A Stinky Mass of Shadows - fiction by Denis Winston Brum

​A whistle sounded the train’s imminent departure warning.

The Baggage Car’s side loading door closed slowly, hiding Major Wilfred Briggs Morison’s coffin from his daughter’s view. Victoria lowered her black hat’s veil, gracefully turned her waist, and hastened across the King’s Cross railway station platform.

The station boundaries were soon behind, letting the shadows of bombed church rubble fill the Passenger Car window. Victoria’s right black glove, an ornate silver ring crowned by the soft glow of a red-brown stone adorning the fourth finger, took out of her purse the private letter that her father had left with his will. She studied once more the words so well organized in those pen-pressed lines as the Major’s Gurkha brigade marching in a parade. Victoria returned the letter to the purse and found herself wishing for a brandy.

---

Heading for the cocktail bar, Victoria was crossing a corridor between the last Passenger Car and The Ladies Retiring Room when the train was swallowed by the tunnel. That well-known clickety-clack from the train wheels rolling over the rail joints and squats became distant. A faint glow entered the corridor’s darkness.
​
“Good evening, Miss Morison”, a voice just beside her sounded as if it belonged in the tunnel itself. Even raising her veil, she couldn’t see beyond a vaguely human-shaped mass of shadows outlined by the red glow of a long ivory pipe carved with a skull around the bowl and bones intertwining up the increasingly slender stem.

​“Excuse me, I had the vivid impression of an empty corridor.” She still couldn’t make out the figure so close to her.

“A perfectly understandable mistake.” That pipe reminded her of a revolting one that her father usually smoked in India.

“How do you know who I am?” Discreetly, she made some room between herself and the somber figure.

“The Major's colorful past earned him an obituary in all the renowned London papers. And your dignified walk alongside that sumptuous coffin making its way through a crowded station demands attention, Miss Morison.”

“I couldn’t possibly imagine why this should be of your particular interest, but I am taking the Major to be buried in Scotland. Where are you going?” Her words were underlined by restrained outrage.

“I’m not going anywhere.” The glow became brighter, coloring her face red. “The Major owes me a debt of honor, and I am here to collect it.” The words came floating in that cloying sweet smoke.

Victoria turned to both sides, but there was no longer a corridor, just endless darkness. Her trembling glove fanned the air, “So, you are…”

“Will you honor the Major’s debt?”
​
She abruptly shook her head.

“I must recognize that your father was very shrewd in conducting his business, and, as so, got himself an advantageous agreement; therefore, a quite simple task was assigned to you.”

“Forgive me for putting it this way, but it needs to be appreciated that…”

“Halt!” That deep voice echoed the Major's commanding orders. “The faculty of tolerating the lamentations of a greedy repentant does not find room in my temperament.”

Those masses advanced, imprisoning Victoria in shadows.

“In the Passenger Car you just left behind are Harold Gutter, Mary Godfrey, and Peter Michael Waters.” The smoke’s eerie choreography drew three faces into the air. “I am willing to accept just one soul among these. Choose wisely, there is no margin for error in your decision.”

“The Major taught me well how to persevere.” Her voice didn't hold back the pride.

“Bravely spoken, Miss Morison. As the agreement demands, you shall collect the right person's signature of their own free will. Since Harold is only two years old, you can bring me a drop of his blood on the dotted line.” Rearranging themselves, the shadows handed her quivering fingers a parchment wrapped in a red ribbon. “You have until the end of this journey to return the agreement signed to me.” The shadowy cluster retreated; the glow faded.
​
When the train left the darkness of the tunnel, Victoria realized again the wheels progressing over the rail and took in the corridor's emptiness.
​

She closed the Passenger Car door behind her and a mature woman, wearing a Mayfair hat as purple as her Connie dress, supporting the bony bald head of her snoring husband on her shoulder, was haunted by Victoria’s veiled face and long-sleeved, black dress of wool crepe, narrow V-shaped neckline, and a silver lotus flower appliquéd in passementerie rising from the heart.

“Excuse me, Miss Morison.” Elegant in his navy-blue flannel suit, showing a few gray strands intruding into his practical short brown-blonde hair, the man whose thinness made him appear taller than he really was got up from the bench directly in front of the seasoned couple. "I would like to pay my respects for the loss of your father."

