My child lives, I tell them. My child lives because of my ministrations, and if I had my herbs and my purgatives, my cautery irons and my urine flask, I could ease all of your ulcers and your hemorrhoids and your apoplexies. But the group of them—thieves and poisoners and heretics—do not want to hear.
When it is dark, though, and the imminence of our souls’ departure weighs heavy on us all, sometimes one or another of them will come to ask my help. Mary Gadge, who murdered her husband barely a month ago, wants me to bewitch the turnkey so that he will fall in love with her and help her to escape. Agatha Nanton, a scold who will soon have her tongue cut out, wishes me to teach her to fly. And Susanna Tabart, a habitual beggar, wants me to wring her neck before the hangman has a chance to.
Aside from that, the only time anyone speaks to me is when the Reverend John Wolton comes to offer comfort and spiritual advice. I’m happy to sit with him and listen to his words about repentance and redemption, but I don’t tell him that my soul is not the thing I worry about. I have made my confessions, though not all of them are the ones he would like to hear, and I trust that my soul will live on, as God wishes. I mourn for my body, splendid companion that it has been, which two days hence will cease its life forever. I mourn for my broken neck and my stilled pulse, for the blood that will no longer flow through my limbs, for the skin that will waste into dust. The vital apparatus of bone and muscle, nerve and humor, is God’s greatest work. And though I am ready for death, I am sorry to leave it behind.
• • •
Thoughts of Hugo are, of course, the last in my head before I rest and the first to rouse me when the sun has begun to creep. In my most pitiable moments, I have wept to think that I have orphaned him so wretchedly. Though my sister will keep him and feed him, though his cousins will find room on their pallet that he may lie down and sleep, he will always now be a boy alone. But I cannot dream a way that it might have been different, and if it pleases our Lord that I die so my son may live, I can have no argument. I cannot believe God will punish me, for I have done no more than He asked. This is what mothers are meant to do, the most important job we’re given: we keep our children alive.
• • •
The morning of my death, the guards come to get me soon after breakfast. They put me into shackles and take me outside to lead me to the village green. Though they handle me roughly and though I know where we are going, it is a relief to be out of the dark, stinking gaol.
“Not much time left,” one of the guards says to me. “Best be thinking about your crimes and asking God for forgiveness.”
I think of the fevers I have eased and the babies brought safe to this world. If I have committed crimes, they were not crimes in my heart.
My first sight of the gallows sets my blood racing, but I gather my courage and stand tall. A crowd has gathered to watch and, I suppose, to cheer for my demise. But I do not know any of them. For good or ill, my kinfolk and neighbors are far from here. If I am to be jeered and spit upon in my last moments, I suppose I would rather it were done by strangers.
As I climb the steps, I’m thinking of Hugo, his stubborn chin, his hair like a haystack. My boy. I will never see him again. But he lives. My child lives.
The crowd is noisy, but I’m high above them. All the times I have stood in such a throng, standing on my toes so I might see some scoundrel brought low, I never knew how distant we seemed to the poor soul climbing to his judgment. Their shouts and gibes are no more to me than the buzzing of flies. I am apart from them already. I walk on feet that will never again touch the dirt.
The headsman places the rope around my neck. The day is bright, so bright. And I find myself, in a frightened moment, whispering “God forgive me,” though I do not know what guilt I might be confessing.
I breathe in, steady myself on the platform. A cracking noise, an instant of movement. And I feel myself go.
Excerpt from
SANGUINE
By Octavia Frost
REVISED ENDING
The crowd is noisy, but I’m high above them. All the times I have stood in such a throng, standing on my toes so I might see some scoundrel brought low, I never knew how distant we seemed to the poor soul climbing to his judgment. Their shouts and gibes are no more to me than the buzzing of flies. I am apart from them already. I walk on feet that will never again touch the dirt.
The headsman places the rope around my neck. The day is bright, so bright. And I find myself, in a frightened moment, whispering “God forgive me,” though I do not know what guilt I might be confessing.
