by Kit Reed
Damn my daughter’s atrocious house and damn my useless, vaporous body and damn this voice that even you can hear only at certain times. Boy, I am talking to you! But in this house in this year of my third century of existence, I have thinned out. Voice, when I most need to scream you awake. Substance, when I want to pick you up by the ears and shout.
Wake up. You have to go.
It’s stirring in undercroft. You won’t see it; even I can’t. I can’t name the evil, but I know it’s coming and I know that it will be terrible. I can feel it in my useless bones, and when it does, it will extinguish you, if you are still inside this house.
The hell of life in this world is that you never know who will hurt you or what’s coming into your cage of living flesh. You won’t know why these things attack you or how much you will suffer unless God intervenes and you are told …
I used to be a person in this world, just like you. I should have marshaled all my powers to prevent this, but forgive me, I didn’t know!
I thought I knew my firstborn child, but she was never mine. When I found out otherwise I thought I could manage it, but I could not have guessed what she would do or, oh my God, how awful it would be.
Or what she would become.
What could I have done if I had known?
Wake up, wake up Theodore Ellis Hale. Go warn your mother. Run! Make her pack up and leave this house before it’s too late. As you still defy me, consorting with your white trash friend in the undercroft, by all means, warn that dirty boy. And while you’re at it, son of five forlorn daughters of my dainty daughter, retrieve Dakin’s special book!
When you leave this doomed house, take the book. But do not open it until you’re safe. Hurry, Theodore of second chances. Tell the world about Little Manette.
The force in this house scattered after that woman died. It has become many, and this is dreadful. The it that informed Manette is peripatetic. There’s no knowing which of her remaining daughters will become what their mother was, or on which day, or for how long.
The evil spirit comes and goes, but its agents are heartless, so careless with lives that not one of you is safe.
I should have known!
That screech as she tore out of me! I thought she was responding to my pain! I should have known this was no ordinary child.
My daughter was a leaden vessel of hate.
Mother burst in on me, crying, “What are you doing to my baby!” I should have been warned. She swooped down like the bad fairy and snatched my child out of my arms, and the baby I could not bring myself to name stopped screaming and settled into her like the last puzzle piece, completing a worrisome scene. I heard William calling me from the hall but Mother pushed me down on the pillows and ordered the nurse, “Tell him not yet. Not until she’s presentable.”
I should have known.
Eleven months later my sweet Billy came into my arms like a gift, flexing and snuggling as though we were still one body. For the first time I felt real love, and Little Manette? By the time I saw what she was becoming, it was too late.
I had no idea that my daughter never belonged to me. From the day my grudging mother, the first Manette, seized her, she was her grandmother’s property.
I had thought I’d name her Anne.
The day of her christening, Mother came into my room in a mass of silks and plumes. Margaret followed, carrying an elaborately wrapped gift— a christening present, I thought. How nice. I should have known.
Before I could gather my wits she pounced. “Here I am, my dainty Little Manette. My pretty, pretty girl.” Then she swept my baby up and in my presence, ripped off the Robichaux christening gown and with one toe, tucked it under the bed. “Godmother’s prerogative.”
I had asked William’s Aunt Mary. I wanted someone in William’s family in this baby’s life, but Mother would not be denied. She brought forth a ruffled gown straight from Paris, marquisette, I think, trimmed in Belgian lace, with undergarments to match, and as I watched, she transformed Little Manette.
“Now!” She held the child up like a trophy, trilling, “Doesn’t Baby look pretty in her lovely dress? My sweet, sweet little baby doll.”
Yes, Manette was pretty, with her cupid’s-bow mouth, her long eyelashes, her china-doll face, and when it pleased her to be gracious, she was. She was sweet and lovely to everyone she didn’t despise. Pretty, although beneath the surface lay a fire-breathing instrument of rage.
Pretty was Little Manette’s first word, and it defined her. Like cologne splashed on an unwashed body it was so sweet, and covered up so much.
