The Accursed

by Joyce Carol Oates

  Fresh evidence, however, to which I alone am privy, suggests that matters are not quite that simple.

  The challenge for this historian is tremendous, however: my task is to evoke simultaneity in two very different, even antithetical dimensions, being bound to a linear narrative in which chronological time is the organizing principle. That is, the reader has a reasonable expectation of encountering, in a work of history, something of the causality of his actual life—if X occurs, Y follows; from Y, Z follows. It is never the case in actual life that time runs backward, unless in science-fiction films; for all of us, time moves forward, inexorably. Yet, we are fully comfortable with the idea that many, countless many events are occurring simultaneously—most of them beyond our awareness; and that these events may be linked in intricate ways.

  In my chronicle, the reader is required to know that Winslow Slade departed this life in the very pulpit of the First Presbyterian Church where he was delivering a guest sermon; that his death was unexpected, and terrifying to behold for the congregation many of whom loved the elderly man dearly, and all respected him; and that this death coincided with, or may have followed by a moment or two, Todd Slade’s triumph in the Bog Kingdom. (This would have been approximately 10:20 a.m. EST, in Princeton; but at no recorded hour in the Bog Kingdom, as in that region seasons seem not to exist as in our world, and calendar and clock time serve no purpose.)

  Following later in the day are the miraculous developments involving Dr. Slade’s “deceased” grandchildren, of which I will speak in due course.

  So it is, I will present the chapter “A Game of Draughts” first, and “The Death of Winslow Slade” second, asking that the reader keep in mind the fact that the events they record occurred simultaneously.

  A GAME OF DRAUGHTS

  Here was a novelty, and something of a shock: a child in the Bog Kingdom after so many centuries.

  So tattered was the boy’s clothing, so disheveled and sickly his appearance, he was believed at first to be a mere urchin or beggar-boy, or a chimney sweep cast out by his master, in an early stage of lung disease. But the Countess Camilla, drawn by servants’ excited chatter, perceived that he was a decent boy, perhaps even well bred, and decided upon a whim to take him in, and save his life. For one day my life may want saving, and here is an investment.

  When one of the Countess’s retinue observed that taking in a strange child might go over poorly with the Master of the castle, the Countess said haughtily: “You’ve heard my wish. It’s enough to hear it, I hope, to obey.”

  So it happened that Todd Slade gained entry to the mist-shrouded castle at the heart of the Bog Kingdom, which fact would precipitate the deaths of his family’s enemies.

  “YOUR LIFE HAS been saved, Rat-boy,” the Countess Camilla said, not unkindly, “and now you must repay me. What qualities have you? Can you sing, can you dance, can you tell stories?”

  When the boy did not immediately speak, being in a state of numbed shock, like one who has been propelled through time and through space bare-headed, exposed and with no protection, the Countess said, “Will you play mute, boy?—and tempt me to forget my good intentions?”

  At first, the boy seemed incapable of responding. Then, with the air of one who must react, to save his life, he slowly shook his head—No.

  “You are not mute, then?” The Countess was both vexed and amused. “Except you don’t speak, eh?”

  And again the boy shook his head slowly—No.

  As the Bog Castle lay beneath a dread weight of ennui, the inevitable curse of a seasonless and timeless land, it was hoped for a while that the foundling child might provide a suitable diversion for Countess Camilla, who’d had no child of her own. She ordered Rat-boy bathed in her own sumptuous marble bath, in clouds of effervescent bubbles; and surfeited with every manner of sweet and liqueurs, until he grew ghastly pale, and was sick to his stomach—a novelty in the Bog Kingdom, and a particular revulsion to the Countess, who commanded that Rat-boy be taken from her quickly, anywhere out of her sight.

