Goddess Born

by Kari Edgren

  “It’s getting awfully dark outside,” Mary said. “Would ye like more candles lit?”

  Quite without warning, I was seized by an intense dizzy spell. I tried to focus on Mary, but my eyes had come unhinged and refused to work properly. When two Marys appeared near the hearth, I squeezed my eyelids shut, hoping to dispel the bout of double vision. Peeking through my lashes, I found both Marys remaining, though somewhat askew as the floor had bent upwards beneath their feet. Or maybe it was the walls that had moved. Whichever the reason, the Marys appeared to be standing at a significant slant in defiance to everything Sir Isaac Newton had ever written about gravity. Alarmed by the sight, I shook my head in an attempt to return the room and Mary to their proper order. It worked at first, but after a few seconds the maid divided back into two as the floor began to move again.

  Mary watched me curiously. “Would ye like more candles lit?” she asked, repeating her previous question.

  “Yes, please,” I mumbled and glanced back at my book. Not that this was any better. The words squirmed like insects on the page, moving in and out of focus. I blinked several times and then looked again. But the black type wouldn’t hold still no matter how hard I concentrated. Giving up, I closed my eyes and rested my head back against the sofa.

  “Are you feeling unwell, ma’am?” I heard Mary ask. She seemed to be standing just above me, though her voice sounded like she spoke from the far end of a tunnel.

  My tongue had grown too thick for speech and my eyelids felt like lead curtains. Nearby, I heard the tinkling of breaking glass.

  Someone else had joined us and was talking to Mary. A man, I thought from the tenor of his voice, though it sounded like he, too, spoke through a tunnel. He wanted something moved and asked for her help.

  I really needed to look up and see who it was, but my body had become a dead weight, completely useless to my commands. The book slid from my lap, landing on the floor with a thud. A faint warning echoed deep inside my head, only to be silenced as sleep moved closer, pushing me further into the darkness.

  I just needed to rest for a moment. Then I would send for Henry.

  * * *

  The sound of knocking coaxed me slowly from sleep. Forcing my eyes to open, I took in the familiar surroundings of my bedchamber. The canopy blurred in and out of focus above me, confirming that I was lying on the bed.

  “Go away, Mary,” a man said irritably from my far right. “There is nothing more for you to do here.”

  “Ye promised not to hurt her!” Mary cried, her voice muffled by the closed door.

  “I’m trying to save her, you fool! Leave me be before it’s too late.”

  His words were immediately followed by Mary’s heavy footsteps, retreating down the stairs.

  A single candle flickered near the bed, leaving the rest of the room in darkness. My head reeled, and I had to make a conscious effort to stay awake.

  “I see Mary’s knocking has disturbed your sleep,” the man said, a disembodied voice speaking from the shadows.

  My mouth felt dry and my lips moved clumsily when I tried to speak. “Who are you?” The words came out in a slur. “What do you want with me?”

  The man circled to the end of my bed and stepped into the candle’s soft light. “Surely, you recognize me, my dear girl.”

  I blinked several times to help steady my vision as old Edgar Sweeney’s face came into view. A relieved breath rushed from my throat at the sight of his gentle eyes and paternal smile. “Oh, Edgar, I must have fallen asleep downstairs. Did you help Mary bring me to bed?”

  “That I did,” he said kindly. “And you’re a might bit heavier than when you were a little girl.”

  Flat on my back, I felt my arms and legs splayed out into an ungainly X. Wanting to sit up, I tried to turn onto my side, but found even this simple movement impossible. I arched my neck for a closer look and saw my wrists had been fettered to the bedposts. From what I could tell, my ankles had suffered a similar fate.

  Confusion overtook me and I yanked at the bindings. “Why have I been tied up?”

  He watched my struggles with a look of unveiled sympathy. “For your own good.”

  I had heard medical anecdotes of patients needing to be restrained for violent behavior. Fearing this may have happened to me, I tried to think back, but had no recollection since falling asleep on the sofa. Even so, he could surely see that my senses had returned and I no longer posed a danger.

