“She’s unconscious,” the doctor snapped, unable to contain her anger. “You asked me to keep her alive, didn’t you? Let me do my job.”
Charles eyed the doctor before sighing and leaving the room. He came back several minutes later, an oversized plaid shirt in hand. His wide eyes watched the girl intently, as if he were expecting her to jump up from her slumber.
The doctor waved at Charles. He pitched the shirt through the bars.
“This place is freezing,” the doctor said. “Is there a firepit somewhere?”
Charles hunched his shoulders. “Might be one in the shed.”
“Get it. The mayor wants this girl alive, right? She needs warmth.”
Samuel agreed. “She does seem cold.”
“Fine.” Charles did as instructed, his head dropped as if he’d been scolded.
The doctor tossed the sheriff’s spare shirt to Samuel. “Hold this.”
Samuel took the garment. He held his breath for a minute, watching as the doctor lifted the girl up and slipped off her dress. Ugly scars decorated her flat chest and tiny back. Some were thin and lined like stripes, while others looked like smoldered circles. She wasn’t wearing undergarments. He looked farther down and saw where her slit was supposed to be. He turned away quickly, cheeks flushed. He shouldn’t have looked. But he did.
Like an undressed mannequin in a store window, there was nothing there.
He knew as much as his father had felt the need to teach him about procreation and female anatomy, which was very little. But even he knew there was supposed to be something there. He glanced at the doctor. She, too, seemed disturbed by what she’d seen. Unlike Samuel, she studied the child’s ambiguous crotch unabashedly.
“This can’t be,” she said to herself.
Samuel’s heart raced. Was Charles right in calling the girl an “it”? If so, what on earth could it be? He pushed the thought away. He couldn’t think of the girl like that. It didn’t seem right.
From the corner of his eye, Samuel saw the doctor scoot the girl’s limp body into hers, pressing the girl against her chest. Samuel wondered how it would feel to have a warm body touch him like that. The chains jangled as the doctor dressed her. The shirt nearly swallowed the girl whole, reaching far past her knees.
“What is this child?” the doctor asked, the veins in her neck rising. “Why have you brought it here?”
Even the doctor considered the child an “it” now.
“I don’t know,” Samuel said.
“Don’t lie to me. Do you realize the gravity of this? Does your father know you’re here?”
Samuel shook his head. “I’m not. I’m sorry. I don’t know.”
The doctor moved away from the girl and began gathering up her things. What would his father think? Was the child human? Could it really be a demon? He studied the girl’s body once more, knowing now it was safe to do so since she was clothed. Her freckled cheekbones were round, her lips plump and pink, and her hair long, but her shoulders were square and boxlike. Her limbs, at least the ones that were intact, were slender and lean, but also defined by muscles. She had no breasts, but that was to be expected of a girl her age. But without genitals, was there any way of telling what she, or he, or it, was?
The sound of harsh scraping filled the jailhouse. Samuel turned to see Charles scooting himself into the room, grunting as he struggled to drag the firepit along with him. Samuel looked away from the girl and covered her back up with his coat. Even though he couldn’t be sure, he really felt like she was a girl.
Samuel helped Charles move the portable fireplace into the cell, but they were clumsy in getting it set up. Charles struck a match and lit the logs inside the steel chamber. The fire devoured the dried pinewood as if it were nothing, the bright flames raging as a flood of new heat and light filled the room.
“The child’s dehydrated,” the doctor said as they exited the cell. “Needs water. The wound will need to be re-dressed and cleaned every day.” She dug inside her bag and lobbed the green bottle and a roll of gauze to Samuel. He caught them clumsily, tucking them into his ribs.
“Wrap it snug,” the doctor instructed. “That way the wound won’t reopen. But not too tight or you’ll smother the circulation. If you follow my instructions perfectly, there’s a slim chance this child will survive. But odds are she will die. I want to be clear about that. Not with that leg staying attached. You hear me? I want no part of the blame if things go wrong.”
Charles embraced the doctor, then patted her back like she was a family pet. “You are amazing, doctor. Thanks. Let’s keep this just between us. No need to bother the mayor with this.”