  Yet, not long afterward, the Countess commanded that the spindly-limbed boy, who looked to be about eleven or twelve years old, in Earth-time, be dressed in an embroidered silk costume, complete with ruffled white blouse and kidskin boots, that he might perform as her page. “He’s but a child and harmless. If he begins to sprout a beard, and hairs in his armpits, the Master will kill him, or castrate him—but not for a while, I hope. In the meantime, our household has been too long empty of childish laughter which is unpremeditated laughter.” So the queenly Camilla whose pale golden eyes snapped even when she smiled and whose will was not to be thwarted within the castle walls, except by her brother the Count.

  For Countess and Count were not wife and husband but sister and brother and between them there was no deep bond of love but only of the more sinister primordial blood.

  Once bathed, and his hair brushed and curled, and his frayed and filthy clothing cast away and replaced by a costume suitable for the Countess’s page, Rat-boy was attended by the Countess’s own servants, and fussed over by certain of the women; kissed, petted, and proclaimed as an a angel-child by Countess Camilla herself. In her hands she framed his face and peered into his eyes, that blinked with fear; she interrogated him as to his name, and his homeland, and his reason for the journey alone, afoot, through the hazardous wastes of the Bog. But Rat-boy only shook his head, silently; as if he were not only mute but also deaf and dumb; in truth, the frail boy was malnourished and weakened, for the castle food scarcely nourished him.

  “What is your name, my little page? Whisper it in my ear.”

  The Countess pinched the boy’s cheeks until a dull flush came. But he had not a word to utter, and shrank from the fierce woman in apprehension. “Where did you come from, my lad, and where did you intend to go? It was not here—of course. For here is not imaginable from there—whichever there was your home.” The Countess stared into the boy’s eyes, that fascinated her as the eyes of one still living, which she had not seen in a very long time.

  “Do you know where you are at this moment? And who is Master here, and who is Mistress? Or have you truly ‘lost your tongue’?” So saying, the Countess made a show of prying the boy’s jaws open that she might see if his tongue was missing, and terrified the child by asking if he should wish to be disburdened of the “slimy useless thing” which, it seemed, he did possess after all, attached to the back of his mouth.

  “For if you are indeed mute, my boy,” the Countess said, in a reproachful voice, “it may be that you will be required to look the part.”

  WHEN THE MASTER of the castle returned, he thought his sister’s page a rat-faced little whelp who looked familiar but could not recall having seen him before. Unless, in some dim chasm of his brain, the boy lingered as a memory of a meal of no particular distinction hastily and only partly devoured.

  “I don’t doubt, Camilla, that you’ve taken Rat-boy in to spite me, and not out of a charitable love for him.”

  The Countess, already beginning to be bored with her Rat-boy page, yet protested that the boy was her pet, and not to be molested or frightened; in any case, not to be tossed out for carrion birds to pick at until she, and she alone, gave the command.

  So heavy was the pall of damp and lassitude upon the Bog Castle, the nights were spent in joyless carousing, and the playing of draughts; but, as an elderly bent-backed servant informed Todd, the game was no ordinary game of draughts of the kind played by persons in civilized lands, but a most ingenious and deadly species. For the winner was not only privileged but required to chop off the head of the loser in full view of the assembled court!—which feature the Master had initiated upon his return from the East some years ago, that the ennui of the castle might be stirred. And now all were mad for the game, and had acquired an insatiable desire for blood—the blood of others, that is. “When you hear a bestial roar erupt in the early hours of the morning,” Todd was told, in a lowered voice, “it’s the response of onlooke
rs to yet another ‘execution.’ And nearly as horrific a sound to hear, as it is a sight to see.”

  Todd would have liked to question the man further, but he thought it most prudent to remain speechless. For some reason, it is human nature to speak more openly to one who appears to be mute.

  Being of a disposition desperate to survive, and made cunning through desperation, Todd Slade had acquired certain mannerisms appropriate to a mute—signaling with fingers, rolling his eyes agitatedly, grimacing, rapidly nodding or shaking his head when others spoke; in this case, he shuddered, and shrank away in fear. And the elderly servant warned: “You must never consent to play draughts with any of them, my lad. But if you are forced into it, your only hope is never glance up from the board. Not for an instant—not for the wink of an eye! For the experienced players have grown fantastically adroit in cheating, and the Master above all. (Master prides himself on playing draughts with any opponent, and acquiescing to his own execution if he loses; but of course, Master never loses.) If they can’t clear the board of your pieces legitimately, they will sweep them to the floor or pocket them; and then all that awaits you is the chopping block and the starving reptile-birds. Not even Mistress could save your life—nor would she wish to, as she too is mad for blood.”

