by Amy Cross
"Ask him," Evans says. "The sooner you marry the bitch, the sooner you can break her in. Show her what a real man can do in the bedroom. Once she's your wife, she can't deny you the things you want. She'll have to bend over and take anything you give her."
"I think it can wait," I say as we reach the door to my building. I smile at Victoria. She is truly the most wonderful and delicate creature, but I fail to see how I can marry her while I have the voice of Lawrence Evans in my head. The things he says about her are truly horrific, and I feel I can't possibly expose her to such crude and violent words. Until I understand the nature of this voice, and its origin and purpose, I feel I must keep away from Victoria. Not only can she not possibly be my wife while this voice persists, but even having her in my office would be a mistake. I cannot be absolutely certain that I would not make some kind of inappropriate advance.
"I trust that you are happy with Victoria's performance today?" Mr. Paternoster asks. "I know she was very keen to do a good job."
"She has done very well," I say, feeling a little flustered. "Unfortunately, however, I feel that perhaps the arrangement should not continue." I turn to her and see the look of disappointment in her eyes. "I'm sorry, my dear. It's nothing to do with you. I just think that..." I pause as I see that she's close to tears. "Oh, now don't be upset," I tell her, "it's simply that I feel I can run my office myself, and I must consider the needs of the town above the needs of myself. I would be very happy to have you around, but it would be far too disruptive. I hope you understand, and I will gladly provide a glowing reference should you require one for another employer."
Victoria nods politely, but her eyes are glistening with tears. After a moment, she turns and walks quickly away.
"I do hope she's not too upset," I say, feeling a desperate sadness in my chest at the thought that I caused tears to roll down her cheeks.
"I'm sure she will recover," Mr. Paternoster says, "but I must say, Mayor Caster, that I'm surprised by your decision. I thought you were extremely happy with Victoria's work?"
"I was," I say, still watching as the poor dear girl walks into the hotel. My heart aches at the thought that I have sent her away, but I know I have done the right thing. "Unfortunately, my circumstances have changed and I feel I can no longer have her in my employ. I do hope you'll accept my decision and will see fit not to question too closely how I run my office."
"Of course," Mr. Paternoster replies. "I'm sure you know better than anyone how to organize your own duties. I merely..." He pauses. "Well, you might laugh, but I feel I should be honest with you. I had a fancy that perhaps your interest in Victoria might extend beyond simply having her as your assistant. I felt that you and she had a certain rapport, and I allowed myself to believe that the pair of you made a rather good team." He laughs. "It seems rather foolish of me now, but I was actually going to suggest that perhaps you could consider taking her as your..."
I wait for him to finish. "As my what?" I ask, even though I know what he's going to say.
"Well, as your wife," he replies.
I swallow hard, feeling the ache in my chest become deeper and harder. "You were?" I say, realizing with sorrow how close I was to having that delightful young lady in my arms and in my home.
"Never mind," he says. "Perhaps she is a little young and insubstantial for a man such as yourself. For all her better qualities, she still has some way to go before she could be considered worthy of your affections. Please, put the whole idea out of your mind." He sighs. "Well, I feel I should let you get on with your work, and I must continue my search for a plot of land upon which I can build a home for my niece and myself. I'm sure I shall be in need of your assistance and advice soon, so I hope you don't mind if I trouble you for a moment of your time in the next couple of weeks?"
"It will be my pleasure," I say, before turning and heading into my building. Once I'm inside, I hurry up to my office and push the door closed. Finally I'm alone, but there's a curious scent in the air. It takes me a moment, but finally I realize what it is: Victoria's perfume, a gentle and subtle fragrance that I barely even noticed when she was here, but which now seems to fill the room and remind me of what I have lost. My only hope is that perhaps I can get her back one day, once I have dealt with the problems that currently afflict me.
