Demon

by Shane Peacock

  “I am Dr. Hilda Berenice, as I said. I was a neurologist first, studied at the London University. I have always been fascinated by the human brain.”

  “The top of your class?”

  “Yes. Did Lawrence tell you that?”

  “He made that clear.”

  “Well, he had the final word in hiring me. It was a bit of a risky thing, though, bringing me in to head up a psychiatry department, one dedicated to the sort of new work beginning to be practiced by the likes of Professor Freud, involving psychoanalysis and investigating repression, the unconscious and dreams.”

  “Where did you practice neurology?”

  “I never did. I met someone while I was in school and he influenced me to take up psychology. He was a marvelous man, with the most powerful brain I have ever encountered. I am gifted, but he is more so. He was an explorer, not afraid to look into things that others feared to investigate. He was magical. He and I became…very close.” She runs her hands along her thighs and her mind seems to drift. “Have you ever met someone you feel you have known for a long while, since before you met, before you were born?”

  “What was his name?”

  “It is immaterial. He showed me that psychology was the proper field for someone in search of the absolute truths about life.”

  “And Lawrence?”

  “I likely know little more about him than you do. He is a wealthy man, a kind man, who has built himself up from humble beginnings in Ireland. He is of an open mind too. He has submitted to psychoanalysis.”

  “With you?”

  “Of course.”

  “So, you must know more of him than you are saying.”

  “I cannot—”

  “What did you learn when you analyzed him?”

  “My dear boy that is none of your business. I could never divulge such things, but I can assure you he is a good man and you have nothing to fear, directly, from him. Might you lie down now?” She speaks the last sentence in a different sort of voice, a quiet, almost husky one, somehow soothing. Her perfume is now engulfing Edgar. He lies down.

  “Let us seek the truth and see if we can help you.” She gets up, shuts off the lights, and returns in the dark to turn on the lamp above the sofa. She sits in her chair behind him and says, “Relax.” The word seems to take five minutes to leave her mouth. Edgar feels himself drifting. He hears her voice as if it is coming to him from a great distance, though it is clear and warm. “The last time I saw you, you left out important things, didn’t you? You mentioned your parents but you did not say anything about how you felt about them. Nor did you say a word about your dreams. I sense that dreams are very important to you.”

  “Yes.” He pauses. “Dreams. My parents. I lost my mother on the day I was born.”

  “How do you feel about that?”

  “I hate it.”

  “You hate your mother.”

  “No.”

  “I believe that, in some way, you may. What about your father?”

  “He was everything to me.”

  “Both mother and father to you?”

  “Perhaps.”

  “He looms large in your mind and in your unconscious.”

  “He told me not to be afraid.”

  “But it was he who brought fear into your life. You told me last time that he read dark, sensation stories to you. It was he who first brought into your mind the idea that the monsters were real.”

  “Yes. It was not his fault though. He did not know I could hear the stories. He read them out loud in his room up above and they came down the heat pipe—”

  “Into your brain.”

  “Yes.”

  “So, he put them there. You have issues you need to resolve with him. You need to encounter him, psychically, and chase this fear. Do you dream about him?”

  “No, I dream of monsters.”

  “So, you have nightmares.”

  “Yes, many.”

  “For how long?”

  “Since the day I was born, it seems.”

  The alienist does not say anything for a while. Edgar lies there under the dim light, hoping for her voice to appear again out of the darkness. She has done this before.

  “Dr. Berenice?”

  “I am here. I am here for you.” Her voice sounds almost seductive. “The monsters in your dreams are the incarnations of your fears. Do these monsters ever start out as friendly and then turn against you, attempt to kill you?”

  “Perhaps once or twice but—”

  “Then, it is evident that you perceive your friends, at least some of them, as your enemies, as monsters. Do you have friends, close friends, whose loyalty you have recently begun to doubt?”

  Edgar thinks of Tiger’s strange behavior at the devil-worship room on Thomas Street, of the hatred in her voice for him after Jonathan’s death, of Lucy’s willingness to tell all their secrets to Lawrence and immediately take his side.

  “Yes.”

  “I suggest, then, that you investigate that concern. You must stay away from these friends until you are sure about them. It will not help your state to fear them.”

  “I don’t think I—”

  “You must protect yourself at all costs. We do not want to increase your paranoia. A paranoid mind is a diseased one.”

  “Paranoid?”

  “Now, let us address the devil issue. As long as you are calm and intelligently questioning your fears and keeping away from those who in some way frighten you, you should be able to differentiate between the devil inside you and one that might actually exist in flesh and blood and be in pursuit of you.”

  “The one inside?”

  “Your mind turning on itself.”

  The thought terrifies Edgar. A devil inside him—living in his mind. He thinks of Satan in the Bible trying to infiltrate the soul of God.

  “I am sure you have no evidence of an actual living devil pursuing you…do you?” Her voice seems closer, as if she is leaning down toward his head from behind.

