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Part VII: 1846- On Whose Bones We Built Our Glory
Delilah watched her husband stalk off, armored in his indignation.
I undermine him...would that I had the power.
The thought was a cruel one, and possibly sacrilege. She must honor the covenant of her marriage at any cost, through any trial...for better or worse.
Had her son said those words this night, at the altar her husband had built for her before he was even a speck in the gloaming of her fancy? Had he taken the irascible governess's hand in his and pledged to honor her virtue, uphold her dignity, and protect her secrets?
Surely, Delilah decided, he had at least promised the last. A marriage was built of confidence, to be sure, but any covenant built on treachery was bound to be treacherous to the very end.
Bold assertions from a woman who's built her house of secrets upon a foundry of sand.
Indeed, it was not mere charity that compelled her to shunt her son to his sister. Treachery begat treachery, but in matters such as these, when derangement and delusion moved from Maddox to Maddox as easy as a plague...
Pray for us sinners, she raised her hand to her throat, starting off down the passage to work some treachery on her own.
***
The maid Beth called Posey...and Posey she must be, though for the life of him, he had never known her name before now...lifted her eyes at his entrance.
"Here I am again," Everett remarked, "At the risk of repeating myself..."
"Your mother says I'm to say," the girl said stiffly, "Not to repeat myself."
This was uncharacteristic cheek from a housemaid.
"If you received any harsh censure from my mother for earlier, I will speak to her."
"Mighty kind of ya," she said flatly, "But I could do without."
"Oh, don't mind her, Everett," the bone white wisp in the bed said dismissively, "She's sour as an April peach and no mistake. You'd think she was minding a three-legged mule."
"Have a nice visit," Posey said shortly, leaving them alone with each other.
Everett caught his breath as the door closed, steeling himself as he turned to the chintzy four poster bed where his sister reposed, looking up at him through wide, glassy eyes.
"Marianne," he greeted her carefully, "It's...good to see you."
She was in her nightdress now, he saw. The tattered shift she'd been brought back to the house in presumably discarded. The high-collared lacy garment did an ample job disguising the scrapes and scars of the woods. It would be as though nothing as all had happened, but for the shadow shrouding her face.
"And to see you too, you silly poof," she giggled, "Is what I might say if you'd let me see you, huddled up out of the light like that."
Indeed, he hadn't budged from the threshold. Bowing his head apologetically, he stepped forward into the lamplight. Marianne simpered approvingly, "Married life must've curdled you right quick, if you flinch to be unchaperoned with your own sister."
Everett smiled awkwardly, "You...know about that."
"I'd be deaf, blind, and dumb not to, with that three-penny opera downstairs," she sniffed, "Quite a homecoming."
"I'm sorry," he apologized.
"You should be," she scolded, wagging her finger in his face, "Stealing my thunder! But I suppose I can't be too sore, if my romantic nature finally proved contagious," she cocked her head, ringlets waving like tassels from a lampshade, "The rate you were going, brother dear, there was a spot reserved for you at the Monastery for Mopey Monks."
"It was...an impetuous marriage, yes," said Everett, "To a good end, I hope."
"That is, I believe the point of marriage," she chuckled mischievously, "Though some, I understand, prefer to skip the preamble for the climax."
He recalled the bloody hem of her shift in the moonlight and suppressed a shudder, "I am so sorry, Marianne."
"For getting married?"
"For your ordeal," he sat unsteadily in an armchair by the bed. Judging by the cloying scent of rosewater and talc, it had lately been occupied by his mother.
"How chivalrous," the lamp divided her face in quadrants of light and dark, "Everett, delighted as I'd be to have such a prize whipping boy as yourself to brand with my adventures and indignities, I can't see as either lot's got a lick to do with your squishy self."
"Surely, I didn't entice you out of the house."
"Nor frightened me from it," she laughed again, "It has come as quite a surprise to the other inmates of our little family that I am perfectly capable of inducing myself."
"I did search for you," he heard himself say, and didn't quite know why he was, as if to prove something to her, who seemed utterly uninterested in being proved to, "Today."
"I've no doubt you did. You are so frustratingly meticulous."
"I hardly distinguished myself."
"That's no great surprise," she said breezily, "Don't be slighted."
"From you?" he smiled despite himself, "Never."
"Matter of fact, I wish the rest of 'em had been as useless as you," she pouted, "I'd be well away from here, and halfway to anyplace."
"You are in such a hurry to get away from here?"
"That can hardly come as a surprise," she looked off, staring into her lampshade, like a moth hypnotized by gaslight, "The way she poked and prodded..."
"Pansy?"
"Posey."
"Posey, then."
"Mother," Marianne corrected, "She insisted on doing the job herself. I tell you, if the rest of her is rough as her hands, it's a frank miracle little Ellis's teeth haven't fallen out!"
"She has never been particularly noted for her tenderness."
"Tenderness!" she repeated scornfully, "She would be as tender with a leg of lamb. We're mere property, you and I, as much as the likes of Posey and poor..." she faltered, "Poor," repeating again, "Poor things."
"We are not without certain liberties."
Marianne said nothing to this, not directly, "Mayhap I'm a hypocrite, to pity their lot now. Would my heart bled as easily as yours, things would be..." she drew her lip into her mouth, "Things would be quite different."
Everett let her words hang there for a moment, in somewhat greedy anticipation for her to finish her statement, to reveal something seen or felt. He felt like a child listening to a ghost story, and tempered himself.
"Marianne..." he began uncertainly, "What happened to you?"
"Shall I be bombarded with the question for the rest of my days?" she protested, "Everett, you know good and well if Mother couldn't compel me, you haven't a chance in creation!" she pressed her knuckles to her mouth, "It's a moot point, anyway."
"Because you cannot remember?" Everett ventured.
"Because nothing I say will sway you! Or Mother or the Father or the lot of you. I left this house of horrors, last night, Everett, to begin my life, in all its beautiful and terrible enormity! I left this place, my hand in his..."
"Cillian O'Halloran."
"Oh, and what a hopeless time he'll have of it now!" she laughed, harsh and ugly. Alarmed, Everett reached out a hand to steady her, but she swatted him away.
"Remorse is all well and good, brother of mine, but it means little from the jailer."
"You are not a prisoner here, Marianne."
"Then let me go!" she grabbed at his hand, "Let me go to him!"
"Marianne..." he began heavily, but she cut him short.
"You can have your fly by night affair, and a makedo wedding to boot! And to Miss Beth of all people who, if you don't mind my saying, is as personable as pitch puddy!"
Everett bowed his head, "As it happens, Beth and I were talking."
"I should hope so! It would appear one of the first rules of engagement."
"She requested I, er, give something to you."
"She is too kind, but I hardly think we share the same taste," she looked Everett over appraisingly and he sighed.
"That may well be, given this was yours to begin with," he sighed, reaching into his waistcoat to produce the ring. Marianne eyed it caustically as he lowered it into her palm, "Borrowed, did you?"
"For the wedding. It felt...odd to conduct the ceremony without even one ring between us."
She giggled breathily: a ragged, torn sound, "I never knew you to be so romantic."
"Romantic or otherwise, it was ill-done to take it without your knowledge."
"Ill done you say, well done I say," she shrugged, "If I wanted it very much, Everett, I'd have taken it with me."
He frowned, "What do you mean?"
"I mean, brother dear..." she closed his fingers around the ring, "Your blushing bride can have my ring, with my blessing. It's hardly even mine, anyway."
"It was a gift to you. From father."
"For a little girl. I am a woman now, Everett, and shall accept rings from one man alone."
"Marianne..."
"One day soon, I will have a ring of my own...of silver or gold or plain rinky-tink-tin, with a different set of initials fixed in the side," she pressed his closed hand to his chest, "Though, contrarwise to local gossip, I'm not such a fiend for appearances as all that. I could just as easily go without...for him. For the love we share."
He could bear it no longer, "Marianne, whatever love there was between you and Cillian O'Halloran, he will not be giving you a ring. My dear, they found his body..."
"He will come back for me!" she spoke over him, "I am not stupid, Everett," she laughed, though at him or herself, he didn't know, "Men have certainly come back from farther for less."
He thought of the goliath shade in the glen and shuddered, though found he hadn't the words or the will to crush what remained of his sister's spirit.
"He will come back," Marianne continued, "and I will go with him, my hand in his, and we will have our time, Everett, a lifetime of it, and I shall not grow old here..." she repeated it like it was some sacred promise, "I shall not grow old here. The future belongs to me, Everett, to him and me, to us," she paused, turning back to the lamp, "So return the ring to Miss Beth. With my felicitations."
He sat there for a short stretch longer, loathe to disappoint his sister but wearier still of leaving her.
Though perhaps she's already left. Perhaps she is left and lost to you: ruined and wrecked while you cowered in the dirt...trapped in a prison of empty hope whilst you conducted a sham wedding.
Everett may as well be invisible for all Marianne was regarding him now, staring into the lamp, her mouth forming nearly soundless words to a song he didn't know and now doubted he would ever forget.
"I know where I'm going/I know who's going with me..."
***
Jacob didn't do anything at first, eyeing the outstretched hand warily. Any number of reasons for this, of course, not least of which it wouldn't go well for the likes of him to be seen so much as brushing the shoulder of a white girl...even one out of favor with the big house.
Finally, he let out a short, half-laugh, getting to his feet, "Something tells me you're friendlier with him than I am," he took her hand.