The doctor stood stiff, wide eyed. “Don’t touch me.”
Charles let her go, wiping his forehead. “It’ll work. It has to work.”
Samuel returned to the cabin several hours past sunset. His father sprang up from the desk chair the moment the door opened, his back straight and his neck stiff.
“Where were you?” His father’s tone was repressed, but the pitch of his voice was higher than usual. He must have been worried. “Where’s your coat?”
The roar of the jeep’s engine from outside faded into the distance. Charles had driven him home, and he had promised not to talk about what had happened at the jailhouse. He rubbed his bare arms. It was the only coat he owned that fit him anymore, and he wouldn’t last the rest of winter without it. Somehow, he’d need to get it back from the girl. Or whatever she was. But he knew she needed it more than he did, and that gave him confidence.
“At the estate.”
His father shifted his weight. “The mayor’s estate?”
“Yes. I was with Charles.”
His father’s jaw clenched. “I don’t want you going there. Not again.”
“Why? I didn’t have a choice. He’s the mayor’s son. I have to do what he says, don’t I?”
“We all have a choice,” his father said as he went to the scriptures. “You should have waited for me. I didn’t know where you’d gone.”
Samuel found himself scowling. Most days his father didn’t seem to care that he was alive, and now the concern made Samuel angry. He would never be able to please him, no matter how hard he tried.
“You were busy. It was the middle of the ceremony, so—”
“I don’t trust him, Samuel. Not with you. Don’t go there again.”
Samuel bit into his cheek, his mind exhausted and his emotions somehow feeling completely out of his control. Why was his father angry with him? He’d done nothing wrong. If anything, he’d helped saved that girl.
“I’m not a child,” he said, trying not to mumble. “I’ll be a man soon. Isn’t that what you keep telling me?”
His father came closer, dwarfing Samuel with his height. His father was a bit over six feet tall, but Samuel was more than six inches shorter.
“You’re my child. Don’t forget that. You’ll do as I say.”
“I’m your son,” Samuel said. “Am I not your sin?”
His father’s eyes widened. A long silence fell between them.
“I mean, that’s what I am to you.”
“Don’t be foolish,” his father said curtly. He grabbed the scriptures from the desk, keeping his voice level as his steps fell heavy. “Everything I’ve done has been for you. The roots will free you from the bonds of darkness. This demon child, the mayor, everything. Azhuel will bring to light—”
Samuel swiped the scriptures away from his father’s hand and hurled them across the room, his body quaking with rage. He couldn’t take another lecture on righteousness and forgiveness and the holy roots. He hated the way his father always looked to the scriptures. He showed more devotion and care to that old book than he’d ever once dared to show his own flesh and blood.
“You’re a hypocrite,” Samuel said with a forced calm, his hands still quaking. “You don’t love me. Even if you do, you don’t like me. I know you don’t. I see the way
you look at me.” He pointed to his mother’s photograph. “If I’m your son, and you love me, then why don’t you tell me about my mother? Am I even your child?”
“Of course you’re my child!” His father lifted his arms. “Is this not enough for you? I’ve raised you—”
“I don’t want to be your son,” Samuel yelled.
His father was stupefied.
Samuel cowered back, the taste of bitterness lingering in his mouth. His sight blurred from fresh tears. “I don’t want to be a cleric. I don’t. You never listen to me. I never had a choice. You had a choice. I don’t. And I hate it.”
His father nodded solemnly as he fetched the disheveled scripture, carefully adjusting the pages before setting them down alongside the photograph of his mother.
Samuel wasn’t sure what to do next, so he went into the cabinet and peeled off a strip of stale bread. He chewed it mechanically but couldn’t force himself to swallow. He poured a cup of water and drank, the liquid pushing the masticated lump down his throat. His father gave the photograph a weak tap with his index finger before climbing up the ladder to the single mattress he and Samuel shared.
Samuel adjusted his glasses, relief and guilt equally consuming him. He rubbed his arms as he got closer to the fireplace, watching as the flames devoured the dead branches until there was nothing left but smoldering ash.
