Wrathbone and Other Stories

by Parent, Jason

  “Clara?”

  As if summoned by her name, Clara appeared from the bowels of the closet. She did not step forward, for her legs did not move and her feet hovered a few inches over the ground. Her complexion was as pallid as the clean patches of her dress, most of which was stained, saturated by blood—the same dress she had worn on April 14, 1865.

  My hand went to my mouth. I bit down on my knuckle. “Clara? Is everything all right?” I asked, though I could plainly see that it wasn’t. Her eyes were empty black circles. Tiny tendrils squirmed out of them like starfish legs searching for food.

  Something else squirmed in the blood on her chest. Maggots.

  “What’s happened to you, my dear?” Fear caused my words to come out broken. I needed Clara to be okay. For the first time in my life, I prayed that I was insane.

  Why had she kept that infernal dress? Perhaps she had done so for the same reasons I had chosen to move us next to the White House. I did not know, but when Clara’s mouth spread wide across her face, a shark-tooth grin opened like a bear trap. I knew the dress was cursed, and I had cursed it. The creature in the dress was not my Clara.

  “Stay back,” I warned, though I had no means by which to battle the beast. Even defenseless, I felt defiance rise inside me.

  “She is ours now, Henry,” the demon spoke, many voices echoing from the depths of its eyes.

  “She does not belong to you. You shall not have her!” I wanted to attack and had begun to lower my foot to the floor, but the darkness blanketed it like rolling fog. My muscles froze. I shriveled in my cowardice.

  Black ooze shot from the demon’s eyes. Muck flooded the air, swallowing me in its embrace. I screamed, and the secretion worked its way into my mouth and seeped in through my nostrils. It filled my lungs with the freezing nothingness between the stars. I couldn’t breathe. A formless shadow embalmed me while I yet lived.

  Sightless in my cocoon, my vessel into the underworld, the demon hugged my arms against my sides. I thrashed. I screamed. I called her name across the void.

  “Clara!”

  “What is it, Henry? Who are you talking to?”

  “Clara?” My bedroom was as it should have been. I kicked off my tangling bedsheets. Clara, clothed in her nightgown, unadulterated and safe, a vision more beautiful than Aphrodite herself, held me in her arms. Once again, she had pulled me from the darkness. Once again, she had ripped me from Oblivion’s grasp.

  I jerked upright and reached around her neck, wanting only to gaze into the face of my soul’s guardian. Clara shrank away, cowering as though I might strike her. Though pained to see her that way, I realized that of course she would be afraid, having witnessed my own terror and nothing more.

  She hadn’t seen any of it, God bless her. She knew only that I needed her, and she offered a helping hand. I shuddered to think what might have happened had she not been there to offer it.

  III.

  I walled up that damned dress with brick and mortar. It did not stop my so-called delusions. The years passed, with the demons surfacing mostly in voices and nightmares so often that I would lie awake night after night, listening to Clara breathe beside me. Like a metronome, the pace of her breathing coaxed me into a sort of trance, where my mind could find respite from the evil that plagued it, if only for a little while.

  Still, the demon would not relent. It saw easy prey in me, exploited my fear of losing Clara, and exalted my guilt over failing the President. And it grew craftier.

  When the dreams proved inadequate in advancing its goals, the beast took human form. Every time we took leave of our Washington home, we were accosted by would-be gentlemen suitors seeking Clara’s attention as if I were merely her stepbrother or perhaps her valet. They offered her lascivious smiles and complimented her appearance as pointed incisors dug into lower lips, perversion twinkling in their eyes, scorn flashing across their delirious grins.

  And Clara would thank them, encourage them even! She claimed they were gentlemen she knew in her social circles, those from which I steered away, and that their greetings were polite and perfunctory. The other men’s advances compounded upon the unspoken tension that had infiltrated our holy bond. Her wariness of me, the feeling of love unrequited, the rumors that she might leave me … they were all that abhorrent monster’s doing! It had formed a barricade between my wife and me that I could not penetrate. I felt emasculated and impotent, just as I had the day Lincoln was shot. Its beguiling, wanton advances filled me with rage. Those whom Clara saw as people, friends even, I knew to be the devil’s henchmen. To see the demon before my eyes yet be unable to confront it made me feel weak. I was nothing.

