The Anathemas: a Novel of Reincarnation and Restitution

By Victor Smith

Centuries ago we were robbed of our true heritage, a divine immortality, and enshrouded in the unforgiving spiritual myth of Heaven/Hell.

Is it not written in your Law, 'I have said you are gods'? (John 10:34)
was revised to
Remember, man, that you are dust and unto dust you shall return!

In sixth-century Constantinople, the Emperor Justinian coerced the Church to decree that the doctrine of reincarnation was anathema: heresy punishable by excommunication and death.

In nineteenth-century America, a father and daughter are compelled by unquestionable evidence to accept that had lived before and loved each other as husband and wife, the man as this same Justinian and the woman as his empress, Theodora.

The Anathemas, a Novel of Reincarnation and Restitution, is the epic story of two individuals who recover their personal past identities and, in the process, uncover this abominable crime that obscured the divinity of all souls.
A novel, but firmly based on history, notably Procopius's Secret History and Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, it weaves the religious controversy over reincarnation into a multi-lifetime saga of conspiracy, redemption and love at the urgent pace of a thriller.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Victor Smith
• Release date: Mar 5, 2013
• ISBN: 9781301734689

Victor Smith

Victor E. Smith became a generalist, as opposed to a specialist, seemingly by fate. From childhood on a Pennsylvania communal farm, to adolescence in a Catholic seminary, then into adulthood with occupations that ranged from counselor and teacher to printing entrepreneur and corporate computer trainer, all while parenting three children, Vic remains astounded, often stunned, by the variety, both wonderful and terrible, inherent in human life. Such awe has always compelled him to write. From his first "book" of poems as a teenager; through experimental plays, poetry, and short stories in his twenties; with volumes of educational and technical writing throughout his work career, he finally settled on the novel as his writing mode of choice. A lifelong proponent of the human urge for spiritual evolution, he has focused on phenomena "just over the edge": reincarnation, the paranormal, parapsychology, and alternative history, especially in the spiritual/religious sphere. Gnostic (based on direct perception rather than authority) in his approach, he aims to live an idea first and then write from personal experience. A tall order for someone supposedly writing fiction. Traveling to the places he writes about, developing relationships with those intimate with his subject, and "grokking the fullness" of his material through reflection and extensive personal journalling are to his research what clues are to a detective. THE ANATHEMAS, a Novel of Reincarnation and Restitution, ripened over decades, was his first novel. His second, THE PERFECT, about the medieval Cathars of southern France and Nazi interest in their obscure religion, is scheduled for publication in 2013.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Philadelphia, 1879

It was as if there were a curse on him. The night before, that dream had come again, and now its afterimage lingered, casting a pall over his rare day of respite. It was only a dream, but it made him a criminal—without knowing his crime, its time or its victim. A corpse was evidence enough of foul play, even without blood or weapon.

Richard Strawn yanked in his fishing line, then planted and again cast into Wallingford Pond. The string sang out as it had once done for the country boy who plucked trout and sunnies from the Delaware River at will. The hook snagged. Richard damned the sedentary years as manager of Whipplehouse Press. He had gotten older—thirty seven now—but not, as the dream would have him, some decrepit fool in cumbersome regalia straining to shove a dead body through the teeth of the parapet of some ancient fortification.

Out on the pond a fish jumped, mocking the man and his embedded hook. Thou shalt not kill. God’s law is immutable, absolute. He who violates it, even by bandaging the wounds of those who would kill, must be disowned by the Society of Friends. So Elder Robertson had expelled him after he returned from the war.

There had been blood on his hands—but the blood of the maimed and dying on the hands of one who would heal. How could he, who endured two hellish years of war without firing a weapon, be marked as a murderer?

He had to admit to a certain boyhood attraction for things military despite his pacifist upbringing. As a youth, war was the stirring music of massive marching bands hoisting opposing colors and causes; but that illusion died with a classmate who returned in a coffin in ‘61, his head shattered by Confederate cannon at Bull Run. Nevertheless he remained persuaded that the abomination of slavery justified Lincoln’s war, and he eventually enlisted with Pennsylvania’s Seventy-First Regiment, but as a medic. A noble compromise, he thought then, between personal conviction and Quaker principles.

Compromise! he shouted, pumping his fist. An ordinary word about to explode with extraordinary significance: the rare gift of the muse that no aspiring writer could afford to squander. He reached into his knapsack. His hand brushed the whiskey bottle. He laughed off the temptation to indulge too soon, taking out the notepad and pencil instead.