“It’s a miracle.”
Samuel leaned into the metal bars, looking in disbelief.
The girl sat silently, her injured leg propped up slightly by the bottom of her heel. She was hunched over, tracing her middle finger along the dirt floor. The flannel shirt the doctor had dressed the girl in the day before fit her more like an oversized nightgown than a top. Her chains rattled as she doodled indistinguishable objects. She wasn’t wearing the jacket he’d left her. It was crinkled up against the back wall of the cell. The gauze on her leg was stained a bit, but otherwise held. His nostrils noticed the lack of rot.
“She looks so much better.”
Charles huffed excitedly. “I know. It’s only been a day. Can you believe it? That old hag was talking like the demon was as good as dead. Now look at it!”
Samuel crossed his arms. “Do you think it’s a demon?”
“I don’t know. What else could it be? I mean. I didn’t. Not at first. But look at it! Crazy eyes. Black, inky stuff for blood. It doesn’t even have any … you know. That’s insane, right?”
Charles wasn’t inside the jailhouse when the doctor undressed the girl. Samuel leaned forward. “How did you know that?”
“Huh?”
“About the … you know.”
“Oh.” Charles scratched his yellow hair. “Yeah. I saw that when I was trying to check out its leg before I got you. The demon wasn’t wearing undergarments, you know. It was kind of obvious. Freaked me out. Guess I forgot to bring it up to you in all the hustle.” He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter how I saw. It’s inhuman!”
Samuel nodded. “But she looks like a girl. Don’t you think?”
“Don’t think of it like that,” Charles said with a wave of his hand. “It’s not a person or anything. It can’t even talk or do anything but doodle on the ground and try to kill people!”
Charles jingled the keys, and Samuel stepped back as the gate became unlocked.
“Okay. You ready?”
Samuel cradled the green-tinted vial that the doctor had left with him, the roll of gauze shoved deep in his back pocket. He nodded, remembering his father’s rebuke and his outright defiance. They hadn’t spoken since the night before. He regretted the words the moment they left his mouth. He needed to apologize, tell his father he was angry with himself most of all for waiting this long to speak out. He knew it wouldn’t change anything. But he was tired of pretending.
The girl was unperturbed as Samuel went to her. The fire inside the pit had kept the jailhouse warm. Warm for Haid. Samuel stopped. In his mind, he could picture her reaching out in an unexpected moment and ripping him apart, digging her thick fingernails into his chest and ripping out his organs like prey.
“Hi.”
She continued her doodles.
Samuel forced himself to take a few steps closer, bridging the distance between them. Demon? No, she couldn’t be. She must have wanted to be a “she.” She had long hair and was wearing a dress. Sure. She was something different. Abnormal. But whatever she or he or it was, Samuel was drawn in.
He scooted himself closer to the side of the wall, and with a slow hand, he grabbed his coat. “Can I take this back? Only if you’re not going to be cold.” He swallowed. “I need to clean your wound. It might hurt. But the doctor said it’s the only chance you have of staying alive.”
For a long while, the girl did nothing. But then, calmly, she moved her stub into her lap and shifted her wounded leg toward him. Samuel crouched down and carefully unwound the gauze. He wasn’t touching her skin. He was too scared, and he didn’t want to alarm her. With the unraveling of each layer, his fears grew. She could become the monster the mayor had insisted she was. The wound was wet and excreting lots of pus, but no fresh blood. The spots where the bear trap’s teeth had locked were now scabbing, the medicine from the day before still giving the gashes a slight shine. Color was returning to all the dark areas around the cuts, including her thigh. It was healing, and healing fast. Unnaturally fast.
“How does it look?” Charles called. “Is the leg good?”
“It’s better. Much better. It’s like the infection’s almost gone.”
Charles huffed. “That doctor may be a cold bitch, but she does good work.”
The girl paused her drawings as Samuel dabbed fresh medicine onto the cloth. He hesitantly applied a fresh coat on the wound. She tipped her chin down and watched as he carefully massaged the liquid into the tattered flesh. Her muscles twitched, almost as if they were screaming in pain. But if she felt any pain, she didn’t show it.
