Beyond the Pale

Part 15 —Interlude

Tuesday, 13 October 2009 22:00

“I’m going to tell Mama what you did when we get home, and boy are you ever going to be in trouble then, let me tell you!”

“Shut up, Thomas.”

“No. Why should I? You know you’re not allowed in those old mines. Mama and Papa said we couldn’t, and now you’re going home all covered in ghost rock dust and with your dress all messed up. You think Mama won’t know what you’ve been up to?

“Shut up, Thomas.”

“I just don’t see why I should get a whipping just ‘cause you didn’t mind what you were told,” Thomas said petulantly. “I always get punished too, when you do something bad.”

“Shut UP, Thomas!” Vicky turned on her younger brother, eyes blazing.

“Make me.” Thomas stuck out his lower lip in a defiant pout. “You know I’m right, anyway.”

“Fine.” Taking one step forward, Vicky grabbed a fistful of his black curls and yanked him toward her. “I. Said. Shut. UP!” With the last two words she boxed his ears soundly.

Her brother screamed and wriggled and cried, trying to loose her hold on his hair, to no avail. Although he was only a year younger than she, Thomas was small for his age, while Vicky had grown lean and wiry, and was tall for her eleven years. It was an edge she guessed she wouldn’t have for long, so she took advantage of it while she could. Thomas, on the other hand, was not as happy with the situation as it stood.

“I’m going to tell!” he howled, kicking at her ineffectually.

Vicky slapped him again, then shook him for good measure. “You do that,” she said, her tone surprisingly even. “I sure as hell won’t stop you. You go ahead and tell. But just remember: I’m still going to be around after Papa takes his belt to me, and I’ll make sure you regret telling on me for longer than you can imagine.” She shoved him away roughly, sending him sprawling on the dirt road, then strode off toward home.

Thomas watched her long braid bounce off her retreating back, then got to his feet and trailed after her, his face the picture of abject misery and woe, tear-stained and streaked with dirt. Victoria made sure not to look back at him, focussing only on her anger at the snot-nosed little brat. He’d sneaked after her after she had expressly told him to stay put, when she and her friends had gone off to the mines. He’d almost ruined her important rite of passage, too, the annoying little so-and-so.

Good thing he was too scared to follow too deep into the ghost rock mines, not that she could really blame him: the mines were spooky even in broad daylight, when a little bit of sunshine managed to trickly in sickly beams through the ventilation shafts. There were only trace amounts of the mineral left in the abandoned mines closest to town, but there were rich deposits further along, and the eerie wailing sound the ghost rock made when it burned could be heard almost a mile away, wafting and echoing thgough the empty shafts, causing the superstitious among the townfolk to mutter ominously about hauntings and damnation.

Vicky clenched her teeth and thought only about being angry at Thomas, using her indignation to push away the fear she’d felt in the mines, and to avoid thinking about the punishment that very certainly awaited her at hom. She took long strides, walking as fast as she could, brushing ineffectually at her dress with filthy hands, the nails ragged and black at the tips, wondering whether she’d be able to mend the tear near the hem. She’d managed to snag the fabric on a piece of jagged timber near an old cave-in. It had seemed exciting at the time: all the kids in the town went exploring in the mines when they were deemed ready by their peers. As a relative newcomer, Vicky had had to fight tooth and nail to win the regard of the other children, but now she was one of the youngest ever to be picked to “go mining,” and she was definitely the youngest girl ever to go in. She’d gone further in than any of the other kids, too: she’d made sure of that, and all the others were suitably impressed. She’d strutted and bragged for a while, as was her due, but now, somehow, it didn’t feel quite as wonderful as she’d supposed it would. Of course, her triumph had been somewhat marred by the appearance of her kid brother, who wasn’t even allowed to play with them at all, let alone go mining with them. Stupid crybaby.

She looked over her shoulder. Thomas had fallen further and further behind since they’d started walking. When she finally stopped he was almost thirty yards away, dragging his feet, head down, hands shoved deep into the pockets of his knickerbockers. In spite of everything, Vicky found herself relenting, just a little bit. After all, Thomas was, however unwillingly, her only ally in this business. Now that she had to go home and face the music, the priest’s daughter coming back looking as though she’d lost a fight with a pile of ghost rock, she found she wanted nothing more than to have someone she could count on standing by her.

“Come on,” she called out. “Try to keep up, wouldja? We have to be home before supper!”

Obediently he picked up his feet and trotted toward her, seemingly cheered by the slightly nicer tone she’d chosen to adopt. He caught up with her and she allowed him to take hold of her hand after a moment.

“You’re still gonna be in trouble, you know.”

“I know.”

“What’re you gonna do?”

“I don’t know. I’ll wait and see, I guess. A whipping’s not so bad. Papa won’t mind too much that I went in the mines. It’s Mama who’s going to be mad.”

She wasn’t wrong, either. As the two children tried to sneak past the kitchen unnoticed, their mother’s voice came at them like the lash of a whip.

“Victoria Anne James! Just where do you think you’re going?”

There was nothing for it now. Vicky and Thomas stopped in their tracks and stared very hard at the floor, hoping that it might open up and swallow them before things got too awful.

“Just look at the state of you!” Elizabeth James towered over them, hands on her hips, shaking her head in disbelief. “What on Earth have you been doing? Oh, don’t tell me: you’ve been in the mines, after we expressly told you never to go there. I’d recognize that dust a mile away. Honestly, Vicky, it’s bad enough you disobeyed, but to drag your little brother with you?”

Vicky looked up, her face a mask of indignation. “I never-” she sputtered, but her mother interrupted her before she had time to fully formulate the protest.

