Disclaimer: I do not own Hellboy
A/S: I know this may not be her actual name according to DVD of the first Hellboy movie but I can't find it so I just wanted apologise if I offend anyone...
The Journal of Adelaide von Brandt
For Era Yachi
13th January 1968
Trevor Broom glanced down at the book one last time wondering whether he should give it to Hellboy. He rubbed his thumb against he strong red leather cover which had been able to withstand centuries of moths eating at its velvet soft pages and the endless times people had probably read through it thinking that it was the insane writings of a nun which had been the result of a rape or thinking it a work of fiction which had never been able to be published due to the profanities within its pages. This was something which could destroy everything even though the perfect idea of his mother had been smashed to pieces when Trevor was finally able to find out what happened to her. He had to give Hellboy something but he knew he could never find out the whole truth. It would break him. To even hear what he intended to tell him was enough to break his heart but at least it wouldn't destroy him. He had spent years researching into his origins knowing that there would be questions in the later years. Not being able to know about these things weren't enough for Hellboy, especially considering the person he was asking was also the person he expected to know everything. He wouldn't be able to convince him that he didn't know what he was asking of him. He knew full well what it was that he was asking him. He was going to ask him if there was any hope of him being at least partly human.
~ (***) ~
13th January 1698
These winters are cold. I remember as a child when I would stay with my Grandparents I would nestle by my Grandfather who would have a chair which was closest to the fire. He would have a blanket over his lap and I would slip underneath it with my head tucked under his chin and I would hear him hum to himself the songs of his childhood. I know all those songs off by heart now. When I feel like I am far from home I would always hum these songs which I didn't know the words to under my breath to make me feel as if he was still there. I remember my Grandmother being strict and the moment she realised she knew where I was she would come over and smack my lap and tell me to get off my Grandfather. He would implore her to stop but she would never stop. She was always the stronger one of the two. She was always the one who ruled over the house. He was ill and he needed his rest without me bothering him apparently.
She always used to regard me as some sort of demon or a child of a whore. I never understood this considering that I was her own grandchild and she always spoke the world of her daughter, my mother. Maybe because it was always because she blamed me for her death. I could see her doing that. In fact, I saw her doing that every day I spent with her in that cold cabin where the only warmth which I received there was from her husband. She was a very religious woman as well. Hence, her treatment of me. I never truly understood, even now, why she treated me the way she did. I knew of her reasons but I never really understood why she had to hate me for these reasons. I thought Jesus always taught us that all children were pure. She would always blame me for the death of her daughter since she died giving birth to me. She was there, she told me, and she watched me rip her precious daughter apart. Then my father followed because he was so overcome with grief. She believed that because of this I had to spend my whole life redeeming their deaths which had been the result of my birth.
Sometimes I miss that cabin. Even when my Grandmother was mistreating me. When she used one of my Grandfather's belts to use as a whip. I can remember that sharp sting which I would at least be able to expect with every stroke. The blood which dripped down my back to the calves of my legs. Soon she got tired of me and sent me away. She must have thought that she was doing the right thing at the time. I don't really blame her. I think though, that a part of her decision was dominated by the fact that she never loved me and that she felt that I had overstayed my welcome in her house and her family. She had heard of a place, she told me, of high walls and a place of God. She told me that it would be a dreary, cold place which was bigger than the home I was currently occupying. But if I remained pure and spent the rest of my days there I would be able to go to a place made of gold and pearl when I died. She told me that there was no way that I was going to redeem myself with them and the only way I would be saved is to be forgiven by God. I had no concept of God except for the few times my Grandmother mentioned him saying that I was damned for all eternity, which made me wonder whether she was actually right that I could be saved by going there if there was now a chance I could be forgiven.
One cold, dark morning she woke me in my bed, she already a bag packed and wrapped a heavy, grey cloak over my twelve-year-old shoulders and pushed me out the door. The man who welcomed me into his strong, constrictive arms was a man missing at least seven teeth, the rest seemed to be made of gold and his dry skin was cracked in so many place. He grinned so evilly down at me I thought he was the Devil and screamed.