  Edgar bent down to pick up an unlit oil lamp, similar to those stored downstairs in the pantry. He carefully removed the shade and began to dribble the oil near my right foot, onto Henry’s folded quilt. Bewildered by this action, I tried to prop up on my shoulder blades for a better look and accidentally caught my toes on the quilt, knocking it from the bed. Edgar fumbled the lamp, managing to pour oil on both of us in his attempt to catch the quilt.

  “Gadzooks, Selah!” he said sharply. “Hold still. I’ve just spilled all over my coat.”

  I laid my head back on the mattress, a bit shaken by the tone of his voice. It wasn’t as if I had a lot of control in my present condition. “I’m sorry, Edgar. If you would untie me then I wouldn’t be such a nuisance.”

  He ducked out of sight as he bent down to push the quilt under the bed. “I’ve every intention of setting you free,” he said, standing back up to his full height. “Just like I did for Sarah and Elizabeth.”

  I blinked again, trying to clear the grogginess from my head. Sarah and Elizabeth...The names circled just beyond my reach. “Do you mean my mother and grandmother? What do they have to do with this?”

  “Like you, they were also cursed. It was my duty to free them from their unnatural burdens.” He spoke so calmly that I had to repeat the words before my brain caught up.

  I stared at him, dumbstruck by such an odd and errant confession. No doubt, old age had addled Edgar’s mind. He loved my family, had been like the grandfather I never knew. He couldn’t do something so terrible. “I don’t believe you,” I said in a trembling voice. “You would never have hurt them.”

  The candlelight flickered across one half of his face, leaving the other half in shadow. “I didn’t have a choice, Selah. They had to die.”

  His bluntness stripped my denials bare. No matter how much I wanted to blame madness, the truth was far worse. For a terrifying moment it felt as though my heart had stopped. Black shadows pushed in on all sides, threatened to plunge me back into the abyss of unconsciousness. Instinct rang like a warning bell in my head. I had to stay awake, to fight against the dizziness and confusion as though my life depended on it...

  “I’ve every intention of setting you free, just like I did for Sarah and Elizabeth.”

  His meaning crashed over me with the force of a towering wave. All these years, the gentle, fatherly exterior had been nothing more than a mask used to hide the real person deep inside. This man looked just like Edgar, even sounded like him, but for all the similarity, he was a complete stranger to me.

  A stranger capable of murder.

  “Help!” I screamed with such force that my throat hurt from the strain. “Someone help me!”

  “There’s no reason to yell. Only Mary can hear you.”

  Oh, please no...

  Dread pulsed through my veins, pounded in my head like a vicious hammer. There should have been three other people in the house besides Mary. “What did you do with Mrs. Ryan and the other maids?”

  “Surprisingly little. The maids were locked in the cellar when Mary sent them to fetch more cider for the morning meal.”

  I let out a tremulous breath. At least he hadn’t hurt them. “And what of Mrs. Ryan? Is she also locked in the cellar?”

  Edgar tugged indignantly on his waistcoat. “That would be most uncivil for a woman of her advanced years,” he huffed. “I gave Mary some mandrake powd
er to put in her tea. In a few hours she’ll wake up in her own bed, no worse for the wear.”

  This explained my own sudden drowsiness. My wine must have been laced with the same powder. No wonder I couldn’t remember being carried up to my room or tied to the bedposts. And if Edgar spoke the truth, I could yell to high heaven without being heard.

  My eyes darted to the mantel. Darkness shrouded the clock, leaving me to guess at how much time had passed since Henry and James had left. Thirty minutes? An hour? And what if they stayed longer than intended? At that moment, distraction became my best hope. In order to survive, I needed to divert Edgar’s attention until either the men returned home or I had devised another means of escape.

  “Why did you kill my mother and grandmother?” I asked, blurting out the first question that popped into my head. Surely, Edgar could see that he owed me the truth if nothing else.

  He shrugged. “It was the only way to break the curse.”

