My bedroom - for I supposed that even in the brief time I'd been in Damian's house it had indeed become "mine" - was somewhat changed when I returned to it, still wrapped in the towel from my bath. The broken glass and spilled soup had been cleaned up, the glass shade upon the light was replaced. There was a small pile of garments folded on the chest of drawers, and a vase of blooming white magnolias sat on the bedside table. I was taken aback, and Damian was as well. He paused for a moment, as I looked about in the confusion, then he smiled softly.
"Rachel works quickly," he said.
"Rachel did all this?" I inspected the clothing lying folded on the drawers, and realized it was a pale gray dress and a loose cotton nightgown. They both seemed just about my size, and I could only assume these were Rachel's clothes as well. "How could she...she can't have...forgiven me already. Why would she do something so kind?"
"Because you and Rachel were not so different once," he said. "But her story isn't mine to tell. You'll have to ask her." I felt his eyes on me as I let the towel drop and slipped the nightgown over my head. The fabric was blessedly soft; I immediately adored the feeling of it brushing against my tender backside. When I turned, Damian hurriedly looked elsewhere. It was precious, in a way, how hesitant he was to allow me to see his interest. Yet he'd had so little shame in putting me over his knee.
"Damian," I began slowly. "Thank you...for everything...I suppose I'm...I'm sorry for how I acted earlier. No one has ever tried to help me before."
"I wish the circumstances had developed differently," he said. "I don't blame you for having been upset. I hope - truly hope - that I can help you. That we can end this, what's been done to you. Tomorrow I'll be writing to my grandmother. She's a far more capable exorcist than I. With her strength and mine, I believe we may find a way to stop this: to close the gateway that has been opened in you. And banish Legion." He smiled, nervous and uncertain. His eyes were still reddened. My mind was swimming with all that he had shared with me, the intimate memories he had trusted me with. And I was practically still a stranger...
I took a seat slowly on the bed, taking in the sweet smell of the magnolias. "Before you go, I want to tell you what happened after the wedding. Well, after...after I killed Richard."
He looked surprised, but nodded and stepped further into the room, closing the door behind him. After all he had been willing to divulge to me, my final admissions were weighing heavily on my mind. Words I had never uttered to anyone...memories only shared with the demons in my head. I exhaled shakily.
"I fled the chapel covered in his blood."
I was fortunate that no snow was falling that day, but it had in the days previous. The air was frigid even with the sun out. Everywhere I stepped I left pinkish stains in the pristine white snow. I had wrapped myself in my coat, but even that barely obscured the dark red stains on the hem of my dress. I kept my head down. I prayed that no one would recognize me.
I had barely reached the edge of town when I heard the bells at the church begin to toll. Rapid, incessant, their clanging meant only one thing: the alarm was being sounded. Soon enough folk would emerge from their homes to gather at the church. Word would spread. The watchmen would be sent out on horseback, dogs released from their kennels to track my scent, search parties would begin the hunt. My heart thundered in my chest. I could barely breath.
The road was not safe, but nor was the woods. My tracks would be all too evident in the thick snow. I had begun to panic. The world seemed to move like a kaleidoscope around me, and I had to stop in the middle of the road, clutching my belly lest the little food I had eaten for breakfast that day come up again. Waves of hot and cold washed over me. I couldn't stop shaking.
The winnie of a horse made me stand upright in alarm. A wagon, pulled by a single bay mare and driven by an old woman was coming up behind me. To run from the road would only look suspicious now; I couldn't avoid detection. So I stepped aside, put my head down, and hoped she would pass in silence.
Much to my horror, she stopped the wagon.
"It's not a day to be out walking on your lonesome, girl," the woman said, her voice coarse as the roughly hewn wooden pipe in her mouth. I pulled my coat more tightly about myself, hiding both the bloodstains and the cleaver tucked into my belt. The old woman narrowed her eyes as she looked me up and down. "What's your business out here?"
"My own," I said quickly. The old woman chuckled, shaking her head.
"Aye, right you are, it is your own. But there's nothing north here along the road for 20 miles. You think you'll walk all that way? Clouds are moving in." She nodded at the thick expanse of gray clouds on the horizon. Doubtlessly they would be upon me before nightfall. I didn't need to go 20 miles to the next township...
"How far to the crossroads?" I said.
"8 miles," the woman replied. "Though you won't make it there before the watchmen find you."
