought of a movie set, for the room was altogether lacking in anything modern. She knew very little about antiques, but she guessed that the style of furnishings must go back before the First World War.

Camilla was arranging a single red rose in a crystal bud vase upon the dressing table. She caught her gaze in the mirror. “Did you sleep well, Cassilda? I thought I heard you cry out, just as I knocked.”

“A bad dream, I suppose. But I slept well. I don’t, usually.” They had made her take pills to sleep.

“Are you awake, Cassilda? I thought I heard your voices.” Mrs Castaigne smiled from the doorway and crossed to her bed. She was dressed much the same as the night before.

“I didn’t mean to sleep so long,” she apologized.

“Poor child! I shouldn’t wonder that you slept so, after your dreadful ordeal. Do you feel strong enough to take a little soup?”

“I really must be going. I can’t impose any further.”

“I won’t hear anymore of that, my dear. Of course you’ll stay with us until you’re feeling stronger.” Mrs Castaigne sat beside her on the bed, placed a cold hand against her brow. “Why, Cassilda, your face is simply aglow. I do hope you haven’t taken a fever. Look, your hands are positively trembling!”

“I feel all right.” In fact, she did not. She did feel as if she were running a fever, and her muscles were so sore that she wasn’t sure she could walk. The trembling didn’t concern her: the injections they gave her every two weeks made her shake, so they gave her little pills to stop the shaking. Now she didn’t have those pills, but since it was time again for another shot, the injection and its side effects would soon wear off.

“I’m going to bring you some tonic, dear. And Camilla will bring you some good nourishing soup, which you must try to take. Poor Cassilda, if we don’t nurse you carefully, I’m afraid you may fall dangerously ill.”

“But I can’t be such a nuisance to you,” she protested, as a matter of form. “I really must be going.”

“Where to, dear child?” Mrs Castaigne held her hands gravely.

“Have you someplace else to go? Is there someone you wish us to inform of your safety?”

“No,” she admitted, trying to make everything sound right. “I’ve no place to go; there’s no one who matters. I was on my way down the coast, hoping to find a job during the resort season. I know one or two old girlfriends who could put me up until I get settled.”

“See there. Then there’s no earthly reason why you can’t just stay here until you’re feeling strong again. Why, perhaps I might find a position for you myself. But we shall discuss these things later, when you’re feeling well. For the moment, just settle back on your pillow and let us help you get well.”

Mrs Castaigne bent over her, kissed her on the forehead. Her lips were cool. “How lovely you are, Cassilda,” she smiled, patting her hand.

She smiled back, and returned the other woman’s firm grip. She’d seen no sign of a television or radio here, and an old eccentric like Mrs Castaigne probably didn’t even read the newspapers. Even if Mrs Castaigne had heard about the bus wreck, she plainly was too overjoyed at having a visitor to break her lonely routine to concern herself with a possible escapee—assuming they hadn’t just listed her as drowned. She couldn’t have hoped for a better place to hide out until things cooled off.



The tonic had a bitter licorice taste and made her drowsy, so that she fell asleep not long after Camilla carried away her tray. Despite her long sleep throughout that day, fever and exhaustion drew her back down again—although her previous sleep robbed this one of restful oblivion. Again came troubled dreams, this time cutting more harshly into her consciousness.

She dreamed of Dr Archer—her stern face and mannish shoulders craning over her bed. Her wrists and ankles were fixed to each corner of the bed by padded leather cuffs. Dr Archer was speaking to her in a scolding tone, while her wardens were pulling up her skirt, dragging down her panties. A syringe gleamed in Dr Archer’s hand, and there was a sharp stinging in her buttock.

She was struggling again, but to no avail. Dr Archer was shouting at her, and a stout nurse was tightening the last few buckles of the straitjacket that bound her arms to her chest in a loveless hug. The straps were so tight she could hardly draw breath, and while she could not understand what Dr Archer was saying, she recognized the spurting needle that Dr Archer thrust into her.

She was strapped tightly to the narrow bed, her eyes staring at the grey ceiling as they wheeled her through the corridors to Dr Archer’s special room. Then they stopped; they were there, and Dr Archer was bending over her again. Then came the sting in her arm as they penetrated her veins, the helpless headlong rush of the drug—and Dr Archer smiles and turns to her machine, and the current blasts into her tightly strapped skirt and her body arches and strains against the restraints and her scream, strangles against the rubber gag clenched in her teeth.

But the face that looks into hers now is not Dr Archer’s, and the hands that shake her are not cruel.