  Why did he keep talking about a curse in connection to my family—unless he meant our gift? “What are you talking about?” I asked cautiously.

  Edgar sat on the end of the bed and patted my leg in what he must have considered a comforting gesture. I tried to jerk away, but the binding held me in place. Ignoring my abrupt reaction, he gazed off into the darkness, letting his hand rest heavily on my calf. “I first met Sarah MacBres in 1690 when she came to Hopewell with her husband and infant daughter to start a small farm. Like most folks in town, I liked her at once, drawn in by her kindness and vivacious manner.”

  While he talked, I started to pull gingerly on the bindings, testing how well they would hold. Edgar seemed oblivious to my efforts, caught up in his own story.

  “She was also a skilled healer,” he continued, “which Hopewell lacked, being so far away from Philadelphia, and it wasn’t long before rumors were circulating about her unusual talent. Curious by nature, I became intrigued with the stories and began questioning anyone who had received care, no matter how insignificant. From what I could gather, her methods were not so different from other healers. Her success, though, was near perfect, exceeding any doctor in Pennsylvania, or even the Colonies for that matter.

  “Being a healthy young man, I unfortunately had no reason to seek her attention to further my investigation. But that changed the day I climbed onto my roof to fix a leak in the chimney. The rain had been falling for more than a week and I soon lost my footing on the wet shingles. My wife found me lying unconscious on the ground with the back of my skull cracked open.”

  His voice trailed off, and he shook his head from the memories. I stopped pulling for fear that any creak from the bedpost or tear of cloth would give me away in the heavy silence that descended. Lying still felt like torture as the precious seconds ticked away. My muscles remained taut with anticipation, waiting for him to speak again.

  He coughed once to clear his throat. “All I remember from those first days was my wife crying while Sarah tended to my wounds. Not until I woke for good did I learn of the miracle your grandmother had performed. My head still hurt like the dickens from falling, but I could now hear out of both of my ears.”

  Unease prickled my skin, but I kept quiet and waited for him to explain why his hearing signified any kind of miracle.

  “You see,” he said, his voice growing more excited from the story. “I was born deaf in my right ear. Your grandmother healed the defect when she fixed my head.”

  I bit my lip to keep from crying. Closing my eyes, I envisioned my grandmother placing her hands directly on Edgar’s head. Most likely his brain had swollen from the fall, was possibly even bleeding slowly, adding to the pressure that would have killed him. With so much damage to repair, the eardrum was by no means essential to sustaining his life—she had done it to be kind.

  “When Sarah came by later that afternoon to check on my improvement, I confronted her about my ear. She claimed to have done nothing, said that it was due to the fall. No matter how much I argued, she would never admit to doing anything special, but I knew the truth. At that moment, I became her greatest admirer.”

  “Then why did you kill her?” I sounded surprisingly calm considering the nature of the situation and my continued struggles. Sweat now coated my wrists, which had started to burn from the constant friction.

  “About six months after Sarah had healed me, my wife delivered our first child, a healthy baby boy.”

  I already knew this part of the story. “But there was an outbreak of scarlet fever.”

  He nodded, his head bobbing like a disjointed puppet above his bony shoulders. “Yes, I imagine most folks are familiar with my tragic past. My son was not yet three months old when the fever came to Hopewell. I had already survived the disease myself years ago, and was safe from contracting it again. My wife and baby were not so fortunate. They were both stricken within days of the outbreak.

  “I went to Sarah for help, but it was your grandfather who met me at the door. When I explained what I came for, he turned me away, claiming there wasn’t anything Sarah could do.” Edgar’s hand clamped tighter on my leg.

  “She was sick,” I protested, squirming under his touch. “The fever nearly killed her.”

  “Your grandfather said the same thing at the time, but I knew it was a lie. She possessed the ability to heal. How could a mere illness be a match to such power?”

  “We can’t heal ourselves. The power only goes one way—”

  Edgar waved off my explanation with his free hand. “It’s an excuse,” he said, his agitation increasing.

  I shook my head. “You’re wrong. We’re bound to help if we can. She must have been too sick or she would have gone with you.”

