The Accursed (66 page)
Todd tried to recall: the object of the game was to become “kinged”—in that way to acquire more power. Being “kinged” had something to do with the back row of the board. This recollection came into Todd’s mind like a drifting butterfly, in time to allow him to make his move; and a lucky move it was, as if it had been deliberated.
So hastily then the Count pushed a piece into Todd’s depleted ranks, with the obvious plan of acquiring a king in the next move, he committed a blunder as well; which he and Todd saw at the same moment. But by then the Count had released his piece, and had to surrender it.
Or was this a trap?—Todd wondered. His eyes darted frantically about the board.
Yet it seemed not to be a trap. Every sycophant and idler in the vast gloomy space drew in breath, in anticipation. Todd shifted a lone piece into a strategic position that blocked two of his opponent’s crucial pieces, and would in the next move account for the loss of one.
“Child’s luck. Rat-boy luck.” The Count muttered sullenly, like a petulant child. For now he was forced to make his move, and to sacrifice a piece. “Well. I see Rat-boy will be ‘kinged’ now. But so shall I, soon. And you have postponed your bedtime, it seems, for another hour.”
How innocent, how unobtrusive, the Count’s stubby fingers, resting lightly on the gilded edge of the board; but Todd knew how swiftly those stubby fingers could move, and did not dare look away.
King! He’d acquired a
king
. He felt an uneasy thrill of elation, though he had but seven pieces remaining, to his opponent’s eleven.
Do not. Glance up. DO NOT.
Minutes passed, and, to the disgust of many, a full hour; and when the hour of 2 a.m. sounded the perspiring Rat-boy had but five pieces remaining, of which three were kings; and his opponent had six pieces, of which only two were kings. By this time the raucous crowd of onlookers had quieted and the atmosphere had grown brittle.
“Here is another tankard, brother,” the Countess said, with a sly sort of solicitude. “Perhaps it will yield inspiration.”
The Count took the tankard from her irritably, and drank deeply, and, with a bluff swashbuckling motion, made a move to approach one of Todd’s unprotected men from the rear; yet in so eccentric a manner, it must be a trick.
Todd brooded long over the new alignment on the board, yet could discover no logic to it. He saw now how the game mimicked war: there was no logic to it. He started to move one of his kings, then hesitated; started to move the lone piece, then hesitated; and stared, and swallowed hard. Was his opponent planning an ingenious assault, or had the Count plunged ahead blindly, without seeming to see that a sharp-eyed opponent could capture one of his two kings in two or three skilled moves . . . ?
How Todd’s head ached, and his eyelids quivered with strain!
Badly he regretted his past life, his heedless child’s life, when he had been so headstrong with his family, so cruel to even his loving mother, and a thorn in the heart of his father; even with Annabel whom he’d loved, he had often been rude. And he had not admired Josiah enough, and had taken his exemplary cousin for granted.
He had not loved his grandfather Slade enough: he had not ever forgiven his grandfather, for the humbling “confession” in the cemetery.
The Count was betraying some apprehension, for he shifted about in his throne-like chair, and wiped at his face with a soiled handkerchief. “Rat-boy,” he said softly, “you are perhaps
not a child
at all.”
“He’s a child, Brother! He’s just a child.
You
must be prepared to be beaten by a child, in front of witnesses.” The Countess laughed in delight, revealing yellow-tinged teeth, that did not detract from her curious mask-like perfection, but rather enhanced it.
After a long minute of deliberation Todd made a move; and the Count made his; and, suppressing a shiver of apprehension, or a little cry of elation, Todd quickly took advantage of his opponent’s poor judgment—capturing
not one king but two
in a spirited hopping march across the board!
At this, Annabel would have applauded. Even if Todd were beating her.
Now it seemed that Rat-boy was near to winning the game, unbelievably, against the Master of Bog Castle. All of the great hall grew hushed.
“Well, Brother, you are driven to it,” the Countess Camellia declared in a voice both exhilarated and fearful. “You and I both—for my fate rests with yours.
Take care
.”
Slowly the Count drew forth his filthy snuff-pouch and, while positioning a tiny pinch of the foul tobacco in one of his nostrils, succeeded in wafting a grain or two in Todd’s direction; with the result that the boy’s eyes welled with stinging tears, and he could not stop himself from sneezing—once, twice, a third time; and, instantaneously, the wily Count swept Todd’s most valued king to the floor.