"Well well well," Lawrence Evans sneers, his voice sounding cold and urgent. "Looks like it's just you and me now, you fat, pathetic old bastard." He sounds so close, it's almost as if he's standing right next to me. "I think it's time for us to have a long chat," he continues. "A very long, very important chat about our future together and what you're going to do for me."
Epilogue
Today.
Standing in the doorway, I watch as Paula checks and double-checks the room. Although she's trying to make light of what she's doing, I can tell that she's genuinely nervous about sleeping here again. I guess that's understandable, considering she found a skeleton under our bed last night. Still, I've shown her over and over again that the room is completely safe; I've even gone so far as to tell her that I've checked all the other rooms in the hotel to make sure they're also empty, although that's not entirely true. I checked some of the rooms, or at least I glanced through the doors, but I figure I'll take a proper look tomorrow. Really, though, Paula is being irrational, and I don't have time to run around trying to resolve all her stupid fears.
"All good?" I ask eventually.
"I guess," she replies, clearly a little nervous. "I'd say we should sleep somewhere else, but this is the only room where the dust isn't so bad. I guess it'll be fine."
"It's just one more night," I tell her, "and then we're out of here. I'm sure we'll find a can of gas if we keep looking." What I don't tell her, of course, is that I know we'll find a can of gas, since I've put one in the shed behind the hotel. It's the spare can from the truck, and I carry it for precisely this type of emergency. Sometime tomorrow afternoon, I'll pretend to suddenly find it, and then we'll fill the truck's repaired tank and leave. I just need a few more hours to look around Devil's Briar first. I'm sure Paula would understand my reasoning if she thought about things more rationally. Unfortunately, she's allowed the undoubted strangeness of the town to impact upon her thought process. I wish she hadn't done that; I wish she hadn't made it so that I had no choice other than to sabotage the truck on purpose just to keep up here a little longer.
"Sandwich?" I say, grabbing the rucksack. Sorting through the packets we have left, I find myself wishing I'd been a little more adventurous and maybe brought some different food. "We have ham, or we have beef," I say, tossing a packet onto the bed for her.
With a hesitant smile, she takes the packet and opens it.
"Are you okay?" I ask. "I mean, apart from the obvious."
"I'm fine," she replies. "I just..." She pauses for a moment, and there's clearly something on her mind. "That banging sound on the drum -"
"Was caused by the metal expanding and contracting," I remind her, "which in turn was caused by changes in the temperature or the atmospheric pressure."
She nods, but I can tell she's not convinced.
"I took a look at some of those documents we found," I say, hoping to distract her by changing the subject. "There wasn't much in there, but I found a few names. When we get back to Boston, we can start digging into the records. There have to be references to Devil's Briar somewhere, so..." I pause, seeing the distracted expression on Paula's face. "I mean, that's if you want to be involved in the project," I continue. "Sorry, I just assumed that you'd be staying on-board for the duration."
She looks over at me and I can see a brief flicker of doubt in her eyes. "Yeah," she says finally, and not very convincingly. "I'm totally on-board."
"I've found a good starting point," I tell her. "Thanks to those documents, I now know the name of the man who was the final Mayor of Devil's Briar; the guy who was in charge when the place died. His name was Thomas Paternoster."
She pauses for a moment. "I s
wear I've heard that name before."
"Where?"
"Not sure," she continues, "but it definitely rings a bell. It must have been in some other research I did. It's a pretty unusual name, so I doubt there'd be two of them. I'll go through my old papers when we get back to Boston and see what I can find out."
"See?" I say, smiling. "We make a good team."
She nods, but she doesn't say anything. I know there's something on her mind, and I know she's unlikely to talk to me about it. One of the things that's always driven me crazy about Paula is this way she internalizes everything. She gets some idea stuck in her head, and she just chews it over; she becomes vague and distant while she's deciding what to do, and then suddenly she'll make some surprising announcement that seems to come out of the blue. I just wish she'd talk to me a little more, but I know from experience that there's no point in pushing the subject. It's best just to let her get on with it, and to not take the silences too personally.
