Chapter 49
I stand on the veranda, watching the groundskeeper trim bushes in the distance.
The most bewildering part of all is that Doctor Lobo thinks it worked.
Happy ending, he said. As if he healed Mother.
As if I should be grateful to have Mother trapped inside the subconscious of this other woman, this Strange Madalena, who killed Joaquina, and who is to be sedated in a zombie-like state for the rest of her life, an invalid for me to take care of.
At times Mother flashed through Strange Madalena, and for a moment it felt that Mother was present, but she won’t break free anymore if she is permanently sedated.
It worked for him. He managed to complete the spell and will advance in his order.
A thought has been playing in my mind vividly, over and over again. Getting brighter and brighter, until my fingers twitch with zeal and blood clamors in my veins.
The sun lies low in the clouds. Its rays weaken, soften, and turn blue. The masked man, apparently satisfied, takes off on a horse, and Maria das Dores has left as well. Now it’s just the three of us.
The groundskeeper pulls out gnarly weeds from the garden bed. He chops wood with a long axe. I go to him and tell him to leave for the day. He thanks me, taking off his straw hat.
He leaves the axe planted in the chopping block.
I pause at the threshold, seeing without being seen.
Coward, you’ll never do it.
I hear a faint ringing in my ears, distant and fragmented. You have the darkness in you.
Mother saying: Deep down you want to do terrible things. Your heart is darkened by sinful cravings, and one of these days…
One of these days…
Doctor Lobo is bent over her. He’s whispering things under his breath. His voice sounds just like that night, satanic whispers, inhuman. He’s so focused, he doesn’t notice me turning the handle slowly.
She’s not in a deep slumber now; I can tell from the way she turns her head, she’s in a light sleep. As if the sedation is starting to wear off. The room is warm. Her eyelids quiver and flutter. She turns her head slightly, as though on the verge of waking.
She wielded the dagger. She was bloodied and in her underpinnings. A blessing in disguise, he said. Docile and easy to charm.
Doctor Lobo isn’t aware of my presence. He’s standing too close to her.
There are no sheets covering her body. He stripped her down partly so that the upper half of her body is exposed.
He runs his hand over her skin, breathing heavy.
He moans as he touches her. His fingernails are long and yellow and scrape her skin.
He mumbles under his breath and licks his lips.
She moans softly, forehead glistening with sweat. Her eyelids open halfway, then close again. Her right knee twitches, her chin lifts.
I step forth, making no attempt to be quiet. By the time he turns around, the axe is already raised.
People think that Hell is a pit of hot, blazing flames, and for the most part they are right.
It is the pit that was created by Lucifer’s fall from Heaven, and within its rusted iron walls the steam-thick air is plagued by a rain of fire, and the rivers are of boiling mud and blood.
But the deeper, lower circles of Hell are frozen.
There is only stillness, and a vast lake of ice where sinners lie submerged with only their heads jutting out like the tip of an iceberg.
In the epicenter, Satan flaps his wings and grinds his teeth upon Judas, Cassius, and Brutus.
The chill of lower Hell seeps into the room.
It seeps into my bones and limbs, into my fingers and toes.
Tremors rock my body. I wipe down blood splatter from Mother’s cheeks with a wet rag.
She stirs but doesn’t wake. In a moment, her cheeks are clean again.
I wipe her shoulders, chest, and stomach.
Soon all the blood is gone. I roll the dress back on, then cover her with the sheet.
She will be dead soon, but not without dignity.
The ringing in my ears is gone. The tremors pass and I feel calm as a windless ocean. I take my seat in the straw-backed rocking chair by the wall. I am content to just sit here and wait.
All will be made right that was wrong.
All will be made whole that was broken.
I am going to set Mother free, once and for all.
Time passes. Night ascends.
Then, finally, Mother sits up in bed. The room is a kaleidoscope of shadows. A fever burns in my head. I am wide-awake.
She stares at me. “Where…where is my baby?”
My baby. She remains imprisoned in 1877, but I will free her. When I rise, I hear blood drip from the axe onto the floor.
Mother attempts to get out of bed but the ropes hold. She panics, pulls, and twists. She manages to cry and howl, even sedated. She rolls off the bed and gets tangled in the ropes.
I hold the axe in my right hand, feel the weight of it pulling downward. Each step feels like effort. It was easy with Doctor Lobo. I wanted to slice him open, to shred him to bits. But with Mother, it’s different. The act carries more weight.
She screams my name, as though she thinks I’m elsewhere.
Maybe she thinks I am Lobo. She collapses by the bed frame and notices that she’s sitting in a pool of blood—Doctor Lobo’s blood—and then notices his arm peeking from the bed frame.
She finally stops struggling as I hover over her, as if accepting her fate.
Her eyes go blank.
I raise the axe high over my head.
Light comes into her eyes.
“Leandro,” she says, clear-eyed. Fear replaced with awe. In the way she says my name, I recognize the profound shift that has taken place.
There it is, at last: the glimmer of recognition.
I drop the axe.