  Todd had played numerous board games with his cousins Josiah and Annabel, as with other family members like Grandfather Slade; in fact, it was his grandfather who’d taught Todd to play draughts—“an English variant on American checkers”—and to play with “both a serious and a playful heart.” Winslow Slade had quite enjoyed playing such games with his young grandson, and was surprised and delighted when Todd quickly began to win. The boy’s precocity at draughts/checkers was marveled at through the West End, by those who’d seen him play with adults; but, unfortunately, at about the age of ten, Todd became easily bored by games so restricted by rules as board games, so that not even Annabel enjoyed playing with him. With dismay Todd recalled his brattish behavior—if he’d lost a piece at the wrong moment he might fly into a tantrum, and send all the pieces tumbling to the floor; sometimes, he cheated by advancing a piece by stealth, or with a sly movement of a finger dislodging one of his opponent’s. Particularly Todd was ashamed of how childish he’d been, and how he’d taxed poor Annabel’s patience.

  “If only I had my childhood to relive!” Todd murmured to himself, crouched in one or another of the castle’s damp corners. “I would do everything differently, and not have come here.”

  AS THE COUNTESS lost interest in the novelty of her Rat-boy page, Todd was free to wander in the castle as he wished, so long as he kept clear of those residents who seemed to take offense at the sight of a child, and amused themselves with drunken pranks and torments—seizing Todd by the scruff of the neck, for instance, and forcing him to compete with snarling dogs for scraps of food. (So humiliated, yet bent upon surviving, Todd accepted such indignities with a steely resolution he recalled his grandfather Slade speaking of, at a time when Todd had scarcely paid the old man any heed: As you are a Slade, you can and will keep your own inner counsel.)

  The cunning child also reasoned that, if his tormenters saw him broken and weeping, they would be satisfied for the time being, and he would be spared another day; and might hope for revenge.

  By daring and stealth Rat-boy made his way to the great dining hall where wood fires dispiritedly burned in great, six-foot-high fireplaces littered with bones, and where, through the long, sleepless night, the castle’s revelers caroused. (For sleep of a normal kind was, while not forbidden in the Bog Castle, considered déclassé, and a sign of weakness.) It was observed by one of the Countess’s female consorts—(such were chosen by the beautiful Countess for their ugly faces and misshapen bodies, for the Countess was amused to appear to great advantage beside them)—that a child of such tender years should be spared such gruesome sights as beheadings, as they might give him “unnatural inclinations”; provoking the sulky Countess to shrug, and tousle her page’s hair, saying: “Why, where’s the harm in it?—one can’t be a boy, and tender, for very long.”

  So it happened that Todd Slade was a mute witness to some very coarse behavior among members of the court, and occasional visitors; and to the nightly games of draughts—which, though begun with drunken optimism and noisy bravado on the parts of the players, always culminated in craven terror on the part of the (disbelieving) loser; and in an execution so bloody, and so often mangled, poor Todd hid his face in his hands.

  So rowdy were these nocturnal merrymakers, so strident and forced their laughter, the very spiders shuddered in their webs hidden high against the vaulted ceiling of the great hall; and in the bone-littered courtyard outside, scavenger birds stirred in sleep, and flapped their wings, in anticipation of the dawn’s bloody repast. Todd’s sheltered boyhood had ill prepared him for the brutality of the world—at least, this world; he recalled like a dream the customary quiet of Wheatsheaf, the way in which his mother and the household staff coddled him, despite his bad behavior; only his father had no patience for him, and now Todd could quite understand why.

