Chapter 11

Audrey stiffened, tears pooled in her eyes as her life flashed through her mind.

“Strawberry?” Nicholas slid the bowl toward her as he read every image that passed through Audrey’s mind. “Come now Dorothy dear, there is no need for tears. The Great and Powerful OZ has every intention of granting your request.” Nicholas laughed, the sound chilled Audrey’s blood. 

.

“You …” Audrey’s voice threatened to fail but she managed a small croak. “You are …”

“Evil? A Monster?” Nicholas offered her a Cheshire cat grin. “That my dear is a matter of opinion. You know nothing about me, nor what I have endured in my life and you would be so quick to judge me so? Tisk Tisk. After all I have given you the benefit of the doubt and welcomed you into my home, would you not offer me the same courtesy?”

Nicholas stood up and filled both of their glasses. He offered one to Audrey with a slender hand. His other hand he held out to her. “Please, join me on the balcony wont you? It is a clear evening and the moonlight is simply enchanting. And there is a lovely view of the garden below.”

“Your garden lay in ruins, I saw so myself earlier.” Audrey managed in a voice that sounded much too small to her ears.

Nicholas laughed, once again playing the part of the charming host. “I assure you my garden is as it always has been. Come I will show you.”

Audrey rose from her chair with reluctance. She took the offered wine glass but declined his hand.

Nicholas only continued to smile, not in the least offended. Audrey knew he found the whole situation, her fear, to be most amusing. On one level this infuriated her. But on another level, though it made her feel uneasy it also left her intrigued.

Nicholas led them across the room, throwing open two large French doors. The sheer, airy draperies billowed in the evening breeze. He stepped out on to the balcony breathing in the night air with relish. Audrey joined him at the stone railing. The beautiful garden spanned as far as the eye could see, but it was the moonlight that held Nicholas captivated.

“Your garden?” Audrey sucked in her breath in surprise. “It … it is alive again.”

“It  has never been otherwise.” He returned flatly, not bothering to look at her.

Audrey did not understand, was she truly that turned around previously? Had she become that lost? But she decided not to pursue the subject, yet. Nicholas’s demeanor had changed once again. Audrey found his new mood to be dismal, melancholy. Audrey fidgeted with her wine glass feeling awkward in the silence.

“It it a weak, pathetic mind that cannot be idle in silence and maintain a state of grace.” Nicholas scolded her, his eyes still fixed upon the moon. “Do you always fidget so? It is quite unseemly.”

 Audrey opened her mouth to form some apology but Nicholas waved a hand at her in annoyance. Then he locked his green eyes upon her. “Tell me why someone so young would wish to throw away the gift of life?”

“I …” Audrey’s mind grasped for a lie but she replied with all honesty. “I want to be free.” There was no reason to try to lie anymore and telling the truth lifted a great weight from her soul.  Audrey felt like the little girl she once was, sitting in the confessional bearing her sins to Father Hartley.  “I want to be free” She said again, more confident.

“I see.” Nicholas was clearly unimpressed. “Apparently this freedom is not so important to you or you would carry out the deed yourself and not burden me with your demise.”

“I … I tried.” Audrey shook her head.

“You are the worst kind of coward!” Nicholas sneered. “What self-important, foolish problems do you face that would convince you that death is your only option?”

Audrey’s hand moved unconsciously to her stomach and traced the scar that hid beneath the silk gown. Her mind played a series of scenes, years of bruises and broken bones. She once again felt the cold steal of shackles around her wrists and ankles. Familiar feelings of hopelessness, fear, and her own worthlessness washed over her. Her throat became dry and began to constrict. Her breath came in shallow gasps. Nicholas was right, she was a coward.

Nicholas continued to glare at her in contempt. “I have seen innocent men and woman lose their heads merely to protect another’s politics. I have seen men dying on the battlefield crying out to their Gods to spare their lives. I have seen men lost at sea by Mother Nature’s fury.” His voice was rolling thunder, flecks of spittle flung from his lips unnoticed as he raged. “I have seen children murdered while their parents watched helplessly before meeting their own end. I have seen whole villages burned to the ground, innocents slaughtered down to every man, woman, and child. I saw the Red Death wipe out three fourth of the population across this continent. There are not many who know as well as I do how very precious life is! And you would come to me to end your miserable existence? Because you are too weak and pathetic to perform the deed yourself? You sicken me!”

Audrey opened her mouth to speak but then clenched her jaw shut. Her eyes narrowed in defiance. She lived most of her short life a prisoner to another man’s sadistic pleasure. Starved, drugged, and repeatedly raped, she had survived unbelievable torture and abuse. And though it was the greatest pain of all, she endured the loss of the only child she would ever have. She had lived through it all and escaped her fate. No, Nicholas was wrong. She was no coward.

“You … you...” Audrey struggled to find a word that would properly convey her anger and growing hatred for the man before her.  The best she could manage was, “You …you ass!”

Nicholas laughed clearly amused. “Oh my, you do realize that is the least insulting of that which I have ever been referred.”

“There are no words to describe what you are ….” Audrey replied through gritted teeth.

“I am growing quite bored with this” Nicholas rolled his eyes but he was watching her with interest now.

In response Audrey set her wine glass down and climbed up onto the stone railing. She struggled with her balance for a mere second then stood steady, her gaze turned up above to the moon.

Nicholas’s lips parted into a smile, his voice calm and soothing. “And there you are my dear, on the precipice of life and death. If it is freedom you seek, what form would you have it take?”

Audrey willed her mind to clear as tears streamed down her cheeks. Then one by one she allowed visions of her past to present themselves to her.

She sees herself as s small child, one of six in a close Catholic family. Then she sees herself a friendless and awkward girl in her old Catholic school uniform. Next she is a teenager, on her sweet sixteen. But instead of sneaking a first kiss at her birthday party she finds herself at her parent’s funeral. The years flash by, touching on the few boyfriends she had, all drunks, abusive. Then she sees herself walking down a lonely stretch of highway. A cars stops to offer her a ride. She knows better than to accept, but the rain is so cold. She forces her mind to skip ahead; she is pregnant and scared but so very happy. The last image she is shown is of herself very pregnant, shackled to the bed. There is blood, so much blood. She passes out from the pain as they slice into her abdomen, performing a crude c-section. She remembers when she woke three days later being told the child was dead. She is almost sure it was a lie.

Audrey watched all of these images with a strange calm, as if it were someone else’s life and not her own. She saw things so clearly now. It was not only the pain of the past that plagued her, she could perhaps learn to deal with that. But she had lived so long a captive she did not know how to live any other way. And he would be coming for her. He swore it; he would find her and kill her. Perhaps he had already found her, several times in the village she felt she was being watched, even followed. Audrey shuttered, death at his hands was one she did not relish. It was better to do it this way.

Audrey took a long deep breath and looked down at the garden below. The moment had arrived, all she had to do was take one step and she would be free. She had the courage to do it now. Just one step.

Nicholas had been watching Audrey’s inner debate in silent, rapt attention. He now made a small unnoticeable gesture with his hand. The wind rustled through the trees as it rose. The gust reached the balcony, toppling Audrey from her perch. She pitched forward over the railing, her screams following her towards the ground below.