by Paula Guran
The way I remember it, Banjo mostly observed all this without comment. He wasn’t fussed about what we wore, or that we didn’t go to school—said he reckoned a lady with Ma’s talents was well suited for teaching her own children. With Banjo, Ma never had to worry about being contradicted or criticized. Not so she could hear it, anyway. He was easy to smile when the mood struck, open with his affections—even with me, his brother’s daughter. Even with Bethany, who was born a year after he and Ma split the first time. And so too with Miah, who followed her sister into this world ten months after Banjo’s boots found their way back to our porch. Yes, even Miah got her share of his love, though her black hair and tawny coloring screamed she wasn’t of his stock. Dandling the brown babe on his knee, Banjo never said a word: the grins she and Ma wore all his doing.
Sometimes, that was enough.
When it wasn’t, his opinions were no louder than the front door hinges squeaking open. Quiet as footfalls receding down the gravel path to the highway.
“Wendy’s dress fits you pretty nice,” he says now, trying small talk.
It doesn’t. The collar is too high for my neck. I have to wear it open, ruining the aesthetic of having a long line of buttons up the front. The bodice and sleeves hang loose, emphasizing the swell of my belly, the sag in my bust, the scrawniness of my arms. And I’m swimming in heavy red drapery, skirts swinging too low around my distended waist. With her curves and her deep brown hair, Ma could pull this dress off. But after so long with Mister Pérouse, I know I’ll never again wear her creations comfortably.
“She seemed so upset … I thought it might help her relax.” As if, after three years, I could’ve zipped back into her life like nothing had happened between costume changes. I look down and shrug. “And you don’t notice her blood as much on this fabric.”
He raises his eyebrows. I tell him Ma wore this dress when she revealed what it was to be a woman in our family. Fabric red as the moon bloods she told me to tuck away where no one could touch them. Don’t tell a soul where you hid them, she’d said, handing me rags for the task. Out here, blood is power. It ain’t just a bond. Ain’t just what gave you my eyes and Harl that great cleft in his chin. Leaning so close I could smell her lavender soap, she took my hand, pressed until I felt the throb of her pulse. There’s folk out to take advantage of that red tide, baby. Wrong folk and cold. Keep them rags safe, like you do yer kin. Yer blood carries our secrets, our stories. Our future. Believe you me; it’s gonna hold our memories long after my body is dust.
“Well,” Banjo says, shifting in his seat. His eyes trace the mess of Ma’s mouth. His hands clench to keep from wringing the blood-soaked cotton stuffed between her gums, to keep from wiping and wiping until her face is clean. “I s’pose I should take her. Keep her from turning to dust too soon, hey?”
He doesn’t smile though his tone is friendly. I hold his gaze, lock onto it.
“Not yet,” I say, getting my thoughts in order, my voice under control. “I need to tell you this. My tongue—my lips need to shape these words, need to push them out. I can’t send it in a letter. Paper is too flimsy to carry the weight of Ma’s head in my lap, the history in my belly.” I tear open the useless buttons on my bodice, lift my camisole to reveal scars dotting my swollen abdomen. Dozens of puncture wounds scabbed over, raised in tiny red welts. Anyone can see the nape of my neck is unblemished, smooth as a pearl. My stomach tells a different story.
One shaped by the teeth of strange children.
“For three years I’ve told you what’s happened. You, Ma, and Jez. In my head I’ve rehearsed, imagined how I’d explain where I’ve been, what I’ve done. What’s been done to me.” I wish I had that drink now. My mouth is so dry, my voice already breaking. “And now you’re here. Bethany and Miah—and Harl, poor stupid Harl—they may never get a chance like this. So you’ll wait, and maybe you’ll judge.”
Again, I take in the sight of Ma nestled against my pregnant belly and I almost can’t say, “But no matter what, you won’t end up like us.”
He opens his mouth and I cut him off.
“Stop. Before you take or lay blame, sit here a spell and listen.”
Listen.
They came for us at night.