  He thinks of the big black feather he found in the devil-worship room, the sounds of the hooved footsteps. He thinks also of Grendel, the vampire creature and Dr. Godwin, made by the hand of man, all monsters alive in flesh and blood. He thinks of Shakespeare saying that something worse, as real as the others, will come for him.

  “Edgar? Do you?”

  He wonders if Tiger, Lucy and Lawrence, if Professor Lear and Shakespeare are all in this together, always have been since the start, taking his mind apart, slowly leading him into the arms of Satan, their final goal. He wants to see his father.

  “No. No, I do not. That would be madness. And I am not mad.”

  It takes Dr. Berenice a long time to respond. “Good,” she finally says. “To finish, let us do something called free association. I will not belabor it. I will merely ask what comes to your mind when I say a few different words. Are you ready?”

  “Yes.”

  “Your mother.”

  “Love.”

  “Your father.”

  “Love.”

  “Fears.”

  “Do not be afraid.”

  “Dreams.”

  Edgar says nothing.

  “Dreams?” she asks again.

  “The hag.”

  “Pardon me?”

  “I have not told you about my most important dream, a recurring one that I have had since I was a child.”

  “Well, that omission is itself interesting. Does this dream contain an old woman who sits on your chest when you try to wake in the morning? Do you feel paralyzed and cannot move your limbs?”

  “How do you know that?”

  “Surely you know why, Edgar. You know that such a dream simply has to do with sleep paralysis, an easily explained phenomenon where the subject wakes suddenly and the body, d
oing its job in the way it should, has merely put its functions to sleep too, so that the subject does not get up during a dream and injure himself. This sleep paralysis, known to some as the hag phenomenon because it sometimes involves the fear-induced delusion of someone, often an old woman, sitting on the chest, is actually nothing to fear.” Edgar glances up at her: her old woman’s face and her intense black eyes. “The only thing you have to fear in this situation,” she continues, “is the fear itself. That, in the end, is really all you have to combat. Our bodies are helping us in these moments, keeping us safe. Again, it is only when our minds turn on us that we have true problems. Our bodies are generally wonderful things, Edgar. It is a good idea to explore your body and its potential too, as well as your mind. I was taught that by my mentor.” She says the last word as if she were speaking of God.

  “The man you knew in school, who pushed you into psychiatry and magic?”

  “A great man,” says Berenice, and her voice sounds distant. “You have nothing to fear, as long as this hag does not come to you in situations other than waking from a deep sleep. She never does that, does she, Edgar Brim?”

  “No,” says Edgar quickly. “No.” He thinks of the hag appearing on the boat on Spitsbergen Island in the north, of it attacking him before he can fall asleep in his room at home. He thinks of it calling out to him, telling him that it is the devil, seeming as real as his own flesh and blood.

  “I have one last word for you in our free association exercise.”

  “Yes.”

  “Satan.”

  It takes a few beats before Edgar replies. “Nothing,” he finally says.

  “Well, that is an interesting response indeed. I should tell you that we psychiatrists understand that patients often answer the opposite of what they really know is the truth. They repress the truth. Take care that you have not done that. As I have said before, it is better to battle your fears than to run from them.”

  She switches off the dim lamp, walks silently across the floor and turns on the bright lights. Edgar has to put his hand over his eyes to shield them from the glare. He sits up. Dr. Berenice is standing close to him. He can smell her perfume again, like an intoxicant in the air. He feels almost giddy. He looks up and sees that aging face, obviously once beautiful, dark featured and exotic, sitting on top of her young body.

  “Perhaps Satan is real, Edgar Brim, as real as my hand.” She places her left hand on the side of his head at his temple, its soft, warm surface feeling as though it is touching his brain inside his skull. She runs it down his cheek to his chin and removes it. She smiles.

  “Life is to be embraced in all its possibilities. Perhaps the things we think are evil are not so terrible, and the things we think are good are not so wonderful. I was taught that too and I keep it close to my heart to this day.” She puts her hand on her chest and moves it to a place over her heart. “Go out now and grapple with these fears, avoiding those whom you suspect, and embrace the devil if you must.”

  * * *

  —

  When Edgar reaches the street, he has no memory of leaving Berenice’s office, though he thinks he can still smell her perfume. He is sure he was on the lookout for Lawrence as he came through the hospital, trying to avoid him, and certain too that he was being followed or at least watched, but that is all he remembers. It is as if he wakes up on Whitechapel Road. He actually considers, for a moment, if he was ever in Berenice’s office, ever spoke to her, or if she even has an office at the London Hospital…if she exists at all. He still feels a little lightheaded, and surprisingly, very good.

  Edgar walks all the way to Kentish Town. Just as he turns into the Lears’ street, he sees his father walking toward him.

  It is so hot all the way along his walk that the pavement, the horses, carriages, buildings and even the people look like they lack solidity. They are wavering in the heat. His father appears to bend like everything else, but as Edgar nears, there is no doubt it is Allen Brim. His disheveled hair, flaming red like Edgar’s, marks him from a great distance. They lock identical blue irises onto each other, all four the color of stormy English skies. The squire has aged a great deal since Edgar last saw him lying on his bed in Raven House seven years ago, those eyes wide open, his face as pale as the pages in the mountains of books he had read. Though Allen is beaming, he walks slowly and gingerly, like a man with a heart problem. They fall into each other’s arms. A few pedestrians stop and stare.

