Imagine, for a moment, that you are the most fiendish immortal supernatural being ever to plague the universe. You really don’t have very many friends, now do you? Even among your hellish legions, thought you are greatly feared, you are not especially liked. And you know, because you share with them an evil spirit, that if your demon horde ever had the chance, they would kill you and feast on your entrails. Even for a fiend that is a lonely existence, especially for eternity. So, about the time human types appeared on the scene, some 400,000 years ago, the Devil, who had had quite enough of being alone, decided to befriend a single human. He would keep his earthly friend for the span of that human's life and when he died (obviously passing in the ranks of the Devil's hellish legions), the Devil would find a new friend. In 1840, the Devil’s earthly counterpart was Frederick Grey, the candlestick maker.
Frederick Grey was a tall man with piercingly black eyes. His brown hair hung to his shoulders in unkempt waves and his hands were strong and agile. He learned his trade as a young boy in London from his father, the last in a long line of guild chandlers. Frederick’s mother had died in giving birth to him. Frederick’s father would also die at his son’s hand.
Lucian Grey, like his son, was a dark-eyed, handsome man. He was no ordinary candlestick maker. Although he did make the foul-smelling tallow candles used by the London peasant class and whale-oil spermaceti candles used by the rich, his passion was to make ornate candles in beeswax and paraffin. He fashioned the wax into shapes which were seemingly impossible to achieve and, to some, seemed very racy indeed. Lucian’s candles were very popular among the ladies of London high society and, as a result, Lucian and his wife Lily, lived very comfortably.
Lily’s sudden death and a new hungry, shrieking baby, predictably changed things. Lucian's time was split, his work became hurried and shoddy. Sleep deprivation and grief emboldened his eccentric imagination, which was no long checked by Lily's reason or propriety. He all but stopped making the candles that were the bulk of his income and spent his workday feverishly forming beeswax and parrafin into likenesses of the dreamlike images in his head. At night he took the baby to the nearby brothel were he would drown himself in whiskey and sex while the prostitutes cared for Frederick. As the year's went by and the bottle took hold of Lucian more and more, a very young Frederick was left to handle the tallow, oil and wax alone to keep bread on their table. Frederick loved the prostitutes who raised him and he loved the wax that he could form and mold to his whim but he hated, each day more, the loud and belligerent man his father had devolved into.
Lucian had, since the early days of his business, one client, a wealthy heiress, who visited his shop on a weekly basis and had almost single-handedly introduced his wild and imaginative candles to the upper class. She was Alexandra Chinot, a famous widow; haughty, beautiful and wicked. Her favorite of Lucian’s candles were the ones that belied a breast or a thigh in their form, or worse, candles that portrayed unspeakable embraces. After Lily’s death, Lucian’s sensuous candles took on more and more Alexandra’s figure and face. Everyone noticed the change. Alexandra knowing all too well that to be exciting was one thing, but a seriously questionable moral character in society was suicide, even for a wealthy widow, immediately went to Lucian and told him to stop making candles in her image.
The next week Alexandra learned from her best friend that all of London was talking of Lucian’s most recent candle. It was an image of Alexandra in the nude, standing proud and holding down, with one bent leg, the naked form of Lucian as though she had just killed him in the hunt. Desperate, Alexandra exposed Lucian as an obsessed and drunken lunatic. She had little difficultly in turning London society against him. He had by that time a quiet a scandalous reputation.Alexandra had built him up and just as easily, she destroyed him. Lucian was thus stripped of all of his last remaining customers. Having long ago swallowed his savings in whiskey, he was a penniless alcoholic with an 8-year-old son who detested him.
Off to Portsmouth, Lucian dragged his son, away from his brothel mothers. Lucian forced Frederick to make candles in exchange for whiskey and sometimes bread and shelter along the way. At Portsmouth he made a deal with a ship’s captain for passage to America for himself and his son. The ship had taken on livestock and would hunt whales en route. Lucian and Frederick would turn the fat from animals slaughtered onboard and oil from the harpooned whales into candles for the long journey.