“Cassilda! Cassilda! Wake up! It’s only a nightmare!”

Camilla’s blonde-and-blue face finally focused into her awakening vision.

“Only a nightmare,” Camilla reassured her. “Poor darling.” The hands that held her shoulders lifted to smooth her black hair from her eyes, to cup her face. Camilla bent over her, kissed her gently on her dry lips.

“What is it? ” Mrs Castaigne, wearing her nightdress and carrying a candle, came anxiously into the room.

“Poor Cassilda has had bad dreams,” Camilla told her. “And her face feels ever so warm.”

“Dear child!” Mrs Castaigne set down her candlestick. “She must take some more tonic at once. Perhaps you should sit with her, Camilla, to see that her sleep is untroubled.”

“Certainly, madame. I’ll just fetch the tonic.”

“Please, don’t bother...” But the room became a vertiginous blur as she tried to sit up. She slumped back and closed her eyes tightly for a moment. Her body did feel feverish, her mouth dry, and the trembling when she moved her hand to take the medicine glass was so obvious that Camilla shook her head and held the glass to her lips herself. She swallowed dutifully, wondering how much of this was a reaction to the Prolixin still in her flesh. The injection would soon be wearing off, she knew, for when she smiled back at her nurses, the sharp edges of color were beginning to show once again through the haze the medication drew over her perception.

“I’ll be all right soon,” she promised them.

“Then do try to sleep, darling.” Mrs Castaigne patted her arm. “You must regain your strength. Camilla will be here to watch over you.

“Be certain that the curtains are drawn against any night vapors,” she directed her maid. “Call me, if necessary.”

“Of course, madame. I’ll not leave her side.”



She was dreaming again—or dreaming still.

Darkness surrounded her like a black leather mask, and her body shook with uncontrollable spasms. Her naked flesh was slick with chill sweat, although her mouth was burning dry. She moaned and tossed—striving to awaken order from out of the damp blackness, but the blackness only embraced her with smothering tenacity.

Cold lips were crushing her own, thrusting a cold tongue into her feverish mouth, bruising the skin of her throat. Fingers, slender and strong, caressed her breasts, held her nipples to hungry lips. Her hands thrashed about, touched smooth flesh. It came to her that her eyes were indeed wide open, that the darkness was so profound she could no more than sense the presence of other shapes close beside her.

Her own movements were languid, dreamlike. Through the spasms that racked her flesh, she became aware of a perverse thrill of ecstasy. Her fingers brushed somnolently against the cool flesh that crouched over her, with no more purpose or strength than the drifting limbs of a drowning victim.

A compelling lassitude bound her, even as the blackness blinded her. She seemed to be drifting away, apart from her body, apart from her dream, into deeper, even deeper darkness. The sensual arousal that lashed her lost reality against the lethargy and fever that held her physically, and rising out of the eroticism of her delirium shrilled whispers of underlying revulsion and terror.

One pair of lips imprisoned her mouth and throat now, sucking at her breath, while other lips crept down across her breasts, hovered upon her navel, then pounced upon the opening of her thighs. Her breath caught in a shudder, was sucked away by the lips that held her mouth, as the coldness began to creep into her burning flesh.

She felt herself smothering, unable to draw breath, so that her body arched in panic, her limbs thrashed aimlessly. Her efforts to break away were as ineffectual as was her struggle to awaken. The lips that stole her breath released her, but only for a moment. In the darkness she felt other flesh pinion her tossing body, move against her with cool strength. Chill fire tormented her loins, and as she opened her mouth to cry out, or to sigh, smooth thighs pressed down onto her cheeks, and coldness gripped her breath. Mutely, she obeyed the needs that commanded her, that overwhelmed her, and through the darkness blindly flowed her silent scream of ecstasy and of horror.

Cassilda awoke.

Sunlight spiked into her room—the colored panes creating a false prism effect. Camilla, who had been adjusting the curtains, turned and smiled at the sound of her movement.

“Good morning, Cassilda. Are you feeling better this morning?”

“A great deal better.” Cassilda returned her smile. “I feel as if I’d slept for days.” She frowned slightly, suddenly uncertain.

Camilla touched her forehead. “Your fever has left you; Mrs Castaigne will be delighted to learn that. You’ve slept away most of yesterday and all through last night. Shall I bring your breakfast tray now?”

“Please—I’m famished. But I really think I should be getting up.”

“After breakfast, if you wish. And now I’ll inform madame that you’re feeling much better.”

