The House on Saint Julian by Francis Clark
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The House on Saint Julian by Francis Clark (Under the direction of Professor Reginald McKnight) Abstract: The House on Saint Julian is a gothic-horror novel set in Savannah, Geor- gia in 1874. In the opening chapter Saul Richardson is killed by a demon while in Saint Joseph’s Hospital. The death is witnessed by a nun, Sister Brigid, who was born to a family of wise women in Ireland. The church summons its magicians to deal with the demon, but the demon is too pow- erful. Brigid must rely on her few pagan connections remaining in Ireland to find a magician who can destroy the demon. In the course of the novel she recovers her pagan heritage and faith, led to her true path by another hereditary witch, Sister Angela, and the Voudon mambo, Esmerelda. At the conclusion of the novel, the two nuns leave the church and leave together for Sicily. Index Words: Graduate School of English, Francis Clark, Masters Degree (MA), The University of Georgia, Horror, Gothic, Fantasy, Novel, Strega, Witch, Pa- ganism The House on Saint Julian by Francis Clark B.A., Occidental College, 1972 A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of The University of Georgia in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Master of Arts Athens, Georgia 2005 © 2005, Francis Clark Registered WGAw No. 846329 All rights reserved. The House on Saint Julian by Francis Clark Major Professor: Reginald McKnight Committee: James Nagel, Terry Hummer Electronic Version Approved: Maureen Grasso Dean of the Graduate School The University of Georgia May 2005 Dedication I would like to dedicate this manuscript to my wife, Amy, whose patience and support made its creation possible. I would also like to dedicate this book to the members of my graduate committee, Reg McKnight, Terry Hummer, and James Nagel, as well as to Anne Williams, Miranda Yaggi, and my agent Nat Sobel. iv Table of Contents Chapter One, Savannah, Georgia, Friday, October 9th, 1874........................................... 1 Chapter Two, Ireland, The 1840s.................................................................................... 17 Chapter Three, October 9th, 1874.................................................................................. 23 Chapter Four, October 10th, 1874.................................................................................. 27 Chapter Five, Monday, October 12th.............................................................................. 46 Chapter Six, Wednesday, October 14th........................................................................... 70 Chapter Seven., Thursday, October 15th......................................................................... 87 Chapter Eight, Friday, October 16th............................................................................. 109 Chapter Nine, Friday Evening, October 16th................................................................ 120 Chapter Ten, Saturday, October 17th............................................................................ 124 Chapter Eleven, Sunday, October 18th.......................................................................... 128 Chapter Twelve, Monday, October 19th........................................................................ 133 Chapter Thirteen, Tuesday, October 20th...................................................................... 149 Chapter Fourteen, Wednesday, October 21st................................................................. 163 Chapter Fifteen, Thursday, October 22nd..................................................................... 176 Chapter Sixteen, Friday, October 23rd.......................................................................... 203 Chapter Seventeen, Saturday, October 24th................................................................... 217 Chapter Eighteen, Sunday, October 25th....................................................................... 235 Chapter Nineteen, Monday, October 26th.................................................................... 238 Chapter Twenty, Western Ireland, Tuesday, October 27th............................................. 251 Chapter Twenty-One, Savannah, Tuesday, October 27th.............................................. 255 Chapter Twenty-Two, Beddgelert, Wales, Wednesday, October 28th............................. 266 Chapter Twenty-Three, Savannah, Wednesday, October 28th....................................... 270 Chapter Twenty-Four, Savannah, Thursday, October 29th............................................ 274 Chapter Twenty-Five, Beddgelert, Friday, October 30th................................................ 280 Chapter Twenty-Six, Savannah,, October 30th.............................................................. 285 Chapter Twenty-Seven, New York City, Monday, November 2nd.................................. 294 Chapter Twenty-Eight, Wednesday, November 4th........................................................ 296 Chapter Twenty-Nine, Thursday, November 5th........................................................... 305 Chapter Thirty, Friday. November 6th........................................................................... 309 Chapter Thirty-One, Saturday, November 7th.............................................................. 331 Chapter Thirty-Two, Apology to The House on Saint Julian......................................... 