by Amy Rachiele
Sybrina
By
Amy Rachiele
Copyright © 2014 Amy Rachiele
Edited by: Christine LePorte
Cover Art by: Amy Rachiele
Kindle Edition
*****
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system without the prior written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or deceased, is entirely coincidental.
To:
Liz & Sam
“They are Man’s and they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance and this girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased.”
―Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
From the Author:
We always have to go backward to move forward. Whether it’s to face our own missteps or reach the end of our lives with a final mistake... We always have to go back to pull ourselves out of ignorance or cast ourselves deeper into revenge.
Amy Rachiele
Prologue
Elijah:
War.
It is a societal domination that never dies with the progress of mankind. It crafts a vampiric buffet table, blood-soaked earth the tablecloth. The meal encased in shiny metals forged to futilely protect its fragile hosts. Hunting is easy and enshrouded in the mayhem, despair, and fear that accompany battle. It disguises the vampires’ unnatural feast making us undetectable. The remnants left behind are contorted in some bizarre repose. The only indication of its death being of unnatural causes.
A fruitless meandering brought me to the Russo-Turkish war. The plain lines of unremarkable uniforms jumbled against the ground piled two to three deep was like walking through a meadow of flowers, crowded together and all the same. My unhurried walk is slow for my kind. I have nowhere in particular to be or wish to be, filling my deathless body my only task.
A gloved hand rises, black and torn, changing the terrain before me. I walk to it and bend down. I know not what draws me to the dying Cossack but the hand beckons to me among the dead. The irony interests me. I flip off the rubble that is charred limbs and body parts of his deceased comrades. A young, clean, unlined face, chiseled as though made of marble, stares back at me. Eyes not clouded with the shadows of death, but vibrantly blue and warm with life.
In the cavalry’s haste, someone tasked with the gruesome ordeal of clearing the dead has mistaken this wounded man as a corpse. I shuffle more debris and expose the man’s legs. Beneath, they are attached barely by sinew and fragments of broken bone. My original thought of this man’s happenstance, being mistaken for dead, is quelled. The condition of his injuries, blood loss, and damage make him a worthless endeavor for a surgeon. Others in this situation would be pallid and unconscious, rapping on the door of death. This man’s spirit is strong.
“Are you death?” he asks me.
Contemplating his question, I stifle a sardonic chuckle. In the truth of my existence, I can be either, take life or give it, eternally. I take more time, as if I am drawn to this soldier, to examine him closely. His body is ready to face the other side, but his mind is not.
“No.” I smile weakly.
“What are you then?”
“What do you think I am?” I question back curiously.
“A wraith,” he surmises, looking thoughtful.
A ghost would be too easy of a life, I think as I laugh at his response. A phantom to walk among the living and not have to partake of their company, but watch them with curiosity and indifference, having no substance or feelings to interfere. I would welcome such an existence.
“I am neither wraith nor human.”
“Do you have a soul, sir?”
“I do. A spirit like any other man.”
A small breeze travels past our intimate meeting and the Cossack’s blond hair dances around his face. He casts his eyes away from me and peers up into the cerulean sky, thinking.
“Are you here to save me?”
“What do you need saving from? To be able to leave this world and pass on to another is the gift of being human.”
“That path... it doesn’t seem to be the right one.”
“I have seen a great deal of death in my long days, and I know very few are ever ready for it when it comes.”
The maimed soldier contemplates and answers surprisingly again. “I would say very few are ready for love when it comes.”
My cheek lifts, forming a half grin in amusement. “I believe that is true as well.”
“I feel nothing from my waist down. Can you help me?”
“I can. But what I have to offer comes with a heavy price.”
“Name it.”
“Eternal existence in this world.”
Chapter 1
Sybrina:
I am shivering in the raw cold that permeates the stale sea air. My stomach rolls and lurches with every pitch of the ship. Deep in the belly of the cargo hold, I sit and suffer. I struggle to take in a good filling breath, but am stunted by the tight bandages I have lashed around my bosom. My brother’s pants are rough against my dry skin, and I have to keep scratching for relief. I pull my hat down around my eyes, willing myself to be somewhere else, the before of the decimation of my life as it used to be. I fight with the brim and wrap my arms around myself as I lean against a pillar that sustains the ship’s integrity.
Makeshift beds and living areas fill the wooden ship’s lower level. The timber makes the walls dark and dank. A moldy scent is trapped in the motionless air.
The Water Witch is famed for its speed, a golden nugget in the clipper ship fleet that has cast its spell over greedy merchants and British aristocrats. The remarkable innovation of steamships has made The Water Witch a breed amongst itself, making the fare more reasonable but the voyage longer. A swift escape to the solitude of the ocean is my goal.
The father of the family behind me coughs viciously, and I cringe with every jolt of his sick body. The woman with him attempts to comfort him but to no avail. She speaks soothingly to him as he continues a dreadful reposed dance of uncontrollable choking. Her murmurs are heartbreaking.
