By The Pricking of My Thumbs: Chapter Four
Leena’s Bed and Breakfast, Univille, South Dakota
“Where are they?” Claudia demanded rhetorically, for what must have been the fortieth time since Pete and H.G. had called to let them know that they had found the spindle.
Claudia sat by Myka’s bedside, the older woman’s hand clasped tightly in her own. Myka had been growing more agitated with each passing hour, the tears now a steady flow, rolling down the sides of her face to dampen her hair. Her expression was one of such pain that Claudia could hardly bear to look at her.
Around her upper arm, Artie had wrapped a large cuff from which several different wires protruded, all connected to a device that looked for all the world like a giant Geiger counter. The needles on all three of its dials had been moving erratically, bouncing back and forth into the ominous red zone like Mexican jumping beans.
“What does thing do again?” Claudia asked, glancing up at Artie’s worried face at the bottom of the bed.
“It’s sort of a heart monitor. And a brainwave monitor. It keeps track of her heart rate, breathing, and neural activity. It should let us know when things reach a critical stage,” Artie explained far more patiently than usual.
“And when will that be?” Claudia inquired, eyes now fixed on the irregular movement of the dials.
“Oh, about an hour ago,” Artie stated grimly. “Her breathing is very uneven, her pulse is racing and her brainwaves are off the chart. Whatever she’s dreaming about, the situation isn’t good.”
“Where are they?” Claudia asked again, voice becoming more and more panicked as each minute ticked by.
“They’ll be here any minute. I wanted to have the artifact here in the same room with Myka when we neutralized it. The effect should be much more immediate.” Artie reassured, coming to stand with one hand resting lightly on Claudia’s shoulder. “She’ll be fine. I promise.”
Staring at Myka’s face, her eyes screwed tightly shut, lips compressed into a thin line, Artie mused aloud, his fingers gently squeezing Claudia’s shoulder, “Leave it to Myka to have fears strong enough to kill her. If it had been Pete the only thing we might have to worry about is him being chased by a giant pepperoni pizza.”
Claudia forced a pained chuckle, the quirk of her lips far more grimace than smile. “Yeah, and knowing Pete, he’d lasso it and use the Tesla to do a little re-heating.”
They both fell silent, the only sounds in the room the faint clicking of the monitor’s needles and the increasingly erratic rasp of Myka’s breathing. Claudia glanced down for the thousandth time at her watch.
“Dammit, Artie, where are they?” There was a definite note of desperation in Claudia’s voice.
Outside there was a sudden squeal of tires on the gravel drive and the slamming of car doors. The thud of one set of footsteps on the wooden stairs echoed unnaturally in the silence of the old house, followed by a much slower, uneven gait. H.G. rushed through the open doorway, Pete several feet behind her, walking with a decided limp, an artifact bag clutched in his hand.
Helena crossed quickly to Myka’s side, crouching down next to the bed and taking Myka’s other hand in hers. She didn’t appear to register the look of distrust and animosity on Artie’s face.
“Where have you guys been?” Claudia asked sharply.
“It does take a few hours to get from Pennsylvania to South Dakota, Claude, even when you’re riding to and from the airport with Dale Earnhardt here,” Pete explained, eyes fixed on Myka’s face as he tilted his head in H.G.’s direction.
“You let her drive?!” Artie yelled, reaching out to snatch the bag from Pete’s grip. “They’d barely invented automobiles when she was bronzed, not to mention that the British drive on the wrong side of the road.”
“Yeah, I got reminded of that one the hard way when we almost sideswiped a semi outside Allentown. I hurt my back getting the artifact down, so I had to let her drive,” Pete explained, watching as Artie opened the top of the neutralizing canister.
Eyes fixed on the dials of the instrument, and feeling the speeding pulse beneath her fingertips as they rested on Myka’s wrist, Helena demanded roughly. “Could we possibly save the discussion of my driving skills for another time and wake her up before her heart bursts?”
Pete looked suitably chastised, although he muttered to Claudia, “Remind me to tell you the whole story later.”
“Alright, everyone stand back.” Artie ordered, glove-clad hand preparing to drop the spindle into the purple gel.
Pete and Claudia backed toward the wall. Claudia could feel the edge of an old trunk pressing against the backs of her knees as she closed her eyes tightly and said a silent prayer to whoever or whatever that this worked.
Helena pushed herself upright, bending slightly over the bed so that Myka was shielded from the minor explosion she was sure would come when the artifact met the neutralizing liquid.
She wasn’t mistaken, as there was a muffled “boom” from the canister, purplish-silver sparks flying up into the air to fall harmlessly on the hardwood floor. Straightening, she peered intently at Myka’s face, waiting for her eyes to flutter open. Helena could feel Artie’s presence at her elbow and glancing across the bed, she could see what she knew were expressions similar to her own on Pete’s and Claudia’s faces.
Long seconds passed, seconds that swiftly became minutes, as the four people gathered around the bed waited for Myka to awake.
“Artie, man, why isn’t she waking up?” Pete asked, a deep frown creasing his forehead, his speech rambling. “You said it was the spindle and we found it and brought it back and you neutralized it and she still isn’t awake. You said if we found it she’d wake up, Artie. She’s still sleeping.”
