The Prodigy

Edward Serling looked up from his ledger when he heard the knock at his office door. It had been light and quick; no more than the twitch of a pair of knuckles against the wood. He saw a shape shift on the other side of the smoked pane and called “Come in!”1

The door opened only a few inches, enough for the slim woman to slip into the room before shutting it behind her. She stared at him with wide, rheumy eyes, made comically large by her thick spectacles. The lines in her face were deep and very visible, as her gray hair was pulled into a severe bun on the top of her head. 2

“Can I help you, ma’am?”3

Her voice was thin and reedy. “Mister Serling, I’m Dolores Bloch.”4

Serling’s brow furrowed in confusion as he searched his mental index for her name.5

“I’m Agnes’s nurse,” she added. 6

“Oh, yes. Is anything wrong with my niece or brother?”7

“Well, sir,” she began, before swinging her eyes to the left and then right, though they were alone in the office, “Yes, there is something about your niece that I need to discuss with you.” Her long gray skirt rustled as she took a seat in front of his desk and Edward wondered if her heavily-starched blouse creaked as well. 8

“It’s something urgent. Most urgent.”9

“Pardon me, Miss Bloch, but… if it’s so urgent, why do you come to me instead of my brother?”10

She licked her lips nervously and then said “He wouldn’t believe me, sir. The things I’d have to tell him about his own child… the horrible things about her that he’d accuse me of making up… he’d fire me, at the very least, if not turn you on me for slander and make me a public laughingstock.”11

“Ma’am…?” he began, confused. 12

“That child, Agnes, she’s… she’s insane.”13

“Miss Bloch!” Serling flared.14

“Now, see! See the kind of disapproval I face when I haven’t even started to tell you about her?”15

He sighed. “Just what, may I ask, leads you to believe these things about my niece, Miss Bloch?”16

“Her tantrums and neediness for starters.”17

“She’s only five years old.”18

“I’ve never seen a child of any age behave so rashly, sir. This morning, she demanded the cook give her candy with breakfast instead of fruit. When I told Agnes to settle down because that wasn’t going to happen, she spit out a string of curses - I can’t even repeat them with a good conscience - and threw her teacup at me. It would’ve cut my face if I hadn’t been quick enough to move out of the way.”19

“My brother and I were known to do worse things when we were young,” he smirked.20

“But to do it constantly and for no reason? She’s always smashing dishes, tearing up books and clothes, jumping on furniture.”21

“Well, some children are just willful, but they grow out of it… and her… her mother just died, ma’am. As often as my brother has to travel for work, Agnes has no one else close to her and I guess that’s the only way she can express her grief.”22

“What she’s expressing is something vastly worse, sir. Have you seen the books she reads, sir?”23

“Well, I know her father has criminal case studies and the like lying around--”24

“No, her mother’s books.”25

“Marina’s books?” Serling thought for a second and then chuckled. “Miss Bloch, no matter how precocious a child is, she’s not going to understand Fanny Hill at her age. If she starts reciting passages in the schoolyard--”26

“Sir, I wish it was that simple!” 27

“Please stop speaking in riddles, ma’am,” he sighed. “What’s going on?”28

Miss Bloch paled and started speaking in a small, scared voice. “I fear for Agnes’s soul, sir.”29

Serling didn’t say anything. He just stared at Miss Bloch, his lips pursed. 30

“I’ve been able to abide all of her other behaviors and brush them off as a child angry at her father for never being there for her, at the world for taking her mother away from her, or just naturally angry. I’ve dealt with plenty of children like that in grammar schools, churches and private homes and I’ve learned all manners of discipline. But nothing I’d encountered before could prepare me for what happened today. 31

“Around noon today, I went into Agnes’s room to start her Latin lessons. She was sitting next to the hearth reading and there was a fire going. There was a little gray kitten curled up at her feet. Now, Mister Sterling has a hatred of those animals and never allows any in the house, despite how Agnes begs. I assumed that she’d been hiding it in her room ever since he went on that trip to London. I asked her where she got it and she looked up at me, guileless as can be, and she told me ‘I got it from the Devil.’ 32

“Well, my first instinct was to strike her for such blasphemy but I knew that would only be pandering to her spoiled moods. I asked her again where she got it and she replied the same. I asked her how that had happened and she said that she did it with a spell she learned in the book she was reading. She held up that book, a heavy volume bound in black leather and - well, I can’t remember the exact title but it was something like ‘Using the Power of Darkness.’ I asked her where she’d gotten something so foul and Agnes told me that it belonged to her mother; that Miss Marina had all kinds of books like that locked away in a secret compartment in her dressing room and that she’d been practicing witchcraft and teaching her spells and such for as long as she could remember.33

“I asked Agnes why she would say such horrid things about her mother, who had always gone to church and been a good Christian up until she contracted that terrible lung disease, and the girl told me ‘Because the spells work and the Devil proves that he exists, which God doesn’t.’ Then Agnes told me that she’d taken a little goldfish and thrown him in the fire, then recited some prayers and the Devil made the kitten appear under a blanket on her sofa. 34

“I looked over at the little bowl she kept that fish in and saw that it was empty. Well, I was so horrified by her story that I grabbed the bowl and poured the water onto the fire. When the smoke cleared, I… well, it was hard to tell exactly what it was, but I saw what I believed was a tiny pile of bones and some sooty black scales. 35

