The Gentling Box

by Lisa Mannetti

  I rub my eyes, look up. But there’s nothing.

  “You’re a fool,” I say to myself, sniffling back tears. “It was the mist in your eyes, a hallucination. You can make yourself see anything you want. There’s nothing and she’s gone.”

  I stoop for the heavy glass oil lamp and bring it up to finish what I started. I stand over her, about to pour the kerosene, and at that instant something clicks and registers in my head.

  “Her face,” I whisper, reaching out, then drawing back. For it is not my wife’s face, not Mimi’s body lying on the bed. Anyeta lies sprawling there, twisted with time and age. Through the straggly white hair, I see two brownish blood clotted holes where the spikes were driven deep into the sere wrinkled flesh. The old whore’s obsidian eyes are dead, dark.

  My wife, my beloved is with them.

  I go to the doorway, and I light a match, half recall a snatch of the poem that was Joseph’s, Constantin’s epitaph. “All things have rest,” I say, “and ripen toward the grave. In silence—ripen, fall, and cease. Rest,” I tell Mimi, “we will not wander more.”

  I flick the wooden match from my fingers. It simmers briefly against the old wide boards; then flares into brilliance when it finds the lamp oil. There is a shifting tide of blue flame that suddenly boils like a storm-ridden sea, the suck-whump! of oxygen being ferociously consumed. The fire begins to rise high and hot and yellow along the walls, racing madly toward the ceiling, the loft.

  I shut the door quickly; go down the stairs, moving into sunlight.

  I step away. Soon, behind me the caravan is a burning pyre, the flames roaring toward the pale morning sky.

  There is Lenore to live for and love, I think. In a little while, I’ll go and wake her. A knowing voice—Joseph’s perhaps—speaks up, telling me I might use the power—I do not want and will never use—one more time.

  I close my eyes and concentrate: Who owns the hand of the dead can bring healing. Lenore will remember none of it. Only that my wife loved her, that her mother died when she was young.

  I think of the charm. The box is turning heat black, the copper is melting and running. Ashes. Lenore will be safe. Forever. Her future, her childhood dreams, safe. And who’s to say my girl won’t grow up to be a lady waiting on an Empress?

  I hold my hand up, gazing at the thick hump of scar snaking unevenly around my hairy wrist. I know in the end, of course, I will go down into that eternal unrest—unless . . . unless I . . . I push the thought aside. Anyway, Lenore will be an old woman then, settled. A day will come when Lenore doesn’t need a father. It’s hard to say when. I’ll be old myself, I think—

  Gentling.

  Shielding my eyes from the hot glare, I turn and look at the burning caravan. When the flames die out, I’ll go up the stairs into Joseph’s rickety caravan and wake my sleeping daughter.

  I recall Joseph’s words. The dead have secrets, Imre, but the more you know of the future the harder your task will be. He was right, of course; but now I believe it’s the hardest things that set you free.

  Bilovem.

  I watch the dark smoke funneling up in a thick black cloud, and think to myself, yes, yes in the end I’ll know the freedom of the gentling box.

  Author’s Notes and Acknowledgements

  (Past, Present and Future Varieties)

  About a month before Necon--Northeastern Writer’s Conference-- which is one of my favorite conventions (and not least because it’s always held right around the time of Lizzie Borden’s birthday) I received a charming note from a young man named Brent Chapman who told me he’d heard wonderful things about The Gentling Box, that’d he just ordered it, and was looking forward to reading it. Would I be willing to sign his copy when we all landed in Rhode Island this past July?

  I don’t remember what I replied, but I’m sure it was polite because one doesn’t spend six or seven years under the tutelage of the Jesuits through undergraduate and graduate degrees and half of a Ph.D. without being inculcated (or inoculated—take your pick) with a sense of the importance of courtesy.

  I do remember thinking, “Isn’t that nice!”

