by Cat Winters
“I’m terribly sorry to hear that.” Father tugged at his beard and seemed to search his brain for the name of someone who could help. His eyes softened. The quest for Genevieve’s well-being nudged aside his urgency to fix me. I held my breath and prayed this version of Father would remain with us.
“Well,” he said, “I don’t believe I know any cancer surgeons, unless you’re discussing an oral tumor . . .”
“No, it’s not that,” said Henry. “I appreciate you even considering the matter, but you don’t need to—”
“Wait a moment.” Father turned abruptly toward me. “How do you know this about his sister?” He placed his hand on Henry’s shoulder—not in a firm way, but enough to make my neck sweat beneath my collar.
“I b-b-beg your pardon?” I asked.
“I said, how did you suddenly find out he has a sick sister?” Father squeezed down on Henry, who seemed to shrink an inch. “Mr. Reverie didn’t once mention her during your treatment in my office. I doubt he’d announce something so private at his Halloween performance.”
“There was a . . .” Oh, hell. I hadn’t concocted an excuse for that particular detail. Damn! Damn, damn, damn!
Father’s eyes narrowed. “Have you two spoken with each other since the hypnotism on Thursday?”
“No, sir,” said Henry.
“N-n-no, sir,” I agreed. “I just—”
“How did you become privy to his family troubles, then, Olivia? Why on earth do you have the intimate details of this stranger’s personal life?”
“Father . . . please, don’t get upset. The point is, his sister needs help, and I thought—”
Father grabbed Henry’s wrist. “Come with me. Do not say a word— No!” He raised a finger with a nail sharp and black. His eyes burned scarlet, and his cheeks sank into the skull of his graying face. “Don’t even open your mouth and think of hypnotizing me into giving you extra money.”
“I’m not asking for extra money, sir.” Henry pulled back and tried to wrench his arm out of Father’s grip. “I didn’t ask her to say anything about my sister—I swear to God!”
“That’s true!” I said. “He didn’t ask that at all.”
“Quiet! Both of you!”
An awful buzzing rang in my ears. I pushed my hands over them and let out a cry of shock as Father paled even further and sprouted fur on the backs of his hands—part wolf, part corpse, part red-eyed demon.
“If you want me to pay you for your services, boy”—he yanked Henry down the hallway, toward his home office, which he used for drinking and for nighttime emergency treatments—“then shut your damned mouth.”
Henry’s feet skidded and tripped across the rugs and the floorboards.
“Don’t hurt him!” I chased after them. “Please—I didn’t mean any harm. I just thought you should know in case you could help . . .” I followed them into the office and braced my hands on the door frame. “His sister isn’t even yet sixteen. What would you do if I were the one dying of cancer?”
“You’re not dying of cancer, Olivia. Don’t be so melodramatic,” said Father, but he was no longer anything like my actual father. A clawed devil with spiked teeth and a sharp, hairy chin slapped Henry down into the office’s wooden dental chair and buckled his left wrist to an armrest.
“Let me go!” Henry pushed at the creature with his free hand, but Father managed to pin down and shackle his other wrist, too.
“Stop!” I rubbed my eyes, but Father refused to look normal. “Are you really forcing him into that chair? Am I really seeing this?”
“I’ve offered you a large sum of money, Mr. Reverie.” With one hand planted on Henry’s chest, not far from his throat, the horrific version of the man with whom I lived squeaked open a cabinet door. On the shelves gleamed his home collection of dental tools—forceps, clockwork drills, pelicans, chisels, tooth keys. He pulled out a Whitehead gag, a beastly contraption that resembled a bear trap with leather straps. “If you truly do have a sick sister, then I assume more than anything that you’d like me to pay you that money.”
“Father! Let him out of that chair!”
“Yes, sir, b-b-but . . .” Henry bent his legs and hovered over the seat, not quite landing his posterior on it. His knees wobbled everywhere, while his wrists stayed strapped to the wood.
