Where Fortune Lies

by James Short

  The creature now was emitting a strange hiccup sound: “Ya ka, ya ka, ya ka, ya ka.” It was well into the next day when he understood she had been saying, “You came. You came.”

  April had always made an effort to ignore human misery, perhaps, because her psychological suffering seemed second-rate compared to actual physical pain. Augustus handed her the shackle. She noticed it was specially forged for a thin leg. Running a finger along the rusty metal, she felt a sudden jolt of pain in her ankle as if the metal were biting her there. Her grandfather resumed the narration.

  Metamorphosis

  Penelope was barely more than a small skeleton with large unregistering eyes. Franklin couldn’t find the key to the shackle on the ring at first, so he ripped it out of the wall and picked Penelope up. She didn’t weigh more than twenty-five pounds, including the metal attached to her and the filth covering her. Her small hands rubbed up and down his arms. “Ya ka, ya ka.”

  In the hallway, he was able to locate the key to the shackle and release her leg. He carried her to the kitchen, stopped the maid who apparently was preparing to visit the apothecary. They both bathed Penny in near-scalding water causing wild screams. A foul odor still lingered, so the poor girl was doused again, special attention paid to her hair. In the end, they had to cut her hair off in order to get to the scalp to scrub it.

  Penelope was then wrapped in towels and blankets and placed on a feather mattress in a bedroom with a fireplace. Franklin made a fire. Penelope seemed to have no intention of sleeping. She kept throwing off the covers, reaching out her hands towards the heat of the fire, crawling towards it and cooing. Franklin could now see clearly that her wrists were maybe an inch in diameter, her ankles not much more, and her neck appeared not much thicker than a stem of a goblet.

  Penelope explored her surroundings by touch, either unaccustomed to using her eyes or unable. Franklin hoped this was the temporary result of years of light deprivation. The cook brought up a meal of milk and oats. Penelope smelled the food, went down on her haunches, and then began to eat eagerly from the plate placed on the floor like a dog.

  Franklin returned to Penelope’s prison with a shovel he had found half buried in the weeds. He was tempted to locked Madeleine Boller in that room with the filth and vermin until she learned how not to cry like her daughter. Deciding not to dwell on such thoughts, he broke open the shutters and began to shovel the filth out. At three in the morning he had made a bonfire and was burning the refuse from the room and every rotten piece of furniture he could lay his hands on. He checked Penelope, who finally had fallen asleep, choosing the floor next to the fire over the unfamiliar softness of the mattress. He lifted her gently onto a rug and covered her with a blanket.

  Franklin had difficulty explaining to himself why he felt obliged to go to this trouble instead of finding good people in the town to take in the child. He decided he just needed to be certain that at this critical juncture everything was done right, and he didn’t trust anyone else to have Penny’s best welfare foremost in mind. Even the best-intentioned soul wouldn’t have his time or money to devote to Penny, much less the annoying sense of responsibility. A month or two and I’ll be out of this, Franklin promised himself.

  When Penelope awoke, he dressed her in rags found in the corner of the room, which had been boiled and dried. He took her outside. She gave an exclamation of pleasure when the rays of the sun fell directly on her face. “Ya ka!”

  “Yes, the sunshine is good. Do you know your name?”

  “Blite Pweny! Blite Pweny!”

  “Bright Penny? You remember me then,” he said.

  Her voice rose in a soft wail, an almost beautiful sound that he would later realize was a song. “Ya ka!” She smiled wildly.

  Franklin sensed a presence behind him and turned around to see the maid. He asked her in French, “Can the child see?”

  “Non, monsieur. Non.”

  “Vous êtes certains?”

  “Oui.” She trembled as if expecting a punishment.

  “I’m the master here now. The mother is not to see the child without my permission.”

  Five days later, Franklin interviewed Madeleine in her bedroom. The mistress of Boller mansion sat erect in an oversized chair by the smoldering fireplace, her hands spread over the ends of the armrests like pale spiders. A full-length mirror paid a compliment to a full-length portrait of a younger Madeleine on the opposite wall, though to nothing else in the room. When the painting was made, her beauty had been at its height, and future madness was only evident in the unusual radiance of the eyes in the painting.