COMPROMISE, he wrote on the blank top sheet. He studied the word, a wriggling silver-green worm, daring him to dissect it. His pencil hovered over it like a knife, awaiting the whorl of insight that would splash fat phrases down the page. He squirmed, his body slick with sweat, but held his attention on the word, willing its metamorphosis. But the virtually naked paper only glared back, fiercely pale in the daylight. Such insolence in comparison to the docile sheets in his dusky office, which sopped up his administrative acumen into volumes of policy arrayed impressively on a bookshelf behind his desk.

He grinned. You, Richard, are a very poor student in diplomacy, and absolutely without talent in its sister discipline, deception. Thus his wife Lucinda had derided his early efforts to adapt routines for running the farm in rural Foxtown to a complex business in Philadelphia. His learning to compromise had proven her wrong. Whipplehouse Press, a printing firm in Lucinda’s family for generations, was on the verge of bankruptcy when he came on board ten years earlier. It was now the producer of The Philadelphia Tablet, the city’s largest daily newspaper, and a model publishing company emulated up and down the eastern seaboard.

And for his role in that accomplishment—boss Bryant’s and Lucinda’s envious opinions be damned—he deserved a drink. He brought out the bottle and allowed himself a generous slug. Through the lazy pleasant haze emanating from the whiskey, he restudied the written word. Suddenly it did wriggle. I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, to see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. A favorite fragment from Henry David Thoreau. Only that morning his daughter Jennifer had tweaked his former devotion to Walden’s uncompromising honesty. He was about to go out the door, knapsack on his back and pole in hand, when the sixteen-year-old appeared on the stairs. Momentarily suspending her vow of silence towards him, she laughed and said, You’ve talked, talked, talked about taking a day off, Father, but I never thought you’d do it.

He responded with a wink. Let them think I’m at work. Between you and me, I’m off to Wallingford Pond, just far enough out to pretend I’m in the open country.

Wallingford. Walden. Her eyes twinkled. "Like Mr. Thoreau’s I went to the woods. She recited the quote he had taught her over a decade ago. Nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary," she concluded, then was off again, her shoulders hunched, before he could compliment her memory.

Richard etched a prominent question mark after the single word he had to show for his day’s work. He gulped again from the bottle. Jennifer’s behavior, more erratic in recent years, had always befuddled him.

A fish burped through a cloud mirrored on the pond some yards out. He crumpled the sheet and tossed it into the knapsack. I’m going to get you, he swore as he sent the line singing past his ear. One fish to go with my one word. The rock under his planted foot slipped. He skidded down the bank and landed in the ooze. Soaking the coolness into the glowing ember his body had become, he eased his fingers through the oily loam and plastered his torso with mud.

He scanned the shoreline; no one. Reveling in the impropriety, he stripped and stood, the water up to his thighs, and felt the sun and breeze caress his body. A new word, delight, whistled through his mind. He inched through the shallows, laughing at his tender feet recoiling from the sharp pebbles. Finally, he dove, then stroked, gathering speed, until the yellow-brown water cleared to a crystal green. He shot up. At the leap’s apex he arched and gulped, glimpsing the steamy shore, distant and alien. He yelped, took in the echo, and plunged. Skittish minnow schools darted for cover beneath silt-gray plants as he streaked by, intoxicated by his own form flowing through the underworld.

When his lungs again ached for air, he bubbled to the surface, a cork atop a gush of champagne. He floated face up, bobbing in his own wake. Like melting, he thought. For an instant, there was that flash of silence—the quiet place, which, as a boy on the bank of the Delaware, he came to call his personal Holy of Holies. He lunged after the moment, but it pulled away, replaced by a swirling nebula of light, heat, and color, its axis in his groin, a turbulence of sensual images: gossamer gowns, golden hair, rounded breasts, weaving torsos and flowing limbs, approaching, withdrawing, tantalizing and teasing.

Mr. Strawn!

A man’s voice sounded from the shore. Richard flopped to his stomach.

Mr. Strawn! Please come in.

The circling sirens took flight like a flock of frightened sparrows. Richard raced for the beach, now in twilight.

Roscoe, his driver, handed him his pants as he came out of the water. Sorry to disturb you, Mr. Strawn. We have to hurry.

Richard forced his wet legs into the trousers, buckled his belt, reached for the whiskey bottle and started to uncap it.

You’re going to need all your senses about you. We’ve got to get going. There’s trouble at Whipplehouse. Big trouble, Roscoe said. Richard stowed the bottle in the knapsack.

Trouble? Richard struggled to keep up with the man’s long strides as they headed for the road and the carriage.

A fire. The whole place it looks like. Not long before we’ll see the flames on the horizon.