“I can see that, Pete,” Artie glowered. “Different artifacts behave in different ways. Maybe the effects of this one just take a little longer to wear off. I don’t know.”
“Artie,” Helena began, only to be interrupted.
“I said I don’t know,” Artie bellowed.
“I wasn’t going to ask that. Look at the monitor, Artie. It’s getting worse, not better,” Helena responded, trying and failing to keep the note of fear out of her voice.
The needles on the three dials were no longer jumping irregularly, but were now fixed in the red areas. Myka’s breathing was coming in short, harsh gasps.
“Dammit! Why isn’t this working?” Artie shouted, moving quickly around the bed to readjust the cuff on Myka’s arm and the knobs on the monitor. “She should be waking up.”
Claudia had been silent for the past few minutes, the terror of losing her friend clearly stamped on her features. Her face was pale, fingers nervously gripping the edge of the bed. Suddenly, she started, eyes going wide with comprehension.
“It’s Sleeping Beauty’s curse thing, right? Think about it. Remember? Sleeping Beauty had to be woken up by the handsome prince. Pete, you’ve got to kiss her!” She exclaimed excitedly, eyes swiftly scanning the faces of her companions, noting the instant looks of disbelief and skepticism on Artie’s and H.G.’s faces.
“You think I’m handsome,” Pete asked immediately, a smile creasing his face despite the circumstances.
“Pete!” Claudia barked, expression incredulous.
“Claudia, the legend part of it is simply the way they cleaned up these stories for kids. There’s nothing to even suggest that the fairytale endings had anything to do with how the artifacts work,” Artie explained, fingers on Myka’s wrist as her pulse fluttered impossibly fast.
“That may be, but dude, dunking the spindle is obviously not working. It can’t hurt, can it?” Claudia argued fiercely, pushing Pete toward the head of the bed.
Artie’s mouth opened and closed several times before he nodded morosely, motioning to Pete to do as Claudia asked.
“Okay, I’ll do it. But you gotta promise to tell Myka that you made me, otherwise, she’s gonna smack me,” Pete agreed, leaning forward, one hand braced on the headboard. “Right?”
“Fine, fine, I’ll tell her,” Claudia promised. “Just do it.”
Pete bent down and placed a chaste kiss on Myka’s full lips, feeling the heated, erratic puffs of her breath against his face.
The only response was the momentary fluctuation of the needles before they resumed their former position. Myka’s face was deathly pale now, a faint sheen of perspiration on her brow.
“No! No, this cannot be happening. She can’t die from a damn dream!” Claudia shouted, eyes swinging from one member of the team to another, begging someone to fix this.
Helena’s face was a pale mask, eyes dark and unreadable, Myka’s hand still held tenderly in her own, her voice breaking a bit as she spoke. “There has to be something else we can do. Claudia’s right, we cannot allow her to die.”
“MYKA! MYKA! Myka, come on! Please! Myka wake up! Myka, you’ve gotta wake up!!” Claudia pleaded, her voice hoarse as tears ran freely down her cheeks.
From the doorway came another voice, low, melodic, oddly calm. “It wasn’t the kiss of a handsome prince,” Leena said softly, her eyes fixed on Helena’s face. “It was true love’s kiss. True love. No offense, Pete, but in this case, you don’t qualify.”
Helena swallowed visibly, shock written on her face. Artie glanced sharply from Leena to Helena, brows lowering even further as the implications of Leena’s words sank it. The stages of comprehension scrolled quickly across Claudia’s mind, her eyes widening in surprise.
“Leena’s right. Kiss her,” Pete ordered Helena, his head nodding in staccato accompaniment.
“I don’t think…I mean, honestly, I…we’ve barely,” Helena stammered, color suffusing her cheeks, her words cut short as an alarm began blaring from the monitor.
“H.G.! Kiss her!” Claudia begged, panic in every line of her body.
Helena took a deep breath and leaned over, her lips lightly brushing Myka’s, just as they had a few nights ago. Feeling the softness, the shrill claxon drowning out every thought except that this might be the last chance she would have to do this, she pressed her lips more firmly, lingering a moment, her hand gently cupping Myka’s cheek.
As Helena raised her head, the warning alarm suddenly stopped and all three needles dropped, flat-lining out.
Meriwether Canyon, Helena, Montana
The wind whipped her hair around her face as she stood on the edge of the cliff. It was a gorgeous day, the sky so blue it actually hurt her eyes to look at it, the breeze crisp and cool, carrying with it the scent of the river and the distant mountains. There were certainly worse places to die: in dirty, crowded markets far from anything familiar; in pits of flame, buried beneath thousands of tons of sand in a distant desert.
No, this was much better, probably better than she deserved at this point. She had gambled for inconceivable stakes; gambled the world and almost lost it all.
“It is not reasonable that those who gamble with men’s lives should not pay with their own.” She quoted softly, her words drifting away on the vagrant breeze. “Not exactly what you had in mind when you wrote it, Helena, but fitting somehow, don’t you think?”