  His shoulders sagged as a sob racked his chest. “My son died the next morning,” he croaked hoarsely. “My wife followed a few hours later.” His cheeks glistened with tears, illuminated by the candle’s soft, flickering light, and despite being tied up and half drugged, I managed to feel sorry for him. He stared down at the bed for some time, before mastering his emotions once again.

  “That night while digging their graves, I finally understood the real nature of Sarah’s ability. It wasn’t just the power to perform miracles, but the power to decide who should live and who should die. Tragedy had forced open my eyes and I saw her for what she really was—a cursed woman. During her lifetime she had somehow gained the power only meant for God. If she continued to live and exercise this power, she would ultimately be judged as a god, held accountable for sins too great for any human to bear. The more I considered her predicament, the more I feared for her immortal soul.” His voice cracked, and his fingers tightened further on my leg. Crying out, I squirmed harder to break his grasp.

  For a brief second he looked surprised to see me. “I’ve hurt you,” he said apologetically, releasing his grip and patting my leg once more.

  His voice sounded almost normal, almost like the Edgar I had known all my life. A semblance of hope shot through me. “I’m very sorry about your wife and son, Edgar. Please let me go. You know I didn’t have anything to do with it.”

  Edgar smiled and got to his feet. “They are with the Lord now. There is nothing more I can do for them.” He reached into his coat pocket and brought out a flint and striker. When he brought them together, a shower of sparks spilled to the floor.

  A shudder ran through my stomach. “What is that for?”

  “It took ten years for me to find the courage to act,” he said, ignoring my question. “But by a stroke of good luck, I met Sarah alone at the river one day on her way to the Lenape village. I feigned a limp and inquired if she would take a look. When she got down from her horse to examine my knee, I grabbed her and dragged her into the river. It was over in minutes, the current pulling her lifeless body away from me. I watched her go, assured that she had finally been set free.” He struck the flint again, creating another show
er of sparks.

  Any love or sympathy I had ever felt for the man dissolved with the image of my grandmother floating down the river. I tugged harder at the binding on my wrists and ankles, but the knots seemed to be growing tighter the more I struggled.

  “Elizabeth was about twelve years old when Sarah died,” he said, either blind or ambivalent to my efforts. “She had been learning the craft of healing from your grandmother, but I couldn’t yet tell if she was equally cursed. Over the years, I watched her closely, accounting for every patient she attended. But your mother was very clever and hid her power well. Not until after your birth did I know for sure. Again, I had to wait for the right opportunity to act.

  “When you were about fourteen, I started watching Brighmor, hoping to catch her unaware. This went on for weeks until late one night when I saw her leave the house and run into the forest. She disappeared before I could catch up so I went up to the carriage house to wait for her return. Hours passed by the time she reemerged from the trees, and I moved down the hill to intercept her. She had stopped at the pond to rinse her face when I took her by surprise. Being a much older man, it was not so easy this time, and she almost escaped. But in the end I prevailed, setting her spirit free just like Sarah’s.”

  With frightening clarity, I could imagine my mother fighting to the last, thrashing and kicking until her body succumbed. But no imagination was necessary to recall her blank eyes staring up at me the next morning, unseeing as the pond grass twined around her arms and through her hair. Mists of red rage clouded my vision, temporarily subdued my fear. I stared with hatred at the man who could so calmly recall the details of my mother’s and grandmother’s deaths.

  “By this time,” he continued, “I’d realized the curse must be passed through the mother and decided it best to end the line with you before there were any more children to worry about. But after the close call with Elizabeth, I couldn’t risk doing it myself.”

  My lips compressed into a tight line. “So you manipulated Nathan Crowley.”

  “It was a pity I had to involve Nathan.” Edgar released a heavy sigh. “I even tried alone the time you and Henry crossed the river. My body may be old, but I still possess the strength to pull a slingshot. When you were thrown from your horse, I thought the curse would finally to be broken.” He snorted in disgust. “And it would have been, if not for Henry.”