1891
He pulled a chair closer to him and sat down with a weary sigh. Tugging the battered cap from his head, he thumbed his eyes, chasing the sleep away.
"I wouldn't bother screaming my dear…"
He pulled a little black glass bottle from the inside of his coat and spun it across the table on its stopper. He kept his long fingers poised over its progress, protecting it from a fall. She watched, momentarily distracted from her deep, heart-stopping panic. As the bottle came to rest inches from the edge of the bedside table, ominous dark drops inside trembled for a moment and were still. The gaslight cast its translucent shadow.
"…everyone, you see, is very fast asleep..."
………
1881
He held his head in shaking hands; it hurt from disbelief. He kept his shoulders hunched around his ears and let his chin drop to his chest. The dull, persistent ache began behind his eyes and rayed to the outer limits of his skull. It ached the same way hunger does after a few days; emptily, pointlessly.
He'd been off his medicine since that morning, and it grated on him incessantly. He shook constantly, his face twitched and he had broken out in a cold sweat. He had trouble breathing through his nose without anything to cover his face, and took low, rattling breaths through his mouth.
He knuckled his eyes hard. This sometimes helped his headache. More often, it simply created white fireworks in the dark behind his eyelids that, while pretty to look at for a few minutes, worsened the pain in his head after fifteen. Being rather involved with the current lightshow, he didn't notice her till she cleared her throat. And when he did notice her, the ache throbbed.
He looked up. Her two hands were perched like white sparrows on the horizontal bar of his cage, fidgeting left to right restlessly. She smiled. She had the nerve to smile.
"What are you doing here?" It hurt his throat to speak. He was terribly thirsty.
The little birds started with new agitation. The tone of his voice jarred and rasped. It brought to mind the sharpening of a kitchen knife.
"I…I came to visit-"
"Visit?"
She smiled again, as she usually did when deeply frightened. He swayed a little on his feet but didn't sit down.
"I thought you'd want to see me…"
"Why?"
"I thought…"
He cut her off so abruptly she nearly screamed.
"No madame, I don't want to hear what you thought. I don't want to hear what's going on up there. Puppets have never had much attraction for me I'm afraid."
She stuttered that she didn't understand.
"No. I don't think you do. Or at least you don't want to. You'd rather leave the thinking to your dearly beloved, isn't that so? You put on quite a show today, the pair of you. Rather put the last week in the bin I think. Ah, and I thought I was a showman but you, you two take the cake. Best ventriloquist routine I've ever seen in my life. Top notch my dear, top notch. You quite blew me away with the finale. I'll hand it to your lovebird, he's quite the clever boy, coming up with that story…and such perfect timing."
For some reason, she seemed relieved by something he'd said, as if she'd been passed over for a terrible calamity. It puzzled him and he watched her closely.
"But you don't understand, he and I…well, after what happened, after we got married…it's because-
He held up a hand. His breath became shallow and his swaying more dangerous. His twitch was now more apparent. He steadied himself against the wall.
"I don't want to hear your protestations, your rationalizations, your silly metaphors got out of penny romances. I've known your mind, your capacity to pretend, to perform since I met you. I know about that boy, and I know what he probably told you. I know your reasons, but madame…"
His harsh voice softened and almost sighed. He rested his forehead on the back of his hand wearily and looked up at her.
"…I don't understand them."
She was quiet, being unable to usher her thoughts into any proper order. His expression grieved over a dead thing, and she did not know what it could be. It gazed with unpleasant resolution into her eyes. He stepped closer to the bars. He towered over her so that she had to lift her head to look at him, and yet he seemed a smaller man than she had last seen.
"Explain to me. Tell me why."
He bent closer and peered at her from sad, narrowed eyes. She watched the firm line of his mouth form a word.
"Please."
She took a deep breath and began her story. As it stretched and staggered on, each word struck at his new calm and it began to crumble. His hands flexed and clenched without his knowledge. His eyes sank deeper into his skull and bored at her from the increased distance as what she said thrust forward a larger picture he'd glimpsed, but had preferred out of focus. She did not notice these changes specifically, but the overall effect made her shrink into herself even as she continued to babble. She ceased to notice exactly what she was saying, and muddled facts and got things wrong till the hope he'd had was tangled into her twisted, clumsy façade, strangled to death.
