It was clear to Omie that her mother had been made sad by Leo, and she could not understand why this should be so. She tried many times to creep inside her stepfather’s mind to seek out the reason, but was unable to penetrate his skull. There had been a time when she was able to read his emotions, and sometimes his actual thoughts, but that time was gone, and Omie received from Leo’s head nothing more illuminating than a general aura of darkness and ill temper. Some people wore their thoughts like fantastic hats, but Leo was not that kind, not anymore.
Omie often pushed herself inside her mother’s head, there to examine the colors of her mood, which generally were of a beautiful but melancholy purple. Omie would sprinkle vivid yellow everywhere in an effort to create happiness, and sometimes the purple landscape of Zoe’s interior self did brighten in response, but not to the extent Omie desired. Zoe must be sad indeed to feel so purple, and those thoughts which she could receive from her mother told Omie it was Leo who was responsible for them. He was purpling Zoe by way of his deliberate neglect, and it was not something Omie would have expected of him. When Leo had married her mother, Omie knew him to be a nice man, who treated them both with courtesy and affection, but that had been when they were poor, living in the cabin Leo and his friends had built. Now that they lived in what was probably the biggest house in the world, Leo was a changed man, and life was less happy than before.
Because Omie could not bring herself to punish Leo for what he was doing to Zoe, she directed her annoyance instead toward the huge lady who lived downstairs, the big boss lady of the house who told the servants to put back in place the various articles of furniture moved by Omie during her episodes of telekinesis. Omie did this less often now, because it wasn’t fair to make the servants have to undo what she had done; if she still felt the inclination to make things move, she usually restored them to their original positions before turning to other avenues of amusement. The latest of these was her stalking of Mrs. Scoville.
Most of the fun lay in knowing her prey was already afraid of her. Mrs. Scoville was the type who projected her thoughts around her like coach lanterns, simple and direct, but without much brilliance or penetration. In earlier days Omie had ignored the flashes of fear that reached her from downstairs, because she had become used to similar feelings from the various servants who came and went; but the fear that came from Mrs. Scoville was of a different nature than most; for one thing, it was much stronger, so strong it made Omie feel a little sick, as if she herself were afraid of some nighttime monster lurking beneath the bed or in the shadows of her closet. Was that how Mrs. Scoville saw her? Omie was mortified at first, and avoided the downstairs region if she possibly could manage, rather than cause another black wave of revulsion to sweep across her from below.
Now, when the Brannans were less happy than they were, and Omie wished to punish Leo for it but could not, since she still nursed a liking for him, she decided that the target for her feelings of thwarted requital should be Mrs. Scoville. It wasn’t fair that Omie was considered a horrible monster by a woman who hadn’t spoken so much as a word to her since the day she came to take charge of things. Omie would show her.
She began by probing the mind of her enemy for thoughts that might be of tactical use in the campaign, but the few images Omie was able to glean through wood and lathe and plaster were not very interesting, and certainly had nothing to do with her. The most powerful picture to emerge was of a bag filled with money, and the next was of a large house with Mrs. Scoville standing in the doorway as if she owned it. The two things were linked somehow, but Omie could not quite see why, so she dismissed them, and searched for more evidence of fear directed at herself. It had been some time since she had been anywhere near the woman, so her fear was slight at the moment, a kind of background noise, like the humming of bees on a summer day. Omie would fix that.
The first inkling Mrs. Scoville had that she had become the target of the imp was when she found her bed turned around. It was aligned with the corner walls as usual, but turned completely around. Mrs. Scoville’s puzzlement was replaced in an instant by panic over her money bag, and she hurriedly dropped to her knees beside the reversed bed to flail beneath it with her hands. The bag was there, and a hasty tally reassured her that not a single dollar was missing. Holding a plump hand over her palpitating chest, Mrs. Scoville asked herself how this inexplicable thing might have occurred, and did not need to think for more than a few seconds to know the culprit was Omie. The imp had declared war, for reasons Mrs. Scoville could not discern, having no means of understanding the ways of the damned. She would be on her guard from that moment; Satan’s minion would not drive her from the most lucrative position she had known, not before the two thousand dollars she had promised herself were siphoned off.
The staff were aware of a change in Mrs. Scoville, and discussed it among themselves only when sure they were not within her hearing. She had of late begun to look over her shoulder, as if anticipating the appearance of someone there. Who that someone might be was made obvious when Omie presented herself in the kitchen doorway one morning, while Mrs. Scoville was delivering instructions to the cook for the midday and evening meals. Mrs. Scoville suddenly broke off her brisk directive and turned around. When she saw Omie just a few yards away, the girl’s mottled face staring in her direction, Mrs. Scoville gasped several times, as if her throat had closed itself off, and she took several steps backward, away from Omie, until she bumped into the cook’s table, still producing the gasping sound that could clearly be heard by the several persons there, since all other activity had ceased by then. Mrs. Scoville’s performance was witnessed in its entirety, and would become the latest talking point among the servants, a fact Mrs. Scoville was aware of even before Omie left the doorway and allowed air to pass again through the throat of her target. Mrs. Scoville was able to tell the cook, “Just … do as I said …” before sinking to the floor in a dead faint.