All of the assemblage reacted with a murmur, though not of support for the Count’s crude move; for even a cheater is obliged to act with grace, and to disguise his dishonesty.
Todd saw at once what the situation was, and fought back tears of helplessness and anger; for he’d been tricked again, and truly unfairly. The Count was like Todd as he’d once been, as a spoiled child; but far worse, since his pranks were lethal.
Yet Todd managed to recover, to a degree, to continue the exhausting game, and in so forthright a manner, no one could have told that the loss of the king had thrown him into a temporary panic. Following this exchange, so warily did the Master of the Bog Castle and the lowly Rat-boy play at their game of draughts, and so cautious were their soldiers of one another, the castle bell tolled 3 a.m.; and then 4 a.m.; at last 5 a.m.—with no significant change of fortune.
How strange that I am evenly matched with the Devil
—the thought came wryly to Todd.
By this time all but the hardiest of the onlookers had lapsed into drunken slumber. The Countess Camilla had resorted to taking snuff, with her retinue of coarse-featured court women, in order to stay awake.
“Shall we declare a draw, Brother?”—so the Countess said, disguising her concern in a jesting voice. “It would not be so dishonorable, you know, but something of a novelty in the Bog Kingdom.”
“No. Never a draw.”
“But—”
“I said
no
. Never. This Rat-boy is a devil of some sort, from another sort of Bog Kingdom, and not what he seems. But I will beat him—fairly. I promise.”
Todd’s throbbing head was nodding; his eyelids had grown heavy. Of a sudden he heard Annabel addressing him, her voice soft and close against his ear.
Once you are a swan you will be a swan.
He sensed his opponent’s weariness as well, but knew enough not to glance up at the Count.
Once a swan. A swan!
At last the game of draughts ended, in an altogether unexpected way, at 5:21 a.m.; when only six pieces remained on the board, evenly divided between three kings of the red army and three of the black, timidly huddled together in their respective camps.
By this time, so far as Todd Slade knew, all of the vast Earth had been reduced to the shimmering squares before him. Dazed, hollow-eyed, faint with hunger and anxiety, he could recall little beyond the game board or the game. All that mattered were maneuvers and counter-maneuvers. In two moves possibly—in three moves assuredly—he might win; yet it was best to be prudent, to take care. If the red king advanced by one more square, then the cornered black king would be forced to move laterally; but what of the other black king, positioned so crucially? There was no end to the game in sight. The game of draughts, Todd saw, was interminable—
it was his life
. And when he weakened, or slid helplessly forward in a faint, it would be his death.
Precisely how the
coup de grâce
was administered by the exhausted Rat-boy page none of the onlookers could have said afterward; nor, unfortunately, can this historian replicate the final moves of the game, though I have set up a small checkerboard here on my desk, to follow the game. According to evidence afterward provided by Todd Slade, the end came at dawn, or what passed for dawn in the Bog Kingdom, when a languid and sickly sun penetrated the smoky interior of the hall; and only a few observers, including the ashen-skinned Countess, were witnesses. The Count, nearly as drained of strength as his child-opponent, and somewhat inebriated, was overcome by a sudden rage against one of the snoring bloodhounds at his feet; and, cursing, gave the dog a sound kick in the ribs, which sent the poor creature yelping and whimpering into a corner . . . But when the Count returned his attention to the board, to reach for one of his kings, he saw to his consternation that the king had vanished; and his two remaining kings were now vulnerable to being captured.
“What! How is it! Rat-boy has—
cheated
?”
“He has not cheated, Brother. I saw nothing.”
“But, my king—”
“Your king is at your feet, Brother. Where you yourself toppled it.”
But was this so? The Count did not dare to look, for fear that his wily child-opponent would cause another piece to “vanish.”
The Count clapped both hands to his forehead. His frog-eyes bulged and quivered. For it was clear to him that the game of draughts was all but over, and Rat-boy had defeated him honestly, following the rules of the Bog Kingdom; and there was no way out.
Even in this flush of triumph the wily child knew not to glance up at his opponent’s strained face.
Do not weaken
Annabel seemed to advise him,
remain calm and have no pity.
