The Accursed

by Joyce Carol Oates

  So far as I’ve been able to discover, by collating diaries, no one except Annabel’s mother, her grandfather Winslow and her brother Josiah, of course, was present in her bedchamber at this time. (Annabel’s father, Augustus, it was said, could not bear to look upon his daughter’s face; her cousin Todd, literally “under lock and key” at Wheatsheaf, clamored to see her, but was forbidden; and Wilhelmina, who also wanted to visit Annabel, and whom, possibly, Annabel would have liked to see, was forbidden as well, by a curt decree of Annabel’s parents.)

  There were visits by the astonished Dr. Boudinot, but either that gentleman was sworn to secrecy, which he did not violate; or, his accounts of the monstrous delivery have been lost.

  THE BOG KINGDOM

  Faster, yet ever faster, the horses galloped along the old King’s Highway foaming at the mouth, and snorting—our carriage wildly rocking from side to side . . .

  So faintly Annabel spoke, so uncertain and faltering her voice, it was very difficult for Josiah to hear, and to transcribe what she said.

  Poor Annabel! Returned in disgrace, and in physical distress, to her girlhood room at Crosswicks Manse.

  In a fever—delirium, her lower body grotesquely swollen in pregnancy.

  Also with Annabel were her mother, Henrietta, in a state of great anxiety, and her grandfather Winslow Slade, only partly recovered from a stroke of several months before, that had paralyzed the left half of his face, and caused his left eye to squint, with but minimal sight in that eye. And the elderly man’s speech had been slowed, as if each word came of its own, like a rock rolled with effort, and independent of words preceding and following. For it was as Winslow Slade had foreseen, through the window of the railway car: his granddaughter would return home not only alone, but afoot; in a condition exhausted and broken, beyond hysteria; on a particularly cold and snowy night in December—cast off from her lover.

  This is a scene of flickering candlelight, and not electricity. (Though the Slades’ house was fully electrified by 1905.) As Annabel’s room had not been at all changed since her girlhood: very prettily decorated in a “feminine” Victorian style with rose-colored fleur-de-lis French wallpaper, a charming little chandelier of Irish crystal, white-lacquered furniture and a cherrywood writing desk overlooking a view of the rose garden, desiccated now in winter. There was a marble fireplace, of Sienna marble, rarely used; above it, a mirror that resembled a woodland pool, flickering with candleflame amid shadows. At the several tall narrow windows were curtains of chintz-and-damask, in bright colors now muted and indistinct. Annabel’s girlhood bed was a beautiful old eighteenth-century “sleigh” bed that had come down through the family, with a white silken canopy, and mostly white bed-linens and quilts; it was bizarre to see, in a girl’s narrow, single bed, a young woman in the last stage of pregnancy, clutching a chaste-white comforter with desperate fingers.

  Dr. Boudinot had been hurriedly summoned, and had been sent away again. For Annabel wished to speak openly to her brother, her mother, and her grandfather, and would have felt restrained by the presence of a stranger.

  (In his place, the Slades’ longtime housekeeper Cassandra, trained in midwifery, would help with the delivery. But Cassandra was downstairs at this time, waiting to be called.)

  (Readers should be warned: the various first-person and “eyewitness” accounts of the delivery of Axson Mayte’s hideous offspring that have been reported, in previous chronicles by Hollinger, Tite, Worthing, “Anonymous,” et al., are utterly meretricious and inauthentic. Cassandra, who loved her employers’ granddaughter dearly, did not ever reveal what she’d seen, or even that she’d assisted at the birth, though many individuals would question her, some of them quite persistently, for years. All that is known of this episode is by way of Josiah’s recording in the Turquoise-Marbled Book, which is in my keeping.)

  One more item should be noted, to “set” the scene: a pastel portrait (by Winslow Homer, a friendly acquaintance of the elder Slades) of little Annabel, at about the age of eleven, in a beribboned sailor cap and with a shyly sweet smile, hung on the wall near the canopied bed; this image of childhood innocence and trust, in painful contrast to the young woman in the canopied bed, her delicate features contorted in humiliation, and in pain.

