The Unforgiven Sin

by R. Twine

  ‘Yes, I have no other way out. Incidentally, my father hated approaching this abandoned house,’ he said thoughtfully, staring at the house covered with thick creeping plants. ‘Let’s forget about it.’

  ‘But why?’ I asked.

  ‘Why can’t I go inside that house?’ Michael echoed back. ‘Because I don’t want to.’

  ‘Will you let me enter the house?’ I enquired. ‘I know it’s none too decent of me to ask you about this but I’m dying to take a look at its interior. Maybe, you’ll change your mind and go there with me, after all?’

  ‘No, let’s stop talking about it,’ he replied.

  ‘Are you not interested in what’s inside the house?’ I asked, trying to make him change his mind.

  ‘No, absolutely not. But why are you so interested in it? All these books, houses and hiding places… you’d better keep away from them! Even if they happen to hold some information concerning my ancestors – believe me, I don’t want to know anything about it. By the way, my father used to say that the house has been equipped with an alarm system for over twenty years. I don’t see the need for it. The exterior alone of this house is quite capable of scaring any thief off. Robbing it is the same as descending into The Dark Kingdom where my father is now,’ Michael said thoughtfully.

  ‘How do you know where your father is now?’

  ‘I just know, Miriam. That is the right place for the likes of him. I’m sure he enjoys staying there…’ Michael said with a smile and added upon hearing the braying of a horn, ‘Pizza’s arrived. Let’s go back to the house.’

  Late in the evening I leaned closer to Michael and looked ingratiatingly into his eyes.

  ‘Would you mind my having another look at some manuscripts, Michael? Please…’

  ‘Make yourself at home, Miriam. You know, these books belong more to you than to me, or at least that is the impression I formed,’ Michael said, kissing me on the forehead. ‘It’s already late, I feel like going to my bedroom. Pray, if I fall asleep – don’t wake me up.’

  ‘Of course, Michael; I will lie by your side so quietly that you will not even notice it,’ I promised making for the library.

  I was walking slowly along the shelf stands stroking the books’ bindings, and suddenly a nondescript, shabby book caught my eye. Its title was erased by time; the cover had neither its publishing date nor the author’s name – no identifying signs at all. I got interested in it and I took a seat by the late Phil’s table and began carefully turning the yellowed pages.

  The letters were barely readable, the text was sparse, but the pictures were really impressive. One of them depicted childbirth: a woman was delivering a baby, the other one showed the baby with little horns held in somebody’s big hairy hands. The next illustrations depicted the same boy who had already grown up somewhat: there was a thick bush of dark hair on his head; there were no traces of horns. No woman appeared in the next pictures, apparently she died shortly after childbirth – just like Michael’s mother had. Who are these children and who are their parents? Why do they lose the horns they are born with? Do they live among people, in order to play a special role? I went on studying the book thoroughly. The next picture showed the boy, who grew older still – he became very handsome, his dark eyes shone with intellect. There was a book in his hand; his other hand was holding a snake with eyes the color of withered greenery. I turned the next page hastily: here the boy turned into a really handsome man with a splendid figure. He was standing by his wife and a newborn baby with little horns – the baby-boy was supported by a big hairy hand…

  I closed the book; vague conjectures were nagging at me. It became apparent that Phil Brinstein was aware of the rule by which devil’s children were appearing on Earth. He had known secrets which he found it hard to live with. Would Michael’s fate be the same if he followed in his father’s footsteps? I didn’t know whether my assumptions were correct.

  I got up, took a dozen of the old manuscripts I had selected down from the shelves, and brought them to the table. I was looking for something, but I didn’t exactly know what the object of my interest was. Why am I here? What brought me here? Who brought me here? I was suddenly reminded of Phil’s words that there are no coincidences and chance events in our world; everything is predetermined by regularities, and every man takes his predetermined place. Would I have to spend decades to unearth the truth, or was there some kind of a shortcut?