"Now, now, Sweetheart." He growled. "Come quietly, we don't want to wake anyone."
I knew my Grandfather would still be asleep otherwise he would perhaps be imploring my Grandmother to reconsider, looking back I knew that he knew nothing of this. Whenever she mentioned the nunnery she always hushed as soon as my Grandfather came into the room. I would remember him once patting his knee for me to climb up on and for one time, my Grandmother permitted this but glared at me the entire time as if to tell me to keep silent about what she had just told me.
I turned back to my Grandmother, pleading with her to let me stay. "Grandmother!"
I had hoped that she would have a little mercy. How foolish I was! I should have known that she was a woman with a heart of stone and not the with kindness and mercy of God. If I had known more about Him and the scriptures I would be able to have known that I should have not even bothered with begging for mercy from her.
She stared back at me stonily and nodded her head towards him. "He will take you to Salvation, Adelaide."
"But he looked like the Devil!" I cried.
The Golden-Toothed man chuckled. "Oh my dear, the Devil takes many forms. Just as God does."
Then he wrapped his arms round my waist and swung me onto the cart in the front seat. He jumped on and grabbed the reigns. He whipped the horses with the reigns with the same swiftness and viciousness as my Grandmother was when she was punishing me. I turned back and watched until the cabin was out of sight. She watched me the entire time also. As if she was making sure that I was gone for good.
~ (***) ~
5th December 1967
There was a knock at the door and Trevor Broom got to his feet. He glanced over at his son who was watching television. He was watching that wretched puppet again. He didn't understand the appeal. As a child he was almost frightened of Punch and Judy. He opened the door to find a soldier there. He saluted him even though there was no need for him. Protocol he would imagine, then he recognised him as the overweight soldier who took Hellboy's first picture.
"Hello, Doc." He greeted brightly. "I'm here to deliver a package for you."
Trevor frowned and took it from him. "Package?"
"Yeah. Some guy down at the research centre said that you had asked for permission for some diary to be retrieved from a nunnery in Germany."
Trevor opened the package and found a faded, brown, leather bound book in his hands and recollection sparked in his mind. The young, red boy behind him looked over his shoulder and got to his feet and ran to the door.
"What is it, Pop?" He asked.
Trevor hid it away hastily and smiled uncertainly. "Nothing, Son. Just one of your Father's boring, old books." He replied ruffling the young boys hair.
Hellboy looked a little disappointed and turned to the messenger and recognised him. "Hey!"
"Hey there, Kiddo. You've gotten taller. How you been doing?"
"Good. I'm watching Howdie-Doodie."
"Oh wow." Said the soldier as he allowed the red boy drag him to the television to watch it for a few moments.
Trevor surveyed the scene from a distance with a smile on his face. His son had a family alright. He had one who accepted him for who he was. Then he looked down at the journal. He had heard something about a journal amongst the scholars which caught his attention. It was more about the content rather than anything else. The content which made him suspicious that he may be able to learn more about his son's origins.
~ (***) ~
5th December 1699
It's so strange to think I've been in this place for four years now. To this day. I look out the window I see the same sky, the same sun, the same moon and it seems that nothing has changed. It has though and I've missed it all because I've been here, locked between these walls, knowing I shall never escape. I'm almost sixteen and I could have had a sweetheart. I can have achieved the true status of a woman. I could have been married by now. I could have had a child soon. Maybe in two years. Maybe. I am certain I shall never be a mother. We are supposed to be the brides of Christ. I will never be a woman. I will always forever be a maid, a virgin. Not everyone here is a virgin. There are many girls here for not being discreet. Our wombs shall forever bleed and never be the first bed for the children we could have had nor the place for the men who could have been our husbands where they could lay for a moment of comfort.