Mrs Castaigne appeared as the maid was clearing away the breakfast things. “How very much better you look today, Cassilda. Camilla tells me you feel well enough to sit up.”

“I really can’t play the invalid and continue to impose upon your hospitality any longer. Would it be possible that you might lend me some clothing? My own garments...” Cassilda frowned, trying to remember why she had burst in on her benefactress virtually naked.

“Certainly, my dear.” Mrs Castaigne squeezed her shoulder. “You must see if some of my daughter’s garments won’t fit you. You cannot be very different in size from Constance, I’m certain. Camilla will assist you.”

She was light-headed when first she tried to stand, but Cassilda clung to the brass bedposts until her legs felt strong enough to hold her. The maid was busying herself at the chest of drawers, removing items of clothing from beneath neat coverings of tissue paper. A faint odor of dried rose petals drifted from a sachet beneath the folded garments.

“I do hope you’ll overlook it if these are not of the latest mode,” Mrs Castaigne was saying. “It has been some time since Constance was with us here.”

“Your daughter is...?”

“Away.”

Cassilda declined to intrude further. There was a dressing screen behind which she retired, while Mrs Castaigne waited upon the chaise longue. Trailing a scent of dried roses from the garments she carried, Camilla joined her behind the screen and helped her out of her nightdress.

There were undergarments of fine silk, airy lace and gauzy pastels. Cassilda found herself puzzled, both from their unfamiliarity and at the same time their familiarity, and while her thoughts struggled with the mystery, her hands seemed to dress her body with practiced movements. First the chemise, knee-length and trimmed with light lace and ribbons. Seated upon a chair, she drew on pale stockings of patterned silk, held at midthigh by beribboned garters. Then silk knickers, open front and back and tied at the waist, trimmed with lace and niching where they flared below her stocking tops. A frilled petticoat fell almost to her ankles.

“I won’t need that,” Cassilda protested. Camilla had presented her with a boned corset of white-and-sky broche.

“Nonsense, my dear,” Mrs Castaigne directed, coming around the dressing screen to oversee. “You may think of me as old-fashioned, but I insist that you not ruin your figure.”

Cassilda submitted, suddenly wondering why she had thought anything out of the ordinary about it. She hooked the straight busk together in front, while Camilla gathered the laces at the back. The maid tugged sharply at the laces, squeezing out her breath. Cassilda bent forward and steadied herself against the back of the chair, as Camilla braced a knee against the small of her back, pulling the laces as tight as possible before tying them. Once her corset was secured, she drew over it a camisole of white cotton lace trimmed with ribbon, matching her petticoat. Somewhat dizzy, Cassilda sat stiffly before the dressing table, while the maid brushed out her long black hair and gathered it in a loose knot atop her head, pinning it in place with tortoise-shell combs. Opening the wardrobe, Camilla found her a pair of shoes with high heels that mushroomed outward at the bottom, which fit her easily.

“How lovely, Cassilda!” Mrs Castaigne approved. “One would scarcely recognize you as the poor drowned thing that came out of the night!”

Cassilda stood up and examined herself in the full-length dressing mirror. It was as if she looked upon a stranger, and yet she knew she looked upon herself. The corset constricted her waist and forced her slight figure into an “S” curve—hips back, bust forward— imparting an unexpected opulence, further enhanced by the gauzy profusion of lace and silk. Her face, dark-eyed and finely boned, returned her gaze watchfully from beneath a lustrous pile of black hair. She touched herself, almost in wonder, almost believing that the reflection in the mirror was a photograph of someone else.

Camilla selected for her a long-sleeved linen shirtwaist, buttoned at the cuffs and all the way to her throat, then helped her into a skirt of some darker material that fell away from her cinched waist to her ankles. Cassilda studied herself in the mirror, while the maid fussed about her.

I look like someone in an old illustration—a Gibson girl, she thought, then puzzled at her thought.

Through the open window she could hear the vague noises of the city, and for the first time she realized that intermingled with these familiar sounds was the clatter of horses’ hooves upon the brick pavement.



“You simply must not say anything more about leaving us, Cassilda,” Mrs, Castaigne insisted, laying a hand upon the girl’s knee as she leaned toward her confidentially.

Beside her on the settee, Cassilda felt the pressure of her touch through the rustling layers of petticoat. It haunted her, this flowing whisper of sound that came with her every movement, for it seemed at once strange and again familiar—a shivery sigh of silk against silk, like the whisk of dry snow sliding across stone. She smiled, holding her teacup with automatic poise, and wondered that such little, commonplace sensations should seem at all out of the ordinary to her. Even the rigid embrace of her corset seemed quite familiar to her now, so that she sat gracefully at ease, listening to her benefactress, while a part of her thoughts stirred in uneasy wonder.