  The clock struck three in the morning. I felt sleepy. I failed to find anything specific in the books I had had time to look through. One thing I was able to find out was that the Prince of Darkness himself was the father of babies with horns, that those children came to life and lived among people while their mothers died soon after childbirth, with the exception of those women who seemed to live on after giving birth to baby girls… Why was it that they died after giving birth specifically to boys? Who were those women’s husbands? And who were those women to Satanail? What connection existed between all of them? The questions clearly outnumbered the answers.

  I got tired; I put the books aside and made up my mind to go to bed. But hardly had I got up from the table when some weird rustling filled the room. All the books began to move, they started flapping their pages and whispering over one another: “Miriam, Miriam, take me in your hands, read me…”

  “No, I said it first!”

  “You’d better read me!”

  “Open me – and you’ll learn everything you want to…”

  The books were moving and pushing each other. The shelf stands were sighing heavily and creaking.

  ‘We’re alive, open us, read us, get to know us – and we’ll let you into all our secrets… Come closer to us…’ insisted the books.

  ‘Don’t go, Miriam! Don’t leave us alone!’ Now there were shouts coming from all quarters.

  The room started creaking, the stands began shaking. The books were jumping up; their whisper was becoming increasingly louder and demanding; they were closing in on me. The space shrank, I was gasping for air.

  ‘Shut up!’ I yelled wildly pressing my palms to my ears. ‘Silence! Stop it immediately!’ I kept shouting till my throat hurt.

  ‘What the heck is going on here?’ asked Michael worriedly, dashing into the library. ‘Goddammit, Miriam, what’s up? I heard you shouting! This bloody house's doing my head in! What’s happening this time? My father’s dead! I cannot sleep! You’re shouting like a madwoman!’ Michael was really very angry.

  ‘It seemed like the books were talking to me,’ I replied guiltily.

  Michael looked around and shrugged his shoulders in bewilderment.

  ‘I can’t hear anything, Miriam. These pitiable devilish books must have tried to establish contact with you. Why do you, such a clever and beautiful woman, need all this rubbish?! A glittering career awaits you! Why do you need all this?! I find it very hard to understand! Let’s get out of here. You need rest, and I’d like to have a few hours of sleep, too,’ Michael said, putting his arm around my waist and leading me upstairs.

  I fell asleep immediately, but I slept badly. Nightmares were chasing me, one after another. In my dream I saw the abandoned house: the souls of the people who died there rushed out of the building and ran after me, reaching out for me with their bony hands.

  ‘Help us, help us!’ they called out behind me.

  Then I was inside the house: there was an enormous burial pit there; I stood by its edge while talking books were flying over my head.

  ‘Get up and find what you need…’ croaked Phil shaking me violently by the shoulder.

  I sat up abruptly and opened my eyes.

  ‘What? Who’s here?’ I asked, scared.

  There was nobody in the room. I saw somebody’s red fingerprints on my shoulder.

  Hoping to find Michael, I went downstairs to the kitchen but he wasn’t there. But there was a slip of paper lying on the table: “Be back soon! Sealed with a kiss.”

  It was early in the morning. I felt sleepy but
I couldn’t bring myself to return to the bedroom. I made a strong coffee and drank it in small gulps. What could be hidden in that abandoned house, indeed? What was Phil trying to tell me? In spite of the nightmares that had tormented me all night long, my mind was working like a clock. I had to find answers.

  It was quiet in the library. The books I had been looking through at night were lying quietly on the table. Timid sunrays ventured to creep through the windowpanes. The atmosphere was rather comfortable and reading-friendly. I looked around once again – there are so many books here! An entire lifetime would not be enough to study them. There was a portable ladder standing near the shelf stands. Driven by some vague instinct, I climbed the ladder and began sorting through the incunabula and manuscripts on the upper shelf. Standing in the far corner hidden from prying eyes behind the tomes was a thick writing-book in white calico binding.