  “My son, how you have grown!”

  “Father, it cannot be you,” he whispers into his chest. He can smell him, though, that same father smell. He can feel that same thin chest. When they pull back and look at each other, Edgar can see the familiar circles under his father’s tearing eyes, now much darker.

  “Oh, but it is me, Edgar. I know you have seen remarkable things since we last embraced, especially over this past year. You have seen monsters come to life from the great books, alive just as I said they were. Well, I am a monster too.”

  “A monster?”

  Allen Brim smiles. “Of a sort. I lived through something that should have killed me. I had stopped breathing, was presumed dead.” He holds his hand to his heart and coughs.

  “But…but when you were well enough, why did you not come to Thorne House and take me back?”

  “It was not that simple. I sneaked away. Coming to see you was not something I felt I should do, a dead man should do. I have lived as an outcast, my story unacceptable to others. I saw that you were well looked after, well loved, in fact.”

  “But why have you come now?”

  “Because you need me. I have followed you over the years, usually from a distance but sometimes closer, and I know that you are now truly in dire trouble. There is a hellhound on your trail.”

  “The devil,” says Edgar.

  “We shall defeat it.”

  “I don’t believe this is you. It cannot be. I am making you up.” Edgar notices more pedestrians staring at him. “How could you have—”

  “Believe it or not, I am with you.”

  Edgar eyes him carefully. His father keeps standing there, not fading, not even a little. “Tell me how you survived, what happened? It seems impossible. Tell me everything!”

  “There is no time for that now. I will explain later. You desperately need to do something now to escape your fate, to elude the dark angel. It is life or death. You have no allies. I will be that eternal friend, true to the end, that comrade in arms.”

  “But I have—”

  “Tiger Tilley? Lucy Lear? Andrew Lawrence? Annabel Thorne? William Shakespeare? No, Edgar. I have observed them in action when you were not with them, and I can tell you they are not your friends. You know that yourself, deep down. It is you and I again, Edgar, against the world.”

  “But—”

  “Do not be afraid.”

  Edgar’s knees almost buckle when he hears those words. He has been hearing them in his imagination ever since he saw them written in his father’s journal. They have given purpose and meaning to his life. To hear them now, direct from the source, fills him with hope.

  “Your friends are plotting against you and it is because the evil one has entered their minds. They are in league with the devil. Satan lived in the Bible, in The Divine Comedy, in Paradise Lost, in so many other stories, and he is in the world today too, as real as the other monsters but so much more powerful. He is slippery. He can live inside us, if he so chooses.”

  “How do we fight that? What do we do?”

  “Interrogating this Shakespeare chap is indeed a good idea, as I believe you have considered. As you know, he has not only been in that building on Thomas Street, but he has twice mentioned that the devil actually visited him.”

  Edgar wonders how his father can know all that, but he does not question it. He is in too much danger to do anything except move forward and cling to the dearest pers
on he has ever known.

  “As has been suggested too, a return visit to the devil-worship room would make sense. There must be more to learn there. Let us act.”

  “Wait a moment!” says Edgar. He is looking over his father’s shoulder toward the Lear home, which is near the end of the street, and has spotted someone standing outside it, looking at it, sizing it up. Edgar begins to run.

  He slows a little as he nears, seeing that the man has not noticed his approach. I can take him by surprise! thinks Edgar. He can hear noises from inside the house, raised voices, Lucy and Tiger arguing. He hears his name shouted.

  “See,” whispers his father into his ear, sounding a little out of breath. “They are not your friends.”

  The intruder seems to have had enough of surveying the house and starts to approach the front door. He is dressed in a frayed tweed suit and cloth cap. An ordinary man, thinks Edgar, approaching the front door, appearing benign, about to call one of us out! Edgar seizes the man from behind, placing a hand on his mouth and whirling him around and pulling him back out into the street.

  The intruder’s features are in the glare of the hot late-afternoon sun glinting off the street lamp and he appears dark-faced and horrible, slashes of black mark his cheeks, his eyes peer out from deep, gray sockets.

  He and Edgar stare at each other. Edgar slides his hand from the man’s mouth but keeps him in his grasp.

  “Oh!” exclaims the stranger. “Don’t hurt me!”

  As the man pulls his head back, his face comes clearly into view. Edgar can now see that he is a slight, middle-aged fellow, and the darkness that was on his face and the slashes across it were simply shadows cast by his standing between Edgar and the sun.

  Edgar loosens his grip a little. “Why are you snooping about?”

  “Snooping?” says the man. “I merely came to pay a call on the Lear home in order to tell the folks here something.” He is trembling.

  Edgar releases him but keeps him within arm’s length.

  “Perhaps you should not be quite so aggressive, Edgar,” says his father. “You might get more from him that way.”

  “Good idea,” says Edgar.