Tom Piccirilli: Emerald Hell

Hellboy thought, There it is, the reason I heard the baby crying.

"They're breathtaking women, with kind and gracious hearts. They don't talk but they have a great deal to say. They write letters that put the Psalms to shame. Before the story got about in town, the oldest three had intendeds who doted hand and heel and loved them dearly. But all the men have left now,They've run out because my daughters can't carry on a family name in a family way. It's me that poisons them. They don't deserve this burden. A man wants to put a knife to me, I'll meet him head-on. But to do this to unborn-to never born-children, that's an unholy blight."

"But your seventh daughter?"

"Sarah."

The only one he'd given a name to. "She's had a child?"

"Me and her mama, we wasn't married. My wife was long gone by then. Sarah's mama, she was a fine woman, but-"

Sliding out of his chair, Bliss Nail moved to a liquor cart behind him and poured himself a brandy. He slugged the first tumbler's worth back, then filled it again. He remembered his manners then and gestured at Hellboy, who waved it off.

Reseating himself, Bliss Nail said, "But she was married during our time together. Her husband, he spent long periods on the road. Months and years away from her without a word. When he came home and found her with child, he murdered her with a hatchet."

"Christ."

"Since Sarah didn't take my name, she avoided the plague on me and mine. She was raised by another couple in town, but last year they died too. Natural-like. Because Sarah was raised up out of my shadow, she grew strong and happy and a chatterbox. I deceived the ill will aimed toward me and mine. She's nineteen and pregnant now and about to bear my only grandchild."

Every man had to tell his own story in his own way, but Hell-boy knew Bliss Nail was editing himself, leaving out his own sins. Hellboy thought he could brace him a little, see what he could squeeze loose, but figured in the end it would just hurt the investigation. "Does Sarah know you're her real father?"

"I don't know. We've never spoken to one another. I feared if we did the blight would set upon her."

"Who cursed you and yours? Who bewitched you twenty years ago?"

"A dead man."

Should've seen that one coming, Hellboy thought. "And who might he be?"

"The husband. The man who killed Sarah's mama. He was a preacher, a travelin' minister, famous in these parts and all across the swamps and the deep South. He once had the power of the Word, and anyone who heard him speak could feel it. Some called him a healer though I don't know if he ever made such a claim. But he performed wonders and knew great secrets. They said they saw him with angels. A blessed gospel singer and a staunch man of God."

"Until you fooled around with his wife."

It made Bliss Nail raise his chin, straighten in his seat, and let loose with an agonized warble as if he'd just been punched in the kidneys. He reared like he was going to leave his chair, maybe take a poke at Hellboy. His face went through three shades of purple and finally settled on grape.

Hellboy waited. He heard the girls roaming up the corridor, all rustling of silk and lace. Finally Bliss Nail let out a groan and sank in on himself, visibly deflating. "Like I said, my sins ought to be my hardship alone. He once had another name but the one they all spoke together, though I'd never heard it before, was Brother Jester. Still I knew it was him."

Brother Jester . The name was repeated six times out in the hallway, where the silent bewitched daughters were forced to speak. They wafted past the open doorway like wraiths, too lovely, too thin, and too pale. For a moment he wondered what their letters might be like to read, and imagined bundles of scented pages tied with bows, never mailed and never opened. He fought to contain himself, but his great stone-like hand clenched into a fist at his side. His journey had made him a little maudlin and edgy. He wanted to beat the crap out of something.

"He been gone from Enigma for years," Bliss Nail said. "There was rumors, for a time, that he'd gone insane and was now using his voice to kill. He knew secrets that set brother against brother, that made husbands rise up against their wives and children. But then the rumors stopped and I thought we'd never hear from him again. I reckoned he was dead. But if Brother jester is back in Enigma, I fear for Sarah's safety. He'll extend his curse or cut her down like a field of ripe cane."

Waldridge entered and began to clear the plates. When he got to the untouched catfish in front of Hellboy he made a face. Hellboy didn't mind, he was just glad to have the damn thing stop looking at him.

"There's war in my family's veins," Bliss Nail said. "We all been soldiers right down the line. If I thought it would help, I'd take a Bowie and a Colt.45 and go after him myself. But-"

"But you're smart enough to know that you're the one who somehow gave him his power," Hellboy finished. "You made him what he is."

Bliss Nail's hard features had softened considerably during their talk, and the fierceness had gone out of the man. His steel-gray eyes were no longer steeped with strength, but accommodated only loss and fear. It happened like that when you caught a full jolt of memories that showed you exactly what you were and what you'd once done.

"So where is Sarah? I'll go look after her."

"She's with Mrs. Hoopkins. Out at Mrs. Hoopkins's Home for Unwed Wayward Teenage Mothers & Peanut Farm."

Hellboy wanted to say, You people. You people, Christ.

"When is she due?"

"A matter of days."

"What about the third name your daughters spoke?"

"Sarah's beau, my grandchild's father, I believe. He's a backwoods traveler who wanders the Appalachians the same way Jester did and maybe still does. There's bountiful rumors about him too. They say he's got a touch of magic to him. I don't know if that's true or not, but I take note of such talk. I hear tell he's back in town. His name is John Lament. That's what they said. Lament ."

At Lament's name the six nameless daughters spoke and drifted past the door once again, as if this was a ballet that they had rehearsed many times before. Lovely and ethereal, like wisps of white smoke. He found himself wanting to hear their voices through their written words.

"Name your price," Bliss Nail said. "What you want for this aid in my needful hour?You only stumbled upon my ills."

"I did. But that's how these things happen."

"You help and I'm in your debt. You fix the cost and I'll pay it."

"How about the price of a bus ticket to Connecticut?"

Bliss Nail frowned. "That all?"

"I don't much like hitchhiking."

"You have my word."

Hellboy guessed that before this was all over, he'd find out exactly how much that was worth.

"Okay, so how do I get to this peanut farm anyway?"

"Waldridge will drive you," Bliss Nail said, and his silent daughters continued staring, waiting for their otherworldly sentence to be lifted. Their voices to return, the house to be filled with the sound of children. As Hellboy stood and walked from the room, they each came to him, lithe and pallid, eyes ashen and lovely faces stern with pain. They floated past with their silk dresses trailing, and one of the silent daughters, perhaps the one who'd waved to him on the stairway before, who looked too similar to her sisters for him to tell her from the others, pressed a soft hand to his cheek before gliding away with the rest.

Brother Jester, slave to God's pettiest whims, returned to the town of Enigma, that place of his former life, his eventual undoing, and his own death.

The hunger visited again. He found a crushed possum in the road and began to remove what few guts remained in it. He only ate what the Lord provided and only what he found offered to him in the road. It was both a measure of penance and an act of defiance. Daring Heaven to whittle him down farther, if that was his fate. When there was no food, he ate his rage.