Amy Forster

Midwest Gothic

Novel extract

I

May 18th 1991
Missouri State Institution for the Criminally Insane

EVE

Eve has only ever killed one man. They say that makes her insane.

Her father killed twenty-three, but they say that he was sane.

The clock on the wall ticks, hands shifting to half-past twelve. For three years now, every other day, Eve sits on an uncomfortable plastic chair and listens to the doctors diagnose her.

PTSD. Depression. Psychosis. Sociopathy.

She’s heard it all.

They don’t know what to make of her.

All the orderlies joke that there’s not much that isn’t wrong with her. They warn the newbies to keep their distance.

Doctor Hutson watches her, measured in her appraisal. She taps her pen against her empty notebook page, in perfect time with the clock. Eve feels her eyes on her, her gaze like spiders crawling over her skin. Eve twists her hands, scratches the stubs she calls nails up and down her arms, grits and grinds her teeth. Her skin turns red under the scrape of her fingers. The orderly in the corner, standing straight-backed, vigilant like a sentry, steps forward, restraints in hand.

Doctor Hutson raises a hand to halt him. ‘She’s okay. Leave us, please.’

The orderly nods, reluctant. They aren’t supposed to leave patients and doctors in a room alone. Still, he leaves anyway, lingering just outside the doorway in case of trouble.

‘Eve,’ the Doctor calls again. 

Eve blinks, once, twice, three times. Her eyes dry from the sterile air. She swallows down the bile that creeps up her throat. She scrapes four dull lines down the scarred skin of her arms, then traces them back up towards her elbow. Doctor Hutson reaches across the table and stills her hands; soft, always-moisturized hands circling gently around her wrists. Eve presses her palms flat against the table, fingers splayed across the white surface. The marks on her skin burn. Doctor Hutson draws her hands back and picks up her pen again.

The clock keeps ticking. Ticking. Ticking. Eve twists her hands. The pen taps like a hurried heartbeat. Doctor Hutson’s pen tapping… tapping… tapping…

Eve’s head feels foggy. She blinks once more, trying to clear her head.

She works her jaw. She reaches for water, a flimsy paper cup set in the middle of the wobbly table. Plastic and glass are too risky. 

She considers throwing water at Doctor Hutson, just to get her to stop that damn tapping-

Tapping-

    Tapping-

        Tapping-

There are still marks on her wrists from the last time. When they restrained her and locked her in her room for three days, sliding meds and meals through the door. She doesn’t mean to be violent but, sometimes, they do things to provoke her, just to see what she’ll do. 

II

2nd August 1987
Wolf River, Missouri

The glow of a cigarette lights up the darkness.

Eve digs her feet into a groove in the wood. Her beat-up sneakers are well-acquainted with the window frame. Her reflection stares back at her, unblinking, a pale ghost smudged against dirty glass. A draught gets in through the cracks in the panes and cools her balmy skin.

Here, she’s shared so many secrets with the fireflies outside. 

She pulls another drag of her cigarette.

She likes the way the nicotine burns her throat.

Eve presses her cheek against the cool glass.

Patsy Cline croons about walking after midnight, voice muffled by the tinny crackle of Eve’s grandmother’s old radio.

The air is thick and stagnant.

The window screen is ripped. Eve can see just far enough to make out the shadowed shapes of the backyard. The flowerbeds that her mother sometimes tends to, sprouting browning weeds; the broken plastic slide she and her siblings used to play on. The shed at the bottom of the garden, home to who-knows-what, and the crude homemade memorial to her father’s father. 

Fireflies dance around the old oak tree. Cicadas chirp in the overgrown bushes. The black sky is pocked with charcoal clouds.

Eve shifts in her seat and pulls her dress up her thighs.

Everything is too hot, too humid and oppressive in this house.

There’s a humming. The air feels alive, electric, the static heat before a lightning storm.

Summer storms are terrible around these parts. They roll in off the river to the south and, when the thunder and the lightning and rain come, they don’t let up for hours. Sometimes, even days. Until it seems like the Earth is drowning.

When things swell up, a violence tide of thunderclouds rises, the world retreats into itself. There’s a silence, an emptiness, a moment that feels like holding your breath. Humidity clings to the stagnant breeze. A heaviness teeters, precarious upon the edge of a cliff.

There is no choice but to stop and wait for God’s wrath to fall.

Eve stays inside on those days.

Her father says that there’s no escape from this divine punishment.

So, she hides herself away.

She watches from the window.

Some days, she wishes that the rain would drown her, or sleep her away somewhere better.

Eve lies awake at night, staring up at the cobwebs strung across the ceiling, listening to the angry beat of the rain.

Eve takes a deep breath.

And holds it. 

Holds it.

Holds it.

The front door bangs open. The noise is violent, echoing through the house, shaking the walls. 

Eve flinches. It’s probably woken her youngest siblings.

Eve never sleeps when her father is away. It’s pointless, anyway. When she wakes, from a fitful, restless sleep, he’ll be there, looming over her. Some days, he’ll decide that she has sinned; he’ll shut her in her room and command her to read from his copy of the Book, illegible notes scribbled in its margins. The ramblings of a self-proclaimed Messiah. He knows that she can’t read, not well, anyway.

