The Mark

Anne Whitney had always maintained that the earlier years of her life were quiet ones, carrying with them the same milestones and excitements she expected many only-children had, and that was what she told people when they asked, rare as that was. And that would have been fine, had it not all been a lie.

The whole of it was that her father was a violent drunk, among other unmentionable things, and her poor mother was ill-equipped to manage it, and so it fell on little Anne to do so. It was because of this that Anne bore The Mark. The same mark which the antelope bore so that the lion might see it, and know that it might feast. Or, better, the mark the spider seeks, who spins its web to attract the unsuspecting fly, and, once the fly is snared, wraps it in that web, and sucks it dry, bit by bit, until the fly stops its struggle and falls into that, quiet, endless submission.

She was sixteen when she met Nathan, and if anyone had cared for her they would have told her that sixteen is too young, and that twenty-two is too old, but nobody did on either count. Mostly people remarked on her luck. Even Nathan. He would say it, on those nights when he was cold.

“Maybe your family was right. I didn’t want to believe it, but maybe you really are useless.” Anne would fall to her knees and beg him not to say it. She could try harder, he was so good to her. And he would continue, “You know I love you? I really must, to put up with this.” This is how things carried on, and she grew to understand it, and tailor herself to his will.

It was Thanksgiving, and it had been a good day. They’d had dinner with his parents (they never spent the holidays with her family, and Anne understood that). She’d been well-behaved, and helpful, and she could see that he was happy, and so she was, too. It was a silent peace and satisfaction, and on the end of it perched fear—fear that she might ruin it somehow. But she pushed those thoughts deep, and smiled and laughed and only spoke when appropriate.

When it was time to leave she gathered their things and walked with him to the car— his car— setting the casserole dish into the back, over her coat so that it wouldn’t spill onto the seats on the ride home.

As they drove he smiled and laughed, and turned up the radio. He told her how much he loved her and how beautiful she was, and she felt sixteen again, and they didn’t even see the tree until they were just in front of it.

Nathan swerved away in time, and pressed hard on the brakes, and Anne knew—she just knew—that the damn casserole had spilled out. They were quiet then, and Nathan’s knuckles were pale against the leather of the steering wheel.

“Nathan,” She whispered. “Maybe I should drive.”

“Why?” He demanded. “I’m fine, Anne, I only had a drink or two, it’s just dark is all.”

“I know, honey. I just…”

“I said I’m fine!”

She paused, and then she began to try again, and when his palm connected with her cheek she stopped, cupping her hand over her face. She was in a state of shock, the first few times.

“I’m… I’m sorry, Nathan.”

“Let’s just get home.”

It was in the week after the bruise had disappeared that he asked her to marry him, and she said yes, because really, he did love her, he told her so, more than anyone ever had before. And then on the honeymoon she’d spilled tea over her new dress, and he hit her again. Of course, it was her fault—she ought to have been more careful, he’d spent good money on that dress for her, and that ungrateful little bitch had gone and ruined it. At least, that’s what they had settled on.

This, and events which followed and mimicked it, largely made up the second act of Anne’s life. There was a day, in the middle of it, when she thought she might leave, and considered that she might be better off alone than living on the edge of terror, always dipping her toes over to the other side and coming out black and blue and unsure of things, but then the doctor told her the Wonderful News, and she decided to stay after all.

Their daughter came and went in the same hour of the same day, four months early. Nathan was softer to her for some time after that. He held her in their bed, stroking her hair and telling her that he forgave her. They would try again, he said, but they never did. Anne wondered some nights if he ever really wanted children. Some days he would talk with her about trying again, and what they might name this one, but they were always empty words, with no real promise beneath them.

She had named her daughter June. Nathan had wanted to name her Agatha, because of his mother, and that was what Anne called her when he was around. But she had scratched the name June into the side of the tombstone, and when she wrote of her in her diary that was what she called her. She wrote often about what June might’ve been like. She would have been tall, but not too tall, and she would have liked to dance. She would have been sweet and funny. She would have been perfect.

On bad days she hated to think it, but she wondered if it was a good thing that June never lived long enough to see this. She wondered if Nathan wasn’t happy about it, too, in his own way. She worried she knew the answer.

He came to her on a day of little significance. Later, she began to suspect time affected him in a different way, and that he was either a little late, or a little early to some terrible moment. He stood tall against her sunflowers, looking up toward the sun with them. He dressed well, if not somewhat dated, and held a long cane under his large hands. She watched him from her kitchen window for a while, and had the sudden silly idea that he was a sunflower come to life, enjoying the wonders of her garden.