“Relax.” Father pushed on his knees. “Sit back.” He shoved him down by his collarbone, which made Henry’s feet pop up on the footrest. “There’s no need to panic. I’m just going to fit this gag into your mouth”—he shoved the metal trap between Henry’s lips with terrible scraping sounds—“to make sure you aren’t verbally manipulating my mind while I give my instructions to you.” He yanked the straps around Henry’s head, stretching his jaw both vertically and horizontally until Henry groaned in wide-eyed terror.
“Stop it!” I pulled on Father’s shoulder and arm. “This is terrible. What type of monster have you become? Just look at yourself.”
Father elbowed me away. “Get out of here, Olivia. You’re not supposed to be able to argue with me.”
“But—”
“Silence!” He pushed me so hard, I banged my lower back against his desk. “Tell me the God’s honest truth,” he said over Henry, “have you and my daughter spoken since Thursday’s hypnosis?”
Henry panted and glanced my way. I nodded, so Henry did the same. He managed a “Yes” that sounded like gargling.
“Is she trying to persuade you to reverse the hypnosis?” asked Father.
Henry nodded again.
Father tipped the dental chair back, raising Henry’s feet as high as his hips. “My Olivia isn’t the greatest beauty in the world, I admit, but she can break your heart a little, can’t she?”
Henry’s chest contracted with each shallow breath.
“But, despite feminine wiles,” said Father, “we gentlemen must be strong. We must protect the women from their own foolishness. They’re fragile and ignorant and need our constant care. I think, if you stuck by my side and ignored my daughter’s passionate pleas”—he bent down close to Henry’s face with bared yellowed fangs that hung down to his chin— “we could show the world that hypnosis is the key to keeping these modern young women in their proper places. No man will lose a sweet loved one ever again.”
“Father”—I held my throbbing head—“you look disgusting.”
“Get out of this office, Olivia.”
“Take that barbaric thing out of Mr. Reverie’s mouth.”
“I said, get out!” Father grabbed me by both arms and steered me toward the door.
“No, don’t hurt him.” I thrust out my foot to try to catch it on the door frame. “Please! Don’t hurt either of us.”
Father unhooked me from the doorway and pushed me out into the hall. The door slammed shut in my face, and the lock latched.
“Father!” I slammed my fists against the door. “Please, open up!”
“Go wait in the parlor,” he called through the wood. “And if you’re not sitting there patiently when we both come out, Mr. Reverie will never see a cent of my hard-earned money. You’re supposed to be tamed, for God’s sake. I was led to believe you were cured. What happened to you saying that all is well?”
I backed away, and the whisper of the gas feeding into the lamps merged with the wheezing of my lungs.
“Is everything all right, Miss Mead?” asked a small voice behind me.
Down the hall, Gerda’s blue eyes peeked out from the kitchen doorway.
“If you can find a position with a kinder employer,” I told her, “I recommend doing so as quickly as possible.”
I turned and staggered into the parlor and clutched my side, which cramped like the dickens from breathing too fast.
THE OFFICE DOOR OPENED WITH A LOW CLICK.
I stood up from my slumped position on our mustard-yellow settee and endured each approaching footstep as if someone were digging his heels into my heart.
Father came into view from around the bend, and
as hard as I blinked, I couldn’t stop seeing him as a monster—I simply couldn’t. Behind him emerged Henry, rubbing his red wrists, his lips bleeding.
“What did you do?” I asked.
“Silence, Olivia.” Father held up a hand with the long, rotten nails. “I’ve said this before,” he said through his teeth, “and I’ll say it again: This is all for your own good. You do not need to be burdened with impossible dreams.”
I wrapped my arms around myself and stared at Henry’s bleeding mouth.
Genevieve, I reminded myself. She’s waiting for him in that moldering hotel room.
“Fine.” I swallowed and rocked myself for comfort. “Hypnotize me, Mr. Reverie. Let’s get it over with.”
Henry stepped forward. “Do not be afraid,” he said in a French-tinged voice that possessed a sharp edge.
He held out his hand to mine, and I saw that his nails were as black and hooked as Father’s. He heaved a sigh that revealed a pair of canine teeth fierce enough to sever his own tongue.
