Pursuit Of The Cygnus Thief

Chapter 20 - McKee Versus DeCascos

Chapter 20  

McKee Versus DeCascos

     I lay on my side wrapped in a bed sheet, my knees nearly at my chest, I breathed deeply, slowly, spied Matilda from beneath the eyelashes of my right eye. I waited. Matilda, whose manifestation of the McKee bloodline made her a tallish woman with confident shoulders was hard to miss even in the dark of my bedroom. This was our silent contest; Matildas' weaknesses were an inability to discern when I was actually asleep, the creak of floorboards underfoot and a mystical time constraint. My advantage was learned wariness. Matilda stood in the bathroom doorway, the only link from her bedroom to the rest of the house, she wore a dark bathrobe, a nylon cap captured her hair; she’d stood there, watched me with her arms folded for more than fifteen minutes. Suddenly, she moved then Matilda left my line of sight. I couldn’t turn over in my bed at that moment to track her progress without tripping her suspicion, instead I listened as she removed the chair jammed beneath my doorknob, pulled open my bedroom door and stepped over the line of salt she’d sprinkled on the threshold. 

     Matilda didn’t know what I knew,that to move soundlessly along the wooden floors and stairway it was essential to keep close to the walls and as far from the center of the risers as possible, because the wood there was in pristine shape and never creaked. Instead, Matilda moved slowly, paused, listened, moved again and proceeded first down the hall then the stairway like a very reluctant bride at a wedding. I snatched the alarm clock from my nightstand and brought it close to my face, the green glow-in-the-dark hands pointed to half past two; worship time for Matilda. Most often she went no farther than the cellar, at other times Matilda donned a mask, walked beyond the property line, along the serpentine path to the foot of Scrub Peak where she and anonymous others met in silence before a small fire. I’d followed her before, hidden nearby to watch from a safe distance as masked men and women disrobed, raised their arms to the canopy of stars above and silently twirled around until their nude bodies resembled dozens of pale ribbons dancing on the wind.

     On occasion, other more potent rituals were performed within the abandoned silver mines. Once, when we were still kids, Freddy and I made plans to follow Matilda. We managed to sneak from our respective homes and meet, we carefully hung back so that Matilda could not detect us. We found a place to perch unseen near the mine entrance but between the blood and slaughter, the fire and smoke, the incessant drumming, the macabre dances and carnal acts we’d both been too young to recognize; Freddy and I found only terror. We’d clutched at one another and sobbed thoroughly convinced that we’d glimpsed hell.

     I slipped from my bed, went to the window closest to my nightstand, parted the curtains, raised the shades and looked out into the night across the backyard. My gaze fell immediately on the shed. Shards of flickering light from within pierced the holes in the battered siding. John Woodstock was awake and moving around inside, I made a mental note to ask him why he’d chosen the shed over the cellar before I turned to my real purpose. I strode across my room, entered the hallway, reached the stairs and cleared them in quick silence because I knew the way. Matilda was not going far but I wondered what she would do to please her pantheon without access to the padlocked cellar.

     I listened for her at the base of the stairway, Matilda was in the darkened kitchen busy with something that sounded like thick paper. I waited a few minutes, heard the dry whine of a cabinet hinge, water from the kitchen faucet, something, perhaps a glass was  filled with water then brought to a rest with a soft clap on the table or counter top. Matilda’s chant was low and in a language I couldn’t understand. I saw the flash of light from a flame and then the fluttering glow of a lighted candle, then another and more. Yes, it was a ritual. I wanted to awake my father but the very idea of Matilda and her stubborn practices would only provoke his annoyance; my father deserved a good night’s sleep.