The Brink of Darkness (The Edge of Everything)

by Jeff Giles

  “Of course not,” said X, though he couldn’t bear the wait.

  Maud set Vesuvius on the ground. The cat arched his back grandly, yawned, then went back to sleep. Maud lay down and curled herself around him.

  One by one they all dropped off, save Regent, who prowled the tunnels to be certain they were safe.

  An hour later, X jerked up from the floor. Something had woken him. Regent was nowhere to be seen. X listened again for the noise that had jarred him. There it was again.

  A scraping. A scuffling.

  Boots.

  It wasn’t Regent. X knew the lord’s tread by now.

  A guard came around the corner, and stopped dead at the sight of X and the others. It was the Cockney guard who’d hauled Ripper down the river. He was one of Dervish’s most sycophantic minions. For a weapon, he carried the base of a lamp.

  X stood. The Cockney stepped backward.

  X knew that he and his companions looked like runaways—because they were runaways.

  “Wait,” he said.

  But the guard ran.

  X’s mind whirled. Should he wake the others?

  He chased the Cockney through three twists in the tunnel. The guard had a jutting belly and a shriveled-apple of a face—Ripper used to call him Mr. Ugly—but he was quick on his feet.

  When X drew close enough to reach for him, the guard spun, and jabbed him in the stomach with the lamp.

  X staggered. The guard moved in on him, panting.

  “Dunno wot you’re up to, but it’s sure to be mischief,” he said.

  X, still trying to find his breath, decided to gamble and tell the truth.

  “I am searching for my mother,” he said. “I have never known her. Never seen her.” The Cockney remained stony-faced. “Was your mother dear to you?”

  The guard eyed him.

  “Let’s not bring me dear mum into this,” he said.

  “I just want to know mine a little,” said X.

  The Cockney scratched the back of his neck with the broken lamp. A thatch of armpit hair poked through a hole in his shirt.

  “Fing is,” he said, “I don’t give a monkey’s arse what you want. Seems to me you fink you’re royalty. You ain’t. Seein’ as how you made me run and lose me breath, I’m gonna beat you nearabouts to death, then haul you back to Dervish. He’ll give me somethin’ for my troubles, I suspect—a bit of rest, like.”

  “You would betray me for a little sleep?” said X.

  “I’d do it for less,” said the guard.

  It was the last thing he said before Maud struck him from behind. She hit the Cockney once behind the legs to bring him down and once in the back of the head to knock him out.

  He fell to his knees, wavered, then toppled forward.

  “I didn’t want to do it,” Maud told X, “but he didn’t seem to be listening to reason.”

  “You’re quite right,” said X. “He’s one of Dervish’s spies, and he was about to take me apart. I owe you a debt.”

  He knelt, and inspected the Cockney to make certain he was unconscious.

  “Do we tell Regent?” said Maud.

  “If we do, he might call off the search for my mother,” said X. “He might think we’ve endangered ourselves.”

  Maud pursed her lips. X had only known her a matter of hours. He had no idea what she would say next.

  “Then we won’t tell him,” she said.

  They returned to where the Ukrainian and the cat lay sleeping. Maud had only just laid the bat near the guard’s open palm when Regent approached from the other direction, and told them it was time to press on.

  The Ukrainian, waking slowly, rubbed his face, and said, “Is morning, yes?”

  It was an old impulse from when he was alive, from when there were such things as mornings. X wanted to answer, but what could he say?

  Maud scooped up Vesuvius, and they headed deeper into the torch-lit tunnel. Almost immediately, the passage grew more cramped, as if it were funneling them together. Maud walked just behind X, and continued her story.

  “By the time I was twenty-five, Fernley was never home, particularly in the evenings,” she said. “I can’t describe the relief. Your mother had always wanted a child but she refused to give one to Fernley. She used to say, ‘I’d rather go to hell than make that man someone’s father!’ I’ve always remembered that, for obvious reasons. Fernley used to carouse with a surgeon friend. He’d come home at dawn, so drunk he couldn’t make it up the stairs. Your mother had to have the banister rebuilt twice because he crashed through it. Fernley had stopped leering at me for the most part. He actually told me that I was too old for him now—and he had turned forty-five! But I was grateful for the peace. I got lulled by the rhythm of the days, and I made the mistake of thinking I was safe.

