Nepenthe

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Nepenthe

Part One

 

Afar away the light that brings cold cheer
Unto this wall, - one instant and no more
Admitted at my distant palace-door.
Afar the flowers of Enna from this drear
Dire fruit, which, tasted once, must thrall me here.
Afar those skies from this Tartarean grey
That chills me: and afar, how far away,
The nights that shall be from the days that were.
Woe’s me for thee, unhappy Proserpine!
—Proserpina, Dante Gabriel Rossetti

 

 

"Six…Seven…"

"Louder, ye pig!" The invigorating smack of leather upon flesh echoed through the small room.

"Eight…Nine…Deux…"

"Wot was that?" Master Nathaniel Mallory’s baritone dropped a few notches, and the line outside the door strained to hear. "Did I just ‘ear you lose count?" Heavy footsteps sounded, and the door was flung open from within, so that the most enthused eavesdropper of the lot stumbled forward, narrowly missing a kick from the headmaster’s boot. "And wot ‘appens, boys," Mallory bellowed to the hall, "when we lose count?"

"Start over! Double the strokes!" The door closed satisfactorily. "Don’t lose count!" Don’t complain. Don’t talk back. Give him what he wants… the unspoken words were a given. One sharp cry would usually do it, in some instances, tears. Some even got away with mere whimpers. Those were mostly female offenders, sent over from Mistress Dorwyn to receive greater punishment for their sins. Tom, however, was not one of those people.

At ten years old, it was easy to peg Tom as a victim. Bony wrists stuck out of too-small sleeves, and if you could hold him still long enough to pry his shirt off (as some of the older children were wont to do), you could count every one of his ribs and even some in between. His eyes were green and shadowed, and there seemed to be some sort of flame burning just behind them, the only thing that kept him alive.

And it was true, Tom was a strange child, and strange things happened around him. Glass shattered. Furniture flew. Valuables went missing that had been there moments before. If any child was suspected to be a poltergeist, it was Tom, though Master Mallory—AKA the "Mad Hatter"—insisted that there was some reasonable explanation for all of it. And even if he was or wasn’t, it didn’t really make a difference. It just meant that the beatings were harsher, the "discipline" sessions longer, and the guilt-tokens more lavish. Everyone got guilt-tokens—but when you had nothing to begin with, everything was never enough. Though Tom had a tendency to endear himself to the younger orphans by sharing the spoils, no one ever quite forgave him for being Mallory’s favorite. The orphanage followed a strict disciplinary cycle: beatings, followed by gifts, followed by love, followed by the inevitable disobedience. But Master Nathaniel Mallory loved them all in his own way. No one else knew what he was like when they were alone together. Of that, each boy was certain.

"And that’s the last o’ it, ye pulin’ bastard. That shoul’ teach ye t’ steal ink fer personal use! Now get out o’ me sight, boy, and don’t ye neglect your chores neither!" Tom was ushered out of the door, pulling his shirt over his head as he hurried past the line. His back was a bloody mess of welts and opened scars that had just begun to heal over. "Right then!" Mallory bellowed even louder from within. "Who’s next?"

The line shuffled ahead, and moved forward, and the counting began once again as if Tom had never been there.

* * * * *

Tom hurried swiftly down the hall, ignoring the pain in his back and the half-sympathetic, half-smug gazes of his peers. His chores were much simpler than those of the other boys, instead of having to gather firewood in the park or taking care of the horses, he merely had to clean the chimney. It was a demeaning job for a child who placed so much pride in his personal appearance, especially on the days when he needed to impress someone, to curry favor, to escape the constant demands made on his person. He had been through eight orphanages in the past ten years, but his stay at this place was longer than most. If you didn’t get out, you ran away, and if you were caught, well, it wasn’t pretty. Both of Tom’s chores were distasteful to the other orphans—chimney sweep once a week, and until recently, tending graves. Now he faced a different task—something that placed him near the headmaster as much as possible. He did not relish the consequences, within his circle and without. True, one could survive on the favors of such a man, but one could also suffer at the hands of one’s classmates. And it wouldn’t be pretty. With a decisive step, he turned out one of the side doors of the house and into the blessed outdoors.

"Tom! Wait up!" There was a great huffing and puffing, and one of the more outgoing boys ran after him, giant book clutched precariously in hand. Owen Rhys was his name, and he had had parents once, but they had died in a freak automobile accident scant days before his tenth birthday, and he had found himself in the charge of the Mad Hatter, otherwise known as the eighth ring of hell. Yet somehow, he always seemed to keep his head above the water. Only Tom knew how he cried in the dark, and only Tom could brush those tears away. "Where are you going? There’s new mail! Don’t you want to come see before Baba Yaga or the Mad Hatter get there first?"

Tom shrugged. His back itched, but he didn’t scratch it. The blood was just beginning to congeal to the back of his shirt, and the healing process seemed to like woven materials. "He’ll be like all the others."

"No, it’s different this time, you’ll see," Owen answered mysteriously. "C’mon!"

Tom took a sharp detour off the cemetery path and followed Owen listlessly. New mail. It was a metaphor they used for new orphans. Inspection only took a few moments. That was the way they would determine whether or not the new child would survive. A swift kick in the stomach usually did the trick, and if not that, then there were…other…ways. Tom had had to suffer through a similar routine, and Owen too. Fortunately for Tom, he had been born under a lucky star. That was the only way to explain his consequent "resurrection" from such a beating.

