The Requiem Red
Page 22
We bolt soundlessly down the hallway. He stares left and right, panic pinching his face. He gestures, and we slide to a stop before the conservatory. The heat blasts our faces as we step inside, hurrying along the stone walkways.
“Why are we in here?” I whisper.
“He tracks by smell.”
Every hair on my head stands at attention. For the first time I fear … What if somewhere deep inside, I, too, am a monster?
“All these smells will confuse him.”
Indeed, flowers and dirt and water fill the air.
We barrel forward, the door in sight. Shuffle-shuffle.
I dare to look behind. And like Lot’s wife, I instantly regret my decision.
A froth drips from Cloud’s lips, splattering his dirty waistcoat. His hair is wild and unkempt, and his teeth gleam in the night like a jackal’s.
“Jane,” he growls. “You are Patient Twenty-Nine. Jane is dead. She died long ago.”
All my life I have wished to hear my real name from his lips, and now I shudder at the sound.
Mason squeezes my hand, belting forward. “Do not listen to him.”
Mason wrenches open the door, and the deep, mournful call of a cello, layered and resonant, blasts so loud we cover our ears.
Mason forces me before him, and I pelt into the corn.
In the sky above the corn, the massive unkindness of ravens dives and pitches, their mouths open and closing as their bodies dart to and fro in time to the weaving, waxing notes.
Their black mass thins and thickens as the melody and harmony weave.
“Mama.” I stop dead. “I hear Mama.” I drop to my knees.
Mason’s eyes widen as they dart from my face to the asylum and back. “You must run, Jane!”
I shake my head. “Mama. She’s speaking in the music. I must listen.”
His hands are under my arms, hoisting me up, dragging me.
“Twenty-Nine!” Cloud’s voice thunders from behind.
Mason lifts me into his arms, running into the corn. The birds begin to dip in and out of the rows, nearly hitting us. But my mind is gone, lost in the notes and sound of my mother’s voice.
“Jane.”
I stiffen at the new voice.
“Jane. You run this instant.”
Mason sets me down. Jules stands before me, fire burning in her blue eyes. Grayjoy at her side.
I nod, wiping away the tears. I go to her, and her arm tightens round my shoulders.
“Twenty-Nine!” Cloud breaks into the corn, loping forward like a jackal.
“No. Her name is Jane. And you are not even fit to speak it.”
Cloud freezes, his eyes narrowing, coming to rest on Jules. He cocks his head, staring. Blinking.
“You shall not touch her. You monster. You … took her from me. I wasn’t alone. All the while, you kept her from me. I hate you.”
Cloud’s face contorts, twitching and writhing. His hunched posture lifts, reaching skyward, till he stands ramrod straight. He moans, drops to his knees in the dirt, and then staggers to stand.
Frost has arrived. Back in his body. Back in his mind.
He blinks, as if confused. “Jules? What are we doing here? Grayjoy, what is the meaning of this?” He registers the screaming sirens, and his eyes rest on me. “You are helping her escape? How dare you—”
“You shall not touch her.” Jules’s body shakes where her arms envelope me. “How could you take an innocent child, place her here?”
Frost stiffens. “She is not my child … You are my child. She is—”
“Cloud’s child,” Grayjoy interjects. “You are one and the same, Isaiah.”
He shakes his head, fear clouding his features. “No.”
“I have seen the journal, Isaiah. How your two selves battle, writing to one another. So that one understands what the other is doing.”
Frost buckles, his knees sinking into the mud. His hand reaches out, fingers straining. “She would have been persecuted, she—”
“She was not perfect,” Jules says. “You thought Cloud conceived her, put her in Mama’s belly. Maybe he did. He is you, Father. Somewhere deep down, you are the same.”
He shakes his head. “No. She … heard the music, imagined the voices in—”
A blast of cello, so long and loud my ears ring, forces us all to the ground.
