Chapter Eight
Theodore
I wander a path through the wood in search of monsters,
For it is in the dark and lonely they say the wicked roam.
I follow the groans of the trees and the growls of beasts;
I chase the shadows that hide where we cannot see.
"Monsters do not exist, darling one,"
my mother tells me when I come home.
My feet are bloodied and my hands are empty;
still, she cradles my face between her gentle palms.
"Stop your wandering, for there are no monsters left to find."
And yet one resides within my bones.
Behind my teeth.
Clawing through my fingertips.
I wander a path through the wood and search for monsters,
and I wonder if I will find myself.
By the time I make it home, the rain has stopped and the night has grown still and eerie. My feet are sore, my knees and hands bloodied from where I slipped down the path of Echo's Peak. I cannot remember the last time I breathed. My ribs ache.
I can still taste the blood in my teeth.
I barely manage to stumble to the washroom without waking the whole village, collapsing to my knees before the latrine. In a mockery of my earlier actions, I shove my fingers down my throat, gagging, heaving, until my stomach lurches and spills into the porcelain basin.
It hurts. It burns.
For once, that monster inside of me felt sated. Not completely, of course, but somewhat. Like tossing a dog a bone when it craved the meat it came from. The blood on Lady Azizi's lips had tasted of ambrosia, of Heaven—
No. Not Heaven. Blood does not taste like Heaven.
It tastes like Hell. Like temptation in liquid form, disguised as Heaven until it hits your stomach and demands more and more and more.
Until you can't stop, until you don't want to stop.
And by then, you have ruined yourself so thoroughly that only the Devil would want you.
Another sob wrecks through me as my nails scrape the back of my throat.
The water in the basin swirls a vicious, bile-tinged pink.
Yet still, behind the acidic taste of vomit, there is blood.
The stranger's in Lady Azizi's parlor. My own.
Thick and warm in the back of my throat where I cannot reach no matter how far I shove my hand.
It tastes delicious. It tastes vile.
I want to claw my way through the skin of my throat until I reach the place where it's hidden; want to tear the monster that lives within me out from the roots; want to split open my veins to repay the blood that I stole—
"Theodore!"
I don't remember hearing the door open, but there are strong arms wrapping around me from behind, trapping my hands against my torso and tearing me away from the latrine.
I kick out in panic, trying to tear away from the grasp, but I am weak and small, and I manage nothing more than bruising myself in my struggle.
"Theodore, please, m'boy. You need to calm down. You need—God above, is that blood?"
Another sob tears through me, and I curl into myself, hunched over with only a cage of arms to hold me up. "I didn't—I swear I didn't! I can't—it isn't—" God, why can't I breathe? Why does it hurt so much? Am I being punished already? "Please, I swear I didn't hurt anyone, I swear it!"
The arms tighten around me, a weight falling against the back of my head as we begin to rock back and forth. "Oh, I know, my son. I know you haven't hurt no one."
"It's the Devil," I plead, pinching my eyes closed to fight the tears that refuse to stop. "He—he's back. I can feel him in me. I can't—I couldn't control it—I'm sorry, I'm sorry—"
I don't know how long I sit there and sob, soaked to the bone and covered in bile and blood and tears. Still, the grip around me never wavers, never stops the gentle rocking and the soothing words.
When I finally have no more tears left to give, the arms loosen and the voice sighs. "Come on, Theo. Let's get you washed up."
"Papa?"
I cling to his wrists, terrified that I'll crumble again if he lets me go, but my father only hoists me into his arms like a babe and sets me on the stool beside the tub.
"I'm here, m'boy. I'm not going nowhere, just going to fill the tub, yeah?"
Time melts away, nothing but muddy sludge in my head as my father works.
Distantly, I watch him, following his movements as he turns the faucet on and fills the tub, as he returns to divest me of my disgusting shirt and trousers, tossing my muddy shoes and pants to the side.
He works at my chest bindings with a practiced grace before tossing those away as well.
When I finally come back to myself, I am curled in the warm water of the tub, my cheek resting on my knees as thick, calloused fingers work their way through my curls.
"I'm sorry, papa."