Mister Pérouse shook me from a dream. The light from his candle obscured my vision. My head was bleary with sleep, so what I saw after I’d rubbed my eyes didn’t make much sense. Strangers, two men and an old woman, were leaning over the children’s beds. They were pressing their faces too close to Harl’s; to Bethany’s; to Miah’s. Each adult paired with one child, as though whispering secrets into their ears, or nuzzling their necks so they’d laugh. But there was no laughter, no talking. More like a snuffling, a smacking, accompanied by the kids’ night-time sighs.
“How are you feeling, chérie?” Mister Pérouse’s voice ruffled like pages in a book. His breath smelled of roast lamb.
“What?”
“Are you well?” He brushed my forehead with his fingertips. I flinched from the cold of his hand, not from his touch. It felt like months and months had passed since Harl and I’d first seen him from our hidey-hole in the pantry; in that time he’d become Ma’s favorite evening visitor. With his wan coloring and milkweed hair, he was a hit at her parties—he had no need for makeup or wigs. He wasn’t stingy with the grog either, though he rarely drank. And while he always left in the wee hours of night, more than one morning greeted us with a gold-toothed smile when we found the coins he’d left behind for our trouble.
“Leave it to an out-of-towner to show us locals how to treat a host,” Ma had said, the only time she commented on Mister Pérouse’s contributions. “Ain’t no hick ’round these parts would spare a crust for a starving man unless he were kin.”
That didn’t stop her from inviting these hicks to her shindigs, of course. But from then on she kept the newest and best apparel aside for Mister Pérouse: a square-cut velvet waistcoat belted with a fringed sash, tied in a drooping bow; ribbed leggings tucked into high boots; a lacy cravat spilling from his collar; a floor-length, hoodless mantle worn open on the shoulders. All of which, apart from the blue-black cloak, were the fine gray of sodden ash.
Mister Pérouse fired questions at me. “Does your head hurt? Mal au ventre? Can you sit up?” He stroked my cheeks with the back of his hand, then took hold of my chin and forced me to look directly at him. His irises were pink in the candlelight, his lashes long and white. Over his costume he wore the rancher’s coat Ma had made for him when she learned he dealt in livestock.
“Ma?” The strangers were lifting my brother and sisters from their beds, carrying them like sacks of spuds over their shoulders. I tried to turn my head to see where they were being taken, but Mister Pérouse’s fingers were bands of iron around my jaw.
“Elle est malade, chérie—she has come down very sick,” he said. And then I heard her groans through the wall between our rooms. Her head knocking against the plaster. The bedsprings squeaking as she thrashed. Her cries, muffled, turning to whimpers. A man’s rumbling voice, deep and close, strained as though struggling to speak. “Attends,” I think he said, I think he growled. “Hold still and take it,” he said, and other things I couldn’t quite understand.
My confusion must have been obvious. “I’ve summoned a doctor to inspect her,” Mister Pérouse said. “He’ll see to her, ne t’inquiete pas.”
The words didn’t sound right, but he was so earnest I couldn’t not believe him.
“It’s a miracle you haven’t fallen ill, Ada.” He released my chin, pulled back the covers. Immediately I started shivering. “The children are all afflicted, though nowhere near as badly as your mother.” I straightened my thin cotton shift while he smiled down at me. His gaze lingered as I searched for my slippers. “There’s hope for them yet, but I’ll need your help.”
“I gots to piss,” I said, though it wasn’t strictly true. My bloods were coming; I could feel their arrival as a pain in my lower back, a warm ache in my bel
ly. I wanted to check they hadn’t started yet.
“No time,” he replied. “Come along, quickly.”
I followed him past Ma’s room—dead quiet now—to the lounge. Weird light streamed through the windows and the open front door, casting odd shadows across the room, tricking my eyes into seeing headstones instead of dining chairs, coffins instead of empty couches. Most times I’d find at least one or two of the neighbors snoring there come morning, sleeping off the bourbon and gin I could still smell in the air. But maybe they’d had less to drink, or they’d been called home early; either way, the only ones left that evening were Mister Pérouse and his gang.
“I’m gonna fetch my coat,” I said. Mister Pérouse shook his head. “Take nothing with you, ma chére. We don’t know what’s contaminated.” He pulled me behind him, offering reassurances that things would be better tomorrow. Outside, the high-beams of his black four-wheel drive, his companions’ sedans and pickup trucks, illuminated the house in a way I hadn’t seen before. My home looked so small, so forlorn in that artificial glare. Crouched in the spotlight, it cowered from menacing night.