  “It was November. Starting to get cold outside. I remember the windows were covered with bugs trying to get in. One morning, I got up especially early. Fernley was sprawled at the foot of the staircase. He was sleeping off a drunk. I couldn’t get around him, so I went to step over him—and his hand shot up and clutched my leg.

  “I screamed. Tried to shake free. But he pulled me to the ground, and climbed on top of me. His breath was horrid. He grabbed me, hard, between the legs. I heard a scream. It was your mother at the top of the stairs. She had the porcelain pitcher from her washstand in her hand. She flew down the steps at Fernley, and clobbered him with it. It didn’t knock him out. It just infuriated him. But it made him forget about me—and go after her. I ran to my room, and pushed my bureau in front of the door.”

  Maud paused before going on. They walked on awhile, the story suspended in the air.

  “I’ve always been ashamed of running away like that,” said Maud. “I think it must be the worst thing I’ve ever done.”

  “Why?” said X.

  “Because while I was hiding in my room—while I was holding Suvi and telling him everything would be okay—Fernley picked the pitcher off the floor, and beat your mother into a coma.”

  X stopped walking, and put his hands against the wall as if he might move it. The thought of Fernley hurting his mother sickened him. “Were Fernley in front of me,” he said, “I would knock him down, tell him that I’m my mother’s son, and put my foot upon his throat.”

  “I still rage at Fernley, too,” said Maud. “Even in my dreams. Even after nearly a hundred years. But, if you don’t mind my saying, the answer to a violent man is not always another violent man.”

  “I am sure you’re right,” said X. “Yet what is it, then?”

  “In this case,” said Maud, “it was two violent women.”

  “A stable hand carried your mother up to her bed for me,” she said when they were walking again. “Fernley refused to do it. He sent for the surgeon he caroused with, and told him your mother had been trampled by a horse. Fernley actually winked when he said it. The surgeon pretended to believe him. ‘Damned clumsy of her!’ he said.

  “Your mother was unconscious. Her bruises were horrific. She was sweating and swollen all over, so I packed her with ice—made a little ring around her. Days passed and the farm fell to pieces. Work came to a dead stop. Fernley was useless, and nobody would listen to him because everyone knew what he’d done. So he stood on the back steps one morning, and screeched that everyone was fired and would be jailed if they were not gone in fifteen minutes. He’d been drinking too much to afford them anyway.

  “I sat beside your mother all day, every day, in a rickety chair I brought up from the kitchen. I talked to her. Cleaned her. Rubbed her limbs to keep them from atrophying. I couldn’t tell if it was working. Fernley and the surgeon stumbled in every night, well and truly sloshed. They seemed pleased that your mother hadn’t recovered yet. If I gave them so much as a cross look, Fernley would slap me across the face or pinch my arm until it was blue.

  “One night, while I was pretending to sleep in my rickety chair, the surgeon announced that if your mother didn’t wake before morning, he’d h
ave to operate. He said he could relieve the pressure in her skull with some kind of drill, though it’d be dangerous and Fernley shouldn’t get his hopes up. He said the procedure sometimes left patients docile and spacey—sometimes even mute! Well, Fernley’s eyes lit up when he heard the words ‘docile’ and ‘mute,’ of course. He bent over your mother, and said, ‘Should we give it a shot, honeybun?’ Then he straightened up, and told the surgeon, ‘Honeybun thinks we should give it a shot!’ ”

  X slammed the wall with a fist as he walked.

  “Don’t,” said Maud. “Let me finish. All this is terrible to remember, but I want you to know everything your mother knew when she did what she did.”

  “I understand,” X said. “As far as I am concerned, you needed no more excuse to put Fernley in the ground.”

  X shoved his fists into his pockets, and Maud continued.

  “I spent that night begging your mother to wake, and trying again to rub life into her arms and legs. She didn’t open her eyes, but she wriggled a bit, which exhilarated me. Eventually I passed out next to her in the bed. I don’t remember when.