“That’s it,” Samuel said as he secured a fresh bandage and rewrapped the leg.
The girl curled her leg back and returned to her drawings. She stroked her finger from left to right, up then down, then across in a rhythmic pattern. Her movements seemed so precise, like she was painting the most elaborate portrait.
As Samuel and his father entered the mayor’s estate, he did his best not to stare. The exterior of the estate was lavish enough, but inside, the furnishings were even more extravagant. Three cushioned chairs faced one another in a triangular pattern by the center of the room, every one embroidered with rolling hills and pine trees. Electric lights hung from rubber cords mounted to the ceiling, the glass bulbs illuminating even though it was noontime. He stared at the artificial light, thinking it seemed more fantastical than any stories of Azhuel’s divine roots. What sort of world was it before the blackout? The Laevis Creed, established and made into law immediately following the blackout more than four hundred years ago, forbade the use of technology by any person that the ruling politicians deemed to be “exceptional.” Samuel supposed the use of electricity and artificial lighting didn’t fall into that category.
To the left of Samuel was a large hallway. Near the chairs to the right sat a wooden table, a plastic cube with white buttons and silver dials resting on top of it. He wasn’t sure what sort of object it might be, but he assumed it to be some sort of radio communication device. His father positioned himself in direct line of the hallway, his muscles tight as his brawny hands clutched the scriptures. They hadn’t spoken a word to each other since that night.
The mayor stormed out from the end of the bright hallway, adjusting his bowtie as his feet thundered across the accent rug. Charles followed after him, his shoulders hunched, and his hair parted in a way that somewhat covered the blue and black bruises on the side of his face. From the sharp eyes Charles gave him, Samuel knew to keep his mouth shut. The mayor must have learned about what had happened to the girl in the jailhouse. He tried to keep a stone face, to be as unreada
ble as her.
“Thelma!” the mayor hollered as he sat on the biggest chair. He motioned for Samuel and his father to sit, and they did. A young woman moseyed into the room, her hair pulled back and an apron tied around her waist. Samuel had seen her several times before in the town square, carrying a large weave basket under her thin arm, meandering from shop to shop, gathering supplies for the mayor.
“Yes, good mayor,” she said in a way Samuel felt was forced. He could only imagine how many of the mayor’s whims she had to indulge.
The mayor clicked his tongue. “Some tea. Honey and sugar. Two cubes.”
The maid kept her eyes at her feet and bowed before leaving. The mayor put a smoking pipe between his lips, and Charles sprinkled tobacco into the pipe’s bowl. The mayor waved his son’s hand away as he lit the tobacco with a gold lighter.
“I don’t assume you keep current with politics,” the mayor said nonchalantly.
His father shook his head, and Samuel did the same.
“The greenlands are in complete disarray: widespread famine, riots in the street, factories unable to produce goods, jailhouses overflowing. Their sad excuse of a governor can’t control his own people.” He huffed. “Greenies. They’ve always had a reputation for being lazy and self-entitled. They don’t value work and endurance like us whitelanders. And now they’ve got some fresh-faced politician, calling himself a ‘politician for the common folk,’ making calls for reformation across all states. It’s appalling. These fools have no reverence for the Laevis Creed, no understanding of how their actions could jeopardize our longstanding peace.”
The maid returned with a sliver tray and a steaming cup of tea. Charles took the cup from her and handed it to the mayor, who switched from smoking to sipping.
“My apologies. It must seem like I’m ranting. I say all of this because I, and a few other mayors of the north, will be meeting with Governor Bloom to discuss the political ramifications should the greenlands’ political climate continue to unravel. We are a separate state from the greenlands, governed by our own rules and culture, but we would be naïve to think these things will not affect us.” He wriggled his fingers, as if annoyed that he was giving explanations. He glanced at Samuel. “I will be away for a while, but I cannot wait any longer to hear about your findings. Please, cleric. Tell me what you’ve learned about my demon.”
Demon in the Whitelands Page 6