  Brent also signed on ahead of time for the Lizzie Borden excursion which I’ve been running since 2002. Nicer still. This year’s foray into the axe murderess’s old homestead which included the usual gang—good friends like Corrine De Winter and Dennis Cummins and Beth Blue—and new friends like Heather Graham, and her husband, Dennis Pozzossere and two of their kids; and was—we all agreed—the most fun we’d ever had hanging out with the Fall River ghosts and shadows at 92 Second Street. Except, because I had a long drive ahead of me, I went to sleep early (there have been years I never went to sleep at all) and I didn’t have a chance to really speak with Brent. Mostly I remembered he was indeed, very young. Also very tall and possessed of a hugely contagious, booming laugh.

  About a month after Necon, Brent wrote to me again.

  This time he wanted to let me know he was starting a new publishing company.

  He intended to treat the writers with the utmost professionalism and respect and he hoped I’d consider signing on with him because he dearly wanted to launch his new venture, Shadowfall, with The Gentling Box.

  Since my contract with my former publisher had recently ended, deciding to work with Brent turned out to be one of the easier decisions in my life.

  A much simpler decision than, say, when one of my professors at Fordham, James L. Tyne, asked me half way through that half-baked Ph.D. what I intended on for a career and I told him I wanted to write and to teach. He looked at me very seriously, then said I’d never write the kind of fiction I should be writing if I kept pacing down the halls of Academia.

  Dr. Tyne was right. I did teach for a while on the college level and discovered I barely had time to jot down grocery lists, send Christmas cards or write out checks for the electric bill--much less the stories and novels I imagined were incubating inside me.

  So....

  I’m deeply grateful to Dr. Tyne because he set me on a path that ultimately changed my life. When The Gentling Box won the Bram Stoker Award it was—absolutely--the proudest and happiest moment of my life and it’s impossible really, to convey what it meant, what it still means to me every single day.

  I’m also deeply grateful to my family: my Dad, Armand; my mother, Anne; and my older brother, Peter; and a myriad of cousins--Karen Salerno, Diane Steverman, Maryann Kolb, Carmella and Faust Siconolfi--who have always believed in me even when I didn’t quite believe in myself.

  Friends—like Barbara McGill Grant, Frank and Gail Orfei, Corrine De Winter, Beth Blue, Judy Comeau, Robert Dunbar, Michael Hughes, Dennis Cummins, Di Barron, and Janice Morgan--have graciously read my writing in progress; shared dinners, drinks, coffee, and too many cigarettes; laughed and cried with me, delivered the appropriate, well-deserved kicks in the rear when needed and, in the aggregate, have functioned as the cornerstone of my writing life, and the mayhem and madness that passes as my daily existence.

  I also want to thank good friends and mentors who lent their considerable expertise and enthusiasm both to this book and tales yet to be told: Monica O’Rourke, Elizabeth Crow, Emily Hanlon, Dr. Jim Garner, D.V. M. (who literally vetted the original manuscript and made sure I didn’t’ wander too far afield when describing both gentling and glanders); Dr. Eileen Reale; Tom Monteleone, F. Paul Wilson, Alexandra Sokoloff, and Deborah LeBlanc.

  Thanks, too, beyond measure to both Heather Graham for the stunning afterward she served up along with a bright heaping cumulus of generosity, camaraderie and sisterhood; and, to Glenn Chadbourne--artist extraordinaire, trooper and true friend--who has joined in on every one of my hare-brained schemes and projects over the years, and who produced the magnificent cover of this edition of The Gentling Box.

  Best for last: Thanks to Brent and Alisha Chapman of Shadowfall Publications—who, like Dr. Tyne at Fordham University all those years ago, have set me on a path that will ultimately change my life.

  Grazi
e.

  Mille grazie.