Only after they were well underway did Richard shake the sense that he was in the midst of another nightmare. When did it start? he asked.

Roscoe shrugged. Mr. Bryant came to the house with a policeman about mid-afternoon looking for you. Lucinda didn’t know where you were. I feared the worst.

That I was in the building?

Roscoe nodded.

Were Lucinda and Bryant worried as well?

Less than me, for sure. Fact is, before I mentioned it, they were as cool as cucumbers even with the business burning down. Only when I wondered out loud if you might be there, did Lucinda turn upset.

As required if one’s husband is burning alive.

Then Jennifer came down and said you’d gone fishing out here.

Roscoe applied the whip to the already frothing horses. From the distant waterfront to the east, Richard watched the glow loom larger. Thank God it’s Sunday. Any other day and the whole crew would have been in. I can’t believe Bryant’s not frantic. Minor disorder sends him into a tizzy. Not like him to be calm and collected under fire.

Roscoe smiled dutifully at the pun. They approached the intersection where traffic was halted. Keep movin’, a policeman urged, waving carriages and pedestrians away from the barricade across Northampton Street.

Let me off here, Richard shouted over clanging bells, barking dogs and a crowd oohing over every geyser of spark and flame from the burning building three blocks away. I’ll see what I can find out from the officer.

Roscoe handed him a large handkerchief, which he put over his nose and mouth. The smoke seeped around the street lamps and attacked his eyes. Flakes of ash nipped like mosquitoes. He pushed through the people gawking from the stoops and sidewalks, only to be crushed against a wall by a sideways surge when a hose wagon rattled past.

Rumors flew. A fireman’s down. Somebody’s in the building. The whole city’s catching fire.

That’s my building that’s burning. Some of my people might be in there, Richard shouted as he tried to shove forward.

No cheatin’ for a better seat, jibed a huge man who refused to yield, but Richard’s earnestness convinced others to let him through.

He reached the policeman. I’m Richard Strawn, Officer, general manager at Whipplehouse. I’ve got to get down there.

The policeman checked him over. Doesn’t matter who you are. Too dangerous. Can’t tell when a wall’ll cave in or where it might spread next.

Is anybody in the building? he asked.

Who knows?

When do they think they’ll get it out?

Who knows? By morning, if it don’t spread. A series of explosions lit up the night. See what I mean? Now, step back and let the fire boys through.

Working backwards against the crowd swell, Richard tried to collect himself. On any other Sunday I would have been there, he thought. He could no longer see the blaze but his dread grew with each awed exclamation from those who could. People were in a carnival mood, as if it were a prizefight between the firemen and the conflagration; but he pictured the inside of the building: presses, stitchers, and cutting machines melting down; paper stores bursting into flame; the words in his precious policy volumes on glowing red pages before graying into illegible ash.

Reaching an alley that jutted away from the throng, he considered circling to the riverfront side of the plant, but the length and probable futility of the roundabout deterred him. Instead, he turned towards Society Hill. A church tower clock bonged three times as he forced his legs through the last block to his house.

Inside, he trudged up the stairs. A light flickered through the crack at the bottom of Jennifer’s bedroom door. He thought to knock and wish her good-night, their routine when she was a bit younger. But so late and him smelling of smoke and covered with grime, he thought it better not to disturb her.

Even for a passive man, James Bryant seemed too nonchalant when Richard walked into the owner of Whipplehouse Press’s downtown office the next morning. Uncharacteristically, he offered Richard coffee and even poured it.

"The Aurora scooped us on the fire, needless to say." Bryant held up the morning edition of their rival paper.

THE TABLET BURNS

Man’s Corpse Recovered

They put it as a total loss, he added.

Who got killed? Richard gasped, snatching the paper.

Dobbs, Bryant said, seating himself. Name sounds familiar.

Richard sank into the chair on the far side of the desk. One of our pressmen.

Wasn’t he a ringleader in that Knights of Labor ruckus a while ago?

Two years earlier, when union agitators infiltrated the company, Richard had averted a crisis by cajoling Bryant to endorse an employee incentive system rather than declare war on the union movement. Brilliant, Bryant had exclaimed. Pull the rug out from under those union bastards by preempting their empty promises with pie-in-the-sky of our own. Bryant’s agreement, even if cynically given, was all the mandate Richard had needed. The innovation so improved employee morale and corporate profits that Richard became known as a man with the Midas Touch.

He was with the union. But William Dobbs also is—was—a man with a wife and five children. Someone from the company should visit them, offer consolation, perhaps some type of compensation.