“You have said yourself that you have no immediate prospects,” Mrs Castaigne continued. “I shouldn’t have to remind you of the dangers the city holds for unattached young women. You were extremely fortunate in your escape from those white slavers who had abducted you. Without family or friends to question your disappearance—well, I shan’t suggest what horrible fate awaited you.”

Cassilda shivered at the memory of her escape—a memory as formless and uncertain, beyond her need to escape, as that of her life prior to her abduction. She had made only vague replies to Mrs Castaigne’s gentle questioning, nor was she at all certain which fragments of her story were half-truths, or lies.

Of one thing she was certain beyond all doubt: the danger from which she had fled awaited her beyond the shelter of this house.

“It has been so lonely here since Constance went away,” Mrs Castaigne was saying. “Camilla is a great comfort to me, but nonetheless she has her household duties to occupy her, and I have often considered engaging a companion. I should be only too happy if you would consent to remain with us in this position—at least for the present time.”

“You’re much too kind! Of course I’ll stay.”

“I promise you that your duties shall be no more onerous than to provide amusements for a rather old-fashioned lady of retiring disposition. I hope it won’t prove too dull for you, my dear.”

“It suits my own temperament perfectly,” Cassilda assured her. “I am thoroughly content to follow quiet pursuits within doors.”

“Wonderful!” Mrs Castaigne took her hands. “Then it’s settled. I know Camilla will be delighted to have another young spirit about the place. And you may relieve her of some of her tasks.”

“What shall I do?” Cassilda begged her, overjoyed at her good fortune.

“Would you read to me, please, my dear? I find it so relaxing to the body and so stimulating to the mind. I’ve taken up far too much of Camilla’s time from her chores, having her read to me for hours on end.”

“Of course.” Cassilda returned Camilla’s smile as she entered the sitting room to collect the tea things. From her delight, it was evident that the maid had been listening from the hallway. “What would you like for me to read to you?”

“That book over there beneath the lamp.” Mrs Castaigne indicated a volume bound in yellow cloth. “It is a recent drama—and a most curious work, as you shall quickly see. Camilla was reading it to me on the night you came to us.”

Taking up the book, Cassilda again experienced a strange sense of unaccountable deja vu, and she wondered where she might previously have read The King in Yellow, if indeed she ever had.

“I believe we are ready to begin the second act,” Mrs Castaigne told her.



Cassilda was reading in bed when Camilla knocked tentatively at her door. She set aside her book with an almost furtive movement.

“Entrezvous.”

“I was afraid you might already be asleep,” the maid explained, “but then I saw light beneath your door. I’d forgotten to bring you your tonic before retiring.”

Camilla, en deshabille, carried in the medicine glass on a silver tray. Her fluttering lace and pastels seemed a pretty contrast to the black maid’s uniform she ordinarily wore.

“I wasn’t able to go to sleep just yet,” Cassilda confessed, sitting up in bed. “I was reading.”

Camilla handed her the tonic, “Let me see. Ah, yes. What a thoroughly wicked book to be reading in bed!”

“Have you read The King in Yellow?”

“I have read it through aloud to madame, and more than once. It is a favorite of hers.”

“It is sinful and more than sinful to imbue such decadence with so compelling a fascination. I cannot imagine that anyone could have allowed it to be published. The author must have been mad to pen such thoughts.”

“And yet, you read it.”

Cassilda made a place for her on the edge of the bed. “Its fascination is too great a temptation to resist. I wanted to read further after Mrs Castaigne bade me good night.”

“It was Constance’s book.” Camilla huddled close beside her against the pillows. “Perhaps that is why madame cherishes it so.” Cassilda opened the yellow-bound volume to the page she had been reading. Camilla craned her blonde head over her shoulder to read with her. She had removed her corset, and her ample figure swelled against her beribboned chemise. Cassilda in her nightdress felt almost scrawny as she compared her own small bosom to the other girl’s.

“Is it not strange?” she remarked. “Here in this decadent drama we read of Cassilda and Camilla.”

“I wonder if we two are very much like them,” Camilla laughed. “They are such very dear friends.”

“And so are we, are we not?”

“I do so want us to be.”

“But you haven’t read beyond the second act, dear Cassilda. How can you know what may their fate be?”

“Oh, Camilla!” Cassilda leaned her face back against Camilla’s perfumed breasts. “Don’t tease me so!”

