The Accursed

by Joyce Carol Oates

  (Yes, it is strange that Todd, at eleven years of age, would request being read to, as if he were a very young child; but Todd did not easily “read,” claiming that letters and numerals were “scrambled” in his eyes, when he tried to make sense of them.)

  At the end of the story Todd clapped his hands and declared that when he became a swan, he wouldn’t be so kind to the ducklings who had mocked him—“For Todd has a very good memory for wrongs, and will not forget or forgive his enemies.” Which provoked Annabel to say, in reprimand: “But once you are a swan, Todd you will be a swan, and have a swan’s code of conduct—that is, you will be manly and noble.”

  “But will Todd be Todd, then?”—the child’s query was couched with some anxiety.

  “Why yes! Of course.”

  Resting in the grass, the boy considered this statement of his cousin’s, with an air of mock gravity; but responded then in typical Todd-fashion by rolling onto his back, kicking frantically, and protesting in a high-pitched whine as if he were being tickled, or attacked, by an invisible adversary.

  (POOR TODD SLADE!—the reader may be curious about him, particularly in the light of developments to follow; for surely of the “accursed,” Todd was primary.)

  Through Todd’s first two years he had seemed to be displaying superior traits—(walking, talking, even “reasoning” to a degree)—of a precocious sort, but then, for no reason anyone could know, he had seemed to “regress”—as if wishing to remain an infant a little longer, and a particularly difficult infant displaying flashes of brightness, even brilliance, amid much else that was infantile. In stature Todd wasn’t below the average for a child of his age, being in fact somewhat tall; but his frame was peculiarly under-developed, and his head over-large, and his feet so poorly coordinated that he was always stumbling, or falling down, to the dismay of his parents and the derision of other boys. Yet more puzzling, Todd often reached for things that were not there—but rather a few inches to one side. The more futile his behavior, the more frustrated and impatient he was.

  Todd particularly upset his father Copplestone, a man of shrewd business acumen, and financial success in trade; who prided himself on his speaking and writing abilities, as he had been head of the Princeton Debate Club, and a popular “man on campus” during his undergraduate years; and who could not bear it, that his only son “refused” (as Copplestone put it) to learn to read, and write; and was so stubborn as to hold a book several inches to one side of his head, or even upside-down. This “prank” as Copplestone judged it was especially infuriating, and had to be met with discipline—“Why, the child is either a devil, or harbors one,” Copplestone would declare to Todd’s weeping mother, after one of their father-son contests, which, in the matter of sheer lung volume, and franticness of behavior, Todd triumphed, sending Copplestone charging out of the room.

  (Yet it was said, perhaps irresponsibly, that, in private, Copplestone applied “discipline” to his unruly son: whether by hand, or switch or belt, is not known. Certainly, Winslow Slade was not known to have disciplined his sons Copplestone and Augustus, nor even to have raised his voice to them when they were young.)

  Yet Todd would not learn his ABC’s, still less arithmetic, despite the efforts of his father and of numerous tutors; with the result that, by his twelfth year, his family had given up forcing him, and had become reconciled to the boy’s stubbornness, obstinacy, or whatever it might be called. (Later, when Todd was older, after the trauma of the Curse had run its course, it would seem that he could “read” and even “write” after a fashion; even, it was claimed, that Todd was “above average” in many respects; for Todd was enrolled in the Princeton Academy, when I entered first grade there in 1911, and must have been taking regular courses.) Though prone to temper tantrums, Todd could also behave very sweetly; he had long been taken up by his cousin Annabel as a favorite; and even, from time to time, by Josiah, who lacked his sister’s patience for their young cousin. (Josiah was most frustrated that, in board games like checkers and chess, Todd often won; not because Todd was a superior player but because Todd so shamelessly and skillfully cheated, with a touch so light he was rarely caught. “He will make a brilliant politician at Tammany Hall, where money evaporates in plain air,” Josiah said, “if, unlike some at Tammany Hall, he can stay out of jail long enough.”)