The Countess was swaying, and clutching at her hair that had come loose in the course of the long night, in an attitude of angry despair. “It is over. The game—our game—the Bog Castle—the Kingdom. The Kingship is now in the hands of a child and our long reign is ended.”
“The Kingship is in the hands of a child,” the Count echoed, as he continued to stare, and stare, at the lone pieces before him of his black army. Piteously, the protuberant frog’s eyes filled with moisture.
So it was, pitiless Todd Slade jumped two of his opponent’s vulnerable kings, and the game board was cleared entirely of
black
.
“YOU MUST,
you know. There is no turning back.”
The Countess herself had taken up the heavy ax, to force into the boy’s hands.
“You
must.
It is the completion of the game of draughts which you began, on the very hour of your arrival among us.”
In this way we come to the bloody denouement: for when the spindly-limbed Rat-boy, reeling with fatigue, dread, and repugnance for the terrible deed he must commit, at last manages, with some four or five clumsy swings of the ax, to severe the Count’s head from his shoulders, and erase forever the Count’s smirking frog-face, the shadowy hall with its gaping witnesses vanishes—and the Bog Castle vanishes—and the Bog Kingdom vanishes through its vast waste stretches; and Todd Slade wakes, his young heart hammering with life, whether in his old bed at Wheatsheaf, or in another place, he doesn’t know at once.
He knows only in that wondrous instant that the Curse has lifted, and he is alive—again alive.
I
n all the annals of medical lore this historian has had occasion to study, including even the most macabre and unlikely “case studies” memorialized at the Mutter Museum in Philadelphia, he has never come across a means of death more shocking, indeed more “unnatural,” than that suffered by poor Winslow Slade, in full view of the congregation of the First Presbyterian Church on the morning of June 4, 1906.
This Sunday morning, Dr. Slade was prepared to deliver a guest sermon entitled “The ‘Spirit’ and the ‘Letter’ of the Law,” an homily he had delivered several times, in differing versions, in New Jersey and Philadelphia, always with warm and gratifying results; but at the last minute, for reasons never made clear, the retired minister spoke of setting this sermon aside in favor of another, more “personal,” sermon with the mysterious title “The Covenant.”
Of course, it was noted by most of the congregation, as by Winslow’s family and relatives, that this sermon fell on the anniversary of Annabel’s abduction from this very same church; Winslow’s son Augustus spoke to him gravely on this issue, but was assured that, to Winslow, the “tragic event” would be but an impetus to his sermon; and his example, to the congregation, would be of the fortifying strength of Christianity, in the face of sorrow.
“The sermon is an opportunity, Augustus! Nathaniel seems to have felt this, in inviting me to speak.”
In the church, at the pulpit, Winslow Slade was remarked to appear just slightly agitated, or distracted; he had lost weight, and aged over the past twelve months, clearly; yet his manner was nervously alert; and his white hair, smooth-shaven face, and impeccable clothing were very attractive to behold.
“O dearly beloved in Christ—hear me and have mercy . . .”
Even as Dr. Slade began to speak his sermon, which he had memorized, he was overcome by a convulsive sort of shivering; an assault upon his person by a shimmering phantasm, a gigantic black snake: which remarkable creature, with a cruel flat head and bronze-glittering eyes, and iridescent black scales that winked like tiny diamonds, appeared out of nowhere; out of the very bowels of the church; and so surprised Dr. Slade, he could not escape before it wound itself about his body, and thrust its head into his mouth, horribly; as if the loathsome creature meant to bury itself inside him.
All this in full view of the horrified congregation upon whom a kind of mass paralysis had settled: as if, their eyes opened and fixed to the hellish spectacle before them, they could not believe what they were seeing.
For the black snake was both “real” in its effect upon the stricken man, and yet shimmering and transparent; you could see through its sinewy length, to the wall behind. Yet, though transparent, the thrashing snake threw a dim shadow, as the Theosophists would argue the
etheric body
throws a shadow that is invisible to the ordinary eye, while visible to the enlightened eye.
This historian is not capable of suggesting the collective horror in the church, for the terrible creature that measured, according to the testimony of some witnesses, between ten and twelve feet in length, would not relent its assault upon the helpless man; it was as if the creature wished to bury itself inside its victim. Was there ever so violent an assault upon a human being, in such sacrosanct circumstances; and by way of a devilish specimen of the suborder Serpentes?—any death so cruel, and so horrific? The foul thing succeeded in penetrating the mouth and throat of its victim, while the wretched Dr. Slade, now fallen to the floor beside the pulpit, and thrashing wildly, tried to tear the snake from him with his enfeebled hands, that he might not be choked to death.