“Isn’t it pretty,” Mother said on Little Manette’s first birthday. We were on her second-floor veranda at a little party for four … after all, the Robichaux house couldn’t possibly measure up. She thought William’s house was shabby; we both knew.
Mother gushed, “Baby will love having her party outside.”
She meant that this was where the Negro seamstress who made it would deliver her birthday gift. It was a quilt.
“It took her a year to finish,” she told me. Then she giggled and covered her mouth. She whispered through her fingers, “I won’t tell you how much it cost.”
The quilt was white, appliquéd in a diamond pattern, with a pink border and pink diamonds inlaid and cleverly curved to create the delicate script that slanted across it from corner to corner. When I saw the legend my heart sank, but I steeled myself and managed the tight, uninflected voice that I will manage when I can’t bear the gift or the giver but must thank her, even though I know too well that Mother never liked me.
“Oh thank you.”
“Aren’t you excited?” Mother took it from my stiff hands, trying to turn me around with her voice. “Isn’t it pretty?”
I could not for the life of me say yes! “Very,” I said at last.
She would not let it go at that. “Read it aloud, so Little Manette can hear. It’s perfect for her.”
I stifled a groan and read the legend aloud. It was,
PRETTY IS AS PRETTY DOES
William slipped his arm around my waist and pulled me close, trying to ease my pain, but my skirts were too many and it was never enough. My precocious one-year-old lunged at him, hissing, “stop it, stop,” and when William refused to let me go, she kicked her father’s ankle. Then she hurled herself down on the rush grass carpet in one of those tantrums I had learned to fear, wailing until Mother lifted the quilt in a kind of benediction and dropped it over her like a cape, at which point my uncontrollable daughter rose out of its folds like Venus and gave her grandmother her most beautiful smile.
I should have stifled her in her crib.
William died before Billy was born. We were never in love, but my William was a sober, responsible gentleman. He was always kind to me and I grieved for him, but I had his son to lift my heart.
Manette never did anything to my Billy when I was watching, but at the outset, there were signs. Pinches. Little accidents. When I was there, she was unbearably sweet to her baby brother, and every drop of it was false. Billy never said anything against her but there were too many times when he winced under my touch, too many scrapes and bruises that he refused to explain. He was a wonderful little man.
But the years wore on and soon Little Manette would be four, and my Billy was almost three.
Naturally Mother insisted on holding Manette’s party at her house. It was particularly hot that day but she despised messes, so at 3 P.M. we were to celebrate on the upper veranda, she said grandly. In the blazing heat. She had Margaret set out marzipan cakes decorated with pink candy roses embedded in the pink frosted M on the top of each, and Lapsang souchong tea for the two of us, with pink lemonade for Billy and Little Manette.
“On the veranda,” she said grandly, opening the door. We were to sit in receding shade as the sun started its slant and merciless sunlight drenched the upper porch. “Isn’t this lovely?” Mother said.
We ate with perspiration rolling down our faces. Billy was qu
iet, even for Billy, while Little Manette postured and struck poses in the special birthday dress her grandmother ordered handmade to her exact measurements by the talented Negress who made the quilt. It was pink. After thirty minutes in that harsh sunlight, even Mother was beginning to fade. Please God, I thought, please let this be over so we can all go back indoors and mirabile, we did.
“And now.” She staggered a little as she rose, but she managed a grand gesture. “And now for your big present, my darling girl,” and didn’t Little Manette stand up and preen? And Margaret appeared as if from nowhere, along with a colored girl I didn’t know— a big, earnest girl with a hopeful smile— she was taller than any of us and, I saw by her ragged dress and torn knuckles, she came from a family that needed every penny Mother bothered to pay.
The two maids came out the side door and with a flourish, pulled the canvas off a big, unwieldy object that I had been too blinded by anxiety to see.
Mother was so proud!
She’d bought her precious Little Manette a child’s bouncing horse of her very own. Oh, Billy. Billy my love, you wanted it so! I would have bought it for you, perhaps when you turned five, but here it was.
