The boy and the girl lay close together in the narrow bed.
Their faces almost touching and the boy whispering.
“Death is not the end. He will avenge us. We will rise. Dark
stars in the sky. No one can do this to us.”
The girl got a little closer. Her hair frizzy from the moist
heat. She caressed the boy’s face
gently.
“You are so brave, Errol. So strong. You can do anything.”
Her words made him feel good; she was the only one who made
him feel good. His mother had made him feel like a prince. She used to hold him
in her lap, stroke his back and whisper in his ear.
“You are my prince, Errol. My prince. One day you will rise
up. You are special.”
He remembered so little, but that he remembered. And how she
used to smell of flowers and how the house was different then. When she died
the sun never really reached all the way into the house anymore. He rolled over
to his back, looked up at the ceiling. Watched the Devil’s Nest moving in the
breeze. Making stick figure shadows on the wall.
“Grandpa Tuttle is coming tomorrow. The men will go to
Carcosa. Soon I will be allowed to go with them.”
The girl moved restlessly in the bed. Sat up and leaned
against the headboard.
“I don’t like Grandpa Tuttle,” she said and started to pick
at her cuticles. “He hurt me.” She picked the scab off her left index finger.
Yesterday she had cut herself peeling potatoes. It started to bleed instantly.
She put the finger in her mouth and sucked the wound. Iron and salt landed on her tongue .
Errol put a hand on her leg.
“I never hurt you.”
She shook her head, the finger still in her mouth.
“No, never,” she said with a smile.
He moved his hand up her thigh, squeezed the muscles. Betty
was strong, not the smartest girl in the world, but she was fun. And she made
him feel good. She slid down so she could lie next to him and he could put his
hand inside her panties. Touched the fine hair, the silky skin and the wetness.
One day when he was
nine, during the winter when the air was clear, father had brought Betty home.
She was eleven, dirty and full of lice. Miss Janette had bathed her, combed her
hair, cut her finger nails and fed her. He had watched as she ate. She used her
fingers more than the silverware. That night when Miss Janette had put him to
bed, he had asked about the girl.
“She’s your sister,” she said and helped him button his
pajamas. “She has been left alone for too long. Longer than any child should
be.”
At first he had been scared of Betty. She was bigger than he
was and strong. She pinched him instead
of talking to him. One day that spring, when the ground had started to warm up,
Grandpa Tuttle came to visit. He brought with him a large white box with a pink
bow. Betty opened it in awe, inside was a beautiful doll. Bright eyed, blonde
curls, a shiny white dress. He looked at Betty for a long time. She shifted her
weight on the chair, uncomfortable under his gaze. After lunch he asked her to
walk with him. Father didn’t object.
When Errol went out in the barn to work on his bike he found
Betty sitting curled up in a corner. Crying, with blood on her dress. She
wouldn’t look at him when he spoke to her. “Are you sick?” he asked over and
over but she didn’t say anything so he went and got Miss Janette.
Miss Janette undressed the girl, washed her up and sang low;
“Someone is cryin’ my lord, come by here”. Betty stayed in bed for a week and
after that she wouldn’t leave Errol’s side.
Next time Grandpa Tuttle brought another doll, then another, then
another but never did he ask Betty to walk with him again.
“I like when you make flowers on me,” she whispered in the
murky room. The sun was about to set and the crickets had started singing their
song. He pulled down her panties and got out of his pants. She welcomed him in
her arms with warmth and tenderness. He kissed her neck, her breasts, she
moaned and lifted her hips.
The headlights from the car lit up the room and Errol jumped
out of the bed. Their father would soon enter the house and if he found them in
bed together he would be furious. Out of instinct he rubbed his face, felt the
shiny scars under his fingers. Shuddered.
“Betty.” He pulled the girls arm. She scrambled to find her
panties and then she tiptoed across the hallway into the bathroom.
Errol walked slowly down the stairs, heard his father move
around in the kitchen. “Betty!” he
screamed and Errol heard the anger in his voice. Now close to fifteen he was
taller than his father but the fear was still there. The fear of violence. The
fear of humiliation. The fear of the words that used to burn his insides. When
his father saw him, he stopped in the middle of the kitchen floor. Stared at
Errol, narrowed his eyes.
“Where is Betty? Where is the damn dinner?”
Errol didn’t look up but spoke to the floor.
“Father was running late so we ate. Dinner is on a plate in
the refrigerator. Chicken and potato salad.”
“Where is that stupid girl? Betty!”