***
Beth looked up at the open door, "What's a lady got to do get people to knock around here?"
"Forgive me," said Delilah mirthlessly, closing the door behind her, "Are you not decent?"
"No more than usual," Beth lifted herself from the holycock desk, "If you're wondering whether sonny boy's made an honest woman of me yet."
"Saints have been crowned for less," she stepped forward, "Dare I ask whither bride or groom had the stroke of inspiration?"
"I don't know about 'stroke'. It was more like a spasm, to be honest."
"Everett, then. That's hardly a surprise, given his conduct. Whatever else you may be, Miss Beth, you aren't the marrying type."
"That's mighty presumpious of you," Beth noted, "Maybe I'm just really hot and heavy for Evvy."
"You are disgusting."
"So hot and heavy that I put him under a spell," she smirked her most shit-eating smirk, snapping her fingers, "Hey presto."
"Maybe," Delilah repeated thinly, "But you didn't."
Her conviction gave Beth pause, "...Big Deaddy thinks otherwise."
"My husband is a willful man, blinded by his own prejudices."
"Well, yeah, but even so."
"I am not an imbecile, Miss Beth. You know very well what I think about you..."
"I have the marks to prove it."
Delilah froze, paling, "My first responsibility is to my family. I shall make no apologies."
"Wasn't fishing for one. But if you want me to start calling you 'Mom', I'm gonna have to pass."
"You don't expect me to endorse this farce of a marriage," Delilah declared, "Nor do you need me to. But I shan't condemn it either."
"Wait, what?"
"Don't gawk so. It's unbecoming in a simpleton child and more so in an overeducated housewife."
"Thanks," Beth grimaced.
"I understand the impetus behind this impromptu marriage. No doubt my husband does as well, though I expect if he were asked, he'd lay the notion at your feet. For all his cunning, he doesn't know women as much as he thinks."
"And he's such a keen observer," Beth folded her arms, rising from the desk, "Look, not like I don't appreciate the visit, but I've had enough self-important monologues for one day, and..."
"My husband thinks you're a witch."
"Yeah, I got that much."
"He believes you used nefarious powers to raise the slave Mosiah from his grave and set him loose upon us...that the deaths of the Rooneys and the O'Halloran boy, as well as the..." she paused, "...mistreatment suffered by my daughter can all be laid at your feet."
"If you dropped by just to tell me what deep shit I'm in, I appreciate it, but you could've saved the walk."
"He is wrong."
Beth froze, unable to hide her surprise at Delilah's matter-of-fact assessment, "...is he now?"
"You may well be a witch. I dare not presume. There are obviously wicked forces at work in this world, forces we...I...have elected to turn a blind eye to as superstitious fable. But whatever you may be...temptress, seducer, ha'penny whore off to wring an easy living from my credulous son..."
"Not too much, now."
"...you didn't make the dead walk," Delilah drummed her fingers against the writing desk, closing the distance between herself and Beth, who found herself in the unenviable position of not knowing what the fuck she was supposed to do with this.
Not that she was immune from being surprised or anything, but she had a shortlist of reasons for her Tradcath Monster-in-Law to pay a visit tonight, and none of them involved being unaccused of witchcraft.
And, fuck it, she was kind of insulted? Because she had raised the dead. It wasn't great or anything, but she got the job done.
"And how'd you get that?" she asked eventually.
"I should think you'd be more relieved. Surely, you couldn't expect Everett alone would be a sufficient ally against my husband?"
"Well, nobody's gonna accuse you of trying to get into my petticoats," Beth pointed out, "Been there, done that."
"My word does count for something, Miss Beth. Yours do as well, however abundantly you produce them."
"Full of surprises tonight, huh?"
"How long have you known her?"
Beth blinked, "Who?"
"You persist in this obstinance?"
"Until morale improves, yes."
"Are you an apprentice of hers? A handmaid? Some student of sorcery?"
"Lady, what the fuck are you on?"
"You are a confederate of the herbwoman!" she got right into Beth's face, veins pulsing in her forehead as she screeched from somewhere below the ribs, catching her breath to add, "The one they call Clelia."
Beth stepped back, "...who?"
"None of this pithy ignorance."
"So either I know too much or not enough. No pleasing you..."
"I saw her," Delilah spoke over her, "Today. Gyrating by the fire, calling out to invisible things with indecipherable words as, mere miles away, my firstborn was menaced by the corpse of the man he'd been meant to scourge!"
Beth tried to turn away, but Delilah grabbed her chin in pincer strong fingers, "Delwyn is blinded by his own pride. He cannot see the truth spitting in his face."
"You, however," Beth squeaked, "Picture of humility."
"It all fits," Delilah continued, "The dead man was a friend of hers. I gather he'd taken a fatherly interest in her son..."
"Let me stop you right there, lady," Beth wrenched out of Delilah's grasp, "You weren't out there. Whoever did that to him didn't mean it friendly."
"Surely not. If she has a sympathetic bone in her body, it is for her son. But even so," Delilah turned, "The Rooneys tormented them, Everett was to scourge him and Delwyn carried out the deed in his stead, Marianne..." she paused, brow furrowing, "Marianne bore witness to the condemned man's crime."
"Jesus Christ..." Beth rolled her eyes, "And what about Luck o'the Irish, huh? Since you've got it all figured out?"
"The boy's sister is in love with her son," Delilah said curtly.
"That's enough, huh?"
"Don't underestimate a mother's determination...desperation...to protect her children at any means," she looked her over, "You'll know it soon enough," she turned to the window, "The truth came upon me like holy rain the moment I saw her by the fire, and it's only become clearer with every hour."
"Not to discredit your Divine Douche, but..."
"From the moment you arrived here, Miss Beth, I knew there was something wrong with you."
"Okay, and you let me teach your kid times tables, so..."
"Never mind your detestable attitude, poor breeding, and irrepressible impulse to speak out of turn, there is the matter of you being found by my son, in inappropriate attire, with no carriage, luggage, or references."
"Funny story about that. I was showing up for our little job interview, normal as anything, when my pumpkin was jacked by a band of horny Blacks," she cocked her head to the side, "Funny how that works out, huh?"
"You were brought here by the herbwoman. A cog in her demented clock...sent to seduce Everett, to corrupt Ellis, to sow discord within this house..."
"Lady, your crew's got that handled. They don't need any help from me."
"If Delwyn has his way, he would have you destroyed," Delilah moved back to her, "Not dismissed, mind you. Not disgraced nor demeaned...he will damn you. The savagery the herbwoman's specter wrought today would seem as carnival buffoonery."
"Thanks for the reminder."
"You impudent wretch, I can help you!" Delilah spat, "Loathe though I may be to offer you the slightest sliver of succor, I will...if you surrender the witch."
"And what's to stop him from destroying the both of us, then?"
"Tell him the herbwoman took you under her influence. Tell him you were befuddled, bewitched, that your will was not your own."
"Lie?"
"A small lie in service of a great truth! The woman must be stopped, at any cost."
Beth twisted her hands together. She knew this would happen. Not this, specifically, but...Clelia. She knew it was only a matter of time.
Ever since that moment in the woods...that feeling of eyes on her, right before MosiNah keeled over. Whatever happened to send him back where he came from, she knew she wasn't in the director's chair for it, no matter how it looked to the peanut gallery.
She just didn't think someone else would come to the same conclusion. She was surprised Delilah even knew who Clelia was. Beth would've figured the Maddoxes thought the help all looked the same.
But Delilah knew Clelia. Worse than that, she had a bitch gripe at least 150 years ahead of its time.
"You want me to tell your husband that this lady put a spell on me?"
"Certainly."
"Independent of the spell she put on Mosiah?"
"That part, at least, is true."
"Except it isn't," Beth shrugged, "It's wrong. Totally ass-backward."
"How can you insist so, even now?"
"Because," Beth grinned, "I'm the witch," she shrugged, "You can stop with the mental gymnastics. It's really not that hard."
Delilah scoffed, "You understand this paper-thin marriage will not protect you forever?"
"Don't speak too soon. I didn't sign a prenup."
"Whatever she has promised you. Whatever she has offered..."
"Lady, the only thing I'm not for sale," Beth held her hands up, "My firstborn now, that's a different story, but the Big Guy Downstairs and I are still sorting out the details..."
"This is my family!" Delilah cried, "My flesh and blood...all I have ever done jeopardized over a woman's vendetta..."
"Listen, it's way past my bedtime, so why don't you skedaddle before I drop a house or ten on you?"
Delilah stepped back, whey-faced, "I will remember this."
"Great," she gave her a one finger salute, "Have a spooktacular evening."
She slammed the door behind her on her way out, but that didn't stop Beth from pressing herself against it, listening to make sure she was really walking away.
It only now occurred to her how badly she was shaking.
It doesn't end. You try to fix one mess and two more take its place, and then four more, and on and on and on...
Clelia was right. She couldn't be trusted...she was fucking radioactive, and the longer she stuck around here, the more people were going to suffer for it.
-Delilah, Everett, Posey, Marianne, Jacob, and Beth
Caoimhe firmly squeezed his hand as she had when she met anybody and shook it. "Aye, but a friend of a Caesar's a friend o' mine, in the end. I reckon that's as friendly 'nuff, eh?"
"That's that, then," O'Halloran nodded to himself, his mind made as unset pudding, which wasn't grand but as well done as he could get for the nonce.
His things and Caoimhe's were gathered and ready. All that remained now was to face the fiddle.