I breathe in, steady myself on the platform. A cracking noise, an instant of movement. And for a curious moment I find myself back in our little house in Maldon, kneeling by Hugo’s bed. I’ve been bleeding him for what must be a very long time, and I fear the treatment has stopped working. But still I keep at it. I move feverishly; this is my child, and I will get the poisons out of him. I hold my bowl aloft and gently squeeze his flesh until Sarah Baker walks through the door and sees the poor pale babe, lying lifeless on his little cot. She drops the eggs she’s carrying and lets out a woeful cry. “Matilda,” she says, her voice full of fear. “What have you done?”
A cracking noise, an instant of movement. As I feel myself go, sliding out of the sieve of my body, I have a terrible moment of pain and of knowing. I am overcome by my grief and my shock and my guilt, and I fear that God has abandoned me, or that I have abandoned Him.
But it only lasts a moment. For there he is, my Hugo, a figure of light at the edge of the crowd. Waiting for me. He holds out his hand, and I go forward to meet him.
Chapter Ten
The cab pulls up in front of Roland’s house, and I pay the driver. I step out into the shallow bath of artificial light produced by the photographic equipment of those hardy souls who are still camped out here, hoping to get a shot of something valuable.
“Good evening,” I say to the assembled group as they document my walk toward the gate, my pressing of the intercom button. I get a few replies, and some shouted questions—How’s Milo doing? Has he said anything to you about the night of the murder?—but I sense a new listlessness in the effort. I haven’t turned out to be very important after all.
A voice I don’t recognize—a woman, possibly a housekeeper?—speaks to me through the intercom, and I identify myself and am granted admittance. As I pass through the gates, I’m thinking about The Wizard of Oz, the scene where they enter the Emerald City. I should choose my spectacles now, decide how I want to color whatever lies inside.
I walk up the steps and ring the bell. After a moment I hear some unexpected scrambling—quick footsteps, a raised voice—and the door opens, but just barely, no more than an inch or two. Then a man’s voice (“Let me get that”), and it swings open the rest of the way to reveal Joe, with Lia in his arms. He steps back, both to let me step in and, I think, to remove Lia from the doorway, from the sight line of the group gathered below.
“Hi there,” I say to Lia as Joe closes the door and sets her down.
“You’re here,” she says in her clear little voice, the ends of the words not quite closing into r’s. She looks me over and puts her hands on her hips. “I thought I told you to wear purple,” she says.
I look down at my dark skirt and blouse, my drab funeral clothes, smiling at the mimicked sternness in her tone. “Sorry,” I say. “Maybe next time. You’re not wearing purple either.” She’s wearing a loose red dress in some kind of jersey material.
“No,” she says. “I’m wearing my twirly-whirly dress.” And she spins to show me how the skirt billows.
“I have something for you,” I say. I open my purse and pull out the white bag containing the item I bought this morning at the hotel gift shop. It’s not much, but it was the only child-friendly thing I could find without resorting to candy. I hand her the bag, and she peers inside, then pulls out a small stuffed bear wearing a T-shirt that says “San Francisco.”
“Oh,” she says happily,
“it’s my new teddy bear.” She rubs its soft nose across her cheek. “I’ve been waiting for this all day.”
I burst into laughter and look at Joe, who smiles and shakes his head with that look of resigned affection that parents have: I don’t know where she gets this stuff. “And what do you say, Lia?” he asks. But she’s already running back toward the kitchen. “Thank you,” she calls, without turning.
“How are you, Mrs. Frost?” Joe asks, ushering me in.
“Okay,” I say. “Do you think you might be able to start calling me Octavia?”
“I doubt it,” he says.
I follow him into the kitchen, and there they all are, sitting around the table: Milo, Chloe, and Roland. Lia has climbed into Chloe’s lap, and Chloe holds on to her with one hand while she leans over to pour wine into Milo’s glass. They’re eating Indian food, fragrant and colorful, and there’s an extra plate and utensils on the counter, next to a line of Styrofoam containers.
