I must… (Illegible script) … tonight. Otherwise she will.
--J.S.G.
Chapter 2
Journal Entry
Bedburg, Germany. April 25, 1896
With the passing months, Its transformation becomes more complete. I was too late to aid the two men It killed today. It sprang upon them, overpowering them both by surprise. They were strong men, woodcutters, though what It left of them was hardly recognizable as such. It tore through their chests as if searching for something. Small portions of various organs were bitten away. Eaten, I suspect, though the portions seem too small to offer It any real sustenance.
— J.S.G.
Malvern Mansion, June, 1909.
Charity lounged in the chair at the head of the table, savoring the thought of how horrified her mother would be at Charity’s undignified slouch. Charity’s friends chattered and ate dainties from the gold-trimmed china before them. They weren’t the town’s upper crust. They weren’t wealthy. Most of them didn’t have proper party dresses, some of them didn’t even have proper manners, but Charity didn’t care. Mother was gone, so was Daddy, so neither Vengeance nor Cluelessness would spoil the evening. The butler and the chef moved in and out quietly, perhaps not approving, but neither disputing Charity’s decision to throw a party for her friends without her parents’ knowledge. Little Molly sat at the end of the table, talking to Candace, the awkward girl whom Charity loved for her slow, but gentle keenness with the feelings of others. Molly was showing Candace the Great Dane puppies her parents had recently gotten for her, insisting that Candace hold the squirmy animals even though Candace tried to refuse. The puppies promptly curled up in Candace’s lap and went to sleep. All three of them. Candace was smitten. Molly laughed delightedly and said something Charity couldn’t quite make out. Candace laughed too, blushing. Molly made everyone feel special. She made everyone feel appreciated. She was perfect. Charity envied her. Charity had completed her most recent painting, and had it and three others sitting on an easel in the corner of the room.
They weren’t prominently displayed, just sitting in the corner off the end of the dessert table. Charity didn’t want to be showy. It would be an embarrassing blemish on her creative integrity if her work had to claim the spotlight to be noticed, but she wanted the paintings nearby, in case anyone did notice.
Marie, the thin girl with far too many feathers in the battered hat she never took off, took her seat beside Charity. Charity sat up a little straighter and feigned interest in the cherry tart on her plate. Marie’s thin fingers, which never seemed to stop moving, pulled some hair behind her ear. It escaped again immediately. Her fingers had ink stains on the tips, as did the ear.
“Magnificent,” she said, fixing her quick eyes on the painting she had just returned from inspecting. “Magnificent, doll. What do you call it?”
Charity’s heart swelled. “Which one, sweetness?”
“That one,” Marie said, fluttering her fingers at all of the paintings. “The one that captures rain in my heart, the one that bottles up a grey sky and keeps it always close for me to see when I need to feel a solemn day.”
Charity’s heart soared. The painting to the left was done with blues and blacks, swirling together at the top left corner and spreading down and across the canvas in a slow march of calming hues. It had been slow, tedious work to repair it, but Charity would not let her mother destroy her work so easily.
“Which one?” Charity asked again, desperately hoping Marie meant the one on the left.
“Why, the one on the left of course,” Marie blinked as if it was the strangest question she’d ever heard.
She’d painted the picture on a sleeting day, and it had flowed from her brush and heart as the dim water had washed down from the sky. No one had known of the inspiration, except Molly of course, but Marie had known. She had understood.
Charity couldn’t keep the tears out of her eyes. “Do you really think it’s good?”
“My dear,” Marie said with mock severity, drumming a tattoo of disapproval on the table. “What else could it be? You have it, doll. You have it.”
Charity grasped her friend’s hand. “Then it should be yours. You must take it and hang it where you can see it whenever you need the greyness for your writing.”
Marie’s eyes widened with pleasure. “Oh, I couldn’t doll. It is a part of you.”
Charity grasped her hand tightly. “And that is why it should be yours. Please.”