341 Bibliography.................................................................................................................. 351 v Chapter One Savannah, Georgia Friday, October 9th, 1874 The dream always began the same, and, though he recoiled in terror even inside the dream, he could never escape the outcome. He was walking toward the hospital tent. Around it were men broken in battle, arms and legs smashed by rifle balls, sword cuts al- ready infected with the filth of the battlefield. Cannons rumbled in the distance. Couriers rattled back and forth on the muddy trails of the camp. Beside the tent was the inevitable harbinger of his trade–a stack of arms and limbs sawn from men as they screamed. The Confederate doctors rarely had laudanum or whiskey to dull the patient’s pain while the saw rasped its way through the flesh and bone. Cutting the bone was always the most agonizing part. Some cried out. Some just cried. The ones who screamed seemed to do the best, though the screams haunted him as they did every doctor. In his dream he would enter a tent, a vague concoction of the tents at Shiloh, Antietam, and a half dozen lesser battles where the men of the South died for “the Cause.” Someone he thought he knew handed him a saw and a scalpel. Somnolent, deadened, he walked to a table where a pa- tient lay, his pants crudely ripped back, revealing a shattered right leg. “Hold him,” he muttered to the two Negro orderlies who stood at the head of the table, like waiters in a crude feast. As they moved to hold him down, the boy raised his head, and Gaston saw that he was young, maybe sixteen. “You’re not gonna take my laig,” he cried through the pain. “No choice, son.” He repeated the litany, “It’s your leg or your life.” “You’re not gonna take my laig.” Stubbornly repeated. “Hold him.” The orderlies tightened their grip, yet the boy struggled to raise his head. “Butcher.” He said it calmly, pronouncing judgment on the doctor. Page 1 The screaming began when he cut into the flesh with his scalpel. So much like cut- ting up a cow or a pig, only this flesh lived, this flesh could scream with a human voice. Until then the dream had been true to reality, so close to what he had seen and done a thousand times, even down to his feeling of cold detachment as he sliced away a part of a man who might never feel like a man again. But then the insanity started, the tent began to drum as things fell against the canvas. The poles swayed; the oil lamps rocked with the impact. Where the objects struck, each left an imprint of blood. The tent began to sag under the strain. The blood leaked through the canvas. A seam over his head split, and shattered arms and legs fell on him. Some were mangled stumps, some putrid with gangrene, some freshly removed. Some limbs were tattered, some cleanly cut. The tattered ones betrayed the work of a soldier. The cleanly cut were the work of doctors. All the limbs fell straight at him. A putrid thigh slapped him in the face, blinding him in one eye with its trail of gore. As the limbs cascaded through the rent canvas and beat him to the floor, he saw a fervid look of victory in the face of the boy. “Ain’t gonna get me. Ain’t gonna get mine.” Then he was swamped in the onrush of limbs, buried in a mound of bone and blood and torn meat. He clawed madly for the surface, but it was out of reach, the tide was endless. He tried to breathe, but his mouth and nose were blocked by a putrefying gore that made him retch. He would wake up gasping for air. The sour mash whiskey he kept by his bedside was the only thing strong enough to wash the taste out of his mouth. It had been almost ten years since Appomattox, and Savannah once again grew rich on the cotton trade. But Gaston’s dream and his memories never let him enjoy the peace and the new prosperity. He always remembered that one half of the budget of the state of Mississippi was spent to pay for artificial limbs in 1866. That fact reminded him Page 2 that for three years he had not been a doctor, just a meat cutter and an expert at the final game of triage. He heard his boy running up the stairs. “Doc Gaston, Doc Gaston, you needed.” Ezekiel began knocking