  “I am bringing in a doctor from San Francisco to examine your daughter. As soon as I am able, I’ll look for a good family to take her in. I’ve investigated your circumstances. Last year, you mortgaged this property. Your creditors have yet to see a cent, and if I hadn’t paid them to hold off for a few months, they would be initiating proceedings to seize this house and property. I’ve also settled accounts with the pharmacist, and I’ve bought his entire stock of laudanum, which I will supply you on the condition you do not interfere with me.”

  “What if I refuse?” Madeleine Boller would not look him in the eye.

  “I will show your daughter to the townspeople. They will see how you starved and beat her, and they will demand justice for the girl. Your house will fall to the creditors, and you won’t have laudanum.”

  “Why are you so interested in my daughter?” She now met Franklin’s eyes and smiled at him as if she were scheming with a co-conspirator.

  “When did she lose her sight?” He tried to stare her into submission.

  “How perfect. She can’t see the color of your skin. No matter. We are neither more nor less than our appetites. My price for her will depend on your purpose.”

  “I am not negotiating with you.” Franklin set down a suitcase on the floor and opened it, revealing a dozen bottles. “What you see here is Godfrey’s laudanum. His next delivery is in three weeks. And when that comes I will also buy all of it.” He took out a bottle and threw it into the fire, the glass splintering, and the flames hissing, then placed another bottle on her night table. “Choose.”

  The doctor pronounced Penny fundamentally healthy except for her eyes, remarkably so despite her emaciation. Franklin paid him well for his discretion. The next visit the doctor brought a specialist to examine Penelope’s eyes. The specialist concluded that she had some perception of light and movement without the ability to visualize it. Otherwise, Penelope was blind. When Madeleine refused to see the specialist who wanted more information on Penelope’s history, Franklin forced the door.

  Madeleine was seated in her armchair with an ancient pistol in her lap. “I’m almost out of laudanum.”

  Franklin took the three-quarter empty bottle on the nightstand and threw it into the fireplace. “Now you’re out. When I met Penelope in Paris, she was myopic, but she wasn’t blind. When did she lose her vision?”

  “Penelope can see as well as you or I can right now.” Madeleine aimed the gun at Franklin.

  He pushed the barrel aside. “That’s not true.”

  “After Paris, I took her to a woman in Tangiers, who had cured thousands of children with impeded vision.”

  “What did she do?”

  “A special treatment of ointments and pins. How Penelope made a fuss. But she could see afterward. She could see, once the woman removed the things that were blocking her vision.”

  “God, no!” The specialist who was standing in the hallway exclaimed.

  Madeleine laughed: "Didn’t you realize, fool, that when I enrolled her to Monsieur Girard’s academy, I was protecting her, and when you returned her to me, you were condemning her?"

  A few weeks later, Madeleine confronted Franklin just as he was about to leave through the back door: “You have repaired the carriage. Do you plan to take the creature out of this house?”

  “Yes. Penny loves sunshine and loves horses.”

  Blocking him, Madeleine
pulled herself up to her full height, which put her eye to eye with Franklin. The madness drained out of her face.

  “I forbid it!” Her voice was steady, her eyes clear. “Listen, my man, as you see me now, so I will be when I denounce you. You may think you bought my daughter when you paid my creditors. You are mistaken. I don’t care what you do with the creature inside these walls as long as you keep her out of my way, but I won’t have people gawking at her, laughing at her and me, pitying her, deciding to make charitable visits to my house, and if I read your intentions right, neither do you.”

  “We must slowly accustom Penny to society,” Franklin protested.

  Ignoring him, Madeleine Boller went on: “I am aware, this mad lady is aware we have a marriage of convenience. Do not make our little thing here inconvenient. I need to be in the apothecary’s good graces, and you need her. Advice, my good man: no carriage rides, no walks, and keep the apothecary Godfrey pleased. That isn’t too much, is it? Just so, and we can live happily ever after.”

  During those first impossible weeks, every time Franklin chanced to glance at himself in a mirror, he’d invariably whisper to the image, “Fool.”