Eventually she stepped out just far enough to call to him.

“Good morning, madam!” He tipped his hat over his curls in greeting.

“Good morning,” she said, “Could you please step out of my flowers?”

“Ah,” He said, and moved his long, spidery legs carefully over and away from the stalks. “Of course, madam. I’m afraid I have quite the habit of being places I don’t entirely mean to be. I’m sure you understand.”

“I can’t say that I do. You need to leave, please, before my husband comes home.”

He stood for a moment with his hands clasped in front of him, just smiling. Finally he spoke: “Of course. Could I trouble you for a glass of water and a phone call? I’ve a long way to go and no way to get there.”

Anne supposed that would be fine and ushered him in before the neighbors could see. He had to duck under the doorframe, and as he sat at her kitchen table, he nearly had to tuck his knees to his chest to avoid toppling the whole thing over. She remembered a carnival she had been to once which claimed to have the world’s tallest man, and wondered if he was in a similar way of work.

“My name is Vincent. You have a very lovely garden,” He said. “However do you do it?”

“I’ve always been good at making things grow. I have a green thumb.”

“Not all things, I think.” He remarked.

“I beg your pardon?”

“Are your children in school?” He asked.

She handed him his drink and took her seat, having forgotten entirely about his phone call. “We haven’t had the fortune of having children.”

“Odd,” He said. “You seem perfectly healthy. I suppose you never know.”

If Anne had known she could, she might’ve asked him if it was any of his business, and thrown him out of the house, but she was too afraid of being impolite, and so she only looked away and shrugged. He waited for a moment, perhaps to see if something else might come of this, and then ticked his tongue.

“I wonder the number he’s done on you, dear Annie.”

“What’s that?” she asked.

He stood, and seemed to crack every bone in his body doing so. He picked up his cane and his hat and started toward the door. “Sun’s gone now. Suppose I ought to be, too. I’ll see you again soon, madam.”

Anne leapt to her feet in a panic. The sun had gone, though she was sure it had only been four o’clock a moment ago. Sometime later she had come to the conclusion that this was his doing, but at the time her only concern was starting dinner before Nathan came home. She never saw Vincent leave.

Six months after, Annie sat in the den writing in her diary. She used her left hand, as she suspected Nathan had sprained her right the night before. She hoped it wasn’t broken— she’d hate to be the cause of yet another expense. Then there came a tap-tap-tapping on the front door, and when she looked she saw him peering through the window. He smiled wide and waved five long fingers her way.

She let him in again, being sure to hide her face away from any prying eyes. When he was inside he leaned down so that he was almost bent over in half and examined her face.

“My, my, sweet Annie. It’s a wonder you’re still as lovely as you are.”

“Hello, Vincent. Would you like a cup of coffee?”

“I’ll fetch it myself,” He assured her. “Settle yourself in the den.”

She was finishing off her journal entry when he entered with their beverages.

“Left-handed, is it?” He asked as he set her mug beside her. “You know, some people call that the Devil’s hand.”

“I’ve only learned to write left-handed in the days when I’ve hurt my right.”

“It’s not you what’s hurting it, Annie.”

She looked away again and sipped her coffee.

“I had a friend once,” He said, watching the flames lick away at the logs in the fireplace. Anne hadn’t remembered setting a fire, but she often didn’t remember doing things when Vincent visited. “By the name of Heather,” He continued. “She had a husband with the same temperament as your Nathan.”

“What happened to her?” Anne asked. With Vincent she could pry, and she liked that.

“She heard somewhere about marking the underside of his mattress to make him kinder. An old-wives tale or the like. And every night he’d lay to rest over the mark, and every night he’d rise, and roam the city in his sleep. When he returned he’d wake, and find himself bruised and broken, and altogether exhausted.”

“Did it work?”

“Beg your pardon?” He grinned.

“Did it make her husband kinder?”

“Cruelty requires a remarkable amount of energy.”

Later in the evening Anne studied her marriage bed as she brushed her teeth gently, as to not incite any more swelling. I wonder if just any old mark will do? She spit into the sink and caught her reflection in the mirror. The underside of her chin was an ugly purple-grey, and one of her eyes was almost entirely crimson. A cut ran along her cheekbone. Vincent was wrong, she thought. I’m really not lovely at all.