"I'm going to go and have a cigarette," I say, heading to the door. "You want to come?"
She shakes her head. "I'll stay here and maybe get rid of some more dust from the bed."
Walking downstairs, I pull out my cigarettes and, once I'm outside in the town square, I light up. It's getting late, and the declining sun is casting long shadows.
After a moment, I see something moving over on the other side of the square. At first, I refuse to look, because I refuse to submit to the irrationality of my own mind. Just as Paula has been struggling, and convincing herself that a few bangs on a drum are something more sinister, I too have started to notice strange things happening in Devil's Briar. The difference, though, is that whereas Paula succumbs to her irrationalities, I fight back against mine. I know that this is just my brain's way of interpreting the strangeness of the place. Auditory and visual hallucinations are common in such circumstances, but I have to ignore what I'm seeing and remind myself that it's just a product of my own mind. It's not easy to be strong like this, but it's really the only solution.
Finally, taking another drag on my cigarette before stubbing it out on the cross and dropping the butt to the ground, I turn and walk back over toward the hotel. Ahead of me, there's a little girl. She's wearing an off-white dress and her skin seems yellow and faded, and she's staring straight at me with cold, yellowing eyes. She looks so real, as if she's actually standing there, but I know I'm imagining her.
"Do you want to play hide and seek?" she asks, a faint smile spreading across her lips.
Rather than react to the image, I fortify my mind and walk straight past the little girl and up the steps, into the hotel. I don't look back, and I resolve to not mention what I saw to Paula. The little girl has appeared to me three or four times during the day, but she's a product of my imagination. There's no point giving oxygen to such fevered hallucinations. Turning and pushing the door shut, I glance at the girl and see that she's still looking at me. I tell myself once again that she's not real, that she exists only in my head, before I turn and head up to the bedroom.
Book 3:
Cloth Man
Prologue
It takes them a few hours to dig me out of the snow. They keep talking about the need to be careful, to make sure they don't hurt me. It's cute, but they needn't bother. I'm so far beyond the point of pain, I couldn't care less if they snapped my arms off and dropped my body until it shattered into a million pieces. The ice isn't just on my skin; it's deep within me, forming tiny crystals in my blood. My eyes are frozen open, and tiny ice particles refract the morning light so that everything I see is filled with dazzling colors; my mouth is also frozen open in a perpetual scream, although I am not screaming. Not now. So, you see, they can be as rough as they want, because it's only a body and I don't need it any more. I just wish I could die immediately, instead of clinging to life in this frozen shell. Surely the final moment will come at any moment? Surely, as they load me onto the back of a cart, my brain will shut down and I'll sink into the darkness of death? How can my heart ever beat again? Dear God, all I want is death. Sweet, perfect, warm, light-splintered death. I'm ready. This life is over.
Chapter One
1925.
"Catherine!" I shout as I push the door shut. "Catherine! My coat!"
Standing and waiting, I realize that not only is there no sign of my daughter, but the house is freezing cold and the stove sits empty. By this point in the afternoon, Catherine should have started making dinner, she should have got a fire burning, and she should be here to take my coat and help me prepare for my bath. There should also be a glass of whiskey waiting for me in the study. In the past year, ever since her mother died, Catherine has faithfully and attentively fulfilled her duties as the woman of our house, yet in recent weeks she has begun to falter. It is as if something has distracted her, and I am starting to suspect that she will require a gentle reminder of her responsibilities.
"Catherine!" I call out one final time, not with any real hope that she will come running, but because I feel I should give her one more chance. Perhaps the girl is deaf, rather than delinquent. Sighing, I am forced to remove my own coat and hang it up, brushing off the snow that has landed on my shoulders as I walked home. Stepping through to the kitchen, I put my hand on the stove and feel that it is cold, and there appears to have been no food preparation whatsoever. It is as if Catherine has simply vanished, leaving me with no apparent means of being fed. It's quite unfathomable that the girl would have so little regard for her father's well-being, so little concern, that she would neglect to prepare a hearty dinner. If I didn't know better, I'd start to suspect that she means me to cook my own meal.