The blonde girl hugged her fiercely, stroking her back. “Poor, lost Cassilda.”

Cassilda nestled against her, listening to the heartbeat beneath her cheek. She was feeling warm and sleepy, for all that the book had disturbed her. The tonic always carried her to dreamy oblivion, and it was pleasant to drift to sleep in Camilla’s soft embrace.

“Were you and Constance friends?” she wondered.

“We were the very dearest of friends.”

“You must miss her very much.”

“No longer.”



Cassilda sat at the escritoire in her room, writing in the journal she had found there. Her petticoats crowded against the legs of the writing table as she leaned forward to reach the inkwell. From time to time she paused to stare pensively past the open curtains of her window, upon the deepening blue of the evening sky as it met the angled rooftops of the buildings along the waterfront below.

“I think I should feel content here,” she wrote. “Mrs Castaigne is strict in her demands, but I am certain she takes a sincere interest in my own well-being, and that she has only the kindliest regard for me. My duties during the day are of the lightest nature and consist primarily of reading to Mrs Castaigne or of singing at the piano while she occupies herself with her needlework, and in all other ways making myself companionable to her in our simple amusements.

“I have offered to assist Camilla at her chores, but Mrs Castaigne will not have it that I perform other than the lightest household tasks. Camilla is a very dear friend to me, and her sweet attentions easily distract me from what might otherwise become a tedium of sitting about the house day to day. Nonetheless, I have no desire to leave my situation here, nor to adventure into the streets outside the house. We are not in an especially attractive section of the city here, being at some remove from the shops and in a district given over to waterfront warehouses and commercial establishments. We receive no visitors, other than the tradesmen who supply our needs, nor is Mrs Castaigne of a disposition to wish to seek out the society of others.

“Withal, my instincts suggest that Mrs Castaigne has sought the existence of a recluse out of some very great emotional distress which has robbed life of its interests for her. It is evident from the attention and instruction she has bestowed upon me that she sees in me a reflection of her daughter, and I am convinced that it is in the loss of Constance where lies the dark secret of her self-imposed withdrawal from the world. I am sensible of the pain Mrs Castaigne harbors within her breast, for the subject of her daughter’s absence is never brought into our conversations, and for this reason I have felt loath to question her, although I am certain that this is the key to the mystery that holds us in this house.”

Cassilda concluded her entry with the date: June 7th, 189—

She frowned in an instant’s consternation. What was the date? How silly. She referred to a previous day’s entry, then completed the date. For a moment she turned idly back through her journal, smiling faintly at the many pages of entries that filled the diary, each progressively dated, each penned in the same neat hand as the entry she had just completed.



Cassilda sat at her dressing table in her room. It was night, and she had removed her outer clothing preparatory to retiring. She gazed at her reflection— the gauzy paleness of her chemise, stockings and knickers was framed against Camilla’s black maid’s uniform as the blonde girl stood behind her, brushing out her dark hair.

Upon the dressing table she had spread out the contents of a tin box she had found in one of the drawers, and she and Camilla had been looking over them as she prepared for bed. There were paper dolls, valentines and greeting cards, illustrations clipped from magazines, a lovely cutout of a swan. She also found a crystal ball that rested upon an ebony cradle. Within the crystal sphere was a tiny house, covered with snow, with trees and a frozen lake and a young girl playing. When Cassilda picked it up, the snow stirred faintly in the transparent fluid that filled the globe. She turned the crystal sphere upside down for a moment, then quickly righted it, and a snowstorm drifted down about the tiny house.

“How wonderful it would be to dwell forever in a crystal fairyland just like the people in this little house,” Cassilda remarked, peering into the crystal ball.

Something else seemed to stir within the swirling snowflakes, she thought, but when the snow had settled once more, the tableau was unchanged. No: there was a small mound, there beside the child at play, that she was certain she had not seen before. Cassilda overturned the crystal globe once again, and peered more closely. There it was. Another tiny figure spinning amidst the snowflakes. A second girl. She must have broken loose from the tableau. The tiny figure drifted to rest upon the frozen lake, and the snowflakes once more covered her from view.

“Where is Constance Castaigne?” Cassilda asked.

“Constance... became quite ill,” Camilla told her carefully. “She was always subject to nervous attacks. One night she suffered one of her fits, and she...”

“Camilla!” Mrs Castaigne’s voice from the doorway was stern. “You know how I despise gossip—especially idle gossip concerning another’s misfortunes.”

