Brimstone

  Brimstone

  by

  Daniel Foster

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Epilogue

  Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,

  And sorry I could not travel both…

  —Robert Frost

  Prologue

  The Appalachian Mountains, 1902

  No matter how fiercely Garret struggled or screamed for help, he continued to sink. A six year old, lost in a dark world. Alone. The thick, wet earth was pulling him under. It was heavy on his body, weighing down his fight like cool, liquid iron. It took his waist, crept up his belly to his chest. He thrashed and cried out, but no one heard. He grasped here and there, but there was nothing around him except the sopping earth and nothing above him except the night sky, which was clouded over. Even the moon did not care to look upon Garret as he died. Garret slipped deeper, to his neck, then to his chin. He strained to keep his face in the air, his hand breaking the cold surface once more, grasping feebly.

  A hand grabbed his. It was warm and solid, and it held him fast. His sinking stopped. The wet ground pulled at him like a throat, determined to swallow, but the hand held him steady.

  “Please,” he whimpered. “Please, please, please.”

  The hand held him despite the pulling of the earth. The strain between the two began to tear things in Garret’s shoulder. It was a desperate, glorious pain. It meant he was still alive, his chin up, just above the ooze. His shoulder creaked, dislocated. He screamed.

  “Join us, and we’ll make you strong,” a voice said. “Come with us, and we’ll make you invincible.”

  Garret shuddered and awoke. His breath plumed in his icy bedroom. His long johns were soaked with sweat, though the stars shown through frost on both sides of his window pane. His shoulder was killing him. He lay there and cried like a baby.

  Chapter 1

  Journal Entry

  Bedburg, Germany. March 21, 1893.

  I have nightmares of It. Not of what It is, but of what It is becoming. Sometimes I catch the whiff of spoiled blood on Its breath. I feel the grease of Its fur between my fingers. But it is the smell I cannot be rid of. It fills the corners of my waking mind.

  — J.S.G.

  Malvern Mansion, February, 1909.

  Molly leaned against Charity’s side, but kept most of her weight against the chair in which Charity sat. The position wasn’t comfortable, but it allowed her to be touching her big sister while not interfering with Charity’s brush strokes. Charity was lost in her art, consumed by the act of creating. Molly pulled the afghan tighter around them both, but not for warmth. The fire behind them bathed them in warm waves, much as the leaden sky bathed the world beyond the window in sleet.

  In these increasingly rare times, Charity was herself, fully and completely, each brush stroke flying across the canvas without obstacle or restraint. When she painted, Charity was quiet, composed, and beautiful. She was whole. And Molly loved her for it. I wish it could always, always be like this.

  Charity was seventeen, five years older than Molly, so Charity often thought Molly didn’t understand things. Molly didn’t let that come between them.

  “Rain on me,” Charity murmured as she whipped navy blues and greys across the canvas in an expanding spray that reminded Molly of a night river, pregnant with spring rains. Here and there Charity accented the dark turbulence with a fleck or swirl of yellowish-white. Molly could feel the painting flowing, hear it running. Or was it the rain on the roof?

  Women were not expected to paint, nor was anyone, man or woman, expected to expend color in such a formless fashion. It was rude, bawdy, beneath the high-brows, and Molly loved every brush stroke of it. Everyone else thought that paintings were supposed to represent things like churches or fields or bowls of fruit, but Charity turned feeling directly into color. It had taken Molly a little while to figure out what Charity was doing, but now that she understood, she was mesmerized each time Charity picked up a brush.

  Molly considered Charity’s work to be a new kind of art. She knew the world might never accept Charity’s unbounded creativity, but what part of her sister had the world ever accepted? The afghan had slipped again from Charity’s opposite shoulder. Molly gently replaced it.

  Molly rested her cheek a little more on Charity’s shoulder. It’s so beautiful. You’re so beautiful. I wish you could see it. Molly didn’t think she’d said it out loud, but the slightest curve of Charity’s mouth indicated she had heard. Unconsciously, Charity put her free arm around her sister. Molly snuggled close, but gently.

  Molly hoped Charity would give her the painting when it was complete. Then whenever the rains fell on a cold evening, Molly would snuggle up in her bed, look at the painting in the fire light, and feel her sister with her, even though Charity was no longer there. The thought disturbed Molly. Recently, such feelings had been coming frequently, unbidden and unwelcomed. Then came the bitter edge to the thought. It always came if she didn’t get off the train of thought fast enough. If only Charity would stop. So much trouble would just go away.

  Molly forced herself to think of something else. “Did you see it first?” she whispered.

  Charity always responded to Molly’s questions, though sometimes it might take five minutes. Molly actually liked the waiting: the patient space between question and answer. This time, however, the response was prompt.

  “I don’t see it. I won’t see it until I’m done,” Charity murmured, though her eyes were open, and obviously guiding her hand. “I’m only feeling it.”

  The answer wrapped around them both, and Molly lost herself again in Charity’s work. Rain drummed, fire burned, and colors flowed, curling around and over each other, blurring together in an intimate dance. Charity painted until both she and Molly were so far away that neither of them heard the door open behind them.

