Nightmarish Sacrifice (Cardew) (42 page)

             
And lost, so lost...

             
And restless – I just couldn’t imagine how I would start arranging everything there again, right then, around midnight, when it was so sinisterly dark outside, and I was completely alone and so exhausted – and when everything felt so morally dirty.

             
I couldn’t fall asleep either – the bed had sunk somehow unnaturally, its mattress torn to pieces roaming around in the ubiquitous mess, the door couldn’t be closed at all – and even if it was locked, I wouldn’t be able to relax enough in this place again.

             
Hadn’t the door been locked as well when the invaders had come? This didn’t seem to have stopped them.

             
And besides, the energy itself which was haunting the room had the sharp obsessive scent of danger...

             
I had already taken my phone out of my pocket before realizing it, and my thumb was ready to dial Cardew’s number; suddenly thoughtful, I managed to urge myself to stop.

             
What would I tell him? To come and save me? And wouldn’t that make him think that I was one of the ‘princesses that need help’ who he didn’t enjoy helping?

             
But whom could I call if not him?...

             
I would waste several more minutes in wondering whether to play strong or to seek for his protection I was longing for so much, when I by chance got glimpse of something that made me petrify.

             
And the phone crashed noisily on the floor, dropped by my stiff fingers.

             
In my pillow – which had only partially survived and was still laying on the bed – there was pinned a long sharp knife...

             
My heart was beating so quickly that I perceived it as if it had stopped altogether: the weapon in my pillow was exactly the same as the one from my nightmares!!!

             
Just that this time it was not imaginary...

             
It was real!

             
Shaken by the sight, I gazed at it blankly: the blade – absolutely material – was mercilessly cutting into the surface of the cloth so as to urge a piece of paper attached to it...

             
A rapid flashback of memory made me recall a darkened night in which I had spilled Cardew’s hair on the very same pillow, but I hurried to return to the menacing reality, and reached for the note...

             
The handwriting on it was perfectly familiar to me – it was Cardew’s again, just like in the note that had been thrust under my door on the very same night I had just recalled – but I could swear it had not been Cardew’s hand that had written the words in the anonymous letter...

             
Or was I wrong?...

             
‘TONIGHT THE SAME WILL HAPPEN TO YOU!’ the new note was threatening eloquently, its heart ferociously stabbed and torn by the knife, as its body was helplessly pinned to the pillow.

             
The same!...

             
Tonight! My heart leapt with immense terror and I almost collapsed on my knees.

             
Tonight!...

             
The word started spinning in my mind – wildly, ceaselessly, maddeningly – making me dizzy, and covering everything around me in thick imaginary fog as if I was about to faint.

             
TONIGHT!...

             
Feverish thrills were making my whole body shiver as I darted to my phone, picked it up from where it had fallen, and tried to unlock its keyboard...

             
No response.

             
The small machine had broken down from the crash.

             
I was all alone...

             
‘Tonight!’ the paper warned me again as I glanced back towards it. ‘TONIGHT!!! –’

             
“I won’t die tonight!!!” I screamed in panic and, in an outburst of insanity, strongly cast the phone towards the wall and watched it blast into dozens of little pieces from the fierce collision. “I won’t die!!! –”

             
And, in the next moment, I was already running down the stairs of my hostel, hurrying, tripping and rising again like in a nightmare which was scurrying dead-close behind me, clung to me too tightly to let me go...

             
Alive.

             
The night wind outside met me with an evil smile that made me shudder, but I bravely raised my chin as if I hadn’t noticed anything, and compelled myself to walk forward with a moderate pace so as to fight more bravely against my own inner fright, and also, not to attract attention.

             
The air around was full of intensive shades of black, menacing me as if it was hiding a crowd of prowling enemies – I paid no attention to it, as I was going to look for an enemy of mine, too.

             
The best one.

             
And my only friend.

                                          Cardew didn’t exclaim my name with surprise, nor instantly asked me what was wrong – the door of his house immediately opened to let me in as I rang, and locked calmingly firmly behind me, and it was not until the boy had brought me to the living room that he gave me a sign he would listen to what I wanted to tell him – his sharpened senses had perceived my nervousness and he instinctively knew how to make me feel protected.

             
“You aren’t hurt, are you?” he asked quickly, and I almost smiled to the secretly worried intonation with which he pronounced the last two words.

