My Peculiar Family

by Les Rosenthal

Occupation of Father: Real Estate Developer

  Residence of Parents: Cambridge

  RECORD ORDERED SEALED BY ORDER OF THE COURT, JUNE 12, 1909

  Pieces of Rosalee

  The story of

  Rosalee, the Governess

  Derrick Belanger

  Pavel Belinsky’s favorite night of the week was Tuesday, a night where business was steady enough at the tavern so that he wasn’t bored, could have a conversation with the local loggers and miners, yet he could also pause and look out the window, see the town through the glow of the moonlight intermingled with the wafting smoke from the crackling campfires. At this point there weren’t many campfires left both from the wee hours of the morning, technically Wednesday now, and the dwindling population of the hastily assembled logging camp.

  He had owned the bar for close to three months, had won it in a poker match with a miraculous royal flush beating out barkeep David’s four sixes. At the time, Pavel wondered if the hand would lead to accusations of cheating. He was still a newcomer in the Colorado Rockies, had been at Hale for less than two months at the time. But David, a burly bearded man with a hearty laugh only threw his hands up at the sky, cursed his luck with a booming laugh and was back out chopping down pines and firs the next day. Hale was that kind of town; a place where strangers were welcomed with a warm grunt, and no one worried nor cared for what baggage you brought with you from your old life. The only requirement was to remain sober enough to swing your axe and move your saw, and make sure fighting words didn’t lead to fisticuffs, at least not enough blows to keep someone out of work the next day.

  It was the attitude and code of the loggers that kept Pavel in Hale, at least for now. But times were rough and the work was drying up. Pavel looked over at his final customer of the evening and could read his story like so many other strangers that came through his tavern’s rickety doors. The man was cloaked but from his long gaunt face, Pavel could tell he was on the thin and wiry side, probably wouldn’t last more than a few days at best, if he could find work. A burlap sack was plopped down by the side of the stranger's stool, probably containing all his worldly possessions, and he reeked of a stench so foul, Pavel had to open a few windows earlier, despite the cool autumn air, to make sure his other customers didn't wander away. Now that Pavel was alone with the man, he gave him a once over: a touch of Irish red in his hair, whiskers that couldn’t be more than a day or two old. Where had this man come from? Perhaps the better question would be where would he go next?

  The mining town of Caribou, just to the north, was running out of ore. As the town was dying, it was taking Hale and even the Lowland town of Nederland along with it. There weren’t enough trees to mill to make Hale last on its own, and soon the forest would run dry of timber for a good logging cycle. It would take decades for the forest to regrow. Once Hale finally shut down, it wouldn’t reopen for business until well into the 20th century. Pavel guessed by the time 1890 rolled around, Caribou, Hale, and Nederland would all be ghost towns, which was okay by him. The barkeep needed to wander, to be free. He figured he’d follow the Rockies up north into Montana and then head off to the wilds of Alaska. He’d heard about the endless forests, the veins of gold, the rich and vast taps of oil, and the times of year where the sun never rose. Sounded like an Earthly realm of Heaven to Pavel, and he smiled to himself thinking that he may finally find a place where he could settle down, at least for a year or two.

  But now it was closing time. The stranger had been nursing the same beer for close to an hour and Pavel wondered if the man was just looking for a place to stay as long as possible, to not be alone. Yet, the man wasn’t a talker, and with the stench about him, no one had been close to him for the entire night. He struck Pavel as a drunkard, especially with the sickly smell of alcohol, vomit, and piss about him, yet the man had sipped his beer, didn’t gulp it. Would this guy be trouble? Pavel asked himself. Probably not. At nearly seven feet tall, Pavel was a giant who often bonked his head when entering a room. His camp nickname was Bear due to his size and shape, plus the thick hair covering his face and chest. This customer was barely five feet tall. If he gave Pavel any trouble, he could simply lift the guy up in his massive hands and toss him out the door.

  “Sorry, friend, but I’ve got to close up shop,” he said, his voice coming out more guttural than intended.

  “Aye,” the man muttered in a thin, reedy voice which Pavel noted had a slight lilt to it. “Evenin’s gettin’ late. But first I’ve gotta pay me tab.”

  “Sure thing, stranger. That’ll be twenty cents for the two beers,” Pavel answered and reached down for the safe he kept below the counter.