She palmed her heart under the silver lotus, "Did you know the Major?"

---

"Perhaps you don't remember me. After all, you were just a little girl in those days. I served as liaison officer between the Major and the Home Office during that incident in Amritsar."

"Mowbray... Geoffrey Mowbray. The Major held you in great esteem."

"I proved beyond any doubt that his rank obliged him to follow the chain of command, carrying out the direct orders of Brigadier General Dyer, who was truly responsible for that regrettable episode."

“You have shown yourself to be a skilled politician and a perfect gentleman. Are you still attached to the Home Office?”

A shy smile removed the official solemnity from his lips, "Yes, I remain involved in government affairs."
​
"I deeply appreciate your feelings for the Major. I'm sure you'll perform brightly in any duty that has been deservedly assigned to you”. She briefly handled his hand and advanced between the benches.

As he was trying to read the Daily Herald extra late edition - NIGHT AIR BATTLE OVER LONDON IN BIG BLITZ’ - the vicar stirred his thin lips in inaudible insults. On the bench beside him, turning fast from a baby into a chubby, rose-faced little boy, restless Harold was using the gray-haired religious man's thigh as a support point to climb onto his mother's lap. She rested her head on the seat, trying to sleep, but Harold’s little hand insisted on pulling a blonde ring and undoing her already clumsy hairstyle. Victoria quickly left them behind.

---

Mary Godfrey’s long fingers nimbly closed the purse, but not swiftly enough to prevent Victoria from glancing over her shoulder at the Regent Palace Hotel envelope stuffed with pounds.

“Would you mind if I kept you company for a little while?” Victoria lifted the veil, took the seat next to the tall redhead. “Chatting would help me to put this apprehension away.”
​
Mary’s big blue eyes studied Victoria’s ballerina figure. Her gaze wandered over such porcelain skin, the chin’s delicate firmness, the lip’s seductive design, the straight, elegant nose, the austere beauty of the gold and onyx flowers earrings, the intense brown eyes, the sophisticated hair combed upwards waving in large black curls under Victoria’s graceful little hat. “By all means, put yourself at ease. Forgive me if I seem to be prying into your life, but was it Madam loading that costly coffin into the Baggage Car?”

“My father…” A whisper escaped her lips. “I will bury the Major in Scotland. Are you travelling there, too?”

“Yes, Madam. My fiancée is waiting for me. We are getting married! I’m hoping to secure a chambermaid position at the Balmoral Hotel.” Mary Godfrey sighed dreamily.

“A wedding can be an expensive event.” Victoria perceived her uniform skirt peeking out of the overcoat hem.

“We have been saving for some time.” She clutched the purse in her lap. “Roger is in the army, and he is awaiting a promotion to the Corps of Royal Engineers.”
​
“I am sure that you won’t have trouble at all to find a position in any Scottish hotel, especially presenting a recommendation letter from the Regent Palace.”
​

“A recommendation letter from that miserly manager?! All he gave me were endless hours of hard work!” Her face blushed. “Pardon me to be so candid about it, Madam.”

“Please, no apology is required, and the fault was mine for asking.” Victoria touched her chin with her index finger. “However, since I already interfered in your private affairs, perhaps I can be of some assistance to you.”

Mary Godfrey inclined her head like a puppy waiting for a human gesture of affection.

“I would have a secretary to accompany and help me resolve the legal issues of moving the Major’s coffin around. His service, accommodation for both of us, all this sort of nuisance. But I received a telegram from this girl at the platform, giving up her job. You could perfectly occupy this position, my dear.”

“But, Madam, I’ve always worked as a chambermaid. I will find myself lost around these arrangements.”

A smile briefly graced Victoria's lips, “There is no reason to worry, my dear, almost everything has already been settled by me. You would mainly act as a Lady-in-waiting. Following the formality of signing the contract and being officially hired, I could write a highly favorable recommendation letter to be presented at the Balmoral.”

She moved back to the edge of the seat, her eyes getting bigger, nothing more than a murmur as a voice, “Usually, my fiancée or my mother helps me deal with these issues involving legal papers.”
“So, you don’t know how to…” Victoria held her trembling knee.

“I have some difficulties, Madam.” She tugged her overcoat hem, covered the uniform skirt.

“Please, let me help you to… understand the contract. Would please me a great deal, and, of course, you can count on my total discretion about the matter.”