Bryant’s eyes narrowed. I warned you about those fellows, Strawn, but you swore you’d neutralized them. Now they’ve destroyed my business. Certainly arson. We will investigate and prosecute to the full extent of the law, of course.

If Dobbs is guilty of arson, I note that he’s already dead. Richard scanned The Aurora’s story. No evidence of foul play mentioned here. Another printer, Bill O’Reilly, was also in the building but managed to escape. Not unusual for pressmen to come in on Sunday to clean their equipment.

Evidence? What more evidence do we need? We’re lucky Dobbs didn’t get away with it. And neither will his accomplice or the rest of those union goons.

Richard stared, waiting for Bryant to qualify the unfounded accusation. He had known his boss to be either emotionless or volatile, but never, like this, both at the same time.

No union member will ever darken my doors again.

Richard’s head dropped to the desk.

This is my company now, Bryant gloated. No more Whipplehouse Press.

Richard heard the other man get up and round the desk, then felt a hand on his shoulder. He barely resisted the impulse to slap it away. "We will rebuild and call ourselves The Philadelphia Tablet—simply that. And you are our man for the task. We’ll continue to publish daily, using the presses in the smaller shops I bought up. Bryant chuckled. How foolish do those acquisitions look to you now?"

Bryant returned to his chair. And how right I was in having you purchase that extra insurance coverage. Three times the value of existing assets. With those funds we will rebuild the finest printing establishment in America.

Three times the value of existing assets. Richard sat up, tremors shaking his body. In his desk drawer back at the plant—what was left of it—there was a stack of envelopes, a year’s worth of invoices for the premiums due to Charter Insurance, all unpaid. To gain time, he reached for his coffee. The cup tapped on the saucer like chattering teeth. He put it down. We will rebuild. The insurance he kept in force would suffice only to replace the buildings and equipment as they were. He chanced a glance at Bryant; the man was grinning. For him the fire was not a disaster but a windfall.

Richard had to think quickly. He’d gambled the extra insurance would never be needed—and lost. That the money saved went for bonuses, raises, and other employee benefits would not appease a boss who did not care if his workers lived or died.

He pointed to the paper. From the description here, it doesn’t sound like a complete loss. The production wing was only scorched. Some of the equipment can certainly be salvaged.

Bryant’s grin diminished. Forever the miser, Richard. I’ve had big plans for this company all along. Here Providence hands me the means to do it right, and you’d advocate half-measures?

We can produce a limited version of the paper in the small shops as you said, but rebuilding from scratch would take months, even years. Restore what we had, and we can be back to normal within weeks.

The grin was abruptly gone. Bryant sensed something was wrong. The truth would have to come out eventually; it might as well be now. Mr. Bryant, there are only the normal insurance funds for rebuilding. I didn’t pay the premiums on the additional policy.

Bryant gulped. His face turned purple. Richard leaned forward, concerned the man would choke or have a heart attack.

Finally, Bryant brought his fists down hard on the desk. You didn’t do what?

Richard dared not repeat the confession. Bryant’s lips quivered and curled; his eyes turned moist and pleading. He actually began to laugh. A joke—in terrible taste, and at a time like this.

Richard said nothing.

It is a joke, Strawn. He seemed about to cry. Tell me it is.

I am sorry. I thought it would never be necessary.

You thought? Bryant clawed at his desk. You thought? It was an order.

We can still rebuild. If we take into account—

You take nothing into account but yourself, you ass. The burst of fury sent Richard backwards. First, you demand that I pay off the people who burned down my business. Then you tell me you didn’t do what I specifically ordered to defend myself against these people.

Bryant gasped, caught his breath, then sat. I should have known all along. This is just the culmination of your long history of conspiring to undermine and destroy this firm. He paused, his eyes boring into Richard’s, and rasped, And me.

The accusation struck like a copperhead’s fangs, but Richard held his tongue; he deserved punishment for his crime, even if unintended.

Bryant leaned forward on his elbows. You’ve always thought you were so much better, smarter, more moral than the rest of us. I’ve heard the talk, how you have the golden touch. And I’ve heard the laughter behind my back, how I was born with the silver spoon in my mouth, just a dolt who can’t wipe my own ass much less run a business.

He got to his feet. "Well, let’s get the record straight. Contrary to your over-blown opinion of yourself, you didn’t make me successful. Of course, I noticed how you aligned with the union hooligans against me. I read the editorials you wrote in The Tablet—company property I might add—showing sympathy with their cause. You only got away with it because I allowed you to. Spare us the pious words, Strawn. I’ll tell you why I succeed: I know how to use people. Yes, use them up and throw them away sometimes, but I use them. They like it. It makes them feel useful. Business is not moral, Strawn. It’s utilitarian."

