VENGEANCE

The Gas-lit Garden

In the gas-lit garden

The moon above doth shine

With a waning luster

From a light divine.

And in the gas-lit garden

The lanterns do too

Adding an eerie nature

And a freakish hue.

For in the gas-lit garden

The strange and evil dwell

A place it seems, a land of dreams

A Heaven … or more often, Hell.

Aconitum is not a word that would conjure visions of beauty. It does not possess the ready identification for something delicate, like a rose does, nor does it roll off the tongue like a lily. However, this flower can be a number of different colors and shades with a bell shape that makes it beautiful in its own right and more than capable of holding its own against the daughters of the genus Rosa.

 

Aconitum ranges across the globe, but it thrives in mountainous climes, from the Alps to the Himalayas. The most common varieties have deep blue petals. On a small, shaded spot in an overlooked section of a sprawling urban garden, a single perfect specimen of this particular plant seems to drink in the flickering fluorescence of moonlight which adds to the scant lighting provided by gas-lamps overhead.

Under the silvery moon, the little waif's rag-wrapped feet crunched against the snow, leaving faint traces of blood as they did. Ordinarily, this would bother her. How could it not? But the old black beast would soon be upon her if she didn't move quickly. She had no choice. She had to keep going.

The wind was howling, and it tore at her ears and against her cheeks as it did. The blood would draw him if the corpse didn't, but that's exactly what she wanted, wasn't it? She shook her head. One by one, the animal had stolen into her home on nights such as this, removing first her mother, then her grandfather, then her little brother. It had taken all these things from her and more. She didn't have anything else. With luck, she had not roused him too soon. She had to move.

Her home, a rustic little cabin, sat on the outskirts of the village of Tatabanya. The house was avoided by the locals, as it served as a gateway to a land best-forgotten. A nightmarish kingdom of demons and devils that would steal forth in the darkness, with denizens that would arise from within the shroud of night to terrorize and harm.

Much of the world was moving past such superstitious nonsense as fearing what lived in her house. Such monsters could not possibly be real, could they? This was, after all, the Age of Victoria. Men from lands bearing names the little girl would never hear with wonders she would never believe were wresting humanity from the darkness one miracle at a time through judicious application of science and imagination. And yet, in this particular corner of the Austro-Hungarian Empire at the dawn of the year 1888, night still belonged to the fiends. And the fiends' stake in the world lay in the house where the little one lived.

Her grandfather had been, before his death, a knight of old in this fast-changing world. He had pledged a solemn oath to drive off or at least hold back the house's evil. When he died at the hands of the demon, with his dying breath, he made the little girl swear she would protect her little brother. After the old man died, they would be all each other had.

With the shape of a man, the spirit stood over just under two meters in height, an unimpressive number in some corners but certainly taller than most men in this particular part of the world and at this particular time. He was lean of form, with narrow hips and broad, hulking shoulders, while heavy, black hair covered his back, chest, legs and arms. The latter were knotted with muscles belying the creature's strength. This man who wasn't a man had a head crowned with a wild and wavy ebon mane that he often bound in a dirty cloth tie. His eyes were a liquidy hazel, but they could shift to a deep amber if he was properly incensed. Above his eyes rode a single bushy brow that reminded one of a long and wooly worm which moved in time with his massive, sloping brow ridge. His nose was a great hooked horror which served as a watchman over a massive and thick black mustache. When the monster was angry, which was often, his eyes danced in liquid fire, his nostril spat flames, and the Earth itself shook from his voice alone.

Tonight was the third night since her brother's death. Tonight, the child would rise up to Heaven to be with Jesus and the angels. That is, unless the beast came for him tonight. She had to beat him there. Nothing escaped the demon. It would not let things escape. Not good things. It destroyed goodness. It hated light. Her brother had never hurt anyone. Her brother was not like her. He deserved to be with Jesus. She had to destroy the demon. He would come.

She had to be ready.