Across the leaky boards of the ship’s floor a baby cries, desperate for relief of the ship’s desolation. Many people who are stuck in this hole with me convulse and retch when they should be hours into their sleep. The deck crew and the goings-on above have grown quiet.
I am hiding in this hellish water-born vault from the depraved atrocities that have plagued me. I had not time to grieve nor the luxury to prepare, just the gruesome vision of my family laid out, white, lifeless, and drained. The images flash through my mind, haunting me while my body fights to find sleep.
I long for school. Medical school was an achievement that took me years to acquire and moments to lose. I was the only woman at Oxford studying medicine. I climbed my way through thornbushes to convince my parents and the university to accept me. Finally, in 1866, they allowed my attendance, if only out of annoyance at my constant pestering. It cost my father double the tuition in contributions and many letters to colleagues in England to forge my admittance.
His cantankerous demeanor shrouded his true pride at his daughter’s achievement. My father indulged my most insignificant whims and lavished me like only the most elite Americans of this age can. The untimely and sinister deaths of all my family members unleashed the vile snakes of good society, pilfering and claiming all tha
t was mine in the guise of propriety and law.
Sir Allen Ainsworth, now deceased, summoned the worst of libertines. If my family’s deaths were of a natural cause, I would have rallied myself and challenged all of the vipers in their dens. But the exsanguination of my family turned my spirits from battle to flight.
And here I find myself on this voyage back to England for self-preservation. The diabolical creature that can wrench the blood from a body now pursues me. I mask myself in boy’s clothes and disguise my womanly figure in an attempt to muddy my appearance to the one that follows me. I conceal myself in the depths of this sea monster that carries trade goods and less fortunate people back and forth across the ocean—alone, friendless, and a family of one.
The devastating difference in my previous accommodations while traveling back and forth between America and England is a harsh reality. I will not allow my misfortunes to rule me. Private quarters, fresh linens, and fancy dining with the captain are privileges of the past.
The scurrying and scratching, now that night has fallen, fills me with dread. Beady eyes come out looking for scraps of food. The dim glow of tiny lanterns is the only light. My body’s exhaustion succumbs, and I finally sleep.
The grandeur of my family home is before me in the shrouded beauty of a dream. The lithe, lean white columns that seem to endlessly cast a stairway to the sky always created a sense of comfort. My home has always been admired by all who come to see it for many generations. It has been the unshakable ground of births, celebrations, and—I wish not to ponder it—deaths.
A man fully dressed in black stands at the doorway of my childhood home. His face is cold and his pallor unhealthy. He shuffles me quickly inside; this undertaker is apathetic and forces me through the doorway. I feel the grasp of his fingers under my arm. I am propelled into the dining room. Three long wooden tables with unremarkable legs are before me. On top are mountainously awkward and clean figures covered in white polished sheets.
The undertaker moves me closer. The inches to our target are strangely long, as though I am now in a tunnel. My heart is stuttering in slumber as unnaturally as it did those few months ago. He reaches his hand out slowly and pulls back a corner of the sheet. There, beneath its crispness, is my mother. Her eyes are wide like large, extraordinary marbles. Her hands and arms are contorted and bent as if she has been asked to mimic a meager praying mantis. The ghastly commonality of my mother’s last repose and that of an insect is morbidly wicked.
“I am so sorry, Miss Sybrina,” the undertaker says.
I am so sorry, Miss Sybrina.
I am so sorry, Miss Sybrina.
I am so sorry, Miss Sybrina.
His words resonate as if a horse is clip-clopping by in a canter. He drops the sheet and I scream, “Leave me!”
Leave me!
Leave me!
Leave me!
Leave! Me!
I clasp the layer, with despair and anger, in my hands and bury my weary face in it, bunching and wrinkling its starched perfection. I squeeze it tightly against my eyes in a vain attempt at wiping the vision away.
As I breathe in, I am reminded of my own bedchamber on a warm summer’s night, newly adorned with freshly laundered linens, cool against my skin.
*****
The next morning, the wailing cries of a woman wake me. It takes me a moment to remember where I am, and then cold hard reality slips its way back into my consciousness. The father of the family behind me didn’t make it through the night. My assumption is tuberculosis, but I can’t be sure without examining him. Listening to the woman cry and the unpleasantness of my night’s sleep make my own eyes tear.
Dreams are unnatural reoccurrences of memories we wish to entomb. I shake off the misery of the recollections and focus on the nausea of seasickness and hunger. I roll to my side hoping to stifle the churning of my stomach.
My unhealthy fascination with cadavers is what saved me and sent me into hiding. A few cases of exsanguination in the local population roused the interest of some my professors. The knowledge of this unconventional and unexplained disease piqued my interest as well.
