Birthing Ella Bandita (10 page)

But the Patron didn’t seem to hear. He kept coming for the girl who backed away from him, reaching out to touch her as he repeated the name of his beloved wife.

“Shut your mouth!” she shouted. “Stop it, Papa, and get out of my room!”

The girl almost vomited when her back hit the wall. She slid into the corner, sobs trapped in her throat, and slapped her father’s hand away from her cheek. She knew resistance was futile. The crazed yearning in her father’s face was unbearable when she looked at him.

She was trapped in the corner, the night table and bed to her left and her father to her right, blocking the doorway. Her entire body was rigid, and her hand was slick from the blood of the stargaze in her fist, the chain entwined between her fingers. The girl pushed her father away with all her strength and the crystal stargaze slipped from her grasp. Even with streaks of blood along the facets, the flame from the night lamps freed the essence within and a whirl of colors leaped in the space between the Patron and his daughter.

He stopped in his tracks when the lights moved, blinking and spinning around him. The girl gasped and heard her father’s breath catch in his throat. She couldn’t stop herself from inhaling, desperate for the air flowing into her until she couldn’t take in any more. Their duet was a song of mourning, the breath ringing from the depths of the Patron and echoing in his daughter. She couldn’t tell the precise moment it happened, but she knew something had changed from the humming in her empty space, the sensation at the crux of pleasure and pain. Then she felt it. From one hand, the crystal stargaze swung wild, but its essence was contained. In her other hand beat the heart of her father.

“Go now, Papa!”

The brutality in her voice was frightening to hear. Surely, that must be somebody else who spoke, the girl thought as she fell to the floor. She wondered if she was losing her mind as she watched her father’s face go slack, the flame of madness leaving his gaze as the whites cleared of blood. For an instant, she saw the terrified confusion in his eyes just before they glazed over. The Patron obeyed her command, turning around and weaving for the door with the shuffling gait of an old man.

He seemed to shrink with each step he took, this man who inspired nothing but respect his entire life, this man who filled her with as much awe as he had heartache, this man who had always been larger than life, this man she would have done anything to please, her father. The Patron stopped at the door to face her one last time, looking no more formidable than a madman who had just lost his senses. Then he was gone.

The sobs tore from the girl then and she couldn’t stop crying. But the ordeal had only begun. Once her father had gone, there was nothing left for the girl but his heart beating in her hand. His pulse sounded through her palm and infused her blood, awakening within her a hunger that was beyond imagining. She was ravenous. Even the hunger of feasting with the Sorcerer months before couldn’t compare to this. The starving filled her up and poisoned her mouth with bitterness, the roaring in her ears intolerable, the throbbing in her hollow making her double over.

The girl screamed and stretched her hand to the floor. She turned her palm over, willing the heart to fall from her grasp, but she couldn’t let go. Her fingers had taken on a will of their own, clutching its prize. The girl realized she was kneeling in a pool of blood and moaned, the beat of her father’s heart an agony vibrating through her. She had to make the pain stop. She would do anything.

She ate it.

****

They came for the Doctor the next day. He was sipping his morning tea when he saw two boys through the window. They stopped their horses at his door and leapt from the saddles.

The Doctor was irritated at first. Everybody knew he detested being called on without an appointment, and the hour was far too early. But once he saw the expression on their faces, he lost his appetite. The boys rushed into the cottage without knocking, pleading with the Doctor to come with them. He recognized them as stable hands in service to the Patron, and their white faces and hollowed eyes bespoke something terrible. He didn’t ask questions, for inquiry might send them into hysteria. The Doctor was swift, grabbing his coat and bag, and telling his wife there was a crisis and to attend to the patients until his return.

The two boys climbed atop one horse, leaving him the other. They weren’t timid about running their mount fast, but the Doctor stayed with them. During his ride, he detected the scent of peaches lingering weeks after they were plucked from the avenue trees. Then the aroma became sickly at the garden of withered lilies.