Lucian had long heard of America. The wide-open spaces sounded like a place a man could lose himself. There he could be free to drink whiskey forever without censure while his son ran a candle shop for money.
The ship was headed for New Orleans, but stormy seas threw it off course and they landed in Galveston. It was the middle of summer; hot, humid and Hispanic. Lucian was distraught. Withdrawal and rocky seas had made the journey nearly unbearable for him and a living hell for Frederick. The oppressive wet heat of Galveston drove him out of his already waning mind. He didn’t have any money or leverage for return passage, neither could he stand yet another stretch of time without a reliable stream of alcohol. He was told that New Orleans was equally wet and hot; if he was looking for London weather, he’d have to start walking north.
Walking. Not an easy task for a young boy, day in and day out with little but scraps to abate his hunger pangs. Frederick, sadly mature at 8, though malnutrition made him look no older than 6, and ever-growing in hatred for his father, suggested they join a passing wagon train. He bartered passage in exchange for candle-making skills. At each town he would try to leave with the wagon train before Lucian emerged from the bar, but in each town Lucian’s inability to pay for his liquor came to light much too soon and he inevitably came shambling up behind the train angered at having been physically removed from another drinking establishment and ready to box Frederick’s ears for leaving him.
When the wagon train reached the town of Austin on the banks of the Colorado river, most of the travelers left to resupply. Frederick (and you must keep in mind what people will do when they are driven to desperation) immediately began sifting through his fellow-travelers belongings. He found very few things of value or interest, but he did extract a dull knife with a small wooden handle (perfectly his size), four porcelain plates with pictures of European hamlets drawn in blue on them and a silver coin with a picture of a stocking cap with the word “Libertad” on it with lightning going out from it in all directions. “The magical stocking cap of liberty!” Frederick chuckled to himself. Maybe, if he planned it just right, it could be the magical stocking cap of his liberation.
Frederick left the wagons and headed for the village. His father had early that morning gone to the bar with the few coins he and Frederick had earned picking cotton along the wagon route. Today, as every other day, he had no thought of his son, consumed by his alcoholism.
Frederick found his way to the market where he spent the better part of the day attempting to sell the four porcelain plates. When a kind woman finally took pity on him and bought his over-priced plates for four copper coins, he promptly bought himself a turkey leg, which he devoured like a hyena, and some beef jerky to save for later. He left the market with a full belly, two copper coins, the ‘Libertad’ coin, three strips of beef jerky and a dull knife.
Frederick walked the streets for sometime in search of inspiration. Actually, that is a lie, he was adequately inspired by his hatred for his father and his desire to find a release from this life of torment; he needed only an opportunity. Desperation creates the most successful opportunists and he found an opportunity soon enough. He found a butter churn sitting outside of the cottage and shop of the town engraver. This may seem an unlikely opportunity but all will be revealed. Frederick instantly took to churning and within a half and hour had churned all the cream to butter. He then hid behind the wall of the house and waited.
Soon enough an old woman came outside through the cottage door covered in flour and ink, wiping her hands on a towel. With a sign and a puff at the strands of hair hanging in front of her eyes, she sat before the butter churn, resigned to her next duty. She tugged upwards with little effort, expecting the wooden churn to come easily out of the liquid cream but instead her effort was met with much resistance. Confused she raised the lid of the churn to find it full of butter. She yelped with pleasure only to immediately scowl with confusion and turn to look for the person playing this trick on her.
She opened the door and yelled “Hey, old man, the butter is churned, did you see anyone here, has Sarah stopped by?”
“Not that I know of, Ethel.” She closed the door.
“How very strange,” she muttered to herself but, resolved to discover the churner later, she extracted the butter and went into the house.
Frederick watched this scene with mild amusement and with Ethel’s departure, he moved to the back of the house. He entered the chicken coup and seeing a basket by the door proceeded to gather all of the eggs. He had to hurry because the chickens made a great deal of noise and he knew it would soon bring Ethel outside. No sooner had he placed the basket in front of the chicken coup door and hid behind the wall then Ethel appeared in the doorway with a broomstick ready to wallop any four-legged animal bothering her chickens. Shocked to find the gathered eggs she looked frantically about her for the culprit angel in her midst. Finding no one she took the basket into the house to tell her husband.
