by B. B. Oak
“Yes, you are God’s mighty avenger,” Julia said. “Adam and I have no doubt that you are. But pray tell us, Angel Lyman, when you came to know that you were so chosen.”
“God marked me when I was but a babe. He reached down from heaven and touched me in my cradle, searing my flesh. My blessed mother witnessed it.”
“Hallelujah!” Julia sang out, clutching her hands in prayer and staring up at him as though in awe. Her hair was loose and wild around her pale face, and I must say she appeared as mad as Upson. He smiled down upon her, but I doubted she could cajole him for much longer and gathered myself to jump at him.
Did not have to risk such a dangerous maneuver, however, for at that moment I saw Henry Thoreau climb up and over the rocky edge of the cliff. He looked about him, picked up a rock the size of a melon, and as Julia kept Upson distracted with her babble about his being a seraph incarnate, Henry crept up behind him. When he was within reach of the crazed minister he brought the rock down upon the back of his head. Upson pitched forward, and as he fell I raced to him and pulled the gun from his grasp. I kept it pointed at him as he lay on the ground groaning.
Henry tossed away the rock. “It was necessary to cause him injury, and I do not regret it,” he told us. “All the same, I am glad I did not kill him.”
“Well, he was glad enough to kill Peck,” Julia said. “I found the poor captain’s scalp in his study. He killed his wife too. His own wife!”
“And his own father,” Henry told her. “The peddler Pilgrim.”
“You lie!” Upson shouted, sitting up. “My father was a sainted missionary lost in darkest Africa before I was born. The man I killed was nothing but a dirty, worthless tramp.”
“Then you admit you did it,” I said.
“I had no choice. He could have ruined me.”
“The man you murdered last night sired you, Upson,” Henry said. “Show him the letter, Adam.”
I took the peddler’s letter from my waistcoat and threw it down to Upson. He did not deign to look at it.
“What was your father’s name?” Henry asked him. He did not reply. “Was it Nathan?”
Upson’s mouth went agape. “How do you know that?”
“Nathan Upson is the name of the man who wrote that letter. Look for yourself.”
Upson picked up the letter and read it with care. As he did so he was transformed before us. His sense of superiority drained away, and his face fell into lines of painful dejection. Indeed, he looked much like his father when I’d last seen him alive. He folded the letter, put it aside, and staggered to his feet. I raised the gun.
“We are taking you to the constable,” I said.
He did not even look at me. His gaze was inward, as though he was peering deep into his very soul. Suddenly he ripped open his vest and shirt, and there for us to see were the long black marks the hot andirons had burned into his flesh when he was a babe. He opened wide his arms and looked up at the darkening sky.
“Father!” he screamed.
And then he turned and broke into a run, heading for the cliff edge. Grasping his intention, Henry and I raced to catch him, but before we could, he leaped out and away from the cliff. Being a mere mortal man rather than an angel, he plunged to his death.
JULIA’S NOTEBOOK
Wednesday, 26 August
All yesterday afternoon I paced and fretted, waiting for Adam to return from his rounds. I hoped that I could finally convince him that Lyman had killed Peck and that he would agree to help me find proof of it. When the sun began to sink, I could wait no longer. Lyman had told me he went fishing every day at sundown, and I wanted to take advantage of his absence to search his house for Peck’s scalp. Just in case he was home, however, I brought with me the horrid feather cape I’d promised to return as an excuse for my visit. I knocked on his front door and waited with bated breath. Much to my relief, Lyman did not answer. I tried the door and found it locked, as was the back door. This I had not expected, for locked doors are rare in Plumford. I took out a hairpin, and this time it worked like a charm. The simple catch gave way, and the back door eased open before me.
I prowled the first-floor rooms and detected a rank odor in Lyman’s study when I entered. His beloved gun lay on a long bench, and beside it were cups and tins of shot and gunpowder. One corner of the room was cluttered with fishing paraphernalia, rods and reels and creels and such. By a window stood a big desk. A snub-nosed vise was mounted upon it. It held a bare fish hook awaiting adornment. There were plenty more hooks in a box beside the vise, along with spools of colored threads, bundles of feathers, and strips of hides with the fur still clinging to them. I recognized hair from a woodchuck, a raccoon, a rabbit, and a squirrel, but none from a skunk, either animal or human.
