by Ronald Kelly
“Please, Isabella… I must speak with you,” Quentin insisted of his sister.
Inside the awful crying resumed, along with the sound of liquid falling into a metal basin… dripping, pouring, continuously. “No, Quentin. I’ll not have you see me in such a way.”
Quentin himself did not desire to see his sibling in such a sorrowful state of physical distress, but he knew that he must talk to her and try to understand the extent of this the awful curse that they had been subjected to.
“I am coming in, Isabella,” he said and slowly opened the door.
Despite her protest, Quentin entered the utility shed. The interior of the structure was dark and dusty, but the invasion of daylight revealed the horror within. His sister squatted, naked, within a large metal wash tub filled with blood.
It was Isabella’s own blood that she was awash in. For that was his sister’s part of the dreaded curse. Once a month, during her womanly menstruation, she did not merely bleed from her womanly portal, but from every orifice of her body, including the pores of her skin. And that was not the most horrible aspect of her ailment. To prevent herself from bleeding to death, she was forced to ingest that which her body depleted.
In an atrocious act of self-vampirism, poor Isabella had to drink her own blood in order to survive.
His sister sobbed as he entered. “Please, brother… cast your eyes from my shame.”
Quentin did as she said, focusing on the earthen floor of the shed instead. It angered him to see his sister a victim of such an abominable infirmity. “Isabella, you have nothing to be ashamed of. Like Trevor and I, you are guiltless.”
He listened to her dip a china cup into the sanguine pool around her and, with great thirst, swallow her own bodily fluids. The noise nearly made him retch. “My only crime is possessing the filthy name of Deveroux. It is our dear, departed patriarch who has brought this awful curse upon us all. I hope his heathen soul burns in Hell for all eternity!”
Her brother was shocked to hear her speak of their father in such a cruel manner. Isabella had once been Everett Deveroux’s pride and joy, a “daddy’s girl” in every way imaginable. But her current state of despair and indisposition had changed her opinion of him considerably.
“But what did our late father do to raise the witch’s ire and bring such a heinous curse upon this family?” he asked. He lifted his eyes from the floor and looked at his sister. She sat there, blood dripping and dribbling from her nose, mouth, and ears. A steady stream coursed from both eyes, running down her alabaster cheeks like crimson tears.
“Did Trevor’s letter not reveal to you the shame and depravity that our dear parents cast upon this house?” she asked. As she looked at him, her eyes widened. “Good God Almighty… Quentin!”
Isabella had glimpsed his own personal angst before he himself had felt the burning sting in his nasal passages. A long, black centipede exited from his left nostril, its multitude of legs clawing for release. It dropped to the floor, covered with blood and mucus. Quentin attempted to crush the offending insect beneath the heel of his boot, but it escaped, skittering across the dirt of the floor and vanishing into the dank shadows.
Quentin wiped the bloody snot from his nostrils… a gesture that was more habit now than from conscious intention. “No, he said only that father was dead and that Mojo Mama had placed a curse upon our family. He did not go into details.”
Small, thin streams of blood squirted from Isabella’s nipples. Humiliated, she folded her slender arms across her breasts and wept. “Then go and demand that he tell you all. I cannot bear to speak of the awful business myself!”
Quentin regarded his sister’s pitiful form, sitting in a bath of congealing gore. “Isabella… if I could only reverse this horrid curse…”
“Perhaps you can, brother,” she said. “But speak to Trevor first.” She lowered her head. Blood pooled from the openings around the follicles of her ebony hair, turning her lovely mane into a nasty, purulent mess. “Now go. Abandon me to my own wretchedness.”
Not knowing what to say to relieve her distress, Quentin quietly closed the door to and turned toward the house. Anger flared within him. He must confront Trevor and demand to know the extent of the purgatory into which they had been unwillingly cast.