  . . . . THE wind tearing at my hair and ripping my bridal veil from my head—causing my eyes to fill with tears—though not—(not yet!)–tears of regret and shame. Do you love me above all men, dear Annabel he whispered and will you be my bride, and Queen of my Kingdom . . .

  So strange it was, trees flew past us—meadows beside the King’s Highway that should have been the freshest green were now starkly gray and drained of all color as in a solar eclipse. More strangely, we seemed to be passing Crosswicks Manse, my beloved home for all of my life, set back from the road beneath tall trees and yet to my dazed eye the house was leaden-dull lacking all color, and beauty; and the sky beyond no longer blue but of the transparency of washed glass. Hedgerows looming close to the road were startling in their uncanny chalkiness—and the newly cultivated soil in farmers’ fields was no longer a rich deep earthen color but reversed in tone, strangely pale as if a fine powdery snow had fallen upon it, on a fair June day!

  He had warned me—I must not look back. Must not glance back over my shoulder not once at all that I had left for his sake.

  The wind, the wind! Whipping at my hair—and my lover’s powerful arm clasped about me that I might bury my face in his neck—Do you pledge your troth to me and only me as your true husband?—bringing his lips to my eyelids and a tightening of his arm that made me cry out, in sudden pain.

  My breath was drawn from me by the hot whipping wind that had acquired a brackish odor though we were traveling through a familiar landscape which I’d known since childhood—yet, what were these strange creatures at the roadside?—fluttering into the air, on dark leathery wings, as we approached?—they appeared to be birds, yet not birds of the kind one usually sees here but rather goatsuckers, or nighthawks, with great flat heads and long pointed wings and eyes mere slits glaring at us, like smoldering coals. Their cries were angry and impatient and close to human, seeming particularly to be addressed to Axson, as we passed; as if they knew him, and he them, in some unknown way.

  My brave Annabel!—to have cast off your old life, for my sake!

  The horses were galloping faster, and more fiercely—almost I could believe that flames snorted from their nostrils—their long manes blown in the wind and their tails uplifted—their eyes rolling—yet impatient Axson flicked his whip over their withers—as if he feared pursuit.

  Soon we shall be safe in my kingdom, where no one can follow.

  No one, dear Annabel, to wrench you from my arms.

  Chalk-hued hedgerows, and great looming leafless trees, and desolate countryside in which creatures of an unknown species grazed—so eerie and glowering with light, yet a pallid light, my eyes ached and I could not look too closely at anything I saw; for all was faded like an engraving of many years past, or one of Grandfather’s daguerreotypes of his youth. O wild frenzied ride! O drear changed world! But once we encountered another vehicle at the junction of a narrow road—a farmer’s wagon drawn by a swaybacked horse—this vehicle though surely moving yet appeared frozen in motion and the grizzled farmer seated behind his horse in overalls and shabby straw hat gazed upon us with blank glassy eyes as if he saw us, yet did not see; the wagon moved, yet its crude wheels did not turn, nor did the horse trot forward. And I seemed to know, it was for Axson’s sake: time might be stopt for us, that Axson might plunge forward with his bride.

  We saw a forsaken cemetery that had been a Quaker graveyard, by an old ruin of a church; and all the grave markers, and the gutted church, were of the identical hue of lead. We saw a convict gang toiling by the roadside in shapeless prison clothes and leg-irons—not a one of these men was of Caucasian features but African in descent with flat blunt noses and fleshy lips and yet their skins were chalky-white!—astonishing to the e
ye, one would have thought that the world had turned inside-out and Heaven had drunkenly reversed itself with Hell.

  Hours passed, or days—I was confused in Time, like one buffeted in a rough surf—scarcely knowing where I was being taken in such haste; for love had entered me like chloroform, through the nostrils and mouth and causing a mist in the brain. The rough motion of the carriage was a comfort to me, as the carriage was a confinement; in my dazzling-white bridal gown that had become soiled, rumpled and torn. Never again would I be Annabel Slade, never again that ignorant child but a woman bound to her lover, forever more; it was a part of my enthrallment, I gave no thought to my lawful wedded husband Dabney Bayard, as one would not give thought to a dream that has been supplanted by a newer, more powerful and demanding dream. As the carriage lurched along a sandy rutted lane leading into the depths of the forest—which was meant to be the Pine Barrens—and yet our own forest, at Crosswicks. You are all to me, dear Axson as a shadow absorbs a fainter shadow, or a single powerful stream absorbs countless small tributaries.