I place my hand on my stomach and I feel hungry. Empty. They will forever remain an empty space, a void which shall never be filled. This is our punishment. For hoping too much. For being too brazen. For knowing of this knowledge too soon in our lives. It makes me think of death when I think of that void. It also makes me think of Hell. People picture a pit of white fire which will burn through your flesh. Although I think its more of a place where all your fears dwell and there is nothing which I dread more than an infinite blackness. There is something about it that frightens me. I just imagine falling through it for all eternity. Never going anywhere. Just having that sensation of falling in blackness where you don't know where you're going. If it is never filled I fear something horrible, terrible will come out of the shadows and reach out to me. Sometimes I think I will reach out to this hand and allow myself to be dragged into the darkness. There is something about it. I fear it but I am also seduced by it. It will pull me in and I shall be engulfed by the darkness forever. I fear that will the true reason why I am here, the true crime which will determine my sentence.
~ (***) ~
12th December 1967
Trevor grinned to himself as he read the document. He was being very naughty right now. He should have known that you shouldn't just skip to a random page. You were always supposed to start at the beginning of every story. Then again not all stories were doing that any more. Some stories started in the middle and then went back for dramatic effect. He had to admit they achieved their goal but with something which was in chronological order originally should be read that way. There was a reason for that. He glanced up at the door wearily, wondering if Hellboy was going to walk through the door. He couldn't let him know about this. He knew that he would never be able to recover from this. Even though he hadn't read that much so far but he had read enough to know that he was never going to be ready to know the truth. Sometimes it was even better for someone to not know the truth about their origins...
~ (***) ~
12th December 1697
It was my birthday today. We are not supposed to celebrate such things here in the convent but Elaine found this and gave it to me as a present. This is my first entry into the Journal of Adelaide von Brandt. Or Sister Adelaide. I was no longer allowed to have that name any more. I had to erase that life I once had, that little child I had thought to be and now I was a follower of Christ's word. That was what Mother told me when I first arrived. She probably knew why I was there as well. The moment I stepped through the gates I knew everything had changed and that my life would never be the same. I could never return to the outside world and I would never be able to return to the life I once had. A part of me was glad to put it behind me all those years ago. At the same time I do miss some things about it. What I miss the most is the freedom. I miss being able to walk through the fields and sometimes I look down from the tower room and down at the busy, city streets where the people walking below look like ants. I wish I was like them rather than being trapped in this cold, stone prison. Sometimes it is worse than being at home and in other ways its better. Sometimes its even more harsh than my Grandmother's punishments but I can sometimes bare the punishments of this place.
I have friends here now when I was at home, I only had Grandfather and he was too old and weak to defend me. I would never blame him for not intervening on my behalf. The friends I have here comfort me when I have been whipped for no reason or simply miss my old life. There was a girl from a small village in the south of Germany called Helena. Her parents had died in a wolf attack and had been torn to shreds. The beast had been hunted down and killed a few days later. Since she had no other relatives to take her on the Priest in the village had no other choice but to send her there. She had been there since she was eight and had recently turned fourteen. Then there was Elaine. She was the daughter of a Merchant and one night there was a drunkard of a friend of her father there. He was told to have slept with many women also and saw her in the corridor in her nightgown and took advantage of her. She never told us any details nor did we press her on this matter. After he accusations her father sent her to the nunnery to avoid social disgrace upon the family name. Due to her being taken as a victim but a perverted man's actions she had become a prisoner for speaking the truth. My reason for being here was unknown. That was never speculated on. Everyone knew I was an orphan, like Helena. They never knew though that my crime for being here was because I was born.
~ (***) ~
18th December 1967
"What you doing, Pop?"
Trevor looked up with a startled look on his face. He had just got to an interesting part as well. He felt like someone had interrupted him at a crucial moment within a novel where for entries after entries nothing had happened. His son was leaning over the table with his tale gently waving from side to side and his yellow eyes dancing with amusement and curiosity. He seemed to be jumping up and down making the table vibrate a little. Trevor grabbed onto the sides fearing that he was going to break it in half. Trevor placed a cautious hand over the thin and delicate pages of the journal and smiled.
