Starling's return to consciousness was joined by the odd sensation of being chilled and warmed simultaneously. A sweet taste lingered in her mouth, which Starling correctly surmised was chloroform. The taste and smell dissipated and then she was able to take in the environment around her. The smell of snow, and permeating this, she smell of a fire. The minute she was able to open her eyes, she was forced to close them again as she was assailed by the heavy smoke of wet wood.
Starling was unable to turn away completely from the smoke. She discovered she was bound, her arms pulled above her head, anchored to she knew not what. Curiosity more than fear crept into her heart, and she listened into the dark. Her brain, analytical to a fault, did not refrain from wondering at her lack of fear. Perhaps she should be afraid. But, I'm not dead so far. She chewed on that but did not have it fully digested when her mind spoke up again.
Wonder if he'll have you wishing you were?
The light of the fire revealed her clothing as khakis. Not only that, she wore the same clothing she had on at Muskrat Farm. It smelled clean. No trace of porcine contaminant. Or human, for that matter.
Starling found her legs to be steady and reliable. The fire was now downwind, and Starling was able to look above her. Rope, looped around her wrists in a Carolina rig. How whimsical, thought Starling. It was a wonder that the circulation to her hands had not been completely cut off. Her gaze traveled upward, to a remarkably stout branch of a Live Oak. The fire lit up the branch, which had overseen the forest here for over two hundred years. It looked to Starling like a great gnarled hand, its leafless limbs holding her by a thread. A solemn, still puppeteer not yet allowing its marionette to take on life.
The rope was looped some twenty feet up the trunk. Next to its coils were strange growths and striations. The one who had placed the rope there earlier in the evening had been struck by them, and had stared, and run his fingers over them for nearly an hour. Embedded in the bark were the tusks of wild boar, pounded into the tender green wood when the tree was nearly half a century old, when the native people there thought them good luck for their hog catching vantage point. He would have liked the chance to show them to Starling later.
Starling knew none of the drama associated with her branch, save her own. She called out into the dark perimeter beyond the fire.
"Doctor Lecter?"
His eyes came into focus and his breath plumed like smoke in the cold air.
"Clarice."