More than once since he'd seen his daughter off, O'Halloran had found his eyes darting to his room's poky window, though he knew such vantage would give him no view of her nighttime errand.
Perhaps it had been foolish to turn her loose onto this place, with them drowning in eyes and starving for friends as they were. But the poor girl had lost enough today already. If he could spare her even the slightest sliver of pain, he would.
Was that not, after all, a father's first duty?
Nae, ye sentimental slug, he chastised himself, rapping his knuckles against the dresser, It may come at second, but first, always first, is keepin' 'em safe.
Ofttimes it may well be the two are one in the same, especially when they're young. Not so when they're older, and the knowledge of danger must run against the pull of feeling.
O'Halloran opened the last drawer of the plain wooden chest, and was just steeling himself for the last pass, when the knock came at the door.
"Och yae," he intoned blearily, barely aware of himself, and only coming to his senses at the visitor's familiar, birch-switch intonations.
"It is I," she offered no name, though O'Halloran could supply it for himself, and a few more they that baptized her never would've thought, "May I intrude?"
"'Tis yer house, marm," he resisted the impulse to go to the door himself, "As I see it, ye cain't intrude if ye tried."
There was a short silence, but the door opened in due course as the mistress of the house admitted herself, "It is only customary to ask."
"Give a man a minute te hide his deviltry?" O'Halloran prompted, "I've precious little left te hide."
Delilah's attention alighted on the valises at the foot of the bed, "Going somewhere?"
"As ordered, an' from yer own lips, as I recall. Now, if ye've had a change in heart, that's all good and well but, beggin' yer pardon, ma'am, I've had about as much of Maddox hospitality as me spirit can take."
"It's the dead of night," Delilah pointed out, "And you are without a horse."
"An' a few other articles besides, but we'll make do. We always have. Now, I dinnae why for ye've come callin', Mrs. Maddox, but it seems te me there's precious little te say between us..."
"How was the wedding?"
O'Halloran stopped short, narrowing his eyes at the peculiar question, "Ye'd do better te ask yer son."
"In ordinary times, a mother would not have to ask her firstborn such a question. She would have been in attendance herself."
"Now, Mrs. Maddox, I've yet some sympathy stored away in me heart's root store for ye and yours, but if you expect me te bow and scrape and beg yer pardon for conducting the weddin'..."
"How did you come by your ordination?"
"Dark days indeed when the likes of Delilah Maddox are pullin' pages from the cusser's psaltery."
"When did you become a minister?" she clarified, speaking over him. O'Halloran cleared his throat, "Long ago an' far away."
"Lost your appetite for tall tales?"
"Gained one, didja?" he shrugged, "They're easily come by, if ye know where to look."
"Which palms to grease?"
"Soothin' syrup's a fine lubricant atop all else," he smiled guiltily, "Fine for weddings as well as sick beds."
"You plied a sacred trade to further your career of ignominy."
"I never said I were proud, but it ain't th'worst I ever did."
"I should say not," she clasped her hands together, "I do not hold it against you. The wedding."
He could not quite disguise his surprise and, indeed, must have looked quite moonfaced. She shrugged, "My son is not ordinarily a man of strong will, but he is capable of a needling breed of persuasion when the mood takes him."
"If ye'll have it I were forced, ma'am, I don't mind disabusin' ye of the notion. It were my privilege."
"To unite two young people so happy in love?" she cocked a thin brow and O'Halloran felt himself deflate.
"Fishin' for a confession?"
"You are hardly the correct personage for the job, unless you've another piece of paper secreted away."
"All out, I'm afraid," he shifted from foot to foot, "Ye can protest all ye like, Mrs. Maddox, but I saw th'right of what I did the moment yer old man went a'gallumphing up them stairs for the poor gel 'afore."
"I daresay you did," she said at length, "As did I. As I say, I do not hold it against you," she eyed his agog expression and sniffed, "Do you take me as so calcified, so unreasonable, as to be irrevocably contrary in all I say and do?"
"Not in all, ma'am, but given ye told me off fer defendin' ye to yer husband just yesternight..."
"You overstepped."
"He called ye worse than a dog!"
"You cannot expect me to thank you for insinuating myself into my marriage!"
"Yet ye hold nae ill will in me doin' a marriage meself."
"The judgment was my son's," she paused, "And his thinking was sound."
"Ye didna say as much 'afore."
"There are other considerations," she didn't immediately elaborate and O'Halloran heaved a sigh.
"I saw yer daughter," he admitted, "She's had a fright."
"She has had several," there was a ponderous silence, "Her thoughts are in disarray."
"I 'spect mine'd be too, te have seen what she saw," he offered diplomatically, "I cannae imagine what it musta been te find her, an' you her mother."
"You found your son," Delilah pointed out, "You may have some conclusion."
Which felt, somehow, like an offer of condolences, even if not in so many words, "He was a good lad. Not saintly, but good as a young man kin be, with a duff like me to lead him."
"There are surely worse fathers," she did not meet his eyes, and O'Halloran found himself wondering what life must be like for a lady who had so much and yet still must confine herself in so many prisons, stacked one into the other like Muscovite dolls.
"I mean to take him with me," he said at last, figuring there would come no better time, "Me son."
"Assuredly you do," she turned away.
"I trust I shan't be molested in th'attempt?"
"What sort of people do you think we are?"
"I'm afraid I ain't th'learnin' to say."
Delilah bowed her head, "My husband has not sent for a physician."
"Fer the bodies?"
"For my daughter," she answered bluntly, "And the dead as well, I suppose. For fear of rumors."
"Fer fear of diddly!" O'Halloran spat, "What manner'a man'd put his poxy reppertation over his little gel?"
"My husband has not attained his position in life on his heartstrings."
"Ye'll pardon me fer sayin', 'tis hardly a Christian attitude."
"And what, Mr. O'Halloran, sanctified by writ as you are, is a Christian attitude?" she asked this, not with the acidic underpinnings he'd anticipated, but with a sort of quiet curiosity, as if genuinely interested.
"Ye'd know more'an me."
"And yet I have married a man you scorn to call a Christian," she shrugged, "Do you believe in evil, Mr. O'Halloran?"
He blinked, "A queer question."
"These are queer times."
He walked about the foot of the bed, hands clasped before him, "Seems te me, Mrs. Maddox, ye can't step out yer door in th'mornin' an' not believe in evil. 'Tis an ugly world."
"But is it ugly for want of good, or for the abundance of wickedness? Is evil the mere absence of good, or...another presence entirely. A spirit, like that of the Pentecost, inspired by wickedness rather than sanctifying grace?"
"I never had no catechism to say."
"And perhaps you are wiser for it," Delilah nodded her head, "As a girl, I was taught sin was the stain of Eve's first transgression, and that only by good works could I prepare myself for redemption at the threshold of Heaven. Sin could be thought and act and deed, but in all its manifestations was of the sinner's will. But men have not always thought such, have they?"
"Ye talk of superstitions. Ol' folkways an' ghost stories."
"In my girlhood, I was told only our Lord Christ Jesus was capable of conducting wonders on earth, through his own power when he walked among us, and through his intercessors the saints in generations hence. Such wonders are incontrovertibly good. So when impossible things occur...things beyond the scope of man...things that are incontrovertibly wicked, one must wonder: is evil not an absence, but a power all its own, festering and strengthening as we who traffic in good poohpooh your so called ghost stories?"
O'Halloran didn't quite know what to say to this. He'd no idea even if the woman wanted him to offer an opinion, or if she was merely unburdening the spirit she so protected.
"I may not have had a catechism," said O'Halloran, "But I had ghost stories a'plenty. An' I ain't too proud te say I never believed 'em any, oft te th'other lads' 'musement. I've never been too proud te say I know for a cert one way or another how this world works, but I know te believe me eyes an' ears if nothin' else."
"And today?"
"Today, ma'am, me eyes saw, me ears heard, and me pithy brains still can't reckon up an' down. But mayhaps brains don't count fer much anyways. A hound dog ain't got the brains to know it en't his own tail he's chasin', but he can chase down a duck better'n the likes of some grayhead professor. An', lookin' at that...that thing what was a man once...I didn't need no sermon te tell me what evil was."
"Then we are of a mind," said Delilah, "Evil is real and walking among us, working horrors undreamed of in children's fables."
"That's as may be, ma'am. But if you're still set on poor Miss Beth being behind it..."
"That is my husband's notion. Not mine."
He cocked an eyebrow, "I reckoned it odd you didn't want me head over the wedding."
"Make no mistake, the girl is not blameless, but she's a mere weasel in the henhouse. I'm out for the fox."
"An yer husband?" O'Halloran said tacitly.
"He has his own reasons. The girl isn't making it easier for herself. She will not confess her allegiance, for fear or pure bullheaded stubbornness, I've no notion and it makes no matter. The fact remains there is an evil power working against my family. It has broken my daughter and killed your son and, if my husband has his way, the evildoer shall continue her reign of terror untethered."
He frowned, "Ye speak as if ye know who 'tis."
"You are not convinced of my judgment?"
"Considerin' as ye accused me son of ev'ry crime 'gainst decency only this mornin', I'm 'fraid not."
"I was out of turn," she drew her lip in, "And out of my senses. Will you accept an apology?"
"From a great liddy? I hardly think it's me place."
"A fine time to learn reticence."
