Prelude

Simon was still in the bar, bleary from pain and tequila when Marius suddenly loomed over him like a white marble obelisk and bared his fangs as he spoke:

“What is it you want Simon, ” he asked in a deep, somewhat sonorous voice.  “Tell me what consumes you?”

Simon was afraid to say it.

Even in the depth of this stupor, some sensible part screamed at him to remain quiet, but it was as if the truth was dragged from his lips unwillingly.

“I want him dead,” he said plainly. “I want him gone as if he never was. But first, I want everyone he has ever loved to suffer and die. I want him to know their pain and to know he caused it…for taking her from me.”

Marius listened attentively and then watched Simon quietly for a moment with practiced studiousness before he spoke through a small slit of a smile.

“I can make this happen, you know, ” Marius said as he casually wiped the bar with a cloth. The lights flickered overhead. “Every bleak and horrible word, beyond even your worst imagining…I can make them scream even beyond death, and he will feel all of it before the end…I can make it…exquisite.”

Simon just stared at him, and he knew the truth of it as he listened.

“Do it.”

“Are you certain?”

“Do it. “

“I will tear his sanity from him as flesh is torn from the living bone.”

At this Simon shivered involuntarily. It moved through his entire body from tip to toe.

“Do. It.” Simon said once more, slowly, punctuating each word.

“As you wish.”

“How much do you want? What will this cost me?”

“Oh my boy, ” said Marius. “The deed itself is the cost.” And then he laughed. A cold, hollow, chilling sound that echoed off the walls and felt like the prairie winter wind raking across Simon’s skin.

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Simon awoke the next morning laying on the ground and soaked through in the morning dew as the sunrise rays slanted across his vision. There was a curious fox not six feet away staring at him as though he didn’t belong here.

Slowly sitting up letting the fog in his mind clear Simon looked around and realized he was in the town cemetery. Further investigation revealed he had been asleep on his mother’s grave which gave rise to confusion and muffled sobs from deep within his chest from a freshly awakened old grief he had tried to stiffle in recent months.

Simon had no memory of how he got here. He remembered driving out of town in unquenchable pain and then waking here this morning, his car parked along the side of the narrow gravel road maybe eight meters away.

He turned and looked at the grave stone and let lose the pain that he had been struggling to keep at bay for so long. He wailed and sobbed and shook at the violence of it, all the while feeling as though another version of him was calmly, emotionlessly, hovering above watching it unfold with mild disinterest.

Finally, after exhausting what seemed an endless resevoir of tears Simon stood and looked down at the name on the stone – Margaret (Tristitia) Fescher.

“Oh mum,” Simon sobbed. “I fear I have sold myself to a darkness that is going to consume me…I’m afraid for the town mum…I’m so afraid…I don’t know what I’ve done.” He trailed off, new sobs wracked his body as his knees gave way and he curled up on the grass beneath him.

The fox moved on.

Chapter 1

Simon was a good man.

By all accounts 32-year-old Simon Fescher was perhaps one of the nicest people who had ever lived in the small town of Abadon, Manitoba, population 2,458 depending on the day and the latest news from the Happy Hearts Care Home or the regional hospital 17 kilometres away.

Simon was born in Abadon, grew up in Abadon, and with the exception of two years for college in Winnipeg, Simon had lived in Abadon his entire life and planned on dying in Abadon and being buried next to his mum in Holy Blood Cemetery on the hill overlooking the western prairie.

His college degree had been in Business Administration and was meant to help him as he learned to take over the family business, a regional ag sales and rental company that had been started 45 years earlier by his grandfather as more of a fix it all kind of mechanic garage.

Simon never felt he needed to go to college, but his mum insisted.

“An educated man is a respected man,” said his mum who had never gone to school past grade 9 in order to help on the farm and with the business.

In Simon’s experience this was not necessarily true given that most of his friends made fun of him for moving to the city for school and claimed he had a sort of ‘better than everyone else” air since he came back.