"Intolerable girl," I mutter, heading back through to the hallway. It seems I have no other option than to go and eat at the hotel, where there will at least be a hot stove with some concoction bubbling away. Of course, I shall have to come up with an excuse to explain why I have resorted to such desperate measures. I can't very well admit to Henry Porter, the hotel's proprietor, that my own daughter has neglected my needs so thoughtlessly. I should be ashamed to have anyone else in town know that I command such a distinct lack of respect in my own home. As for Catherine, the girl will face my anger when she eventually returns home.
Once my coat is on, I open the door and face the icy chill of the evening's stormy weather. All day, a cold wind has been blowing through Devil's Briar, bringing with it a deluge of snow that threatens to make the streets almost impassable. I very much regret having to go back out in such weather, but I certainly can't sit alone in a cold house and starve. One would think that, on a day such as this, Catherine would take extra care to provide me with comfort upon my return from work, but sadly the girl lacks even this basic courtesy. I have tried to discipline her before, of course, but I am starting to think that I must take a firmer hand. She clearly will not learn until I have let her understand the full force of my displeasure. I shall have to employ the whip again.
"Father!" calls out a voice, just as I am stepping outside into the cold street. "Father! Wait!"
Turning, I see Catherine running toward me with a look of panic in her eyes. I quickly glance about, and I'm glad to see that at least no-one else is in the vicinity to witness the ungainly spectacle of my daughter racing through the snow. It is a most un-ladylike thing for her to do, and I'm quite sure no man would want to marry her if he had seen her in such a state. If she is ever to attract a good husband, she must learn to exhibit a little more class.
"Father, I'm so sorry I was out," she says breathlessly as she reaches the door. "I had errands to run, and I'm afraid the bad weather slowed me down terribly." Barely looking me in the eye, she goes inside. "I shall have dinner ready for you within the hour," she calls back as she hurries into the kitchen.
"Do not bother," I say firmly. "I have already decided to go to the hotel. Attend to the hearth instead, and ensure that the house is warm for my return." I pause for a moment. "We shall talk about your behavior later, Catherine," I add, at which
point she turns to me with a look of fear in her eyes.
"Father, I am truly sorry -" she starts to say.
"I have no doubt that you are," I reply, "but I'm afraid that an apology is insufficient. We shall talk about the matter later, when I return." Without wishing to engage in further discussion at this point in time, I turn and walk away, shuffling through the heavy snow as I head to the town square. The streets are mercifully empty, since few people would be keen to come out in such awful weather. I daresay some souls will look out their windows and wonder why I, Dr. Marshall Collings, am out in such terrible conditions; hopefully, they will assume that I am on my way to pay a kindness to some poor unfortunate who has fallen ill. It will not occur to any of them that my own daughter could have disrespected me so gravely that I should have returned to an empty, cold house.
Since the snow is nearly two feet thick, it takes me much longer than usual to reach the town square. Mr. Paternoster's huge metal cross stands tall as ever, towering over the scene and looking particularly imposing as the snow swirls down to the ground. It is good to have a little more religious piety in the town, even if I am somewhat taken aback by the scale of Mr. Paternoster's design. It is as if he is a little too eager to prove his religiosity to the people of Devil's Briar, but I suppose our soulless Mayor was more than happy to accept such a grand gesture. For my part, I prefer to do away with ostentatious displays of faith and to focus instead on nurturing the flickering flame within my own heart. I believe God will look more kindly upon a good, strong man, than he will upon some large structure applauded by the crowds.
Battling against the snow and wind, I finally make my way to the hotel. The steps are icy and I have to tread carefully, but soon I'm in the warmth of the hotel's lobby, where Henry Porter is sitting behind his desk.
