§ § § -- January 13. 1980
Voices…echoes and cries of Lisa Corday's own voice, one wailing brokenly for help and for mercy, the other seductive and inviting, insisting over and over again that she was Elizabeth. Lisa, confused and uncertain, half her mind occupied by the encroaching specter of the countess, entered a nearly empty room and circled an old-fashioned dressmaker's form in the middle of the floor, wondering absurdly where the dress was that it must have held. "Yes," the seductive voice encouraged her, "you are beautiful, Elizabeth! Look!" Lisa turned sharply and stared at the door in the back corner of the room, from where the voice seemed to be emanating. "Yes!…" The mocking laughter sounded again.
"No!" Lisa wailed desperately, hugging herself as though this would block Elizabeth's spirit from intruding on her. At the sound of her voice, the door opened and a woman emerged.
Elizabeth Bathorý could indeed have been Lisa Corday's identical twin. She was dressed in elaborate sixteenth-century garb—the dress that probably belonged on the form Lisa had seen—and had an entourage following her, all zombie-like with blank faces and unfocused eyes. Elizabeth regally turned her head, saw Lisa and came to stand in front of her, eyes bright with anticipation.
"Lisa, oh, at last," she breathed. Lisa, fighting for control of her fear and her own body and mind, stared as if mesmerized at the other woman, slowly backing off; Elizabeth leaned in and coaxed her, advancing as Lisa retreated. "We are one now, Elizabeth. You are Elizabeth!" Lisa protested, but to no avail…and the voice began to repeat its last three words in a hypnotic whisper, advancing slowly and inexorably, driving Lisa back mentally as well as physically. Finally Lisa blanked out and there was only Elizabeth, occupying Lisa Corday's corporeal form. "I have now taken possession of your soul…"
That was when Roarke appeared in the doorway behind her; he said not a word, but she sensed his presence and turned to smile triumphantly at him. "Too late, Roarke," she said. "I've won."
"Not yet, Elizabeth," Roarke replied calmly. "Not yet."
"Am I not beautiful?" Elizabeth inquired, coming to him and sliding her hands up over his shoulders. He nodded faintly. "Am I not alive?" Another nod; then her face changed expression as she leaned into him. "Have you forgotten how it was between us?" she hissed.
"I forget nothing," Roarke said softly. "It is you who forgets."
"I've won," Elizabeth reiterated smugly.
Roarke stood his ground but leaned away from her, just perceptibly. "Your eagerness has betrayed you, Elizabeth. The final possession must take place in the room where you died. This is not that room."
Elizabeth's smug countenance vanished into one of stunned surprise; then she tried to slip past Roarke, but he caught her and held on firmly as she struggled to pull loose, her head thrashing back and forth in her attempts to break his hold on her. "You cannot move me, Elizabeth," he warned. She searched his face, but saw only a cool, unwavering stare. Frustrated, Elizabeth retreated, and Lisa moaned and collapsed to the floor.
Slowly Roarke followed her down and knelt beside her, lifting her into a sitting position. "Lisa," he said softly, pulling her close as she started to cry a little. "Lisa…"
"I knew something was happening," Lisa moaned. "I tried to stop her—" here she threw herself back and seized Roarke's sleeve in a death grip— "but I couldn't do anything!" Her voice dropped to an exhausted whisper and she repeated helplessly, "I couldn't do anything."
"I know," Roarke replied with total understanding, laying her head on his shoulder and stroking her hair. "Oh, I know, I know."
‡ ‡ ‡
"Bedtime for you, Leslie," Tattoo announced briskly shortly before ten. It had been an unsettled evening at best for Leslie; half of her had been wondering what was going to happen to Danny Collier and whether Christy was really dead—and if so, who'd really killed her—and the other half had been wishing there had been some way for Roarke to contact them during the weekend and let them know he was all right. The waiting was driving her mad, and now here was Tattoo sending her off to bed. Didn't he realize there was no way on earth she could possibly sleep?
"Mr. Roarke said he wouldn't mind if I stayed up waiting for him," she told Tattoo.
Tattoo stilled, slowly pivoted to look at her, then smiled knowingly and shook his head. "Don't even try it," he warned good-naturedly. "You've got school tomorrow, you know."