It was three days before she worked up the nerve to try it. She pulled a piece of charcoal from the hearth and used it to draw a line across the back of the mattress. Then, perhaps to make it a sort of joke, or maybe to make herself a little less afraid, she drew a few petals in a circle around the top to make a sort of flower. She took a step back to admire it, then set to work returning the mattress to its frame, and the charcoal to the hearth.

Throughout the day Anne thought to herself how silly the whole thing was. It was just an old wives tale after all. She laughed about it to herself. Still, she didn’t tell Nathan, and she didn’t clean the mark from the bottom of the mattress.

When the night crept forward and it was time to settle into bed, Anne went about her duties in a mechanical and detached sort of way. She knew that she must have brushed her teeth, and combed her hair, and slipped into her nightgown, but she couldn’t remember any of it. In her heart stirred something—and she hadn’t a name for it, as it was foreign to her, but if she had known it before she might have called it Hope.

The hours ticked by as she lay quietly in her bed, unable to quell her anxiety. She watched the ceiling in their bedroom, spotting little shapes in the texture. Finally, around midnight, she thought she heard the front door open, and a few minutes later came the sound of steady footsteps over the stairs. She was frozen beneath her quilt, her breath stuck in her throat. The bedroom door creaked open, but no one stood behind it. She waited. Just when she had resolved to get up and close it, Nathan sat up.

At first he just sat there, his eyes closed and his hands hung limp at his sides, like a marionette without a master. Suddenly he jerked forward and backward wildly, his limbs thrashing about. His hand caught her jaw and she cried out, but he didn’t wake. Instead he stood, and as he straightened Anne gasped in horror at the hideous sight.

Nathan stood at least twelve inches taller than his norm, and his pajamas rose up on his chest and legs. His skin seemed as if it had been stretched over another’s bones, and parts of it pulled open to expose the underlying muscles. He stayed standing for a moment, breathing as if it were a laborious task, and then he turned to face Anne.

“Sweet, sweet Anne,” he rasped, and she recognized the voice. “Thank you for the flower. It was lovely.”

Anne sat still in her bed as the creature— as her husband— descended the stairs. She heard him pass through the front door, and she didn’t dare move. She stayed that way until the light began to spill in from the windows, and Nathan returned. He moved onto the bed and tucked himself in, then shook violently again before settling back to sleep.

Anne slipped out from beneath the sheets and tip-toed out into the hall. There were tracks of blood and dirt and snow over the floor, and she hurried to clean them before he woke. She scrubbed so viscously her fingernails bled, but she kept at it until every mark was gone. This will be my penance, she thought. When she finished she climbed back to bed and finally slept, though it was a horrible sleep which left her exhausted and sick.

It was a full seven days before Vincent came to visit again. He rap-tap-tapped on the window, the way he always did, but Anne hesitated to let him in. After several long moments she opened the door.

“Miss Annie,” He smiled, and she saw all the horrible parts of that smile she hadn’t noticed before. “You are healing up quite nicely. Why, with a little make up you might even be able to leave the house again soon.”

“Thank you, Vincent.” She hadn’t closed the door yet, as if leaving it open meant that he couldn’t really stay.

“Dear Annie, you haven’t drawn the mark since Tuesday. I had such fun before, shan’t we have it again?”

“I… I don’t know, really.” She mumbled, rubbing her arms to keep warm from the cold blowing in. “You’re… are you the Devil, Vincent?”

He laughed uproariously. “Not quite, dearest. I am a friend.”

“You don’t feel like a friend anymore.”

“I never said I was your friend.” She began to cry then, and Vincent sighed. He crossed to leave. “I really wish you wouldn’t carry on like this, Annie. Such hysterics.”

She choked on a sob and reached out to stop him. “Wait!” She said. He did. “What is the price?” He raised an eyebrow. “The price,” she urged, “That I have to pay for what you did. Just tell me, please!”

“The price for what you did,” He corrected her. He stepped closer. “You needn’t worry, dear Annie. You paid in full, in advance.” He tapped his cane against her belly, as if to illustrate his point. “A lifetime guarantee, madam.” And with that, he tipped his hat and exited.

She stood still in the open doorway as the snow blew in around her, until a neighbor called Nathan, and he came and shook her and carried her in. She’d ruined the carpet with her dramatics, he said, and he punished her for it.

The next day, Anne flipped the mattress and punished him back with a new mark. She scrawled it as best she could with her three broken fingers.

No sunflowers today. Just four letters.

J.

U.

N.

E.