  The devil’s illusions occurred so often that I shut myself behind my doors. That demon had confined me to my home! I kept Clara confined there with me as often as I could. Three children, we had: my boys, Henry Riggs and Gerald, and my daughter, Clara Pauline, who looked so much like her mother that my heart swelled whenever I gazed upon her. Like Clara, the children were my joy and my distraction from a soul’s burning. And like Clara, they fell under my protection.

  In the name of my children’s education, we packed up our things and headed to Europe, eventually wintering in Hanover, Germany. Without work to occupy my time and divert my mind from the mad chanting of the demon inside it, I thought I could escape it by running. So I corralled my family onto a ship, and we sailed halfway across the world.

  I soon learned that the world was not big enough to hide me. I should have known it would follow.

  * * *

  “Pauline, my little darling, your dimples have stolen my heart.” I pinched my daughter’s cheek. “Maybe … I should take it back from them.”

  Pauline giggled. “You’re silly, Daddy.”

  My wife smiled. “You’re always doting on her, Henry.”

  I stared my daughter in her beautiful, round eyes as she sat on my lap. Her shining face and chubby cheeks, filled with dimples and innocence, beamed back at me. If time could have frozen in that moment, I do believe I would have found paradise. I wondered why maturing had to ruin who we were.

  “I think your mother is feeling a bit jealous, my sweet poppet,” I whispered. I kissed Pauline on her forehead, lifted her into the air, spun her around, and stood her on the floor. She wobbled then steadied and ran over to her mother. She jumped on Clara’s lap.

  Clara brushed Pauline’s hair.

  I frowned. “You dote on them far more than I ever could. Sometimes, I think you forget there are four of us who need your attention.”

  Clara’s arms dropped to her side. “Henry …”

  I looked away, ashamed. “I’m sorry. I just … I love you, Clara, and I am not too proud to admit that I need you. Whenever I am close to crumbling, you are the glue that keeps me stable, the stamp that keeps me sealed. I have been having these thoughts as of late, bad dreams, as well, always of you leaving me.”

  Clara set her jaw. “For the last time, Henry, I am not going to leave you. Whatever you overheard in Albany, whatever problems we had back home, we agreed to leave them there. Our winters in Europe have always been our best times together as a family. Let’s enjoy it. You’ll feel better once we disembark.”

  “I know, but—”

  “Enough of this, Henry. You promised—not in front of the children.”

  I released a long breath. “You’re right. I’m sorry. It’s this ship’s infernal rocking, agitating my dyspepsia to no end. I do hope the hot springs in Carlsbad will do me well. Dr. Pope seems to think they may do wonders for my ailments.”

  “They will, dear. And if they don’t, we will find another solution. You mustn’t give up hope.”

  I looked at Clara and saw the sincerity and strength of a faithful wife, the stalwart pillar that held me up. I could not imagine facing life without her. Still, I suffered the influx of those who would have stripped her from my side: the suitors who called themselves friends; the family members who actually thought that I, Henry Reed Rathbone, might harm
the mother of my children and the only love I had ever known; and that worst fiend of all, that demonic spirit latched to my back, always chanting in tongues, reciting curses into my ears. The demon’s influence was everywhere.

  Clara’s soothing voice was like none other. Her courage and devotion muted the curses and tamed my roiling stomach. God, how I loved her! How dare they think I would hurt her? I could no more hurt her than I could be without her.

  My children were the collateral that would ensure Clara’s faithfulness. Of course, it was petty of me to consider them instruments of security in transactions of the heart. But what joyous security! To be blessed with three children in as many years. They were growing up so quickly.

  My oldest, Henry Riggs, bore a striking resemblance to myself at seven years. He stood tall and proud. I had no doubt he would be a leader of men one day, be it on a military or political front. And Gerald, almost six years old, was a bright young boy who excelled with both numbers and letters.