The fingers still for only a moment before continuing to mix the suds in my hair. "For what, m'boy? You said yourself, you didn't do nothing."
"I let the Devil have me," I whisper, terrified of who might hear me.
"I tasted sin, and... and I liked it." My father is silent behind me, but I don't dare to turn and look at him, too afraid of what I might find on his aged face.
"Do you think God has renounced me? Do you think my soul was rotten from the beginning and that's why I am the way I am? "
Gentle hands tip my head back, and my father scoops a cup of water to rinse the soap from my hair.
"God doesn't make rotten souls," he says in the same way he says that a certain fabric is silk or cotton, soft or warm.
He is confident, and it settles something in my chest a little.
"I think if God made you this way, then he did so for a reason, and he wouldn't denounce you for it.
And if it is the Devil tempting you, then I believe God'll see how strongly you fight to be good, and he'll forgive your trespasses. "
"Father Thompson does not agree."
Memories flash behind my eyes of stained-glass windows and a different tub of blessed water. Too many hands holding me down. The Father chanting in the background. The statue of the Mother looming over me, watching me drown with pity in her stony eyes.
I force my eyes open to stare at the ceiling of my home, at the small tuft of my father's greying hair that I can see from the angle my neck is bent at.
"Father Thompson is not the Lord," my father answers sharply, though not unkindly. "He may think his word as law, but unless the Pope himself comes to tell me you are rotten and beyond saving, then I will not entertain the idea a second longer."
I have never understood Alick Villin's dislike for the father.
He seems to hold no anger for the Church itself, nor God or the Pope, but when Father Thompson is brought up, he gets a sour look on his face and refuses to entertain the man's doctrine if it separates from what the Good Word or the Holy Pope states.
After the pinkish water circles down the drain and I am dressed in my nightshirt, my father leads me to bed and presses a glass of water into my hands, bidding me to drink as he works to bandage the scrapes on my knees and palms.
I entertain him, too exhausted to argue, even when he hands me some tasteless crackers to eat as well. My stomach aches and churns, but I swallow them anyway.
"You are not rotten," my father says once I am tucked in and the candles have been blown out. He presses a kiss to my forehead. "You are my son, and I would fight Peter himself to make sure you follow us into Heaven. Father Thompson be damned."
Regardless of my father's words, I find myself in confession the next morning.
My knees are still scuffed and raw from falling the night before, and they ache when I kneel on the padded stool set below the latticed window.
I cross myself and fold my bandaged hands, grateful for the sting of pain that comes with the action.
It is nothing in the face of my sins, despite what my father tells me, and I press my palms together even harder just to prove it.
"Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned. It has been four days since my last confession.
" I do not try to hide the shake in my words, nor try to wipe the tears from my cheeks as they begin to fall.
I know Father Thompson can recognize me by voice alone, and I try to ignore the fear that ignites in me whenever I speak to him of my sins.
"Tell me, child," he urges. Impatient. Hungry for blame.
I swallow the bile that swims in the back of my throat, try to ignore the rabbit-quick beating of my heart.
"I have committed many sins since my last confession.
Since last we spoke, I have lied to my father multiple times.
I have thought ill and wicked thoughts about my neighbors.
I have had lustful thoughts toward... the butcher across the street. "
Selfishness. Lies. It didn't matter how small a sin I committed, I know I must confess all if Father Thompson is to be satisfied. Yet still, I cannot confess that it was not the butcher which I craved so terribly.
"I have—I have fed the Devil's hunger and committed lustful and sinful acts with a woman outside of matrimony. A woman of much higher status than myself."
I can still taste her on my tongue—the sweet ambrosia of the blood mixed with the softer, sweeter musk of her pleasure.
She'd been so warm beneath my fingers, had arched and gasped in such lovely ways.
The beast inside me wanted nothing more than to bring her to orgasm again and again, to sink my teeth into the flesh of her breast and my fingers into the heat between her legs and never let go.
"I…"—fed on human blood, I want to say. I need to say. The very thought of such an act is an offense against God Himself, and yet I cannot find the strength to push the words out.
Fear, I often find, is just as powerful as hunger when given the right motivation.