Darkest Hour (Cutler 5)

"Niles. Oh God, no. Niles."

Papa released me and I crumpled at his feet. He stood there looking down at me.

"I'm sure you're lying about what went on here between you and him, too," he said, nodding. "I'll drive the devil out of your soul," Papa muttered. "I promise, I'll drive him out. We will start your penance today." He pivoted and marched to the door. When he opened it, he turned back.

"Emily and I," he declared, "will drive the devil out. So help me God."

He left me sobbing on the floor.

I lay there for hours, my ear to the floor, listening to the sounds below, hearing the muffled voices and the movements, feeling the vibrations. I imagined I was a fetus, still in her mother's womb, her ear against the membrane wall, picking up the sounds of the world that awaited, every syllable, every tap, every note something to wonder about; only unlike a fetus, I had memories. I knew that the tinkle of a dish or a glass meant the dinner table was being set, a gruff voice meant Papa was giving an order. I recognized most everyone's footsteps outside my door and knew when Emily was parading by, her Bible in hand, her lips following some prayer. I listened hard for some sound that suggested Mamma, but there was none.

When Vera came up to my room, she found me still on the floor. She released a small cry and put the tray down.

"What are you doing, Miss Lillian? Come on now, get up from there." She helped me to my feet.

"Your father has commanded that you be given only bread and water tonight, but I slipped a piece of cheese under the plate," she said, winking.

I shook my head.

"If Papa says only bread and water, that's all I'm to have. I'm doing penance," I told Vera. My voice was unfamiliar, even to me. It seemed to come from another me, a smaller Lillian living within a bigger one. "I am a sinner; I am a curse."

"Oh no you're not, dear."

"I am a Jonah, a Jezebel." I took out the piece of cheese and handed it back to her.

"Poor thing," she muttered, shaking her head. She took the cheese and left me.

I drank my water and nibbled on my bread and then went to my knees and recited the Fifty-first Psalm. I repeated it until my throat ached. It grew darker so I lay down and tried to sleep, but shortly afterward, the door opened and Papa entered. He turned on my lamps and I looked to the doorway to see he had been followed by an elderly woman from Upland Station I recognized to be Mrs. Coons. She was a midwife who had delivered dozens and dozens of babies in her time and still did so even though some said she was close to ninety.

She had very thin gray hair, so thin a good part of her scalp was visible. Over her lips, a dark line of gray hair had emerged and looked as distinct as a man's mustache. Her face was thin with a long, narrow nose and sunken cheeks, but her dark eyes remained big, even looking bigger because of the way her cheeks had sunken and the bone of her forehead protruded against her paper-thin, wrinkled and spotted pale skin. Her lips were as slim as pencils, but dull pink.

She was a small woman, not much taller than a young girl, with very bony arms and bony hands. It was hard to believe she ever had the strength to urge a baby into this world and certainly much harder to believe she could do it now.

"There she is," Papa said, nodding at me. "Go to it."

I cowered back in my bed as Mrs. Coons approached, her small, bony shoulders turned down, her head tilted toward me. Her eyes narrowed, but her gaze was piercing. She scrutinized my face and then nodded.

"Maybe so," she said. "Maybe so."

"You let Mrs. Coons look you over," Papa ordered. "What do you mean, Papa?"

"She's gonna tell me what went on here last night," he said. My eyes widened. I shook my head.

"No, Papa. I didn't do anything bad. Really, I didn't."

"You don't expect any of us to believe you now, do you, Lillian?" he asked. "Don't make this harder for everyone," he advised. "If I have to, I'll hold you down," he threatened.

"What are you going to do, Papa?" I looked at Mrs. Coons and my heart began to pound because I knew the answer. "Please, Papa," I moaned. My tears came quickly, hot, burning tears. "Please," I begged.

"Do as she says," Papa ordered.

"Pull up your skirt," Mrs. Coons demanded. She was missing most of her teeth and those that remained were dark gray. Her tongue flickered in between them. It looked moist brown, like a piece of rotting wood.

"Do it!" Papa snapped.

My shoulders shaking with my sobs, I raised my skirt to my waist.

"You can look away," Mrs. Coons said to Papa. I felt her fingers, fingers as cold and as hard as spikes, take hold of my panties and her nails scratch my skin as she drew them down over my knees and down my ankles. "Raise your knees up," she said.