Cursed Be the Child (2 page)

Is it scary? Yes. But unlike many of the novels being published around the time of its initial appearance in 1990, the scare factor of
Cursed Be The Child
is not built upon a foundation of violence, cheap shocks, terror, and gore; it is built, rather, on the foundation of something that is still in danger of being left by the wayside if the next generation of horror writers aren’t careful: dread. Simple, powerful, irreplaceable dread. The threat of the horror you cannot see; the implications of what might be happening; the unconfirmed suspicion, the sudden silence from a child’s room, the aching fear that you might be losing control of parts of your character that you’d rather not think about.

Dread.

This novel is full of dread, and as a result, is one of the most genuinely suspenseful horror novels I’ve read in years. Without giving anything away, I will tell you that about mid-way through this novel, there is a sequence where Warren Barringer, one of the major characters in this book, goes out by himself to shop at a mall. In and of itself, doesn’t sound like much; but by the time you reach this sequence you are not going to want to accompany him on this little trip, and why?

Because you dread what might happen.

This novel is filled with dread, yes, but it’s also filled with some pleasant surprises; for once, we have a television evangelist in a horror novel who is not a hypocritical, self-righteous caricature—he is, in fact, a man of great humility and integrity; we have an “avenging spirit” who is uncomfortably sympathetic; we have a refreshingly low body count—only one person dies in the first 34 pages; we have a husband and wife who are trying to repair their marriage after the wife’s affair, and for once this painful and ugly process of healing is not presented in easy short-hand so the reader can pretend that such pain doesn’t exist—it’s depicted with all the anger, regret, and sorrow of the best of Raymond Carver’s work, and shares Carver’s tough sensibilities about how people react when confronting the reality of betrayal.

And there is an absolutely stunning sleight-of-hand that occurs about 2/3 of the way through, wherein we are jolted from the flow of the narrative and suddenly transported back to Auschwitz in the company of a young Polish Jew named Stefan Grinzspan, a man who has never been mentioned anywhere before and whose story—as compelling and exquisitely written as it is—seems to have nothing to do with what has been happening up to this point. Emphasis on the “seems.”

It is with these 3 chapters dealing with Stefan that Castle’s sure literary hand flexes some serious muscle, because it becomes evident as Stefan’s story unfolds that his fate is strongly tied into that of another character with whom we have spent time and think we have come to know. I won’t say any more, lest the revelations be spoiled, but I will say this much: the effect Castle achieves with this detour, and how he does it, is something that should be studied and taught in creative writing classes; it’s that good.

As is the entire novel. Oh, some people will quibble about the last few chapters, I’ve no doubt—put any five readers of this book in the same room and even money says that all of them will have strongly divided opinions about the controversial narrative choices Castle makes toward the end—but even those who don’t agree with the ending won’t be able to argue that Castle didn’t set it up like an expert (hint: pay close attention to the Romany fables scattered throughout the book and you’ll realize, as I did on a second reading, that the ending Castle chose was inevitable); others might object to the way the novel is structured—though it’s the most linear of his books, in my opinion,
Cursed Be The Child’s
patchwork design may be a little off-putting to readers who expect horror novels to unfold with all the complexity of R.L. Stine; still others, weaned on novels inspired by splatter movies rather than challenging ideas, might complain about how much time he spends on characterization; but for me, this book was and remains everything that most horror novels in the ’80s were not; literate, intelligent, well-crafted, and thought-provoking—no small feat when you consider its subject matter.

Some are saying now that Mort Castle has arrived, which makes me laugh quietly to myself; I knew he was here, all along. As you will by the time you reach the final page. This novel reveals tshatsimo; it tells the truth.

You’ll understand that soon enough.

—Gary A. Braunbeck

 
Columbus, Ohio

July 3, 2003

GARY A. BRAUNBECK is the widely praised author of such works as GRAVEYARD PEOPLE: THE COLLECTED CEDAR HILL STORIES and the novel THE INDIFFERENCE OF HEAVEN.

— | — | —

Prologue

Late summer, 1918.

She was calling.

Sweating, trembling with chill, he heard. He was sitting by the front window at the end of the second floor hall, a small man, feverish cheeks rusted by three days’ growth of reddish-brown beard. Suspenders held his baggy trousers up over a dingy union suit. He wore two pairs of heavy socks, feet crammed into leather slippers.

She cried out again.

God, how could he hear her so plainly? She was in the basement. That little whore, voice disguised as a child’s—begging, pleading, trying to lure him.

After the last time—yesterday? the day before?—he’d shut her away, slamming the basement door, locking it with the chain and the key.

Or maybe he was merely imagining that he heard her. That was part of the sickness. There were frantic chills that made you quake like you had the St. Vitus dance, blazing fever, a cough to rip your lungs out, and delirium, seeing and hearing things that were not real, things you could hardly bear to see or hear. Delirium and then death.

The Spanish influenza!