  “Twenty cents. Two thin dimes, not a lot of money to some, but all the money in the world ta others, if ya get my meanin’.

  Pavel glared hard at the stranger. He didn’t like the implication that the man couldn’t pay his tab. Pavel could break him in two, if he wanted, yet there was something off with this one. A sense of danger seemed to pulse from the man.

  “Mister,” Pavel growled. “Sorry if you’re down on your luck. I truly am, been there myself. But if you can’t pay your tab there’s gonna be trouble.”

  “Oh, I can pay me bill, sir. No trouble at all,” and the man smiled up at Pavel and then reached down into the burlap sack he kept at his feet. Before the man had bent down, Pavel got a good look into the face. The red hair was slick yet tangled, a mix of dandruff and knots. The lines in the face went deep and the smile revealed a mouth of missing teeth and bloody gums, yet there was a pleasantness to the green eyes of the man, a sparkle to them, enough to make Pavel lower his shoulders and let out a deep breath.

  The man returned to the counter with a sealed iron pot, smacked it down on the counter. “Now, sir, when ya see where I been and what I got in here, you’ll know there ain’t gonna be no worry bout me payin ya.”

  “Prospecting,” Pavel asked, his eyebrow raised.

  The man’s grin widened. “Give it a look, eh?”

  Pavel reached down, held the lid firmly in his beefy right hand, then looked up at the stranger. “Didn’t catch your name.”

  “Josiah,” he responded heartily. “Josiah the wealthy.”

  With a sincere smile, Pavel quickly lifted the lid. He felt like a club had smashed into his face. Pavel staggered for a moment, then suddenly felt a heavy weight wrapped around his neck. Was that cackling he heard? Was he still in the bar? Pavel’s mind went blank, his eyes rolled into his head and then with a short stagger, the giant bartender came crashing to the floor.

  ~*~

  Pavel let out a low haunted moan and opened his eyes to the world. It took his vision a few seconds to focus, but when it did, he saw Josiah’s green eyes staring down hard at him, his face screwed up in a twisted, malicious grin.

  “P-p-p,” Pavel sputtered.

  “Heh heh, Ya may find it hard to speak with this around yer neck, ya ken?” Josiah slightly lifted the heavy weight off Pavel’s chest, and the barkeep tried to get his eyes to focus on the object in Josiah’s hands. His vision kept blurring, his senses still overwhelmed with whatever Josiah had in that iron pot.

  “Can ya see it?” Josiah spat. “Tis an oak cross, simple, elegant, supposedly blessed by Pope Leo himself. Don’t try movin’ well, heh, spose that’s up to ya. Won’t do ya no good now. Yer surrounded by garlic, and this here cross, I doused it in holy water before findin ya. Father MacDougall in Nederland was kind enough to do the blessin’ and he didn’t ask no questions neither. A kind man. I’ll be sure ta give him a few more coins fer his trouble after…” Here Josiah’s jolliness left his voice. He seemed to leave his body, his presence absent from the room for a moment. Then in a soft whisper he added, “After me work here is done.”

  Pavel let out a whimper.

  “I’ve been waitin many long years for this Pavel Belinsky. Yes, I know yer name. I’ve been trackin ya for several years, ya ken. Startin in Portsmouth, on the coast of New Hampshire. It all started on that blasted es
tate in Portsmouth. I’m sure you remember it well. Yes, I can see from yer pained expression ya do.” Josiah paused and held up a faded, wrinkled photo to Pavel’s eyes.

  The photograph showed a picture of a woman properly attired in a servant’s work dress, black, collared, with large buttons clasping the frumpy clothing to her body. She was standing posed next to an ornate easy chair, one that showed wealth beyond her standing in life.

  “This is Rosalie. I can tell from your expression you recognize her. Probably can’t say much with that weight on your chest nor with the garlic cloves I’ve strewn around ya.” Josiah held the cross up to Pavel’s face again. “Aye, I can see how much it bothers ya.”

  “Wasn’t as easy as I thought it’d be to find ya. Trackin ya was none too difficult what with your height and girth. But ya like these towns that don’t exist. Disappearing in the night and not appearin’ again fer hundreds a miles. Always going out at night, huh. I spose that part of the legend is true, like the garlic surroundin’ ya and the holy cross restin’ on yer chest.”