Richard clenched his hands on his knees. He had to dampen the flames that Bryant’s charges, like bellows, were fanning to an intolerable intensity. Not paying the premiums: guilty. But disloyalty because he treated the workers as human beings?

Can we limit this discussion, unpleasant as it is, to the present situation and dispense with rumor and opinion? Richard asked.

I decide what’s fact and what’s fiction here, what’s relevant or not. This once you’ll hear my blathering out. Bryant rounded the desk again, his fists clenched and his voice high-pitched. Face it, Strawn, you’ve been jealous from the beginning. Less moral superiority and more business sense and this whole operation could have been yours. Lucinda did offer you the opportunity—and you refused—before she offered it to me.

A blatant lie.

Bryant continued. No matter. The business would not have survived, especially with the panic in ’73. Neither you nor Tobias Whipple were ruthless enough to make it, even in the best of times. But you’ve never forgiven your wife for picking the winning horse, the one with the cash.

Whipplehouse was a family business for generations. Tobias was Lucinda’s cousin. He and his wife took us in and gave me a job when the farm went fallow in ’67. Forgive my reservations about biting the hand that had fed us so generously.

But bite it you did, Bryant, now within arm’s length, leered. You’d wash your hands of the fate of the Whipples, but you evidently prospered from the deal. Here you are, general manager of their former business, big office, fancy desk. A townhouse on Society Hill, fine furniture, servants. And me? I’ve been a father to you and your family, financing your home and keeping you on as manager. Despite my goodwill, you insisted on treating me like some dumb mule. You humored me and ran it your way behind my back. Until this.

Bryant paused. Richard prayed he was finished. Bryant’s patronizing was the one straw that could break his resolve to stay calm.

Given your history, Strawn, how do I know you didn’t induce the union boys to set that fire? Just happened to have gone fishing yesterday, eh? Only you knew the insurance was unpaid and that a fire would ruin me.

Richard lurched from his chair. His fingers, hooks rigid with rage, shot to Bryant’s scrawny neck. He felt the warm white flesh between his hands, the pulse, the urge to press until—

Stop! An inner shout kept the vise from closing. His hands fell to Bryant’s shoulders. He bent the smaller man backwards against the desk. How dare you accuse me of destroying what I built with my own sweat and blood? he shouted into eyeballs bulging in terror. Now you’ll listen to me. To you, this company, its reputation, its people, are toys to amuse you. You have no idea these are real people, who need food, clothing, medicine, shelter, and a little bit of pleasure. You don’t know what it is to work to eat, to put a roof over your head. You don’t know what need is. And sickest and saddest of all, you’ve never experienced one human being’s need for another. The people who work for you are names you don’t even bother to learn.

Bryant’s face gradually slackened, his eyelids drooping to their usual half-mast.

And wipe that infernal condescension off your face. Proof of my charges was right here in this room this morning. Dobbs. Dobbs was in the union and drank like a slob with the rest of us, but Dobbs was a man who worked hard to support his wife and kids—and Dobbs is dead.

He butted the smaller man against the desk. It’s not just Dobbs or your everyday callousness, but extortion, greed and even lust—if you are capable of it. I know you stole this company from Tobias Whipple with Lucinda’s help, and I know she made you keep me on as part of the package. How she conned you, I don’t want to know, but I can guess.

Richard pulled his hands away, and Bryant skittered back to his own side of the desk. Both men sat for several minutes until their breathing eased.

I should have you arrested and charged for assault. But I’ll show mercy, for your family’s sake. You have two months to draw up and start on the reconstruction plan you spoke of, Bryant finally said. Then you will hand over your job to a replacement, put your resignation on my desk, and get off the premises. Anything else and you’ll be there in shackles with your Knights of Labor friends.

Expulsion he could accept, but Richard could not abide the requirement that he resurrect the corpse before exiting. Blood rushed back to his head. Would that his hands had closed around this fool’s neck. You’ve owned me for seven years, Bryant he said as got to his feet. That’s it. Not another year, month, week, day, hour or minute will you get.

The afternoon sun, Richard noticed when he left the building, scalded its way across a metallic sky, and stillness hung over the empty parks. On a Monday afternoon the pigeons owned the languid streets; the city’s population was imprisoned behind factory walls. He ducked into a tavern and slipped into a corner. The bartender poured as if he understood how urgently a man who had just lost his livelihood needed to get drunk. It took several mugs, but the ale inevitably worked its magic, blurring the day’s tragedy and treachery into an obscene jest at which he could only laugh.