Still a miracle to walk into a room and see Milo there. He looks tired and unhappy, and I have an impulse to go over and kiss his tangled hair, but I’m not sure if that would be okay. Chloe and Roland smile and greet me, Roland standing and gesturing for me to help myself to some food. Milo smiles, too, and adds his voice to theirs, but he’s still looking down at his plate, and I don’t know whether that means anything or not. I have a seasick feeling, unsteady, like a dream. Here, in front of me, everything I wanted without daring to say so: my son sitting at the dinner table, waiting for me; a roomful of people who might yet become friends; a radiant child my heart can lay claim to. But the picture’s a little off-center, like a filmstrip with a cog out of gear. I don’t know how much of it I can trust.
I walk to the counter where the food is. The kitchen is a huge room, beautiful and well appointed but slightly bland. I suspect it was designed to appeal not to Roland in particular but to a generalized profile of the type of person rich enough to buy the house. I pick up a plate, spoon rice, chickpeas, chicken in a coral-colored sauce. Then I carry it to the table and sit down in an empty chair between Milo and Roland.
I touch my hand briefly to Milo’s shoulder. “How are you?” I say.
He shrugs, finally turning to look at me. I look at his dark eyes, his long lashes. Strangers used to stop me—at the park, in the supermarket—to comment on how beautiful his eyes were. “Okay,” he says. “I didn’t even leave the house today.”
“That’s not good. You should try to get outside.” Such a motherly thing to say. I feel like I’m reading from a script.
“It’s not worth it,” he says. He raises a hand and moves it through the air from left to right to indicate, I gather, reading something. “‘Less than a week after the murder of his girlfriend,’” he says, “‘Milo Frost was seen buying a pack of Life Savers.’”
Joe smiles grimly. “‘Early reports indicate they were Wint-O-Green.’”
Milo continues, “‘A source close to the suspected murderer reports that he plans to eat them in a dark room, to see if they really do create sparks when you crunch them.’”
They’re laughing now, and Milo’s finally looking a little more relaxed. They’ve always had this, this easy back-and-forth quality to their friendship, and I hadn’t even realized I’d been missing it. As I look at them, I’m thinking about the way the house used to come to life when the two of them walked in the door, the sound of them dropping backpacks and ransacking cupboards for a snack, debating different interpretations of sentences girls had uttered in their presence during the course of the day, and I feel a sort of homesickness that doesn’t have anything to do with place.
“I need to pee,” Lia says, wriggling off Chloe’s lap and whirling toward the kitchen door.
“You know where it is,” Chloe calls after her. “Call me if you need help.”
“So maybe you can see,” Milo says, turning back to me, “that I’m going a little stir-crazy.”
“Nice to have some company,” Roland says, “instead of just me and Milo rattling round the house by ourselves.”
Chloe exhales a brief laugh. “The fan fiction practically writes itself,” she says.
“Oh, Christ,” says Roland.
Joe looks amused. “‘I’ve heard stories about prison,’ Roland said, striding across the room and putting a hand on the younger man’s shoulder …”
They all laugh, and Milo looks at me as if he’s trying to decide whether to translate, like I’m an elderly grandmother in a babushka who speaks a little English but misses most of the subtler notes of conversation. I save him the trouble, look down at my plate, and take a bite of spinach.
I know what they’re talking about, in any case. There’s not much about Milo online that I haven’t seen, and it was a matter of some interest to me to learn that there were people who spent their time turning my son into a fictional character. I don’t read many of the stories—they’re mostly about sex (most often with Joe, which I wondered about until I learned it’s a common quirk of the genre), and like any mother, I protect myself from images I don’t want in my head. But with some careful screening—the authors assign them ratings, like movies—I’ve been able to find a few of the less racy ones, and I’m rather embarrassed to say I’ve bookmarked them all. I’m fascinated by the glimpses they afford, glimpses as hypothetical as my own, though it’s nice that someone else has done the work of imagining it for me. Milo walking into a recording studio. Milo bored on a tour bus. Milo having lunch at a restaurant with friends.