  This was Phil’s personal diary. I couldn’t even have dreamed of such a piece of luck! The notes were concise but thoroughly structured; they encompassed all the important events in the life of Phil Brinstein. Growing increasingly impatient, I began looking hastily through the writing-book, my well-trained eyes quickly grasping the crucial parts of the text.

  “That night a high wind came up, breaking the trees and turning over cars. The telephone line went dead. Marianne went into early labor; I couldn’t leave her in my father’s care in order to go to the city for help. The situation seemed hopeless and I was afraid the outcome of the birth would be unfavorable. We only had to rely on ourselves, neither one of us could leave the place. Marianne’s labor pains were becoming increasingly intense and we could only hope for the timely arrival of outside help. I was in panic; I didn’t have the slightest idea how to assist in delivering a baby. Marianne and her baby were in jeopardy.

  Suddenly my father recollected that Jeanette, our neighbor, once worked as a nurse, and he suggested we should call her in to help us. I agreed to his suggestion without a moment’s hesitation. This was the only chance. My father ran to collect her. In several minutes he was back with Jeanette. She brought with her everything necessary to deliver a baby. Marianne was breathing heavily and moaning loudly. Pain was tearing her body apart. Childbirth was a torture…

  The baby boy came into the world at three o’clock sharp. When his little head appeared, small horns showed through his thick dark hair! And right at this moment a big hairy hand appeared as if out of the blue; the hand pushed us away from Marianne and took the baby. In a movement as quick as lightning, the hairy hand cut the umbilical cord, passed the baby boy to my father and disappeared immediately. And the horns on the boy’s head disappeared, too. None of us uttered a word concerning this strange birth. It seemed as if everything had to happen exactly the way it did.” I got carried away reading: it was just what I was looking for.

  “Michael was born an absolutely healthy and robust baby. The doctors, all as one, kept saying how extremely lucky we were: the boy was very big and this could have caused serious complications during his birth. Marianne felt well and was recovering quickly. But one night I woke up, hearing Michael crying. I jumped to my feet and ran to his room: there, on the floor by the crib Marianne was lying dead. Her eyes were frozen with fear.

  In less than a year my father had died a similar death. I found his body in his study… Soon afterwards death found my neighbors – Jeanette, her husband and her son died suffocated because of a gas leak. Such was the official account.

  Michael and I remained all alone. I bought Jeanette’s house, situated not far away from ours, and we ended up in virtual isolation: there was nobody but us living in this God-forsaken place. I took only the books from my granddad’s house leaving the rest of the things untouched. I have tried to avoid entering his house ever since.”

  My desire to visit the abandoned house grew stronger. What could I possibly do to persuade Michael to allow me to visit it? I went downstairs, made myself comfortable in an armchair near the table and went on reading.

  “I was working as a psychiatrist, raising my boy totally on my own. At nights I used to read my father’s books. The succession of deaths made me look for any explanation as to what had happened.”

  “I carried out a number of tests, and their results showed that I’m sterile. DNA testing confirmed that Michael and I are blood relatives. It turned out that it was my father who got Marianne pregnant! I didn’t want such a shameful incident to come out; therefore, I destroyed all the evidence.”

  Further on in the text Phil wrote a lot about the books from his father’s library. Clearly, he devoted all his life to them.

  “I was firm in my intention to carry on with my father’s cause, so I directed all my efforts towards enlarging the collection of books. My life took a drastic turn when time came to take the Chair that had become vacant.”

  “Unable to endure the pain her beloved daughter’s death had caused her, Marianne’s mother hanged herself. In a year her husband died a quick death. Michael inherited a hefty fortune in the form of real estate and securities because he turned out to be their only heir. Several years later, his childless aunts and ankles also died and again all their property went to Michael as their sole inheritor. Indeed, Michael was born with a golden spoon in his mouth.”

  “In his early childhood, Michael already knew very well what he needed and what he did not. He was top of the class at school and the darling of many teachers. He grew up to be a clever and handsome boy.”

  Further on I saw a note made in Phil’s handwriting which said: “Michael simply cannot be the offspring of Dark Forces.” I was very much surprised when I came across this note, but continued reading.