Errol heard Betty’s clumpy steps down the stairs. She ran into the kitchen and
stopped a few steps away from their father.
“Yes father?” She also kept her eyes on the floor.
“Dinner,” their father spat out.
Betty hurried over to the refrigerator and took out his
plate. She placed it on the table and brought out a glass and some silverware.
Their father sat down heavily. He grabbed Betty by the arm, squeezed hard
around her wrist. Errol could she how she flinched.
“Drink, you stupid cow.”
“Yes, sir.”
Betty poured iced tea into the glass and put the pitcher on
the table.
“You should be grateful. I could have let you die or sold
you.”
“Yes, sir,“ Betty said and curtsied, and then she left the
kitchen. Errol wanted to leave too, he
wanted to watch TV. He had seen in the newspaper that Hitchcock’s Psycho was on tonight.
But when he turned around to leave his father’s voice stopped him.
“Sit!”
Errol sat down and watched as his father ate. The big man
cut the chicken into pieces and shoveled the meat in with the potato salad. He
drank big gulps of the iced tea.
“Grandpa Tuttle is coming tomorrow.”
Errol nodded and waited as his father ate some more. Betty had
turned on the TV.
“You are old enough to come with us to Carcosa.”
Errol’s mouth fell open.
“Only to watch at first. We need new younger warriors in our
ranks. You will be fifteen soon. A young
man. Not a boy anymore.”
“Yes, father.”
His father told the story of Carcosa. A fortress, a stron
hold no one could conquer. The Romans, the Crusaders, the French. They all tried but
no one could defeat the city. The King in Yellow protected them. But the protection
wasn’t for free. The King needed sweet, fresh blood to nourish himself.
Errol had heard this story more times that he could
remember. At first it had scared him, a story of the bogeymen coming to take
him. Miss Janette had comforted him many nights when he woke up screaming. She had made Devil’s Nest’s to hang over his
bed. To capture the thing that scared him. The nightmares had been so real. The
man dressed in yellow stood over his bed with a knife in his hand. As he grew
older he understood that he had no need to be scared. He was one of the chosen
ones. His bloodline came from Carcosa. His uncles rose through society, got
more power. Reverend, sheriff, governor. One day it would be his turn. Tomorrow would be his turn.
Betty sat by the TV with one of her dolls, she
absentmindedly caressed its hair. Errol stood in the doorway, didn’t move, only
watched her. Carcosa, Carcosa, Carcosa. A
dream. A curse. What I will do for revenge no one understands. Only you
Carcosa. The King in Yellow, do you hear me? I am the dark star. I will do what
you need me to do. All I ask is revenge. I am yours.
The words in his mind grew, burst, rained down like
shattered glass. Fragile, beautiful, kaleidoscopic, sharp.
“Betty,” he said and she jumped up scared from the floor. When
she saw it was only him her face relaxed.
“I’m going to Carcosa tomorrow.”
She dropped the doll, then a big smile spread across her
face and she clapped her hands.
“Oh, oh, oh,” she said and ran up to him.
“I can only watch first.” He bent down and looked into her
eyes, it glimmered in there. “But when I am in charge I will avenge us. No one
can treat us like this. We will get the power.”
She nodded excitedly, put her hand on his face. Followed the
scars over to his lip.
“He will regret what he has done to us,” her voice low,
vibrating.
Errol nodded and opened his mouth so he could lick Betty’s
finger. The thought of power made him hard and he could tell she felt it too.
“I want to fuck you,” he whispered into her ear. His words fell into her and she licked her
lips.
“Father?”
Errol pointed to the ceiling. They listened to the heavy
man’s steps as he walked around in the bathroom. After a few minutes he walked
across the hallway and into the bedroom. The bed creaked under the weight. When
it got quiet Errol grabbed Betty’s arm. Pulled her close.
“I will get it all. His power will fill me up.”
She gasped under his touch as he pulled her dress over her
head. She stepped out of her panties and he got out of his pants.
“Look how hard I am. I can feel his power.”
She laid down on the couch and he entered her. Pushed hard,
he knew she liked it hard.
“Errol,” she moaned. “You are so strong! So brave!”
“Yes,yes, yes. I will get it all!”
At the moment of climax when he normally was filled with
nothingness a man appeared. A two faced man. A tidy man with a notebook and a
man filled with haunt, burning eyes, a man who could taste the air. Next to the
man the faint watermark of a girl. She held onto the man’s hand. A string of
gold tied the man to the girl. A sudden
flash of realization hit him. This man was his destiny.