Marie’s un-clutched hand danced on the table top with pleasure. “Oh, I shouldn’t doll, but I will! It will hang to the left of my desk to announce the solemnity of what I do to all who enter. I will cherish it so.”
You already have, Charity thought, squeezing her friend’s hand. I love you, Marie.
Only then did Charity notice Bramley, the butler, standing beside her, his bald pate perspiring over his perpetually bored expression.
“Ms. Malvern, your other guests have arrived.”
Charity scanned the table. Clara and Anne were picking at a heap of shredded meat, but everyone else was seated and conversing happily and often impolitely. Charity stood and motioned him away from the chattering table. Everyone I invited is already here. Except William, she thought wistfully. He wasn’t like Mother, but he was still too proper to come to a party which otherwise consisted only of women. Maybe that was why she loved him. He belonged in another age, when men were intelligent, aloof, reserved, yet devoted.
“All my guests are here,” she said to Bramley.
“Evidently not,” the butler replied, unfolding the sheet of parchment in his hand.
She took it. It was one of the invitations she had sent out a week ago, or a very near approximation of it. The gold border was designed the same, as was the flowing script, announcing the party, time, location, etc. It had been done by the same hand, that of old Mrs. Calvert. But Charity herself had signed all the invites she’d sent out. This one was signed by her mother “on behalf of my beloved daughter, Charity.”
Charity’s stomach tightened. “Who’s at the door, Bramley?”
“The Misses Dowager, Wilson, Samson, Hokum, and Byrne. They all have invitations.”
Charity wanted to scream. She wanted to write a letter to her mother eviscerating her soul for this. The five girls at the door were the five girls in town who looked down upon Charity the most. They had laughed at her behind their grammar books when they were young, asked her to come to their parties when they were older so they could make her feel excluded when she got there, and they had always, always looked down on Charity’s friends. Charity looked over her table of misfits, who were only now, after an hour together, beginning to relax and enjoy one another’s company. Charity’s misery flared to a protective spite.
She could invite the girls to enter, in which case all of her friends would be mortified, embarrassed, and humiliated by the girls who had, since they were children, done nothing but remind them of how odd they were and how few earthly possessions they owned. Or, Charity could turn them away, in which case they would spread the tale of how disgracefully they were treated all over town.
Charity did not care how the girls or, for that matter, the entire town thought of her. And she rather liked the idea of the backlash against her mother’s social status. But she couldn’t run the risk of damaging her father’s reputation. The five girls at the door not only represented the perfectly proper ideal her mother never stopped trying to get Charity to adopt, but they also represented the wealthiest families in the area, besides her own. Their working relationships with her father allowed his business to flourish. Her Daddy, ruthless business shark though he was, was also a kind, doting father and she loved him.
Charity was furious, sad. Her selfish, meddling mother had trapped her again. Charity knew it. Charity knew her mother knew it.
* * *
Journal Entry
Rothenberg, Germany. February 1, 1899
I was loathe to bury the family because I had t
o touch their remains, which seemed, in my mental state, to make me party to their deaths. To my shame, I left them lay for others to find. Except the babe. I could not leave a baby for the animals to scavenge.
I begin to see now, this path could take my mind. The Science, the Art of Reason which I worship cannot by itself survive. See how my mind has turned against itself already—that in my sleep, I make up such things as protecting wolves, fanciful delusions to comfort myself. I wish it were not so. Yet when I wake, I oft shame myself by weeping for my beloved, and by being comforted at the thought of the wolves, that perhaps they protect her on some distant shore. Perhaps they watch over her as she sleeps.
— J.S.G.
The White Spruce Hunting Lodge, October, 1909.