If only Harl was awake, I thought, watching as he was buckled into the vehicle’s back seat. He always talks about riding in cars.
“Get in the front,” Mister Pérouse said, opening the door for me. The seats were leather, so cold they felt slimy, and the interior smelled of smoke and plastic. The odor was suffocating. I wanted to open a window but couldn’t figure out how to work the controls. Mister Pérouse walked around to the driver’s side while giving his friends orders, strobing the headlights with his movements.
“He’s not a ghost,” I said to Harl, who couldn’t care less, wrapped as he was in the ignorance of sleep. Directly behind me, Nellie and Ike Porter were huddled beneath a blanket, their rosy-cheeked faces now blank with illness. Like Harl, the flax farmer’s kids were unconscious, their necks smeared with red.
Mister Pérouse slid into the cab beside me and closed the door. “Ain’t no one healthy no more?” I asked. He ignored the question, rolled down his window with ease, and spoke to the tall splotchy-faced man waiting in the driveway.
“Jacques, drop by the farmstead two kilometers north. See who’s there then meet Théo at—” He turned to me, “What is the name of that couple, Ada? The ones who dip the chandelles for your mother?”
“Allambee.”
“Ah, oui.” He directed his attention back out the window and pointed at the squat, bald man who still cradled Bethany in his arms. “Join Théo at the Allambee farm. I’ll see you back at the Haven before dawn.”
Without a word, they accepted his directions and got into their cars. “Arianne,” Mister Pérouse continued, “go inside and collect the doctor. He’s done all he can for tonight.”
The old woman nodded. As her head bobbed up and down, the light played across her features: one moment she was wrinkled, the next smooth. A half-smirking, half-frowning Janus face that gave me chills as it glared first at me, then at Miah in the sedan’s passenger seat.
“Can’t we say goodbye ’fore we go? Ma’ll flip her top if she don’t know where we gone.”
“Non.” Mister Pérouse rolled up his window, cutting off the fresh breeze that was helping to clear my head. Reaching over, he patted my knee. My stomach cramped, and I felt a dampness, a slickness in my knickers. “It’s best if we leave her alone. But tomorrow.” He stopped, sniffed the air, stared at my legs, my hands fidgeting in my lap. “Tomorrow,” he repeated, “things will be different.”
Tears welled in my eyes as the pain in my belly increased. I looked down and two salty drops plinked onto my nightie. I hoped I hadn’t stained the seat with my blood—how could I hide leather upholstery? I hoped it hadn’t spread beyond my shift, beyond my skin. Ma would be so disappointed.
“I’m sorry,” I mumbled.
Again, Mister Pérouse patted my knee. Patted and patted, the motion fervent and hypnotic. He licked his lips, and tore his gaze away with visible effort.
Things changed the next morning, but not for the better.
The sun was inching over the horizon by the time we arrived at Mister Pérouse’s compound. There were no houses around, no farmsteads. The land here was untilled, untenable: skeletons of crops long gone to seed stretched as far as I could see, dotted here and there with sentinel trees and shacks even hobos would disdain. Anyone with a mind for survival long ago followed the highway, arrow-straight and pointing the only way out of here. A wall rose ten meters high and ran a jagged loop around the property, too long for me to judge its distance at this early hour. Layers of grime outlined its rough sandstone surface, the lower half shadowed further with soot. The gatehouse, smooth white plaster cornered with chunky yellow bricks, was dingy with dirt. Rows of barred and blackened windows perforated the walls, bracketing a tall set of arched double doors.
