Brimstone

by Daniel Foster

  And always, always Mother’s voice in the background. Nothing could drown out Mother. Mother was there, shaking her head in disdain, yelling at Charity for being improper when Brommel forced himself on her in the night.

  Mother’s cold voice was there. And the lapping water, quiet against the iron sides of the tub. And Goldblume’s hands, holding her under until she passed out from the cold, time and time again. And Brommel’s hands hurting her, bruising her, and taking from her whatever they wanted.

  Lapping ice water. Cold. Charity passed out.

  * * *

  Journal Entry

  Pienza, Italy. Sept. 23, 1907

  As I write this entry, I am tearful with joy! Hope springs in my breast for the first time in many years. My discovery came thusly. Again, I watched the creature withdraw from a person It had intended to take. I watched It flee as I have seen a dozen times before. Finally, though, I realized from what It fled. Rebellion. A thousand aspects of size, psychology, gender, health I have analyzed, but never did I stop to realize the creature might be repelled by acts the person had committed. In the moment, as It withdrew from the woman, leaving her shaking and spitting blood upon the floor, I realized what I had seen so many times before.

  This woman was a leader for women’s suffrage, a rebel against convention. The last man from which It withdrew was a freedom fighter, so-called, one of the anarchists in France. The man before was a teacher, but a proponent of that disgraceful blemish upon education, the “Freedom System.”

  Each of these, and the many before them, were rebels in their own right, and though the creature would take them, some for only a second, others for an hour or more before leaving, I noticed that It was always the weaker inside them.

  It needs, but It cannot keep. The answer lies there.

  — J.S.G.

  The Appalachian Mountains. February, 1911.

  Goldblume was plying the large, curved calipers to her head again, measuring her skull this way and that, calling out the measurements to Brommel, who was writing them down at her father’s table. Brommel’s fat fingers were as clumsy and forceful with a pencil as they were with everything else.

  Goldblume began running his wiry fingers through Charity’s hair again. They had strapped her to a chair with a headrest, immobilizing her completely, so she could do nothing but close her eyes and shiver at Goldblume’s touch. He still had the swollen red crescent on his forearm from where she’d sank her teeth into him a couple days prior. At least she had that to look back on.

  He ran his fingers over her skull in a thoughtful way, almost caressing, feeling every lump and indentation of her cranial structure as if it was a roadmap to her soul. He’d explained the “science” of it before, but she had shut him out as best she could, as she always did. She knew only that he thought the shape of the skull reflected the shape of the brain inside it, and therefor gave some predictive power for a person’s aptitudes and inclinations.

  “The brain is not a single organ, Ms. Malvern. It is a conglomerate, a system of cooperating parts. The size and shape of each of those parts determines how they interplay, and what characteristics they confer on the person.”

  He felt behind her ear, then relayed to Brommel, “She has the most developed combative center I’ve ever seen in a female. Not that I’m surprised. Note it as, ‘highly distinctive’.”

  He rubbed mirrored places on either side of her head, up high, partway between her eye and ear. He plied the calipers to them again.

  “Ms. Malvern, I’m afraid you are not as well suited to the arts as you might like to think. These areas,” he rubbed the spots again and touched one on the back of her skull, “Indicate that you are more suited to religion and the rearing of children. Do you take comfort in tales of God? Do you find peace in Bible readings or church services?”

  Goldblume’s roaming fingers paused in thought. “Your mother believes in God. If you are inclined the same way, then would her beliefs not be fueling your rebellious predilections? I think so. This could be an issue.”

  He continued to feel over her skull, tapping a few places. “Brommel, I am still concerned about areas 15 and 31. I’m beginning to suspect she may be completely incapable of empathy. From now on, I want her immobilized at all times so she does not injure you or I.”

  One month later

  Charity couldn’t fight anymore, mentally, physically, or emotionally. She just tried to swallow as fast as she could. Swallowing was difficult in the leather straps and buckles that immobilized her head, but she managed. Brommel kept his flabby, stubble-covered face close to hers as he shoved the nameless gruel into her mouth. It ran down her chin and spattered on her naked, aching body. She tried to swallow it, not because she’d given up on her life, and certainly not because she’d given up hating the both of them, but simply because the less she got on herself, the less he would get to wipe off her bare skin with his cold, leather-like hands.