"Might be I'd have learned it sooner!" he snapped despite myself, "We'd never have come to this house, and me son would be breathin'. Now, why don't you quit this mincin' song an' dance, woman, and ye can tell me why ye come a'knockin' at me door. Ye can say it's te make nice all ye like, but we both know where the likes of me stand on your stack of pri'rties. And maybe that's just as it ought te be. But I know we're quits of each other, at your own request, and I'm in no hurry to stick about. There's nothin' more ye can give me, save me son's cold remains..."
"You will have him!" Delilah exclaimed, stepping forward, perilously close, "I swear to you, you will have your son. I shall ensure it."
O'Halloran balked, "A minute ago, ye made out I'd call ye savages for suggestin' yer man'd do otherwise."
"If he does, I shall overrule him."
"Ye want somethin' from me. Ye can gussy it up sweet as rosewater, but I know women and, whatever else ye may be, Delilah Maddox, ye're every inch a woman behind that icy rectitude!"
"I am not yet so defanged to tolerate this talk from you, Mr. O'Halloran..."
"What would ye have of me? An' what have I ever done or said te ye that ye thought ye'd have te dangle me dead son over me te get it?"
"You make me out as some heartless wretch."
"Oh, ye've a heart, te be sure. I seen a heartless man today, and there ain't no comp'rison. Ye've a heart, my gel, but it don't beat fer the likes'a me. Fer yer children, sure, and mayhaps for yer husband, for yer pains..."
"I need your help, you're correct."
"Ye might have started with that," he looked her over, "I have my daughter to think of."
"And I have mine, and my sons as well. The evil that took your son from you...it cannot be allowed to roam free."
"Ye'll find no argument from me there, but I hardly know what ye'd expect me to do with it. For all me talk, I'm a mere man, and never pretended otherwise."
"What you can do for me, Dougal O'Halloran," she pronounced his first name uncertainly, bringing her eyes to his, "Is take me to a man who has pretended otherwise. And who, if his pretensions have even a lick of truth to them, is my family's only hope."
***
Whatever Jacob was going to say to Caoimhe was swallowed in a teeth-clenched grunt, his eyebrows shooting right to the top of his brow.
Watching from the sidelines, Caesar couldn't quite hide a smirk, "Caoimhe's stronger than she looks."
"She is that," Jacob muttered, twisting his newly relinquished hand with a grimace, "You learn that wrestling hogs or what?"
"Jacob," Simon snapped and he seemed to remember his place, inclining his head, "...ma'am," and, again, "Miss."
***
She didn't even budge when the door next opened.
"You Christmas past, present, or future?" she asked flatly, not turning around.
"Future, I suppose," Everett answered with his usual burnished sincerity, "Given it's nearer to Easter."
Beth looked over her shoulder to size up her husband, "Christmas future's got a bigger bustle."
"Your sense of humor remains robust as ever," he closed the door behind him.
"That's me: a barrel of laughs."
He moved closer, stepping into her line of sight, "I've been to see my sister."
Her mouth had gone dry. She pawed the wrinkles of her skirt, the crinkling of the dry, stiff fabric unnaturally loud.
"What's she like?" she asked softly, surprised at the hoarseness of her own voice.
"Like and utterly unlike herself," he paused at the holycock desk, absently scratching the gargoyle between the pointed ears, like a dog, "I don't know what I expected...some manner of gibbering lunacy, perhaps, but her attitudes seem the same. At least in my hearing. It's only..."
"Only?" she tightened her grip on her skirt, nails digging into her palm from the other side of the fold.
"She doesn't know what happened to her. Or, if she does, she disguises it. She acts as though she were left waiting in the woods for the O'Halloran boy..."
"Cillian," Beth said hollowly.
"...that he would surely have come to her if our parents hadn't found her first. I do not know if it's a willful pretense..."
"What about the blood?"
He gave her a second thought, "Blood?"
"Blood, Everett, yes, blood. The blood on her dress."
"Oh," he paused, "Naturally, I didn't mention it."
"Naturally."
"I expect my parents have drawn their own conclusions. Given Marianne's peculiar pining, I am inclined...tempted, perhaps...to hope it was the boy. That, in those last moments, she surrendered her maidenhead to him..."
"Surrendered," Beth repeated, getting to her feet.
"Beth!" he approached her, but she quickened her pace, nearing the window.
"You surrender to the cops. You surrender to an invasion. You don't surrender to sex. You give it because you want to or because you have no choice, so you can save your fuckin' thesaurus."
That's where they are. Cillian or the monster you created.
It had to be Cillian, she told herself vehemently, maybe indecently. It wasn't like she'd ever know what was going on between them or what their last moments were like, before Mosiah had carried them off, Marianne in whole and Cillian in part.
But it couldn't have been Mosiah. Whatever he...it...wanted, it wasn't that. Revenge, sure, blood, definitely, but...
If she was raped. If she was raped by something that wasn't even human, something you created...
"I'm sorry," Everett's favorite phrase, "It's not appropriate conversation for a lady."
She gritted her teeth, pressing her brow against the cool glass of the windowpane, "Spare me the fainting couch."
"She wished us well," Everett added after a short, doubtful silence, "On our wedding."
"How nice of her."
"She was quite adamant, in fact, that you take this back," he was at her shoulder now; in the glass, she saw the glinting metal in his palm. Slowly, Beth turned to regard the ring, "You're kidding."
"Somehow, I've yet to develop your knack for gallows wit," he remarked unsmilingly, "I tried to return the ring, as you asked..."
"The ring you stole."
"She would not hear of it. She'd have her own, she said, when her love returned to her."
"He's not going to return!" Beth snapped.
"You don't need to tell me that."
"Well, someone should tell her!" she rounded on him, "What? Are you gonna have her sitting there for the rest of her life, thinking Silly Boy's just gone out for a pack of smokes?"
"You think I didn't tell her then? You think it was at all easy to see her in that state? You have known her a week. I have known her from the cradle."
"Then help her!" she was alarmed at the pitch of her own voice. Everett watched her, eyes wide in his stricken face as she added, "Don't lie to her."
Everett raised an eyebrow, "You being such a paragon of truth yourself, Beth."
"Having second thoughts?"
"No, try as you might to drive me to them," he held his hand out, "Take the ring, Beth. It is my sister's wish. If you will not do it for me, then for her. Please."
Beth eyed the little gold circle, the ornate M.M etched inside, and felt her stomach turn.
Marianne wanted her to have it. Marianne, who thought Beth was funny and eccentric, and who'd roped her into the elaborate lie that started all this.
She could've shut it down. Probably none of them would have believed her, but she could've tried. Sure as hell would've taken less effort than her next attempt, and maybe Marianne would have whatever passed for her sanity back.
"Its just a ring," she said finally, "It doesn't mean anything."
"To my sister, it does. She has always been too romantic for her own good. Perhaps to see you with it would raise her spirits."
"And raise you up too a bit," she said coolly, cruelly. Everett reddened, "Is this to be the way, now? Our married life?"
"Oh my God..."
"I have no illusions why we entered into this marriage..."
"That's a fucking relief, considering it was all your idea!"
"But we are married now, for better or worse. Shall we make some attempt, or am I to consign myself with better acrimony for the rest of my days?"
"Give me a break," she folded her arms, averting her eyes. Everett likewise turned away, the muscles of his throat working.
"You are still dressed," he said finally, so quietly Beth at first thought she'd misheard him.
"...what?"
"Aren't you tired?"
"What do you think?" she frowned, "What, because I haven't stripped to the petticoats?"
"I can wait outside, if you prefer but, given our circumstances, it may be conducive for us to get used to the notion sooner or later."
She let out a short, almost soundless laugh, more of a gasp than anything else, pressing her hand to her mouth, "Wow. Real fucking smooth, Everett."
"It is not a question of impositions. I shall sleep on the floor, if it comforts you..."
"Yeah, so you can curl up on the rug and tell yourself what a good little puppy dog you are," she scoffed, "Yanno, Everett, some guys just pay for hookers, but your family just goes all out for everything, don't they?"
"I say one thing, you balk; I say another, you bite. Is there anything I can do to warm you to me, or have I lost you already?"
"Welcome to married life, bub."
"I will not force you!" he closed in on her; she felt the edge of the holycock desk bite into the small of her back, "Question my motives all you like, but I have endangered my reputation in this community, nevermind whatever remains of my standing in my family, to protect you from their senseless, bloodthirsty persecutions. I do not ask for you to come to me as your wife, but I do ask that you look me in the eye as a man, not a mite! And then, in time..."
Beth met his eyes, "In time?"
"A marriage is for life," he said, as if only just know getting the brainwave himself, "At some point, Beth..."
She looked at him, red-faced and squirming under the weight of his own words, "Deal's gotta be sealed, huh?"
"You speak of it like a transaction."
"Something given, something gained."
"I do not speak of tonight or next week or a year from now, but..." he paused, "I asked before, if I was so repellant a prospect..."
She grimaced, turning away, "It's not about you. Okay? I'm just an unfeeling, frigid little bitch. Sometimes first impressions get it right on the dick."
"You aren't a maiden," he said it matter-of-factly, "My mother can think what she wants..."
"But she'll notice I'm not pregnant eventually," she rolled her eyes, "I'll just claim hex-induced miscarriage."
"That's not what I meant."
"Stop it."
"Only if the manner of your..."
"I mean it..."
"If you were ever forced, Beth..."