"Well, you can make me go to bed," Leslie told him, "but you can't make me sleep." With that parting shot, she went upstairs. To tell the truth, she was pretty tired from her worrying over both fantasies, and even if she couldn't actually sleep, getting into nightclothes and relaxing in bed would feel good. She slowly went through all the usual bedtime rituals, opened her window and slipped into bed, turning out the light and listening to a night crier in the near distance. Something in her had always seemed to identify with this elusive nocturnal bird, as if it, like she, had lost everything and was mourning. Don't let it happen again, Leslie thought. Please, not again.
Across the island, Roarke was just about to play his trump card. "She has no choice but to try again, you understand that," he said to Lisa, standing outside the door to one final room he'd had prepared.
"When?" Lisa asked. She seemed calm, but it could have been exhaustion from all her battles with Elizabeth. Whatever the case, Roarke was glad it would soon be over; he too was tired.
"Well, remember what I told you earlier: her power over you ends at midnight. It won't be long now." He double-checked his gold pocket watch; they had about five more minutes before the hour and the end of Lisa's birthday.
"Please help me," she said suddenly, catching his attention as he replaced the watch. "Please." He nodded, silent but reassuring, and then reached for the door.
He let her in first before entering the room himself and closing the door firmly behind him. The interior looked rather like a wine cellar; there were racks around the walls, even some very dusty bottles. However, more than anything else, there were candles: huge round free-standing candelabras, V-shaped racks, sconces, all holding long, thin white tapers. Every single one of them was lit. There was a small altar in the back of the room, dominated by a stark wooden cross painted gold.
"When Elizabeth was near death from her own madness, they brought her here to die," Roarke explained. "But the priest would not administer the last rites; she died without the cross, without light."
"I feel safer here," Lisa said, studying the room around her.
"You will be safe only after the bell has rung twelve times," replied Roarke quietly.
She turned then, wandered very slowly around the room, still gazing around as if waiting for something to happen. Neither of them made a sound. Lisa circled one of the big candelabras, glanced at the cross as if for reassurance, then went to one of the candles and stared into it as if mesmerized. Roarke watched her carefully.
Lisa's head began to sway slightly, and this time Roarke heard the hypnotic whisper as clearly as Lisa did, as if from the end of a long tunnel: "You are Elizabeth…" over and over. The candle flame stretched toward the ceiling as if fed with an extra burst of oxygen. "You are Elizabeth." The young woman turned around then to face Roarke; he could see in her eyes that she was indeed Elizabeth.
"Roarke," she said.
"Hello, Elizabeth," he returned.
"By bringing her here, you've given me the victory." It sounded almost as though she were thanking him for having done her some great favor.
Roarke eyed her. "Have I?" he inquired.
She drifted toward him. "There's only you and me. The person known as Lisa Corday no longer exists." Roarke's gaze strayed toward the altar, and she snapped, "Look at me!" He did as she ordered, though his expression was impossible to read; he maintained perfect calm and control. "I'm your love," Elizabeth said, "and you're mine…"
"You can't turn back the years of your own life, Elizabeth," said Roarke, "let alone the four centuries you have waited for this."
"And you waited for me," she reminded him.
"Yes," he admitted in a whisper.
"Then the victory is ours!" she cried, and so saying, kissed Roarke hard. Yet he stood silently, without moving or responding, as though he were only a statue; and after a moment this registered on her so that she pulled back to stare up at him. "What's wrong?"
"Did you think I would come into this room unprepared?" he asked deliberately.
"You mean the cross, the candles?" she hissed, frustration blooming anew on her face. "Turn the one upside down, darken the other and they will work as well for my master?" She whipped away from Roarke and stalked towards the standing candelabra, beginning to laugh that insane laugh again, although there seemed to be less fervor in it.
"Elizabeth," Roarke said, and when she didn't react, he snapped it: "Elizabeth! You died in this room four hundred years ago, without light, without the cross, without blessing. When I restored this castle, I had this room…sanctified."
Elizabeth gasped loudly and wheeled away for the door, intending to escape the room; but when she grasped the handle, it burned her hand and she yanked it away, gaping at him in shock and rage. "What have you done??"
"I have brought you love again, Elizabeth," Roarke said. "Memories of sweet nights long ago, of a young girl and a young man in love…of red wine, laughter, kisses, hopes, new dreams…don't you remember?"