Something was horribly wrong. The manor had not been a joyous place since the death of their Patroness, but there had always been the motion and noise of activity. Now all was quiet. A few servants waited before the front door: the personal maid to the Patron’s daughter, the Cook, and the man in charge of the stables. The rounded features of the lady’s maid were swollen, tears streaking her cheeks. The Cook’s face, which she often boasted turned red from the stove fires, was the color of ashes. The head of the stables was composed, but the anguish in his eyes seared through the elderly Doctor when they shook hands.

“What happened?” he asked.

“We don’t know, Doctor,” the other replied. “I think it’s best to just show you.”

They entered the house. The stillness inside was eerie. Instead of the bustle of servants and tenant farmers and visiting patrons from neighboring counties, there was nothing but the muffled sounds of weeping. The walls seemed to close in on the Doctor. This grief was fresh, raw. He could feel the sorrow throughout the house as he followed the stable hand upstairs to what he recognized as the daughter’s room.

The Doctor gasped at what he saw inside. The creamy white quilts on the bed were soaked with blood, cascading down one side to make a small pool beneath. He had to fight the urge to retch, unable to speak until he steadied himself.

“Where is she?”

“She’s gone,” the stable hand replied. “One of the boys had a tale about her running off in the middle of the night on a giant stallion, the wild gray colt that ran away from here several years ago. He swears he saw her blow something that dazzled around the beast and he heard her say, Åeimmortal like me.’ He claims there was blood all over her face and gown.”

“Well she can’t have gone far. Shouldn’t we send for the lawman?”

“I suppose we could. But if what the boy says is true, that won’t do any good. I saw that stallion last year at the river. He’s a monster of a horse.”

“And where is…”

The stable hand squeezed his eyes shut, but a stream of tears escaped. Breathing deeply until he regained his composure, he opened his eyes and beckoned the Doctor to follow. The Doctor was relieved at first when he came into the study and saw the Patron sitting in his chair. Then he looked into the glazed eyes staring right through him, noted the slack jaw and witless expression. His heart ached at the sight of him, and the Doctor had to fight back his own tears while searching through his bag.

He took his time preparing his instruments, not starting his examination until he recovered his poise. The Patron was quite robust, showing the health of a man half his age until the Doctor felt for a pulse and found nothing. He froze, his mind reeling over the telltale mark of the Sorcerer of the Caverns. But that was impossible, for the Sorcerer preyed on young women.

“Patron, what happened to you?”

“Eh…” he said, his voice ravaged. “Eh…la bandita stole my heart…”

The Doctor frowned and shook his head.

“Who? I don’t understand. Who is this Ella Bandita?”

The Patron looked confused at the name. Then his face cleared for a moment, a spark of intelligence flashing in his eyes only to become nothing.

“Ella Bandita…” the Patron said, nodding, and his voice dropped to a whisper. His left eye welled with the lone tear that fell down his cheek.

“Ella Bandita,” he repeated. “She’s my daughter.”

The Patron stood up. The Doctor watched him leave, scarcely able to believe it was the Patron he saw. His gait was almost silent, too soft to leave an echo. The Doctor closed his eyes and bowed his head. His hands shook while making the sign of the cross. But one thought kept intruding on his prayer. The Patron had finally given his daughter a name.

Montgomery Mahaffey is a fantasy writer who has told her stories all over the country. Alaskan winters shaped Mahaffey as a writer, and her work is built off of the myriad of personal and collective experiences formed underneath that mystical landscape. Born in the south to a family of storytellers, Mahaffey has developed her own voice that is suffused with the temperament of the wanderer instinct. Set in a world where magic is at once subtle and pervasive, her novels bring to life symbols and stories of the old fairy tales told with wry humor and passion. In 2005 she was granted the Individual Artist Project Award from the Rasmuson Foundation in Anchorage, Alaska.
Ella Bandita and the Wanderer
is her first novel.