“Roger will be waiting for me at the station. He cares to read things to me, and we can sign right there. Would that be reasonable, Madam?” A childish smile illuminated Mary Godfrey’s face.
​
“Of course, my dear.” Victoria lowered the veil. “It seems only adequate.”

---

At the front of the Passenger Car, a tall marine leaned against the window, nervously scanning the dark masses moving in the sky. His red-banded peaked cap angled down over his face, and the upturned collar on his blue coat failed to hide the deformity that sunk his right cheek. Slowly walking into his gaze, a figure dressed in shadowy colors awakened the shivery memory of the black swan on his grandmother’s music box.

“I sincerely apologize for my sudden intrusion. This veil often upsets people, but it is a formality I must accomplish in my father’s mourning period.” The dreamlike melody of her voice enchanted his feet a couple of steps forward.

“The coffin, Miss?” The veil challenged him to guess the features it covered.

“Yes.” She lowered her head.

“A coffin is a burden made heavy by carrying too many regrets.”

Victoria stood close enough for her perfume to capture him. “May you forgive me for being so bold to ask, but is there something also haunting you?”

He reached into his suit, took a shining silver cross from the inside pocket, and held it up in his palm. “It’s the George Cross. There was one of these medals over each of the four coffins.”
​
“Your friends?” Her eyes were drawn by the inscription ‘For Gallantry’ engraved around the Saint George figure slaying the dragon.
​

“My team, for no more than a week. I had recently been transferred and was learning the task around bomb disposal when it happened.” Again, he watched the sky. “London was under heavy raids that night. A bomb buried itself almost ten meters under an orphanage but failed to detonate. Captain Benedick led our team of five men down the hole. Surrounded by ruptured gas mains and damaged electrical cables, the device disarming was impossibly dangerous down there. A very unhurried excavation around it was ordered. We needed a couple of days to complete digging out the bomb.” He supported his head against the window.

“Hours should pass slowly around such a thing.” A wave traveled through the veil.
​
“We were so quiet paying attention to any possible detonation trigger click that you could hear a heartbeat. When we finished digging, lorries carefully pulled the bomb out to street level. Finally, the supposedly defused device was loaded in one of the lorries to be driven to the bomb cemetery. Captain Benedick told me to get the last cable out of the way. I had gained some distance from the lorry when that damn thing started to tick. I turned my head and saw all of them jumping out of the vehicle. The explosion should have killed me too, but a few meters were enough to spare my life. A fifth coffin was missing at the service.” His gaze returned, casting the darkness of the night on her.

---

“Perhaps divine providence has chosen to save you.” She raised her face and the veil outlined her cheekbones.

“Why not save one of the others who took much greater risk than I did?” Bitter laughter deepened his scar.

“You may have been destined to be an unprotected woman's guardian angel.” Victoria gently stretched the veil over her face.

“What are you talking about, Miss?”

“A sinister figure travelling in this train insists on collecting from me a considerable gambling debt incurred by my belated father.” Her voice lowered.

“This debt is a legitimate one?”

“Unfortunately, the Major was a reckless gambler. I am just asking that my mourning period be respected and the debt be honored after the burial. Nevertheless, I have been followed as an intimidation maneuver.”

“Do you think he is carrying a gun, Miss?”

“Such persistence in shadowing me could indeed conceal a menace more deadly than insults.”

“Then I am at a disadvantage because my hands are empty.” His shoulders slightly drooped.

She opened the purse, picked up carefully and displayed a Baby Browning automatic pistol in her glove. “Perhaps this could even the chances in your favor.”

He widened his eyes at the gun.
​
“The Major usually said that we were living in uncertain times and intended to make sure I was protected.” She swung the pistol.

---

“Don’t you agree that an understanding could be better reached using words instead of bullets?” He scratched his sunken cheek. “A gun could increase the tragedy around you; would be wiser to pay the debt and guarantee the peace your period of mourning certainly deserves.”

The locomotive horn sounded in advance as they were about to pass a grade crossing.

“But of course!” Victoria put the pistol back in her purse. “King George demonstrated a sarcastic sense of humor when he choose ‘For Gallantry’ as your medal inscription, because I do not find that much of it engraved in your character.”

“I’m not a coward, Miss.” The man leaned over her.