Omie was well pleased at the reaction she had brought about, although she missed its startling end. Tomorrow, or even as soon as that afternoon, she would do something else to make the big woman uncomfortable. Omie went to her room and lay down on the bed to think of some suitable torment, and felt a kind of breeze pass across her skin. The windows were closed, and Omie knew it was no movement of air that caused her skin to dimple into goose bumps; this had happened many times before, and she prepared herself for what was to follow by relaxing her body; it was preferable that these moments of psychic possession (she called them “dream-awakes”) should come when she was alone, and in a comfortable place, but this did not often happen, so Omie was particularly glad on this occasion to allow the forces that visited her to do as they wished.
First there came a darkness, encroaching slowly from the periphery of her vision, as if the walls of her room were being blackened by soot, and when the area around her was almost completely dark, Omie felt the approach of something as unlike that darkness as noon is from midnight. It was glowing, this thing that came nearer, shining with a golden light of great beauty and restfulness. Omie expected it would be an angel, when fully revealed, but she was unable to turn her head and see. The golden light was much closer now, and she felt a sluggish excitement run through her numbed body at the prospect of seeing her first otherworldly entity, a being she felt would resemble closely the divine beings she had seen represented in illustrated Bibles and religious works of art.
To her surprise, the golden creature entering her room was no angel, was not even remotely human in appearance. It was an elk, massive and proud, and it carried atop its powerful head and neck a rack of antlers so tall they brushed the ceiling, an impossible aggregation of curved surfaces and scallopings no real elk could have supported. The antlers, all of their myriad twistings and twinings, glowed with the intensity of fire, limning the structure with a luminosity so fierce Omie expected to see it burst into flame, but like the burning bush of Moses, this crown only became brighter as she watched, and was not consumed by it
s own brilliance. The elk strode with purpose before her eyes, then stopped and slowly turned its great head until both eyes, shining like diamonds, directed their gaze into hers, and the elk said to Omie, “I am brought by you from beneath the earth, and am yours forever.” Omie wished to speak, to acknowledge that she understood, but no words would come, and when the elk approached her, searing her eyes with its brightness, she still could not move or speak, and when the elk lay down upon her with its body, she felt the air pressed from her lungs by its weight, and the blackness surrounding it closed in around her head like a hangman’s sack.
Mrs. Scoville had almost recovered herself, and was being particularly brutal with the servants to make restitution for having been seen in circumstances of embarrassing weakness. If she allowed them to think for one moment that her fainting fit meant she required assistance, or that she was in any way grateful for the inquiries after her health, they would never respect her again, so Mrs. Scoville flung a blizzard of instructions around herself like a fence of thorns, and sent all the servants on their way to carry out her orders before herself retiring to her room for a bracing mouthful or two of Dr. Cazaubon’s Nostrum, a heady elixir she resorted to only under extreme duress. Dr. Cazaubon’s potent remedy for almost anything soothed Mrs. Scoville to the pit of her ample stomach, and temporarily put at ease all fears for her soul. The imp had challenged her outright, and caused her considerable distress, but Mrs. Scoville was made of sturdier stuff than could be broken by such tactics. She was in fact more concerned for her potential loss of standing among the servants than she was by Omie’s attack upon her.
It was not until Omie did not present herself for the lunch she customarily shared with her mother that Zoe began to wonder if Omie was well; her daughter almost never missed their midday meal together. After waiting a short while for her to appear, Zoe went to Omie’s room, knocked and entered, and found Omie apparently asleep. A closer look revealed the shallowest of breathing, and Omie’s face had the pallor of wax. Most disturbing of all were the staring eyes, fixed on the ceiling above her bed. Zoe spoke her name and shook her several times, but Omie’s state did not change at all, and Zoe became worried. She slapped her daughter’s face lightly, and when this action brought no response, Zoe emptied flowers from a vase beside the bed and threw the water directly into Omie’s face, again without result.
Convinced by then that Omie had fallen into some dangerous and unnatural trance, Zoe rushed for help, first issuing instructions for her carriage and team to be made ready, then shouting for the stablehand to exercise his brawn in carrying the unconscious Omie downstairs. The stablehand was brought along to hold Omie steady while Zoe whipped her palominos along the winding road that led downhill to Glory Hole. Traffic and pedestrians in the crowded streets were obliged to move smartly aside as Zoe’s carriage careened among them, her horses frothing, Zoe’s whip stinging their rumps as she forced a way through the throng to reach the office of Dr. Phillip Gannett.
When Omie had been laid carefully on the sofa in his antechamber, Dr. Gannett examined her swiftly, and declared himself nonplussed. “I can’t give a name to the condition, Mrs. Brannan, but her pulse is steady and her breathing regular, if weak. It seems to be some kind of narcoleptic state, but the cause is unfamiliar to me, and the cure. Have you attempted to revive her with smelling salts?”