  Josiah paused, his face a solemn frown exposing the wrinkles deeply etched in his face. Pavel had ceased his struggle. Now, with eyes bulging, he listened to this crazed man’s desperate tale, his mind reeling with thoughts on how to escape the situation, his tongue still not working. “Ya know, I never believed in yer kind, never,” Josiah continued, his voice still level, but now jittery. “Walking corpses ain’t s’posed to come around til the end times, heh. And blood-suckin’ living dead that turns into animals, well, that all sounds like stuff straight out of the Grimm brothers’ fairytales. Then came Rosalie’s death. My sweet Rosalie. Ya remember her...the governess, worked for the Stokely family in a nice estate on the coast, away from the town center, where the Piscataqua and the Atlantic converge. Lovely spot, almost as lovely as my sister. She always had a sailor or two courtin her, but her first love was the children she tended for the family.”

  Here Josiah stopped and didn’t continue for a few moments. His mind had drifted back to more joyful times. Pavel, seeing his captor in a trance, struggled again and sputtered. When Josiah finally continued, his voice was lower and softer, sounding more haunted. “She loved the children, that she did. Sarah was her favorite. She was the one that found her or what was left of her. Sarah still ain’t right in the head from that day. Family pulled up stakes and left, what with the pieces and all. It was the pieces of Rosalie’s body that gave ya away.

  “I’ll always remember that day. I had just returned from me delivery route. Deliverin’ the post in Portsmouth is a time consumin’ task. The roads don’t make no sense, not like the cities out here. But I had me route and I kept to it. Made good time most days ‘cept when the weather turned. I was on Vaughn when I heard about poor Rosalee. Arthur, another mail carrier, he found me. I could tell by his stammerin’ and the quiver of his lip that he had some dreadful news fer me. Still didn’t expect to hear that me Rosalee, me only livin’ relations, was dead.”

  Josiah grumbled to himself then spat on the floor. His face turning a crimson hue his fists now clenched. “She was in pieces. Aye. You’d done a number on her. I’d heard about the first one, that sailor you’d torn apart near the harbor. Thought some wild animal had come off the boat. Still thought that even after they packed Rosalee up and brought her to me living quarters. What person does that to another human being, I ask ya?” Josiah flung himself up from his perch above the struggling Pavel, sauntered over to his sack and lifted a chiseled wooden stake from his bag, as well as a heavy speckled stone.

  “I’ll tell ya who,” Josiah stated, eyes wild, hands clutching the wooden weapon in his hands. “Someone who isn’t human!” The traveler then leaped over to Pavel, crouched down, and held the stake right above the man’s heart. Pavel expected to feel the death blow, but again, Josiah showed restraint. The man needed to finish his tale.

  “Ya know there’s those parts of New Hampshire and New England that go back, way back to a time before there were even colonies in this country. There are those that still remember the old ways, some that remember from the time before the white man walked these shores, others who brought them over from Europe. One of those women was a caretaker for the Stokelys. Did the laundry and such, heh heh. Said she was Scotch, but she weren’t no Scotch; ancestors from the ol’ parts, Romania, Transylvania, some say Indian blood flowed through her veins as well. Ahhh, you recognize her. She warned me, found me cryin’ and moanin’ on a corner of the estate, where the rock wall overlooks the crashin’ waves. Ya know it. Yes ya do.

  “She told me weren’t no monstrous beast that killt me Rosalee, heh, well not the kind the folks at the police station were lookin fer. This was jus a few days after the death, the coffin still in my house for the mournin’ period. She told me that the body wouldn’t rot, that those killed by the undead are cursed to have their juices flowin’ through their rotten flesh. ‘Cept the flesh don’t rot. That’s the way ta tell. I thought she was crazy. I roared at her in me grief. How dare she suggest such a thing. But as the body lay in wait, I opened the casket, expecting ta start seeing flies swarm. Normal flesh would rot away, attract the flies. I waited, waited for the rot, for the maggots to show. I even pulled out her left hand. Heh heh. I thought I was crazy, maybe by then I was, but I had ta know. Waited a whole month after she was put in the ground, and my piece of Rosalie, her hand, my own sister’s hand...it never changed, never rotted away. Just stayed in a pulpy mass of gray. It was then that I swore my revenge. I would avenge my Rosalie, so no others must die the way she did. Oh yes,” he said, the stake quivering in his hands. “OH YES!” He shrieked and using the stone smashed the stake into Pavel’s body. Pavel tried to scream, but all that came out with each hammer and thrust was a low moan. Finally, Pavel’s body shivered and went limp.