  Wilhelmina instructed herself that Todd Slade was only a child—only a boy of eleven; yet she feared something precocious and penetrant in his gaze, and halfway wondered if the child might be possessed of clairvoyant powers. For one Sunday at Crosswicks, a few months before this time, Todd made his way through a gathering of adults most deliberately to Wilhelmina, to shake her hand gravely and offer his condolences in a low, insinuating voice; saying that, as Josiah was absent from the party, Miss Burr was condemned to a “mere mastication of tasteless food” and the “auscultation of tuneless music”—a statement so preposterous out of the mouth of a child, Willy could scarcely believe what she’d heard. Then, when the impish lad repeated his words, eyeing her with a semblance of genuine sympathy, she flushed crimson, and found it difficult to breathe, to realize that Todd Slade knew—(could it be general knowledge through Princeton?)—the secret of her love for Josiah Slade.

  But I have not told anyone! Not even Annabel.

  Following this, Wilhelmina felt very cautious about Todd Slade, yet grateful to him, he had not divulged her secret to any other person, so far as she knew.

  So it was, Todd still wished to be read to, and not to read; and Annabel liked to indulge him, for it made him happy, as if he were a child of but three or four, to be so easily made happy. After “The Ugly Duckling” Todd requested “The Hill of the Elves,” an old nursery favorite, and after that “The Snow Queen”—which Annabel hesitated to read, for reasons of her own. Yet Todd so persisted, kicking his heels against the ground, and rolling his eyes back into his head, that she had no choice but to give in; but her voice seemed thinner, and her manner less animated, and after a few minutes Todd grew bored, and hummed, and sighed, and began to yank out clumps of grass to toss at Thor, and excite him. When Annabel read of the little boy’s sleigh ride with the Snow Queen, and of how they “flew” over woods and lakes, over sea and land, while beneath them the cold wind howled, and the wolves cried, and the deathly snow glittered, Todd nervously yawned, as if he were indifferent to such terrors; and at last knocked the storybook out of his cousin’s hands!—then, before the startled Annabel could protest, he leapt to his feet and ran in the direction of the forest, driving the excited dog before him, both child and dog barking with a crazed sort of elation.

  Wilhelmina said, “Annabel, you’ve spoiled your cousin. He will only get worse, if you persevere.”

  “But—what would I do? What would any of us do? Todd is—as Todd is.”

  “Are you so sure? That is a way of giving up on him, you know—for he can never become an adult, nor even a young person in high school or college, if he is so indulged.”

  Surprisingly, Annabel didn’t deny this; but, her sweet face unpleasantly flushed, and her eyes shimmering with tears, she did no more than shut the storybook, and let it fall.

  “Yes, you’re right, Willy. This is my reward.”

  When, afterward, Willy examined her sketch of Annabel she discovered that her friend’s likeness was so shadowed with worry, and melancholy, and some queer insinuation of the cynical—(in a curve of Annabel’s lips)—she didn’t want to show it to her, and thought it most prudent to fold the sketch quickly, and hide it in her bag. Seeing this, Annabel asked, with a hurt little laugh, if the drawing was so very hideous; and Willy said, “Yes, it is, a bit—but the failure is the artist’s, and not the model’s. I will try again, soon—another time.”

  The young women resumed their stroll, following Todd into the forest; though, a mood of gravity having overtaken them, they were not now inclined to walk arm in arm.

  After several strained minutes Willy said, in a voice low and chastened with emotion,
“Annabel, I hope you won’t ‘drift away’ from me—and from other friends, who love you—after you and Dabney are married. Sometimes I fear you are already ‘drifting away’—for, unless I’ve been imagining it, you’ve been a little distant, and distracted, lately, at least in my company . . .”

  Quickly Annabel protested: “Willy, that is untrue! You are my anchor—you and Josiah. I will never ‘drift away’ from either of you—I swear not to lose either of you.”

  Willy smiled, hearing her name so coupled with Josiah Slade’s name; and remarked only that it struck her ear as odd, that Annabel should swear she would not lose her brother, or her oldest friend—“Which makes me think that you are somewhat troubled, Annabel?—and hesitant to speak?”