Her words cut to my core, shaking me. She saw my fear, and slapped her hand against the back of her cart. "Hop up, girl. Your business is your own, but a girl wandering about with a bloodstained wedding dress poorly hidden under her coat is dreadfully obvious. I'll take you to the crossroads."
I did not know whether or not I could trust her - but I had little choice. The back of the cart was laden with beaver furs, trimmed and tanned. She instructed me to bury myself beneath them. Nestled under the thick furs, the numbness that had begun in my fingers and toes quickly dissipated. Even the smell was of little consequence to me. I heard her whip the reins, and the cart began to lurch over the muddied road.
All I knew for a time was the smell of beaver fur and my own filthy clothes. I could not rest, and my muscles ached from tension. My mind was racing. The sight of Richard's insides spilling out played over and over again in my mind. But so too did the feeling of his hands forcing themselves on me, gripping me.
And my belly, ever-swelling, ever my reminder of that pain. Of my shame, of my horror. But I shook as I wrapped my hands around it and imagined: what if I didn't? What if I did not go to James Carnickey? I had the little money I had scraped together to pay him...it was perhaps enough to rent a room...perhaps...
A room, but no food. A room for a month, but no longer. Who would hire me with a swelling belly? Who would care for a squalling babe as I worked? How could I feed their mouth and my own? How could I hide when they would search for me?
I thought of the gallows they had built in the town square the year I turned 13: the only time I had ever born witness to an execution. My father had forced my mother and I to go even though mama said it was gruesome and horrid. He'd claimed it would be good for me to witness "the Lord's justice." The prisoner to be hanged was a woman who had confessed to killing her husband. Everyone had turned out, men, women, and children. There was seldom something so exciting in quiet Lily Dale, even though the murder had taken place just beyond the town, in a little farmstead beside the river. The woman had said nothing as she was led up the gallows. She was in her late 20's I guessed, and had never borne children. The rumor was she was barren, that she could give her husband no sons and that was why he beat her. "Men are rough with their tempers, a woman should know that," was the whisper of an elder woman nearby. "The Lord shall reward the meekness of a woman."
And women who were not meek...were punished.
She strangled at the end of the rope. Her eyes swelled and her mouth hung slack and piss ran down her legs. And papa didn't let me look away.
If they caught me, I too would swing. But they would have the child born first, have me wait in a cell for seven long months until they could snatch it from my arms and have it grow up likely with my own parents, to be raised in the same way, to be taught the same lessons.
I clenched my hands until my nails dug into my own flesh. I had made my choice. God had already damned me.
I had made my choice.
The elderly woman left me at the crossroads as she had promised. "Safe travels, girl," she said. "May you find peace."
"Thank you," I said. I held out a coin, though I knew I could not truly spare it. "You didn't have to help me...it's all I can spare." But she whipped the reins and waved good-bye, leaving me standing there with the coin in my hand.
From the crossroads I was to walk east for a mile, until I reached a small path north into the woods. There were no more open fields here: the pale barren aspens grew close on either side of the dirt road, creating an illusion where one could not be sure where the snow ended and the trees began. I clutched the small bit of paper on which a village woman had written the directions to find the doctor's house. My stomach was in knots. The daylight was growing dim and dusk would be upon me soon. The storm clouds loomed ever closer.
The path into the woods was unmarked: had I not been looking closely, I would have missed it. It was so narrow that at first I was not even sure it could be the way at all. But it widened as I made my way upon it. The trees creaked around me, their boughs heavy with the weight of snow. The hem of my dress was soaked and my shoes were ruined. The cleaver felt ever heavier.
Suddenly, deep within the trees, I caught sight of a dark structure. It became more evident the closer I came: a house two stories tall, newly built but mimicking the style of the humble old farmhouses with a wrapping porch and beautiful gables. It had dark wood panels and looked starkly foreboding against the whiteness of its surroundings. An navy blue automobile, by far the nicest I had ever beheld, was parked in a little garage to the side of the house. There had to be another road away from this place, for an auto like that would never fit down the little path I had come upon.
On the porch, I nearly turned back. Panic seized me again and my hand shook, poised to knock on the door. But I steeled my resolve. I couldn't turn back. I had nowhere to go.
The door opened mere moments after I knocked upon it, as if someone had already been waiting there for me. For the first time, I laid eyes on Doctor James Carnickey.