As he entered the rear door and made his way toward the main hall, he thought of how he had found the Deveroux mansion upon his return from war – run-down, deserted of their trusted servants, and in a state of perpetual decay. His mother, Rosalinda, had been alive then, but only in a physical sense. Her mind – once so sharp and full of good humor – had retreated into itself. Quentin had found her in a stupor born of madness and intoxicated with liquor and morphine. She had scarcely recognized who he actually was. But, as far as he could tell, she had not been touched by the Deveroux curse… not with the horrible aliments that Quentin and his siblings suffered. No, her torment had come later… several nights after his unexpected return.
Quentin pushed the awful fate of his mother from his thoughts. He had more urgent questions on his mind at the moment. The young man pushed through the double doors of the grande parlor. “Trevor!” he called. “Trevor, I must speak to you at once!”
When he stepped through the doorway of the parlor, it felt as though he was entering the white-hot belly of a blast furnace. Despite the humidity and heat of the summer afternoon, Trevor kept the great marble fireplace stoked and blazing. But, then, his older brother had reason to keep the fire going from morning until night.
Cloaked in a dark, woolen blanket, Trevor turned and regarded him. “Then speak, brother. I am here… as I always shall be.”
Quentin intended to approach his brother boldly and with no hesitation.
But the hideous stench of decay that filled the room caused him to gag and consider retreat. He stood his ground, however, and covered his nose with a handkerchief from his vest pocket. As he crossed the fire-lit chamber, he found thick mats of green flies and black gnats seething upon the velvet drapes and the cushions of the furnishings… waiting, hungering, but hesitant to approach the heat of the fire.
When he came within six feet of the form hunkered before the fire, Quentin stopped. He could draw no closer. Even where he stood, the bile threatened to roll from his belly and into his mouth. But he dared not vomit. To do so would bring a new nest of horrors from within him, and he was afraid such an expulsion would dampen the indignation he now directed toward his elder brother.
“I demand that you tell me all concerning this sordid business between the house of Deveroux and that witch in the swamp,” he said. “What sin did our parents commit to bring such sorrow upon us?”
“What would the telling of the story resolve?” Trevor said sadly. “Best leave it in the darkness where it belongs.”
“No!” snapped Quentin. “Tell me… if only for my own peace of mind.”
Trevor laughed. “Peace of mind? That is hilarious, little brother. Never again shall our namesake enjoy such a luxury.”
Quentin watched in disgust as Trevor’s right hand emerged from beneath his cloak. The flesh of the appendage was raw and decayed. Plump white maggots teamed within the bloody meat, feeding, crawling along the jointless nubs of what had once been his fingers. Trevor stuck his hand into the crackling flames of the fireplace. Instantly, the larva sizzled and popped, and the exposed meat of his failing flesh turned black with cauterization… but only temporarily.
That was the elder Deveroux’s personal curse – the constant decay of his outer skin and the muscle underneath. Beneath the woolen blanket, Quentin sat naked, his fingers and toes, even his manhood, rotted away, leaving gaping wounds. It was the same with his head and torso. Within the dark, bloody cavity of his chest and abdomen, his internal organs continued to function, though turning gelatinous from gangrene and infested with parasites and the eggs that would produce a thousand more.
Quentin tightened the cloth upon his nostrils. He felt the contents of his stomach threaten to rise, with the assistance of the
creatures that grew and generated within the dark recesses of his own body. With much effort, he quelled the sickness that threatened to overcome him.
“Brother, I beg of you, tell me the truth,” he said, his anger smoldering into despair. “Perhaps I can do something. Perhaps I can reverse this damnation that we have been subjected to.”
Haughtily, Trevor cast back the hood of his cover. His face was a glistening red skull, devoid of hair or ears. His lips had rotted away, revealing strong white teeth that had once charmed the belles of the sugar district. It was true… Trevor had once been a dashing and handsome gentleman. But that was no longer evident, given his deteriorating condition.
“All right! If you must know, then I shall tell you!” His bloodshot eyes glared from the lidless pits of their sockets. Several blue-bottle flies had grown bold and lit atop the membrane-thin flesh of his skull. “It was all begat by adultery, dear brother. Debauchery and unbridled lust.”
Quentin baulked. “But our father had no such tendencies!”
A look of disgust crossed Trevor’s disfigured face. “Oh, it wasn’t he who performed the offending act. Rather it was our dear, sweet mother.”