There was a pause of perhaps thirty seconds or less. His expression had changed completely with startling speed to a cold graven image. Acid poured from the look he gave her, and made her eyes tear.
"My dear, if you are going to lie to me, you must make an effort to improve your techniques. I thought I'd taught you better than that. You performed so beautifully just an hour ago! Now, tell me again…" He turned his back and crossed his arms behind him, waiting.
"Better this time."
She floundered for a moment, and then whispered, "But I told you the tru-"
Abruptly, he lost control and smote the bars with the flat of his hand, making a low ringing vibration echo through the corridor. She could see the deep red mark it made on his palm, but this escaped him.
"You liar! You horrible little liar! You fraud, you fake, you painted whore! You did come up with that story, didn't you?! I didn't even want to believe it. I thought perhaps the look on his face was part of the farce, but he didn't know, because he didn't tell you to say that, did he. You decided to tell them that, you and only you. Why?! How could you even begin to come up with such an accusation? Of all the things to say when you knew, you knew I would die rather-"
His voice cracked with the sheer force of his words and she took a step away.
"But I didn't know it would go this way-"
He practically leapt forwards, seizing the bars.
"YOU ACCUSED ME OF RAPE! YOU CALLED ME A RAPIST IN A COURT OF LAW! WHERE DID YOU THINK IT WOULD GO?!"
Nearly foaming at the mouth, he put a hand to his heaving chest. He staggered backwards to his bench. A single hollow cough shot from his throat like a red warning flare, dieing out with a low wheezing hiss. His hands shook violently.
Illness distressed her in all persons, regardless of who they were. It brought out the gentlest side of her, and though her head spun as each word struck her ears, she searched for words to comfort him.
"But maybe prison will help you...help you be better…" She faltered, unsettled by the silence. Even his ragged breathing had stopped. The absence of sound unnerved her like a change in air pressure, weighting the atmosphere from all sides. She could feel his eyes glinting at her, and if she squinted, she could see them glowing in the dark that swallowed the back of his cell. She gulped.
"I'll come visit you…"
A brief pause like a teetering glass ornament, and then a sudden cry of pain burst from the gathering shadows and slipped back into the dark, pulled away again as it tried to cling to her ears. Coldness fell over the air in a sheet as the quiet stretched on.
Ten seconds. Fifteen…twenty…
And then his whisper cut her heart to the quick.
"The day you see me again will be the worst day of your life."
She stood motionless with her mouth open for a few moments, and then ran in a panic from the courthouse holding cell, tripping and panting like a madwoman over four city blocks until she remembered to hail a cab.
…
1891
When the contents of the bottle were completely still, he checked his watch casually.
"Quarter to one! So I'm not off my time. It's comforting, you know. I have so few comforts these days, my sweet."
He moved his chair closer to her bedside and rested his elbows on his knees. The pet name sounded like some vulgar epithet on his lips. She clutched the covers closer to her chest and shrank into the pillows.
That night, her husband was away. A long way away. He'd left his maiden sisters and many servants to take care of her. To watch her and the baby.
She needed watching more than the infant in its pink bassinet. Possessed of a nervous nature that necessitated many trips to the seaside and very little excitement, she had a nurse on call at all times. She took laudanum to help her sleep at least three times a week and suffered from the most appalling nightmares she refused to discuss with her husband. The baby was an attempt to soothe the tensions in her marriage, completely against doctor's orders. The birth itself kept her in bed for months. The strange melancholy that followed kept her in her room for a few more. She couldn't hold the child without weeping. She stood in her nightgown for hours looking out of the window with a drawn, beaten look on her face. Sometimes she flew into fits and tore down curtains from the walls. She refused to eat and spent most of her time sleeping in her darkened room, shrieking away attempts to open the curtains. However, after a year of rest and care, though she'd not fully recovered, she was finally allowed to keep the baby in her room, and spent hours gazing at it. It was the nurse who actually took care of the child, but the mother now felt attached to it, fond of it. As if it were her own child.
Almost.