I pulled my hand away, but his fingers shot out and grabbed my wrist. He jerked my arm toward him and plunged me into darkness with the firm command, “Sleep!”
“WHEN YOU AWAKEN, YOU WILL HAVE NO MEMORY OF this session.”
Henry counted from one to ten in a dreamy rhythm that reminded me of skipping rope with my braids jumping on my shoulders, and then, with his hand on my forehead, he told me, “Awake.”
My sandbag eyelids blinked open. I found myself on the settee again, my back slouched against all the scratchy needlepoint pillows my grandmother had sewn decades before.
Henry jumped off the cushion beside me, rustling up a breeze of dusty parlor air, and he exited the room in a streak of black clothing and blond hair. The front door slammed shut, and I wondered if he had even remembered to grab his hat.
Father loitered next to his armchair, his hands stuffed in his pockets, his face turned to the parlor’s exit.
“What did you make him do to me?” I asked from the settee.
“Everything was done with your best interest in mind, Olivia.” He tugged his handkerchief out of his breast pocket and dabbed his shiny forehead. He looked more man than monster again, but I had seen what he was capable of, and I still believed him to be a fiend. “If all goes well,” he continued, “then I’ll be satisfied, and young Reverie will get paid. That girl will get her surgery.”
A pair of solid footsteps marched toward us from down the hall. Gerda stopped in front of the parlor and untied her white apron. “I’m afraid I must give my notice, Dr. Mead.”
“I beg your pardon?” Father straightened his neck. “You’re quitting?”
“Ja.” She pulled the apron over her head. “I cannot work for a man who pays a stranger to harm his daughter.”
“What happened during the hypnosis, Gerda?” I jumped to my feet. “Did you hear them?”
“Were you eavesdropping?” asked Father.
Gerda slung her apron over the parlor rocking chair. “I’d like my final wages, Dr. Mead. I’ve worked a week and a half since you paid me last.”
Father huffed and muttered something under his breath about everyone wanting to take his money. Gerda stepped aside and let him pass. His feet made an awful tromping ruckus all the way back to his office.
“Miss Mead . . .” Gerda grabbed my hands with shaking fingers. “There are certain topics you won’t be able to talk about anymore.”
“What topics?”
“Please, don’t even attempt to say words that feel as if they shouldn’t be spoken. And cover your ears if you hear those words uttered.”
“What words? What topics?”
“I can’t say them out loud to you, either.” She glanced over her shoulder. “They’ll hurt you.”
Father plodded back into view with three floppy dollars in hand. “Here are your wages. Mark my word, as soon as you come to your senses, you’ll regret this ridiculous decision.”
“Thank you for the wages.” Gerda took the money with a polite nod. “There’s cold ham and carrots in the icebox. Fresh bread is cooling on the kitchen table. You should be just fine for tonight’s supper.” She darted a quick glance at me. “I’m sorry, Miss Mead. Lycka till. Good luck.”
o numb, I told myself from the far corner of my bed, in the crook of my cherry-pink walls. Don’t move. Don’t think.
I pushed the palms of my hands against my temples until my head was as clamped as those of Father’s patients in his wicked operatory chair. Moving even the smallest muscle would bring memories and, with them, an anger that burned through the lining of my stomach.
You will submerge yourself in a depth of relaxation such as you have never experienced before . . .
Father knocked on my closed bedroom door. “Olivia? I’ve prepared supper for us.”
I still didn’t move, but I asked, “You prepared supper?”
“I’ve lived without a wife for thirteen years now. I have been known to assemble a meal or two.” He rapped against the door again. “I know you’re angry, but you need to eat.”
“What terrible thing am I going to do if I speak the wrong words?”
“I don’t want to say.”
“Why not? Because you realize how horribly you’re behaving?”
“No, because it’s for the best if you don’t even envision the subjects I’ve asked you to forget. Now, come down and eat your dinner.”
“I’d rather not.”
“Olivia . . .”
“No.”
“You’re not supposed to be arguing with me.”