He’ll make her stay there for days.

When she was younger, her momma would read to her. Eve imagines each passage in her voice; the gentle coolness of it, the comforting timbre, the soft drawl of her Southern accent. For a moment, she can pretend she’s a little girl again, tucked beneath heavy woollen blankets and bathed in warm lamplight.

Some nights, her father won’t return until the early morning. Eve will sit at the window, eyelids heavy, and watch the sunrise through the hole in the screen. Eventually, he’ll slink in as the sky blazes orange and yellow, with blood on his hands and alcohol on his breath.

It’s not too late, tonight. Only a few moments past midnight.

Heavy boots thump against the floorboards.

Still, he’s been gone for hours, since before the sun had set.

He must have been out of town again.

‘Eve.’

Eve hasn’t always been her name. For thirteen years, she’d had another, until her father changed it.

‘Eve.’ Her father’s voice grows louder. It echoes through the quiet house.

It’s as if the walls are holding their breath. 

Eve uncurls herself from the window ledge. She stubs her cigarette out against a knot in the wood, then presses its butt into a hole between the window and its frame. She picks her way through the dimly-lit kitchen and living room. The living room’s shadows stretch.

The only light is the cold glow of the television. One of her siblings must have left it on when they went to bed.

Eve steps through the lounge and into the entryway.

Her father stands in the shadowy doorway, knocking his boots against the threshold. They’re coated in a thick layer of mud.

He’s been out on another Calling.

‘Father.’ Eve bows her head.

It’s Father, at home. But it’s always Pastor, in church.

Her father lingers in the doorway. He stares at her, eyes raking from head to toe. She’s glad for the shadows, so she can’t see the darkness in his eyes. Eve wishes she was shrouded, too; she’s silhouetted in the doorway, backlit by the flickering light of the television set. Green, blue and red embrace her and carve out every dip of her curves.

She’s still in her Sunday dress. The pale silken fabric falls loose around her thighs. It’s the most beautiful and expensive thing that she owns.

She’s not supposed to wear it when she’s not at church.

When she wears it, she feels holy.

The dress is wrinkled from how she’s been sat, curled up in the window nook. It smells of cigarette smoke.

Her Father won’t be pleased when he notices.

He’s warned her about this before.

‘There’s dinner on the stove,’ Eve tells him, kneeling to untie her father’s shoes. ‘And I turned the heater on. There should be hot water by now.’

Her Father hums and shrugs off his jacket. 

‘The children are all in bed. Shall I wake them for evening prayer?’

‘No,’ Her Father grunts. His voice is rough, sharp like broken glass. ‘Let them rest. Did you remind them to say their prayers before they slept?’

‘Yes, Father, of course I did.’

Her Father nods, appeased. 

He holds his hands aloft like he’s preaching a sermon. They’re soaked with blood.

Eve doesn’t know if her siblings prayed. 

Some nights, she forgets to. 

‘Where is your mother?’ Her Father asks. 

‘Asleep. Another headache.’

Her mother, most nights, lays beneath cotton sheets with a washrag pressed to her forehead. The sunlight burns her eyes. Her migraines have been much worse lately; Eve’s father thinks that the Devil is in her.

Eve is sure it has more to do with the drugs he plies her with.

‘We should get her help,’ Eve suggests, quietly.

She meets his eyes. They’re harsh like the coming storm.

He glares.

Eve shivers.

She rips her gaze away, staring back down at his laces.

‘I am helping her.’

‘No- no, of course you are, Father. I’m sorry, forgive me.’

She fumbles with the laces of his boots, coarse threads scraping against her fingertips. Her grip slips around the muddy knots. Her hands are shaking. Her fingertips are cold. The circulation is never quite right anymore. Silvery scars encircle both wrists. They shimmer beneath the moonlight.

Eve finally manages to unknot the stubborn laces of her father’s left boot. He kicks out of it, the boot’s thick sole hitting the floor with a dull thud.

She knows that she should not question, should not defy.

Eve bows her head, gaze focused on his feet.

Cold fingers tug hastily at his second double-knotted lace. 

Her Father raises his hands back towards the sky, in supplication. He mutters a prayer beneath his breath. For Eve, for her mother.

From the landing above, small, unsteady feet thump. Her youngest brother, Gabriel, appears at the top of the stairs.

‘Papa, papa!’ His small voice calls. Gabriel claps his small hands. At two years old, he’s still unsteady on his feet. He trots clumsily down the stairs, stumbling at the bottom of the steep stairs, but their Father is there to catch him. He scoops his son up into his arms, despite the blood, and cradles him close. 

‘Papa, papa, papa!’ Gabriel chants excitedly. He wiggles in their Father’s grip before curling into him, pressing one chubby cheek against his chest. Neither of them seems to care about the blood.

Gabriel is supposed to be asleep. All of the children are, except for Eve. She still has work to do, now that their Father has returned.