That night, with permission from nurse, she'd tucked the baby into its bassinet at seven, and gone to bed. At eleven, she awoke and was prevented from sleep by an unexplained dread. She laid perfectly still for an hour, barely blinking, and staring at shadows in the corners of her room until she was certain that each one was really only a shadow.
As the church bells ringing twelve in the distance subsided into the nightly quiet, a low voice spoke out of the corner of the room.
"And thus the day begins…"
She went for the gaslight with impressive speed and illuminated someone whose continued absence she'd prayed for day and night ten years running. A man who still came to see her every night in her screaming nightmares, the ones that soaked her tangled sheets with sweat, the ones she could never bring herself to talk about.
The day you see me again will be the worst day of your life.
The black bottle didn't so much glint as glow darkly like a blind fish. He watched her watch it with an intense expression of steady purpose. Her bedside lamp cast deep shadows in his direction, and she could only see dark outlines in place of his face. His voice lilted and chimed with the bantering rhythm of flirtatious conversation. Her heart felt squeezed by a strong, cold fist into nothing.
"Ten years is a long time to not see one's friends, my dear. How are you? I'm sorry, but I haven't kept up with the papers for rather a long while. I haven't the faintest idea what has been happening in the wide world. But I know the year. I've kept track of the time, and I know that today, it is ten years on the dot since our last little conference. I must apologize madame, for my behavior on that date. If you recall, I was rather cross with you. I hope you forgive me…"
He leaned into the light so that she could see his face perfectly.
"…because I haven't forgiven you."
…
1881
He watched her run away, feeling his heart slow down, listening to its drum fall distantly. He felt decidedly sick, but there was nothing in his stomach. He let his head fall back until it rested on the wall. He watched the changing shadows on the ceiling. He thought about prison.
He thought about the bodies in unhallowed graves, the bodies of rapists and murderers of children, of perverted wretches and twisted men whose public executions had been passed over for something much better…. He thought of the men beaten to death with wooden cots in their cells, stabbed with dinner forks as they ate, bludgeoned with heavy fists in prison yards while guards watched and laughed…
And then he thought of inmates whose crimes of lesser, pettier natures gave them a sense of moral superiority over these men, a sense of duty. He thought of pickpockets and common cutthroats who murdered and tortured men whose terrible crimes sometimes were not so terrible as their punishments. He thought of stories to make flesh crawl, stories that, though unpleasantly fantastic, were true.
He thought of the stand where she made her brave proclamation that drew tears from the ladies, shouts from the men. He thought of the throng of sympathetics who gathered around her offering her solace and praise for her bravery, who shot looks of unabashed loathing where he sat. He thought of the screamed death threats hurled from the public benches, his horrified lawyer making a run for it out of the back door.
He thought of his two friends, his only character witnesses. He thought of their faces, suddenly wiped of all understanding, carpet pulled from under their feet. He thought of their credibility smashed on the courtroom floor. He thought of his only two friends in the world, staring at him, dumfounded. How he stared back, how he didn't know if his silent words reached them.
Not this. I could not do this. I would not do this. Please…
They hadn't come to visit him since. No word, no message, no answer.
He thought of prison, and of the vengeful inmates and vindictive guards. He thought of his character, shattered. He thought of his only friends, lost to him now …and he thought of her…
He thought of her and he wept.
…
1891
She could still remember his face from all those years ago, bleached white with thin blue and green veins running here and there.
It was utterly changed.
Now, though he was still pale, there was not a square inch without its red sores, jagged scars and swelling bruises. The angles and elegant straight lines of his face were now blunted and split. Only his eyes were as she remembered.
"My God…"
"Yes my dear. My God. Now that you see your handiwork, what do you think? Have I improved with age?"
She could only stare. Her heart picked up speed and was off and running.
"Ten years my dear, ten years." His voice hardened from its hitherto light civility, but suddenly slipped back again.
"On the charges I'd already accrued, prison would have been bad enough. Life, I thought, had prepared me for the worst. I was ready to take a bit of a beating. I know what I look like my dear. I know where it's gotten me in the past. But with time, I could have borne the worst and gotten around to escaping. But after what you had to add…"
He dropped his head and laughed to himself like layers of dry leaves.
