She lay there in a sweat, knowing it was not time for the baby to come, but also that there was no way to stop it.
“Randolph!”
He opened the bedroom door immediately.
“What is it?” He had certainly not slept. The shadows beneath his eyes were as murky as the dawn, and his eyes were bleary as though he’d been drinking, or perhaps reading too long.
She begged him to ring the bell for Odette to come, and told him that she thought the baby was coming too quickly.
“I cannot stop it. I can do nothing!” Another pain, stronger this time, pulled a deep groan from her throat. She closed her eyes, and when she opened them again, she saw that Randolph was not the only other person in the room.
“Can’t you give her some morphine? This is agony.”
Kiku heard the impatience in Randolph’s voice, and in the doctor’s answer as well.
“It’s a damned dangerous way to birth a child, Randolph. When they come early, their lungs aren’t necessarily developed. And bleeding occurs with the mother.”
With the mother. She was the mother, and the baby might be born unable to breathe.
“She doesn’t even know how long she’s been pregnant. You could be wrong.”
They talked as though she weren’t there, and in a way, she was not.
“Where is Odette? Please ring the bell. Please bring Odette!”
The doctor looked at Randolph.
“The wife of my orchard keeper. Though I have been thinking to bring her to the house to work.”
“Please, Randolph. Please bring Odette. She will help with the baby.”
Randolph shook his head. “There’s a doctor here. You are not some servant who should do with a woman who has no medical experience. Who knows what harm she’s done already. The fact that you’re having the child now may indicate how poorly she’s taken care of you.”
Kiku wanted to scream that this doctor had not been sent to her until that morning, that Odette was the only woman she had ever spoken to outside of New York.
Another spasm shook her and she didn’t bother to restrain her voice, but cried out, long and loud. Randolph covered his ears, but the doctor appeared unperturbed.
“Perhaps you should leave the room, Randolph.”
“Make sure the child lives.”
Kiku heard the unspoken words, “The mother doesn’t matter.” In truth, it was the same thing she was thinking and feeling, though the idea that Randolph wanted the child frightened her. If it were a son, as she hoped, what would he do with it?
She had been old enough to help her mother when her brother was born, carrying in the fresh wrappings her mother had made certain were ready and dabbing her mother’s dry lips with a wet sponge. The women of the village had gathered at the house, telling her father to go away until they called him back, and the women had laughed and told stories as they sat, waiting, in between her mother’s pains. It was like a party. A party without men or boys. Being there had made her feel special.
The doctor was still brusque, but not unkind. He stacked pillows, a blanket, and her folded coat behind her so that she was not lying flat on her back. In between the pains, which came at irregular intervals, he sat in a chair by the window and consulted a large black book. As he read, or stared out the window, Kiku lay there thinking of her child fighting to get out. When the pains came, it seemed to her that he was making his way out with very sharp knives.
“Will my baby die?”
The doctor took off his glasses, closed his eyes for a moment, and squeezed the bridge of his large nose with two fingers. She thought that he would not answer her, but he finally sighed and put his glasses back on.
“Many do. Doesn’t matter if they’re early or late. It’s in God’s hands.”
Another pain came, and he got up to look beneath the sheet that was draped over her legs, then he went to the door.
“Would you be so kind as to bring me a goddamn brandy? It’s almost time, and if I’m to do without a nurse, I need some fortification. A cup with a small amount of water for the girl, as well.”
Randolph did not look at her as he handed the drinks to the doctor. He quickly closed the door and was gone again.
“A sip or two only. You’ll vomit if you drink too much.”
Kiku drank as much as she dared, gasping when she was done.
A moment later the baby started to come in earnest, and she screamed in her mother tongue, using every curse she had ever heard her father use, and cursing Randolph, calling down the names of every god and goddess she’d known as a child, and cursing the vile god of Randolph and the doctor, the god who had treated her so cruelly and had her child’s life in his filthy white hands.