I examined and conferred with many contemporaries and seasoned surgeons. The perplexing qualities of the corpses, slackened jaw, saucer-like eyes, bent arms, and complete loss of blood, are like no known disease or plague studied or reported. Many an hour I spent in the campus laboratory attempting to figure how this heinous fate develops.
This unladylike, but scholarly, pursuit kept the suitors away. One young man thought that my interests were fleeting and eventually having children would cure me of my odd fetish for medicine. His bloated pride and egotistic vision of himself could not hold on, and soon his infatuation with the daughter of a highly respected and sought solicitor and politician waned. I give him credit for holding on longer than the others. I showed him as much attention as anyone, none. I did my duty as much as propriety required without offending. I curtsied, smiled, and looked up demurely from my eyelashes. But only thought to myself...
Another bumbling fool with too much money in his pockets, and nothing else in his pants to go along with it besides his brain because clearly there was naught in his head.
I gingerly turn and observe the mourning family. There was nothing I could do; advanced consumption is fatal. My quick deduction of his diagnosis was correct as I observe the bloody rags scattered around the floor by the body. The work of Robert Koch and Hermann Brehmer has alleviated deaths and limited the spread of the disease, but among the poor the mortality rate is still very high.
The wife, probably in her early thirties, rocks back and forth sobbing uncontrollably, her brown hair half fallen from her bun on the back of her head. The husband is slumped and motionless.
A few minutes later deckhands come below to remove the corpse, a rough-looking lot with burly muscles and month-old unwashed skin. I watch as they wrap the lifeless body in a timeworn sail.
Feeling useless, I take this opportunity to use the communal chamber pot. It is the first time I’ve had to share. My other voyages were much more opulent.
I walk to the ragged bed sheet that hangs from the rafters on a frayed rope. The putrid smell halts my steps. I clutch my bound chest in an attempt to stop myself from expelling the meager contents of my stomach. I suck in a breath and hold it. Then I do my business as quickly as possible.
I sit back against the pillar that I used for my bed last evening. I reposition my hat to hold my hair underneath it. I lay my head in exasperation against the column. I truly feel the cruel and devastating reality of my state settle into my brain.
A deckhand calls from above.
“Cap’n wants everyone topside!” he yells. The crowd doesn’t move but murmurs amongst itself. “Now!” he shouts, berating the masses.
Slowly, and single file, each lowly passenger creeps up the rickety ladder. Some carry their children in their arms. I sling my only belongings left in the world over my shoulder, and take my place in line. As I reach the main deck, I blink rapidly against the harsh sunlight. My eyes focus, and I am amongst my fellow passengers in a huge crowd.
Standing above us and looking down is the captain. He is dressed in a navy coat with shiny gold buttons that run down the sides of his lapel. A hat, which can only be described as fancy, sits on his head.
“Welcome aboard!” he bellows. His voice sounds anything but welcoming. “I am Captain Benjamin Stokes. This journey is a minimum of two weeks. You are to stay below unless you are called for. There is no doctor and there will be two meals a day unless the food runs out. The chamber pot will be emptied once a day, more if you have a volunteer among ya.” He pauses and sets his hands on the railing. He leans slightly toward us. The toughness of his skin is evident in the shining bright rays of the sun. The salty sea air and sunbeams wreak ruinous havoc on the captain, making his ominous demeanor more menacing.
“Let me make myself clear. I don’t want to see ya, and I don’t want to hear ya. My crew works for me and for me onl
y. They are not here to take care of the likes of you.”
A deckhand standing by his side whispers something in his ear. The captain nods his head and gives us back his full attention.
“Are there any o’ ye here who can read?” he calls out.
I look around the crowd after his odd request; a couple of hands slowly rise, hesitantly. I allow mine to creep up. The captain makes his way down from his perch to the main deck. Some faceless deckhand or officer hands him a book. He locks eyes with me, and I shiver involuntarily. He walks toward me purposefully, and shoves the book at me.
“Here. The minister aboard is ill,” he barks gruffly.
I peer down at my hands, disbelieving. The captain has placed a Bible in them. He waves and two deckhands come forward. They are carrying the body from this morning. They walk to the edge of the railing and stand facing each other, the white shrouded figure of the dead father between them.
“Well,” the captain says, annoyed with me. “Read!”
I turn my eyes back to the book and the gleaming gold letters that spell Bible. I am flustered and unsure of what I should be reading. I flip it open and the thin pages flop. A white ribbon peeks out. I open to it, and luckily it is a bookmark.
Clearing my throat and squinting against the sun’s reflection, I begin reading. I steal a second to peer up and the captain is walking away.
A Reading from the Book of Ecclesiastes:
There is an appointed time for everything,
and a time for every affair under the heavens.
A time to give birth, and a time to die;
a time to plant, and a time to uproot the plant.
A time to kill, and a time to heal;
a time to tear down, and a time to build.
A time to weep, and a time to laugh;
a time to mourn, and a time to dance.
A time to scatter stones, and a time to gather them;
a time to embrace,