The faint stink I had discerned upon my entrance was much stronger in the area of the desk, yet when I took a good sniff of the animal pelts they did not smell all that offensive. The more powerful smell seemed to be emanating from beneath the desk. I peered into the knee well and spotted a small wooden chest. I crouched down, took a good whiff, and nearly fell back on my heels in a swoon when the odor of decay hit my nostrils. But that did not stop me from retrieving the chest from the knee well and placing it on the desk. It was padlocked. That did not stop me either. I pulled out another hairpin and went to work on the small lock until the bow slid out of the bolt.
Holding my breath, I opened the chest. Inside lay a scalp that most certainly looked to be Capt. Peck’s thick black mane with its distinctive streak of white. It still bore bits of sticky flesh and membrane, and I had to use all the power of my will to keep from retching. I turned away from the gory sight and saw another sight far more alarming. Lyman was standing in the doorway, regarding me with his cold, silvery gray eyes. Panic seized me, but once again I used all the power of my will to remain calm.
“Lyman, you are home at last,” I said and hoped he did not notice the tremble in my voice. “I returned the lovely cape you made. Did you see it on the porch?”
He said nothing, just looked at me. His opalescent eyes, I noticed for the first time, were as blank of humanity as a ram’s.
“I was disappointed you were not here,” I continued, “and when I discovered your back door was open, I let myself in and decided to wait for you here.”
He did not respond, and so I rattled on in a rush. “Well, Lyman, I must say I noticed a pungent odor in this room, and you know how women are when they smell something amiss. I set out to investigate where the scent was coming from and lo! I found this skunk pelt.” I gestured toward the open chest on the desk. “I am sure it is the pelt of a skunk for it stinks to high heaven!” My attempt at a laugh sounded more like a squeal.
In three long strides he came across the room and hovered over me. I looked up at him and attempted a coquettish expression.
“But do not fear,” I went on as calmly as possible. “I will tell no one about what I found. It shall remain our secret. Rather, I shall forget all about it. Your lackadaisical housekeeping habits are certainly none of my concern. Indeed, I am not much of a housekeeper myself and—”
My babble was cut short when he slapped me across the face so hard I lost my balance and crashed against the desk. The chest atop it fell to the floor, and the scalp tumbled out, but he paid it no mind. His attention was concentrated solely on me. “You snooping she-devil!” he shouted, gripping my neck with both his hands.
Sure he would throttle the life out of me, I felt around the desk behind me for some kind of weapon to defend myself. Feathers would not help me, nor would the soft hides. When my hand found the open box of fish hooks, I grabbed it and smashed the contents into Lyman’s face, thereby sinking the barbed points deep into his flesh.
He roared in pain, letting go my neck as he attempted to brush the hooks from his face, only managing to give himself more pain. I dashed away from him, losing one slipper as I scurried out of the room and headed toward the front door. I had forgotten that it was locked! As I tugge
d on the handle in vain, Lyman came up behind me and caught me by the arm with such force he almost tore it out of its socket. He twisted me around to face him and began slapping my face again, as though keeping beat to some mad music in his head. Through my tears I could see hooks dangling from his eyebrows, and several were caught in his upper lip.
That gave me the idea to yank the horn comb from my hair and thrust it deep into the hand clutching my arm. Blood spurted out, and he immediately released his hold on me to pull out the comb. I raced through the kitchen, heading now for the back door.
If my freed hair had not been streaming down my back, I might have made it. But Lyman managed to get hold of a hank of it and began reeling me in. No helpless flapping fish was I, however. I grabbed the heavy kettle off the cookstove and struck him on the head with it. He let go of my tresses, stumbled backward, and fell. I turned toward the door again, but Lyman, although supine, still had a long reach. He caught the edge of my skirt to halt me, took hold of my ankles, and pulled my legs out from under me. My head struck the cookstove, and my world instantly went black.