“Undoubtedly no, you are the blessed one who got himself away from the detonation at the right time.”

“You don’t have the right to talk to me in this way!” He squeezed her shoulders.
​
“Such an eagerness in displaying this manly courage. Regrettably, all of your heroic impetus disappears when challenged with the prospect of facing an opponent other than a defenseless woman.” Her voice lost all its warmth.
​

“Please, forgive me, Miss.” His shaking hands released her.

“Now, with your permission, my term to face this disagreeable issue is becoming scarcer by the minute.” Her charming waist spin put him behind.

“I may not approve of your chosen way of dealing with this matter, but I cannot let you proceed unguarded.” He took off the cap, fixed his black, straight hair shaved around the ears, and let it fall again on his head.

A fast turn back spread her fragrance, “If your intention is sincere, allow me to legally protect you from any unpleasant consequences that may arise.” Victoria took the parchment from her purse. “I will officially hire you as my bodyguard, so any action you are forced to take will be within your duties.”

He pulled the red ribbon, unrolled the paper, and looked down the lines. “It’s written in Latin, Miss.”
“The Major had many eccentricities; this particular one came from being a passionate scholar and insisting on the relevance of Latin.” She rested a hand on her waist.

“As far as my rudimentary understanding of the language reaches, this contract is of a different nature than what you led me to believe.” He rolled up the parchment, tied it with the red ribbon again, and gave it back to her. “What is your true purpose?”

“It’s unbelievable how you easily find reasons to justify your lack of courage.” Victoria pointed the parchment at his chest. “Your hand cannot stop shaking for the moment it takes to sign Peter Michael Waters?”

“How do you know my name?”

“The Major’s coffin was being loaded when you were boarding.” The chin, held high in a cocky attitude, crooked the veil.

“Were you able to notice my full name with all the station noise around us?” His hand rose quickly, lifted the veil, and revealed her suddenly angry beauty. “Is it really you who requires to be guarded, or is it someone else who needs to be protected from you?”
​
The surprisingly powerful glove slap turned his sunken cheek back towards the darkness.

---

“Attention! Fifteen-minute stop at York station.” The conductor repeated and repeated. Victoria slowly lifted from her bench.
 
Hanging on the station Tea Room wall, a poster entitled “Careless talk costs lives”, displayed an illustration of two gentlemen freely talking on the railway station platform, while in the background an alarmed train driver pointed out the warning, SH-SH-SH spelled out in locomotive smoke. Victoria pressed her lips together, turned her neck, searching around the round tables occupied by men, women, and children who indulged themselves in cakes, pastries, and sandwiches, and finally found the ones she was looking for amidst those who crowded around the counter. Cutting between the tables, she approached them.

“A cup of tea, please.” The mother of the very sleepy Harold Gutter balanced her chubby son in her right arm and a purse in her left.

Softening her gait and voice, Victoria held out her arms to the child. “Would you allow me to provide you some help with this beautiful baby?”

“If you don’t mind? I can assure you it would only be for a moment.” Fatigue weighed down her eyes.
“Please, give me the joy of holding this big boy.” Victoria’s thumb touched her silver ring’s bezel, which raised the red-brown stone and revealed a short needle.

Harold Gutter travelled from one woman to another. Suddenly, he started screaming and crying and slapping. The baby ripped the veil from Victoria’s face, forcing her to turn her foot almost in a dance step and drag the bloodstained fabric under the counter.

“There, there, big boy.” The baby went up-and-down in Victoria’s arms while he rubbed his neck. “Calm down, little one, let Mother have her tea in peace.”

“Give him back to me right now!” Harold Gutter’s mother’s eyes were wide open now.

“I really don’t understand what’s supposed to be this child’s problem…” Victoria returned him, walked back, and blended into the Tea Room patrons.
​

“What happened, Miss Morison? You're whiter than a sheet of paper.” Geoffrey Mowbray approached her when she stepped back into the Passenger Car.

“Seems that a nauseous feeling came with me from the Tea Room. Would you be so kind as to excuse me for a little while?”
​
Those questioning eyes followed her until she disappeared down the corridor.