Gabriel won’t be punished for his stubbornness. He can’t sleep unless their Father is there. He has nightmares, terrible ones. Their Father brings him comfort and sings Down to the River to Pray as he drifts off. Gabriel is just a child. Still a baby, really. But Eve will be punished. It’s her job to care for the children when their mother is ill.

Eve holds her breath. She tugs at and loosens the laces of his second boot. Mud sticks to her fingers. It smells like the river; of the loamy soil of the riverbank, of bulrushes and algae, of the sharp stench of human waste. The house will smell like it for days, festering in the brutal heat of the summer. She’ll have to open all the windows and hope that the screens keep out the flies.

Her Father kicks off his second mud-caked boot. It bounces off the wall, leaving a dirty dent in the peeling wallpaper. It’s the same wallpaper that was there when they moved in; yellowing and nicotine stained, a clashing flowery print of once-bright colours.

Still on her knees, she shuffles quickly to line his boots up neatly against the wall. They sit slumped beside his Sunday shoes.

She’ll wipe them down later, ready for his next Calling.

‘Take the boy while I wash up,’ he tells Eve. 

Gabriel grasps his father’s shirt, unwilling to let go. Their Father tuts, lovingly, loosening the boy’s small grip. He kisses Gabriel’s forehead before he hands him off to Eve. Gabriel is devoted to their Father; he’s the dazzling hero in his storybook.

‘Of course, Father.’

Eve lifts Gabriel into her arms. He’s covered in blood now, too. There’s a red handprint on the back of his hand-me-down pyjama shirt.

Eve prays none of it will get onto her dress, so she won’t have to bleach it until her eyes sting and her hands burn.

Gabriel protests as Eve takes him, flailing his short legs violently in the air. He’s small, even for a two-year-old, and sickly. He doesn’t eat much, even when he’s hungry and crying for food, and it shows. Eve can lift him with ease– far more ease than she should be able to lift him with. They should take him to see a doctor, but Father doesn’t give much credence to medicine.

‘Hush now, Gabriel,’ their Father utters as he passes into the living room.

Gabriel obeys, pressing his cheek against Eve’s chest. He sucks a small thumb into his mouth, his hiccupy breathing uneven but settled.

The television recites the Bible to an empty living room; Matthew 7:21. 

Not everyone who says to me ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the Kingdom of Heaven-

The sound quivers with static. 

Even bare-footed, the floorboards quake beneath Father’s heavy footfalls.

The televangelist trembles on.

–but only the one who does the will of my Father in Heaven.

A crowd cheers. It warps into the sound of a rushing river. 

Father tracks his way towards the sink. He turns the hot tap on full. Steam rises from the sink, lit by the silvery light of the moon, curling around Father like smoke. He washes the blood from his skin. Soap slips between his fingers. He drags a coarse-bristled brush up and down his arms, scrubbing furiously beneath his nails. Water drips pink from his palms. He splashes it over his face. Dirt, sweat and blood gurgle down the drain.

There’s so much blood on Father’s hands, beneath his fingernails, up her forearms. It stains the front of his white shirt. Most weeks, he’ll come home covered in blood; soaked by river water, up to the waist; corn husks and weeds stuck to the mud coating his boots. 

The sky over the cornfield is ink-black, curdled by thick clouds. The storm grows ever-closer. The rain is coming. 

Father cups his large hands, warm water pooling in his palms. He lets the water pour slowly down his face, cleansing himself. 

‘My shirt needs washing,’ Father tells her, voice muffled by his hands. The once-white collar is gray, soaked through with water.

He glances back at her, eyes almost black in the darkness. 

‘Of course, Father.’

It feels like that’s all she ever says these days. All she ever does is do her father’s bidding. It feels like her only real purpose. 

Father grabs a dish towel from the hook on the wall, dabbing off his face and hands. There’s still a pink tint to the water. He tosses the damp towel at Eve’s feet, followed by his shirt. The blood has soaked through to the vest he wears underneath and surely through to the pale skin beneath. There are still smears of blood across his collarbones; smears like those from fingers, drawing down from his shoulders, disappearing beneath his vest. 

Eve struggles to bend to reach them, with Gabriel balanced on her hip. 

Father pulls down a pack of cigarettes from the top of the kitchen cabinet. Only him and Eve know that they’re there. 

She hopes he doesn’t notice that there’s one missing. She hopes he can’t smell the nicotine that clings to her clothes.

Father lights his cigarette with the matchbook he keeps in his pocket. He takes a long, slow drag, eyes closing. He blows a cloud of smoke at the ceiling. 

‘There will be another Calling tomorrow,’ he tells her.

One a month is normal. Two in as many days is certainly not.

There’s something in the air. Trouble brewing, sweeping in upon the storm. 

Over the cornfield, thunder grumbles. 

Distant. 

A warning. 

Rain clouds rolling, tumbling over one another. 

Gabriel fusses, fear trembling within him.

Tonight, she’ll board the windows up tight, pray that the shutters hold, that the window screens keep out the rain. Lightning flashes. It lights up the kitchen in a blaze, casts vicious shadows across the floor, tree branches like bony fingers reaching out for them all.