The sky had mellowed and the heat abated by the time he came out of the tavern. Floating along the streets like a bubble threatening to burst, he bowed to grimacing passersby and plucked a chrysanthemum and placed it between his teeth.

Lucinda was sitting in the parlor when he got to the house. You’re looking at a free man, he said, throwing himself on the couch and propping his shoes on the cushions. He grinned, twirling the flower in his mouth.

You’re drunk. Early.

Damned right! And I’m free.

Are you trying to tell me something, Richard?

Probably nothing you don’t already know, you and James Bryant are so—cozy.

You’ve been to see him. What went on down there?

You see today’s paper?

She nodded.

A man’s dead, and I dared to suggest the company pay its respects and do something for the victim’s family. But your Mr. Bryant advanced the theory that the Knights of Labor were responsible for setting the fire, at my behest, no less. He’s far too dull to concoct such intricate nonsense without your help. In any case, he fired me. He spat the flower to the floor.

She merely grimaced. I haven’t spoken to him since yesterday. He must have had his reasons.

His reasons? I’m out of a job, ten years of effort and nothing to show for it but a house we can’t pay for and a pile of bills, and you say blithely, ‘He must have had his reasons’?

She fixed her eyes on him. You had it coming, although I didn’t expect it so soon. James would not act against my best interests without good reason. Tell me exactly what went on.

For an instant, he would have killed to be sober. She was probing, as if she had been crossed up, as if Bryant had acted without consulting her. It hurt to think through the possibilities. Her composure was no more contrived than usual. Neither the fire nor his ouster affected whatever bet she had placed. Think. Then it struck him: the insurance premiums. Like Bryant, she’d assumed they would yield a sizeable profit, from which she would gain personally, with or without her husband managing the company.

There’s no pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, he announced.

What?

Those additional insurance premiums were never paid. The real reason Bryant fired me.

He thought he caught what little color there was in her face drain away. What insurance premiums? she murmured, looking down quickly. When she looked up again, her eyes were flat and cold.

He slid off the couch, picked up the flower, and placed it back between his teeth.

Get out! She stood, bringing them face-to-face.

He was too drunk to leave without a parting shot. Why else did I get fired, Lucinda? The chrysanthemum shot from his mouth and hit her in the chest. What’s my real crime? I accepted a job, a home, food and money from your folks and then let you and Bryant rob them of their business and didn’t object. I accepted slavery when you sold years of my life to Bryant for your advantage. And I remained your husband in name when your loyalty, probably your body too, belonged to him.

She pushed past him and snatched up a broom. I will not take the blame for your incompetence.

She swung at him. He stuck out his hand and took the sting but held onto the stick. She tried to wrestle it loose, snagging and snapping the gold chain holding a black-and-red-stoned amulet she wore around her neck—a gift from her mother, she’d once told him, the only time she’d mentioned either of her parents.

Go ahead and beat me, he goaded. And as you do, tell me how his loathsome body is in bed. What did he promise for your questionable favors?

Face tight, eyes beaded and still straining to tear the broom out of his grip, Lucinda gasped out, I don’t owe you, or him, or any man. Nothing was ever given to me. I have only what I dared to take, and nothing was taken easily. For forty years I’ve wandered outside of the Promised Land, not as one of the Chosen, more likely one of the Damned.

He smirked at her pomposity and let up on the broom.

She snatched it out of his hand and advanced on him. Let him who is without sin throw the first stone, Richard Strawn. I take care of my own business in my own way, and it will behoove you to stay out of it from this day forward. Don’t force me to reveal what I know about you—things that make my sins seem like petty peccadilloes.

He froze, paralyzed, as if by a snake’s stare. Then she raised her bony index finger and pointed to the top of the stairwell. There stood Jennifer, her face turned away. No doubt she had heard the quarrel.

He glanced up at his daughter, who was crying silently. Jenny, I’m sorry.

Jennifer held out her arms, pleading perhaps that he take her with him.

You go anywhere near that girl, and I’ll have you arrested, Lucinda snarled. Jennifer, get your nose out of what is not your business and back to your room.

The girl turned slowly and did as she was told.

Your little queen is sick, very sick in the head. But you, with your own head always in a bottle, don’t seem to notice, Lucinda said, sweeping him out with the broom and slamming the door at his back.

"Drunk, sick, never this bad before," Richard huffed as he stumbled up the dark wooded bank just off the main road. Looking to relieve himself, he clawed among the rocks and roots for handholds. His foot snagged. The legs that had carried him from tavern to tavern across the city all evening wobbled and gave in. He lay where he fell, sweat pouring from his face. He pissed, and the fluid mingled with his sweat and the forest dampness. His guts roiled and churned. He prayed for sleep to swallow the gruesome day. He had cried about it to a fellow drunk at the Bailiwick—the day he lost everything, including himself.