  Brommel coughed in her face, spraying her with spittle. She flinched, quivered, and managed to strangle a scream in her throat before it could tear its way free and disgorge the mouthful of food onto her breasts and stomach. His spittle meant little to her now, but it reminded her of his other bodily fluids, which made her want to scream, kill him, and die herself, in that order.

  He had a way of breathing out through his fat lips (they were purplish at the moment because Charity had head-butted him the night before) which made a whistling sound. It wasn’t a pleasant whistle, like her Daddy used to make as he filled out client invoices in his office. Brommel’s whistle was a wet, fat sort of sound, like a pig would make before devouring a truffle. He shoved another spoonful of greasy gruel into her mouth and clacked the spoon against her teeth.

  Another whistling exhale.

  Goldblume appeared in Charity’s periphery, removing hat, scarf, and coat. An icy gust rolled over her, announcing he’d just opened and closed the door.

  “Are you feeding her properly?” he asked Brommel.

  Charity cursed through another mouthful which Brommel had stuffed into her face before she’d finished the last one.

  Goldblume sat down beside her, his face suddenly severe. “Charity, we’ve had this discussion enough. I know it isn’t pleasant, but you, like all thin women have too little blood in your system. We must build up your body with fat so you will be better able to withstand the Treatment.”

  Charity sank within herself. She had no idea what the Treatment was. He kept referring to it like an archeologist might refer to the Holy Grail, but every time he spoke of it, Brommel seemed to shrink. The look which overcame him was something between awe and disgust. She had felt Brommel’s hands and his body and his lusts. She saw him every miserable day. She watched him watch her when he led her outside on a chain to relieve herself.

  She could not imagine in her worst nightmares what “Treatment” could disgust him.

  * * *

  “Mother, where’s Charity?”

  Mrs. Malvern took a deep breath and appeared to be steadying herself, or at least reining in a thunderous response. When she turned to face Molly, she had her smile adjusted properly, but to Molly’s eyes, it was riddled with cracks.

  “Antonia dear, I can’t imagine why we continue to have this conversation. I’ve told you several times that she’s being attended by the best doctors in the world. They will make her well again, and then we will have your sister back again, healed and repaired and proper.”

  I like my sister the way she is, all I want is for her to smile again, which she’d do if you’d just accept her, Molly thought.

  “Mother,” Molly said slowly, seeking the tone that would walk the line between being respectful and demanding respect in return. “But where have they taken her?”

  “I told you dear,” Mrs. Malvern replied, her smile stretching wide and tight as a bow string, and the skin on her face drawing thin, “I don’t know where they’ve taken her. That was one of their conditions. So for the last time…”

&n
bsp; Molly turned her ears off. She couldn’t listen to any more lies, but she made herself look at the ghastly, animated mannequin of a mother so it wouldn’t get angry and feel disrespected. Molly’s insides were tight with worry for Charity. Molly couldn’t sleep, she couldn’t eat, and every time she’d asked her mother where the men had taken Charity, her mother had lied to her. Before this, she and her mother had always been honest with one another.

  Her mother’s explanation sounded so perfect, but it required her mother to retreat and hide away somewhere behind her own eyes so she didn’t have to look at the fourteen year old daughter to whom she was lying. So her mother couldn’t look, and Molly couldn’t listen.

  Mrs. Malvern prattled on. She looked as if she was being suffocated by her own smile. The tension in her mother’s face was pushing Molly towards panic. They’re going to hurt Charity. Molly could see it in her mother’s eye. Her mother knew it, and she was hiding from it. Molly was hyperventilating. They’re hurting her. You know it.

  Molly had never before challenged her mother. Molly never talked back. Molly was the peacemaker, but she screamed it. “Mother, where’s Charity!”