  Curiously, I had not seen the boys all morning. The S.S. Seythia , a beauty of a vessel, had its fair share of places to hide, but it wasn’t like my children to run off without my say-so.

  “Where are the boys?” I asked.

  Clara, who had returned to brushing Pauline’s hair, raised her head. She smiled the smile of a proud mother. “They are in their room, studying their histories as their father instructed.”

  I slapped my legs and rose, sharing my wife’s pride. “Perhaps I will join them then.” I sauntered over to their cabin door and knocked before entering. As I stepped inside, I saw Gerald seated at a desk, his back to me. The edge of an open book on the desk extended beyond his shoulder, but the boy’s body blocked the rest of the tome from my view.

  Not even six years old, and reading grand volumes of European history . But Gerald studied alone.

  “Where is Henry?”

  My son remained seated, motionless. I cleared my throat. “Gerald, where is Henry?”

  Still, my son did not answer. My eldest son was nowhere to be seen. We were on a ship in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Where could young Henry have run off to?

  Out of the corner of my eyes, I saw movement, faint and fleeting, near the wall to my right. Gerald sat at the desk to the left. To the right was only a bunk. I wondered if Henry was hiding beneath it, playing a prank on his father. “Aha!” I said, turning quickly. Henry was neither on nor beneath the bunk.

  Instead, I stared at a rather unimpressive assortment of paintings adorning the wall. A flower, a ship, and a fish leaping out of the water—none were worthy of the space they occupied or even a passing glance. I started to turn back to Gerald to renew my attempts to ascertain my eldest son’s whereabouts when movement came once more at the edge of my peripheral vision. My head snapped back toward the wall as I wondered how I could have missed Henry.

  Henry was not there. I stared at the wall, utterly perplexed. Aside from the three poorly crafted portraits, the bunk along the wall, and a chair in the corner, the right side of the room was empty.

  Wait. The fish … I could have sworn that fish had been leaping out of the water. Now, it clearly was descending into it. The flower, a freesia, also seemed different. Its obnoxious purple hue seemed faded.

  My eyes were playing tricks on me. Surely, lack of sleep and the acid in my stomach were confusing what was real and what was not. I needed only to have blinked, and the room would be as it should be. Nothing sinister had ever followed me abroad. My untrustworthy eyesight was merely the product of a long, tiresome journey from Baltimore to Hamburg. Perhaps the time for much-needed rest had come.

  I walked toward Gerald, who sat as still as a statue, likely lost on the battlefield of some famous conflict. I looked back. I had to for some reason. Something peculiar about that wall raised the hairs on my neck. This time, I was certain something drifted into view, not once but twice. I scrutinized the wall once more, growing weary of my tired eyes’ tricks. The pictures were still hanging right where they were supposed to be and looking exactly the same as they had a moment prior. Any deviancy I had previously imagined was just that: imagined.

  Normalcy had returned, but it was fleeting. “What?” A splash of purple corrupted the bunk’s white linens. It appeared to be a feather or perhaps a flower petal.

  “It cannot be.” I approached the bunk cautiously. My stomach felt hollow. My palms began to sweat. Anxiety seized my mind, yet I knew not why.

  I crouched and picked up the lavender petal. Its color changed in my hand, as did its texture, turning brown and brittle as if time had advanced for it. The petal aged at a rate one hundred times faster than I did. It crumbled to flakes and dust between my fingers then was no more.

  As I stared at empty air where the petal had once been, water sprayed onto the back of my neck. I straightened and faced the wall. My hand covered my mouth, stifling the scream that had formed in my lungs. The small fish had transformed into a massive shark. Its enormous lipless grin bulged beyond the painting’s frame. Water dripped from its teeth. I couldn’t tell if the paint was wet and running or if the shark was drooling.

  The flower had also evolved. Its bulb curved, limp and dying, but its stem grew offshoots filled with thorns. From their sharp points, dark-red streaks ran down the portrait and onto the wall as if it were crying tears of blood.