  “As a child, Michael never questioned the existence of the Creator, nor did he deny the existence of the other king – the Prince of Darkness. “If there is God then there must be an Anti-God, too, because there are good things and bad things. Positive things cannot exist without negative ones,” deliberated little Michael. All I did was listen to him, trying not to start conversations on these subjects. I love my son; he’s the only one I have left on this Earth…”

  ‘Miriam, where are you?’ I heard Michael’s voice coming from the hall.

  I quickly got up from the chair, hid the diary in the lower drawer of the desk and replied:

  ‘I’m here, Michael. I’m in the library.’

  ‘I thought so,’ said Michael, entering the room.

  ‘I’ve got nothing else to do, darling. You don’t expect me to stay in bed without you, do you?’ I said playfully and kissed him on the lips.

  ‘I was to be present at a meeting….so I had to go. I didn’t feel like inviting unwanted people to my house.’ Michael replied.

  ‘Do you feel self-conscious in my presence?’ I managed a joke.

  ‘So far, I don’t want to make our relationship public,’ he said in a serious tone of voice. ‘And I don’t feel like letting anybody into the secrets of my personal life. I’m always wary about my work, too; I’m very careful about who to get into contact with.’

  ‘What about me? Were you careful about getting into contact with me? I had the opposite impression.’

  ‘For me, you’re not only a beautiful woman who drives me crazy but an enigmatic person, too. And for some reason I’m quite sure I can trust you. You know, I’d hardly let anybody but you into my father’s library. I somehow knew right from the start that you had some connection with these books, Miriam. And I want you to know the following: I’m not short of money; selling the library would have absolutely no impact at all on my financial status.’

  ‘Thanks to these books I was able to understand a lot of things,’ I said. ‘I don’t know myself why I’m attracted to things that put normal people off.’

  ‘Some may learn a lot from these books, while others will never know the smallest portion of what the former will come to know!’ said Michael thoughtfully. ‘But I’m not at all interested either in the unreal world or these books. My father kept on unearthing something ou
t of them and shortly before his death he looked like a regular crackpot. I cannot understand why people go in for all these satanic writings. What do they gain by doing so? The fact of the matter is that a lot of them are deeply unhappy because of such “hobbies.” ’

  ‘Probably, this is the price they pay for the knowledge they carry inside themselves,’ I ventured a suggestion. ‘I guess these people are just looking for answers. For instance, a lot of mysterious deaths occurred in this place. This is all very strange, indeed. How can you personally explain this?’

  ‘I’m not going to explain it at all,’ said Michael sharply. ‘Hundreds of thousands of people die on Earth every day and nobody thinks it strange! This is life, Miriam… We all will die sooner or later… I’m sure my father died a natural death, while the theory of him having been suffocated with a pillow seems far-fetched to me…’

  ‘But I’m certain Phil was murdered; this is why I came by plane to be present at his funeral to have a look at the people attending the ceremony. I did it because I was hoping to understand who the perpetrator was. The matter is that he was killed right after I met with him!’ I snapped out.

  ‘What nonsense, Miriam! What are you talking about?!’ said Michael, clearly bewildered. ‘I think it was a mere coincidence; don’t fill your head with such rubbish! Nothing was stolen from the house; there were no signs of burglary… Besides, what was the use of killing him?’

  ‘I don’t know, Michael… Doesn’t it seem suspicious to you that your father’s dogs were locked up? Phil locks up his dogs and waits for his guest, the one who could have become his murderer,’ I said, sharing my theory with him. ‘By the way, the detective enquired where the dogs were during my visit to this house…’

  Michael lowered himself into the armchair, crossed his legs and asked me, crossing his arms over his chest, ‘Well, where were they?’

  ‘They were in the garden in the backyard. Phil then said jokingly that they took liking to me… He used to lock up his pets even if they happened to know his guests very well... This is what the detective told me. It’s highly likely that Phil was waiting for someone he knew perfectly well!’