  Molly found herself up on her tiptoes, pointing her finger in her mother’s face. “You sold her out! You hate Charity’s rebellion because it reminds you of everything you failed at! You can’t stand that she’s going to do what her heart wants when you were too afraid! They’re hurting my sister and you know where she is! NOW TELL ME WHERE!”

  The cold marble of the house echoed with Molly’s shriek. Her finger was trembling, but she kept it in her mother’s face.

  Mrs. Malvern shrank six inches in as many seconds. For the first time in her life, Molly realized how old her mother had become. Her temples were grey, her eyes wore crow’s feet of weariness from trying to maintain a flawless image. Mrs. Malvern shrank and shrank until she was nothing more than a tired, frightened, overweight mother with not one, but two daughters who had thrown themselves at her.

  Mrs. Malvern backed away from Molly’s finger as if it were a gun, or maybe a noose. One in which she was almost willing to hang herself, but not quite yet. She turned and ran from Molly. Her voice was broken when she told the servants to ready her buggy. When they dawdled, she demanded it, but it was the plaintive cry of a child.

  * * *

  Molly crouched behind a stall door in the stables. Gerard, the roan gelding, pawed at the straw beside her and neighed. He wasn’t used to someone being in his stall without paying attention to him. She reached up and laid a hand on his leg to quiet him.

  In the aisle, Mrs. Malvern was pounding on something and whimpering. She had sent the servants away a few moments ago with an angry bark. They would have left her alone as soon as they were finished hitching the buggy to the horses, but Mrs. Malvern didn’t want them to leave, she wanted to order them away. So she had. Which had left her with the buggy half-hitched.

  Molly crept forward and knelt at the edge of the stall so she could peer between two of the slats. Her mother was trying to get the straps through the rails and failing miserably. She dropped the rail once, twice, as if her hands weren’t under her mind’s control. Molly bit her lip and had to resist the urge to run and give her mother a hug. Molly forced herself to remain kneeling in the hay, petting Gerard’s elbow and hoping he wouldn’t accidentally step on her foot.

  Mrs. Malvern fumbled in frustration, but somehow, the job came together and both horses ended up hitched to the buggy. Mrs. Malvern kicked a milking stool over near the buggy and stepped up on it. From there, it was a short reach up to the buggy step, and a longer reach up into the buggy. Mrs. Malvern grasped the sides of the buggy and tried to hoist herself, but she usually had a servant or two to help her. Now she had no one.

  Mrs. Malvern’s big frame teetered. Molly grabbed the top of the stall partition in preparation to vault it, but Mrs. Malvern’s weight shifted the right way and she lurched into the buggy. Not that Molly knew what she would have done if it hadn’t.

  Hat askew, grey hair escaping her bun, Mrs. Malvern snapped the reins and barked at the horses. They pranced and took off at a skittish trot. Molly was in the air, having thrown herself over the partition. She hit the ground running. Charity would have been proud to see how well Molly had learned Charity’s vault. However, Molly hadn’t expected her mother to take off so quickly. The carriage rattled down the cobblestone lane away from the carriage house and Molly ran like the dickens after her. She was in broad daylight now. She’d just have to hope the servants didn’t see her, or if they did that they wouldn’t call out to her mother.

  They neared the tall, wrought iron gates, which unfortunately were already standing open. Her mother wouldn’t have to stop to open them. Molly poured on the speed, but her dress wasn’t helping anything and the cobblestones were bruising her heels. The buggy rolled through the gate, still some twenty feet ahead of Molly and she knew her mother was going to pick up the pace. No no no! Molly almost screamed for her mother to stop, but then, miraculously, Mrs. Malvern did. She hauled back on the reins and dug in her pocket for something.

  While Mrs. Malvern cursed at the horses, which were prancing in the harnesses because their driver was so ill at ease, Molly scrambled up into the floorboard of the rear seat. She hid beneath the wool blanket they kept there for cold days. With another crack of the reins, they were off again, the buggy bouncing and slamming over bumps, tossing Molly around carelessly. Molly kept quiet, though. Less than a quarter mile from the gate, she felt the buggy take a right turn and begin to climb. They were headed towards Red Stone Ridge.