"After ten years, I know why you thought you had to do it. It wasn't enough, you thought what they already had wasn't enough to put me away for good, and you wanted me away for good by then. Yes, you wanted things safe and secure in their little boxes. So you lied to them. And no one called you out. Who would dare? One of the most powerful families in the city, youth, beauty and innocence, you had everyone on your side. And I, I had so little to recommend me…"
He sighed and sat back in his chair again.
"Ten years my dear. Ten years till I could escape. They won't even go looking for me, I've seen to that. So now I have all the time in the world to tell you…"
He leaned forward again. His eyes darkened.
"Let me tell you about prison my love."
"The first day I was there was the only one without incident. My cell was cramped. That first year I had it to myself. I hated it then. The walls seemed to shrink even as I looked at them. The window was so small I couldn't have fit my head through it, even after I figured out how to remove the bars. Those bars were thick, my dear. As big around as my wrist" He held up his hand to the light, to show her.
In the beginning, she'd had no intention of actually listening to his narrative. Her only thoughts were of panicked escape, of her husband, of possible means of distracting him long enough to make a getaway. The sound of his voice, infuriatingly light and careless, grated on her terribly, and made her feel jumpy and vulnerable to sudden attack. But as the story went on, his voice once more began to fascinate her as it used to, and she listened very carefully to his words. She looked at his wrist and saw the thick scars that roped it. She swallowed.
Noticing the direction of her gaze, he himself examined the scars with interest.
"I'd forgotten about those," he mused, twisting his hand right and left so that they writhed, snakelike.
"All in due course, my dear." He pulled his hand back into his sleeve.
"Back to my story, the bars were as big around as my wrist, and close together, with long spikes pointing both inwards and out. Obviously, I couldn't flee through the window, but that first day I didn't realize the urgency of escape. I was merely annoyed by the additional challenge. I rationalized to myself that once I'd stayed in this place for a few weeks, another path would open for me. I thought I was invincible. I thought that regardless of what occurred, it would not be a long ordeal, and I would eventually escape at the end of it, and never be seen again. That was ten years ago…"
He stopped, lost in thought. She watched him, breathless. Breaking out of his sudden lapse, he continued.
"That first day was only demeaning. Stripped to the skin, hosed down like an animal, tattooed and dressed in these…"
He pulled open his coat to show her the grey jacket and trousers he wore. The thick material was worn down to holes at the knees, the buttons were missing, and dark red and brown stains covered the front. He closed the coat again.
"…and with all those people watching. Every guard in the prison, present for this ritual. Watching me…as if I were going to perform a trick. They pretended to one another that my face amused them…laughed and prodded and twisted me about for show. I thought that was as bad as it could get…I was wrong."
"You know about my bad habits my dear, one in particular. They weaned me off of it, the hard way. I shrieked and ran about my cell like a wild thing. I banged my head against the wall till I lost consciousness while they watched and laughed at the show. I foamed and raged and vomited and hallucinated and tried to claw my way through the walls. I lost all the fingernails on my right hand doing that."
"And then, when that was over, they began letting what was left of me out of my cell, let me go to meals and work and walk the yard with the others…I thought I wanted the change. I thought I wanted to leave that cell I hated so much after months of sickness…as you can imagine, the place was a terrible mess. I was relieved to step outside…until someone threw a rock at my head. Sadly, his aim was off and I ended up with a bruised shoulder. They gave up on the rocks after that and moved on…"
"Every day for the rest of ten years, I was beaten, most days within an inch of my life, by the other inmates. On a good day, it was limited to a short scuffle in the corridor, but that was rare. Mostly they were full brawls in the yard, once a day when they let us out to breathe. The guards usually watched from a distance, and only began to pull them off of me when it looked like I was going to die. Sometimes, when I was feeling spry and putting up a good fight, they made bets and cheered the others on."
He looked at her knowingly and her blood chilled over.