Frederick could hear her excited rantings coming from within the house and the more calm answers in a male voice, which punctuated each new outpouring. Thus satisfied, he lay down to sleep in the cover of the chicken coup. You will notice that he has thought not even once about his father this full day, but you should know that this is untrue. Frederick does not think of his father in the normal way, worrying about his well-being, hoping to meet up with him later. No, Frederick’s father never foregrounds in his thoughts as such but Lucian lives instead as a piercing thorn in Frederick’s brain that pricks him endlessly and drives him like a horse running from the whip of the rider atop his back.
Frederick slept with the proverbial one eye open for most of the rest of the day. Around dusk, waking from hunger pangs, Frederick moved to the window of the cottage to find the lights off and no one at home. He entered the residence through a window and helped himself to some bread and fresh butter. He then set to his next task. You see, he may have been only 8 but necessity had taught him at 5 how to be a quite accomplished candlestick maker. Everyone knows that one of the most effective uses of wax is that of an engraver/lithographer who covers his copper plates in wax and then etches the print into the wax. The etched wax-covered copper plate is then put into a vat of acid, which eats away the copper where the wax has been removed. After the remaining wax is removed, the copper plate is inked and pressed to create the final print. Frederick, knowing this as well, proceeded to wax, engrave and acid bath three separate plates for which the engraver had left only paper sketches of clients’ wishes. His work was a bit sloppy, mainly because he was not trained as an engraver. Still, he finished the work to his satisfaction. With some extra wax, he fashioned a wax image of Ethel, as he ate some more bread and a bit of mutton from the larder. Then he headed back out the window to hide. In all of his four creations he had stamped, the image of the ‘Libertad’ coin.
He found his father in a gutter on the way to the wagon train. He kicked him squarely in the chest and continued on his way. His father, awakened by the strangely powerful small foot, stumbled after him cursing that he was in for the beating of his life.
Back at the wagon train, Lucian passed out after the exertion of chasing his young son, and none could say that Frederick did not taunt him. Frederick counted his wares and continued his scheming late into the night, speaking outloud as if with another plotter, unconcerned that Lucian would hear their conspiring. At daybreak his father’s fierce shaking awakened him.
“Go get us some food, boy!” Came the command.
“Why would I bother, when I return you will already be in the pub.” Came the reply.
The response to these words left Frederick on the ground dazed and bleeding from the lip, cheek and nose. Lucian, as predicted, wandered off in the direction of town. Good, thought Frederick, this can only help me.
Frederick, as you no doubt have guessed, returned with haste to the engraver’s cottage. He saw, immediately, hung on the front door a sign, which read “To you who has been a secret servant to me and my wife, Thank you and Show Yourself! There is no need for secrecy. I would like to thank you in person. I am not one to take charity. I could pay you for your aid.” Upon reading this, the pain in his face disappeared and he felt stronger. (Which, those of us familiar with the feeling, would instantly call hope.)
As the day before, he proceeded to invisibly do the outside chores, waiting, between each so that Ethel could find the deed and carry on a bit. This night, while Ethel and her husband slept, Frederick crept in the same window and rather than finishing screens, made candles from the wax using his dull knife to carve them into animal shapes with wick protruding from their backs. He pleased himself so mightily in this work that he was almost caught in the deed. For the night had almost ended and as you know, working people rarely sleep to miss the sunrise. Frederick heard movement in the next room and hurriedly stamped his works with 'Libertad' and squeezed out the window just as the engraver opened the door. Frederick watched him stare in disbelief and then move to touch and marvel at the candles. He called his wife, but Frederick left before she arrived to avoid her now well-known high-pitched reaction. Frederick did not this time return to the wagon train, as it was already daybreak and he had a full day before him. He, instead, hid behind the chicken coup to take a short nap.
He dreamt that his father was stabbing him over and over in the chest with a broad, golden sword but woke to find none other than Ethel poking him with a broom. “What are you doing behind my coup!”