A good thing to lose yourself, the stranger had replied, since we’re nothing but trouble for ourselves.

Sleep, he pleaded to the stars that zig-zagged through the swaying treetops. He barely twitched after nestling down between the rocks and stumps. His eyes fell closed but behind them was no peaceful darkness. Only red. Blood pounded against his temples, a roaring river of crimson that leapt its banks to become a wall of flame: Whipplehouse burning, Dobbs screaming in the pyre, southern towns set ablaze by Union troops, woman and children roasting in General Sherman’s hell.

A grid of iron crisscrosses the blood-red sky. Why am I lying a prisoner in my own kingdom? Outside the barred window, the water and heavens reflect the city afire. Below, men are loading the boat that will take us across the water. They dally—also in the enemy’s pay? No one can be trusted.

"Except me. That woman, part nurse, part witch, who can read my mind, doles out a potion to make it bearable. The ship will be ready on time," she assures me.

I drink and stare at the fire’s reflection on the chamber wall. It no longer matters that it edges ever closer. The supporting beams of the cathedral have already crumbled, its nave a heap of rubble atop the high altar. Showers of sparks leap from roof to roof, exploding into flames that consume the kingdom’s treasure like cattle consuming hay.

I have failed. I am surrounded by madmen. My best was not enough. Now I wish only peace, solitude, the motionless mountains and running streams of my distant homeland.

There is a knock on the door. Open up, Your Majesty. It is your queen and I, a man shouts.

"It’s them, the nurse says with a wanton wink. Shall I let them in?" She unlatches the door.

"My lord, our kingdom is burning," the queen says.

There is a jealous ache in my weary heart that she, so young and beautiful, stands close, almost clinging, to the handsome general who is said to laugh in the midst of battle. After an affirming look from him, she steps towards me. She has come to change my mind. I will be unable to resist, just as I cannot resist, no matter what weighty matters of state are pressing, when she comes radiantly naked to me in the nuptial chamber.

The general in full armor stands back. He is not supposed to be here; we were to depart without informing even our most trusted allies. To speak of flight in front of this daredevil is impeachable, impossible.

The queen takes my hand. Her perfumed hair splays over her lovely shoulders, framing her perfect face and accentuating her heaving breasts. Look out there, she commands. These are our people. To us were they given to heal, to civilize, to unify. Look, though, how in sickness, ignorance and enmity, they riot, rape and pillage.

"A horde of alien demons. I cannot control what I cannot fathom."

The nurse lets out a shriek of derisive laughter as she refills the cup and holds it towards my lips.

The soldier leaps forward and intercepts the vessel. Then, hand on his sword, he escorts the woman to the door. Your services are not required in times like these, madam.

The queen goes on. You are the king. Only your beneficence, I acknowledge, bestowed the throne on me and declared my power equal to your own in all things.

And so I had done, making it legitimate that she speak now as a goddess, terrifying in her determination, addressing a god who is her peer, not her master.

"Now though, I am the queen, and I resolve to die the queen. I will not surrender the royal purple."

"Would you have us break our oath of office and attack our own citizens? We are damned if we do so."

"And damned if you don’t," the general says.

"How would it be done?" I ask him.

"Some answers are better not given. With your permission, Majesties, I will proceed."

The war cry of the mob, rhythmic, demonic, grows nearer and more belligerent. How swiftly a civilized nation, come crisis, reverts to barbarism. The general stands at attention. I look to the queen. She nods.

"Go and do what you must, I tell the soldier. And may Holy Wisdom be merciful to us all."

CHAPTER 2

New York City, 1879

She had to be dreaming, even if something about it was not at all like dreaming. It had to be a dream that her body was wrapped like a chrysalis in some silly cocoon, but her panic to break loose was as vivid as any conscious effort. The blanket, coarse and stinking, tucked up to her neck felt real. Wool against skin, it itched, and she could not move to scratch. Jennifer lay with her eyes closed, wondering if she only had to open them for the dream to be over. But what if she looked and it was not her own bedroom but someplace else, the horrible place where the things in the dream were happening?

Off somewhere, feet slapped on a hard floor. The steps came closer and then stopped. She inhaled—Oh, God—and cracked her eyelids. There was a gray patch high up; a dirty yellow blotch, eye-level, to her left. There was rattling, then screeching, metal on metal. She slammed her eyes shut again. Play possum. She was in a dungeon. Or dead. Certainly not in her own room. She had to get back to sleep, wake up in the right place.