  “In the morning, I heard carriage wheels in the lane. The surgeon was coming. I pleaded with your mother again. I said, ‘Madam, please! Can you hear me?’ I said, ‘Madam, if you are ever to wake, for heaven’s sake, let it be now! The surgeon is coming, and what he intends to do to your skull … I cannot believe it is lawful and I know it is not godly!’

  “I had an idea. I’m ashamed of it now. In a way, it led to everything that came after—I don’t know if that makes it better or worse. Fernley had beaten your mother with the pitcher so badly that she was hard to look at, even for me who loved her. He’d shattered the pitcher doing it. I thought if I could remind him of how beautiful she was, he might change his mind about the drill. Your mother refused to keep cosmetics, as I’ve said. When Fernley went to greet the surgeon, I snuck downstairs and brought up a silver tray with whatever substitutes I could scare up, along with a camel-hair brush, a beet to redden her cheeks, and a broad knife to cut the beet with.

  “I talked to her as I worked. I begged her not to be angry about what I was doing. I moistened her eyebrows with coconut oil, then held a dish over the candle by her bed and darkened her lashes with the soot. They were tricks my mother had taught me. I sliced the beet with the knife, and pressed it against her face. I sponged her arms with vinegar. I could hear Fernley and the surgeon conspiring downstairs. I imagined pushing Fernley into a vat of lye, and holding him under with a stick. I imagined your mother and me cutting the surgeon in half with one of those two-handed saws they use to bring down trees. I patted her arms dry, and dusted them with powder, too. It was pointless. Heartbreaking. Her arms were still a mess of bruises. They looked like the spots on a leopard. Nothing would have covered them.

  “I began ranting about the surgeon and how he meant to turn her into an imbecile. I told her that I refused to lose her—that the surgeon would have to make me an idiot, too. I was just babbling. It took me a second to notice that your mother had opened her eyes.

  “I fell on her chest, weeping. I saw her remember what Fernley had done to her with the white pitcher. I saw her wince when she felt the ice I’d packed around her. She began wriggling, as if she wanted to get away from it, so I swept the ice onto the floor. Fernley and the surgeon were in the parlor, cooing over the drill they’d use to open your mother’s skull. Fernley sounded giddy—he asked if he could hold it!

  “Your mother still hadn’t spoken. She tried, but couldn’t. She looked me full in the eyes for the first time. I don’t know what I expected—happiness at the sight of me, maybe? relief?—but she looked inflamed. I thought she was angry about the powders and cream, so I apologized. I said I’d just wanted her to be beautiful again. But of course, she was furious at Fernley and the surgeon. She could see the state I was in. She was furious at what they’d put me through, too.

  “I heard them mounting the stairs. There was no one to help us because Fernley had dismissed all the workers. Your mother looked around the chamber. She saw the silver tray with the candle and the brush and the beet, which was now dripping and red. She finally spoke. Just one word. ‘Leave,’ she said. I refused. She shook her heard angrily, as if I hadn’t understood. She tried again. ‘Leave me,’ she said. Again, I resisted. I told her I’d die before I let Fernley and the surgeon have their way. She got even angrier. She was frustrated that she couldn’t make herself understood. She glared at her bruises and then at my own. She wanted me to see that she saw them. Then she finally completed the sentence that’d been stuck in her throat: ‘Leave me the knife.’ ”

  Maud paused, as if the moment were playing out again, right in front of her.

  “I handed it to her,” she said. “I’ve spent many, many years wondering if I should have refused. She took the knife, slipped it under the covers, and pretended to sleep. I sat down in my rickety chair. Fernley and the surgeon came in. Looking back, it was the only time I ever saw the surgeon sober. He looked awful. Pale. His hands were shaking, and he was so poorly shaven that I couldn’t tell if he’d even tried. I’d have rather he operated on your mother drunk! He was holding this evil-looking instrument. It was like something you’d use to drill for oil or dig a well, only a miniature version. It had four little legs so you could steady it on the patient’s head. There was a foot-long steel drill in the center—you carry a bit of it with you now—and a hand crank on top to make it turn. The thing wasn’t even clean.