  The peace shattered when their mother, in a stiff dress with lace up to her chin, threw her short, block-like shadow over the easel. “What in the blue blazes,” she rasped, “is that?”

  Molly cringed and Charity’s stroke faltered.

  “You were supposed to arrive at Charlene Hensley’s coming-out party an hour ago, young lady. I told Mrs. Hensley to be expecting you. If you choose not to respect yourself, that is your affair, but I will not allow you to further tarnish the good name your father and I have built.”

  Their mother gained momentum and volume, but Charity kept trying to paint. Her strokes grew choppy and uneven, and she was baring her teeth. She was going to ruin the painting. Molly laid a hand on Charity’s paint-spattered fingers. Charity stopped. Molly waited until Charity met her eyes, then gave a small shake of her head.

  Their mother was progressing to a rant. Charity blinked, seeming to see the painting for the first time. Near where her hand hovered, the flow was contorted, jagged with anger. Charity’s shoulders sagged and she put the brush down.

  “Are you listening to me, young lady?” Mrs. Malvern boomed. “You will learn what you need to be a proper lady. I will not let you destroy your life. I will drive William out of this town forever if I must!”

  Charity stood in their mother’s face so suddenly
that Molly fell off the chair.

  “If you touch William’s reputation, I will destroy yours,” Charity said. It brought everything to a halt. Molly put her hands over her mouth in horror. Mrs. Malvern’s mouth hung open, and the color drained from her face. Both responses only lasted an instant. Her mouth snapped shut, becoming clenched rows of ivory teeth, and redness rushed into her cheeks. With one hand, she snatched Charity by the ear, and with the other, she seized the painting off the easel and flung it, spinning it like a pie plate towards the open hearth.

  Charity stumbled under her mother’s grip, crying out in anger and pain. Molly leaped for the painting, but only caught it with a passing finger, so it banged off the edge of the fire place and landed face down on the floor, stringing wet oil paint across the wood. The smears were blue and grey and brown, but to Molly, they looked like blood.

  Doubled over in her mother’s grip, pawing at her mother’s arresting hand, Charity screamed obscenities. Molly herself was pleading and trying to loosen her mother’s fingers on Charity’s ear.

  “Mother stop, you’re hurting her!”

  Mrs. Malvern didn’t seem to know Molly was there. She stared at Charity’s bent over, cursing form with a wide-eyed expression. Mrs. Malvern’s skin was tight and white, like paper on the verge of tearing.

  * * *

  Journal Entry

  Bedburg, Germany. June 22, 1893

  I dream of wolves many nights. I do not know why, only that they are a relief from my imaginations of It. The wolves come on fleet paws over the ground towards me. And whether they be my salvation in life, or merely my Valkyries until damnation, I know they come to protect.

  It killed a child tonight. I am slow witted that I did not see It had gained the strength to kill. Now I bear the blood of a babe on my soul, mingling with the blood of my wife.

  — J.S.G.

  Malvern Mansion. March, 1909

  Charity’s jaw would have fallen open if it hadn’t been clenched hard enough to make her teeth creak. Surely Mother hadn’t said that. No one should ever say something like that to another human being. But her mother never misspoke, neither did she allow Charity, or Molly, or their father, or any of the servants to miss a word of her shrill voice. Charity’s mother, the pompous, ass-faced, well-bred socialite, acted as if her words were not only acceptable, but proper and deserved.

  Without so much as a nod, Mrs. Malvern slammed the door on William’s colorless face. It shut with the finality of a crypt door. The boom raked across the marble floor. It was a stunning move, even for somebody as callous as Charity’s mother. As far as Charity cared to see, her mother protected nothing so much as her social standing, but slamming the front door in someone’s face was only marginally less heinous than spitting on their mother’s grave.

  Mrs. Malvern spun her round body towards Charity. “Young lady, you will listen to what I have to say, and you will not forget it.”

  Charity couldn’t have remembered anything if she wanted to. Her head was spinning. She was crushed. Her soul was in shambles. William.

  She had to think of something to say, something which would hurt her mother as badly as she herself was hurting, but the only thing she could come up with was, Mama, I love him. If she said it, it would make no difference, and the inability to make herself understood was twisting her hurt into rage. A sudden need to slap her mother silly buried everything else, but there were too many edgy servants standing close. Charity wouldn’t get beyond her battle cry before they tackled her away from her mother, so Charity waited until her proud, starched and pressed, absurdly fat mother was mid-sentence, then turned deliberately on her heel and stalked out of the room.

  No one walked out on Mrs. Malvern. Ever. It was almost satisfying. It took Mrs. Malvern a moment to find her tongue. “How dare you, young lady! You come back here this instant!”

  Ah, now it was really satisfying.

  Her mother charged after her, her heavy frame rattling the mansion’s rafters. “Stop right there!”

  Her mother never asked, just barked like a general. At least from Charity’s height, she was always looking down on her mother. It was a nice.

  Charity picked up the pace, grabbed the front of her skirt, and whisked away up the sweeping staircase that flanked the entryway. Not fast enough to be fleeing (she would never give her mother the satisfaction of running from her), but fast enough to stay ahead of her mother’s dumpy legs.