“I screamed at Agnes that she was a sick, horrible child and that she’d be thrown in a hospital for the insane for saying and doing these things but she started to jump up and down insisting that everything was true, that her mother really had practiced the dark arts and been in league with the Devil. She showed by the front cover of the book and… and, dear God forgive me, but… written in what I recognized to be the late mistress’s script were the words ‘This book and all the power attained through it belong to Marina Serling.’”36

“My Lord!” Edward coughed. “I know she brought strange customs with her from Russia, but to think… the insanity that she brought into my brothers’ house…”37

“I know, sir,” she agreed, dolefully. “But the extent to which she poisoned Agnes’s mind, it’s much worse…38

“I grabbed the book away from her as soon as I read that inscription and I went to tear it up and Agnes started to scream - she screamed and screamed, louder and louder, horrible, hateful things about the Devil and her mother and Hell and then she leapt from the couch and ran towards the window.”39

“The window?” 40

“Yes, sir. The window was open and, by the time I realized what the was going to do, she’d already climbed up to the sill and was halfway out of it. I pulled her away from it has hard as I could then locked her in a closet because it was the only way she could be restrained, she was thrashing about and fighting me so badly. I told the other servants to leave, that I had to get you as soon as I could, then took the street car here.” She chuckled softly before she said “You can’t imagine the looks I was getting, as pale and terrified as I looked.”41

Edward Serling’ eyes were wide and the corners of his mouth were pulled down deeply.42

“You can see now, sir, why I had to come to you; why I’m deeply afraid for the child. I know it’s not my place, sir, but a friend of mine actually runs a school for girls out of a nearby convent. I feel it would be very good for Agnes if she were to start attending, maybe even live there for a while. They are fair but very strict in how they deal with problematic girls and could help her, both with her grief and with her mothers’ evil influence.”43

“Yes,” Serling answered, distantly. “That is a very good idea. Thank you for your understanding and your … well, my God, I’m just sorry you had to deal with so much. Tomorrow, I’ll make arrangements for Agnes to stay there for a while.”44

“Very good, sir,” Miss Bloch smiled warmly. 45

“I trust you understand you’re no longer needed at my brothers’ home, but I have authority over his accounts here in his absence and will make sure you’re given double your pay for the month as well as a good severance.”46

“Thank you very much, sir.” She stood up. “Excuse me, but… I should get back to her.”47

Serling didn’t even notice when the woman left.48

***49

Edward looked up at the third story of his brother’s townhouse. A light burned in the window of Agnes’ nursery, making it look like a bright eye in the chilly dark. A small silhouette appeared but didn’t move. He hugged his coat tighter around him, shivering though no wind picked up.50

Nobody answered when he knocked or rang the bell. He remembered what Miss Bloch had said about sending the servants home and called for her but no one came. He found the door unlocked and the inside of the house dark and quiet. 51

He walked down the hallway, hesitant and looking over his shoulder every few seconds. He went up the two flights of stairs and stopped when he got to the shadowy hallway leading to Agnes’s nursery, his foot striking something on the floor. He picked it up and saw that it was a thin, hardback book titled ‘Embracing the Dark Arts.’ Edward sighed, thinking of his sister-in-law and the shame and sadness the whole ordeal would bring his brother. He opened it and read the neat script on the first page of parchment. His heart stopped and he went numb, almost dropping the book, but he read over the page one more time, in disbelief:52

“This book and all the power attained through it belong to Delores Bloch.”53

A faint crackling sound made him look up and into Agnes’s nursery. He rushed through the door, calling for her, and saw the small girl sitting on a couch next to the fire, stroking her curled up kitten and staring at him, solemnly. 54

“Agnes darling, how are you?” he asked.55

“Fine, Uncle Edward,” she answered, her hand never breaking its even pace over the little gray kitten. 56

“Where is Miss Bloch?”57

“Away.”58

“Away?”59

“Yes. All I know is that I like it better when she’s gone.”60

“Well I’ll make sure she never comes back to this house again, darling. I’ll get rid of all of those hateful books and you’ll--”61

“But I like those books, Uncle Edward.”62

He stopped. “What?” He met her wide blue eyes. 63

“I do. Miss Bloch brought them with her when she came here and I’d read them while she was busy, and she got jealous when I could read them better and make things happen from the words. That’s why she tried to throw me out the window this morning.”64

“Oh God,” he sighed, remembering the woman’s story. “Agnes, darling, she’ll--”65

Edward paused when he felt something touch his foot. He looked down and saw a chubby gray kitten nuzzling his shoe. When he looked back up, Agnes was staring at him intently, her hand resting firmly on the bundle in her lap. The firelight flickered and highlighted something that was looking less like soft gray fur and more like coarse steel-colored hair. 66

His mouth went dry and his lips trembled the first few times he tried to speak. He could only sputter “Wha-wha…”67

Agnes giggled and when she went to stand up, the thing fell from her lap. The terror was still clear on Miss Bloch’s face as her severed head hit the floor. Edward turned and stumbled through the hallway and, as he tripped down the stairs, he could still hear the girl’s gleeful laughter