“I’m not supposed to be saying volatile words, which I’m not. I’m speaking quite calmly.” I turned on my side, away from the door, and made myself go stiff again.
“Very well. I’ll place a plate of food outside your door.”
“Like a jailer,” I said under my breath as his footsteps creaked down the stairs.
AROUND EIGHT O’CLOCK, WHEN THE GAS LAMPS GLOWED and my stomach growled too much to bear, I brought the plate of food into my room. I sat down on the floor and ate cold ham and carrots. All the while, the yellow cigar box stuffed with money peeked at me from beneath the ruffles of my bed.
I’m settled in an apartment near Barnard College, Mother had said in her letter, and I think of you every time I see those smart young women walking around with books tucked under their arms.
And then . . . I would even let you take a tour of Barnard, and perhaps I’d allow you to watch that delicious play Sapho, if the moralists don’t shut it down again.
The box was just sitting there, waiting for me to lift the lid and dip my fingers into the stack of bills both limp and crisp. A train ticket. Rent money to use while finishing my requirements for my high school diploma. A typewriter to help me start a journalism career. College tuition. Textbooks. The possibilities were all there, within my grasp. All I had to do was reach out, grab the thick wad of bills, and escape out the window.
Yet . . .
One hundred twenty-three dollars might also pay for Genevieve’s surgery.
It might allow Henry to release me from my treatments that very night.
Before my fingers could stretch forward and touch the smooth lid, Father swung open my door without knocking.
“We have guests arriving.”
“What guests?”
“The Underhills.” He took hold of me by one elbow and jerked me to my feet. “Do not ruin this for me.”
Father steered me out of my bedroom and down the stairs just as someone was clanging our brass knocker. The closer we got to the door, the more the knocking deteriorated into muffled thuds that sounded strange to my ears.
Another vision neared. I sucked in my breath and prepared for the worst.
Father lunged for the door and opened it up to a startling collection of sideshow oddities:
Sunken-Eyed John with his long, crooked teeth.
The bulging-eyed, dark-haired girl with the scrawny neck and blue lips from Sadie’s party.
The lady carnival barker in the red-striped coat and straw hat.
A Draculean man with a white mustache, oddly arched nostrils, and teeth that protruded over a ruddy lip.
“Welcome to my house,” said Father, and I half expected him to quote the rest of Count Dracula’s first spoken lines to the fellow who resembled Stoker’s character: Enter freely and of your own will! Instead, he uttered a nervous-sounding, “P-p-please, c-c-come inside.”
The Underhills passed across our threshold, and my eyes readjusted. The delusion ceased. Our guests became a normal family of four, albeit a garishly wealthy one, with plush silk jackets for the ladies and solid-gold cuff links and pocket-watch chains for the gentlemen. The lady barker again transformed into the brunette woman who was handing out pamphlets in front of the headquarters for the Oregon Association Opposed to the Extension of Suffrage to Women.
The dark-haired daughter snickered. “You were so funny at Sadie’s party, Ophelia.”
“It’s Olivia,” I said.
The girl stiffened her arms straight in front of her, and with her eyes wide and dazed, she droned, “‘All is well. All is well.’”
“That’s enough, Eugenia,” said Mrs. Underhill, slapping her daughter’s hands. “We’re only here for a brief visit. Let Dr. Mead proceed with business.”
“Yes, very good.” Father closed the front door and lifted a metal bucket from the little hallway table. “As I already discussed with you, Mr. Underhill, sir, I have found an innovative solution to our state’s peskiest problem. Imagine, if you will, your lovely wife no longer needing to manage the Oregon Association—and spending her precious time in more enjoyable pursuits.”
Mrs. Underhill arched her slender eyebrows.
“Imagine,” continued Father, “never having to worry about your dear daughter choosing the path of social impurity, or your son accidentally getting trapped with a shrew of a wife—a shrew who is only after your money so she can try to buy the vote.”
Mr. Underhill’s white mustache twitched.
“All of these worries will disappear,” said Father, “and become ancient relics of the past, with Henri Reverie’s Cure for Female Rebellion and Unladylike Dreams.”