They emerged from the deep pine shade of the park, Owen still carrying his book carefully, Tom alone even though they walked together, as if on a pedestal. Owen saw the figure first, a shaft of sunlight highlighting the boy like a slab of raw meat in the lions den. Owen dropped his books and broke into a dead run. He caught the boy by surprise with a swift punch in the stomach, followed by a kick in the ribs. Tom lingered behind. He wasn’t one to cheer at the first blood. Others would follow, and with them, the bloodlust would be appeased. He coughed. "Hold up, Owen. Leave some for the others."

"I want…to get…my share…in!" Owen huffed, employing the book as a bludgeoning object with ease. "I never…get enough…it’s my turn now!"

"Owen!" Tom snapped, encroaching upon them. The youngster wasn’t fighting back. A true show of weakness, if ever there was one. His clothes (or what was left of them) were of fine make, and his luggage lay scattered across the grounds. In a quiet voice, he ordered: "Let me have a go." If anyone could prompt a scream, Tom could. If you call them, they will come. Tom walked up to the new baggage and placed a single, decisive hand on his shoulder. Then he pressed in just where the bones met. Pressure points were his specialty. The figure writhed in his grasp, but made not a sound. Biting his lower lip, Tom pressed harder. Still nothing. "Fine, you bloody prat. Take this." And he slammed his small fist into the boy's groin. It did not have the desired effect. The boy, who seemed less boy-like now and more otherworldly, fell almost as if in slow motion to the ground and began to claw at the earth in a desperate manner. Tom and Owen looked on, non-perturbed.

"Do you think..." Owen trailed off, and tilted his head up towards the house. Nearly imperceptibly, Tom nodded. And then it began.

Joss came first, loping out of the house liked he owned the place, and he did. Dark and swarthy with those tinker's hands, no other boy dared mess with him. He lifted the "mail" up like a football and gave him a swift kick, and he sailed out across the grounds like a swallow in flight. Richard, the skinny one with the large dark eyes and length of dirty red hair, caught the child in his arms and cradled him there, like a baby, before removing a length of rope from his belt and tying him—her—it—upside down to the nearest tree. Then the medium sized boys emerged, each carrying their blunt weapon of choice--Murdoc, with a rock the size of his meaty fist, Luke, with his grimy club, and Tucker and Niall with their brass knuckles. And of course there were the younger boys, pouring pell-mell from the porch, too many to count, spilling across the playing ground like lemmings or rabbits, strange creatures whose eyes held a harmony of iniquity. Owen leapt into the fray, and Tom watched, as the boy swung to and fro between them like a bloodied rag doll. Murdoc's rock flew first and hit him in the arm, then Luke got a good swing in with his club, one hit for every boy as was the custom—one hit, so you'd better make it a good one. Some used teeth, others nails, Tom even saw one fellow using his hair.

"Enough." Tom let the word drop from his lips and linger in the sudden silence. They stared at him woodenly, as if half in a dream, and as he stepped forward, they scattered. Tom caught the malevolent look Richard sent his way before the elder vanished into the wood, and knew he would pay for this later. But regret it, no. Tom never regretted anything. Life was simpler that way. He meandered his way towards the body, and with a flick of his wrist, sent it toppling downwards. Kneeling in the hard-packed dirt, he turned the boy over on his side, and noticed that the snugly fitted cap had come somewhat askew. "But who is this? And what is here?" He muttered to himself, and gave the hat a good yank. Golden curls spilled across the grass to frame an angel's pointy face. It was a girl. And she was very, very, young. And in a few moments, if he was correct, she would be very, very dead. "Bollocks," Tom swore under his breath, and began to drag her into the shrubbery. I’m in for it now.

"Mummy...Mummy please..."

Tom looked down. Her eyes were open, a clear cerulean blue. There was blood steadily dribbling from her nose, and her lips were slightly parted. He watched her curiously, as if she might be able to tell him some secret of what it was to cross the Styx on Charon’s boat. And then she sat, half on her forearms, and began to retch, and it was black and red and congealed in great clumps, and she was hacking it up and out of her mouth, and it was all over his hands as he held her and held her until the hacking subsided and the blood continued to trickle and her eyes rolled back in her head and she was very, very beautiful all of a sudden, and very, very dead.

He brushed his fingertips down on her eyelids, but they stayed relentlessly open, so he pressed his lips to hers and sang the only song he knew as they exchanged the fare to the Underworld.

* * * * *

It was much later that he began to see her. First in the light filtering through the oaks, then in the shadows that seemed to collect in the corners of the dusty classroom, and later just behind him in the great mirror that hung in the south hall. He began to hear her—a trickling laugh that sounded like water running, soft footsteps behind him, a rustling in his sheets when there was no one else around. When he awoke, there was a depression in the pillow where her head had lain, and golden strands of hair caught between the teeth of his comb. Not even Owen had hair that shade of precious metal. Tom was not the only one who felt it—Joss had begun to wake up screaming in the night, and Richard hacked fitfully into his handkerchief when he thought no one could see. The younger boys had grown more vicious and unmanageable, and even Owen had developed a nasty little tick that made him jump at the drop of a pin. As for Tom, he was invariably, if unfortunately, the same. As the days stretched out wider, and the nights receded on their spindle, instead of growing into a not-so-repulsive little character, Tom began to shrink more into himself.

And instead of fading, the ghost began to take on substance.

 

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