"I know you must be confused my dear, you must want to know why I didn't defend myself. But I did, and that was just the point. When I did manage to kill one, it was nearly the death of me. They smashed my face into the stones of the yard and broke my arm with their bare hands. I'd learned to ignore pain, to put it in its place before this, to work through it…but this was not the same. I've never faced so many so quickly, and without defense, without recourse. In the yard, all I had were my four limbs, my two hands, and my wits. But my wits were bludgeoned out of me, my dear. I was their favorite toy, their pet plaything. I grew to love my grey box and its tiny window. That cell was the only place I was safe. After the first year I shared it with a giant who never saw the sport in beating me to a pulp. He left me alone as long as I didn't come near him. If I was careful, I was safe in my cell. But I only stayed there for a few hours every day."
"Sometimes they sent me to solitary confinement to punish an especially bad fight. Then, the ones in the low security cells would get around the guards, or bribe them to take a short break. When the guards came back and found me, I was usually on my bloodied knees babbling into my hands like a lunatic. I got sent to the infirmary quite often. The doctor would bandage me up to stop the bleeding, but he wouldn't give me anything for the pain. And the pain was always terrible my pet. Sometimes he'd make tiny mistakes in the stitching on purpose, so that he'd have to do it twice, three times. And sometimes the ones I'd wounded were in the infirmary with me…and then I'd have no peace to try and heal, no time to recover before the next attack. Mostly they laughed at me, the guards. They thought I was pitiful, not taking the punishment I deserved like a man.
What I deserved…that came up quite a lot."
"Whenever they beat me into submission, when I was at the end of my wits and delirious with pain, they'd say, 'You deserve it for what you did to that poor girl.' When we lined up for meals, what little food I had ended up on the floor or down my shirt. They stopped trying to shove it into my face when I bit one's finger to the bone. They took me down in minutes and made me eat my meal off the floor. 'Well, that's what you deserve.' And when I tried to sleep, they'd whisper through the walls what they would do to me the next day, what they thought I deserved for what I did…what I did to you."
He paused, choking on the words. He gained control quickly, but continued with the words sticking to the back of his throat on the way out.
"Ten years my dear. Ten years of starved and sleepless, bloody and broken, half mad at any given time. Some days I took it like a dumb animal. Some times I pleaded for them to kill me. Others I fought tooth and nail to live. I killed at least three of them. I tried to kill myself twice as often. I gave up on any other kind of escape eight years ago. I slit my wrists twice with the spikes on the windows, I took my head to the walls, I tried to hang myself with my shirt, I antagonized the most dangerous prisoners into attacking me. Once I almost swallowed broken glass. Obviously, I had no success. They always found me in time, they always recondemned me to live."
"And how did I survive? Sometimes my tricks would save me, or unconsciousness would take me at the right moments. Sometimes, they suddenly got bored with their game on the days I didn't give good sport. I survived my dear, from luck and will. I survived because of you…I stayed awake and drowned out the threats around me with thoughts of you, you on that stand, you, lying to a hundred people. My little dove snug and safe in her nest. You condemned me to something so much worse than prison…beaten, tortured, raped, mutilated, and so many worse things…
He suddenly reached out and seized her face in his two hands, looking her square in the eye. She whimpered and he ignored her, keeping a firm grip on her skin, letting his fingers bite into her cheeks.
"Yes my sweet, there are worse things. So many worse things than you could possibly imagine. So many worse things that I will never tell you, that you will never know. Things that no one will ever drag from where they are hidden. Nightmare things, my precious pet. You have given me nightmares to live with. Sometimes I see them when I'm not sleeping…and there is no release, no escape. They're demons my love, demons that prey on me, that claw at my back, that I can't bat away…oh, the things I have seen…Thing no one could ever imagine, things you don't even dream of…till they happen…"
He suddenly drew back, wrapped in those thoughts. He covered his face with his hands. He looked as if he were going to cry. The fingers of one hand were twisted about, as if they'd been broken and then badly set, jammed into place. She swallowed.
"Everything my love, everything is gone. My sanity, my self respect, those tender ties that made me human, gone. I have looked for them night after night but they are lost with so much blood in the prison yard. My sense of honor cracked with my bones. You have blotted out that white spot on my heart, that spot I kept for you, for weaker things, is so small now, I can barely see it. It's gone. You took everything from me, everything…"
Suddenly he looked up, and his lips split into a bright smile.
"And so, I am going to take everything from you."
