The Magic Circle Katherine Neville (top 100 novels of all time TXT) 📖

cradling arms enfolding me, and let Wolfgang cover me with more of the towels. He placed my arm carefully on top. I closed my eyes; the fire was so warm, I could feel the flames licking my eyelids. I tried to relax.

At first the pain was distant and cold as the antiseptic dripped on my skin—but it quickly turned hot. When I felt the slight tug of the forceps against the first stitch, I wondered if this was what a fish might feel when it sensed the first jab of the barbed hook puncturing flesh—no deep pain or fear yet, only the dim sense that something might be terribly, terribly wrong.

From the first tug, it was like scraping a pin against glass. The pain crawled deeply into the bone with a slow, nagging ache. I tried not to flinch and make it worse, but the dull, rhythmic throbs were almost more than I could bear. Though my eyes were shut, I could feel hot tears welling behind my lids. I tried to steel myself with a deep breath for each new assault.

After what seemed forever, the tugging stopped. When I opened my eyes, the dammed-back tears trickled in rivulets down my cheeks and onto the towel-draped sofa. My teeth were still gritted against the pain; my stomach was in knots. I knew if I tried to speak, I’d burst into sobs. I took another breath, and let it out slowly.

“That first one was difficult—but I was able to remove it cleanly,” Wolfgang said.

“The first one!” I protested, struggling to prop myself on my good elbow. “Couldn’t we just chop my arm off with one quick whack and have it done?”

“I don’t like to hurt you, my dear,” he assured me. “But these must come out. It’s been too long, as it is.”

Wolfgang held the brandy to my lips. I took a big slug and choked a little. He wiped a tear away with his finger and watched in silence as I drank some more. Then I handed the glass back to him.

“You know, when Bettina and I were small, our mother had a saying if she had to do something unpleasant,” he told me. “She said, ‘A kiss makes everything better.’”

He leaned over and touched his lips to the place where he’d pulled out the stitch. I shut my eyes as I felt the warm glow spread through my arm.

“And does it?” he asked softly. When I nodded mutely, he said, “Then the others must be kissed as well. Now let’s have this finished, shall we?”

I lay back on the sofa in preparation for the renewed assault. With each stitch, there was that grinding pain as he pulled carefully with the forceps to release the suture from the skin—then the sharp incisive clip of the scissors that heralded the last tug. After each clip, Wolfgang bent to kiss the place where the stitch had come out. I tried to keep count, but after five or ten minutes I was sure he’d pried out thirty, or three hundred, instead of only the remaining thirteen. Still, the kisses mysteriously did seem to help.

When at last the ordeal was over, Wolfgang gently massaged my arm until the blood returned to wash the pain away. Then he wiped the area with a disinfectant that smelled faintly of fresh wintergreen. When he was through, I pushed myself to a sitting position beside him. He helped me slip my bare arm back into the sleeve, then he sashed up the robe again.

“I’m sure that wasn’t pleasant. You’ve been very brave this past week, my dear, but it’s all over now,” he told me, hugging me lightly around my good shoulder. “It’s only just past seven, so you’ve plenty of time to bathe and have a rest if you’d like, before we need to think about supper. How are you feeling?”

“I’m okay—just tired,” I said. But though the will was there, I didn’t actually seem to be moving.

Wolfgang looked at me with what seemed concern—and another expression I couldn’t quite decipher. It was true I was dizzy from the wallops of cognac mixed with the megadose of natural endorphins that had been released by nearly half an hour of slow, grinding pain. I leaned back against the cushions and tried to pull myself together. Wolfgang reached over and twirled a strand of my hair in his fingertips meditatively. After a moment he spoke, as if he’d arrived at some private conclusion.

“Ariel, I know this is probably the wrong time, but I don’t know when the right time will be. If not now, perhaps never.…” He stopped and shut his eyes for a moment. “My god, I don’t know how to do this at all. Give me a sip of that cognac.”

He leaned across me, plucked my half-full glass from the table, and tossed down a swallow. Then he set the glass down, turned back to me with those fathomless turquoise eyes, and said,

“The first time I saw you in the Technical Science Annex at the nuclear site—did you hear the word I said as I passed?”

“I’m afraid I didn’t quite,” I told him, though I vividly recalled what I’d hoped he’d said—“enchanting” or “exquisite”—a far cry from what I looked or felt like right now. But I was hardly expecting what came next.

“What I said was ‘ecstasy.’ At that moment, I really thought of abandoning the entire mission. And I assure you, there are those who’d prefer me to do so, even now. My reaction to you has been so—I’m not really sure how to say it—so immediate. I suppose you can see now where this awkward confession is proceeding.”

He stopped, for I’d abruptly stood up, completely flustered. Here I was—a girl who balked at dipping her skis into deep powder—being invited once more to leap willy-nilly from yet another dangerous height. I could feel the panic surging, even as I struggled against it. Fuzzy I might be, but it didn’t take Albert Einstein to figure out