  Panting and exhausted, Josiah looked at the gory, disfigured body of his prey. He heaved himself up, made the sign of the cross, then took a few of the garlic cloves and shoved them into Pavel’s mouth. He had a long journey ahead of him for tonight, no time to rest, no time to grieve, or cheer, or curse. Well, perhaps time for that. Carefully, Josiah dipped his right pointer finger into the growing pool of blood. Just above Pavel’s limp head, he jaggedly painted the words, “Vampyre. Revenge.”

  ~*~

  The assassin found himself wheezing. The murder had sapped him of his energy, but he knew that he had to keep moving, couldn’t stop now, not for an instant. He caught his breath, looked over his prey, then, systematically, Josiah picked up his sack, plopped it over his shoulders, and stealthily crept out the tavern doors. He journeyed through town, pausing every now and again to make sure no one was following him, though why would anyone? He had committed a perfect crime. Most likely no one would try to go through those tavern doors before sunset the next day. Even if a drunk slunk inside the tavern and discovered Pavel’s body, it would take time to organize a search party, maybe hours.

  Josiah would spend the night hiking down to Nederland. He’d catch the first train to Denver. From there he would disappear into America... but where? Definitely back in the east, but New England? New York? Not sure, he admitted to himself, while brushing branches from his face as he moved quickly through the woods, further and further away from the town, from the tavern. At one point he thought he heard a canine howling, and he looked over his shoulder to make sure no dogs had been loosed upon him. No animals arrived in pursuit and Josiah brushed off the noise as overly sensitive nerves.

  He carried on at a brisk pace, huffing and puffing, his mind kept wandering back to Rosalee. Images flooded his mind. The brother and sister playing hide and go seek as children; laughing at the dinner table while Rosalee made funny faces, then being scolded by Ma for poor manners; listening to her recounting stories of the Stokely children, how Sarah wanted to be a ballerina, and Ivan a pirate. But no! Like a well-trained monk, Josiah kept bringing his mind back to his task at hand, to his escape, knowing reminiscing now would lead to anger and tears and a paralyzin
g sadness. No time for grieving. Not now. When he sat on that train he could collapse and wallow in his misery, and when he was finally alone, he could let it all out, could call out to the world in a long, hard, bloodcurdling scream, the type one might let out when their life was brought to an end by some devilish means. But now he had to move, to wind his way through these woods, to get away from the unholy creature he had finally laid to rest.

  After several miles of wandering, Josiah found himself in an open clearing surrounded by aspen trees. It was a small glade, just enough to show a break in the woods, allow the glittery moonlight to stream down, reflect off the leaves and grasses, and fill the opening in an eerie glow. Josiah, continuing on his sojourn, was interrupted at the opposite end of the open space. He stopped cold, couldn’t believe that his eyes weren’t deceiving him. For out of the grove of aspen before him emerged a wolf, a gray wolf. Josiah recognized it from the pictures he had seen in books, but he had never seen one in real life, had heard tales of wolves in the high country, but never near camp. The animal had a majestic look to it, like it owned the woods, its head held high. Then the animal lifted its head and howled, a haunting sound. Josiah threw down the sack from his back and removed the speckled hammering stone. He didn’t want trouble with the animal, but he wasn’t sure if it would let him pass. As Josiah kept his eyes on the wolf and began moving in a circular pattern away from the animal, he heard rustling from behind him, then from the sides. Quickly, Josiah sprung around to find himself surrounded by a half dozen wolves. The one who howled must have called his pack. This was unexpected, yet Josiah admitted under his breath acceptable. If he was to die here, in this grove, the meal of a pack of wolves, so be it. His mission, and therefore his life, was over. It might even be fitting to die in the clearing this night, but not without a fight.

  A low growl now came from the canines, and they began to close in on Josiah, fangs exposed. Josiah held his rock high above his head, wondering if he should throw it or use it as a hammer, when he suddenly froze. A new wolf sprang from the woods and joined the pack. It moved stealthily between the others and sat itself down before Josiah. Unlike the rest of the pack, this wolf was an impossibility, not just for its size and girth, nor its sharp green eyes, but for the stake still stuck in its body, craftily placed where its heart should be.