  It seemed a divine joke that he, a black man with no particular fondness for the Anglo version of the American, and the least equipped by temperament and life experience to care for children, was now responsible for this savage little girl. He hardly knew where to begin. Penny was a perfect wolf in her manners—literally a perfect wolf. During her confinement, she hadn’t been allowed any eating utensils so had forgotten the use of spoons, knives, and forks. She ate with her face in the plate, hands shoveling food into her mouth not always successfully. She had been allowed a single blanket and a single change of clothes a year. Yelda had sneaked in a few more rags during the colder months.

  Madeleine had refused to allow her to wash. “Animals don’t bathe!” she had insisted to Yelda. She had been trained like a cat to relieve herself in a large box of sand, which was emptied weekly. Only once a week, because the mother did not want to waste the sand. Penelope compulsively bit her fingernails and her toenails. She had scratched herself raw on her ribs and groin. Yelda hadn’t mentioned beatings, but Franklin had seen the bruises and noticed layers of dried blood on the chair leg he had found in her room.

  “Cold,” “hungry,” “need,” “water,” “more,” “food,” “talk,” “bird,” “sing,” “hurt,” “cry,” and “no”: the words that described her world had survived in her speech. She also made clicks, clucks, gross and absurd sounds, and she would laugh with uncontrolled hilarity when the sound she produced was sufficiently odd. Her hearing was so keen she could detect where a fly landed on a surface. With a whoop of delight, she would smash it. Her plate and cup had been her only toys, and naturally, they became conversational partners. She scolded them. She beat them. She kept them separated for days as a punishment. Her blanket was treated differently. It was neatly folded. She had learned that if she damaged the blanket, she would be cold for a very long time.

  Franklin made the effort to encourage her crazy talk on the theory that conversation humanized. When very early on, she said, “cho, cho,” Franklin seized upon this apparently remembered word like a prospector seizes a clump of unrefined gold and sent Yelda on a trip into town to buy chocolate at any price. New words he’d demonstrate tactilely—the ruff of a collar, the paw of a dog, the lace of a shoe, jumping, and running.

  Penny’s greatest asset turned out to be her will. When she put her mind to a task there didn’t exist a more stubborn creature in creation, and on certain matters to Franklin’s chagrin, the child refused to yield to him.

  The first skirmish between Franklin’s and Penny’s wills occurred over her old blanket. Franklin had given the ratty frayed rag to Yelda instructing her to burn it. For five weeks, two or three times a day, Penelope would ask for it pleadingly, “Banky, banky.” When he told her it was gone, she’d merely say, ‘Banky back, banky back.” He could yell at her to be quiet, which she did for a minute with a sniffle, then she would begin again. Franklin finally caved and asked Yelda whether she had indeed burned the cursed rag. Luckily for his sanity, Yelda produced the thing clean and patched. Penelope received the beloved rag with a yelp of delight.

  The second contest of wills Franklin also lost. The issue was her room. She was as explicit as her semi-articulate state would allow in her desire of wanting to stay in her old room and didn’t leave off her demands until Franklin had the floor scrubbed with lye, the wallpaper removed, the walls painted, shutters repaired, and panes put in the window sashes. The subject of his third loss was the eating of carrots. Franklin felt ashamed of himself for losing such a trivial battle, and the anger boiled in him for several days afterward, although he could never raise a hand to Penelope—she had had her share of beatings.

  Franklin took some consolation in that Penny didn’t oppose him merely for opposition’s sake. She, in fact, always delighted in pleasing him, yet when Penelope considered the issue important enough like the eating of carrots, there was simply no way that she would concede. A few struggles ended in compromise. Early on, Penelope wanted Franklin to sleep in her bed. She was greedy for human touch. She would have Yelda bathe her three times a day just to feel the touch of the maid’s calloused hands. He couldn’t give in, but every night he held her hand until she fell asleep.

  The battles with Madeleine were few but intense. A great one ensued over exercise and outings. Franklin had no intention of isolating Penny. However, in the beginning, Penny had been so weakened by her confinement that after a few dozen steps, she needed to rest. Common tasks such as dressing herself would exhaust her. Walking up two flights of stairs took ten minutes and some tears of frustration. Madeleine threatened to poison her, poison both of them if he took her out for a walk.