Charity’s mother sat with her husband in front of a buggy-sized hearth. She sipped wine from a crystal glass, expertly keeping her rings from clinking against it. Her husband sat on the far end of the leather couch, wrapped in layer upon layer of the best hunting clothing money could buy. A fur hat imported from Russia sat too low over his eyes. He was trying to stomp on his sealskin boots, handmade in Alaska, but he could barely reach them because of all the shirts, coats, fur, and leather swaddled around his body. She wondered if he’d be able to get off the couch without help. While floundering after his boot tongues, he knocked over the rifle he had leaned against the chair arm. He fussed about clients and silly expectations, but Mrs. Malvern didn’t hear the words.
She took another sip, slow with regret. I know what you want, child. I know how badly you want it.
Mr. Malvern tried holding his breath, which only made the buttons on his coat more difficult to fasten.
Mrs. Malvern brought the glass to her lips, but her chin sank. If only you’d listen to me, Charity. The world simply doesn’t work that way. I wish it did. For both of us.
Mr. Malvern grunted, bending forward as hard as he could, smashing his padded stomach against his padded legs and straining his pudgy fingers to full extension, but he couldn’t reach his bootlaces.
Mrs. Malvern watched her portly husband. We must walk the path life lays before us. I won’t let you throw yours away. I will not be seen as the mother who could not care for her own. I will not fail you, no matter how much you fail me.
Mrs. Malvern set her jaw, regaining the composure and command without which she felt naked and alone. You will learn, child. You will survive. And you will flourish.
We will flourish.
* * *
Journal Entry
Lauffen, Germany. March 18, 1900
I never thought It would touch me. I am a man of science. I do not give place to superstition, nor the childishness of religion, and so I do not know how to reconcile what I have felt, and I am abased to admit what I have done. I have seen as It sees, I have felt as It feels. It is in wretched agony. Even though I may not believe, I am now faced with the knowledge that It does believe.
The old tales, what little remains of them, say It is not of this world, that It comes from a place of darkness, where It was severed, and that It answers to the same darkness. I know nothing exists which is not orderly, rational, and predictable, and I know all life begins, proceeds, and ends. Yet I also know that It exists, and I have no way to reconcile these things. And now I have an inkling of Its desires.
There is no god, but I wish for one tonight.
— J.S.G.
Malvern Mansion. Oct, 1909.
Molly lay in bed, feeling exhausted, weighed down. The covers were warm, and the down mattress was comforting, but the strife downstairs was neither of those things. Her mother and sister’s voices trumpeted again: fear and insecurity battling with pride and stubbornness. Her father was not to be heard, but he was undoubtedly there, saying well-meant but ill-fitted things which only inflamed. Peace had fled the house so long ago Molly was no longer sure she would recognize it if she saw it. Charity had come home with a tattoo on her back last week. Until tonight, Molly would have thought it could get no worse than that.
She shoved the covers off. They felt as heavy as her heart. It always hurt to do what came next. But the strife hurt whether she confronted it or not, so she had to try. Interposition was her place in the world. She laid a hand on the downy back of the lion who was taking up most of the bed beside her. His fur was thick and warm, and it glinted in the lamp light like ancient gold. His limpid eyes soaked her in. His name was Lysander, and he was never angry or mean or uncaring. He was infinitely strong. Strong enough to protect her from anything, but when he played with her on the mansion’s thick carpets, or when he curled around her to help her sleep, he was gentle and warm.
Molly knew she was growing up too fast. Trying to be the peacemaker was a lot for a twelve year old to carry, even if she didn’t precisely understand what that meant. Either way, she could always find solace in her imagination, and besides, Lysander had been her friend as long as she could remember. She stroked his mane and inhaled the scent of roses that always seemed to hang in it. Molly loved roses.
Her mother’s voice shrilled through the floor. It was the crazy-sounding aggressiveness she donned like armor when she felt her precious control was teetering. “You… you dared to touch my mother’s pearls!” She was beside herself, stumbling for words. “You… you have… soiled her memory! Stained her with your horrible… ungrateful… wretched…”
“Wish me luck?” Molly quirked a sad smile at Lysander.