"Nothing. It was that dratted book I got a couple of weeks ago. You know the boring one." He added pulling a face.
"It can't be that boring if you want to read it so much." He said grinning.
Trevor raised an eyebrow. He had to admit he got him on that one. He may have found him merely a few years ago but he was no longer a child. He may have been more about brawn than brains but he wasn't stupid either. A child was just as able to see through the lies and deceptions of an adult as he was able to conjure them himself. He could certainly relate to that rule considering his one exploit in his childhood. Thank goodness his guardian was more merciful than most. After that day he was only ever in pursuit of truth rather than wanted he wished could be the truth.
"Well...What I mean is that you would find it boring, young man." He teased tickling him under the chin making Hellboy giggle.
Hellboy fell back and rolled on the floor back and forth laughing as if Professor Broom was still tickling him. He got to his feet and peered down at him. He looked happy. He didn't know when was the last time he saw him this happy but he knew that he was going to make sure that he was happy as Adelaide should have been.
"Hellboy?"
The boy stopped abruptly and looked up. "Yeah, Pop?"
Trevor crouched down on the floor until their eyes were level with one another. "We might be moving soon. Somewhere new."
"To a new bunker? A new camp?" He asked.
Trevor shook his head. "No, Son. Somewhere permanent. It's...We're going to moving to a new home. It's like a facility."
He explained clumsily. He needed to make this clearer to him so that the shock wouldn't be so great once they got there.
"It's like...It was made by the government for us to stay in and for other people out there who are like us."
Hellboy got to his feet with an excited look on his face. "There are others like me?"
Trevor Broom smiled and nodded. "Yes, Son. There are many others out there just like you."
~ (***) ~
18th December 1700
Helena has gone mad. That is what they are saying. I think she is haunted. What they say to everyone else is that apparently she has been ranting. That she has a demon spirit inside her or that she is mad. She has been going on about seeing demons. She hadn't spoken of this to myself or Elaine. I can believe that in a place such as this at least one of us would go mad eventually. Not just to go mad but perhaps to find demons dwelling in these places. It may be a place of God but even places of God have found their walls infiltrated by the enemy. People were always able to get passed their enemies defences. The thing I am most concerned with is not whether she is pretending, there is no question that these claims, she would never lie about such things, what is the most worrying thing about all this is what it could possibly be. I know that she is not lying since I have seen it all with my very own eyes. I would not have to seen those demonic things to believe her. I have never seen her like this and I am sure after witnessing your parents being ripped apart by an animal would allow other such things to be less terrifying. Unless she thought it was the beast coming back for her.
That last night before she left everyone heard her screams. They echoed across the halls and I knew in years to come everyone would talk of the nun that went mad and would use the legend of 'Mad Sister Helena' to make all the new recruits to stay in their beds at night. I left my room and rushed to hers and I could only hear a few things. I knew I had to get there before the Mothers and the Superiors got there before I did. I knew I would be able to make sure she was alright if I was there. I heard 'I'm sorry' and 'I lost it'. I heard her saying sorry over and over again. When I burst into the room I found her with blood in between her legs and there was something lying on the floor. I stepped towards her hesitantly and reached out to her. I spoke her name softly. She wasn't listening. She was looking up at something. I couldn't see anything and she wasn't listening to it. She kept on muttering about losing something. I looked downwards and felt bile rise up in my stomach. It looked like a cluster, a lump of flesh, blood and organs. Some deformed child with the spine sticking out of its lump-ish body. I could have sworn I saw it open an eye for a moment and blink at me. As if I was the alien.