When I awakened I found myself sitting beside Lyman in his chaise, propped up by his arm around my waist as we traveled along a country road at a smart clip. The carriage hood was up, and we were as secluded from prying eyes as any courting couple could hope to be.
“Surely you do not intend to kill me, Lyman,” I said.
“Ah, you are conscious,” he said. His handsome face was dotted with puncture wounds from the hooks I’d sunk into his flesh. A bump rose from the spot on his high forehead where I’d whacked him with the kettle. But he smiled at me as though all was forgiven. “No, I will not kill you, Julia. I think it better that you kill yourself. Do you know where we are heading?”
I looked around, and when I recognized the road, my heart sank. “Devil’s Perch.”
He nodded. “The very place I proposed to you. But I had a change of heart, you see. I withdrew my offer of marriage today when you came to visit me.You became very distraught, Julia.You told me you could not live without me. Indeed, you threatened to go to Devil’s Perch and throw yourself off the precipice. Alas, I did not take you seriously. How remorseful I shall be when I hear that your body has been found at the base of the cliff.”
“It won’t wash, Lyman. No one will believe you.”
“There you are wrong, Julia. People always believe me. Did not the jury believe me when I told them I saw the tramp Roamer run from my house after killing my wife? Did not the vile sinner Peck, who confessed to me he might have infected my wife with the pox, believe me when I told him to meet me again at his belvedere so that we might pray together for his salvation? Did not the wretch called Pilgrim, who presumed to tell me how to save my soul, believe me when I told him I would do him no harm after I followed him into Herd’s barn? And will not the entire town of Plumford believe me when I profess that your unrequited love for me drove you to commit suicide? Poor, disconsolate, rejected Julia Bell! How I shall weep over your lost soul.”
That did it. I screamed with rage. And with the hope that someone might hear me. Lyman’s little mare did at any rate. Startled by my shrieking, she pulled back her ears and reared up on her hind legs. When Lyman let go of me to take the reins in both hands to control her, I jumped out of the chaise and sprinted into the field beside the road, heading for a farmhouse I saw in the distance.
The field was too overgrown for a carriage to get through, so Lyman set out after me on foot. I doubted he could catch me before I reached my goal. He was near twenty years my senior for one thing. And for another, I am an exceptional runner, taught by Adam in my youth to race like a boy. I had lost a shoe, however, and I was wearing five layers of petticoats. To my further detriment, the field was thick with blackberry bushes, and their noxious brambles kept getting caught on my skirts like tiny claws grabbing at me from every direction. This slowed me down considerably, and I could hear Lyman’s heavy pants as he gained on me. I ran all the harder, still sure I could reach the farmhouse before he reached me. But as I got closer to it, I saw there were gaping holes where there should have been windows and half the roof had tumbled down. The place was abandoned! Nothing remained of its former inhabitants but pieces of a broken, rusty sickle lying on the ground.
I glanced over my shoulder to see Lyman looming. I picked up a sickle piece and threw it at him with all my might. Regrettably, it missed his head (although by no more than a hair), and he was upon me. He hit me again, this time with his fist, and my knees buckled under me. He half-carried, half-dragged me back to the carriage, hauling me off to my death.
I never gave up though. Even when we reached the top of Devil’s Perch and Lyman took his gun out of the carriage, I did not lose heart. I was still determined to save myself, and if I could not, I maintained the belief that I would be saved in some other way. I was also certain I would see Adam again—how or when I did not know.
Alas, when I did see Adam again he was charging toward the gun Lyman pointed at him, and I feared we would both end up dead. But thanks to Henry Thoreau we did not. He saved us by bashing Lyman with a rock. And Lyman saved the state of Massachusetts the trouble of hanging him by choosing to take his own life.