  How strange, the great trees locked overhead to form a kind of arch—these leafless trees of a ghostly hue, and nothing of life visible in them; though these appeared to be the oaks, elms, beeches and chestnuts of Crosswicks Forest. Presently we passed through a clearing of some size, that was most painfully familiar; an uncanny space filled with sultry glaring light; my eyes leapt upward, to the limb of a great oak from which two bodies hung, by their necks; lifeless, hideously burnt, very still despite the whipping wind. My eyes were affrighted, I could not look but buried my face in my lover’s hot neck and he laughed Dear Annabel, you are almost safe—do not be frightened—no one will ever hurt you as others are hurt—by your beauty you will be spared—I vow to you as your lover for eternity.

  So the horses drew us onward into the Bog Kingdom, which I did not yet know was the Great Dark, or the Kingdom of the Accursed—the narrow roadway growing more narrow still, and subsiding to mud—the beautiful matched horses so cruelly used by this time by their impatient master, their bits were scummed over with froth and blood and their poor straining backs brightly gleaming in cross-hatched stripes of blood. Of a sudden we were in the Bog and surrounded by enormous trees of some moss-bearded sort, also of the hue of ash; and marsh water lay in dark pools on all sides, rippling with unseen serpentine creatures beneath the surface of the water; and the smell was brackish and sharp like an odor of drains, and rich with vegetative decay. Be patient, my love, my sweet, pure bride!—for we are almost there, where our bridal bed awaits in the most sumptuous bedchamber of my palace.

  A heady paludal air so ripe, so rich—almost, I could not breathe. The beeches of Crosswicks Forest gave way to the moss-bearded trees, and to others which were unfamiliar to me, tall straight smooth-barked trees of a species I didn’t recognize—unless they were mangroves, with snaky roots in dense clusters. Birds circled about us with angry cries—the nighthawks, with renewed ferocity; and other great predator-birds, flapping leathery wings like Lucifer making his way through the void, to the despair of humankind. I had begun to feel alarm now, the hairs at the nape of my neck stirring in animal panic, and my protector the more tightly squeezed me to his bosom. Be patient, my dear! We have some small distance before us yet, and cannot force these lazy brutes to trot faster!

  Presently we came to an aged and rusted gateway of wrought iron, its arch crowned with gryphon-like figures, and spikes; that lent it both a kindly and a forbidding air. Yet the gate was opened wide, and no gatekeeper in evidence. Here my lover gripped my hands in his so hard, I feared he would break my fingers, and passionately whispered Do you hereby reject your family, and your lawful wedded husband; do you stand by your decision to cleave to your heart’s true lover, forevermore?

  And I could scarcely breathe to vow Yes! Yes.

  IN THIS WAY I was brought to the Bog Kingdom in my ruined bridal gown; in my veil, and my Spanish lace, and my satin lilies-of-the-valley each exquisite as an actual miniature blossom. And in my pride and ignorance I was brought, in the very vanity of my innocence. Dear Annabel! Sweet Annabel! In my Kingdom at last.

  In my intoxication of love that fed upon even as it shrank from the fire of my protector’s gaze. In my blindness of wishing only to sink into another’s being.

  For Axson Mayte was the most handsome man I had ever seen, I was sure. Tall, and well-formed, and exquisitely well-mannered; gentle-voiced, and loving.

  Thus in my blindness, and sinful, sickly nature.

  Brought to the Bog Palace deeply hidden in that lightless swamp, that no one might find it; that no one from that other world might venture into it, to bring the deluded Annabel home.

  Soon we alighted from the mud-splattered carriage, and the panting horses were led from us; it was a murmured aside of Axson’s, they were to be put down—for he never used the same matched pair of horses twice, after such a journey.