  --Lisa Mannetti

  October, 2010

  Afterward by Heather Graham

  The Gentling Box is that rare first novel that dares to take many chances, and the result is a Bram Stoker-winning book that combines history, sorcery, compelling characters, and a look deep into the human psyche. It’s possibly a horror novel, but it still tells the story of a bygone era, of a time when the true separation of Church and State was not something really conceived, and the very darkness of the world in which people lived allowed the mind to embrace demons and see omens in the phenomena of the earth.

  Most importantly, as in all good stories, of course, the tale itself matters only when the characters are so rich and real that they come alive for us. Our empathy for the characters, their honor, their longings, their fears, and the terrors they face take us through this tale without our ever realizing how much we learn along the way, and how our imaginations are piqued. Sights, sounds, and even the breeze become substantial in these pages.

  Imre, a half-gypsy horse trader, is a man struggling with torment and torture. While the Age of Enlightenment had come and gone and was replaced by a new Romantic sensibility on the rest of the continent, in Hungary and Romania gypsies were still seen as the despised, as thieves, and, against all reason, as those who are dark, perhaps even evil; liable to consort with ancient demons. In Imre’s instance, the extremely malignant forces of culture and ancient times are far too real. As a gypsy, he faces threat from those outside the closed society of his troupe, but he is already well-acquainted with supernatural forces as well: He and his small family have been cursed.

  The Gentling Box brings us the chilling atmosphere of misted mountains, fog laden trees, the howling of wolves—all requisite in creating the innate human core of fear reminiscent of the Wolfman and Dracula. It’s certainly not to be read while you’re on a shrouded hilltop alone in the dark.

  While the story is that of demons, living and supernatural, it is also the story of a man. He knows the menace his family faces. He sees his wife overtaken by the curse of a cruel sorceress. He sees those around him afflicted, and he is torn with the same horror that grips any husband, any father, watching a beloved wife or a precious child in danger. His wife suffers the horrors of the damned; he is a man on an urgent mission to save a beautiful daughter from a fate that could prove far worse than death. He is up against the terrible power of a bitter and vengeful witch, but there are even worse fears that will seize hold of him on his journey to save himself, those around him, and their immortal souls.

  The Gentling Box is a true page turner, but it is not the literary equivalent of a slasher-flick; its prose is beautifully written and the terrors it conjures are not cheap tricks like those that manipulate us into reflexively shrieking or jumping out of our skins. This is a novel that settles into the bone, and brings forth the kind of ancient fear that still lurks in our souls, no mattered how civilized we might have become. Read carefully—the shadows in your home will have new meaning.

  Read, think, and enjoy the chills—The Gentling Box will stay with you and haunt you long after you have reached the end.

  --Heather Graham

  October, 2010

  Copyright Information

  The Gentling Box by Lisa Mannetti

  © 2008 and 2010, Lisa Mannetti. All Rights Reserved.

  © 2010, Afterward by Heather Graham.

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional and any resemblances to real people, living or dead, are purely coincidental. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval systems, without the written permission of the copyright owner.

  ISBN: 978-1-936457-00-7

  Library of Congress Number: TX6-886-592

  Shadowfall Publications

  Livermore, CA

  www.shadowfallpublications.com

  About the Author

  Lisa Mannetti’s debut novel, The Gentling Box, garnered a Bram Stoker Award.

  She has authored a macabre gag book, 51 Fiendish Ways to Leave your Lover, as well as non-fiction books, and numerous articles and short stories in newspapers, magazines and anthologies. Her story, “Everybody Wins,” was made into a short film by director Paul Leyden starring Malin Ackerman and released under the title Bye-Bye Sally.

  Lisa lives in New York.

  Visit her author website: www.lisamannetti.com

  Visit her virtual haunted house: www.thechanceryhouse.com

  PRAISE FOR THE GENTLING BOX

  “Lisa Mannetti’s impressive debut novel THE GENTLING BOX transports you to another time and place with the same kind of dark magic that pervades the 19th-century world she’s recreated, reminding us that it was not so long ago that the terror of sorcery and spectres was very real—very real, and not so far fetched.”