She hit him. Not a dainty, drawing room slap either. Her knuckles connected with an earsplitting crack and Everett stumbled back, grabbing onto the end table to steady himself. There was a skittering sound, of metal on wood. He'd dropped the ring: it spun around on the tabletop like a fallen penny...a shiny, intangible blur, briefly without form.
"Look up...look at me, Beth. At me...that's right. See? Not so bad?" he was smiling through his exertions, the fringe of his hair hanging into his eyes almost boyishly, "You're so beautiful..." his finger traced her lips, down the length of her neck, damming her tears as it went.
"I want you so bad. You can feel it, can't you? How badly I want you?"
The ring clinked its way to a stop. Everett recovered himself enough to speak, "I am..."
"It's fine."
"If I offended you..."
"Stop."
"Think of me however you like: milksop, lickspittle, eunuch..."
"It's not your problem!"
"...but I will protect you the best I can," he bowed his head, "You needn't fear me."
She couldn't look at him, and she couldn't turn back toward the window for fear of seeing herself, so she ended up staring at her new best friend the gargoyle.
"Mighty kind of you," she told those angry, flat eyes, feeling the phantom breath of a man who wouldn't be born for another 150 years pulsing, hot and urgent, against her face.
-O'Halloran, Delilah, Jacob, Caesar, Simon, Beth, and Everett
"Caoimhe'll do just fine," she assured Simon. "Ye can start callin' me 'Miss' when I own more than the clothes on me back and 'Ma'am' if I'm e'er wed. Even then, I might stop ye, out o' habit."
Remembering why she ventured out here in the first place, Caoimhe turned to Caesar. "I came to say goodbye. I feel we've been makin' a habit o' that as o' late but now...with Cillian gone..." Her face grew sullen, the awful words still tasting sour on her tongue. "...my Da's set on leavin' this place behind, as early as tomorrow mornin'. I figured ye ought to know, for all ye done for me."
"Wed, eh? Got anyone in mind?" Jacob prompted, getting roundly cuffed about the head by Simon for his trouble.
"Goodbye," Caesar said softly, bowing his head, "That..."
That makes sense, he wanted to say, that's good, he should've said, that's best would've been cruel to say, but no less true.
"That's hard," he said instead, "It must be. Without your brother."
Again, he felt the truth coiling in him like a sleeping serpent: heavy and cold, pulsing with unexpressed venom.
"I haven't done anything for you, Caoimhe," he said at length, "Nothing good."
***
Samson had spent an eventful day. But he was a strong horse and, as far as Delilah figured, could bear an eventful evening.
"A rare beauty, he," O'Halloran commented, fixing a saddle to the mount, "Ye could run him in shows!"
"Livestock shows are good as gambling," Delilah commented.
"Aye, but so's about ev'ry other type of business, but a man's got to fill his plate," he tested the bridle with a tug, scratching Samson on the nose, "Proper comfor'ble, eh, young son?"
The stables being otherwise occupied, Samson was confined in a small paddock behind one of the barns...hardly a spot befitting a horse of his stature, though the animal didn't complain.
"You have much experience of horses?" Delilah asked.
"As much as I need," O'Halloran answered breezily, "Poor Ody got us where we needed te be. Caoimhe, now, she's a gel knows her horseflesh...but ye'll forgive me if I want her nowhere near this ex'pade of yours."
"I had hardly thought to invite her," she said flatly, "She doesn't seem to have a very high opinion of me."
O'Halloran snorted, "She en't no type for sugar-coatin', true 'nuff."
"She protects her father," she conceded, "That is admirable."
"If only he could return th'favor."
"You truly believe yourself negligent?"
He gave her a sideways look, "I en't exactly raised a liddy."
"Certainly not," Delilah agreed, "Still...she is raised."
"An' shoeless, an' hungry more oft than not...an' without a brother."
"That last is not your crime."
"Nae, but me hands en't clean either," he stood aside, offering a hand to help Delilah mount. She eyed it coolly, a small frown appearing betwixt her brows before she accepted the assistance.
"There are none of us without sin,"
"That an' a thimble'a Spanish caffie-seeto'll rob me'a sleep tonight...if this little trip don't first."
"It is not a great distance," Delilah assured him, "But somewhat treacherous. I'd have undertaken it myself but..." she paused deliberately, her fingers caressing Samson's mane. O'Halloran wondered if Marianne had done the same, when she and Cillian had fled this house last night. Surely, Cillian would have helped the girl mount...he was a gallant young man, and chivalrous, at least where a lovely lady was concerned.
He'd raised him enough to know. Not well, mayhap, not always, but sufficient.
"Nae a horsewoman?" O'Halloran guessed for her, determinedly lightly.
"Our last encounter was less than peaceable."
He frowned, "This scally...he dangerous?"
"Not in the sense you mean. But he is not the sort of man I would approach alone."
"Or wit' yer husband's knowledge?"
"You needn't fear Delwyn."
"Pardon me, marm, but we both know that en't so."
"I shall take full responsibility," she assured him, "He will be more than willing to lay it upon me."
"That's well fer ye, but it don't sit swell wit'me either."
"Regrettable," Delilah looked down at him, "If you have reservations, Mr. O'Halloran, I shan't twist your arm. You may return to your daughter...and your son will be returned to you, in kind come morning. You can be on your way."
"Ye mistake me, Delilah Maddox," he used her full name, as if to lend him a strength he didn't feel, "I've reservations a'plenty. But the first dumb bugle boy on th'field has 'em too...and that don't stop him none."
She almost smiled, "Then let's away. There's only so much night left."
-Jacob, Caesar, O'Halloran, and Delilah
"But Caesar!" Caoimhe chided him gently, caressing his cheek with the palm of her hand. "Ye done me the only good I've had in this godforsaken place. The worst thing ye e'er done is make sayin' goodbye so hard. But me Da, in all his wisdom, is right on one thing: better to have loved an' lost than ne'er have loved at all. And our family has lost so, so much o'er the years. But what I'll ne'er lose is the love I had for my mother, for Cillian...and now for you." She took his hands in hers and looked Caesar in the eyes, tears welling up in her own. "And yet...for all that talk...I still wonder if I'm willin' to let ye go. If we can't run off like Cillian did with that Maddox girl and try to write our own stories. Ended poorly for them, aye, but devil curse me, for all that's happened...a bit o' the dreamer still lives in me heart."
Goddamn her for still believing in fairy tales! Had Caoimhe learned nothing? Was she really so naive to be susceptible to these sudden pangs of hope? Was she really so ready to open herself up to be hurt once again?
In the end, she supposed she was. If nothing else, it assured Caoimhe that she still had fire in her belly. That she was alive. Naturally in the dance of life and love also came death and loss, and Caoimhe was tough enough to brave the storm. She would not succumb to the hopelessness which pervaded every corner of this cursed corner of the world. Even with her family diminished and demoralized, Caoimhe would persevere. She would believe that things would get better.
That belief alone was a valiant stand. And Caoimhe was proud and eager to take it.
He let her take his hands, choosing to be oblivious...if only for the moment...of the others' eyes on him, on the great emptiness of the open land around them. To imagine, as Marianne must have, in the stables last night, that she was alone in the world, but for the one she loved.
An easier fantasy for her, perhaps, who knew no world but one where she was princess presumptive. Who, if she did not make the rules, was never disenfranchised by them, never barred by stricture or edict.
She didn't have to run away with Cillian. If she'd really wanted, she could've married him right there, with nobody but poor Ody for a witness, and what could have happened to her? Her parents might have fumed and raged, but it was Marianne's will...
Surely, they would have broken. Surely for her, the rules would have changed.
"Oh, Caoimhe," he wiped her tears with the ball of his thumb, "It's a beautiful dream..."
And he wanted to run. He wanted the world to open up: for a thousand roads to a thousand nations to unfurl like velvet carpets. He wanted to see the great cities of the world: the great pointed temples of China and the tiered pyramids of South America; he wanted to see great steamships crossing the ocean, to taste rich, fatty foods on silver plates...to go to Rome and see the polished marble statues of the men his mother claimed he'd been named for. Those proud, austere men, who'd led armies and owned slaves of many colors, and tell them "I am Caesar too."
"You shouldn't give it up," he said finally, "The dream. Even if it won't come true, even if it can't... Believing in it, believing in anything..." he smiled tremulously, "It'll see you through. Until a better dream comes along."
Behind them, the fire snapped, and he thought You can let her go now. Let her turn back to the house and her father and let her leave before you can take anymore from her. If you cannot give her the truth, you can at least give her freedom. Let her go, let her end, let her...
"Would you like to sit?" he asked softly, "With us? For...for a little while?"
***
The night pressed close on them: humming with the chittering of invisible insects. The well-worn sod of the cart track had long since given way to spongy humus, redolent with the rank stink of brackish, leafy water.
Samson kept a healthy pace, and O'Halloran wasn't about to rush him none. This was an uncertain time in an uncertain country toward an uncertain end.
Mind, his company wasn't thoroughly certain either.
"Here," Delilah lifted her arm demonstratively, her cape appearing like a bat's wing in the moonmist.
O'Halloran followed her attention, off the bend in the barely there path, into the thicket, "Ye sure?"
"We can get no farther ahorse."
"I see that clear 'nuff. I dinna mean if yer eyes are sure..."
"My senses are sharp as required."
"An' yer mem'ry?" he offered a hand, "'Tis a remote place...an' a spot like this looks much like an'other," he strove to hide the quiver in his vowels, "Ye sure this friend'a yers lives out here?" a a grackle screeched out in the treetops and he gulped, "In this wild province?"