"I remember screams—of dying girls!" Elizabeth flung at him. "I remember horror, and red blood—that's what I remember!"
"The room is sanctified for you, Elizabeth," Roarke told her earnestly.
Elizabeth threw her head back and screamed, "Noooooo!" She wailed the word over and over, throwing out her arms and knocking candles out of their holders in a frenzy. The cold wind rose again and blew out every flame in the room.
"You have lost her, Elizabeth. Set her free," Roarke urged, over Elizabeth's wails.
"No!" Elizabeth shouted one final time and seemed to huddle into herself for a moment; then she reached out and grabbed something, and Roarke saw Lisa Corday stumble aside and collapse to the floor as if Elizabeth had thrown her there. Roarke rushed for her before Elizabeth could do her any more harm; the breeze, meantime, became a steady, gusty wind that stirred everything in the room and blew loose objects around them. "What have you done to me, Roarke?" Elizabeth screamed, drawing out Roarke's name into one long note of despair before releasing one last protesting sob. "Nooooooo!!…"
Roarke hurriedly pulled Lisa to her feet and pushed her out the door, then paused to stare in spite of himself as Lisa fled down the hallway. The wind had risen to gale force now, and the cross toppled over and crashed onto the table over which it had stood. Roarke yanked the door shut and rushed after Lisa, who had stopped at the head of a flight of stairs, waiting for him. "We must get out of here before she kills us—this is our last chance to survive." Alarm registered in Lisa's face and she streaked out ahead of him, down the previously memorized turns and twists in the corridors, while all the way along, chandeliers plummeted from the ceilings, statues and plaques and paintings crashed down from the walls, and furniture slid into their path as if alive, in an attempt to block their exit.
They had to go through the same room in which they had first entered the castle, and it was a veritable obstacle course; every chair and table Roarke and Lisa dodged skidded over the floor before them, and he had to keep pushing things out of their way. Somehow they made it through and out the door, all but flying down the front steps of the castle and catching themselves up short against the car that still sat where Roarke had parked it just about twenty-four hours before. Still clutching Lisa's arm, Roarke twisted around just in time to see the Bathorý coat of arms fly off the wall in the entry, sail down the steps and clatter onto the pavement at their feet—Elizabeth's last attempt to kill them both.
Roarke glared at the plaque, concentrating hard on it, still shielding Lisa, and a moment later it burst into flames. Lisa peered over his shoulder at it, eyes still wide, reflecting the flames; Roarke finally, slowly, allowed himself to relax, and closed his eyes, breathing deeply.
Something seemed to brush the edge of his mind, and he opened his eyes again, gazing into the star-studded sky. "It was more than a chapel…it was a gateway to the stars," he murmured, unheeding as to whether Lisa heard him or was even listening. "Goodbye, Elizabeth."
"Goodbye, Roarke," he heard her voice respond, calm with quiet gratitude. "Now I am free."
§ § § -- January 14, 1980
At the plane dock the next morning, Lisa Corday was the first to arrive; Roarke helped her out of the car, and Tattoo said wistfully, "Miss Corday, you never whistled…you know, for more flowers or something."
Roarke smiled at him. "Perhaps another time, Tattoo."
Lisa looked at Roarke and admitted, "I think I've had enough fantasy to last me a lifetime." Roarke nodded in understanding, and she turned to Tattoo, then Leslie, and bid them goodbye. They replied in kind, and she looked at Roarke and said quietly, "Goodbye, Mr. Roarke. Thank you."
"Goodbye…Miss Corday," Roarke replied, and they knew what he meant when he put gentle emphasis on her name. It could so easily have been Elizabeth Bathorý who had taken ultimate control. They watched Lisa Corday walk quietly to the plane.
The other car pulled up then, bearing Danny and Christy Collier, and Roarke greeted the pair; Collier replied for them both, then turned to Tattoo. "Say, Tattoo, whatever happened to my old buddy Ken Jason?"
"Oh," said Tattoo, "he left by private jet with your ex-fiancée and her father." He glanced sidelong at Leslie, who rolled her eyes knowingly, only to see Danny Collier nod at her and grin back. Roarke chuckled.
"Well, Mr. Collier, did we or did we not fulfill your fantasy?" he inquired.
