By Gregg Glory [Gregg G. Brown]
Chapter Fourteen "Dinner with a Daggonnath"
Eva lead Sarah swiftly up the stairs. As they passed the entrance to the kitchen, Eva called out. "Dinner, Boroshkovic, and quickly." Then they turned a short corner into a surprisingly luxurious dining room.
A long table set with black napkins, black candles already burning, a black paisley-patterned tablecloth, silver flatware, and a bowl of gorgeous black olives sat in the center of the room. The chairs around the table were upholstered in black velvet, and when Sarah sat down, she felt as though she were being allowed to sit in a queen's padded throne. On opposite walls hung two portraits, draped with black bunting trimmed with fringe. The portraits had a queer, unfinished quality, as if their subjects had posed for them while holding their breaths underwater. They were portraits of a man and a woman. The man, or boy, really, with a bold Roman nose, wore an outfit of colossal armor made entirely, it appeared, of gold. He had a black feather floating from the top of his helmet, and a coat of arms that consisted of three rats jumping from a shipwreck in a lightning storm. The motto emblazoned across the shield in blood-red letters was discernible as 'superstes ego.'
The woman's portrait was more complex, more compelling. For one thing, the woman in the portrait looked like it could easily have been a younger version of Eva herself. She was supremely elegant, with a poise like a dagger. Her ears, drawn out through her upswept hair, were pointed, as were the small teeth in her modest smile. Other than that, she had on a timeless queen's regalia. Black ostrich feathers served as an exotic backdrop behind her ebony throne. Her royal dress was of black silk, gathered in bunches and drapes that only accentuated the utter smoothness and suavity of her form. Even seated, the figure in the portrait seemed more coiled than resting. But it was the eyes that you could not turn away from. Black, black eyes like the dead of night, like the back side of the moon. Like a moonless swamp at midnight: moist, mysterious, infinite. There was a sense in the whole thing, not of menace, exactly, but of certainty. That woman knew just what she wanted, and she had always, always gotten it. If the table were not between Sarah and the painting, she might have stayed standing by the doorway herself so that she could effect a quick getaway.
"Do not be alarmed, Sarah."
Sarah looked from the portrait to Eva. "But those...."
"Sit down, my dear. The portrait behind me is of my ... great ... Grandmother. She was regent for a sickly prince for many years. It was painted in the old country. Behind you is the prince."
They sat in silence for some time. There was no sense of time passing as they sat. They simply existed, here at this table, as they always had. Sarah, and the woman across from her, Eva, waited for nothing, expected nothing, wanted for nothing, asked for nothing. They simply were. The room had a stuffed quality to it, as though the air itself were full.
Sarah almost jumped when the hideous dwarf appeared at her side, holding an ewer made of an enormous black rhinoceros horn that had been hollowed out.
"It is to wash your hands, darling," Eva explained smoothly.
Sarah dipped her hands in the liquid. It was not clear. It was not water. But whatever it was did have the effect of leaving her hands tingling, with a sense that they had been stripped clean. Sarah dabbed her hands on the towel draped over the dwarf's crooked arm, which was thrust toward her for her convenience, and then folded her hands in her lap and resumed waiting. The towel was black.
When Eva was done with her ablutions, the dwarf dexterously shifted the rhino horn and towel to one hand, and poured out a tall glass of dark wine for Eva, and a smaller glass of wine for Sarah.
"Oh," said Sarah, stopping the dwarf from pouring with a gesture. "I'm not allowed to drink."
Eva looked discontent with Sarah's response, and then disappointed. "Surely you have had a swallow of wine at the communion rail."
"Well, yes, of course, but..."
"This is no different." Eva nodded, and the dwarf poured Sarah's smaller glass half-full.
Sarah's eyes kept wandering back to the gorgeous portrait of the be-feathered woman again, her extraordinary eyes, and her....
"Her teeth, they seem so...."
"She was the last of the great Daggonnath."