He leaned back and regarded her, that smile still stretched painfully across his face. His lips cracked and bled a little.
"But what is everything dearest? A very philosophical question. What could I take from you that would most effectively destroy you? What thing in your life is most precious, hm?"
He steepled his fingers and waited for her to answer. She let her mouth hang open, still shocked and horrified by what he'd just told her. After a few minutes he sighed and rubbed the back of his head
"Well, I suppose you'll find out tomorrow, won't you my lady love? YES! Tomorrow you will wake up to find that a piece of your life has gone missing, a piece that, once moved, will set all the other dominoes to fall…tomorrow my dear, you will lose everything…"
He casually leaned forward and tipped the remnants of the black bottle into a handkerchief. She watched the last drop slide down the inside of the bottle with disinterest, not seeing how it related to her present predicament.
"But don't worry…"
He reached over and pressed the handkerchief to her mouth, almost tenderly and she fought briefly before beginning her long fall.
"…I'll come visit you."
She hit the black bottom and slept there.
As if on cue, the baby suddenly squealed in its cradle. Tiny and pink, it almost mewed like a cat. He stood up abruptly and walked towards it. The sight of him was enough to effectively silence the infant. He stretched out a single finger towards it, and its pale wrinkled fist reached back.
He picked the baby up from its pillows and held it close. It gurgled at him feebly and he shooshed it to sleep again. The sound of his voice made it coo and sigh to itself before sinking back into a slumber.
He sat back down, the babe still in his arms, looking at it intently.
"You see my pet, I knew there was a child. And I knew it would be like this, feeble and small…You were never very strong my dear. And as I thought of what I would do to you, I thought of the baby. What does every woman prize most in her life? Why, her child of course! That one thing most important to you…You've taken so much from me my precious pet, I told you so, and I meant it with all my crooked heart…You took myself from me, you took all that was good in me…and you took you. Maybe, if the former had been untouched, the latter might not have driven me to what I am going to do to you."
"You took yourself from me, you took that stained-glass window and smashed it hard enough to shatter…broken glass cuts, it severs ties, it severs morals and principles…"
He smiled down at her affectionately.
"You have so much to pay for my love, so much to pay for. So I thought, why not take the child? Shall I bash its brains out on the side of a wall? Shall I take it to the zoo and toss it to the elephants? Shall I boil it alive and serve it for supper…I'm joking of course."
She didn't stir, but slept with her mouth slightly open, paralyzed by the drug he's given her. He rocked the baby in his arms. It slept oblivious to its part in the conversation.
"Of all the wicked things in the world, would not this be the worst, the slaughter of an innocent child? If you found this little dear floating down the river, wouldn't you be crushed, shattered? Would not your heart break, your blood turn leaden? And no matter what your precious boy did for you, no matter how he'd try to comfort you, it would be to no avail. You would crack." He enunciated the word with harsh familiarity, letting it force its way into the world with thick aggression. And then he smiled.
"And as much as I would like to see you heartbroken and inconsolable…"
He leaned forward and whispered conspiratorially.
"I can do better than that."
…
A month later
She shivered. Her cell was cold, and the clothes they'd given her were flimsy. She looked out of the tiny window at the brewing storm clouds that advanced. Apathy kept a grip on her expression, and her head hurt with disbelief. A cell. She was in a cell at the asylum. The girl she shared it with had tried to strike her before, but now gibbered to herself quietly in a corner, her lank black hair covering her red face. She gazed at this woman with dull horror, and looked again out of the window.
"But it wasn't me! I'd never-"
"Silence! I think its been made clear at this point madam. You killed that baby in cold blood. The gore underneath your fingernails will tell you the truth."
She'd burst into tears, and then into a fit, scattering papers and law books across the courtroom floor, collapsing on the stand in hysterics. Those faces that had watched him ten years ago were still there, the same faces. But now they looked at her disgusted. Men in black coats and respectable hats clapped her husband on the back and told him to "Bear up old chap." He stared at her blankly, smashed to pieces. She screamed and cried and begged the world to believe her. She hadn't killed the baby, she hadn't.
"Madame, we've had enough of this. As we went over before, the man you accuse of your crime is dead, has been dead for months now."