She dismounted, laying her hand briefly on O'Halloran's arm to rebalance herself, "I assure you. I have not forgotten."
"Worth a venture," he grumbled, smoothing out Samson's mane, "Ye sit pretty here, eh, boyo? Plenty of new grass a'growin'...though it smells proper briney."
"The earth here is swamp fed. The marsh seeps through the country from here to the river," she pulled the hasps of her cape close around her shoulders, "In my father's time, men tried to plant here, but the venture proved too costly. Nothing grows here save what's sown by God's own hand."
"How's yer friend manage?"
"By God's hand," Delilah answered, "So he claims."
It was this that unsettled O'Halloran. She spoke of this friend as if he were for a certainty living out here, in the very back of the back country, though she'd made no comment at all of when she'd last heard from the man. O'Halloran, unaccustomed to fixed addresses himself, needn't devise a passel of plots for why he wouldn't be about when they came calling.
Still, they left Samson to rest at the roadside and ventured into the thicket, nothing but a lone lantern to light their way. The ground was soft and treacherous underfoot, with O'Halloran having more than one near miss, and the edges of Delilah's cape catching on gorse and thistle which she must then wrest herself from.
She kept her arm looped through his, though her eyes ever on the ground below or the way ahead.
"My brother Andrew was killed," she said finally, ghost-soft, her breath misting into the lantern glow, "In the Battle of New Orleans. More than 30 years ago now."
"In Madison's War? The 1812?"
"The second Independence War they called it then. The treaty had been writ and signed by the time New Orleans burned, but no man on the field knew it. He died a hero's death, and took our family name with him."
"A shame," O'Halloran said dubiously.
"You needn't swallow your tongue so," she said curtly.
"I was about te say, I s'pose that's why they married ye off so quick."
"Delwyn Maddox was the most prosperous man in three counties. He practically built this town. I was hardly snatched by pirates."
"Ye weren't snatched by nae parson either," he pointed out, "But I'll mind me nose."
She sighed shortly, "It was imperative that I be married, yes. Not merely because of Andrew's death, but because of the..." the moonlight cast spidery shadows on her ice blue face, "Shame on our family."
"Ye said he died a hero!"
"Andrew did. He was not...is not my only brother."
He frowned, "So...this man we're seeing?"
"The youngest Pickering, and the last to bear the name."
O'Halloran turned this over in his mind, "An' he couldna have chirrun of his own?"
"He could," said Delilah, "Once."
Which was all there was to say on the subject. They pressed on into the murky mist, the fog closing in like skeeter netting, plugging every sense with cold, wet oblivion.
-Caesar, O'Halloran, and Delilah
Caoimhe looked back over her shoulder at the Maddox Manor, where no doubt her father was eagerly awaiting her return. Something in her told her she should let goodbye be goodbye and leave now...but something else urged her to savor the time she had now. What was the harm, really? They wouldn't be leaving until tomorrow and the Maddoxes were too busy either tending to their distraught daughter or perhaps their freshly married son to pay any mind to this corner of their vast estate.
No...Caoimhe would not live in fear; she refused. "I think I would, Caesar," she answered warmly, briefly glancing at his friends. "If that's alright with you?"
Simon raised an eyebrow, looking at Caesar in wordless skepticism. He could hear the unasked question: "Is this a good idea?"
A question Simon, with all his worldly wisdom, knew the answer to already, though this didn't set him as far apart from Caesar as he might think. This was not a good idea. He could repeat it to himself end to end, could wrap it in every word out of his mouth, could keep it emblazoned over his every thought...
But it was all very well to know what was best for you. It's another thing entirely to do it. Perhaps learning that distinction is what separated boys from men.
Would it be so bad to remain a boy, for just a little while longer?
"Yeah, why not," Jacob's lips parted in a shadow smile, "Who're we to kick ya?"
Simon's eyes darted between them, but he brooked no objection, waving his hand to a spot by the fire, "We've got precious little to offer but hospitality."
"We've got a damn surplus, in fact," Jacob interjected, lips curling.
Caesar smiled, returning to the fire, gesturing for Caoimhe to take the spot between him and Jacob.
The night was wearing on, daybreak hovering at the end like a precipice over a great chasm. None of this could last and, probably, none of it should.
He was not a boy anymore. He hadn't really been a boy in a long time, but after Mosiah...watching him die and return and die again, Caesar had surrendered any claim to the comforts of childhood.
But he was only human and, after a lifetime of self-denial, starved for the tiniest sliver of self-indulge. The gulf beneath that great precipice yawned dark and fathomless...was it really so selfish to cling to what solid, sure ground remained to him, no matter how faithlessly?
He knew the answer of course, and sat anyway.
***
They went on for a while, pushing through dense weed and deep mud. O'Halloran had long since given up any notion he knew where they were, and had to content himself with the knowledge Delilah Maddox had things in hand.
This was not a particular comfort, owing to recent developments, but you eat what's put on your plate.
By and by, the lantern light revealed something manmade, for a flimsy definition of "made".
"'Tis bare a lean-to!" O'Halloran gasped at the sight of it, "I've seen sounder outhouses."
It was a little shack: three walls of crude cordwood, with a sort of greenish gold mortar that may have been made of swamp mud. The roof was a thick matt of dried reeds, bound together with twine that may well have been grass itself. There was no door that O'Halloran could see: the three walls formed a sort of hutch, like a roadside shrine. In the darkness, the opening seemed to yawn before them like some shadowy maw.
"Don't look like nae one's home..."
"Gaylord!"
"Gyahh!" O'Halloran swallowed the rest of his words with a sheepish gulp as Delilah called the name, strong and strident, as if she meant to summon him from the moonmist.
"Gaylord Pickering!" her words stayed level, though she gripped the hasps of her cloak but fiercely, her knuckles bone white, "Are you there?"
-Caesar, Simon, Jacob, O'Halloran, and Delilah
Silence. A lonesome wind blew through the reeds.
O'Halloran craned his neck as if to hear over the moist, swampy gusts.
"Och, well," he sighed, "S'pose he changed his address an' all..."
He turned to go.
-O'Halloran
"WHO DARES TRESPASS ON THIS HALLOWED GROUND?!"
O'Halloran screamed, his bowels releasing a heady brew that, in a more sensate moment, he would sincerely hope was masked by the persistent swamp odor.
Delilah, for her part, didn't scream, though her eyes widened sharply as she cast them about in the gloom.
"Gaylord?" she tried again, "Gaylord, is it you?"
"Nae, I reckon 'tis grim death collectin' tolls," muttered O'Halloran, at this point realizing he'd ruined his trousers.
"It's Delilah," she continued, and O'Halloran must again muster at the unusual stripe of courage the Maddox matriarch was capable of mustering up when she had a mind, "Your sister," she pronounced the word with a quiet sort of regret, "Surely you remember me."
-O'Halloran and Delilah
And lo, in the swampy mist, there stood the outline of a rangy and mangy figure, flecked with splotches of mud and rivulets of glistening sweat, bearing a mane of gray hair flowing behind him and a wiry beard dangling before him. All of this was cloaked in the stygian shadows the forest's canopy brought down upon him. The only things that could be made out in this darkness were the whites of his eyes, which seemed to glow in stark contrast to his surroundings. In this light, he did resemble the grim death O'Halloran spoke of. The type of specter parents warn their children of in order to keep them from wandering off into the unknown wilderness.
Finally, he spoke. "Remember you?" His voice was equal parts deep and nasal, almost sounding like a creature not of this earth. "How could I ever forget you...dearest sister?" He stepped forward, revealing himself completely in the moonlight to be a man who looked to be wholly removed from civilization. The only raiment on his body was a ratty sack of some sort, draped on his nude body to resemble a sort of toga. In one hand was a walking stick taller than himself, no doubt carved from a fallen tree branch. In the other was a wooden pail, overflowing with water, its other contents unclear to the common observer.
"It seems you're the one who's forgotten," he stepped closer, revealing a maw cursed with yellow, rotting teeth. "You know I no longer answer to that name. At least you ought to, for all the consternation my...calling...brought down on our family." Leaning forward, he narrowed his eyes and inspected Delilah, paying no mind to O'Halloran, as if to verify if she were truly there in the flesh or merely an apparition of some kind. "Gaylord Pickering died years ago, sweet sister. ENOCH is what remains. Or have you only ventured all this way to my domain to mock me further, nostalgic for days long gone?"
Delilah drew in breath.
Of course she remembered the name her brother had chosen: Enoch, descendent of Adam's line who, alone of his generations, did not die, but "walked with God": assumed body and soul into the heavens, to be one with his Creator.
She remembered as well her mother's weeping, her father's growly curses. She, as good as a mayfly on the wall, clinging with brittle purchase at the periphery of the unraveling household.
"Have you ever known me to have a taste for mockery?" she asked finally, "I've learned much since I left home, but my well for humor remains dry."
Beside her, O'Halloran let out a nervous croak of laughter. In the heavy canopy, a bird called out: its song like a hammer chipping away at wood.
She indicated the three-sided hovel behind them, "I am glad to find you here. I'd feared I would find the place abandoned."
