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Intentions Array Kelantha
It was only fitting that it rained the first week of our stay. It came down in sheets outside the window, dribbling down the glass and casting a gloomy reflection over those gathered around the table. I was pushing the food around with my fork, attempting to give the appearance of eating without ingesting. I used to love the food our cook brought to us, slaving all day in a hot kitchen with her cheeks reddened with the heat, and pride on her countenance whenever my parents praised her efforts. The scent no longer tempted me, but churned my stomach. Wine fared no better, although I had been forced to drink it the previous evening. When toasting our guests, for since my return the house had endured a constant stream of curios onlookers interested in the visiting count, my father�s eye had lingered so lengthily upon me that I was forced to down the contents of the glass. At first it did not seem to have made an impression. I sat among them perfectly poised, smiling as I attempted to feign interest in an interminable story from the perspective of my great aunt. Then I began to feel dreadful, an illness that I pray never to repeat, for it seized me so suddenly that I felt my veins were being drained of sustenance. I made a vague excuse and quit their presence, darting out into the street behind the hacienda. There I spit up the wine, and a good deal of blood with it. My hand fell against the damp, cold outer wall for support. I barely moved when a warm cape was dropped around my shoulders, his touch lingering as he comforted me silently. One of his elegant lace handkerchiefs was given to me, and I wiped the blood from my chin as I turned into the light. We had not heard her approach but there, standing on the topmost step of the kitchen, was the winsome figure of my brother�s wife, Cristina. As my countenance fell into the feeble light coming through the open doorway behind her, it illuminated the blood coating my fingertips and staining the white linen crimson. She very nearly fainted with the sight, and my cry out to her could not halt the rapid turn of skirts as she vanished indoors. I went after her, an ominous sensation growing in my unease, and entered a drawing room utterly silenced. Everyone, from the youngest child to the eldest patron, looked upon me with a loathsome kind of pity. I felt Dracula looming in the hall behind me, could sense the anticipation of his thoughts. If they knew, if in some remote corner of their mind even the faintest suspicion lingered, he would kill them all. �Why did you not tell us, my child?� demanded my father. I gazed upon him numbly, and my eyes shifted to the others. Dracula had quietly closed the doors behind him and was prowling the outer edge of the room, a listless spirit in a sober dream. I knew not what to say, and thus remained silent. My mother, however, was not so inhibited. She launched into an angry missile at my ingratitude at failing to inform them of the seriousness of my situation, compounded with her belief that I would be well again once I set my mind to it, and an insistence that I saw her physician at once. I was familiar enough with the times to realize that it was tuberculosis that she spoke of, and that stupid little well meaning Cristina had mistaken my malady for. Suppressing the relieved smirk that threatened to dominate my sober countenance, I used it to the best of my advantage. We had been in Madrid for nearly a week, during which time I was astounded by my companion�s manipulative abilities. Somehow we were never asked to come along for long walks in the morning hours, when the sun shone brightly through the square and illuminated the vendors selling their wares, or forced to attend mass. I had delicately approached my father on that topic, saying that my husband was not devout, but preferred the Protestant faith in many of its ideals. Although he spent the next quarter hour shaming me for having chosen such a man, and concerned for the noble fate of his eternal soul, there was a quiet sigh at the conclusion that convinced me he was not so concerned. Playing the fainting, weak-willed heroine had never appealed to me, but it kept them from asking odd questions about my nocturnal habits. They assumed I was following the doctor�s orders, although notably, it thinned the visitors to our home once the self-professed truth was known. I was relieved for this lack of ambition on the part of the local townspeople and enjoyed my liberty, slipping out in the rain with my husband at night and walking the lonely streets, returning before dawn and often sleeping for a few hours during the day. It was in this interval that my mother thought it best to encourage spiritual assistance on the behalf of my illness, and inadvertently brought one of the few men I have ever truly reviled upon sight into my life. There
are many fine priests, but Father Torquemada
is not among them.
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