             
“No,” I hurried to say, but the speed of my response made it less believable for Cardew, and he bowed down closer to my face.

             
“If someone has offended you, I will –” he stopped himself in time, before having finished the sentence, but I could easily read the words ‘kill him’ in his fiery granite-gray eyes – strangely enough, this made me relax.

             
“No, no –” I raised my palms defensively and managed to smile, although such blunt manipulations weren’t working on a flawless actor like him, who was perfectly aware of all tricks even better than I was. “Nobody has even touched me – but when I got to my room, the door was broken and –”

             
“Oh –” was all Cardew said, and his irises widened at once at a thought he didn’t voice. “And?”

             
“Everything inside was a mess,” I shuddered at the recollection, while he just nodded seriously that he was understanding me. “But nothing was taken, not even the money – and there was a note saying ‘The same will happen to you tonight!’ pinned to my pillow with a knife which was just the same as –”

             
Oops...

             
Another tactical mistake.

             
Cardew was too observant to let it merely pass like that.

             
“The same as? –” he repeated to make me go on; his unforgiving piercing eyes were tight on mine, but I must have looked really scared, as he softened his expression not to horrify me completely and thus block my mind. “You have seen such a knife before?”

             
“In a movie –” I lied rapidly and shivered when I imagined what he would do to me if he was the one who had left it.

             
Oh gods!...

             
Hadn’t I just voluntarily thrown myself in the arms of my murderer?...

             
Not until I recalled that Cardew had hurried to lock the door behind my back as I had come in did I start thinking more rationally and saw logic in the sequence of strange events surrounding me – what if the one behind them was the very same boy sitting beside me and pretending he was trying to help?

             
Everything was matching like the fractions of a broken puzzle – with more difficulties than it was supposed to, but in the end far more precisely.

             
If the attacker had only meant to warn me or scare me, he could have thrust the note under the doorsill again – why had he turned my place uninhabitable unless he was trying to urge me not to stay there? It couldn’t be just an act of vandalism – from the state in which my room was, it was absolutely clear that I wouldn’t spend the night there, even without the threatening note – what if exactly this had been his aim?

             
And where else could I possibly go if not to Cardew’s house?...

             
So the invader of my room had wanted me to go to Cardew...

             
Why?

             
Why, unless Cardew and the invader were two roles of the same person?

             
I remembered the first anonymous letter I received – Cardew had claimed it hadn’t been sent by him despite the handwriting, and I had so easily believed him... Hadn’t he written it only to make me associate such letters in his handwriting with another unknown sender, and not with him?

             
That night then I had fallen asleep before him, and he could have easily killed me without any opposition – not that my defence could have stopped him anyway – but in that situation, he would have easily got caught, and he would prefer to at least try to elude such obstacles...

             
Like with Odda...

             
Whereas for the current night, he had the perfect alibi: I myself had been with him for hours before that, we had both been on stage in front of everybody’s eyes – but my logic whispered to me that he could have broken into my room before coming to the hall, and when he claimed he had been alone in those hours, people would believe him – everybody knew he was a loner...

             
And the same night I would be dead.

             
Oh, I had been so foolish!...

             
That would cost my life.

             
Cardew was watching me warily, his eyes suspicious in both meanings of the word.

             
“What happened in that movie?” he asked and that must have startled me, as I turned my head towards him with a terrified expression.

             
“This with the knife like the one in your room?” Cardew specified and his brows knitted in a lack of understanding of the reason for my fear.

             
“She... she died –” I bit into my lower lip and, urged by the same powerful instinct that was making me beware him as if he was fire, I moved closer to him in search for the inexplicable but mighty sense of protection he was giving me. “Her lover killed her –”

             
The boy beside me fixed his leaden cloudy eyes on me but I instinctively looked away, biting my lips more ferociously as if to punish myself for this passing weakness, and that was enough a sign for him.

             
“You don’t trust me, do you?” his voice was colder, but there were regretful notes in his tone, like pure metal drops mysteriously shimmering from the inside of a piece of iron-stone. “You are afraid of me –”

             
“I –” if only there was a way to say I wasn’t afraid of him without telling a lie! “Right now I’m afraid of everything, Cardew... Please –” I looked up at his face to search for the tiniest sign that would allow me to throw on his neck. “Lie to me if you have to, but tell me you are going to protect me... just for tonight –”

             
“Freya, lovely –” Cardew uttered tenderly and dragged me to himself, letting me lay my head on his chest and burying his fingers in my hair, their slight movements caressing me lightly. “I may not be really expressive, but you know I will do anything not to let you get hurt, anything I can –”

             
And, although I wasn’t seeing his face, I was ready to believe him – I simply needed to.