  Franklin wasn’t quite sure that exposing Penny to the gaze of the citizens was a good idea anyway. There were so many habits and mannerisms that might make her an object of ridicule and disgust as well as curiosity. Still, Franklin would not allow Penny’s unnatural deprivation of sunlight to continue. So, after thirty-six hours without laudanum, Madeleine agreed to an outing in the carriage three times a week with Penny veiled.

  Sheriff James Thornton

  Gaspar checked all the windows after April and Aquino had left. Still unsatisfied, he went outside and walked around the perimeter of his house poking a hoe into the bushes and tree branches. When he returned, he circled around Philip as if inspecting another perimeter, then asked, “Did he visit you?”

  Philip blushed. “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “Yes, you do. I can see it in your face. You don’t want to admit you might be going crazy, which you would be if you believed you were talking to a ghost. Has my father Jacinto revealed where the treasure is?”

  “No, he has just told me the history of Tomàs.” Philip hesitated, trying to come up with the right words to characterize the story. “An unusual life.”

  “You’re lucky, at least my father tells you things. When he visits me, he just lectures me. Imagine an eighty-six-year old man being scolded like a child.”

  “Do you know why he wants me to talk to you?” Philip asked.

  “To annoy me. Why else?”

  “Your father mentioned a Sheriff Thornton. He said you know more about Thornton than any living man in Solvidado.”

  “Just like him to rub salt into old wounds. I fell in love with Thornton’s granddaughter, Matilda, seventy-one years ago. She didn’t seem to despise me like the rest of the girls. I came to the conclusion that was as good an opening as I could expect, so I tried to have a conversation with her. To show off, I told her what my father had said about Penelope being blind. She said that was old news to her. She had sneaked a look at her grandfather’s papers. He caught her and made her swear to never reveal to anyone what she had learned, but since I already knew part of the story, she guessed I could hear the rest. I better tell you so my dad will have one less thing to
lecture me about.”

  Sheriff James Thornton was put off by the vaguely superior air of Boller’s new servant, so when Franklin appeared at his door, dressed in black, sobriety as cold as the gray autumn morning written on his face, he was about as welcomed as a doomsayer at a wedding.

  “I have come to invite you to meet young Miss Boller,” Franklin said in a stiff formal voice as if he had learned to speak from books.

  Thornton scrutinized the man. There was something else disturbing about him that he couldn’t quite put his finger on. “Does this invitation come from Mrs. Boller?”

  “No, it comes from me.”

  “Don’t you think I need an invitation from your mistress to see her daughter?”

  “I ask you to trust me in this regard,” Franklin replied. “I’m sure Godfrey hasn’t kept secret how much laudanum Mrs. Boller purchases.”

  “Rumor has it the child can’t wipe the spittle off her chin. I don’t see what purpose I could serve by making her acquaintance.”

  “I cannot protect Penny from rumors. That’s why I need an ally who knows the truth and whom the people trust.”

  The sheriff’s face telegraphed his refusal. Franklin bowed his head, and James Thornton could see the servant swallowing a large hard lump of pride.

  “Please, I have never begged for myself, sir, but I beg you for Miss Boller. The issue at hand is her welfare. In case something happens to me, I need someone to look out for her.”

  Thornton had never set foot inside of the Boller mansion and never expected to. He did, upon occasion, have unpleasant business with the mistress of the place. She was a notorious skinflint, and Deering occasionally asked him to collect some small fee owed to somebody in the Flats. Thornton didn’t like doing a Mexican’s dirty work, but he knew that Thomas rarely failed at a collection of a debt in the other direction. And as for the daughter, Thornton hadn’t even heard her name until Franklin mentioned it. Reverend Culpepper, the Episcopalian pastor who usually engaged in a polite discussion with Madeleine Boller after the Sunday service, claimed that if it hadn’t been for the forbearance of the noble and generous lady, the poor girl would have been shipped off to an asylum.