  “Fernley crouched down next to your mother and said, in his phoniest voice, ‘Hello, honeybun!’

  “Your mother popped open her eyes.

  “Fernley was astonished. Your mother said, ‘Hello, Fern!’ Then she pulled the knife out and plunged it into his stomach. She looked right at him while she did it. Then she sliced upward with the blade—like she was … I don’t know. Like she was looking for his heart.

  “The surgeon rushed forward. It was almost comic. He slipped on the ice that I’d scattered on the floor, and fell. I don’t know if he could have done us any harm at that point, but I was so crazed with anger and fear that I picked up the drill, and bashed him across the mouth. Your mother begged me to stop—she didn’t want me to go to jail, too—but I couldn’t. I beat the surgeon until he was dead.”

  Maud fell quiet, like she was waiting for the memory of the murders to dissolve.

  “We laid the bodies in the surgeon’s own buggy, one on top of the other, and burned everything in the woods,” she said finally. “Afterward, your mother said, ‘It’s done. It’s done, and I am not sorry.’ We went back to the house. She picked up a piece of the porcelain pitcher and the tip of the drill bit to save. We scrubbed the bedroom. The ice had melted and turned the blood on the floor pink.

  “And then it seemed to be over. Your mother sold the house, and we moved to town. The local gossips had two theories. One was that Fernley and the surgeon had fled the state to escape creditors. The other was that they fled to get away from their wives. I doubt the sheriff even spent an hour investigating.”

  Just ahead, the tunnel divided into three. As the men clustered around, Maud repeated what X’s mother had said.

  It’s done, and I am not sorry.

  “I’m not sorry either,” she said. “I hear how terrible that sounds, but I don’t care.” She looked at Regent. “Not being sorry,” she said. “It’s one of the reasons we were damned, isn’t it?”

  “It is,” said Regent. He seemed to regret the answer. “You were unrepentant and unpunished. Each time I send a bounty hunter up to the world for a soul, I use those very words.”

  “Yet who could feel sorry for ridding the earth of such men?” said X. “My mother deserved a better life. As did you, Maud. As did you. Instead she was chained to a vile man. And when she declines to be his victim, what is her reward? She is damned! The lords send a bounty hunter to stop her breath and drag her here!” He knew he shouldn’t say the words that were crowding his head now, but he c
ouldn’t hold them back. “And the one who took her life was you, Regent. Of all people, it was you.”

  Regent surprised him by nodding.

  “Yes,” he said. “I have grieved over my role more than you can imagine. It helps me to remember that your mother did eventually find love. She found it, and—because neither Fernley nor even the Lowlands had extinguished her sense of her own worth—she knew she had a right to it.”

  “Why have you never told me anything about my father?” said X. “I do not for a moment believe you know nothing.”

  “I know one thing about your father, and it is a small thing,” said Regent. “I will not share it, for I cannot predict its effect on you.”

  “I am tired—very tired—of being controlled,” said X. “It appears I am like my mother, and I will not apologize for it.”

  He stalked down the tunnel to get away from Regent. Even Maud knew not to follow.

  “I know your father’s name,” Regent called after him. “Nothing more. And I swear to you, it is just a name, no more memorable than any other.”

  X turned back.

  “Speak it!” he said. “Speak my father’s name!”

  Even Maud and the Ukrainian leaned in, waiting.

  Regent closed his eyes.

  “Timothy Ward,” he said.

  X understood in an instant why the lord had withheld the name so long. The others seemed to know as well.

  “That is not a name from the Lowlands,” said X.

  Silence spread, like water seeking out every empty space.

  “No,” said Regent, “it is not.”

  X looked down at his battered boots to steady himself.

  “My father is still alive,” he said.

  “Yes,” said Regent.

  “Is he … Is he an innocent, then?” said X.

  “Yes,” said Regent. His voice warmed. “Like his son.”

  The lord paused.

  “I see that your thoughts are wheeling,” he said. “Your father cannot help your mother, nor can he help you escape the Lowlands. Your father does not even know that the Lowlands exist.”