That had been the real blow, the true black revelation. Dead? But he wasn't! He was there, he was right there beside her bed that night. She kept to her story with mad consistency, but to no avail. He was dead. He'd finally succeeded in escaping the prison, but after hours of hot pursuit, jumped into the river. They'd found his body the night before she'd murdered the baby.
It was this fact the she couldn't get her head around. She'd seen him, she knew he was there…
As it became clear that she really believed her story, they sent her to a doctor to be examined. After a harrowing interview, both with her and her husband, the doctor reported that, without a doubt she was completely insane. They sent her to the madhouse. Her husband cried manly tears at the news.
But still, she could not believe that she had imagined her visitor. There he was in her mind's eye, still flirting with her with deathly precision, still telling her the story, still accusing her with a hilarious finger of destroying what little life he had left…All this she remembered, but what she could not remember was murdering the baby. She searched herself, but could not find it in her. True, she'd woken up in a panic with blood on her hands. True, the bassinet was empty save for a bloody smear on the blankets. True, they found an infant's body in the garden, nestled in the white peonies. But she had no memory of any of it. The doctor suggested that she had blocked it out, as it was too traumatizing to bear, and had replaced it with a more acceptable memory. She tried this idea for a while, but its absolute untruth kept it from taking root in her heart. The doctor's sympathy had been strange after the callous cruelty of the court. He'd even taken her hand and patted it gently, knowingly. Her husband however, still looked at her with bewilderment, as if he didn't know her at all. And he didn't, apparently. If he could believe she had the capacity to murder a helpless baby…who was he then? Who was she?
She would stay in this asylum for the rest of her life, surrounded by babbling maniacs, kept in a cell with a gibbering madwoman who would likely try to claw out her eyes at the first possible opportunity. Suddenly, her apathy broke and she fell into tears.
"Now now sweetheart, let's try to show a little more decorum, shall we?"
She froze and looked around. There he was.
There he was.
"That's better dearest. Really, self control becomes you very well."
She stood up and walked towards the bars with ghostlike confusion, nearly floating. He was more smartly dressed now. His prison rags were gone.
"What are you doing here?"
He laughed at her outright.
"Ah my dear, I think I've seen this play before, and I believe I saw it with you."
He held something in his arms under his coat, which he'd draped across his shoulders. She looked at him coldly.
"You…you're alive."
"Yes my most precious joy, I'm alive. Interesting story that, if you'd like to hear it. I did manage to escape the prison after all. It was jolly well done, but I won't get into details, though it did involve some bandages and a very sharp dinner fork."
She continued her stare.
"Go on."
"I'm glad to see that prison hasn't hardened you my dear. Politeness is so very rare in these places. I heard about your trial my love. In fact, I was there, hidden in the crowd. I hired that prosecuting attorney, I hired that doctor and I fed them their lines from backstage, anything that would grease the cogs and wheels, with no expenses spared. Really, you're rather a drain on my limited funds my pet, but if it gives you any comfort, it is my personal opinion that you are very much worth it."
"The baby…what did you do with the baby."
"Yes, I thought we might come to that. It did strike me that you never refer to the poor thing as my baby. The baby really sounds as if you don't think it's yours at all. It did work against you at the trial you know. So many shifty glances between mothers in the crowd…"
"My baby. What did you do to my baby."
There was a pause and she could feel him smile at her. Suddenly he opened his coat. There she was…
There she was.
She looked down at the pink face breathing lightly in sleep. She stared motionless. There she was…there was the baby. Her baby.
She looked up at him.
"Evil…you're…evil…"
He gazed at her unmoved and tucked the bundle back into his coat.
"Perhaps I am. But "battle not with monsters lest ye become a monster"…Nietzsche my dear, and infinitely applicable to the present situation. However, how much more wicked would I be if I'd killed this child, hm? I'm surprised you aren't more grateful considering the circumstances. This child is alive and well, and under my full protection. No harm will ever come its way. She'll be cared for on every possible front. Well fed and dressed, comfortable, educated…although I suppose it must hurt you that it's all by my hand."
She clutched the bars and looked up at him pitifully.
"Why-"
"Why? My dear, I call that nerve. Why…what a silly question."