The maid’s face was downcast. “I’m very sorry, madame. I meant no mischief.”

The older woman scowled as she crossed the room. Cassilda wondered if she meant to strike the maid. “Being sorry does not pardon the offense of a wagging tongue. Perhaps a lesson in behavior will improve your manners in the future. Go at once to your room.”

“Please, madame...”

“Your insolence begins to annoy me, Camilla.”

“Please, don’t be harsh with her!” Cassilda begged, as the maid hurried from the room. “She was only answering my question.” Standing behind the seated girl, Mrs Castaigne placed her hands upon her shoulders and smiled down at her. “An innocent question, my dear. However, the subject is extremely painful to me, and Camilla well knows the distress it causes me to hear it brought up. I shall tell you this now, and that shall end the matter. My daughter suffered a severe attack of brain fever. She is confined in a mental sanatorium.”

Cassilda crossed her arms over her breasts to place her hands upon the older woman’s wrists. “I’m terribly sorry.”

“I’m certain you can appreciate how sorely this subject distresses me.” Mrs Castaigne smiled, meeting her eyes in the mirror.

“I shan’t mention it again.”

“Of course not. And now, my dear, you must hurry and make yourself ready for bed. Too much exertion so soon after your illness will certainly bring about a relapse. Hurry along now, while I fetch your tonic.”

“I’m sure I don’t need any more medicine. Sometimes I think it must bring on evil dreams.”

“Now don’t argue, Cassilda dear.” The fingers on her shoulders tightened their grip. “You must do as you’re told. You can’t very well perform your duties as companion if you lie about ill all day, now can you? And you do want to stay.”

“Certainly!” Cassilda thought this last had not been voiced as a question. “I want to do whatever you ask.”

“I know you do, Cassilda. And I only want to make you into a perfect young lady. Now let me help you into your night things.”



Cassilda opened her eyes into complete darkness that swirled about her in an invisible current. She sat upright in her bed, fighting back the vertigo that she had decided must come from the tonic they gave her nightly. Something had wakened her. Another bad dream? She knew she often suffered them, even though the next morning she was unable to recall them. Was she about to be sick? She was certain that the tonic made her feel drugged.

Her wide eyes stared sleeplessly at the darkness. She knew sleep would not return easily, for she feared to lapse again into the wicked dreams that disturbed her rest and left her lethargic throughout the next day. She could not even be certain that this, now, might not be another of those dreams.

In the absolute silence of the house, she could hear her heart pulse, her breath stir anxiously There was another sound, more distant, and of almost the same monotonous regularity. She thought she heard a woman’s muffled sobbing.

Mrs Castaigne, she thought. The talk of her daughter had upset her terribly. Underscoring the sobbing came a sharp, rhythmic crack, as if a rocker sounded against a loose board.

Cassilda felt upon the nightstand beside her bed. Her fingers found matches. Striking one, she lit the candle that was there—her actions entirely automatic. Stepping down out of her bed, she caught up the candlestick and moved cautiously out of her room.

In the hallway, she listened for the direction of the sound. Her candle forced a small nimbus of light against the enveloping darkness of the old house. Cassilda shivered and drew her nightdress closer about her throat; its gauzy lace and ribbons were no barrier to the cold darkness that swirled about her island of candlelight.

The sobbing seemed no louder as she crept down the hallway toward Mrs Castaigne’s bedroom. There, the bedroom door was open, and within was only silent darkness.

“Mrs Castaigne?” Cassilda called softly, without answer.

The sound of muffled sobbing continued, and now seemed to come from overhead. Cassilda followed its sound to the end of the hallway, where a flight of stairs led to the maid’s quarters in the attic. Cassilda paused fearfully at the foot of the stairway, thrusting her candle without effect against the darkness above. She could still hear the sobbing, but the other sharp sound had ceased. Her head seemed to float in the darkness as she listened, but, despite her dreamlike lethargy, she knew her thoughts raced too wildly now for sleep. Catching up the hem of her nightdress, Cassilda cautiously ascended the stairs.

Once she gained the landing above, she could see the blade of yellow light that shone beneath the door to Camilla’s room, and from within came the sounds that had summoned her. Quickly Cassilda crossed to the maid’s room and knocked softly upon the door.

“Camilla? It’s Cassilda. Are you all right?”

Again no answer, although she sensed movement within. The muffled sobs continued.

Cassilda tried the doorknob, found it was not locked. She pushed the door open and stepped inside, dazzled a moment by the bright glare of the oil lamp.