I knuckled my eyes as Mister Pérouse hefted Harley over his shoulder, leaving the Porter kids in the backseat for the moment. Grit and sleep blurred my sight as I followed him into the dark gatehouse, then beyond into a courtyard that smelled dank with an undertone of manure. Inside, peak-roofed walkways connected a series of wooden buildings, all bleached pale gray and pocked with patches of silver-green lichen. I could see the bottom half of an old barn, empty of horses, slumping close on our left; three large pens to our right, in which dozens of hogs lolled, grunting as they slept; five or six little shacks a few hundred meters away, their windows dark and chimneys cold. Pigeons cooed from the rafters overhead, dropping feathers and dead spiders as we passed beneath. I kept my head low, and prayed we wouldn’t emerge covered in droppings. At the far end of the promenade down which Mister Pérouse led us, the first story of the largest mansion—or warehouse? I couldn’t tell which—I had ever seen blocked my view of anything else.
I stepped off the path and into the yard as dawn licked red streaks across the building. Caught a glimpse of three or four more hulking stories; rectangular windows boarded up; a crooked weathervane squeaking a slow circle above a gable—then Mister Pérouse hauled me back into the shadows.
“I weren’t dallying,” I said, but he silenced me with a glance. Behind us, the gatehouse door opened and I could hear that Arianne-woman as she spoke to the doctor; her voice grating across my soul. I was almost overwhelmed by an urge to hide behind Mister Pérouse’s thick cloak. Instead, I patted Harley’s back to reassure him everything was fine; straightened my shoulders as the great door clanged shut. The sound of iron bolts shunting into place rang across the courtyard.
I swallowed tears and dust. My neck was stiff from sleeping upright, my heart stiffer at the thought of Ma sick and alone at home.
“It’s rude to linger in doorways,” Mister Pérouse said, striding past.
“Come.”
Eventually I got used to the command in his tone, but right then it came as a surprise. As long as I’d known him he’d always been, if not jolly, at least pleasant. Friendly in that way adults are with children who aren’t their own: familiar and a little bit fake. His presence used to set us at ease—we knew he’d make Ma happy.
But this Mister Pérouse was different. This version showed an interest that demanded attention. He made my stomach roil.
Inside the hallway stretched from left to right, describing the Haven’s perimeter instead of plunging straight into its heart. We crossed it in no more than ten steps, the sound of our footfalls petering out before reaching its ends. Mister Pérouse took me by the hand. Led me into a room resounding with the whisperings of children.
Large enough to house at least three barns end to end, it nevertheless felt claustrophobic as soon as Mister Pérouse closed the doors behind us. Columns ran in arches around its border, dividing the space into cloisters. Single beds with woolen blankets and plain pillows were tucked behind these pillars, placed in orderly lines against the chocolate brown walls, leaving the larger, central part of the room free. All around us snippets of sound murmured up to the ceiling, four stories abov
e our heads. Shuttered galleries climbed the walls, gazed blindly down on two long refectory tables running lengthwise down the center of a hardwood floor. Skylights perforating the ceiling would have brightened the place enormously had they not been covered in cardboard. Instead, dim light issued from oil lamps dangling from chains and dotting the tabletops.
At the back, three groups of school desks, a dozen at least, were arranged in rough circles. A stern-looking man slipped into the room, and with a nod from Mister Pérouse locked the door. He crossed to consult a young girl who’d obviously been supervising the students in his absence; his tweed jacket, matching pants, and bowler hat could’ve easily been rented at Ma’s shop. One by one, the kids sitting or standing there noticed our entrance. Conversations hushed. Pencils and books hung forgotten in hands that had stopped tidying up. Pink irises shone as they all openly stared.
“Good morning, children.” Mister Pérouse waited until he had everyone’s attention. “How go the lessons? Diction? Vocabulary? Memory-drills? I trust you’ve all had a productive night.”
A babble of replies, all positive, filled our ears. At the sound of so many voices, Harley lifted his head, and looked blearily at our surroundings.
“Ma?” he croaked.
I reached up and absentmindedly patted my brother’s cheek while trying not to goggle at the other kids. Bright eyes ringed with dark circles were worn all around; hair slicked colorless with grease; skin the hue of old lard. To someone accustomed to unique outfits, bright fabrics, elaborate headwear, the sameness of their features, the sloppiness of their clothes, was breathtaking. Here it was dull tartan dresses for the girls, short pants and collared shirts for the boys. On the far wall, boxy jackets hung neglected on hooks, dust lying thick across their shoulders. No jewelry to speak of. No hats.