"Daggonnath?"
"Do not concern yourself. The Daggonnath are of an ancient lineage and tradition."
"In the old country."
"Yaaas, darling," drawled Eva. She looked at Sarah closely, estimating how much to share with her, and whether the impact of that information would ultimately be beneficial.
"The Draggonnath are magical creatures, imbued with special and rare gifts. These gifts, and their special, magical nature, often made them subject to ridicule and relegated to pariah status. Do you understand?"
"I think so. But she sees so, so royal too somehow."
"Very perceptive of you Sarah," Eva commented. "Yes. My Great-Grandmother befriended the king, and under his patronage she eventually became regent to the prince...when the king died unexpectedly. Her friendship with the king benefited not only herself, but all Draggonnath. Once again, they could raise their heads proudly in society, and were beholden to none. It was as it had been in ancient times, when the respect due them was naturally granted."
"You mean, before she was, was regent, she was a nobody, an outcast."
"Exactly. This was against the nature of things. And when the opportunity arose to set this wrong to rights, she did not hesitate to do what was necessary."
"'Do what was necessary'... It sounds so, so harsh." Sarah wondered what sort of things had been necessary for the woman in the portrait, the Draggonnath, to do to go from being a powerless nobody to the most important person in the old country except for the king.
"Justice may seem harsh to those who do not want it, darling." Eva seemed to hesitate. "But what would you be willing to do to see that the right thing happened, if you were given the chance to do something?"
Sarah reached into the olive dish and sucked the pimento out of one. Silence again engulfed the room. The dwarf left with his horn and his towel, dancing from foot to foot like a penguin. A few moments later, he bustled in with an armload of black plates piled high with every kind of food. Sarah's eyes grew large with hunger. This wasn't dinner, this was a feast.
"Now, Sarah, let us eat and discuss things as they are, as they have been, and as they should be."
Sarah reached for the first scrumptious morsel on the plate before her. "OK."
"Sarah, is there anything in your life that you are unhappy with? Anything at all?"
Sarah's mind whirled with the injustices dealt out to her, especially lately. From Bart's teasing her, to her cousins moving in and desecrating Gilman's room, to being excommunicated from the choir, to her parents ignoring her, to getting soaked in the bone-chilling rain. But what she said was, "Um, no ma'am, not really."
"Sometimes," Eva continued smoothly, examining a piece of perfectly roasted meat which she pulled slowly apart as she talked, "life is not as we would wish it to be. We imagine friendships to be lasting, parents to be consoling and supportive; we expect our talents to be recognized and rewarded; we may even, in some unspoken corner of our heart, hope to one day be loved."
Sarah was speechless. This Eva was talking to her like a grown woman, and not treating her like some kid. All the things she was talking about sounded just like Sarah felt. Did Eva really hope to be loved?
Eva sat there chewing calmly, looking at Sarah as though they had been intimate friends for years.
"Well," Sarah finally began. "There might be a few things that aren't so great."
"Oh, darling."
Sarah pushed her feet against the pillow that had been thoughtfully placed under her chair by the dwarf. We might be talking for awhile, she thought, and kicked off her shoes so she could enjoy the pillow more fully. Sarah went on at some length about her woes, eating and taking a break from complaining sometimes to enjoy the forbidden wine that Eva had offered. Eva offered her condolences, and never seemed bored or irritated with anything Sarah had to share. When she was finally starting to run out of steam, Eva asked her a nettling sort of question.
"And what do you plan to do about these terrible things, darling Sarah?"
Sarah stopped chewing her dessert toffee. She looked tiredly across the table at Eva. All of the eating she had done had put her out a bit. The rich foods weighed her down, as wonderful as they were. Her mind was sluggish, and she was feeling perhaps a little confused.
"I don't know."
"Come now. These problems will not settle themselves. You are a capable, and, from what Eugenius Hecatomb tells me, a very very talented young woman. Surely you must have thought of some approach to resolve your difficulties."