I wanted to scream but I couldn't move. For a moment, before I blacked out I thought I saw something. A shadow. I could see a face in this shadow. It was horrible, frightening but somehow it entranced me. I heard Helena saying something. She finally noticed that I was there and it sounded like she was pleading with it. She was begging it not to hurt me, perhaps. I was never really sure. Eventually everything went black. The next morning the Mother told me everything. She told me I had fainted from the scene and when I mentioned the demonic child on the floor she gave me a look and told me it must be a nightmare but I knew from the look that she was giving me that she thought I was beginning to go mad like Helena. She told me that she had been taken somewhere else now. That she was going to be alright. When I asked whether I would see her again she looked at me with a sad smile on her face and shook her head. She told me sweetly, 'No, my dear. I am afraid we shall never be seeing Sister Helena again'. I gulped and held back my emotions. I knew I had to keep myself in check if I was to avoid the same fate as her. But I knew she was never lying. She had seen something, she was being tormented by something.
I thought about it for days in my confinement, throughout those long, sleepless nights when I couldn't sleep after that horrible sight. I couldn't imagine any thing more horrifying than that deformed child. I was wondering whether it was even a child. It was a monster. There was nothing remotely human about it. Nothing strange had happened to Helena over the period of time it would take her to conceive and bare that child. There was a slim chance of her ever meeting a man, we all have very little contact with men. We even rarely have any contact with any Priests or Monks let alone men outside the clergy. I stared into the darkness thinking, wondering whether it was ever going to get me. I knew it was. It knew that I knew its secret. I knew if it was going to go after anyone else it was going to go after me. I imagined something like that coming out between my legs and I wanted to scream but I covered my mouth and dug my teeth into my fist. The more I thought about it the more I realised what she was talking about it. That lump of flesh on the floor, that deformed child was a demon. I realised what that shadow creature had done to her. She was ranting about a demon and she was bleeding between the legs. There was no other explanation. They told me that it was just her monthly cycle which caused this. I knew though that there had to be another explanation.
I searched everywhere in the libraries and even the other places I look for information and there was nothing which counter-argued my suspicions. Weeks passed and I thought it would never come back. For a while I was slowly beginning to believe that they were all right. That she had simply gone mad. I was almost beginning to forget her. Elaine forgot her a lot sooner than I did. She was praying to the Virgin Mary to restore her innocence more and more often now when before she was constantly asserting the truth of her crime. I am sure this is just the shock of what happened to Helena which has triggered this but she told me that we have to stop pretending that we are ever going to leave this place and that we are not here for a reason. Then there it was lurking in the shadows. I could always remember those yellow eyes. For a moment they seemed golden, as if there were glowing. Like candles in the dark. I knew it was there. There was no denying it any longer. I knew it would come back to get me. I knew it didn't want me all along, it needed just anyone. Any woman would do for the horrible ends which it had in store. I just couldn't understand why though. I knew too much but then I was sure that it was something of the Devil it had something worse in store for me.
It took a step towards me and I sat up in my bed. My heart was thudding in my chest as I stared into the darkness.
"Who is it?" I whispered.
It didn't quite answer me. Just a growl. A sound. This was no human being. This was a monster. A fallen angel struck down from Heaven.
"Answer me." I said firmly.
"My name...Is of no importance." It growled.
I licked my lips. "Why are you here?"
There was a deathly silence and I couldn't breathe. I shook all over and I could feel myself sweating beneath my nightclothes.
"Child..." It whispered abominably.
I blinked. "I'm sorry? You're looking for...It's dead. We burned it." I snapped spitefully.
I wanted it to know that it had failed in its perverse plans. I wanted to know what it was like to despair. But then something terrible happened after that. The whole room shook as if I had made it angry. I could hear it roar and after a few moments it stopped. I was surprised I could hear no one stir in the surrounding rooms. I hesitantly turned back to the Shadow Creature and spoke again.
"What do you want?" I asked shakily.
"Child..." It repeated more forcefully this time.
"I don't understand."
The creature chuckled. "Yes. You do...Child..."
"I am no child." I almost screamed back.
"I know...I need a woman...For a child..."
~ (***) ~
24th December 1967
Trevor and Hellboy both stood in front of the building was a great sense of dread. He would have liked for Hellboy to have a final Christmas with the rest of the troops. They had all gotten used to him they had all began to treat him like he was a normal young boy. Now he was going to lose all of that normality he was used to and they were going to start prodding at him. Not unless Trevor had anything to say about it.