“I don’t want to hear it! You’ve likely ruined that dress, although let me tell you, you’re not going to be let off that easily: you’ll be mending it before the week is out, so help me. Let me see your hands.” Obediently both children presented their hands, backs and palms, for her inspection. “Filthy, of course.” She sighed. “Your father will be home in half an hour. You will both do me the great pleasure of marching yourselves upstairs and getting out of those disgusting clothes. I’ll have bathwater waiting for you down here. There isn’t time to heat it, so you’ll just have to bathe in cold water, and serve you right, as far as I’m concerned. Now, march!”

They marched.

It took some doing, but they were both presentable by the time their father came home, shedding his cloak and clerical collar near the front door. The two children had decided wisely to stay in their rooms until their mother had vented most of her wrath, and they could hear her now, explaining in a hushed tone everything that had transpired to her husband. After a few minutes, they could hear their father chuckling softly, and they allowed themselves to relax. After a minute their mother joined in, and they knew that, whatever came next, it wouldn’t be as bad as they’d feared.

“All right, you two. I know you’re eavesdropping up there, so you may as well come down. And I warn you: eavesdroppers never hear anything they want to,” their mother scolded.

Vicky went first, Thomas hiding behind her, just in case their parents were angrier than they seemed. They shuffled forward uncertainly until they stood side by side, facing their father. Vicky stared up into his face, wondering when it was exactly that he’d started to look so tired. It was when they’d moved away from Chicago, she thought, to live out here in the Maze. The Maze was a hard place for anyone to live in, let alone a priest with four children, although John and Michael were grown and gone now, working in the mines along with the other men in the town.

“What’s this, then?” Peter James looked sternly at his children. “I hear you’ve been sneaking off to play in the abandoned mineshafts. Is this true?”

Vicky and Thomas shuffled their feet and said nothing.

Their father sighed. “A lie of omission is just as grave as an outright lie. I ask you again: is this true?”

“Yes, father,” Vicky whispered, her throat suddenly tight.

“Well, I suppose you already know how disappointed I am to hear that, Victoria. And you ought to know better than to involve your brother in your shenanigans. He’s younger, and it’s your duty to make sure he doesn’t come to any harm.”

“Yes, father.” She didn’t have the heart to protest anymore.

“You’ll be punished, you understand. After dinner.”

She nodded, feeling a lump rise in her throat, her eyes stinging. The gentle reproof was somehow worse than any tongue-lashing her mother might dole out.

As if sensing her dismay, her father smiled. “I know you want your freedom, Vicky, and I don’t want to curb your enthusiasm for exploring, but those mines are extremely dangerous. There could be a cave-in, or you might fall down a shaft, and we would never know where to find you.” Victoria said nothing, although privately she was convinced that she would never be so stupid as to have an accident in the mine. Her father sighed again. “Well, let’s leave aside that unpleasantness for the moment, shall we? I don’t know about you, but I’m famished!”

Dinner was a solemn affair. The two children were silent, hoping to avoid further punishment, although their father seemed to have his mind on matters far removed from the wayward habits of his two youngest. Their mother, too, seemed preoccupied, but that was probably because her husband was worried. Whenever he had something on his mind, she worried as well.

As Vicky enlisted Thomas to help clear the dishes, without so much as being told (this being a time-honoured method of trying to lighten punishments), the front door slammed open with such force that it rebounded off the wall and nearly came off its hinges, and a man burst in, pistol in hand. He was dressed shabbily, but not in the usual clothes of the local miners. Victoria recognized him as a man who’d been in town for a few months at the outside, and who’d come a few times to their church, asking her father for help. He looked even more desperate than ever now, his eyes rolling wildly in his head, his gun hand waving wildly.

“Father!” he cried out, “Please! They’re coming for me. You have to help me!”

The whole family had sprung to their feet at the first commotion, and now Peter James turned a look on his children that brooked no argument.

“Victoria, take your brother upstairs to your room. Now. Elsie, I would be obliged if you would make sure they do go.”

“But Peter...” their mother began, but he interrupted.

“Please Elsie, now.”

Feeling the colour drain from her face, Vicky took Thomas by the hand and led him up the stairs. Thomas was crying, although he was trying not to let it show. Their mother hustled them into their bedroom, and the three of them stood in the open doorway, listening to the stranger’s anguished tones, pleading incoherently while their father’s soothing voice came and went like the pull of the tide. Vicky strained to hear what was being said, but to no effect. She clung to her mother’s skirt, willing herself not to tremble.

Suddenly there was more shouting, and the sound of footsteps on the front porch. Vicky heard her father cry out -a protest or a warning, she would never be sure- and suddenly a shot rang out, echoing harshly in the night air. Several more shots followed, accompanied by shouting and cursing, and a thin cry that was abruptly choked off. With a hoarse cry, Vicky’s mother gathered her skirts and rushed to the stairs.

“Peter!”

Victoria turned to Thomas. “You stay here!” she said fiercely, pushing him inside the bedroom and shutting the door, bolting it from the outside the way her parents did when they were punishing Vicky and Thomas. She ran after her mother, taking the stairs two at a time, and stopped before she reached the bottom. Her mother was sobbing, pulling at her father who lay motionless on the floor, his eyes empty and staring, a red stain blossoming on his white shirt. At his feet lay the young man who’d burst in, it seemed an eternity ago, the top of his head missing, spilling gore onto the floor.

Screams filled the air, and Vicky wished whoever it was would just be quiet, just for one minute, until she realized the screams were coming from her own throat.

*****