Sarah thought bleakly that the best way to "resolve" her difficulties was the same way she had gotten away from Bart back by the Mickleswift. Then at least she wouldn't have to deal with the incessant demands everyone was always making on her. Nobody would expect anything from her. And if they did, it would most like be just they were expecting a punch in the nose as much as anything else.
"I don't want them to be around me."
"That's good. You don't want them around."
"They're emotional vampires. They suck my heart out. It hurts."
"Yes, darling. It hurts, that's the problem. I understand. But what will you do about their hurting you?"
"Get them."
"You will get them. What does that mean, 'get them.' What do they deserve to have happen to them."
"They should hurt. Like they hurt me."
"Yes, perhaps they should hurt. Perhaps they should be punished. But tell me, Sarah, does a vampire feel pain?"
"No...?"
"No, they do not. They are immune to our mortal frailties."
"Then what can I do?" wailed Sarah, who was already starting to feel guilty for wishing so many people ill. People that included her choir coach, her cousins, her parents, her dear Granny Pansy, and maybe even Gilman, who hadn't done anything to protect her from having these problems now.
"Well, Sarah," suggested Eva in her softest voice, slowly. "Perhaps simply removing these roadblocks from you path is all that is required. One does not need to wish a roadblock to suffer to remove it. Simply by setting it to the side of the road, it ceases being a roadblock at all. It merely becomes a part of your past."
"A part of my past," said Sarah dreamily.
"Precisely, and you are free to go forward to meet your destiny."
"My destiny," said Sarah, who felt a dim stirring in herself at the words.
"Yes, Sarah. It is no ordinary life that is meant for you. This much, I, a great-granddaughter of a powerful Draggonnath, am privileged to know for certain."
"Do you really know it," said Sarah, an obscure hope beating in her heart and causing her eyes to lose their focus. "Do you know it for sure?"
"Yesssss," said Eva softly. "It is written. You are the destined one, my darling Sarah."
Sarah's determination to take her own fate into her hands, which had lead her to climb through the basement window when the others had rolled back down the hill, had only strengthened during her interview with Eva. She knew she must take charge of her future, and all that that might entail. She was ready, she thought. As ready as when I slid through that window. "You can do what you can do," wasn't that one of Granny Pansy's sayings?
Silence gathered momentum for a minute, two minutes, the walls breathing. And then Eva, who seemed to be absentmindedly stroking the feathers of her boa, suddenly plucked a feather from its dark, suave length. The boa curled abruptly, as if it would choke its owner, and then relaxed back as if stilled by a paralyzing sting. It was limp against the beautiful Draggonnath's alabaster neck.
"Take this feather, Sarah," said the Draggonnath, holding the feather across the table to Sarah by its nib. She released the feather, and it danced across her palm in a series of miniature arabesques, a weightless dancer on a stage of skin. Sarah extended her own hand, palm up, and held it level with Eva's own, larger palm. Eva gave a brief puff behind the feather, which skittered over to Sarah's palm and continued its writhing dance.
"Place this feather upon your palm, as you see now," began Eva, her voice gaining a trill as she continued. "And then sing to it this song." Eva had a very talented singing voice herself, Sarah noticed.
"Feather lithesome, feather bright Feather dancing day or night When my lonely heart has fears Dance my saving graces near."
"When you do this," Eva continued. "You will not be far from me. I will see and hear you as though you were before me. And, what is more, you will feel as balanced and graceful again in yourself as the feather appears before you. A calm will come over your mind, and you will see clearly what you must do."
Sarah put the feather very carefully into the front pocket of her skirt.
* * * *
Eva and Mr. Plimsoul watched Sarah and Missy retreat down the road into the night, holding hands and strolling as if they had never encountered any danger at all.
"Will she do it?" inquired Mr. Plimsoul pointedly.
"We shall see. And the other one?" inquired Eva.
"She's fixed."
END OF CHAPTER FOURTEEN