Camilla, dressed only in her corset and undergarments, stood bent over the foot of her bed. Her ankles were lashed to the base of either post, her wrists tied together and stretched forward by a rope fixed to the headboard. Exposed by the open-style knickers, her buttocks were crisscrossed with red welts. She turned her head to look at Cassilda, and the other girl saw that Camilla’s cries were gagged by a complicated leather bridle strapped about her head.

“Come in, Cassilda, since you wish to join us,” said Mrs Castaigne from behind her. Cassilda heard her close the door and lock it, before the girl had courage enough to turn around. Mrs Castaigne wore no more clothing than did Camilla, and she switched her riding crop anticipatorily. Looking from mistress to maid, Cassilda saw that both pairs of eyes glowed alike with the lusts of unholy pleasure.



For a long interval Cassilda resisted awakening, hovering in a languor of unformed dreaming despite the rising awareness that she still slept. When she opened her eyes at last, she stared at the candlestick on her nightstand, observing without comprehension that the candle had burned down to a misshapen nub of cold wax. Confused memories came to her, slipping away again as her mind sought to grasp them. She had dreamed...

Her mouth seemed bruised and sour with a chemical taste that was not the usual anisette aftertaste of the tonic, and her limbs ached as if sore from too strenuous exercise the day before. Cassilda hoped she was not going to have a relapse of the fever that had stricken her after she had fled the convent that stormy night so many weeks ago.

She struggled for a moment with that memory. The sisters in black robes and white aprons had intended to wall her up alive in her cell because she had yielded to the temptation of certain unspeakable desires... The memory clouded and eluded her, like a fragment of some incompletely remembered book.

There were too many elusive memories, memories that died unheard... Had she not read that? The King in Yellow lay open upon her nightstand. Had she been reading, then fallen asleep to such dreams of depravity? But dreams, like memories, faded miragelike whenever she touched them, leaving only tempting images to beguile her.

Forcing her cramped muscles to obey her, Cassilda climbed from her bed. Camilla was late with her tray this morning, and she might as well get dressed to make herself forget the dreams. As she slipped out of her nightdress, she looked at her reflection in the full length dressing mirror.

The marks were beginning to fade now, but the still painful welts made red streaks across the white flesh of her shoulders, back and thighs. Fragments of repressed nightmare returned as she stared in growing fear. She reached out her hands, touching the reflection in wonder. There were bruises on her wrists, and unbidden came a memory of her weight straining against the cords that bound her wrists to a hook from an attic rafter.

Behind her, in the mirror, Mrs Castaigne ran the tip of her tongue along her smiling lips.

“Up and about already, Cassilda? I hope you’ve made up your mind to be a better young lady today. You were most unruly last night.”

Her brain reeling under the onrush of memories, Cassilda stared mutely. Camilla, obsequious in her maid’s costume, her smile a cynical sneer, entered carrying a complex leather harness of many straps and buckles.

“I think we must do something more to improve your posture, Cassilda,” Mrs Castaigne purred. “You may think me a bit old-fashioned, but I insist that a young lady’s figure must be properly trained if she is to look her best.”

“What are you doing to me?” Cassilda wondered, feeling panic.

“Only giving you the instruction a young lady must have if she is to serve as my companion. And you do want to be a proper young lady, don’t you, Cassilda?”

“I’m leaving this house. Right now.”

“We both know why you can’t. Besides, you don’t really want to go. You quite enjoy our cozy little ménage á trois.”

“You’re deranged.”

“And you’re one to talk, dear Cassilda.” Mrs Castaigne’s smile was far more menacing than any threatened blow. “I think, Camilla, the scold’s bridle will teach this silly girl to mind that wicked tongue.”



* * *



A crash of thunder broke her out of her stupor. Out of reflex, she tried to dislodge the hard rubber ball that filled her mouth, choked on saliva when she failed. Half strangled by the gag strapped over her face, she strained in panic to sit up. Her wrists and ankles were held fast, and, as her eyes dilated in unreasoning fear, a flash of lightning beyond the window rippled down upon her spread-eagled body, held to the brass bedposts by padded leather cuffs.

Images, too chaotic and incomprehensive to form coherent memory, exploded in bright shards from her shattered mind.