-Delilah and O'Halloran
"Glad?" Enoch cocked his brow, feigning amusement. "Oh, you must be desperate. Scared, even. How much things can change over the years that you, with all your trappings of propriety and good taste...are glad to find me. I never would have thought..." He chortled a laugh in a low monotone that was equal parts disingenuous and threatening. "This is a pleasant surprise indeed." His eyes darted to her male companion, as if noticing him for the first time. "This isn't the oaf you married. Who's this knave you bring to my home?" Enoch squinted his eyes, trying to asses the stranger with an excessive amount of skepticism. "He's not with the government, is he?"
Delilah opened her mouth to provide an introduction, but the Irishman proved irrepressible as ever.
"The guv'mint?" he echoed incredulously, one hand fanned out to obscure the splotch on his trousers, "First time fer ev'ry cuss, I s'pose..."
"Why should I attempt to entrap you, brother?" Delilah asked, "You have chosen a humble life. To my knowledge, that is no crime."
"Humble 'tis, if it en't all else," O'Halloran affected a brassy bonhomie, which didn't do much to mask his anxiety, "Live off th'land do ye?" he eyed the bucket, "Bait for fishes, eh?"
-Delilah and O'Halloran
Enoch glanced down at this pail, his eyes oscillating between his catch of the day and this suspicious stranger. "Not bait, Irishman." He reached into the bucket's water, his fingers sloshing around inside it for a brief moment, before ultimately withdrawing a slimy, fat leech that spanned the length of his hand. "Leeches. Good for expelling foul humors." Feeling the grace of God compel him, Enoch generously offered the creature to the newcomer. "Would you like one? I've plenty to share." He shot Delilah a contemptuous look. "I know for a fact my sister is due for a thorough cleaning of the spirit. I've one for her as well, should she have mustered the humility to aspire to true penance since last I saw her."
O'Halloran went dough-faced at the sight of the wriggly pustule.
"Nae, thank ye. I've had me supper."
Delilah sighed. She had expected some manner of excoriation, deserved or otherwise. It was not hers to say. She had felt many things on the occasion of her brother's self-imposed exile from their family...mayhap pride among them. Perhaps she had seen the man who was Gaylord, bookish and soft-spoken, in sackcloth and sandals like some new made John the Baptist, and had thought There but for the grace of God go I.
She had thought him mad, this much she knew. So choked by Scripture, so puffed up by his own pretensions, that he fancied himself not merely awake in his spirit, but ascendent...possessed of a secret sacred knowledge mother, father and sister could never aspire to in their worldly decadence.
Perhaps he was right. Perhaps she was wrong to come this far.
But there was nowhere else to go.
"I had my own path to travel," she pointed out, "A family of my own to start..." she pressed her lips together, "Three children now. My eldest is full grown and..." but she thought of Marianne's distress, her sundered maidenhead, and bit her tongue.
"I shall not shellac myself in sugar," Delilah continued, "It is true, I had not expected to pay you any visits...but a woman starts a family, and they must become her priority. More than the one she left. And my family needs your help, Enoch," the chosen name crept reluctantly to her lips.
"You once spoke of evil incarnate. Reading your discourses...Origen and Augustine...you professed an understanding more than our catechism had ever given us."
This was dressing it up politely. Well did she remember the occasion Enoch had accused their parish priest of trafficking with demons, and endeavored to cast them out of him. The humiliation, the indignity...
And yet.
"I turned up my nose at your pronouncements. I dismissed your so-called revelations as the conjuring of a deluded mind. I admit it," she raised her eyes back to him, "There is no sin greater than pride. In this I am guilty and for this..." she swallowed a bitter sliver of bile, "I beg your forgiveness."
-Delilah and O'Halloran
Enoch stood there, dead silent and stiff as a statue. It was a heavy quiet, draped over them all like a steel blanket. Yet another lonesome wind blew through the reeds. Perhaps the voice of God whispering into the hermit's ear, providing counsel as to what he should do next.
Finally, Enoch made his decision. "Let us continue this conversation inside," he gestured towards his humble hermitage. "There are vipers about in this swamp. Agents of the devil, they are. Lurking in the muck, eager to condemn you to an early grave. Lucifer's servants are plentiful, indeed..." Enoch eyed the both of them warily once more. "...and they take on many forms. Glory to God that I am not so easily deceived...I hope." As he uttered this final word, Enoch took the leech he offered to the Irishman and jammed it on his shoulder, letting its fangs dig into his flesh and suck his humors. He brushed past Delilah and O'Halloran and entered his abode, expecting the two to follow close in tow.
O'Halloran watched Enoch's retreat, agog, "He jus' called us devil dogs, didn'he?"
"I must assume he was speaking in a general sense," Delilah said brusquely, starting toward the ramshackle house.
"Now, wait a mo'!" he grabbed her by the arm so abruptly she really ought to have protested, but the impulse curdled on her lips, "I've followed ye this long, Mrs. Maddox, an' I en't keen to call it quits now, bein' in fer a penny as a pound, but ye'll forgive me if I've my reservations."
"Reservations."
"What in St. Brendan's bait store's wrong wi' him?" he hissed the question, eyes practically bugging from his skull.
Delilah pressed her lips together, "Not an inappropriate question for a man you just met."
"I'm fair sure I en't th'first te ask or he'd not have moved out te the country in th'first place!"
She sighed shortly, looking off toward the house warily, "Our brother Andrew's death touched us all. Gaylord..."
"Ah, nah!" he raised an amending finger.
"Enoch..." Delilah corrected, "Sought comfort in faith. Shortly after Andrew died, he experienced what he described as an ecstatic vision..."
"How did yer Mam and Da' describe it?"
"Very little if they could help it. But he didn't make his so-called awakening easy to ignore. He declared an ascetic life...renounced the pleasures of the flesh."
"That why he's got all them little worms grubbing off it?"
Her eyes brightened briefly, but not even the shadow of a smile appeared on her lips, "I did not come here from a wealth of options. But he has never not been genuine in his...expression. He gave much for our Lord...the Lord we're both meant to serve."
"That's plain te see."
"There's more as well, and less plain," her expression darkened, "Whatever my brother is, he is no cavorting carnival barker. What he believes, he believes sincerely..."
"Any of them beliefs count dead men dragging 'emselves out of their graves?"
"Perhaps," she said at length, "Perhaps not. But they do include the forces capable of such raising...recognizing them and destroying them."
O'Halloran followed her gaze to the house, frowning incredulously, "Wha', wi' leeches?"
-Delilah and O'Halloran
"ARE YOU COMING INSIDE OR NOT?!" Enoch bellowed impatiently from his hovel. "I ONLY HAVE SO MUCH TIME SUCH IDLING NONSENSE!!!"
"We are coming presently!" Delilah responded, in much the same stringent tones she used on her children.
"En't much inside te speak of," O'Halloran commented, swallowing his reservations to stump on to the three-sided hutch and remarking, in a slightly louder voice, "Don't do much entertainin', do ye?" at the sight of the interior, such as it was.
-Delilah and O'Halloran
"I've no need to entertain," Enoch scoffed, guiding the others into his home. "The Lord has put me on this earth to enlighten. This abode suits the task well-enough." The room was enlightened, yes, with tallow candles at just about every corner. They were wedged deep into the walls, which seemed to be composed primarily of hardened mud and swamp detritus. The hut was a tight and constrained environment, made even more so by the abundance of old texts and yellowed parchments, written by himself and the scholars who came before him. In the corner behind him was Enoch's desk, littered with crumpled paper, scrawled with near illegible notes. This was where he sat down; Enoch instructed the others to sit down on a couple of stones before him. He'd laid out those stones in the off-chance those cowardly papists in New Orleans would have finally visited him to appease his request to debate his qualifications for the priesthood (not the mention their legitimacy to wear the cloth!) but alas! The Vatican's cancerous cowardice had thoroughly infected this corner of the world now! How pitiful!
"Now you seek my help..." Enoch spoke slowly, gently caressing the leech on his shoulder as he did so. "...because your family is in danger. I must ask...what kind of danger haunts your home that you'd come to me after all these years? What spiritual ill pervades your halls that you require my...talents?" A low buzzing permeated the hovel as he spoke, as a horde of flies was hovering above the three of them, picking at the mud entrenched in the low ceiling.
"Evil," Delilah answered promptly, remaining standing for lack of other options, "There are surely other words for it...some that mere days ago, I would've felt foolish to utter aloud. Witchcraft, sorcery, necromancy...but whatever the medium through which it travels, it is undeniably Evil. A malefic force walking among my family, consciously enacting a foul, hateful plot upon my..."
"Euerugh!"
"What is it now?" Delilah demanded as O'Halloran moaned, rubbing at his forehead, where some ill-colored substance had dropped down.
"What've ye mortared that cordwood with?" he asked, "Swamp mud?"
-Delilah and O'Halloran
"Feces," Enoch replied tersely, before needlessly clarifying, "Mine."
O'Halloran stood up with a cry of protest, but Delilah stayed him with a "Sit down!"
He silently indicated the lack of seating and Delilah desisted, turning back to Enoch, "There is a witch in my home. In the last few days, she has raised a man...a slave...from the dead, making of him some mindless, reaving revenant..."
"No man he," O'Halloran interjected, moving well away from the leaky spot, though as far as Delilah figured, the whole floor was likely covered over with several layers of her brother's homemade fixative, "I saw the poor bastid meself and there weren't a sliver of light behind his eyes."
"This creature...the dead man, whatever you like to call him...walked the earth for less than a day and, in that time, killed four men..." she bowed her head, "This man's son among them."
O'Halloran lifted his eyes briefly, "Cillian. Killed him as he carried off poor Marianne, as near as we can figure..."