He looked up at her and hid his eyes from the sun that shone behind her head. It was then that she noticed the state of his face and his youth, which had been hidden, with his head, under his arm.
“Oh, dear, what a sight”, she exclaimed to herself, “This just won’t do. Now, Ethel, remember the sermon you heard not three days ago? Please, then, come with me and we will see what we can do for you.”
By the time the words were spoken he had been carried bodily over the threshold and plopped down right into the chair which he had inhabited only hours before.
“Who did this to you?”
“My father.”
"Oh, my" and again, "Oh, my."
Frederick had at first sight of her, decided that this was an excellent turn, but now in the chair being administered to with rags and water, he didn’t quite know what to do. Hadn’t he planned to be found out sooner or later?
He allowed himself to be pampered clean and fed the same food he had so recently stolen and basked in his cleverness. Only one deed left to be done. He waited for the engraver to emerge. The engraver came close to him examining him. Frederick put his hand in his pocket and allowed the coin to slip out to the floor. The engraver picked up the coin and, as expected, recognized it immediately. His face grew red in an instant and he pushed Ethel away from Frederick with a shove, grabbed him by the collar of his shirt and lifted him bodily off of the chair.
“Where did you get this?!” He bellowed into Frederick’s cringing face.
“It's mine, it's mine, it's mine…” Frederick repeated again and again. But the engraver did not believe him. He was certain that this little pickpocket had pickpocketed his guardian angel.
He released him with a thump into the chair and Frederick squirmed to right his clothing and his blood flow. “Ok, then, who did you take it from? I will not punish you, it is important that I know who this belonged to.” “No”, said Frederick, “you don’t understand, it is my coin and it was my work that you see here.” The words startled the engraver, coming from such a small boy and still, his sincerity was unmistakable. Either this child told the truth or he had the cunning of the devil himself.
“Fine then,” replied the engraver, “I will put you to the test.” He reached for one of the candles made the night before, in the shape of a rearing horse with wild eyes, and set it in front Frederick. “Make this again, while I watch you.” Frederick smiled inside, this was so easy. He made the horse swiftly and stamped the 'Libertad'coin into it with relish. The engraver and his wife were amazed and could only stand in awe trying to decide what to do with this small virtuoso who had crept into their lives.
“Don’t you have a family?” Ethel finally stammered.
“Well, yes, but you’ve seen what my family does to me,” he replied and then adding some youth and innocence to the tone of his voice, “I want to work for and live with you, now.” Ethel’s eyes softened.
Frederick looked at the engraver and appealed to his sense of reason and practicality. “I can help you make signs and candles. You will grow wealthy with my help and I will have food and a roof. It is a perfect trade.” The engraver felt a warm breeze on his face and his mind was made up. “Fine then, you can stay. We’ll make you a bed in the chicken coup. You’ll do what you have done these last days and we will house you and feed you. Agreed?” The warm breeze blew again and he didn’t even feel strange when he took the small boy’s hand and sealed the deal.
And so it was. Ethel felt that the engraver made a slave of the poor abused boy, but Frederick worked so hard and made candles all night. People around town started to come and buy these candles as gifts for their in-laws and then for themselves, saying that they were gifts for the in-laws. Money started pouring in.
Ethel couldn’t imagine where Frederick got all of his energy. He was like a wildfire and just that hot. Whenever she brushed him, she was certain that he was feverish but he waved her off, just as her husband would, and told her to stop her fretting. Word began to circulate that a small boy was now living with the engraver and making these mysterious candles that seemed as popular in Austin as the puff sleeve in New York. People came to watch him work and coveted those candles with the ‘Libertad’ coin stamp. But, as you have wisely expected, the day arrived when word reached Lucian, who by now was homeless, begging for the money to feed his addiction. And you have guessed too, he wasn’t about to sit there and let his own “Goddamn!” son make money for someone else. He marched his diseased and inebriated body to the engraver’s cottage and clobbered the door with clenched fists.