These writers are girls, mostly, and young women, and they want to strip Milo down in every possible way. They imagine a scene and write it a hundred different ways. They can’t stop trying to think how it might happen. For all their graphic bravado, they’re no more than a roomful of girls pressing Barbie dolls together for the thrill of doing something dirty. I suppose we wanted our daughters to be freer about sex, women of my generation. Now this is what they do instead of scratching “Mrs. Milo Frost” into their school desks.
I understand something about the obsession that motivates these girls, the longing to bridge the distance: Look, here he is, right in front of you. Get as close as you want. I’ve spent some time lurking in the chat rooms, watching the process by which these fans create their own versions of Milo. They start from the barest of materials—song lyrics, quotes from interviews—and build him up out of nothing. His elasticity as a subject is apparently limitless. Sometimes people request scenarios: Milo as a werewolf, Milo in an alternate universe in which men can become pregnant. It’s a commissioning of art, a new Renaissance—payment in enthusiastic comments, marked with winks—and in fanciful moments, I imagine what these writers would make of my requests. Milo goes back to college and graduates this time. Milo calls his mother on her birthday. Milo in an alternate universe where he passes over Tropospheric Scatter and picks up The Human Slice instead.
“I’ll tell you,” Roland is saying to Milo, “I miss the days when girls wanted to fuck me instead of wanting me to fuck you.” He laughs, and then his eyes settle on me. “Oh, well, strange days,” he says, buttoning the conversation closed, remembering that this isn’t the way you talk around people’s mothers, even if they are several years younger than you are.
Lia comes running back into the kitchen. I wonder if she ever walks.
“Can you eat a little bit more?” Chloe asks her, lifting her onto her lap. She gestures toward Lia’s plate, which contains only a scoop of white rice and a samosa with a single bite taken out of it.
Lia pushes it away. “Not hungry,” she says, sounding slightly irritable. Then, brightly, “Can I have a snack?”
Chloe stands up, setting Lia on her feet. “Roland, do you mind if I look around for something she’ll eat?”
“Oh, sure,” says Roland. “Let me think what I’ve got. Would you like some grapes, darling? Or some toast and jam?”
“No,” says Lia. “I want a snack from the freezer.”
The two of them head toward the refrig
erator at the end of the room, negotiating between fruit and ice cream.
“Octavia Frost,” Roland says, turning to me. “I have to confess I haven’t read any of your books.”
I smile graciously. This is never a surprise. “Oh, no need …” I say and trail off. I look sideways at Milo, who’s looking down at the table, his face impassive. Joe’s looking at him, too, trying to gauge his reaction. I wish the subject hadn’t come up at all.
“But I’d like to read them,” Roland says, oblivious to the tension, if there is any, if I’m not making it up. “Which one should I start with?”
I’m never sure how to answer this question. I don’t particularly subscribe to the idea that writing books is analogous to having children—for one thing, your work on a book ends when you see it in print, though that’s clearly something I’ve begun to question—but there’s a sort of Sophie’s Choice aspect at play here that I don’t like. Are you asking me which ones are good, I want to say, and which ones aren’t worth your time?
Here, at least, my choices are narrowed somewhat. Clearly I’m not going to mention Tropospheric Scatter in front of Milo. I think about what the question means: Which story will I enjoy spending time in? or Which slice of yourself do you want to show me first? And I say what I never say: “Crybaby Bridge.”
Crybaby Bridge is my first published novel. I wrote it the year after Mitch and Rosemary died, and I finished it in seven weeks. I’d heard stories before then about writers who had been so captured by an idea that they put aside the manuscripts they’d been working on for years, unable to rest until they put these new stories to paper. I’d never quite understood it; my own work had never felt quite that urgent. It was sort of a joke to me: I’m jealous. Where’s my six-week book?
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