Mad Woman in the Attic
By
Mad WomanDisclaimer:
The characters of Gabriel Knight, Grace Nakamura, Detective Mosely and the legend of the Schattenjägers are creations and trademarks of Jane Jensen and Sierra-On-Line.
Apologies:
The writer of this piece of fan fiction has taken liberties in the atmosphere, history, culture and geography of New Orleans. Please be aware the writer has NEVER been to New Orleans, although it is a life-long wish. Please also be aware that the writer is not American. As far as it is possible and made known to the writer, inaccuracies are corrected. But we are only human and therefore have to live with our mortal inadequacies.
Thank you.
Prologue
But I have lived, and have not lived in vain:
My mind may lose its force, my blood its fire,
And my frame perish even in conquering pain,
But there is that within me which shall tire
Torture and Time, and breathe when I expire;
Something unearthly, which they deem not of,
Like the remembered tone of a mute lyre,
Shall on their softened spirits sink, and move
In hearts all rocky now the late remorse of love.
- Byron, from Childe Harold's Pilgrimage
New Orleans,
November, 1844
The child's screams rang in his ears and they were the only sound he could hear; not even his own pounding at the heavy oak door was audible to him, or his own quickening heartbeats drumming.
"No, Papa! NO! NOOO!" Can anything be more terrible than a child's cry?
"Open the door! Phillipe! Angelique! Open the door!"
The child's hoarse cry was interrupted by a choking cough. Panic, blood pounding with the adrenaline. Jean-Baptiste abandoned his kerosene lamp by the window as he broke the glass with bare fists. He threw himself bodily into the house.
"Phillipe!" he screamed as he staggered to his feet, yelling in desperation rather than an appeal to reason -- for there was none. His friend's large hands were twisted around the daughter's think neck so that it seemed as though father was grotesquely squeezing the head out from the tube of the child's frail body.
Bleeding from cuts he did not feel Jean-Baptiste lunged and knocked the father from the child. Angelique coughed in choking gasps for air. The two men rolled on the floor as they struggled in a physical deadlock. Jean-Baptiste tried to pin his friend down to keep the latter away from the child, but he did not want to hurt Phillipe. But Phillipe had no compunction left about killing Jean-Baptiste to get to the child.
With a furious cry Phillipe doubled up his knees and kicked Jean-Baptiste square in the chest. Air flew out of lungs too quickly.
"Damn you, you devil!" Phillipe roared, face flushed with the veins straining against his throat.
"No, Papa!" Angelique pleaded between racking sobs. Phillipe was coming toward her but Jean-Baptiste grabbed the father from behind, clinging. The child whirled for the window, the only open exit from the house. Cutting herself on the jagged glass, Angelique climbed up onto the window ledge and fell over, hurting herself somemore.
"Come back here, you little slut!" her father screamed from the house. Breathless and in fright she turned, and Phillipe was suddenly at the window, a clutch out to grab Angelique's sleeping gown. She screamed as she was tugged upward. Her hands flew desperately and closed around the hot lamp. Young flesh burned around heated glass but fear overcame pain as the child flung the lamp into her father's face. The glass smashed and Father's face burst into kerosene fueled fire.
Angelique was dropped as Phillipe beat and slapped at his melting face. Flames crept down the torched head to the shoulders, and his upper body as kerosene spread. It was now Father's turn to scream. Angelique forced herself to look through the shattered, blood-stained window. Monsieur Durent was beating at Father's head with his coat, beating and whacking, trying to put the fire out. Father collapsed and twisted and rolled on the floor. Angelique stared. She wanted to remember, needed to know he was in great pain. Monsieur Durent just kept whacking the coat at Father's head.
And images of Father's burning head seared themselves into an angelic memory.
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