"Oh, you more than fulfilled my fantasy, Mr. Roarke," Collier told him. "You see, what it came down to was whether or not I wanted to stay married for love, or get divorced and marry for money."
"And Danny chose me and love," added Christy, beaming.
Their hosts smiled. "Well," Roarke said, "good luck and my best wishes for a happy lifetime together."
"From us, too," Leslie put in, and Tattoo nodded. They all made their farewells and waved after the departing guests.
"Can't say I'm surprised about Ken Jason," Leslie observed with a distinctly sour expression as the plane taxied out to the lagoon preparatory to takeoff and they waited for the car to pick them up. "It sounds just like something he would do."
"I realize you thought the man was an oily lounge lizard," Roarke said, managing to sound as if he had placed the last two words into quotation marks, "but really, Leslie, to express your true opinion of him to his face—! Tattoo told me what happened yesterday."
Leslie turned quite red and made a face. "Mr. Roarke, it was totally lost on him," she protested and gave Tattoo an accusing look. "I bet you forgot to tell him that when I called that jerk a jerk, it just made him laugh."
"She's right, boss, he did," Tattoo admitted with a shrug.
"But still…" Roarke sighed loudly, rolled his eyes and shook his head—and that's when Leslie realized he was teasing.
"Well, you see, the insult rolled off him, as the saying goes, like water off a duck's back," Leslie said and smiled slyly, just a little. "So just like a duck's feathers, he really was 'oily'." Roarke and Tattoo both stared at her for a moment; then Tattoo loosed a groan and Roarke began to laugh quite heartily, hugging Leslie as the car drew up to them.
§ § § -- November 19, 2005
"That," Christian observed with a faint smile, "sounds like another exhausting weekend for you, my darling."
"It was," Leslie agreed with a soft sigh. "Actually, I've had a lot of those." Roarke let out a laugh at that and reached across the table to pat her knee.
"So what precisely happened to this Sue Raines and the, uh, jerk?" Christian inquired. "I presume they were eventually married, and had the usual high-society sort of marriage, in which they produced an heir or two for the company, cheated rampantly on each other, spent money as if it were water, and looked down on those they felt were beneath them."
"Judging from the personality traits Ken Jason exhibited, I wouldn't be surprised," said Leslie. "But in fact we never did find out whether he and Sue Raines clicked enough to get that far. On the other hand, about three years after the Colliers got married here, we had a Christmas card from them showing off their new baby."
Christian grinned at that, and they took another short break to refresh themselves. Then he shifted position, stretching his leg muscles, and said, "I suppose it's time for my next question. You mentioned that you started out with a few huts for the guests, a hotel, and a small building for yourself. From that description, I take it things were pretty rustic around here for a while. When did you have the main house built, and the guest bungalows, among other amenities?"
"The bungalows came first," Roarke told him, "before this house. The original building that I lived in for some time was then remodeled, and is now the Japanese teahouse. But I waited until the early 1920s to have this house constructed."
"Lack of funds?" Leslie asked.
"Not entirely. My business got off to a slow start, but within ten years I was doing well enough to replace the huts with grander accommodations for my guests. In those days, I charged a great deal of money to grant fantasies. Some might think I was driven by greed, but I had great plans for this island, not just as a resort but, more importantly, as a sanctuary for endangered living things. And of course, executing such plans costs money. So for a good four decades or more, my guests were exclusively of the very wealthy upper class. And yes, Christian, I had the more-than-occasional member of royalty here—in fact, once I upgraded from huts to bungalows, much of Europe's royalty began to frequent the island, taking entire summers off to spend weeks at a time here."
Christian looked intrigued. "I wonder if my great-great grandfather might have been among them!"
"I don't recall that any of your direct ancestors, that is to say those in line for the throne, ever came here," Roarke said with a twinkle in his eyes, "but on three or four occasions I had as a guest your great-great grandfather's younger sister, Princess Dorotea, along with her husband, children and grandchildren."
"A small world it is, all right," Christian murmured, chuckling. "Well, perhaps you were gaining a reputation as much for being a very luxurious and expensive vacation spot as for the true business you were in."
"Even royals have fantasies, Christian," said Roarke with a smile, "and I'm sure you know that full well. For that matter, it seems my daughter fulfilled yours."