The engraver came to the door and gruffly pushed Lucian into the street saying something to the effect of, “get your drunken ass off my property.” Lucian lunged at him and knocked him to the ground. Kicking him in the head with force and knocking him unconscious, he ran into the house. There at the long wooden workbench sat Frederick, smiling with wide black eyes behind a large wax bear candle, baring his teeth and claws. Lucian moved toward him slowly. He had planned a swift and harsh punishment for the boy but somehow, here in his presence, he felt fearful and seemed to be unable to incite his muscles to motion.
As he moved, Frederick spoke to him softly. “Father, come here and I will make a wax candle in your image. It will be the next fad because it came from my handiwork. You will be instantly famous; everyone will have a bust of you in their house. They will buy you drinks in every bar in town and all the women will want you.”
Lucian had reached his son’s side. He sat as if pushed in the chair at his side.
“Ok, then. Hold still and I will take a cast of your face.” Frederick’s motions were deliberate and unhurried. Lucian opened his mouth to object but his son put a finger to his lips and then calmly covered his face with a slab of warm wax. He slowly formed it to the face of his father, who soon needed a breath and realized that he could not take one in under the wax. Lucian attempted to rip the wax from his face but his arms seemed held hard against his sides. Though he struggled mightily, he was held tight and still. He could feel his son’s agile fingers massaging the wax on his face. He fought and whimpered as the consciousness began to leave him. He tried to say his son’s name but he could not move his lips, he could not fill his lungs and he could not move a muscle under the incredible weight holding him down.
Frederick continued his soft ministrations until he his father’s body went limp and slumped in the chair. Then he stood back and looked at the white waxy face of his father as the life left him. He calmly took the wax death mask from his father’s face, hid it in a cloth under his worktable and laid his father’s body gently on the floor. With a deep breath, he screamed in horror, fell to his father’s side and began to cry.
Ethel, who had been reviving her unconscious husband, heard his scream and rushed into the house to find a distraught Frederick prostrate over the body of his father. It was not hard for the Ethel to believe that Lucian had collapsed of drunkenness and disease. Of course, there would have been no sign of struggle, even if anyone had bothered to look for one. Ethel moved toward Frederick and held him tight to comfort him. Frederick continued to sob but his face showed his elation over her enormous shoulder. The engraver caught a glimpse of his beaming gaze when he stumbled into the room, but Frederick quickly changed his expression to one of bereft desolation and the engraver dismissed it.
_____________________________________________________________________________
That was 10 years before.
Frederick stood before a life-size wax human form, scrutinizing every curve. He moved around his large salon to see his creation from all angles and in all lights. He was never satisfied with this piece. He had labored on it for five years and still, it wasn’t perfect. He was obsessed with the idea that he could create a figure so lifelike that it would confuse and confound any who saw it, sure that in any second it would move to startle them and laugh at them for thinking it was lifeless wax. In absolute frustration, he threw down his dull knife, kicked over the nearest piece of furniture and headed out of the room at a gallop, running head long into the Devil who had appeared suddenly in the doorway.
Furious, Frederick yelled at him, “Why can’t you help me with this piece?! You have given me everything else that I ever wanted. When I wanted to grow rich, you made the people of this town lust after my candles. When I wanted revenge on those that scorned me you struck them down with disease and tragedy. When I wanted female companionship, you made me into a true artist and intellectual in the eyes of women and I had my pick of them all. But, you will not help me to create this, the one thing I want the most. Am I not a good friend to you, who is loneliest in the universe, am I not faithful?”
“Yes, you are faithful and a friend to me. But I can not help you in this task. Do not forget who is immortal and all-knowing between us. This endeavor is doomed to failure. If finished it would only create trouble for us both.”
But Frederick was adamant. He had the death mask, he didn’t need the Devil. He would create a life-sized candle of his father and it would be his masterpiece. He never asked himself why he was so driven to recreate the figure and image of his father. He assumed it was pride and he was fine with that. Pride, like a fire, consumed him and the Devil stoked that fire daily by complimenting his cunning ruthlessness. Frederick knew that with the Devil at his side he could do anything. Anything, that is, but create this candle. It tormented him. It was only a candle! He was the master of candlestick making. But it was never perfect and the Devil would not help him.