But the great black phantasm-snake could not be budged, and Winslow Slade died within minutes.
(RECALL THAT THIS CHAPTER
occurs simultaneously with the preceding chapter in the Bog Kingdom: the assault upon Dr. Slade coinciding with the moment of the Count’s execution by Todd Slade. Whether one event precipitated the other, I am not certain; it would seem unlikely that the simultaneous events are unrelated. And what is the exact relation between these two events, separated as they are in regions of the spirit, and the miraculous restoration to life of Dr. Slade’s four deceased grandchildren? Before such mysteries, the historian must throw up his hands and trust to his material to communicate a tale, and a meaning, beyond his own ability to fathom.)
SO IT HAPPENED
that Winslow Slade died in the very church in which, for years, he had been minister, and greatly beloved; he died at the age of seventy-five, of what would be diagnosed as
cardiac arrest ;
and the vicious creature that killed him seemed immediately then to have vanished, whether through a rear exit of the building, or somehow through the floorboards and into the cellar beneath. So confused was the scene, so panicked the spectators, so unspeakably awful the sight of the dying man wrestling with his demon—few persons have ever tried to present a full account of it, still less to explain it.
The historian is not so puzzled, for this is commonplace in history, that, afterward, witnesses disagreed about what had happened, or what they had believed happened; and that when Dr. Slade’s body was examined, and afterward subjected to the indignity of an autopsy, no actual trace of any physical assault could be detected, by a snake or any other creature. Such members of the congregation as Francis Pyne, Abraham Sparhawk, and Andrew West, seated near the front of the church, surely saw the monstrous snake as, in panic, they rushed for the nearest exit, on the other side of the church altar from the pulpit; yet would afterward deny that they had seen anything at all. Andrew West gave out the account that he had run from the church, panting and affrighted, in order to summon help for the stricken man—as it seemed that Dr. Slade was having a convulsion of some sort.
And with the passage of days, and then weeks, the majority of the congregation came round to thinking that while they might have witnessed some such nightmare assault, it had been a collective mirage—conjured out of the air, of whirling dust-motes in a wide quivering ray of sunshine falling upon the altar; they had seen
nothing monstrous at all
. Except the thrashings and convulsions of a dying man.
So, unconscionably, careless historians of the ilk of Hollinger and Tite have subsequently interpreted the entire fourteen-month siege of the Crosswicks Curse as an exceptional phenomenon of
mass hysteria,
citing the “snake frenzy” at the Rocky Hill Seminary as a preliminary incident. Murders and atrocities in the Princeton area were committed by deranged but not supernatural individuals, of whom some were apprehended by police authorities, and some were not. And other commentators on the subject, including journalists for Jersey and New York City newspapers, went to the other extreme in assembling lurid “eyewitness” accounts of the great serpent’s attack upon Dr. Slade; some of these accounts were by persons not present in the church that morning, and some were not even members of the congregation; some, not even bona fide residents of Princeton Borough.
Yet another aspect of the mystery has to do with the fact that, after Dr. Slade’s body was carried away, no trace could be found of any sermon titled “The Covenant”; only just the manuscript titled “The ‘Spirit’ and the ‘Letter’ of the Law”; so that, in the grief and confusion of the hour, it came to be doubted whether this second sermon had ever existed; and this despite the fact that somewhere beyond two hundred persons saw the elderly man clutch the manuscript in his hands, before the attack of the great snake, beginning to read in a high, quavering, yet resolute voice: “O dearly beloved in Christ, hear me and have mercy . . .”
This “lost” sermon was to be discovered, years later, among the private papers of the heir of Crosswicks Manor, Augustus Slade, who must have spirited it away for safekeeping, even as his father’s body was being carried from the church to an awaiting ambulance; sequestering it in the family safe, as he’d done with his brother Copplestone’s
God-dictated
document
less than a week before. And this priceless manuscript now resides with me, having been acquired for a pittance at an estate auction; kept now under lock and key in my Ebony-Lacquered Box where no one save this historian has access to it.
(See the Epilogue: “The Covenant,” to follow.)