He had it. He couldn’t lie to himself anymore or try to pretend it was nothing but a cold, that it would leave him in its own good time. He didn’t need Dr. Lawson to confirm his diagnosis, and what good would a doctor be anyway? Dr. Lawson was dead, killed by the influenza. Everyone in the world was dying in this modern plague time—society’s high and mighty and its dregs, the saints and the sinners.

He peered out the window through the oak and silver poplar leaves whose sharply defined edges seemed to reduce the street below to miniature. In the dusk, no one sat on a front porch, drinking lemonade and stirring the oppressive, humid air with a funeral parlor fan. Three doors down, across the way, Baumer’s Model T stood in the same spot at the curb it had occupied for two weeks. Kramer’s wagon wasn’t making a final grocery delivery for the day. No junkman was singing out “Rags-A-Lye-Own” in hopes of finding one more bit of copper or lead before he had to return his rented nag to the stable. No whistle of the peanut vendor’s cart tried to catch customers on their way to Metz’s Uptown Kinema. Not a child bicycling, rolling a hoop, racing an orange crate scooter.

No one.

Grove Corner was still. Only the sun moved, slowly, slowly, descending in the west, perhaps forever.

He realized he had been holding his breath, waiting, and when she did call again, he exhaled with the thick, gurgling sound of water swirling down a sluggish drain. Even as he told himself he would not go, he was struggling up from the chair, an effort that made his head spin.

He had to go to her, go to the demon child that had destroyed him. Harlot! The sluttishness was in her blood, the birthright of his whore sister.

She called herself a dancer, but he knew better. She’d done her dancing on her back in cheap rented rooms with her skirt up and a man between her thighs. And one of her “dancing partners” had planted his seed, a seed no less wanton than the whore womb that nurtured it, then spat it out to grow, to blossom into a lovely, poisonous flower.

He was dizzy. Halfway down the hall, the floor seemed to pitch and roll under his shuffling slippers. He reeled, tottering against the wall, bracing himself with a hand on the doorframe of the bedroom.

Her room! He peered inside. He seemed to see with unusual clarity and depth perception as though he were looking at a three-dimensional card in a stereopticon.

On the high dresser, gilded by the dying light, were some of the treasures she’d brought with her—a paperweight, a rose preserved for eternity inside a glass ball, and a white china doll, the figure of a seated little girl wearing a bonnet and holding a basket of eggs in her lap. On the washstand were her hairbrush, with a strand of hair curling up from the bristles, flaming in the light, and two vibrant green ribbons.

The room looked like a child’s bedroom. The irony was not lost on him. A little girl-innocent, carefree, playful.

A lie! Deception!

Oh, she had been so clever, pretending to be his loving niece who wanted only to please him.

She was always wanting to sit on his lap. Kiss him goodnight. Would he tuck her in…please?

Gradually she became more brazen. Would Uncle scrub her back when she was in the tub, please? She needed help with her dress; she couldn’t do all the buttons down the back.
Please?

And he knew. Perhaps not from the first but from very near the first. He saw it. The way she gazed at him when she thought he was unaware; the knowledge—the desire—in her eyes, eyes that were too calculating and beckoning to be those of a child.

He knew. He heard the true meaning that lay under the words she spoke, words that might have passed for guileless prattle had he not listened so keenly.

And the way she walked, her hips as lazily sensual as a cat’s.

And the way she pouted, lower lip thrust out, eyes downcast, long lashes veiling mystery and a pledge of wicked passion.

And even the way she yawned, not an indication of sleepiness but a lewd invitation.

He had known and had tried to resist, but it was useless.

She had won.

Again, he heard her call, tempting him, a siren’s call.

She was calling him, and he would go to her.

As he had.

As he must.

««—»»

She thought she was hungry, but she could not be sure. Her body no longer signaled its wants and needs as it should have. Broken inside, bleeding, her body was attuned solely to imminent death.

Her mind was not.

Naked, she lay on her side on a worn, woolen blanket, knees drawn up to ease the sharp, hot pains in her belly and chest. Her blonde hair was insanely tangled, glued to her forehead in spiky bangs by dried blood. She breathed in rasping, whistling sobs; her nose was crushed, lips swollen and crusted with scab as hard and shiny as a beetle’s carapace. A green and purple dome of bruised flesh sealed her left eye shut.

She wondered how long it had been since she had eaten. She could remember Uncle bringing her food, but she didn’t know when that had been. He’d brought her food and watched her eat, and for a little while it seemed like he wasn’t mad at her anymore because he kept touching her face, calling her “My pretty little girl, so pretty…” But then he got angry, and he hit her and hit her and hit her.

She thought she heard something, someone moving up above.

Mama?

No. She had to tell herself once more that she would never again see Mama.

Now that her existence was comprised only of times of pain and times when her mind took flight, fleeing pain, she sometimes forgot Mama was gone. Sometimes it was as though Mama were still with her, here to take away the cold, lonely feeling and the hurting and the fear.

Sing Mama a song, my pretty Lisette, a funny song, one that will make us laugh like we don’t have a worry in the world. Sing, Lisette,
s’il vous plait.