  The road quickly roughened, the ride becoming so cruel that it felt as though the buggy floorboards were enjoying the task of beating her senseless. It would have been bad enough sitting in the overstuffed leather seat. She was going to be bruised from head to toe.

  After an interminable time of being beaten by the boards, the buggy under Molly turned left again. It bottomed its leaf springs over a bump and the impact broke something loose in Molly’s psyche. It had been there for a long time, a latent, ugly potential, but it had been so repugnant that she had kept overlooking it, pushing it down. Covering it up. But the jouncing buggy broke it loose, and it bloomed in Molly’s face. She pressed her palms into her mouth. Mother, if they’ve hurt Charity, I’ll never forgive you. I’ll hate you forever, and I don’t want to.

  As usual, no one cared what Molly wanted.

  * * *

  After an eternity of pounding and pain, the buggy slowed to a stop. Molly wanted to crawl to the edge of the buggy, fall out on the ground, and whimper for a while, but she forced herself to hold still. She felt the buggy tilt and creak under her mother’s unsteady dismount. It sounded like she stumbled a bit.

  “Charity?” her mother called out, moving away from the buggy.

  If she was calling for Charity, she was probably looking away from the buggy, so Molly raised the edge of the blanket and took a peek.

  The buggy was sitting at the end of a mountain road. A small, but sturdily built cabin huddled under pine trees nearby. Molly knew the cabin well. She’d spent many a night in it as a little girl. It was her Daddy’s thinking cabin, where he went when he needed a quiet place to plan and make important business decisions.

  Her mother had let the doctors take Charity to their Daddy’s thinking cabin. That was perverse. She and Charity had so many warm memories there with Daddy, and now all was sullied. No matter what Mother found when she opened the door, the goodness had already been destroyed. Something precious and irreplaceable had been taken from Molly and Charity both, one of the few places of true happiness in their childhoods. One of the few places Mother and her orders and her demands had not entered.

  For a moment, Molly pictured herself screaming and clawing her mother’s eyes out. She felt horrible about the thought. Her mother was standing in the shadowy doorway. She’d opened it, but hadn’t entered. Not a light in the cabin was burning. It was cool and dark, its small shape fading into the wo
ods as twilight settled. As far as Molly could see from the buggy, the cabin was cold and dark as if no one had been there in months. Her mother seemed to have frozen in the doorway.

  Molly curled up, pulling the thick blanket tight around her as if it would protect her from whatever was coming. Her mother was backing away, tripping, stumbling. Molly threw the blanket aside and ran. Mrs. Malvern collapsed halfway back to the buggy and exploded in sobs. Huge, hollow cries of anguish. And despair.

  Molly fell into her mother’s arms, and the tired old woman sobbed like a baby. Molly bawled too. One look at her mother’s face told her everything. Mrs. Malvern was destroyed. Broken to pieces. From the place Mrs. Malvern’s eyes had gone, there would be no return.

  No, no no no no. Molly’s heart stumbled within her. Her whole being shuddered and tried to lay down on her. It’s not true. It can’t be true! She’s alive! Molly snapped like a dead twig, overloaded with snow.

  Her sister, Charity, was no more.

  Chapter 5

  The wind whipped around, pulling on all the black dresses and coats of the people around Molly. It raked at her black hat and chanted in her ear, Dead, dead, your heart is dead. Everything you love is dead.

  Everything else was dull grey, especially the man in the robes, Father Bendetti, who was prattling on about “God reclaiming one of his blessed children.”

  Charity wasn’t a blessed child of God, she was Molly’s sister, and Molly wanted her back. Dead, dead, Charity is dead, and it’s all your fault, the wind said.

  “Like a flower, taken from us before its tender bud could burst into bloom,” Bendetti added. “But we will treasure the memory of her. Charity’s laugh, her smile.”

  I want to stab him with something, Molly thought. Charity would have, so presumably someone should. Molly had no idea where the crazy thoughts were coming from. They were just swimming around inside her head, drowning in a sea of grief. Her lip crumpled. Maybe this was what it had been like to live inside Charity’s head all her life.