Night of the Candles by Jennifer Blake Read Free Book Online

resembled his wife with her hair spread out upon the pillows where his wife had lain in her illness.
    “She is in agony, Herr Jason.” Marta answered his question in a low voice. “She needs something for it, but there is not a thing. You threw it all … every bottle … out, remember?”
    Jason raised his head a fraction, staring at Marta, then he turned away without speaking and moved toward the bed.
    “You are in pain?”
    Amanda tried to nod but she could not. “Yes,” she whispered.
    “Fever?” he asked, looking at Marta.
    “I think not,” she answered. “‘Twas the blow to the head when she fell.”
    Jason’s face tightened, but he reached out to lay his fingers against Amanda’s cheek. “No, no fever…” he murmured, then stopped as his fingertips touched the track of helpless tears running from the corner of Amanda’s eyes into her hair. His face tightened, and he seemed to grow pale beneath his tan.
    “Concussion?”
    “I am almost sure of it, Herr Jason.”
    He did not move for a long moment, then he sighed. “Wait,” he said and swung away, moving to the door of his room. He reappeared in a moment carrying a small green bottle with a black stopper.
    “You kept it!” Marta exclaimed, then shut her mouth, swallowing the rest of what she had been going to say.
    Jason ignored her. A carafe of water had been placed on the table beside the bed, and he took up one of the small glasses turned upside down on its tray. With the stopper from the green bottle, he measured five careful drops into the glass, then slipped the bottle into his pocket. He added a little water and swirled the liquid to mix it. At last he moved nearer the bed and placed the glass in Amanda’s hand, then stepped back with a brusque gesture to Marta indicating that she assist Amanda.
    With Maria’s strong arm beneath her shoulders, Amanda drank the elixir of opium. Then she lay back, her eyes barely open as she waited to be released from her pain.
    She heard Marta set the glass down and move to sit down on the slipper chair as if she intended to keep an all-night vigil. Jason swung away, moving back toward his room.
    She opened her eyes. “Thank you,” she murmured. But if Jason heard her he gave no sign.
    The blackness in her mind grew lighter, brightening until it had the glow of a spring day. She stood in a field of pink and white poppies, their fragile heads blowing in the wind. Coming toward her, running lightly without a sound, her hands outstretched, a smile of welcome on her face, was Amelia. She wore a dress of summer muslin sprigged with violets and green leaves, its flounces trimmed with purple ribbon. Her hair was loose, blowing in the gentle wind. There were gems, emeralds to match Jason’s eyes, in her ears, and the collar of Harmonia around her neck. Running at her side was the great dog, Cerberus, his tongue lolling out with joy.
    “Amanda!” the bewitching vision cried. Catching Amanda’s hands, she swung her around dizzyingly, like the child’s game of flying statues, relief mixed with the happiness sparkling in her pansy purple eyes. “I am so glad to see you. You are just the one I need. We always helped each other, didn’t we? You will help me now, won’t you?”
    In her dream Amanda felt gladness, but it was over-laid by the impulse to draw back, to retreat from a suffocating fear.
    She awoke, her heart beating high in her throat. She felt strange, disoriented, the effect, she supposed, of the opium. It was dark in the room. The lamps had gone out, leaving a smell of smoking wick and warm oil. Marta was a white blur in her chair from which issued a wheezing, even breathing. Then she heard the sound of music, a faint melody drawn from a Spanish guitar, sad, steeped in regret. She lay listening enthralled, strangely soothed. As the last notes died away she closed her eyes and slept, the pain in her head banished.

Chapter Three
    “YOU are awake, fraeulein? Guten Morgen. How do you feel?” Marta,