             
I would die anyway...

             
I could at least enjoy my last night as a living creature.

             
“I guess you’re tired –” Cardew lifted me gently and with ease, his embrace so secure around me that I felt more stability in it then I could on my own feet. “Do you want me to fill the bath for you?”

             
Rapt in distant airy dream-like visions my own imagination was playing with, I closed my eyes and let his captivating magical voice tenderly bewitch me, the rhythm of his steps as he was climbing the stairs to the upper floor lulling me, tempting me into forgetfulness...

             
“Thank you but I’d rather have a shower,” I murmured silently, and in vain tried to shake my sleepiness away; I was so powerless already that if I laid my exhausted body in the warmly consoling water, I would easily fall asleep without even realizing it.

             
And maybe – unnoticeably and effortlessly, silently, gently – I would simply drown in the utter pleasure he would give me; the overpowering water – the limitless potential hidden in the form of constant composure itself – would allure me to slowly slide under its surface, would passionately grab me in the last hug I would ever receive, and would finally erase all my torturing doubts...

             
Together with my life.

             
Was this the way in which I would die?...

             
The door of the bedroom opened silently not to disturb my philosophical reflections, and, having slowly walked in, Cardew stopped in front of the wide soft armchair in one cosily darkened corner while wondering whether to leave me in it on my own, or simply to sit there together with me, and let me quietly cuddle in the all-absorbing warmth of his tranquillizing embrace until the first sunrays gilded the dried traces of purifying tears down my cheeks...

             
And even after that.

             
“Thank you,” I breathed out as he took a seat in the armchair with a flowing movement and ensconced me up to his chest where I huddled with gratefulness, his arms crossing behind my back calmingly tightly.

             
“I should have laid you directly into the bed, you’d be more comfortable there,” Cardew suggested mildly, and his lips pressed to my forehead for several more prolonged seconds in an attempt to find out if I was having fever.

             
“No –” it was not the fatigue that was delaying my answers but the ultimate tormenting obsessive desire to merely freeze the moment the way it was and never to have to live in any other one. “Just stay for another minute like this –”

             
And Cardew did – naturally, sincerely – much more drama in his silent care than there would have been in any words or actions; his chest was slowly raising and descending as he was breathing in the enchanting fragrance of loveliness haunting his room – the most overwhelming perfume I had ever sensed – and, even though my eyes were closed and I was motionless and relaxed as if I was sleeping, his soothing endearments didn’t cease tenderly gliding through my hair and down my back – he intuitively knew that I was awake.

             
The side of his jaw smoothly caressed my cheek as his lips slightly skimmed my hair, the touch of his skin filling me with warmth, gratitude, and security.

             
Was he a murderer?

             
I didn’t know – and I didn’t even care – all which mattered to me was that he was vitally needed for my existence...

             
Even though I didn’t know the essence of his soul for real.

             
“Thank you –” I uttered silently after another second of restful bliss, and rose to leave a fluttering innocent kiss on his lips. “I don’t want to fall asleep now and make you stay here to hold me all night – I’ll go for a shower before I become too relaxed to move –”

             
Cardew smiled and slowly shifted his position in the supple armchair blanketing both of us in its warm laziness.

             
“Do you fancy a bath as well?” he offered leniently and I felt thankfulness that he asked.

             
“It will be lovely –” I chuckled noiselessly, having subconsciously copied his manner of speaking – and Cardew smiled again.

             
“Then I’m going to prepare it now –” his lips touched my cheek – a gesture that rendered me helpless, and he lightly got up, leaving me in the snug armchair again. “You just come in a minute –”

             
My eyes staring gratefully at his were full of such genuine affection that he smiled again – in a way that could make me feel as though I would melt if I didn’t perceive it as if I had already evaporated from the intensity of emotions he was inspiring in me – and, returning a little step back, he relaxed on his knees on the floor beside the armchair, gently lifted my hand laying loosely on the elbow-rest, and his lips touched my skin in a faint fragile kiss, as if not to disturb the fairy wings of sleep ascending behind my eyelids.