  Leading me then—somewhat roughly it seemed to me, by fingers shut about my wrist—into the central hall of the cavernous Palace, which astonished me, and silenced me, with the high gloomy granite arch of its vaulted ceiling, like an old, great cathedral, and the echoing emptiness all around, and the overwhelming odor of damp, earthen rot, and fetid decay.

  And with no further words, my bridegroom led me up a great spiral staircase littered with the broken bones of delicate, small creatures, the which I could not help stepping on, in a frisson of horror; no further words, except Annabel: come! To our bridal bed.

  IN THIS WAY, the Bog Palace.

  In the very interior of the Bog Kingdom.

  And I, Annabel—Queen!

  Queen Annabel, of the Bog Kingdom.

  And the cruel “Axson Mayte,” beside her as King.

  OF HOW MY bridegroom used me, it is very difficult to speak.

  Even of the bridal bed, it is very difficult to speak.

  The master bedchamber at the top of a flight of badly worn and mossy stone steps, overlaid with grime, and the hard-dried excrement and remains of vermin—overlooking, from its single (barred) window, a marshy graveyard, the aged markers tilted and filthy from neglect, spiky grasses growing all around, and pools of brackish water interspersed among the graves. Here, creatures of a kind I have never glimpsed before freely disported themselves, like overgrown, rowdy children; such strange species, I shrank in terror from even gazing upon them for many days: great ungainly birds that were yet reptilian, with sharp talons; giant lizards with darting tongues, and topaz eyes; soft fleshy bulbous creatures like mollusks without shells, of the size of pigs, that drew sustenance from sucking from numerous mouth-tentacles at once. And how horrible!—the soil of the graveyard was torn and churned from the feeding of these creatures.

  Who is buried in the graveyard, Axson?—so I dared to ask my husband; who remarked casually, indifferently—Why, your predecessors, dear Annabel. For I am a widower, many times over.

  THE BOG PALACE, in which Annabel reigned as (mock) Queen—for a brief spell.

  The Bog Palace, with its dank mossy chambers—some, rooms as large as private chapels; others so cramped and airless, and dark, they might have served as dungeons, or places of torture. Many corridors leading in many directions into the very depths of the Palace, and outward, through breaks in the crumbling stone wall, into the depths of the swamp; slope-ceilinged hallways that lurched to one side, then to the other; windowless, or with narrow (barred) windows that overlooked fetid courtyards heaped with broken masonry, and profuse with sickly-smelling swamp lilies. Many flights of steps there were, that led nowhere; or to heavy locked doors that gave every impression of having been locked for centuries.

  The Bog Palace! But one day Axson took pity on me, or so I supposed, leading me into his library; which was far larger than my grandfather Winslow Slade’s famed library—Anything you wish, you can read, my dear wife. With my blessing.

  Yet a shock to me, and a torment, that on shelves reaching to the fifteen-foot ceiling there were leather-bound books that, w
hen opened, revealed smudged print, as if there had been a flood in the Palace; worse yet, many books had utterly blank pages, which I examined with mounting dismay, and a sense of great desolation.

  Why is this, Axson, I asked my bridegroom, what has happened to your books?—and again Axson replied casually, with an indifferent shrug—All pages, all books, are equally useless: what’s the fuss?

  THE BOG PALACE, staffed by “servants”—and these creatures that seemed but part-human!—repulsive, yet piteous. They were misshapen, female and male alike; of greatly varying ages, but mostly older; their skins were ghastly-pale, like the underbellies of frogs or snakes; their grieving eyes were dark-shadowed and hollow; their manner craven and abashed yet sly, even furtive. How hard they worked!—yet how fruitlessly. That is one of your predecessors, dear Annabel, if you are curious—so Axson indicated a stoop-backed old crone wrapped in what appeared to be a winding-shroud though she was animatedly scrubbing steps, on her hands and knees; if this piteous creature heard Axson’s off-handed remark, she did not give any sign; nor did I continue to stare at her, in a state of light-headedness. (How terrible it seemed, that the poor woman seemed to be laboring in vain, spilling dirty water onto dirty steps, scrubbing vigorously at them, yet with not the slightest change in the grime on the steps; and on the wetted steps, Axson indifferently strode, with not a glance downward.)