  In the Bog Castle, Todd shrank from all that he was forced to see, and expected to be “amused” by. His first execution, for instance, was carried out by Master himself, who, being very drunk, with frog-eyes bulging, badly botched the job, and had need to bring the (poorly sharpened) ax down five or six times on the neck of a smooth-chinned castle youth, before the deed was accomplished. Several nights later Todd was yet more astonished and repelled by the spectacle of the fair-haired Countess Camilla!—who, for all her hauteur and scrupulosity, often indulged in draughts with untutored male opponents who offered her no serious challenge and were easily defeated. “My queen conquers all! D’you see?—all”—the Countess’s voice rang thrillingly.

  And then what paroxysms of laughter arose at the sight of the beautiful woman with her mask-like face of blond perfection, her composed expression, in velvet, silk damask, and ermine robes, glittering with jewels, as she stood like a woodsman with wide-spread legs, to swing the ax with fearsome determination through the air!—and to sever in a single blow the head of a luckless admirer from his body.

  And cheers arose drunken and callow as cheers at the Princeton-Yale football game, Todd had several times attended with his family.

  Rat-boy hid away crouching with the dogs. With the most craven of these, he had made friends; these were creatures bonding in equivalent misery. He thought: Will I ever escape this hellish place? And if I do, where can I go? For I have lost my way back home.

  WHILE TEACHING HIMSELF the alphabet, and how to fashion words into logical sequences, Todd had had occasion to peruse some of the very old, never-opened books in Copplestone’s library at Wheatsheaf; as something of a prank, meaning to stupefy his father, he’d committed to memory a passage from Anaximander: It is necessary that things should pass away, into that from which they are born. For things must pay one another the penalty, and the compensation, for their injustice, according to the ordinance of Time. Todd had not understood this wisdom at the time, though he had felt its implacability.

  And, in another of the old, ignored books, a passage of Heraclitus that had made him shudder, for something uncanny and prophetic in its words:

  Time is a child playing draughts; the kingship is in the hands of a child.

  Little could Todd have guessed that, one day, his own life would be in his hands, in a game of draughts.

  IT WAS A distinct advantage that Rat-boy’s skinny frame and sallow skin made him seem younger than he was. A casual glance from any adult in the castle would have marked him as no more than ten, and negligible. Children were rarely seen in the castle, though babies were born; but babies did not long survive in the atmosphere of dank rot. But Rat-boy slipped past much scrutiny, for his small size, and muteness; and his privilege as the Countess’s page, even if the Countess no longer cared much for him, and had allowed his page-finery to become dirty and tattered. The females of the court, imagining him
so young, were careless with their dress and toilet in his presence, as with their speech; for Rat-boy did not seem to matter. A fleshy female with a harridan’s face said, with ribald wit: “Rat-boy is but a baby, yet both too old, and too young, to properly suckle at a woman’s breast.” Blushing fiercely Todd remained very still as the gathering of females laughed.

  Imagining him so young, and mute, the court was the more astounded when one night when the evening’s merrymaking was not so strident as usual, the Countess’s shy little page spoke aloud at last, in a high, frail, whispery voice—“Countess? May I speak?”

  “May you speak? What is this? Can you speak?”—the Countess was very surprised. “I have healed you, have I? Is that it? My care of my little Rat-boy page has restored his speech, has it?” The Countess thought well of herself for this miracle, as others congratulated her.

  In his frail whispery voice, that was near-inaudible, Rat-boy spoke in the Countess’s ear: “I would like to play draughts with M-Master.”

  “ ‘Draughts with—Master’?” The Countess stared at Todd with genuine alarm. “Are you mad? You will lose, and your dear little head will be chopped off, and flung to the carrion birds; and your Countess is not prepared for that, just yet.”

  But Master had heard the page’s reckless words, that could not so easily be revoked. And through the gloomy vaulted room that resembled, for all its air of febrile festivity, and fires burning in several fireplaces, a vast mausoleum, there were startled exclamations and a scattering of applause, for the possibility of such sport was exciting, or at least carried the promise of excitement, in this morass of ennui.