Jules stares up at him, eyes gleaming with defiance. “I hear the words, too, Father. Maeve made me swear to never, ever tell. So your girl, the one you conceived, hears those voices, too. You … You took Mama’s mind.”
Tears stream down Frost’s face. He shakes his head. “It cannot be.”
The breeze blows hard, bending the stalks like mere blades of grass in the wind.
“Where is their mother?” Mason prompts. His eyes dart to the sky, where the unkindness undulates and flows like a black aerial river. “Jane, come to me.”
I release Jules and hurry to his side. He tightly grasps my hand, pulling me slightly behind him in a protective gesture.
The smell of sulfur rides the wind, blowing across our faces.
My eyes stray back to Frost. His arms quake with a force that rattles his teeth in his mouth. Cheeks, chin, and brow quiver and twitch as a long, guttural, “Rrrraaahh,” escapes his gaping lips.
“The turn. It’s happening,” Grayjoy says. “When Frost cannot deal with the pain, Cloud takes over. Begin backing away.”
His hands slide to Jules’s waist, pulling her closer.
Cloud’s eyes are wide and wild, pupils small as dots of ink. “Twenty-Nine. It is foolish to try to find your mother. She is long gone.”
I shake my head. “I hear her. In the music. She … says to come to her.”
He cocks his head, black curls blowing across his pinched face. “She’s dead, girl.”
“Shut up, shut up, shut up, you vile creature, or I shall shut that horrible mouth for you!” Jules darts forward, but Jonathon’s hands quickly wrap about her waist, restraining her.
“No, Jules. He isn’t worth it.”
“We must follow the music,” I cry.
Mason pulls a pistol from the waistband of his trousers to point it at Cloud’s head. “I don’t fancy using this, but I will if I must. Do not follow us.”
We turn to go, Mason walking backward as we enter the rows of corn.
“You won’t find her.”
I whirl about, my heart hammering in my chest. “What did you say?”
“I said, you won’t find her. I’ve taken care of that. You see, I have many names. Cloud. The Dark Man who makes people sign his book.” He laughs.
“Who? What are you talking about?” Jules’s arm, which touches mine, quivers in fear.
“If you go, you will end up like her.”
The music rises, seeming to emanate from the dirt to swirl about us. The whispered words entwined in the notes: “Find me, turtledoves, we are waiting.”
I look over at Jules, dread seeping into my heart, but she squeezes my hand, giving me courage. Tears flow in a steady stream from her eyes. “That voice. That is Mama.”
Cloud bolts forward, body twitching all over, to alight in a flying lunge toward Jules.
The unkindness descends, squawking, pecking, ripping bits of flesh from his face and hands. “Gah!”
“Run!” Mason bellows.
We pelt into the corn, running in a single line, hands linked.
We follow the musical trail. On either side of us, the corn undulates, and visions fade in and out like the heat on a summer day.
A battlefield, cannon fire whistling, to the right.
“What is this? What is happening?” I scream.
Jules grips my hand tighter. “I do not know! Keep running!”
To our left, an image halts me in my tracks, so that both Jules and Jonathon plow into my back.
Another cornfield, through what seems a misty, undulating window.
&nb
sp; A large, white farmhouse. And Cloud.
Cloud has passed through somehow. Cloud loping forward, toward the house.
Mother’s voice calls in the music, and my heart breaks listening to it. But my eyes are drawn toward the limping, loping figure—and fear and dread seal the cracks in my heart. Fear for whoever lives in that house.
I see a flash of red hair on horseback flit past the window, unaware of us, unaware of Cloud.
“Jules.” I stare at her. My sister. My eyes staring back from her face. “It’s the red sparrow. We have to go. We have to save her.”
She turns, staring in horror at the undulating picture. “But … Mama.”
I put my hand on her arm. “Wherever she is, he is there.” I thrust a shaking finger at the misty window, which now shrinks, growing smaller.