Chapter 38
KIKU
February 1879
The sound of the baby’s first cries was still in her ears when Kiku awoke, though the windows were now dark, and she sensed she was alone. Had she dreamed of the baby? Her mouth was dry, her tongue molded to the roof of her mouth.
Water. I must have water.
The memories returned slowly as she made out the shapes of her bedroom. The door was open now, but had been closed all afternoon because the doctor had been with her. She remembered screaming, and the doctor telling her to stop her hysterics. The terrible pressure between her legs, and the doctor telling her to keep her hands away, and the final expelling of the baby from her body. Then the screams of her child and her own cries of relief. How weak she had been, but she had begged to hold her child, and the doctor hadn’t answered, but came to the head of the bed without the child, who was screaming, screaming out of her sight. The doctor’s mustache quivered on his lip as he held her shoulder with one strong hand, and put a foul-smelling cloth over her mouth with the other. As Kiku fought for air, her child’s screams had faded.
She sat up in bed, the sheets beneath her wet, and her legs freezing cold despite the blankets piled over her. She called out for Randolph, already knowing she would get no answer. Perhaps it was the knowledge that Randolph had most likely taken the child that kept her from screaming. To hear her own screams would make it all the more real.
Someone had left a pitcher of water and a cup on the bedside table. She drank deeply from the pitcher, not caring that the water ran over her chin and onto her ruined nightgown. There was enough light in the room to see that someone had also gone through her dresser. The drawer where she had kept the baby’s things was open, and she knew without looking that it was empty. It had been a poor layette. She had seen prams in New York with lace and fine woolen blankets peeking out, and babes in arms in caps that were far finer than anything Madame Jewel owned. Randolph would make certain that even his bastard child had fine things, as long as that child was not with its mother.
Her body was slow to move, and when she stood, shaking, she felt a rush of blood between her legs.
They have left me alone to die.
The blood was not constant, and in the darkness she found the things she needed and cleaned herself up the best that she could. The ache, though, did not abate and was stronger in her heart than in her belly. For a moment she sat on the bed to gather her strength. The meaty smell of blood filled the room and her nostrils, and she immediately felt ill.
In that moment she remembered the tea, and she understood that Randolph and the doctor had made sure the baby would be born that night. The tea had been some kind of terrible medicine of the kind Odette had feared. It would have been a great mercy, she thought, for the tea to have killed them both. Not only had they taken her child from her, but they had robbed her child of the last days that it would be safe from the world outside.
Surely even Randolph wouldn’t be foolish enough to take a newborn any farther than the big house. She tried to tell herself that the baby was safe, but she knew that the house was the last place that a child of hers would be safe. She had known from the moment she had seen the house from the woods, months ago, that the place that Randolph called Bliss House was
safe for no one at all.
It took her the better part of an hour to prepare to go outside. When she was able to finally leave the bedroom, she found that the fire in the parlor had nearly burned out. Randolph had sent no one to tend it. No one to tend her. Wrapping the blanket around her still-shivering shoulders, she shuffled to the back porch and rang the bell for Odette. It was late—nearly ten o’clock—but Odette had told her that she should ring the bell at any hour. As she stood on the porch, the moonlight sparkled on the frosted remnants of the footprints she had left on the uncleared steps. It had only been the night before. It seemed like a lifetime.
She rang the bell again, just in case Odette hadn’t heard it the first time. Randolph would hear it as well.
Let him hear. Let him know that I am still alive.
Inside, Kiku drank more water and took some cornbread from the cupboard where she kept it covered in a large bowl. She attacked it hungrily, so that much of it crumbled from her hand and onto the floor.
Exhausted, she sat in the parlor to wait for Odette. Perhaps Mason would come with her. When she felt herself begin to bleed again, overflowing her monthly rags, she did not rise. The new sofa might be ruined, but she did not care.
An hour passed, and Odette did not come.