  Again quickly Annabel protested, with a little laugh: “Willy, no. You are beginning to tease and torment me, now. Maybe we should change the subject?”

  “Of course. Consider the subject changed.”

  “In my heart, Willy, in my soul—I am not troubled in the slightest. I am—very happy . . .”

  But Annabel’s voice so suggested otherwise, Willy turned to her, slipping an arm around her waist: “Dear Annabel, what is it? Please tell me.”

  “I’ve told you—there is nothing to tell.”

  “Where I love, you know I don’t judge. Is it something between you and Dabney? Has it to do with—your parents? Are there no words, dear Annabel, to express what you are feeling?”

  “No words,” Annabel said softly, with a sigh, “—no words.”

  The young women were following Todd and Thor into the forest, at a little distance. By degrees their conversation was shifting into a tone compatible with sun-dappled shade, or shadow, as they left the open sky behind. Willy said that she was feeling just a little hurt, that Annabel wasn’t more confiding in her; after all, she had confided in Annabel many times, since they’d become “fast friends” in fifth grade at the Princeton Academy for Girls. “To whom would you speak, Annabel, if not to me, your closest friend?”

  Annabel laughed. Without mirth, and with an air of vexation.

  “Why, maybe with your aunt Adelaide, of whom such things are said, of an ‘accident’ on her honeymoon.”

  “My aunt Adelaide? But why?”

  “Because—such things are said of her. And of the ‘accident’ on her honeymoon.”

  “Why do you speak of it?—no one knows what happened. At least, I don’t. Within our family, such things are not spoken of.”

  “What I don’t understand, Willy, is: was there an accident in travel, or at an inn where the honeymoon couple was staying? And the ‘accident’ has been irrevocable?”

  “An ‘accident,’ it has always been said, of an ‘unspecified sort.’ I believe it happened in Bermuda, or on the cruise ship bound for Bermuda.”

  “And so, your aunt Adelaide is both a ‘married woman’—and yet, in many respects, a mere ‘girl’—not so much older than we are, in essence. And her figure is unaltered, for she has not borne children. And she and her husband are so very close, it’s said—they remain a romantic couple.”

  “Yes, so it’s said. I find it difficult to talk to Horace, however—as he, with me.”

  “So that one doesn’t know if Adelaide Burr has suffered a kind of tragedy,” Annabel said, musing, “or a kind of blessing.”

  All this while, Annabel was turning the diamond heirloom engagement ring on her finger, where it fitted her loosely.

  For several minutes the young women walked together, in a brooding silence; though ahead, Todd was shouting to Thor, and Thor was barking; and there came wafting out of the interior of the forest a subtle brackish odor, where the land sank into a sort of bog.

  “Todd? Where have you got to?”—so Annabel called, without much expectation that her young cousin would answer her.

  More quickly the young women walked now. There was a sort of path into the woods, which gradually broadened, to spread out in all directions, soft, yielding, and springy beneath their feet. Willy exclaimed how delightful it was, to walk here—“It feels as if I am floating, weightless.”

  Annabel laughed, startled. “Yes—‘weightless.’ ”

  But something was catching at the hem of Annabel’s shirtwaist, and at the petticoats beneath. To her dismay she saw that the hem of her pretty blue-striped dress was both torn and soiled; the undersides of her frilly white petticoats were quite filthy. With a little sob she brushed at the dirt, then let her skirt fall back into place and said, as if the thought had only just struck her, “Please don’t think that I am crazy, Willy—and please don’t repeat this—but I’ve often wondered why it is that sisters and brothers can’t continue to live together, after they are grown; not eccentric old bachelors and old maids, but—perfectly normal people! Why is it, the world so insists upon marriage? Since I was a girl of twelve, I swear my mother has thought of little else, for me; every female relative in the family has been plotting. When I’d hoped to be a children’s book writer, or illustrator, or artist—that was all they said to me: maybe, after you are married, and have your own children, you can take up a ‘hobby’ like that. But no boy or young man who wants to be a writer or an artist—or a musician, or a scientist—is told that he should take it up as a hobby, why is that?”