  It was unusual for her mother to be doing this in plain sight of the servants. Charity and her mother went nose to nose with depressing regularity, but Mrs. Malvern always tried to keep things quiet so none of the servants would hear. Charity always raised her voice and shouted out anything someone might find juicy enough to repeat.

  “Stop!” her mother roared.

  Charity’s lip crumpled, unbidden. Why can’t you just love me, Mama?

  Usually they screamed in each other’s faces until they were exhausted or her mother tried to slap her. Walking away was a new experience for Charity. It was making her mother angry in a grasping sort of way that, to Charity, seemed to shift the balance of power in her favor. She began thinking of other ways in which she could walk away: emotionally, mentally, socially, there were so many to choose from.

  Charity slipped into her bedroom and sat in front of her easel by the open window, slashing strokes of ochre into a brown tone painting, trying to look like she was angry instead of on the verge of breaking down. You’re wrong about him. Why can’t you just give him a chance? He’s a good man. I don’t care if he doesn’t have any money.

  Her mother loomed in the doorway. “Charity,” her voice sounded like grave stones grating across one another. “If you ever walk away from me while I’m speaking to you again, you will be severely punished.”

  The childish inanity of the threat disgusted Charity. She swirled some grey along the edges of the orange, drawing her spite out into long tendrils of combating light and dark.

  “Oh, Mommy,” she whined, her pain boiling up as sarcasm. “Don’t spank me.”

  “Child, I will do whatever you need, and you will learn from it,” Mrs. Malvern said as if she thought her voice was an impending avalanche.

  Charity turned towards the door to face her mother. Beside the thick woman with the high lace collar, Charity’s younger sister Molly was speaking soothingly, trying to intercede, as always.

  Oh Molly, Charity thought. Just let her finish so she’ll leave.

  Their mother was still monologuing about duty and respect, her chin high, her eyes arrogant. Charity’s temperature rose as she watched her mother and the increasingly frantic Molly.

  But Molly wasn’t the issue. Charity stared at her mother, detached from the sound, just watching her mouth move. Mother was talking down to Charity’s painting again. Running Charity’s most intimate expressions down to the level of animal feces in a barn. Talking about how much money she’d spent on the finest teachers on the east coast, all for nothing.

  “It’s not your money,” Charity heard herself say. “It’s Daddy’s. You never did a thing to earn a penny of it. And Daddy doesn’t care if I waste it. So why should you? A real mother would care about the needs of her daughters over the opinions of her gossip circle. A real mother would protect the daughters she gave her husband instead of parading them around like show ponies.”

  Mrs. Malvern crossed the space between them faster than Charity would have thought possible. Charity heard something pop inside her ear when her mother slapped her. Molly was picking herself up off the floor. Charity didn’t see how she’d gotten there. And there they were again, the three of them, for what? The tenth time? The hundredth?

  “You aren’t a mother, Grandma would hate you for what you’ve become! You hear me, she wouldn’t be proud of you, she’d hate you!” Charity was shrieking now. “The other women laugh at you behind your back. I’ll drag your name through the mud until the sailors wouldn’t take you if you paid them! I’ll ruin you!”

  Mother
hated her painting. Everyone knew that. But as Charity cursed into her mother’s implacable face, she realized it wasn’t the painting her mother truly hated. It was Charity herself. Charity’s long-built hurt and spite began to crystalize into bitterness. It was hard, cold, and infinitely sharp. A single sliver of glass imbedded in her heart.

  * * *

  Journal Entry

  Bedburg, Germany. September 18, 1894

  The carriage jounces me, and the lamp swings, shedding meager light, but I must… (Illegible script) …lest fatigue rob me of detail. The driver will run the horses to death. As well he should.

  I watched It take someone this eve… (Illegible line) …a hideous thing. It is somewhat larger than my balled fist… (Illegible script) …silvery grey in color and featureless, like a slug from hell, grown enormous from feasting on the dead, and though I know not what to make of Its movement, It throbs in a steady way that puts me in mind of nothing more than a heartbeat.

  (Multiple illegible lines) …crawled towards the distraught woman, I split It in twain with my blade. The two halves continued onto her leg, as if the bite of my steel was no more than that of a gadfly… (Illegible script) …melding back together again as flawlessly as two drops of water. What method must one employ to kill such a thing?

  She beat at It with her hands and screamed, but It clung fast in the manner of an unspeakably large leech, advancing towards her face. Neither her exclamations and thrashing about, nor my repeated attempts with my blade could part It from her.

  (Illegible line) …into three parts, entering her mouth and both nostrils simultaneously. She screamed until It had forced itself far enough into her throat to obstruct the sound. Capillaries began to burst in her eyes, flooding her white sclera with blood. (Illegible script) …soon as It was gone from my sight, squirming away down her nose and throat, she fell to unconsciousness, with her bloody eyes open. I thought her dead, but then the transformation began. I was not prepared… (Illegible line) I am sick of spirit and mind, and I think it is making me ill of body.