She was a child herself, eight or nine, she wasn't sure and had never been taught to care of such things. Her hair was a dirty blond, like her mother's. She tried to braid it, as her mother had often done for her before she died, but whether because of her age or some other factor, the braid was little more that a protruding tangle. She wore a worn red cloak about her shoulders, her cloak, a gift from her grandfather years before. Thanks to too few meals, the garment still served its purpose, a good thing too, as her poverty would not have allowed for a replacement. Her small feet were bound in rags that tried to seal out the cold and snow. Her eyes were a clear sky blue, remarkable for a lack of happiness in them that one might expect in a child her age. Her skin was chafed and bone-white, save for dry, frost-reddened patches at her cheeks and knuckles. Those patches and the sickly green or blue-black splotches that covered her back, bottom, or legs kept her from seeming more than a ghost.

At least, on the outside she looked like more than a ghost.

Her breath escaped from her in the form of a murky white cloud as she moved, as white as pure milk. If only it was milk, she might not bother to breathe at all, instead she would certainly have gobbled her breath down little a glutton. As she watched herself breath, she let her mind wander around such a precious little thought. Warm, delicious milk. As much as she could ever want.

She was hungry and tired, having pushed herself to the distant churchyard where her brother now lay in repose. Her dress, with its deep black top and white laces, sagged on her shoulders, allowing air to intrude down the hole meant for her neck. Her shoulders slumped all the more for the wooden basket she carried. It carried food, but not for her. It was meant to help her brother.

She had not eaten since the funeral service, sacrificing the meager provisions of her larder to make a cake. Tonight, they would celebrate. Tonight, her brother was going to Heaven. The cake was not a lavish affair. It was a flat square of kneaded wheat the size of her grandfather's old Bible. The flour had been mixed with a smallish bit of butter, salt, yeast, goat's milk, and honey. This was lightly frosted with a frothed mixture of honey and butter. Beside it in the basket was a single flower, her mother's favorite. The flowers that grew around the little cabin in abundance. The kind that her mother had taught her how to press and dry. For drink, she had brought a single small jar of water that the little girl had wrought from the snow.

She knew the cake was not so grand, but it was the best thing that she could provide to help her brother on the way to Heaven. Maybe, just maybe, her brother would understand. She wasn't going to Heaven. She knew that. Not something like her. Her brother was different. He was innocent. He deserved Heaven. The only way he would get there, though, was if she could keep the demon from claiming his soul. Beside the flower, the only other thing she had brought, was a small pewter knife.

It had to be enough. It was all that she had.

With a stoic determination, almost unknown in one her age, she slowly placed the basket on the top of the low stone fence that encircled the church's cemetery. The gate would be locked at this time pf night, she knew that. The fence was her only way. Luckily, the enclosure had been made from stones taken from the nearby countryside, and only high enough to keep out curious animals or very small children. She wasn't a large child, but she would make it over the fence one way or another.

As her fingers and palms touched the barrier before her, she felt a sting that would not have hurt worse had the structure been made of the brambles and thorns of rose bushes. Lights exploded in her eyes. She was already cold. She was so very cold. She bit her lip hard to muffle herself, lest she wake someone.

She kept going. She had to.

Fighting against the pain, she raised herself up and onto the fence, and once she was upon it, the icy stones pushed her to keep going. As her feet crunched onto ground on the other side, she reached up to take the basket back into her arms and trudge toward her final destination. A small plot of recently covered ground. 

Amid headstones and markers going back over three-hundred years sat a simple wooden board that had been marked in a heavy, careful black paint. The undertaker was not an especially generous man, but the death of a child could touch even him. The marker, which the undertaker had provided free of charge, read simply Ernst Jakab 1883 Junius 21 ~ 1888 Januar 14.

At least he had a headstone.

 

She found the plot without much trouble, and once she had, she placed the basket down beside it. Without hesitation, she began cutting the cake with the little knife. As she cut, dividing the cake into four equal slices, she could hear feet land softly on the snow where she hand been such a short time before. He was here. 

 

She had to be ready.

She placed the little knife just inside the laces of her dress and turned slowly. The demon, the great black beast, wore the shell of a man as it strode to her. It regarded the little basket with great curiosity before turning back to her. With a smile, it asked at last “Vannak itt háromszori étkezést?”