Knowing she was not yet strong enough to go anywhere, Kiku got up and walked a little, fretting that something had happened to Odette, that she had been attacked by an animal in the woods as she made her way to the cottage. The woods had not been kind, and Kiku was beginning to be afraid of them. Her living here had disturbed them too much, and now Tamora’s spirit was roaming nearby.
Had Aaron heard the bell? He had no doubt known Randolph was at the cottage, but now that it was night, wouldn’t he come?
The fire had faded again, and as she carefully bent to revive it, she heard the call of an owl outside, and was less afraid. With the fire blazing, she put the poker aside and, leaving the door open behind her, went to stand on the front porch.
Beyond the trees, she could see that Bliss House was alive with light. Her child was somewhere in that house.
The night was cold, but she did not feel it.
I will come to you. I will find you in that terrible place.
There was movement in the house. No one was sleeping. Was it that a baby was crying, keeping them awake? She listened with her whole body, but could hear nothing but the sounds of the woods.
Where was Odette? Why hadn’t she come?
She was about to go back inside when she caught sight of someone or something moving high up on the big house’s third floor. Moonlight flashed on a window as someone opened it.
A figure—Kiku was certain that it was a woman—stood framed in the window with a faint light behind her. She stepped outside the window and fell down, down into the darkness.
Chapter 39
AMELIA
February 1879
“Amelia. I have a surprise for you.”
Randolph was outside the nursery door, calling for her. He was using his persuasive voice. The voice that had convinced her to bring Tamora to Virginia and leave her life on Long Island far behind.
She pretended that she didn’t hear him. She had been sleeping in the nursery all these days and nights since the funeral. Her clothes were dirty and hung loosely on her, but she did not think of how she looked to others because she saw no one. Tamora/not-Tamora came to her in the night and let her brush her hair as much as she wanted. Tamora/not-Tamora whispered to her that something was going to happen, and she couldn’t wait for Amelia to find out what it was.
“You have to eat something or you will die before it happens.” Tamora/not-Tamora often made her open the nursery door after everyone had gone to bed and eat the soup (always cold in the dark of night) and bread and sometimes cake that Maud left on the table outside the door.
One night, Amelia had pushed the cake toward Tamora/not-Tamora. “You eat. You’re too thin.”
“Don’t be silly, Mother. I can’t eat because I’m already dead.”
“I wish you wouldn’t talk like that, Tamora. You know it upsets me.”
“You are my dear mother, and I only upset you because you are so dear to me.” She gave Amelia a grin that could only be described as wicked.
It made a bizarre kind of sense to Amelia. What happened between them were the only things that were real to her. Sometimes she looked out the windows in the daytime and saw Clayton bring the carriage around, and Aaron or Randolph get into it. No one came to the house except Doctor Cyrus Beard, a man who was her mortal enemy. He wanted to take her away from Tamora/not-Tamora, but she would not go. She would never leave Bliss House.
“Daddy dearest is at the door, Mother.”
Tamora/not-Tamora sat where Tamora had always sat, at the tea party table. But Tamora/not-Tamora had dug the eyes out of several of the dolls and when she pretended that they were eating, she made them spill the tea—which was actually water from the bathroom—all over themselves and then laughed at them, telling them that they were filthy little pig children who needed to be punished.
“I hear him.”
“He’s not going to go away this time. It’s time for the things that I told you were about to happen. Do you remember, dear Mother?”
Tamora/not-Tamora got up from the floor and came to where Amelia sat in the rocking chair. She yanked on a lock of Amelia’s hair that was hanging in her face. “Pay attention, Mother! Why won’t you pay attention? I’m getting angry with you.”
“I’m sorry, my love. What is it?”
“I told you that you haven’t eaten enough. You aren’t thinking clearly, and I will have to hurt you if you don’t pay attention. But you don’t have to eat anymore if you don’t want to, because it’s almost time.”