She was being forced into a straitjacket, flung into a padded cell, and they were bricking up the door... no, it was some bizarre corset device, forcing her neck back, crushing her abdomen, arms laced painfully into a single glove at her back... Camilla was helping her into a gown of satin and velvet and lace, and then into a hood of padded leather that they buckled over her head as they led her to the gallows... and the nurses held her down while Dr Archer penetrated her with a grotesque syringe of vile poison, and Mrs Castaigne forced the yellow tonic down her throat as she pinned her face between her thighs... and Camilla’s lips dripped blood as she rose from her kiss, and her fangs were hypodermic needles, injecting poison, sucking life... they were wheeling her into the torture chamber, where Dr Archer awaited her (“It’s only a frontal lobotomy, just to relieve the pressure on these two diseased lobes.”) and plunges the bloody scalpel deep between her thighs... and they were strapping her into the metal chair in the death cell, shoving the rubber gag between her teeth and blinding her with the leather hood, and Dr Archer grasps the 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 bottles littered the floor and dingy furnishings. The flickering mirage passed, and she saw that the room was exactly as she remembered. She must leave by the window.

There was a tapping at the window.

She started, then recoiled in horror as another repressed memory escaped into consciousness.

The figure that had pursued her through the darkness on that night she had sought refuge here. It waited for her now at the window. Half-glimpsed before, she saw it now fully revealed in the glare of the lightning.

Moisture glistened darkly upon its rippling and exaggerated musculature. Its uncouth head and shoulders hunched forward bullishly; its face was distorted with insensate lust and drooling madness. A grotesque phallus swung between its misshapen legs—serpentine, possessed of its own life and volition. Like an obscene worm, it stretched blindly toward her, blood oozing from its toothless maw.

She raised her hands to ward it off, and the monstrosity pawed at the window, mocking her every terrified movement as it waited there on the other side of the rain-slick glass.

The horror was beyond enduring. There was another casement window to the corner sitting room, the one that overlooked the waters of the river. She spun about and lunged toward it—noticing from the corner of her eye that the creature outside also whirled about, sensing her intent, flung itself toward the far window to forestall her.

The glass of the casement shattered, even as its blubbery hands stretched out toward her. There was no pain in that release, only a dreamlike vertigo as she plunged into the greyness and the rain. Then the water and the darkness received her falling body, and she set out again into the night, letting the current carry her, she knew not where.



“A few personal effects remain to be officially disposed of, Dr Archer—since there’s no one to claim them. It’s been long enough now since the bus accident, and we’d like to be able to close the files on this catastrophe.”

“Let’s have a look.” The psychiatrist opened the box of personal belongings. There wasn’t much; there never was in such cases, and had there been anything worth stealing, it was already unofficially disposed of.

“They still haven’t found a body,” the ward superintendent wondered. “Do you suppose...”

“Callous as it sounds, I rather hope not,” Dr Archer confided. “This patient was a paranoid schizophrenic—and dangerous.”

“Seemed quiet enough on the ward.”

“Thanks to a lot of ECT—and to depot phenothiazines. Without regular therapy, the delusional system would quickly regain control, and the patient would become frankly murderous.”

There were a few toiletry items and some articles of clothing, a brassiere and pantyhose. “I guess send this over to Social Services. These shouldn’t be allowed on a locked ward— ” the psychiatrist pointed to the nylons “—nor these smut magazines.”

“They always find some way to smuggle the stuff in,” the ward superintendent sighed, “and I’ve been working here at Coastal State since back before the War. What about these other books?” Dr Archer considered the stack of dog-eared gothic romance novels. “Just return these to the Patients’ Library. What’s this one?” Beneath the paperbacks lay a small hardcover volume, bound in yellow cloth, somewhat soiled from age.

“Out of the Patients’ Library too, I suppose. People have donated all sorts of books over the years, and if the patients don’t tear them up, they just stay on the shelves forever.”

“The King in Yellow,” Dr Archer read from the spine, opening the book. On the flyleaf a name was penned in a graceful script: Constance Castaigne.

“Perhaps the name of a patient who left it here,” the superintendent suggested. “Around the turn of the century this was a private sanitarium. Somehow, though, the name seems to ring a distant bell.”

“Let’s just be sure this isn’t vintage porno.”

“I can’t be sure—maybe something the old-timers talked about when I first started here. I seem to remember there was some famous scandal involving one of the wealthy families in the city. A murderess, was it? And something about a suicide, or was it an escape? I can’t recall...”

“Harmless nineteenth-century romantic nonsense,” Dr Archer concluded. “Send it on back to the library.”

The psychiatrist glanced at a last few lines before closing the book:



Cassilda: I tell you, I am lost! Utterly lost!

Camilla (terrified herself): You have seen the King...?

Cassilda: And he has taken from me the power to direct or to escape my dreams.