"Marianne," Delilah interrupted, clarifying, "My daughter," as he would not otherwise know, "She was its captive for hours. We found her tonight, in a state of...derangement," her throat tightened, a steady burn starting behind her eyes, "I can think of no better word. She barely knew what had happened to her, where she'd been, what became of the boy and..."
A tear! The tear of a hypocrite! Of a Samaritan woman!
Try as she might to forbid it, the tears came.
Wretched woman, she, awash in ignorance and blinded by pride, to have allowed such evil to fester and flourish in her home these long years. Castigate her husband she might, for his willful obtuseness, but she had been just as blind, knowing the evil in her home and choosing to pretend it was ordinary a presence as the wainscoting.
A hand on her shoulder: gentle and hesitant...O'Halloran didn't meet her eyes when she raised them to him, instead pretending a great interest in the fecal matter dribbling from the ceiling. But he remained there, a solid comfort...enough for her to finish her thought.
"...she is a maiden no more."
-Delilah and O'Halloran
Enoch furrowed his brow, deep in thought as he hung onto Delilah's every word. To see his sister this emotional was indeed very strange. Never had his prim and uptight sister revealed herself to be so vulnerable. Perhaps married life had softened her but Enoch doubted this was the case. She was a cold statue of a woman. To think something could ignite a fire so strong that she'd be sitting here, on the verge of weeping to him of all people...it was intriguing, to say the least. Once Delilah had finished, he was silent for some time, contemplating what to make of this fascinating development.
Eventually, Enoch removed the leech from his shoulder, unleashing a sickening squelch as he did so; he held the creature with one hand and petted it gently with the other. "So Evil has come your door to ravage your dear family...hm." He stood up and paced slowly around his tight quarters, continuing to caress the leech while his eyes scanned his various religious tomes (some even written by himself). "'The fear of Jehovah is to hate Evil...Pride and arrogance and the evil way, and the perverted mouth...'" Enoch stopped in his tracks and turned to Delilah. "...'I hate.' You ought to remember that one from your catechism. A simple proverb, that. And yet, so few are capable of heeding its wisdom. So few are able to remove themselves from the temptations of the spirit and of the flesh, and so live proudly the life of heathenry and idolatry."
He wagged the leech at her, a wry smile creeping onto his face. "You're no different. For all your aspirations of piety and modesty, you never were. You claimed to fear God but just like the rest of our family, you carried yourself with too much pride to call yourself a true believer. I can only imagine it's gotten worse ever since you married and raised a family of your own. You were never one to learn the error of your ways. No, no..." Enoch cradled the leech in both hands, eying it curiously. "You act as if this witch, you call her, this...Evil...entered your life by some unfortunate chance. A fated tragedy which you could not avoid. So easy it is to play the victim, as Eve did in Eden. The naïf assumes the serpent alone was Evil, acting of its own accord."
He dangled the leech between his fingers, his eyes fixed on the wriggling parasite as he spoke. "But it was Eve's pride which attracted the demon. Her lust for power, her arrogance. She was no victim...and neither are you." Turning his back to her, Enoch regained his grip on the leech, holding it in his palm. "I have no pity for you, Delilah. Perhaps if you--if all of you had heeded my warnings all those years ago, you'd be living pure lives, free of Evil. But no--it was I who was made to be the outcast. And now it is I who you ask to cleanse your Eden and to slay the serpent that lurks in your midst."
His eyes drifted down to the leech, which continued to flail helplessly in his hand. "Even if I do conquer this Evil, this witch, this necromancer, as you proclaim her to be...will you truly be saved...or would you only be delaying your inevitable..." He closed his fist on the creature, tightening it until the disgusting pest exploded in his hand, coating his flesh with the leech's gooey innards. "...judgement?"
Enoch turned to face his two guests and raised both of his hands; one was clean and the other, red with the leech's blood--his own blood, freshly removed from his body. "Hear this, dear sister: I seek not to help you. You are beyond saving, lest you have it in you to reach true enlightenment as I have and come to a peace with Christ. The same can likely be said of your kin, if you raised them with the same misguided values our own mother and father tried to instill in us. Evil will come for you, one way or another."
He lowered his clean hand but kept his bloody hand raised. "But I will slay this Evil. I have made an oath, by my red right hand, to expel the servants of Lucifer at every opportunity. This witch is no exception. She must be punished. She must feel the fear of Jehovah. She must know His wrath. Then and only then can the Evil be wiped clean, obliterated by the light of the Holy Spirit. This is my sworn duty." Finally, Enoch sat back down and leaned forward with an intent, almost perverse interest. "So...tell me, dear sister, about this witch and why she has taken his son's life and your daughter's maidenhood. Tell me so that I may exercise God's will and vanquish her." Enoch placed his bloody hand on Delilah's knee, staining her dress with his blood; he leered at her, showing off all of his rotting yellow teeth. "You have my attention."
"Jehovah?" O'Halloran repeated.
"The name of God," Delilah repeated tiredly.
"Where? Mount Sinai?"
She had no idea if he were effacing this wide-eyed dimness genuinely, or if this were some attempt to put her more at ease. If the latter, she supposed she must be grateful...she'd even take willful foolishness, however, in the face of her brother's blandishments.
You are beyond saving.
He did not say it cruelly, but in the same matter-of-fact way one explains the change of seasons: This will happen. Of course it will. It would never have happened differently.
Pray and preen all she liked, but she had allowed evil to flourish in her home. For peace's sake, for the family she'd built...for the children she had worked so hard to bear.
At what cost?
"My children have committed no crime," she said finally, "None of us are without sin, brother, but you cannot lay this wickedness on their heads. My youngest...he is but eight."
She thought of Ellis turning fitfully in his bed, the sheets coiled around him like a noose as she hovered above him, debating whether to press the life out of him, to forever preserve him in a state of grace, and suppressed a shudder.
"The witch..." she sighed, "There is a woman. A slave woman."
Beside her, O'Halloran let out a soft sound of surprise and well he should...she'd shared no inkling of this with him. If he'd taken any measure of the herbwoman during that scene on the stairs earlier, he hadn't said as much.
"She has lived among us close on 20 years now. The other fieldhands know her as an herbalist...a witch. Her mother was a Caribe woman: a healer and seer, though the...intricacies of that art escape me. As I say, I never took the rumors to heart...superstitions of a cowardly, benighted race. But I have never doubted the hatred in her heart...for me, for my husband...for our children."
Delilah felt suddenly very small: her words seemed too soft, somehow suppressed in the cramped confines of her brother's lean-to.
"The dead man was known to her. He was accused of...attacking my daughter."
Accused, yes, and never proven. Remember Marianne's face, the shredded fan, the tears in her eyes...
Pray for us sinners. Pray for us...pray.
"It was for this crime he was scourged...and died in the scourging. That was two days ago," she twisted her hands in her lap, "My daughter spoke against him at the time. She was, at the time of her debasement, in the company of Mr. O'Halloran's son.
"Two of the other dead had been the condemned man's drivers in his life...they had been sent to bury him. I can only assume they were killed on the way back from doing the job. The fourth dead man was another slave. It is not for me to say why he may have died, except my eldest son Everett was there as well and had likewise been meant to hold the lash..."
"Wait a mo'!" O'Halloran's interjection was this time so abrupt Delilah gasped, "The liddy yer talkin' of...ye don't mean the boy's mother? Caesar?"
She didn't meet his eyes, asking dispassionately, "Is that his name?"
"Ye think she did it?" he looked at her incredulously, "Her son was near killed by that thing today!"
"And was not, wasn't he? Indeed, to hear tell of it, the dead man dropped before he could advance on the boy."
"But..." his mouth was working.
"But your daughter is in love with the boy," Delilah finished and gathered from his expression this was not news to him, "I know."
"I cannae believe it. That a mother'd put her son in harm's way..."
"I know what I saw," she turned back to Enoch, "Today, at the very moment the dead man attacked my son, I witnessed the herbwoman in the midst of some profane ritual. Lying on the floor, glistering as though she'd run a league, moaning in tongues at unseeable specters! And I felt..."
She faltered, "I felt her eyes on me. Just before. I felt her...as though she were staring into my very soul. Mocking," she turned back to her brother, voice shaking, "She has been biding her time these long years, but now she has chosen to emerge...perhaps it was the scourging, perhaps it is her son falling in love..."
"Lordy'esus," O'Halloran muttered.
"But it is her, Enoch, I will stake my life on it. She hates me, she hates my family...and she shall do all in her power to destroy us."
-Delilah and O'Halloran
Enoch's cracked lips curled into a perverse smile when Delilah called him by his true name; that smile erupted in a bout of hoarse laughter when she insisted the slave-woman was a witch. "So that's your story, eh? Your high and mighty family brought down to its knees...by some ignominious Ethiope. How did she do it, Delilah? Hm? Did she stab a doll with needles? Or perhaps it was her magic herbs that did the trick? Maybe she sacrificed a goat and muttered voodoo incantation!" His amused quickly devolved into disgust as he scanned his makeshift library, clicking his tongue in disapproval. "I feel insulted you'd task me with such a benign challenge that's so...beneath me. Imagine if the Lord instructed Joshua's conquering army not to take Canaan but to break up a fight amongst the village idiots. What a waste!" Enoch took a beat, one finger lingering on a particularly ratty tome, before asking, "Are you sure it's her? Are you certain she is the one and only witch in your midst?"