"Mine…?" Christian began blankly.
"Was it not your wish, through most of your first four decades of life, to fall in love? You may not have specifically requested it of me as a fantasy to grant, but it happened nonetheless, when you fell in love with Leslie. Surely that qualifies."
Christian conceded with good grace, smiling and nodding a couple of times, and then looking at Leslie. "Perhaps that should have convinced me that anything is possible here, if I could fall in love when I fully believed I couldn't. Whatever you did to me, my darling, I have to thank you for it." He leaned over and kissed her softly, and Leslie smiled, seeing that certain light in his eyes that told her they'd be making love later that night.
"In any case," Roarke said after a moment, "I felt it best to put as much money as I could back into the business. I had a particular image to live up to, I had employees to pay, and there were plans to carry out. I can remember any number of times when someone I had met in my previous travels, or more usually their descendants, contacted me begging me to save some dying species of plant or animal. And this may shock you, Christian, but it was none other than Count Lorenzo LiSciola who saw to it that the last few unicorns he knew of had been rounded up and sent here to this island, where they could live in peace."
"It is a shock," Christian admitted. "I had always thought the LiSciolas were out only for their own advancement and comfort. But perhaps I merely knew the wrong count."
Roarke laughed. "I'm afraid you did. Lorenzo was the current count's predecessor, the one who wished only to help your family. I knew him fairly well, though in the latter centuries of his life, only through correspondence. The disease that was ravaging Marina at the time you were married to her is the same one that killed Lorenzo and put the current count in his position. Lorenzo was a kindhearted man who wished only the best for others, and I'm sure he would have been greatly saddened not only by his son's actions, but by the effects that amakarna had on your father, brother and grandfathers, as well as your nieces."
"Forgive me, but it's difficult to picture," Christian said. "I knew only the current count. It makes you wonder why the two were so different."
"That's a question I can't answer, unfortunately," Roarke said. "To get back to the subject at hand, I was content enough in that little hut. Perhaps I had grown too accustomed to the natives' way of living that I had adopted after I came here. But there came a day early in the twentieth century when a longtime friend who is now deceased visited me here and asked me why I was living in such primitive conditions when I could easily afford something far better.
"I explained my reasons to him, and he heard me out; then he smiled and told me that I not only had to maintain the image of my resort, but of myself as well. 'You must understand,' he said, 'it's difficult to reconcile this luxurious, top-of-the-line resort, catering solely to the filthy rich, with its owner and operator, who lives in a drab little hut that his guests would hardly deem fit for an animal. After all, even their dogs live in kennels that are more spacious than that primitive little hovel you have here. I fear you'd lose a great deal of credibility if they knew how you truly live, behind the scenes.'
"I told him there was no real need—after all, I conducted all my business with my fantasizing guests in their bungalows. I merely set up appointments and visited them there. My friend told me that simply wouldn't do. If I were to gain enough cachet to make the business become profitable enough to carry out all the work I wished to do, he said, I must present a far more dignified front than that. 'Build yourself a house, Roarke,' he said to me. 'Make it a grand showplace, so that your guests know beyond all doubt that they're dealing with an equal at the very least, if not a superior. I know it goes against your sensibilities, but money talks, and that's the only language most of these people will listen to. So you'd better measure up.' And that's what convinced me. Ultimately it took little enough persuasion, for I was well acquainted with the eccentricities of my guests."
"Undoubtedly," said Christian dryly, making Leslie laugh. "So who designed this place, you, or someone else?"
"The idea was entirely mine, but I did a great deal of research before I settled on this house plan. I realized early on that the Queen Anne style appealed to me, and I made a list of the things I wanted in a house. It was built exactly as you see it now, with periodic minor improvements and remodeling over the decades. But the decorative touches were always mine alone…that is, until Leslie moved into the upstairs bedroom and made it her own." They laughed. "Still, I didn't regret that—I was glad to see her turn it into her own private retreat, for it meant that she was settling in here and feeling at home."
Another short pause ensued; then Leslie spoke up. "You said you told Elizabeth Bathorý that you forget nothing. In that case, you must remember the very first fantasy you ever granted. What was it, and who had it?"
Roarke grinned. "Now there's a tale to be told, indeed. Perhaps you two had better make yourselves comfortable."
