Cutler 02 - Secrets of the Morning

Cutler, he's good," I said.
    "Good? A man who steals babies is good? There's no question as to whether or not the devil is inside of you. The question is will you ever get him out?"
    "The devil is in you, not me," I muttered. I couldn't keep my eyes open. "He's in you . . ." My voice trailed off.
    Miss Emily droned on and on, spinning her talk about the devil and hell and my ingratitude into a blanket of venom and hate to throw over me. After a while I didn't hear words, just the droning and I fell into a deep sleep.
    I awoke hours later in the darkness and for a moment, I didn't know where I was. But the aches in my arms and legs and shoulders helped refresh my memory. I groaned and turned in the bed. And then I heard the sound of a match and saw a single candle lit. The eerie amber light illuminated Miss Emily's face. She had been sitting in the dark near me waiting for me to stir awake. She leaned toward me. My heart began to pound as she brought her face closer and closer to mine.
    "I have prayed over you," she said in a hoarse whisper. "And I have watched over you, but unless you repent of your ways, the devil won't release his grip on you. I want you to recite the Lord's Prayer now and every night, do you understand? Make the vessel of your body an unfriendly place for the devil to reside.
    Pray!" she commanded, her eyes two glowing embers.
    "I'm tired," I said. "I'm so tired . . ."
    "Pray," she repeated. "Drive the devil back into hell. Pray, pray, pray," she chanted.
    "Our Father," I began, my lips trembling, "who art in Heaven . . ."
    I couldn't remember the words and she claimed that it was the devil who was making me forget. She made me repeat it until I recited it perfectly and then she blew out the candle between us and slipped out through the darkness like one who was well acquainted with the night and the shadows and all the dark thoughts that haunt us in our most troubled moments.
    I fell asleep again, not sure whether what had happened was a nightmare or not.

 
    15
NEVER-ENDING NIGHTMARES
     
    In the days and weeks that followed, I felt myself slowly but surely becoming more and more numb. I was deadened and dulled, moving about the plantation house like a robot, without feeling, uncaring, hardly seeing or hearing anything or anyone around me. It was as if the terrible cold that had engulfed me so viciously that afternoon when I had tried to walk to Upland Station still had a grip on me. I grew used to the house of darkness, the long shadows and the deep silences. I no longer glared defiantly at Miss Emily or challenged her authority and orders with questions. Whatever she told me to do, I did. Wherever she told me to go, I went.
    One day she had me take out each and every volume in the library and dust the book jackets and the shelves. There were hundreds of books, some never touched for years and years, their pages so yellow and brittle they crumbled in my fingers if I pressed them too hard. I was there all afternoon and didn't even finish by the time the sun had begun to fall behind the trees outside the window. Miss Emily made me return after I had cleaned up the dinner dishes. I had to work by kerosene lamp and didn't finish until nearly midnight.
    Exhausted, I pulled myself up the stairway and found myself grateful even for my decrepit room and bed. But I overslept the next morning, and when I didn't appear when I was supposed to, Miss Emily came up and poured a glass of ice cold water on my head. I screamed and jerked myself up abruptly out of a dead sleep. I felt something tear in my rib cage. The pain was excruciating, but Miss Emily wasn't interested.
    "Sloth is one of the seven deadly sins," she declared as she hovered over me. "Rise early and be at your chores promptly and you will provide no sinful flesh for the devil to gnaw upon. Now dry yourself and come right down to the kitchen," she ordered.
    Even at this outrage, I didn't moan. My flag of pride remained unfurled; my dignity lay at my feet. I was tugged from chore to chore, room to room. I let myself be ridiculed and made an example whenever Miss Emily decided to preach to us at the dinner table. One Sunday, she made me the subject of the service in the make-shift chapel. I thought I was even beginning to see a look of pity for me in both Luther's and Charlotte's eyes.
    But I felt helpless and lost. My mother never had inquired about me and I had been unable to contact Trisha or Jimmy or Daddy Longchamp. All that mattered now was