  “Gerald,” I said, stepping back slowly. “We need to leave this room.”

  The ship in the third portrait rocked on waves. The floor rocked below me. I threw my arms out to balance, but the rocking increased. Acid burned in my stomach. I thought I would vomit but held it back.

  “Gerald, let’s go. Now!”

  I wanted to take my son away from that place, but I could not remove my gaze from that storm-tossed ship. Its hypnotic sway held me. The ship grew larger, as if it were crashing across the waves toward me. I recognized the vessel, for I was standing in it.

  A light flickered in a small window along the painted Seythia’s starboard side. Mesmerized, I stepped forward and leaned in, edging closer and closer to that small window as it moved closer to me. I could almost make out what was inside. No, not what, but who.

  I grabbed the painting by its frame and tore it from the wall. “Henry!” My eldest son was held captive inside that paint-and-canvas ship. His young face was cast in a fit of terror, mouth frozen in a scream as a fire raged behind him. He was trapped in a cabin. The paint around him began to melt and run. My son waved frantically out the window, calling for help, his eyes fixed on mine. In my head, I could hear him begging me to save him.

  Then he, too, began to melt.

  I had to find him. I concluded that the painting was an omen—my boy was trapped somewhere on the ship, no doubt in grave danger. I had to save young Henry.

  I called for Clara and turned to grab Gerald, but I found him already standing. His eyes were hollow black pits. His lips curled back, exposing rotted teeth. His tongue lolled out of his mouth, abnormally long and full of boils. Worms weaved in and out of his gums.

  On his shoulders, a naked imp perched, digging into Gerald’s skin with gnarled toenails. Stubby legs extended from a fat, round body. The creature’s genitalia rested obscenely in the tufts of my son’s hair. A wide oval head with beady eyes set close together sat between two flapping wings that resembled duck feet. Coiling horns, like those of a ram, sprouted from the wicked creature where ears should have been.

  This was not the shark-mouthed demon that haunted me, but likely one of its pets. I did not fear it. Instead, I feared only for my boys. I would do all I could to destroy it. But first, I needed to free Gerald from its infernal grasp.

  Lightning crackled outside, followed by roaring thunder. The heavens released a torrent. The lantern dimmed then flickered out. The boat rocked more fiercely, and I staggered from side to side.

  My son stood straight, his posture unaffected by the motion of the ship. The imp seemed to enjoy it. It fondled itself over my boy’s head.

  Filling with
rage, I charged the imp like a bull at a matador. I couldn’t fail my sons as I had … well, I couldn’t fail them, too. They deserved a better father than the man I had been. If only I could save them, perhaps I could find my redemption. Saving my children was a hard task, I knew, as my failures had brought these horrors upon them.

  The ship swayed violently just as I dove at the imp. It easily evaded me. My head crashed down upon the desk, and I fell into the dark.

  IV.

  I knew then that I could not run from the evil chasing me. I knew, too, that it would use my family against me. My own children! The demon was a master of clandestine warfare. I convinced myself that I must confront it head on and do battle in the light until one of us fell. Only then would I be free.

  I should have left my family then and carried the burden of my curse alone, but I was weak. I was ready to face the deepest darkness, but I couldn’t bear a moment away from them. My weakness spread like a cancer, infecting all those I loved.

  Those last months we shared together were troubled times. Finally, years of silent battle spent in torment, suffering, and emptiness all culminated in one tragic morning: the day I committed a far worse crime than that which started my curse. For if I considered my earlier inaction or failure a sin, then my later actions were certainly damnable. On December 23, 1883, I failed Clara and the children. But in failure, I succeeded, for that day, I secured for them the salvation that I could never have.

  * * *

  I sat expectantly by the door like a dog awaiting its master’s return. My family had gone shopping for Christmas presents. The holiday was only three days away. And no one but the Rathbones celebrated Christmas as well as the Germans.

  My wife and three children had all gone, and their long departure left me antsy. I picked at a handkerchief as I sat in the drawing room, where I had full view of the hallway leading to the front door. Sitting. Waiting.