The horse was made from an iron strip that the maker had heated and hammered into a curve, creating a giant spring. It was firmly bolted to a solid base, and at the top of the curve there was— gracious! A beautifully carved wooden horse’s head with glass eyes and a real horsehair mane, and hanging from the child-sized genuine leather English saddle on its little platform, a real horsehair tail. It was lovely, really, although I thought a Western saddle would be safer for any child. I said, “Mother, what a grand gift.”
“Now,” she said, “you and I must go inside and chat a bit while the children play. Quickly, before one of us faints!”
She saw me glance at the horse, glance at the rail, calculating, as any mother would. I judged it at a safe distance, the horse just low enough, the rail at the right height. What difference would it have made? Little Manette issued orders to Margaret and the big, awkward girl Mother had introduced into the party— the poor thing couldn’t have been more than twelve. “Lift me up!”
“Don’t worry, I hired that one to look after the children, and of course Margaret’s here.” Mother took my arm like a woman possessed. “Now come inside, and let them play!” Then she said over her shoulder, with false concern, “Now, birthday girl Manette the Second and the most wonderful, don’t let Billy near that thing!”
I should have known!
Margaret followed us inside with the tray. She offered to set it down on the table but Mother waved her off. “Thank you, Margaret. That’s all for now.” Then she turned to me. “She tells me what’s-her-name out there is a strong, reliable girl. She says,” and she did a humiliating imitation, “‘That girl be’s solid as a rock.’ Now, sit down. I insist.”
I doubted that, because Margaret’s mastery of the language was flawless, but I answered like a dutiful servant. “Yes Ma’am.” Naturally, I positioned my chair next to the screen door because I needed to keep them safe. When I peeked, Little Manette was bouncing, bouncing, with the colored girl’s strong hands around her waist. The child was slight enough to keep her new horse going, but not heavy enough to bounce very high; she bounced on and on, furious at her horse for not going faster, while Billy watched. I saw from the set of his shoulders that he knew his sister wouldn’t let him get near her horse that day.
I thought, it’s all right, Margaret’s there. She loves that boy.
I should have known!
Tomorrow I would see to it that Mother’s man Richard moved the thing downstairs and out into the courtyard below before my children saw it again. Or better yet, to William’s house. Perhaps by the end of tomorrow, Little Manette would be so jaded that I’d go into the garden while she was napping and give my Billy a gentle ride.
Then he screamed.
My four-year-old looked up at me from her seat on the woven rug. She was alone on the porch. And the colored girl? I found out later that Little Manette had commanded this child Odetta to find Margaret and fetch more cake, and when she refused? Just four years old, but Little Manette was inexorable. A living monument to will. She may have threatened whipping; she may have threatened prison. Or something worse. I don’t know what she said, but they were both in the kitchen when Billy screamed.
My two were only alone for a minute. The girl and I rushed out on the porch through different doors, terrified.
Then Little Manette turned to us with that beautiful, blank face. She was alone on the porch, with at her back the bouncy horse, alarmingly close to the rail and my Billy smashed on the pavement below. She faced me without blinking, mystified.
“Billy fell.”
We were never certain how it happened, but I should have known that day. I should have known!
I should have put an end to her the day she was born. I should have taken that fall down our steep stairs and dashed her brains out, and what did it matter if I died too? None of this would have happened.
All the— monstrosity that brought this family down would have died with her.
Theodore, Teddy Two, whatever you call yourself, listen! Listen and be warned!
In the name of God, Theodore, new Teddy, what does your mother call you? Theo? In the name of God, go!
God forgive me. I should have stamped the life out of her while I still had the power.
CHAPTER 37
Dell
Dell’s shelter underneath the Ellis house is getting swampy. He woke up to raindrops pock-pocking on his head. Some time in the night the porch above him sprang a leak: nature’s way of telling him to get up and move out. The mud surrounding the cement floor where he slept looks squishy, like quicksand in a jungle movie. The kind that sucks you in and swallows you whole.