  –Hank Schwaeble, Bram Stoker-Award winner and author of DAMNABLE (Jove 2009)

  “THE GENTLING BOX is a brilliantly decadent opium den of mind-bending hallucinations fueled by old-world magic, each page more disturbing and haunting than the previous one. Absolutely stunning! Moving with the frantic speed of a terrifi ed wild horse, this novel will take you on a ride you will not soon forget. If this is Lisa Mannetti’s debut, I cannot wait to see what she will produce for us in the future.”

  –Gabrielle S. Faust, Austin Literary Examiner

  “The dark themes Lisa Mannetti explores come crawling up your throat when you least expect them ... We fall headfi rst into a world both abundantly detailed and bleakly hideous for its personal horrors and what man—or woman—may be driven to do for power over others ... it may be a first novel, but it’s one powerful and inventive, timeless treatise on darkness of the soul.”

  –William D. Gagliani, Chizine

  “When was the last time you lost yourself in a book? Lisa Mannetti dares you to enter a realm unlike anything you’ve dreamed of, a world of gallant gypsies and ancient evil, of passionate obsessions . . . and abject terror. Take that dare. Immerse yourself. The rewards are plentiful. But be warned. Nothing could prepare you for the horror of THE GENTLING BOX.”

  –Robert Dunbar, author of THE PINES and THE SHORE

  “Mannetti’s debut THE GENTLING BOX is astonishingly well written, richly drawn and simply remarkable. It shares that very rare thing that all the best novels do: the creation of a world, fully formed, familiar and yet magically unique, a world that makes us ache to remain in it for just a few moments longer after the last word is read.”

  –Stoker Finalist, Nate Kenyon, author of BLOODSTONE and THE REACH

  “One of the best books I’ve read in a long time, THE GENTLING BOX is strongly recommended ... The magic in it is as real as horse sweat and ashes, and the reality described as magical as any wild dream ... There is real life in it, and the unblinking way Mannetti portrays it all is greatly to be admired ... this book tells the blunt truth and therein lies its great power.”

  –Gene Stewart, author of Alaya’s Assignments and Alexandra’s Awakening

  “Realistically written, addictive and eerie ... Mannetti had me hooked ... I doubt anyone will be able to put this one down.”

  –Nick Cato, Horror Fiction Review

  “THE GENTLING BOX by Lisa Mannetti—An impressive debut, beautifully written, about old world gypsy curses. There’s a pretty intricate structure at work here, and a palpable sense of dread.”

  –Greg Lamberson, FearZone

  “For the horror enthusiast, THE GENTLING BOX can’t be beat ... I can’t emphasize enough how much I enjoyed this book ... Mannetti’s debut novel scores far and above books by many long-standing writers, both within the horror genre and without.”

  –Elizabeth Blue, Feoamante

  “Mannetti’s THE GENTLING BOX weaves a magical tapestry that transcends time. This impressive tour de force chills the reader and lingers long af
ter the final chapter.”

  –Amy Grech, Author of Apple of My Eye

  “Brilliantly researched and structured, THE GENTLING BOX accurately recreates a world long lost where Gypsies roamed a shadowy landscape fi lled with superstition and danger. Ms. Mannetti has conjured a heart-stopping tale of magick most black, a terrifying, heartfelt, disarming story that is beautifully wrought and historically correct. I came away from this novel breathless and hungry for more.”

  –J.L. Comeau, Count Gore’s Creature Feature Weekly web program

  Table of Contents

  Dedication

  Part 1

  Mimi

  -1-

  -2-

  -3-

  -4-

  -5-

  -6-

  -7-

  -8-

  -9-

  -10-

  -11-

  -12-

  -13-

  -14-

  Part 2

  Zahara

  -15-

  -16-

  -17-

  -18-

  -19-

  -20-

  -21-

  -22-