I turn to stare at Mason. “This is not your fight. I cannot ask you to come with me. He is linked to us. That creature is my father.”
Mason’s face tightens with anger. “I am going. Where you go, I go, mo cridhe. There is no other option or argument.”
Jonathon stares after the loping figure of his erstwhile mentor with a resigned expression. He takes Jules’s hand. “We shall do it together. There are four of us, to one of him.”
Cloud has almost reached the farmhouse. It is then I see children in the window. My heart freezes to ice and drops to my stomach. I point.
“Let’s go.” Jules stalks forward, hand tentatively outstretched to touch the shimmering surface.
An eruption of orchestral music drives us to our knees. My body trembles all over. I feel for Jules’s hand in the dirt, and her grasping fingers find mine.
“He took my voice, but he could not reach the music. It is part of me. Part of you. It is the only voice I have, turtledoves. I need you—your music—to free me. Find the sparrow, bring her to me.”
The voice of cello, violin, and strings all cease at once, as the unkindness of ravens takes flight, following Cloud in a spiraling tunnel of black feathers.
All that remains is the wind.
“Hurry, Jules.” I rush forward to follow the flock. I rush forward into a stream of time.
Jules slides her hand in tentatively, and it blurs, then disappears. The air has congealed, it sticks to her fingertips. She eases one leg inside, and I rush forward to grab her hand. Mason grasps my hand, and Jonathon takes his other—and like a human chain, we enter the time door.
“Don’t look back.”
AUTHOR’S NOTES
Multiple Personality
Multiple personality is now called dissociative identity disorder in the DSM-5, the manual used in psychiatry to categorize disease states. One of the earliest mentions of Multiple Personality Disorder is Robert Louis Stevenson’s 1886 novel, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
It is a hotly contested diagnosis as to whether it actually exists and each side, for and against, are vehement in their beliefs.
Later books published on the subject were The Three Faces of Eve (1957) and Sybil (1973).
Asylums in the 1800 and 1900’s
All of the treatments mentioned in the book were used at one time or another throughout history. None is the product of the author’s imagination. In addition to being a descendant of 1940’s asylum workers, Brynn toured asylums to ensure historical accuracy. See her social media pages for photographs of the urban adventure.
Historical Forms of Address:
The phrase, “Your servant, mum.” May be used for a woman who is not one’s own mother. For more information on Georgian, Victorian and Edwardian Slang, visit Colonial Williamsburg website or any historical ‘history comes alive’ reenactment program.
Fraternal Twins Born Days Apart:
http://bit.ly/1PO73Id
Look in the annals of medicine; weird science abounds. Yes, it’s possible. Two different eggs, two sperm, one difficult labor.
Ablation
Ablation was the Victorian/Edwardian term for the procedure which would one day become the lobotomy. The first were performed in 1836 in Switzerland on canines. The procedure severed the cortex from the rest of the brain, thus isolating emotion from intellect—at least that was the idea. More often than not, patients died during or after the procedure. If they did survive, they were passive, with no lingering trace of their former personalities. Lest we think it an ancient barbarism, it occurred as late as the 1950’s—President John F. Kennedy’s sister Rosemary was lobotomized.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
For my agent Victoria Lea and editor Georgia McBride—who help translate the voices in my mind into the written word. I am grateful to be in your company.
BRYNN CHAPMAN
Brynn Chapman was born and raised in western Pennsylvania, and is the daughter of two teachers. Her writing reflects her passions: science, history, and love—not necessarily in that order. In real life, the Geek gene runs strong in her family, as does the Asperger’s Syndrome. Her writing reflects her experience as a pediatric therapist and her interactions with society’s downtrodden. She’s a strong believer in underdogs and happily-ever-afters. She also writes non-fiction and lectures on the subjects of Autism and sensory integration and is a medical contributor to online journal The Age of Autism.
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Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Part Two
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Author’s Notes
Acknowledgements
About the Author
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