He knew that it was because the Devil had become jealous of him. He had talent, riches, woman, and the Devil, well, he had only Frederick for a friend.
“I don’t need him, then!” Frederick shouted, “I have surpassed him and I will create this candle without him!”
Frederick didn’t sleep for a week. He worked until he had burned all his other candles for light, then he worked by sunlight and moonlight. He molded and scraped, then melted and started over. He positioned the arms, then the legs, then the arms again. The only thing that remained the same was the face, a perfect representation of his father as if asleep but in the middle of a wretched nightmare.
Hours passed like water and he took no notice. People came to call and he would not answer. He spent every moment with his candle, with his father, recreating him. He studied every aspect of him in his mind’s eye to reach a perfect representation. He touched his memories like they were flesh and fought with them. Crazed he would punch his creation and weep at the indention he made in what had been an almost perfect copy of his father’s chest.
The Devil came to him only once in that week and asked him not to work anymore on the candle.
“There will be many more masterpieces, Frederick, I can help you with all of them.” This infuriated Frederick. How could the Devil decide what to help him with? Frederick had been to church only twice in his life but he remembered one line that he had heard there and on that day he used it.
“Get behind me, Satan!” he screamed and the Devil vanished from his sight. He felt a pang of sorrow but it was only for a moment before realizing that his father’s second toe had always been longer that his big toe.
Frederick’s strength was waning as the seventh day came. He had eaten only old cheese and drunken only watered wine for a week. He was near the end he could feel it. His candle was almost perfect. He sat before the candle and scrutinized it, knowing it was not perfect but not knowing what was incorrect. Suddenly the Devil’s voice was in his head. “It is truly a masterpiece. Now come from there and call me back, we have work to do and riches and woman to win. You have spent enough time on this endeavor.”
“Where are you?” cried Frederick, shocked to find the voice had no body in the room.
“Why behind you, where you sent me.” Came the reply. But Frederick turned and turned and could not see him.
“Tell me what it is missing and I will come with you.” Frederick said, desperate.
“I will not tell you unless you promise to leave this statue and never touch it again.”
“I can not promise that.”
“Then I can not tell you.” The voice was gone and Frederick was left alone.
He fell asleep without realizing it and found himself face to face with Lucian in the hold of a ship. He could feel the nauseous rocking and smell the liquor and vomit on his father’s breath. He moved away from him instinctually but his father grabbed his arms. Frederick struggled to free himself, but it was no use. His father flung him to the ground as he had when he was a boy and screamed into his face.
“My ears, you insolent fool, my ears, you have attached my earlobes to my face, they hang freely, see…”, he reached up to grasp an earlobe, and it was true, his earlobes, unlike Frederick’s were free and unattached to the side of his face by skin. Frederick shuddered with nausea and ran for the stairs, only to find himself dry heaving on the ground in his workshop. He raced to the statue and, in one motion, pulled the ears from the candle’s head.
At once the eyes opened to reveal piercing black irises. The mouth turned into a fierce scowl. Frederick froze in fear to feel the candle’s hands move up his arms, to his neck and then his face. The eyes and hands studied his face as if admiring the features. Frederick, coming to his senses, tried to step back from the animated candle only to find that his way was blocked by an invisible figure standing behind him.
He heard the voice in his head, “I told you not to create this. I told you that you could have anything in the world but this. But you would not listen and now you will pay.” At that moment Frederick felt a hand of wax cover his mouth. He screamed in fright but the sound stopped at the wax hand which had spread to cover his nose. He struggled but the figure behind him held him still. “Now I will have to find another friend…”
Weak with exhaustion he could not even feign to struggle and as the breathe and life left him he heard his father say, “Now we will be together in Hell.”
Early the next morning, the police burst through his door, having had reports that Frederick had not responded or come out of his shop in days. What they found was a statue of a man who looked very much like Frederick, and Frederick was dead on the floor at his feet, his face covered in candle wax.
What a great story! Thanks for posting and sharing it!
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