  “For the same reason that we are not ‘allowed’ to vote. We are but second-class citizens, though residents of the same United States of America as our brothers.”

  “Father has explained, female suffrage is ‘redundant’—a woman will vote as her husband votes, or, out of willfulness, she will vote against his vote, thus canceling it. In either event, the female vote is wasted.”

  “Hardly! We will want to try it, first.”

  “But why is it, sisters and brothers are not encouraged to live together? Entire families might live together, as they used to do, in the past? I will feel so—alone—strangely alone—with just Dabney; as he will feel alone with me, I think. And, as you know, there is no one quite like Josiah, for getting along with people—at least, with me. We have no need even to talk, much of the time; we are quite happy being quiet together. Whereas, with Dabney, there is a need to be always talking—nervously . . . Which leads me to wonder,” Annabel said, in a rapid low voice, “why it must be, we marry strangers, and dwell apart from our loved ones. D’you know, my cousin Eleanora, who lives in Wilmington, was married a few years ago, and nearly died giving birth to a husky big boy, for she’d had rheumatic fever as a child, and her heart had been strained; and it’s said, she and her husband live together now as sister and brother, and no one feels obliged to criticize them. Yet it seems, if an actual sister and brother, related by blood, were to establish an independent household, society would look upon them with much disapproval, and disdain. How unjust, Willy, and how illogical!—do you agree?”

  Willy murmured a feeble assent. (For she did not like the drift of this conversation, or its one-sided vehemence.) Adding, with girlish wistfulness: “Only think, we three might all live together, in such a household, if we’d lived in a happier time—for instance, at Fruitlands, or Oneida, or in the Shaker community. Why can’t ‘sister and brother’ be expanded to include ‘sisters and brothers’ in the plural?—there being no harm, surely, in that.”

  So, Willy had spoken: brashly, recklessly, and irrevocably!

  Feeling the need now to press her hands against her warm cheeks, to cool and soothe; for she had grown unpleasantly warm, in the sun-splotched shade of the forest, with its damp, springy forest-bed; her hair felt disagreeably damp, coarse as a horse’s hair, at the nape of her neck. And why had she thought her “Turkish trousers” so chic, that were now stippled with burdocks, and muddied at the hem?

  The young women paused, and Annabel plucked at the burdocks on her friend’s clothing, as on her own. Gnats, mosquitoes, and tiny stinging blackflies had begun to swarm, in the forest interior. Fretfully Annabel said: “Yes, Willy—you are right. Yet, it is too late—for me. I have fallen in love and am damned—I belong now
to another, in body as well as spirit—and neither Josiah, nor the dashing Lieutenant, can save me: not even you, dear Wilhelmina.”

  IT WAS AT this moment that the young women made their discovery, that Todd and Thor were nowhere in sight; though the boy’s shouts and laughter, and the dog’s wild barking, seemed to be echoing from all directions of the forest.

  Annabel led the way deeper into the forest, calling her cousin’s name; then, faltering, she surrendered the lead to Willy, who led them in another direction, calling out: “Todd! You are very bad! Why are you hiding from us? Come out at once!”

  After some stressful minutes, as the young women made their way ever more deeply into a soft, sinking, bog-like part of the forest, into which Stony Brook Creek evidently emptied, at last they sighted Todd at the same moment, in a sort of clearing, in which gigantic logs lay in a jumbled profusion; the logs being ossified, it seemed, and formidable as fallen monuments. The sunshine that fell slantwise into this open space, having taken on the peculiar quality of the great forest, did not seem, somehow, a natural sunshine, or the light of the sun itself, but rather a queer, silvery, lunar effulgence, unsettling yet not entirely disagreeable.

  There Todd stood, his head lowered, and his wild dark hair rising in tufts above his pallid face; but though both Annabel and Willy called to him, he seemed not to hear; nor did Thor leap up from the lichen-bed in which he lay, to approach them with his tail wagging, in his usual manner.