Jenny Plague-Bringer

Chapter Forty-Nine



In June of 1934, Jonathan Seth Barrett sat in his office in his Fallen Oak house, surrounded by the heads of of great beasts he’d killed, the African lion, the American buffalo. He stared at the telegram on his desk. Much had changed in the past year, not least the final death of Prohibition, which was why he now drank bourbon inside of Appalachian white lightning or whichever bottles of questionable, no-label rum happened to get smuggled up from the Bahamas.

Outside, the sun was white-hot, hot enough to broil shrimp on the roof. The high, narrow windows of his office were open, bringing the searing light into his study. His new electric fans churned the air but didn’t do much in the way of actually cooling the house. Only a stiff, cool breeze and a little cloud cover would accomplish that.

He struck a match printed with the name of one of his favorite speakeasies in Charleston—not a speakeasy anymore, he reminded himself, just a plain old nightclub. The world was changing, and he felt like all the adventure was draining out of it. He lit a cigar, tossing the match into the rhinoceros-foot ashtray he’d bought on his trip to Egypt years ago.

The telegram from Berlin didn’t say much, only vaguely stating that the project and all involved with it had been terminated, with a hint that further inquiries were not welcome. Many of Barrett’s long-time correspondents in the eugenics community were dropping contact as they drew behind the dark veil of Nazi secrecy. He didn’t give a holy damn. For all the money he’d donated, none of those scientists had figured out a single thing useful to him. Barrett had concluded that the eugenics folks really had no idea what the hell they were talking about.

He poured himself another tall glass of bourbon. He could read between the lines. He hadn’t needed the telegram, anyway. He’d felt it in the spring, like an earthquake shaking him from the other side of the world. Juliana was dead. The telegram, in its small way, was only a confirmation of what he knew deep inside.

He knew it because he’d begun to feel hopeless. Knowing she was in the world had expanded him, making him larger than he was, freeing him to dream bigger than he ever had before. He’d left her there out of anger, because she’d chosen the other one, the pretty blue-eyed boy with the healing touch. Her rejection had hurt him far more than he’d let on. He’d been certain that she shared his feelings, that they were truly meant for each other.

He’d assumed they would cross paths again, that fate would bring them together, but he’d been terribly, absolutely wrong. She was gone, and the world felt like a much smaller place without her.

From then on, Barrett would age much faster, and he would shrink into a bitter, hollow man with a heart like broken rock. His ambition retreated. He would settle into being a manager of his past investments, abandoning his run at becoming a global titan.

He wandered out onto his sprawling back porch, looking up at the high brick wall of the necropolis he’d built for his family, a monumental place to bury himself and his descendants. He would rot and die here, watching his wife retreat into opiate addiction until the day he buried her, watching his son cringe and tremble, never emerging from his shadow.

His son would manage to marry, though, and have another son of his own, named Jonathan Seth Barrett III, as Barrett would insist. In that direction, at least, lay some hope for his legacy.