He didn’t feel like he had changed although the city was a pretty amazing place with its high rises and the worldly peers he met. Students from India, and Ukraine, and other exotic locales Simon had only read about or saw on the internet.

Simon had never even seen a person of colour in real life until he went to school in Winnipeg. Abadon wasn’t exactly a destination so much as a place you were from. It wasn’t on any of the major highways. It was 4 hours from Winnipeg and about 5 minutes from the North Dakota border.

To Simon it was home. It was where he met Andrea, the love of his life, his wife and the mother of his daughter Esther.

Met might be too strong a word. In some ways Simon and Andrea had known each other from the womb. Their mothers were best friends and neighbours growing up. They attended the same church together. Simon and Andrea were dedicated in the same ceremony and baptized in the same lake on the same Sunday.

Getting married just made sense. In fact, that’s essentially how 21-year-old Simon, fresh home with his diploma, proposed after a church potluck one summer Sunday at the local park. He asked Andrea to go for a walk down by the creek, got down on one knee, held out his grandmother’s wedding ring and said:

“Andrea, we’ve known each other our whole lives. You love God, and I think you love me. We just make sense you know. I know you’d be an amazing mother and s good wife – would you marry me?”

In response Andrea said matter-of-factly:

“Simon Feschel, it took you long enough. Most of my friends were engaged in high school and here I am practically an old maid waiting for you to get back from college. You’re lucky I waited.”

“So…that’s a yes than?” Simon asked.

“Of course it is foolish boy,” she said. “Get up now before those pants get so dirty they won’t come clean.”

Simon and Andrea were married three months later in a small church ceremony with just their families and a few friends.

From there they moved into Simon’s grandparent’s house who had taken the opportunity to move into the assisted living facility in town with the understanding that Simon would buy the house from them.

Getting a mortgage was fairly straight forward given that Simon’s uncle Fred was the local credit union manager.

“I’m co-signing and since you’re part owner now of the business there shouldn’t be a problem,” Fred had said. “A man needs to give his wife a good home.”

There was always a sense that Uncle Fred might have been a tad annoyed by how the business ownership had been given to his older brother Bob, Simon’s dad who had died years earlier when a tractor he had been working on managed to roll right over him.

Simon’s grandfather had simply said – “that’s the way of things Freddy. To the eldest the spoils. Don’t worry, it’ll make you work harder and build character.”

Well, he wasn’t wrong about the working harder part. Fred worked himself to the bone every day of the week excepting the sabbath and it had definitely paid off.

Chapter 2

Nine months nearly to the day after their wedding Simon and Andrea welcomed little Esther into the world. It was a delivery not without its complications.

“Simon. Simon. Siiiimoooon?!”

It was Dr. Schengler’s voice sounding like it was coming from a thousand miles away. Simon slowly looked up.

“Are they ok doc? Is Andrea ok? Is the baby ok?”

“Simon, Andrea is going to be ok and you are now the proud father a beautiful baby girl,” said Schengler.

“A girl? Oh wow…” he trailed off looking at the wall. “What happened doc?”

“Well Simon I won’t go into the technical details, but Andrea suffered what’s called a uterine tear. Worst I ever did see in all my years. But she’s a tough girl and refused to give in.”

“Could we have…I mean…how?”

“Oh, it’s nothing you could have done anything about,” said Schengler placing a fatherly hand on Simon’s shoulder. There’s no warning about these sorts of things. Sometimes they just happen.”

“We prayed everyday for a good birth,” said Simon. “I don’t understand how this could happen.”

“Well maybe your prayers are the reason you still have a wife and now a daughter,” said Schengler. But Simon, you need to know…Andrea will never have any more children. It’s not going to be possible. You’re going to need to tell her when she’s well enough to hear and we’ll schedule some follow-ups to keep an eye on things.”

No more children. Simon heard the words. He understood them. He and Andrea had always talked about lots of kids…a “real litter” she would joke, and he would laugh with her.