There is no room in my heart to pity Lyman. It is too filled with compassion for his victims—his poor wife Urena, the blameless Roamer, and the flawed yet well-intentioned Pilgrim. As for Capt. Peck, I cannot help but think his own actions brought on his miserable demise. Not only had he seduced Lyman’s wife, he might have infected her. Consequently, Lyman too could have been infected. And for that outrageous sin against his most precious being, the Avenging Angel that Lyman considered himself to be tortured Peck most horribly before slaying him.
Ah, well, it is over and done with, and life in Plumford will go on as before. As for Adam and me, can we go on as before? If only it were possible for us to dwell here together as we once did when this town was the innocent Eden of our childhood. I cannot help but wish it.
JULIA’S NOTEBOOK
Friday, 28 August
As I write in my cabin the ship is pulling away from the East Boston dock. That I was able to book passage convinces me that the Fates intervened to get me far away from Adam as fast as possible. He will know I have departed when he receives my letter by messenger this evening. In six weeks I shall be landing in Liverpool, with the great expanse of the Atlantic Ocean separating us. Our proximity of blood makes proximity of place too perilous for us, and I pray Adam will understand this is why I had to leave so abruptly. After what happened between us last evening, he should.
He found me in front of my easel, putting the finishing touches on my portrait of Grandfather. It was well past midnight.
“So you cannot sleep either,” he said. “I have been walking in the Green, wishing you were beside me.”
And I had been lying in my bed, wishing he was beside me, but of course I did not tell him that.
“Come out with me now, and we can gaze at the stars together,” he said.
“Dressed as I am?” I was wearing only my muslin nightgown, with my painting pinafore wrapped around it.
“You are most modestly covered.”
“But not properly so.You do not seem to appreciate that I am no longer a child, Adam. I am a full-grown woman who must behave with a certain amount of decorum.”
“I fully appreciate that you are a woman now, Julia,” he replied, regarding me intently. “Your features and form please me in every way it is possible to please a man.” He took a step toward me.
I took a step back. “Adam, such talk as that can lead us nowhere.”
“I am hoping it will lead to marriage.”
“You know that is impossible. Was it not you who first told me it was?”
“Nothing is impossible if we want it enough, Julia.”
“Do we want offspring who are born so deformed they cannot sustain life?”
“There are methods to prevent conception.”
“But i
s not conception the primary function of the marriage act?”
“Conjugal passion is an expression of love, Julia. It need not result in procreation to be justified.”
“I allow that to be true. But I cannot allow us to chance creating a being that will only suffer and die. As far as those preventive methods you mention go, can you promise me they will never fail us? Or that we will never fail to use them?”
He took a moment before replying, and when he spoke his voice was strained. “All I can promise you is this, my beloved. If the fear of possible conception is what prevents you from agreeing to be my wife, I will be willing to practice marital continence with you. That is how dearest above all things you are to me.”
“You are proposing a platonic marriage?” I asked in disbelief.
“Does not love, when platonic, express its most perfect form?”
I pressed my hands to my cheeks, quite moved by his obvious sincerity. All the same, I did not think either of us could keep such a promise unless we lived completely apart. To prove this to him would be simple enough.
I put down my paintbrush, untied my pinafore, and slipped it off. He did not turn his eyes from me as I removed the pins in my hair and let it fall around my face and shoulders. I slowly walked toward him, raising the hem of my nightgown so that my bare feet and ankles were visible.
“If you became my husband, Adam, this is how you would see me every night.” I smiled up at him. “Would we not share a home together?”
“Your home would always be here,” he said in a low-pitched voice, opening his arms to me.
I stepped into his embrace and lay my head upon his solid bosom. How his heart did beat! And how I loved him! I loved him because he was so pleasing to look at, so good-hearted, so brave, so intelligent and skilled. But mostly I loved him because I could not help it. Our hearts had knit together in bonds of sympathy and companionship long ago. And as he held me against him, my body yearned to knit with his too. I could feel, through the thin layer of muslin covering me, that he too was excited by our bodily contact. We pressed against each other in silence for as long as we both could bear it, and when I pulled away my nightgown stuck to my burning flesh.