Amelia didn’t ask her what it was time for. She announced so frequently that the time was coming that Amelia had lost all sense of anticipation.
“Don’t bother telling Father that I’m here. He won’t believe you, just like he didn’t believe you all those other times.”
“Yes, darling.” Amelia rested her hand on Tamora/not-Tamora’s hair, which remained tangled no matter how much she brushed and brushed.
“You must answer the door.”
Amelia pulled her hand back.
“You must!” Tamora/not-Tamora slapped her cheek. “Pay attention, Mother! You must answer the door.”
Amelia felt tears rise to her eyes. She hadn’t cried in so very long, but the idea of opening the door to Randolph made her remember the last time she had cried, on the steps of the cottage in the woods, the tears warm on her numb cheeks. Aaron had been there. She remembered Aaron, remembered it all. All of the memories came back to her, and as the tears spilled, the room changed in front of her. Tamora/not-Tamora was gone. The chairs from Tamora’s tea table were upended, the dolls scattered about the floor. Their eyes had not been gouged out, but stared up at her with vapid curiosity. Brownkin was in her lap, his tail bare of fur and revealed to be ragged, half-rotted skin, black in patches and gray in others. He was hideous, and she threw him to the floor with the scattered dolls.
“Amelia. Please come out. I won’t beg you. You can leave, Amelia. Go anywhere you want if you like. But after I’ve shown you the surprise, I think you won’t want to go.”
Still, she didn’t answer. Yes, sometime she would come out. But it wouldn’t be today, no matter what Tamora/not-Tamora had said. And where had the child gone? She disliked the way she came and went. Amelia never saw her enter a room. She was always just suddenly there, speaking or playing or tumbling around the open part of the floor like a Chinese acrobat. Where had she learned such things?
Amelia got out of her chair and went to the window. There was no carriage this evening. Doctor Beard was not there. No one had come to visit. The sky was dark above the trees. Night. She had come to like the nights best of all.
She could smell food through the door. Had Randolph brought her evening tray? Maud was the one who u
sually came, tapping lightly and saying, “Please eat, Missus Bliss. We’re that worried about you.”
Food did not tempt her. If Tamora/not-Tamora were to return, she might eat something to please her, or at least to stop her from scolding. But she was not hungry and was certain that if she tried to eat she would not keep it down. It was as though her body saw food as poison. In a way, it was poison because it kept her alive.
She turned from the window at a sound from the door. The sound of a key turning in the lock. Looking down, she saw the nursery key hanging from a ribbon at her waist. It had been Harriet’s key, and she had found it on the dresser of Harriet’s bedroom after Harriet was gone. She had a second key that was on the nursery’s fireplace mantel.
“You didn’t think I couldn’t get in here, did you, Amelia? That would’ve been very naïve of you. Surely you aren’t that naïve.”
Randolph had peeked around the door at first, but now opened it wide. The gallery blazed with light from the chandelier. She could smell the food that Maud had left, but that was not what he had revealed at the door.
“I’ve indulged you in your petulant hiding up to now, my dear, but I couldn’t wait any longer to show you my surprise. Doctor Beard agreed that it would cause an instant change in your deplorable condition. I told him that we could not go on this way, with you locked in the nursery like a madwoman in a penny novel.” He shook his head ruefully. “Though, I must say, Amelia, that you are rather looking the part. You’re going to want a bath.”
“Leave me alone. Leave me alone to die, Randolph. You’ve taken everything away from me. Let me have this room. Let me have a peaceful death.” She touched her hair, and finding it loose from its bun (in fact the bun had disassembled itself completely many days earlier), she pushed it back from her face so that she could see him as clearly as she dared. Surprisingly, she felt as though she might dare much. He had invaded her territory. The territory that she had claimed for herself and Tamora/not-Tamora. “Just go. Bring your Japanese whore into the house if you like. I’ll not bother either of you. You can start your new life any time you wish.”
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