The bitter laugh caught in Myka’s throat as she pictured Helena’s face, dark eyes twinkling with amused pleasure; heard that ridiculously sexy voice murmur, “Darling, how wonderful of you to be able to quote something of mine.”
Myka closed her eyes, the light of the sun warm on her face, a brilliant, golden glow behind her closed lids and took a step closer to the edge, her heart hammering in her chest. She shuffled ever closer, her steps pulled up short as she heard a voice calling to her, Claudia’s voice.
Turning, she peered back along her makeshift trail, along the tree-line in the distance, but there was no one there. With a sigh, she swung back toward the edge, stretching her arms out wide and took that final step, finding only air beneath her feet.
Leena’s Bed and Breakfast, Univille, South Dakota
As the alarm ceased, there was a collective gasp. Claudia dropped to her knees beside the bed, her head resting against Myka’s side, sobs wracking her body. Helena forced herself to breathe, tried to concentrate on the air flowing in and out of her lungs, on the sound of Claudia’s crying, on the impotent anger and frustration erupting out into the universe from Artie’s stout frame, on the disconsolate, crumpled expression on Pete’s face.
On anything other than the still figure on the bed, warm hand resting motionless in her own. It seemed like centuries passed, but less than a minute later, the needles of the monitor moved suddenly, rising to the normal range and holding steady.
Myka moaned softly, her eyelids fluttering slowly open, her gaze unfocused.
“Myka! Oh, my God! You’re okay! We were so scared. I thought you were dead. I can’t believe you’re alright!” Claudia’s voice caught her attention and Myka tried dimly to understand what her young friend was saying.
“Wait. What happened? How did I get here? Did you pull me out of the river?” Myka whispered, voice faint and hoarse from disuse. Her face was a study in confusion.
“River? No, you’ve been here. You got a splinter in your finger the other day, remember, when you were in P.A.? I helped you get it out, but it was from an artifact. You’ve been zonked out for two days now,” Claudia explained slowly, nodding toward the other side of the bed as she continued. “Pete and H.G. just got back with the artifact.”
Myka’s eyes shifted to the right, alighting on Helena’s face. The other woman was smiling at her tenderly, thumb caressing lightly over Myka’s knuckles.
“You!!” Myka exclaimed, eyes wild, voice now much stronger. She struggled to a sitting position, yanking her hand free of Helena’s grasp. “What the hell are you doing here? How did you get out? Artie, what the hell is going on? Why is she here? Why isn’t she in jail or re-bronzed or something?”
The look of complete shock and profound hurt on Helena’s face nearly brought Myka up short. Pete and Claudia gazed at her open-mouthed and slack-jawed. Even Artie looked dumbfounded for a moment.
“Myka,” Helena managed to croak, her awareness that all this was the result of whatever nightmare had held Myka in its thrall doing surprisingly little to mitigate the intense pain radiating out across her chest.
“No, you stay away from me. You betrayed us, betrayed me. You almost killed Mrs. Fredric, you got Valda killed. You shot me and Pete, you stole the Minoan trident. You almost sent the world into a new ice age. You’re supposed to be locked up somewhere,” Myka yelled, her mind unable to process what was happening, why Helena was standing here in her room; why Artie and Pete were allowing her to be there.
If possible, Helena’s face grew even paler and more anguished, her eyes dark onyx against her pallor. She opened her mouth to speak and then closed it, her gaze falling to the ground, one hand clutching tightly at the locket around her neck.
“Myka,” Artie stepped closer and spoke soothingly, as an odd feeling of sympathy for H.G. washed over him. “I need you to listen to me carefully. Three days ago, you and Pete and H.G. went to Pennsylvania to recover an artifact, John Henry’s anvil. While you were searching for it, you accidentally came into contact with another artifact, one we didn’t know was there. It’s called Frigg’s spindle. It’s the source of the Sleeping Beauty legends and it causes the affected person to fall into a deep sleep.”
He paused for a moment, caught by the look of complete misery on Helena’s face. He continued, explaining gently, as one would to a bewildered child. “Unfortunately, it also causes horrible, lucid nightmares, nightmares so vivid that they seem like reality. They seek out your deepest, darkest fears and use them against you. That’s what happened to you. None of what you just described actually happened. None of it, Myka. If it had, do you really think that she’d still be living, much less here?”
Helena blanched even more at Artie’s final words, her eyes following the pattern in the area rug that lay beneath Myka’s bed. In the ensuing silence, she finally glanced up to find Myka’s perplexed, baffled gaze fixed on her.
She forced her lips to curve into the semblance of a smile: mirthless, pained and sad. She could feel Claudia and Pete staring at her, feel the waves of pity that flowed in her direction. She met Myka’s eyes.
“Helena? Helena, I….it was so real,” Myka whispered, her expression so profoundly troubled that Helena felt as if a hand had wrapped tightly around her throat, cutting off her air.
“I know, darling. Unfortunately, it would seem that I am your deepest, darkest fear,” Helena murmured wretchedly.
“Helena…” Myka said uncertainly, memories of what had been her reality still fresh and sharp in her mind.
Before Myka could speak again, Helena turned and fled the room, the sound of her boots on the wood floors echoing as dully as her heart.