“No.”
Dr. Gannett tried this and several other remedies before achieving success with the simple application of a boiled candy to Omie’s tongue. The doctor was addicted to these, and kept a supply in his desk, and the transformation wrought by the sweetness of the morsel as he touched it to the tongue protruding from Omie’s pinched-open lips was immediate; she began to suck at the candy, and her eyes lost their fixated staring. She looked about herself with some puzzlement, but was reassured by the presence of her mother, and of Dr. Gannett, a familiar figure to Omie, since it was he who had attended Zoe during each of her truncated pregnancies.
“Butterscotch,” said Omie.
“Yes indeed,” said the doctor, “and would you care for another?”
“Yes, please. Why is Cameron here?” she asked, looking across at the room at the stablehand.
“Cameron carried you,” Zoe explained.
“What for? I’m too big for carrying.”
“You fell asleep and we couldn’t wake you up.”
“That’s silly.”
“Perhaps, but that is what happened.”
Omie would not talk about the subject as she was driven home, nor did she want any food, and the postponed luncheon was carried away to the kitchen, where the servants devoured it, since Mrs. Scoville was nowhere in sight to insist that they save the ingredients for a later meal. It was unlike Mrs. Scoville to be absent from her duties for more than a few minutes, and the unusual nature of the morning’s events was discussed at length, and a connection between them openly debated.
The topic was abruptly laid to rest when Mrs. Scoville appeared suddenly and demanded to know why so many lazy individuals were gathered in one place, the only part of their anatomies in motion their jaws. When she was told of Omie’s mysterious seizure, Mrs. Scoville’s cantankerous mood softened, and she requested more information than could adequately be provided, but the servants were not chastised for that, and were grateful to be sent about their business without further reprimand.
Mrs. Scoville sat to ponder the meaning of what she had learned. Could it be that the imp had become ill as a result of her insults to Mrs. Scoville? Was God on the side of the righteous, and letting her know? It did not seem impossible. Mrs. Scoville was thrilled. Just let the little demon try something like that again, shifting beds around and staring daggers at innocent folk; just let her try, and God would strike her dead. Omie had been warned, but it was in the nature of evil to ignore God’s injunctions, so she would probably go ahead and earn for herself the ultimate punishment, and good riddance, thought Mrs. Scoville.
Word was passed around Elk House that evening of Omie’s relapse into a mildly feverish state that held both parents to her bedside. Mrs. Scoville kept herself apprised of the latest bulletins concerning Omie’s condition, and was disappointed that it did not worsen. By bedtime, after Dr. Gannett had come and gone without being able to prescribe anything for his patient beyond warmth and fluids and a close watch through the night, Mrs. Scoville had become quite testy, but did her best not to display this.
She went so far as to venture upstairs, astounding herself with her own bravery, and was gratified to sense no danger at all from the imp’s end of the south wing. The Lord was lending her a tiny part of his great strength, allowing Mrs. Scoville to penetrate the enemy’s lair without so much as a twinge. She was a little taken aback to find herself suddenly confronted by Leo Brannan, and managed to blurt out, “A terrible thing, sir, just terrible …” but he merely nodded and hurried away down the corridor to his own rooms. Mrs. Scoville, convinced she had accomplished something of importance, took herself away to bed and prayed mightily to her God, thanking Him for smiting the creature ailing upstairs, and for having given his loyal and true servant hope for permanent relief from the presence of the same. As she tucked the blankets around herself, Mrs. Scoville felt more at peace with the world than she could remember ever feeling.
It was the hall clock that woke her, the mahogany grandfather standing like an upright coffin, with its sonorous chimes that seemed to reverberate throughout the house. Mrs. Scoville counted two strokes, but allowed she might have missed any that preceded them. It became important to her that she know the time of night, so she threw aside her covers and went to the mantel clock ticking quietly across the room. Three o’clock. She had missed only the first stroke after all. Satisfied, she turned away from the clock, and that is when she saw the man in the corner, and felt her heart begin a wild galloping that threatened to carry it from her chest.
He was very tall and thin, and wore a long dark coat that bore the aspect of drooping wings, raven blac
k. His shoulders were less broad than the brim of his hat, also black, which hid from her a face she knew was horrible, even in shadow, because the face of the man was transfixed by a golden arrow that impaled both cheeks like some exquisite device of torture from the days of old. Then Mrs. Scoville knew her visitor for who he was, and her annoyance that God would allow so gross a violation of her bedroom was almost of a quality to stifle her fear, but it could not, and Mrs. Scoville’s heart galloped away from the dark man in the corner, so far away it left Mrs. Scoville without anything to pump her chilled blood, and so she died, vaguely aware, as she slid to the floor for the second time in twenty-four hours, that a tremendous injustice was being perpetrated by unknown forces against which God had no recourse but to absent Himself and hide within the grandfather clock, there to issue His doleful warning of what was to follow.