If it invades the cement margins it will wipe him out, along with crucial evidence he’s collected to prove that he belongs in the house overhead. He ought to bundle the stuff and move out, but he has things to do.
He takes care wrapping the journal, the carton and the laptop in extra garbage bags scored on his last Dumpster run. He backs his makeshift table up to the foundation and sets the packages on top. It looks like the safest place. He wraps the flash drive in plastic and seals it in an old Altoids tin to muffle the vibe, and centers it on Dakin’s journal. There.
He puts on his baseball cap and slips into his last garbage bag and goes out. He’ll wait this out at the all-night diner, stalling over coffee-and until it gets light.
* * *
He’s been camped out in the downtown branch of the public library since the doors opened. He was the first one inside, and— surprise— he smiled so nicely that the head librarian has done everything in her power to help. He’s been here all day.
There isn’t much on Randolph Ellis of 553 May Street, born in this city January 30, 1895. Yes, he’s tracking down his ancestor, if Randolph is his ancestor. Given what he’s read in the old man’s journal, it makes perfect sense. All he needs is proof.
Hey, it beats spinning his wheels in his dank quarters back there underneath Tara, while the leak gets worse and the rain smacks into the dirt outside like celestial piss. Now that he knows there are guys out looking for him, now that they’ve tracked him to the ancestral home, he’d rather wait out the rain in a safer place.
He should have moved his stuff when the kid crashed in with his half-assed warning yesterday. He should be halfway to Savannah or Newport— Newport? Dude!— by now. He should be long gone from here, but he has this to do.
He’s looking for the missing link.
For a guy with his skills, and he can’t tell you why he has them, a Web search never takes long. But Dell Whoever is thorough. Libraries like this one have more to offer than anything bouncing around the Internets, and he’s been through most of it. In the past few hours he’s searched a hundred years’ worth of microfiche. He’s skimmed a dozen town histories and moved on to the few bound volumes of
the Florida Metropolitan, which morphed into the Jacksonville Journal long after this Randolph Ellis left town. He has looked for Randolph in a heap of primitive high school yearbooks, but except for one mention in the Day School archives, it’s almost as though the guy simply vanished. Like, zot!
How could a kid who meant so much to his father leave no trace? If he can find out where Dakin Senior’s favorite son ended up after that incredibly old, long-dead war, he knows he can do the rest. He can follow this Randolph’s descendents and their descendents and find out who he really is and where he belongs.
Here. I belong here.
He can feel it. Now, prove it. Prove it and his life will change. Dell no-last-name can walk out of whatever he did and whoever he used to be, and into this new person.
Then he’ll come in that front door in broad daylight and tell them, hey, I’m your long-lost, and they’ll have to take him in. Naturally the old girls will welcome their— cousin? Great-nephew? Descendent of the long-lost prodigal son, home at last, and whoever these suits are that the kid says came looking for him?
He’s over them.
And, whatever they thought he did?
He’s not that person any more.
Hell with the suits, plainclothes cops or feds or knuckle-dragging thugs who came to town bent on making him pay up on some forgotten debt. Hell with the guilt and anxiety that kept him sleeping badly on the hard cement, wondering what the fuck he did before the taxi bashed him out of his life. Fuck waking up in the hospital with his memory smashed to hell.
He can stop being that guy.
Once he proves that he’s this Randolph’s great-great grandson or, OK, his bastard descendent, he’ll have a nice new family, and he can forget the rest.
And to hell with his leaky squat under the mother ship. The old girls will settle him in a comfortable guest room upstairs, and then? Let them knock themselves out curing what ails him with a warm bed and hot food and family that cares about him, freeing him to discover the rest of himself in peace.
Of course he’ll amuse the ladies and do chores for them, moving heavy objects and running errands like a nice great-whatever while he does what he has to do to get what he wants.