He bent down closer and looked at her with steady contempt.
"Think about it precious. Think about it long and hard. Think…my entire life had been devoted to idols. My mother was the first, but I loved her enough to leave her at length…my work, a kinder mistress but equally cold, heartless…I had to leave that too. And then you, the cruelest of my devotions. When I thought you warm and bright, you were but deceiving me…cold. You are as cold as anything I've ever worshipped. But never have I been so duped in my judgment. And so, like all useless idols, you must be shattered on the temple steps…ah, but I digress into metaphor, and this is hardly the time…"
"The point is, dear heart, that as you have broken me, so I have broken you. And now everything you love is gone, perhaps forever. Your daughter, your husband, your friends…I doubt any of them love you now. I have lost the only two friends I had in the world because of you…but now I have someone else to take care of. Don't worry, this is one idol who is alive and breathing…and she will save me from myself."
His conviction on this point struck her as being foolish, and she nearly laughed, but he shot her a peculiarly pleasant look, poisonous in its sweetness.
"So transparent she might be made of glass…but never mind that. The point is that everything I've lost I plan to gain back. Every little drop of blood…children love their parents regardless of what they look like, regardless of what you might believe."
"But then what…what was that thing they found in the garden?"
He seemed suddenly sad about something, and looked down despondently.
"That poor thing…that poor little thing…I found her in a back alley in the Red Light District…someone had dropped her into a garbage can. Her neck was broken nearly in two. Blood everywhere…no one to mourn for her but alley cats…I gave her what her own mother couldn't manage…a Christian burial surrounded by people who were at least shocked that she was dead…people like your husband for instance. He cried over that tiny coffin…poor little dear…"
He looked pensively down at the bundle in his arms.
"I took her to the garden and placed her in the bushes for the police to find. Your sisters in law washed away the blood and dressed it warmly…by then the face was so disfigured they couldn't tell it from your baby. After I put you to sleep I took the blood I'd sopped up and bottled and rubbed it into your hands and bed sheets…then I switched the blanket in the bassinet with the blanket I took from that innocent child, and I took your baby home with me."
"But they found your body…how-"
"I feigned my suicide jumping into the river and swimming from there into the sewers. Ticklish work…it was bloody cold in there. All I had to do then was find a body…anyone's would do, as long as the bones were long enough to pass for mine. It took a day or two, but I found one, cut up its face and dumped it into the river wearing my clothes. It's a ruse I've used before and it worked wonderfully."
"But…but what will happen to me?"
He looked at her closely and smiled.
"Well…your sentence here is for life, correct? I believe it usually is in these God-forsaken places…with such a charming cell-mate, I'm sure you'll get along splendidly."
The lady in question snarled and sporadically tapped the floor with her long fingernails.
He watched her look of horror grow slack jawed and hysterical. Her eyes were fixed on the glittering pupils of the madwoman beside her, watching for a chance to strike. He regarded her state of deep upset clinically before speaking.
"But wait! I still have affection for a former sweetheart…"
She looked at him blankly. The madwoman jumped a little and yelped incoherently. He watched tears roll away and stain her collar darkly. Suddenly, a complete change came over his expression. He leaned forward again and touched her cheek. She didn't flinch. He frowned, and took her by the chin, looking into her eyes…
"Write a full denunciation of everything you said against me in court…write it, and get it published somewhere…I don't care where, any place where people can read it. Write that letter and perhaps…perhaps something could be done for you. Then, I want you to meet with my friends…I'll send then to you once your letter is published. Tell them the whole story…tell them everything you know…and then tell your husband. Tell them the truth…but not about the baby, or else it will go very badly for you. I'm keeping her for myself…and once all that is done, once I am convinced that you are very sorry for what you've done, and not just for being caught…"
He wiped a tear away from her face and looked at it shine on his fingertips. There was a contemplative quiet between them as the madwoman cried for justice in a diseased warble He abruptly turned on his heel and left her as her cellmate's cries reached maximum pitch and she began to rise to her feet. She looked after him hopelessly, everything she'd lost, and everything she'd thrown away running circles through her mind.
"Maybe, maybe, I could arrange for your early release…in say…"
"…ten years?"
The End