The Promise

I, Jacobeous Deacon, tell this thing, unshaken in my faith—as becometh a true believer—yet as one humanly wondering and fearful.

On the thirteenth of January—now one month gone—I kneeled by the bedside of my young brother, Josephus; he no more than sixteen years in this world, and dying of the hectic fever. I held his hands when he passed, wasted and thin were they, and my promise I gave to him in the moment he died that I, who had loved him so surely, should watch by his body until such time as he should be commit to the earth, from whence we are come.

And so died my brother whom I loved before all others; and through three nights and three days (he having passed upon the evening of the ninth day) I strayed no whither from kneeling beside him; tasting neither food nor water, which is ever my drink, in all that space. And my mother who bore me, and the father from whose loins I am descended, and the children of these twain who call me brother, came many times and besought me that I would take some food, even though a little, and sleep for a while in the room which lay next, and which was mine. But I took no heed; being, it might be, stone-like with the excess of my grief.

Then, on the fourth night, being as I have said, the thirteenth of the month, I must have broken my promise with the dead lad upon the bed; for my nature weakened, and I fell upon so profound a sleep that I heeded not that they, my people, carried me hence into the next room, and there, having laid me upon my bed, did lock me in—being determined for my reason’s sake, that I should no more come anigh the dead lad until my sanity of spirit was something restored within me.

And so for a space I slept there, all unknowing; and, presently, waked. And knowledge came to me, as I lay a moment to gather my witlessness, how that I had fallen from my sure self-respect, and slept when I should surely have watched. And in that moment I would gladly have died that this thing might have been undone.

And I got me slowly and wearifully from the bed, with sickness and desperateness in my soul that I had broken word with the dead lad; and I passed through the darkness to the door—meaning to complete my poor and scattered task in deep and humble shame. For, until that time, I, Jacobeous Deacon, had broken not my word in all my twenty years of life—counting no dishonour so great; and holding in contempt the weakness that bade the flesh fail to perform that which the spirit had laid its seal upon.

But when I was come to the door, I perceived that it was secured upon me, and my shame bade me to make no unseemly outburst. And as I stood there, unknowing for the while how to guide my actions, there came from the wall which divided my brother’s room from mine, a slight noise as though a cat scratched thrice. At this, a sudden sweat broke out upon me, and I shook a little with a sudden newly-known fear, that was yet not all clear to my consciousness; for the sound was the signal that my brother had used, in the years of his weakness, to make to me when he desired my presence in the night-time to company and cheer him. Yet was my brother dead upon the bed; and none other knew the signal. And so the strangeness that took me so coldly about my heart as with a half-knowing.

Then I had come to the wall and, pulling aside a little picture, I disclosed the hole which we had made years gone, that we might speak with one another, without need to come from our rooms. And through this hole I spied swiftly and saw my brother quiet upon the bed; and the wind, blowing gently, brought a little of the smell of the room to me; for my brother was to have burial upon the morrow.

Now, there burned three candles on each side of my brother; and he lay alone, and all the room seemed full of a dreadful stillness. And I let my gaze go about the room and come back again to the bed. But my brother was not there; and my heart dulled and sickened within me, and set thence to a mad beating; for there was no one in the room to move my brother.

Then something touched the wall upon the other side, and the hole gave to me a sudden greater smell of the room so that I was aware that I smelled. Then something came against the hole upon the other side and darkened it. And I fell backward from the hole, for some terrible thing, my spirit told to me, lay against it upon the other side, and looked at me through the darkness. And the smell of the dead spread around me; and there was a coldness upon my face.

And presently I knew that I pressed at the wall, and my cries filled the house, save when I fought to breathe. And then my people came to me, and unfastened the door, and brought lights. But I heeded them not as my friends; but cried out continually that the dead lad peered at me through the wall. And they, think me mad, and seeking to reassure me, went into the next room and returned to tell me that my brother lay all undisturbed. And they seeked to take me to him, to still my shiverings; but for a great while I was fearful, through all my being, to go. Yet, in time, they took me; their assurances having calmed my spirit. And it was as they had told to me. The boy lay quiet upon the bed, and ready for his burial.

But I, going at last to his side, saw that the rose I had placed above his hands was no longer there. And I turned me about and looked towards the wall, and so I found the rose upon the floor below the hole. But, by the grace of God, I calmed my spirit, and gat me to my knees, and they, seeing me thus, must have gone quietly from me; but I heard them not, for I prayed for the soul of my brother. And through all that remained of that night, prayed I, out of an humble heart; and my brother moved not, neither was I harmed.

And this I have set down under the seal of my faith in God, knowing that I have not wittingly writ aught but that which my soul knoweth to be of verity.

Unto God I give thanks for His Graciousness to my brother and to me; in that He stayed my spirit in that moment to fight for the soul of my brother. Unto God I give praise, out of an humble and contrite heart.

Set out this day of grace, in the year of our Lord 1733, being the thirteenth day of February.