When last she was sure she was dreaming, she was lost in a desert, struggling through blistering sand by day and huddled between cold rocks at night. She had to try to make her way back there.

But the footsteps, huge and flat, tromped up to her ear. Cold water sloshed over her head. She screamed and heaved up but hit the restraints and bounced back, her breath knocked out.

Your turn, girl, to see the doctor, a crude voice boomed out. Jennifer had to look. A wide creature ripped the blanket away and loosened some straps. Whimpering, Jennifer flexed her arms, so numb that needles ran through them.

Up, up, up. One smart move and the shackles go on. Don’t keep the doctor waiting. The voice was neither male nor female.

My clothes, Jennifer pleaded, one arm over her breasts and the other hand covering her privates.

Use the blanket. You’ll learn to skip the modesty soon enough.

Jennifer embraced the filthy covering. The creature jerked her to her feet. Oh, my God. The floor buckled and the room spun.

Too much medicine. Lucky they didn’t kill you.

Jennifer’s stomach dropped a foot, her knees wobbled, and sweat beaded on her forehead.

I’ll just have to carry you. The enormous one swept her up. Doctor Speigel isn’t a patient man.

Nevertheless, Doctor Speigel seemed patient enough once the nurse—the creature seen in better light had enormous breasts—dumped her on a low couch.

Jennifer, the doctor began, a lovely name for a girl in such trouble. She shivered at his voice, too nuanced for a nightmare, and shrank deeper into the ragged blanket.

Must wake up, she muttered to herself.

You’re awake enough, the doctor said. He leaned and touched her face. She shrank back. Now, now, relax, he crooned. Nothing’s going to hurt you. He tried to pull the blanket down from her chin. She screamed and clutched it, her fingernails scratching his hands. I am your doctor, he said, leaning back, and sooner or later I will have to examine you. He cleared his throat. Do you know why you are here, Jennifer?

She scanned the place, all gray and white except for an enormous black desk off to the side. She would say only what she had to. Where is here?

Belleview Hospital for the Insane in New York City, he said.

She shuddered.

Your mother had you committed.

Possible, and infuriating, even in a dream. She stared at the white wall across the room and begged it to dissolve into her bedroom.

How did I—did she get me here without my knowing it?

That doesn’t matter. The doctor smiled. All that matters now is your treatment.

She sniffled. The blanket’s rancid odor filled her nose. When do I get out?

Trust me to handle that. If I decide it’s time, you’ll get out. Not when but if.

Her heart began to sound like a galloping horse. Unbearable panic might drive the nightmare away—or kill her, if she was not already dead. The room had small windows, but they were high and closed. The nurse had locked the door on her way out. And weak as she was, the doctor would have little trouble restraining her. So why am I here? she asked to gain time.

We’ll discover that together. It’ll take many sessions. Perhaps we’ll never know.

No. He knows, she thought. And I must. Even if it is a dream, it didn’t start in the middle of nowhere. I didn’t just appear here. I was somewhere else, and now I’m here, Belleview Hospital for the Insane, he had said. Your mother had you committed.

She lifted her knees and grabbed them to pull herself up, but her body collapsed. You’ve not eaten for days, she barely heard the doctor say.

In my room. Yes, I am in my room. Carriages pulling into the driveway woke me up. Too early. Talking downstairs, all hushed. Mrs. Strawn, this is Bertha and Letty. In case there is difficulty. I hope they won’t be necessary.

"Good morning, ladies. Wait in the kitchen. There’s coffee and sweet cakes. Luckily she’s sleeping late."

A man’s voice, heavy accent: Mr. Bryant and his vife, zey are already here?

More hooves and wheels in the driveway. It’s them now. We’ll set up in the parlor.

Sleepy still, head thick. Imagining things? Better slip into the hall and make sure.

"How nice of you to come, Madeleine. Your experience will be an inspiration for my daughter."

If Mrs. Bryant only knew how much Mother hates her.

"It looks like everysing is prepared. The girls have the medication and restraints ready, if ve needs zem."

"What’s the ruckus down there? I yell. It’s my one morning to sleep."

"Come down for a minute, dear. It’s Mother, sickly sweet. I want you to meet some friends."

"You’ve got to be crazy, Ma. I’m not even dressed. Since when do friends come over at this time of day anyway?" I yawn and turn back to the bedroom.

"Mind your manners with guests and come down here now."

"Guests? I sigh. Do you mind if I throw on some decent clothes?"

Chairs scrape. I retreat. "It’s better she comes down