Quentin’s rage resurfaced. “Liar!”
“No, I speak the truth. It is a hard potion to swallow to be sure, but genuine nonetheless.” Trevor stretched out his leg and laid it upon the blazing logs of the fireplace. Soon, the stench of gangrene was replaced by the odor of rancid meat, cooked to the bone.
Heavily and with dread, Quentin sat on an ottoman. “Then tell me all that you know.”
Trevor looked into the fire, as though seeing all that had transpired within the ebb and tide of the flames. “Unbeknownst to you, lovely and genteel Rosalinda Deveroux had a dark passion… a carnal desire for pleasure other than what was consummated in her marriage bed. She particularly hungered for the attention of the male slaves that Father worked from daybreak to dawn in the canebrake. One in particular held her fancy… a strong, young buck named Jonathan. You remember him, don’t you? Nearly seven feet tall, strong as an oak and as black as pitch. And, crudely put, rather well-endowed. That was how our mother liked her taboo lovers… as strong and jolting as a cup of Mammy Sophia’s fresh-brewed coffee.”
Quentin felt an agonizing pain seize the center of his brain. He gasped aloud and felt the discomfort gravitate toward the side of his head, through the narrow channel of his left ear. He reached up as the invader emerged. With a curse, he pried an earwig free from the confines of his ear. It’s long, jagged pinchers gnashed, coated with blood and brain matter, as Quentin flung it into the flames of the hearth.
Trevor chuckled softly, then continued. “Her clandestine affair with young Jonathan went on for several months. I was aware of it, for I had come across them in the forest east of the sorghum mill. They lay in a bed of Spanish moss, rutting like wild animals, our saintly mother on top, taking all that he had to offer. She saw me standing there in the shadows, watching, but it did not alarm her. Rather, it seemed to heighten her excitement. Afterward, I promised to keep her secret, knowing how our father would react to such an unseemly liaison.”
“But he did find out?”
“Yes, several weeks later.” An expression akin to lunacy shone from Trevor’s eyes as he spoke. “He found them, naked and writhing, drenched with the sweat of their passion, on the floor of the smokehouse. Father went mad with rage. He flung mother toward the house, then prying an axe from a stump near the woodpile, decapitated his wife’s dark lover. He gathered up some of the other slaves, threatened them into secrecy, and had them carry the body off into the swamp to be disposed of. He took Jonathan’s head, impaled it on a fence post, and set it aflame to serve as an example for any others who might have provided Rosalinda with her shameful pleasure.
“Afterward, everything fell apart for the Deveroux family. Jonathan’s elderly mother grieved for days. You could hear her wailing along the dark banks of the swamp, searching for a trace of her son’s remains, intending to bury him in a respectful manner. But she never found him. His headless body had been concealed well, undoubtedly weighted down with stones and dropped into the quicksand pit at the far side of the bayou. A week later, she appeared on the front lawn of our house and did her dirty deed in retaliation for the murder of her only son.”
“The curse,” said Quentin, lifting his face from his hands.
Trevor nodded. “She was known among the darkies as Mojo Mama. A swamp witch well-versed in the ways of voodoo and black magic. They were all afraid of her, as our father should have been. But he merely laughed and ridiculed her from the upstairs balcony as she opened a brightly-beaded bag and began to lay a number of objects in the dust at the foot of the front steps: a chicken foot, possum bones, a black candle, and a fine white powder that she spread about in a circle. Then she uttered a series of incantations that would dissolve the reserve of the most stout-hearted man. Our father was foolish. He cursed at her from the balcony and threatened to kill her the same as he had Jonathan. Mojo Mama jabbed a bony, black finger at him and cursed him and all who had lived and been sired beneath the roof of the Deveroux house to an agonizing Hell on earth. Then she went to the fence post, pried her son’s blackened skull from its pinnacle, and disappeared into the swamp.”
“What happened then?” Quentin asked, although he could only imagine the worse.