In response, the lion closed his eyes and laid his big velvety nose against her forehead. He held her there for a long while, his sweet rose-breath ruffling her hair, letting her know he would always be with her, and would always love her.
Fortified again by the tattered bits of peace she gained from him, Molly let her imagination slip away. Lysander faded, first his image, then his breath, then his touch. She suddenly wished Garret Vilner was with her. It was an odd thought. After all, she hadn’t spoken to him a half dozen times, but he always seemed to notice her when he thought she wasn’t looking. He noticed her like everyone else had suddenly disappeared, or as if she were a flower he’d never seen before, but feared might suddenly wilt if he stepped too close.
Charity’s voice cut through the floorboards like a saw, ripping and splintering. “Don’t you love me, Daddy?”
Her father said something placating. Molly’s mother ran over him. “You will tell me where you went, what you did, and you will tell me who saw you! You will tell me or I’ll… I’ll…!”
Molly stood, donned her houseshoes, lifted the lamp off her night table, and slipped out the bedroom door.
She followed the sounds of discord down the mansion’s staircase, across a couple thickly rugged halls and under a vaulted ceiling. She didn’t need the lamp in her hand to find her way, neither was she afraid of the dark, but she kept warmth and light close by whenever she could. The screaming was coming from the end of the south hall, so the altercation was taking place in her father’s study this time.
“I told you no!” Her mother’s scream echoed. “I absolutely forbade you to leave the house and you dare… you dare to—!”
Molly could hear the triumphant smile in her sister’s voice. “I am my own woman.” Her voice became lofty as if she was quoting. “The art cannot be destroyed by those lesser. Only repressed for a while to bloom fuller—”
“You are not a woman! You are a seventeen year old ingrate daughter living in my house and you will do as you are told!”
The words entered Molly like shafts of dark ice. People could choose warmth and happiness if they wanted. Everyone had the choice. Why didn’t they make it? Molly pushed through the heavy double doors. Her sister Charity, willowy, regal, and proud, lay back in a Louis XVI chair. She had draped herself over the chair much as she had draped the shockingly revealing dress over her long legs and the curves of her hips. Molly had no idea where one would even go to get such a dress.
Her short, round mother was being physically restrained by her short, round father. Or something a
kin to restraint. Mrs. Malvern clutched a string of pearls in one hand, but seemed to have forgotten them, bent as she was on sinking her long nails into her daughter’s hide to pin her down, nail her down, lock her in a closet forever: whatever it took for Mrs. Malvern to again have a proper and respectable world in her palms.
It made Molly squirm to see Mother like this. She was so prim. Always composed, always in charge of herself. Molly knew it was worse than death for her decorum to be ripped from her as it was now. Molly’s Daddy couldn’t really restrain Mother, but he stayed in the way and they kept bouncing off each other, so Mrs. Malvern’s long fingernails never quite made it to Charity’s throat.
“My name!” Mother rasped. “My good name and my standing! How did a wretch like you ever come from this family?”
“Your name? Your name?!” Charity rose in the chair like a cobra spreading its hoods. “Is there nothing in this whole goddamn world that isn’t about YOU and your goddamned gossip circle?!”
Mrs. Malvern boiled higher, “How dare you use that word in—”
“Word?! What fucking word, Mother? How about the word ‘Malvern’, you fat, self-centered old bitch? I’ll use the word ‘Malvern’ wherever and whenever I want, and you can stand back and watch your reputation crumble, because it’s mine too! Mine to do with as I please. You never cared about me or my art or my happiness with William! You never took a minute’s time to—”
This time, Mrs. Malvern’s scream was exactly that—a long bloody scream. No words. Just desperate rage, followed by, “I gave you life! I’ve given you food and clothing and shelter. I’ve taught you everything I know,” she held up the string of pearls in her hand and shook them. “This is how you repay me!”
Molly had not yet been noticed. She thought she might vomit. This has to stop. She flinched with each escalation as she searched for an angle. An opening. Anything to diffuse the situation.
Brimstone Page 2