An annoying looking man stepped forward stretching out a hand for Trevor to shake. "You must be Professor Broom and this must be..."
The man's eyes widened in shock and Trevor eventually decided to take pity on him and finish his sentence for him.
"Hellboy."
"Hellboy. Well that certainly is appropriate. Pleasure to meet you, Young Man." Hellboy took the officials hand hesitantly and gave him a nervous smile.
"Nice to meet you sir." The man nodded to them and walked off to make sure that everything was getting loaded into their rooms.
"Is this it, Pop?" Hellboy asked looking about bit worried and disappointed.
Trevor sighed and nodded. "Yes, Son." He slapped him on the shoulder. "This is going to be our new home."
Hellboy stepped forward and muttered. "I hope they have a Christmas tree already set up."
~ (***) ~
24th December 1700
I've been feeling strange lately. I can't think of the right way to describe it. I blacked out after the Shadow Monster mentioned something about a child and a woman. I can't remember anything else after that. Then I began rubbing my stomach the next morning as if...As if something was in there. Sometimes I would feel as if there was actually something there, growing inside me. Soon I began to vomit, get headaches, I'd feel exhausted one moment and energetic the next. I didn't know what was wrong with me. Until he came to me again.
He was leaned over my bed and I could see him so close now. I could see that he had fangs. His skin was red and scaly. Like a dragons. I reached out and I felt Hell hot fire burning inside him.
"The Child..." He murmured.
I shook all over but felt tempted to reach out to him. "Wha...What's happening to me?"
He looked into my eyes then nodded to my stomach. "The child."
Then I was filled with an overwhelming sense of dread and disgust knowing that I was going to meet the same fate as Helena...
~ (***) ~
29th December 1967
Hellboy was quiet. Trevor was beginning to loose track of time. It seemed he had been quiet for a century, he was never used to him being silenced. Then again when you were told the truth about your parentage then you would prefer to retreat to your own thoughts for a moment or two.
"Did she...Did she even love me?" He asked quietly.
"I...I don't think she ever really saw you. Or even held you Hellboy. In a sense, she was your mother but your were spiritually inside her and you entered into his world, your..." Trevor couldn't say that word out loud but was able to leave it unsaid. "You we born into another world to hers. Even though she gave birth to you. Now I know this is a lot to process. But I want you to know that this doesn't change anything." Trevor placed his hand on top of his sons. "I just wanted you to know the truth."
Hellboy nodded numbly and got up. There was nothing more to be said about the matter. Trevor knew to learn of such a thing and to know that you were born under such circumstances was something which hurt too much to talk about again. Trevor even began to wonder whether he had done the right thing in telling Hellboy the truth. Not the entire truth but as much as he had brought himself to tell him. Anyhow, there was no need to worry whether he wanted to know any more. After that day Hellboy never spoke of it again...
~ (***) ~
29th December 1700
It was horrible. A few nights later he came back to get what he wanted. It began with me feeling as if something was trying to rip itself out of my stomach. I lifted my nightclothes and stroked my stomach. Then there was a small hand stretching out and stretched out my skin with it. My heart hammered in my chest and I felt a cold hand on my shoulder. I glanced up and saw him there. He told me it was time. I don't really recall that much of it. He told me I had to go what a woman does when she gives birth. I had no idea what that was but I did everything I could to get that creature out of me. The Shadow was doing something strange. He was crouched down somewhere between my legs and I was too frightened to tell him to keep away. I felt that part of my body split in half and suddenly there was a release. I laid there in my sweat and blood for a while. I looked up and saw him standing there. He didn't say anything and I looked around for the demon child but it wasn't there. To be honest I was relieved. I didn't want to see it. I didn't want to know what happened to it either. It was better off dead or wherever it was supposed to be. I can only pray that it never enters this world. I dread to think I was the one to bring it into existence and to know that a part of it, is also a part of me. I knew now this was the reason I was here, not because of a crime I committed but the crime I was going to commit...