“For several days, nothing at all,” said Trevor. “Father strutted about the house, making light of the witch’s curse and even laughing about the beheading of our mother’s Negro lover. Then it began to happen.” His brother paused and stared at him. “You remember how our father was… strong and robust, beefy and as wide as the gate to mother’s flower garden. Well, he began to waste away. Day after day, he lost pound upon pound of muscle, until he grew gangly and frail. He had Mammy prepare a bounty of food, but no matter how much he ate, he continued to dwindle down to nothing. Then his horror grew even more mortifying. His flesh decreased while his bones grew sharper and more pronounced. They began to break through his skin, exposed nakedly to the elements. One morning he did not come down for breakfast and we went up to find him lying in his bed, no more than a skeleton without flesh or innards. The only thing that remained were his eyes lying within the dry sockets of his skull, full of terror and remorse.”
“Good Lord!” exclaimed Quentin. “Pray… continue.”
Trevor did so, although with no pleasure. “After his death, about the time of the conflict at Gettysburg, our own individual curses came to be revealed. My putrescent state of decay, poor Isabella’s monthly bleeding, and your own nasty condition. Our mother however, did not seem to suffer. She remained in her room upstairs, indulging in brandy and narcotics, with the door firmly barred and locked. And there she remained, until the curse of Mojo Mama finally came calling on her in the dead of night. But I have no need to speak further. You were here, in this very house, during that grisly discovery at the stroke of midnight.”
Quentin shuddered at the thought. But he did not wish to dwell on his mother’s death at that moment. Rather he was intent on finding a solution to the dire situation they now endured. “I shall go to Mojo Mama and reason with her. I will try to convince her that we, as children of the Deveroux name, had nothing to do with her son’s murder. Shall I saddle a horse so that you may accompany me?”
Trevor laughed bitterly. “Are you mad? Me, leave the confines of this house? Why, the beasts of the swamp – the boars and the buzzards, the gators and the gars – would lay waste to my decaying carcass before I rode a quarter mile into the bayou. It would be certain death for me!”
Quentin knew that his brother was correct. To take him into the swamp would be like ringing the dinner bell for every hungry creature south of the canebrake. He stood and went to a side table. Opening an upper drawer, he took out a Colt Navy revolver that he had taken off the body of a dead Yankee following the Battle of Stones River. He checked the cylinder of the .36 caliber pistol. It was packed with powder and lead
, and primed with percussion caps.
“Then I shall go alone and take my chances,” he said boldly, gathering his nerve. “We must have relief from this ungodly curse!”
Trevor sighed. “The only relief we shall find, dear brother, is in Death’s firm grasp. I grow weary and pray for it to come soon.”
Quentin ignored his sibling’s dark mood, shaking his head in resignation as Trevor turned back to the fire. If his brother was unwilling to reason with the old witch, then it was up to Quentin to go on his behalf. As he left the parlor, he turned to find that Trevor had stuck his head into the leaping wall of flames. He did not die, but screamed as the meat of his face and tongue blackened into living, breathing ash.
Daylight darkened into twilight as Quentin Deveroux rode along a narrow path through the heart of the swamp. His horse – who had weathered cavalry charges, cannon blasts, and the cries of dying soldiers – was skittish amid the dense thicket and the water-logged columns of cypress shrouded with stringy, gray moss. The bayou was heavy with unfamiliar sounds, as well – the crying of loons, the rustling of unseen creatures in the brush, and the distant bellowing of bull gators in search of their mates… or an unwary meal.
As Quentin rode along the trail, he recalled the night of his mother’s death. It had been a humid evening, so sweltering that nearly every window in the house had to be opened. Still, there was no breeze and nary a current of fetid air stirred. It was as though the wind waited, expectantly, for some horrible event to occur before daring to ruffle a shred of curtain or cool the heat-dampened skin of a single inhabitant.
Quentin had lain in his bed, bathed in sweat, unable to sleep. Trevor and Isabella had retired early, dealing with their own private portions of the Deveroux curse. Quentin could feel worms, beetles, and only God knew what else scampering through his intestines. They moved, en masse, through the moist, warm darkness of his bowels, searching for a single ray of light that might provide direction to the outside world. But there was no moon that night. It was pitch black and his internal tormentors had no such luck.