“Igen. Én egy tortát sütött a bátyám. Szeretne egy szelet tortát?” With a smile, the creature pushed her back, scooping two pieces of the sweet from the container at once. Plopping them greedily into its mouth, its loudly smacking lips gnashed happily on the meal. Without stopping its jaws, it knelt down to take the jar of fresh water, lifting it to its lips and guzzling the contents in one fell swoop.

“A méz édes volt. Most szeretnék egy igazi étel.” Before she could react, before she could draw the blade, the beast had pushed her to the ground. Pawing at her, its oafish fingers tore at the ties of her garments as tears welled in her eyes.

“Ne csináld ezt itt,” she protested as he pinned her wrists to the snow, trying not to scream out of fear and embarrassment. The frigid ground against her bare skin made her entire body rock upward as forcefully as she could against the monster. The tears broke along with her voice into quiet sobs. She could do nothing but wait for it to be over.

It was never over.

“Drágám, én csak szeretnék köszönetet mondani. A torta finom volt.” With its free hand, it continued working on the strings, becoming increasingly frustrated as it did. Snarling in a building rage, the monster's face came next to hers, its breath hot and saliva dripping into her in the snow. The breath carried such a heavy trace of wine that she could taste it. Gagging heavily at the fetid odor and brackish spittle permeating from the demon, her struggles became weaker by the minute but not her sobs. The beast's spit tasted horrid. She tried to keep it out, but he was to close to her. There was so much. And she was crying too hard.

“Veronika,szereted ezt a.” The monster smiled. Giddy in his triumph. Giddy at her terror. So giddy that the world began to spin. Unsteadily, as his eyes focused in and out, as his muscles became suddenly, increasingly heavy, the man that was a monster rasped “Drágám, Rosszul érzem magam. Tettél valamit az élelmiszer?”

Her voice stammered in a whisper “ Nem az étel. A víz. A viz.”

***

 

Ernst Veronika would be found by the cemetery's caretaker the next morning, stock-still and clutching her torn dress, her body huddled inside a threadbare cloak. Her body was bruised and bloodied, her bony frame leaning against the gravemarker of her younger brother. In her hands, she held the petals of a pressed blue flower. Aconitum. It was her mother's favorite.

 

Next to her on the snow lay the dead body of Ernst Otto, her father. The man's clothes were in an unseemly amount of disarray, but he didn't seem to mind. Next to the corpse lay a basket that ravens had emptied of two small pieces of cake, and next to that lay a discarded little pewter knife.

Beside that lay a very empty glass jar.

Before it had been emptied, the jar had held melted snow. As the snow was boiled over the stove in her cabin, the little girl had shaved aconitum petals and roots into the pot from flowers her mother had preserved long ago, letting the shavings steep like tea. Aconitum was so common where she came from, but that didn't stop it from being her favorite flower.

All the same, her mother, before she died, had warned the child extensively on the dangers of the plant. Aconitum. Monkshood. Wolfsbane. Regardless of the name one knew it by, any part of the flower could and would kill man or beast. Or both. In desperation, a little girl who could not endure any more had tricked the only family she had left in the world into his death. A fiend that had masqueraded as a father.

The little girl did not die that night. Not physically. But in the remorse for what she had done, tricking even a devil to its death, the little one had shattered. One of her favorite memories, some of the only good ones she had, were of her grandfather reading the Bible to her and her brother when her father was away. She knew that killing was wrong. Didn't even fiends deserve to live? 

If they did not, Veronika had always wondered, why had God allowed for the Devil himself to continue? 


She had killed. 

With no one to protect her when she needed a protector most, she had, in her mind, become the fiend. All she wanted was to protect the only thing she still loved in the world. All she wanted was to protect her brother. All she wanted was for the pain to stop.

And when she couldn't have these things, with all she had cared for taken from her, the only thing she had left to want was revenge. For her brother's sake. For her own. All it cost was her soul. And she knew that a worthless thing like her didn't deserve Heaven anyway.

And so, rather than soar as an angel skyward that night, the child became rooted in body and spirit to the Earth itself. When she was found that morning, her skin had turned blue from the cold. A beautiful blue. A deep, rich blue. The blue of aconitum petals. The kind of petals that could only be found on a flower … in the Gas-lit Garden.

~ END