Eutopia: A Novel of Terrible Optimism

And together, they stepped around the hospital, and looked down the road—and Andrew gasped, at the great light that glowed there: warm, and welcoming, and so very melodious. Whether from Jesus Christ or the Dauphin, who rested within—he could not resist it this time. Willingly, he entered into His realm.

§

The autopsy room was not built with windows, but air moved through it all the same, within high vents in one wall that led straight outside. So it wasn’t as bad a place to be as the storeroom, where Ruth still rested. The voice from the shadows approved.

As Jason hauled Germaine Frost into it and slammed the door shut, it was only a little humid. Water was splashed here and there, from two large buckets that were foaming with soap. Not long ago, Jason had spent time with those buckets, washing himself as thoroughly as he could—as thoroughly as Germaine Frost had made him wash outside the homestead at Cracked Wheel. After he’d scrubbed himself clean of the Cave Germ as best he could, he searched some cupboards and found a white smock as might be worn by doctors cutting up the dead. He got to thinking that maybe some power had a good sense of humour; that outfit would do fine to cover him up for the work that lay ahead.

He was even more sure that that power had taken a hand in this latest moment of providence: delivering his quarry, the murderess Germaine Frost, right into his hands.

“This is fine that you came,” he said. “We can seal this whole matter here, and not put anyone else in harm’s way.”

“Oh Jason,” she said, sobbing, but Jason was having have none of it.

A week ago, he’d have thought when this moment came, when Germaine Frost used tears on him again… he would spew anger at her, call her foul names, and laugh when she objected—like a fellow in a book that Ruth Harper might’ve liked to read over and over again. But as he had held Ruth, comforting her over the death of her friend and sitting there in the dark of the cellar room… he got to know his anger a little better. It grew into a purer thing.

So when Germaine sobbed and cried here in the autopsy, he saw it for what it was. She was trying to trick him with tears, the same as when just idly, after she let him be locked up in the quarantine, he suggested he might head down south and pick up some work there. That made him feel badly—and feeling badly thinned that anger, like throwing water in a tub of lye.

You let remorse get in your way, you’ll never do the kind of thing you have to do.

“I know, Mama,” said Jason over his shoulder.

You let an old drunk’s begging turn you around—he’ll just get drunk again, and let friends even worse than that Etherton into the house.

“Oh Jason, please—think of your potential! The Harper girl is sick, true, because she’s not fit. We’ll find you one with whom to breed, and then—”

Shut her up!

Jason swatted Germaine across the ear.

“Don’t talk to me,” he said. “You talk to me, I’ll hit you. That’s how it’s going to go. Now—” Jason hefted her up by an arm. “Sit on that.” He motioned to the drawer.

She won’t cooperate. A shadow shook its head beyond Germaine’s shoulder. Sure enough, Germaine wasn’t having any of it. She might have divined what Jason intended; get her feet up, lie her on the table, and roll it in, and lock it with her inside. That was his ma’s wisdom, delivered from the shadows behind the jars: Show her what she showed me. Take her away.

So she twisted away from him and planted her feet firm on the ground. One of the lenses was nearly obliterated, and the other hung oddly from her nose.

She stared at Jason steadily. When she spoke, her tone was low and deliberate.

“All right, Jason,” said Germaine. “You will have to hit me, because I’m not going to go quietly. What do you mean to do? Take the germe de grotte that’s in that room, smear it on me, and watch me die of bleeding from the ears?”

“I’m showing you what you showed my ma,” said Jason. “What you showed all of Cracked Wheel, with that germdeegrot. You murdered Cracked Wheel! The whole damn town!” Behind her, next to the doorway, the shadow nodded its head.

He didn’t cooperate. Not even with all the whiskey in him. My, my—but you’d think he would. He certainly did as he was told when Etherton got him drunk, and made him look off while he did his business.

“Are you paying attention to me, Nephew?”

Jason looked back down at her. Her face was beginning to swell where he’d hit her. Only half an eye managed to magnify in the glass.