---

Fighting back the uneasiness that disturbed her in cramped rooms, Victoria closed the bathroom door, opened her purse, and reached for the parchment. After unrolling it, her thumb pressed the silver ring’s bezel, once more raising the red-brown stone. Tilting her hand, she let a drop of blood drip from the needle onto the signature line. Victoria adjusted the parchment as before and kept it. The mirror framed a pale face. She picked up a makeup compact case from her purse. The light went out. All noise was muffled. Suddenly, a familiar sweet smell disturbed her. Floating in that mass of shadows beyond the glass, the ivory pipe shone, painting Victoria’s face a devilish red. The case fell out of her hands, striking an aggressive metallic chord in the small sink below.

---

“Did you bring me the agreement, Miss Morison?” The shadows issued a call.

Victoria grabbed it from the purse. “Here it is”.

She opened her eyes wide, watching the dark reflections reshape themselves to advance beyond the glass, take the rough paper roll from her shaking hands, and unfold the parchment on the other side of the mirror.

“A delightful sui generis choice, Miss Morison. You spared a thief and a saboteur's lives and sacrificed a child.” The parchment gradually sank into the shadows.

“I fulfilled what was required of me.” Her deep breath briefly fogged the mirror.

The pieces of darkness tangled into one slender shape, “You spilled a sinless infant’s blood and preserved the lives of the crooked chambermaid who took even the hotel guests’ pennies and the nazi saboteur who killed his team and almost himself too in a slight miscalculation.”

“None of these facts were brought to my attention.” Victoria tightened her jaw.

“A deceiver like you perceives the strengths and the weaknesses in others.” There was a slight undulation and, for a second, that thing appeared to be smiling. “You immediately distrusted Mary Godfrey when you saw her try to hide the envelope, and Peter Michael Waters came under suspicion because he was the only one to survive.”

“Is my family’s debt satisfactorily paid?” Her heart was beating dangerously fast.
​
“The agreement is signed in your father’s favor.”
​

Her lips' corners turned up, “The Major wrote you would be behind me the whole time. I perceived your shadows oddly dancing on the floors, walls, and ceilings as I passed them by.”

A ripple seemed to bring a couple of eye-like circles onto the shape's surface.

“The excess of cash in Godfrey’s envelope was indeed easily noticeable. The affected way in which she pronounced ‘Madam’, and that uniform skirt displayed so apparently, all seemed like an obvious invitation to underestimate her. That intellectual incapacity was an act certainly performed many times before -- part of a larger scheme to get hold of my money, including in some way the groom who was waiting for her.”

“Very perceptive.”
​
“Waters started involving me with heroic and emotional blackmail concerning the deaths of his companions but soon slipped into lies when talking about the ‘supposedly defused device’. Only the one who intentionally sabotaged it could know this. I realized he was becoming infatuated with me and got rid of his repulsive figure.”
​
“An act exquisitely performed.” It was as if the shadows were amused.
​

“I suspected from the beginning that the baby was my target because it was the filthiest of all choices, but I had to solve the puzzle following your unscripted rules. I had to be absolutely sure, in a carefully disguised way, that Godfrey and Waters already belonged to you and that Gutter was, indeed, the one demanded by the agreement. So, I waited until the last moment to make my move without giving you the opportunity to get in my way.”

“Bravo, Miss Morison!”

The skull bowl spilled a smoke cloud from the mirror, surrounding her in the bathroom. Victoria leaned over the sink, coughing, trying to get the sickly sweetness out of her lungs.

“Happens that a deceiver can also be deceived. Such right assumptions won't prevent the regret that will come regarding the cruel choice you made.”

“Regret is not a habit that I cultivate in my life.” She barely got the words out.

“But this one has already been sown by your hands and will grow healthy without needing your help. His name is Harold Gutter.”

“The baby?!” A nervous laugh shook Victoria.
​
“When gray strands appear in your so well-cared-for black hair, Gutter will be a distinguished young gentleman about to lose his innocence in repeated cases of angry outbursts and clouded mind. And he will wake up from those episodes not knowing why he held a bloody dagger in his hand. And on one of these occasions, it will be your blood staining that blade, Miss Morison.”

---

“The Major warned me that within the correct puzzle solution would be an undisclosed final betrayal.” Those pits of darkness resembling eyes devoured her gaze. “When my ring captured Gutter’s blood, his neck was scratched with a Thallium poison, which will soon consume him. I saved a few lives from that dagger of yours.”

The skull floated to the middle of the space where the somber shape’s mouth should have been in a human being.

“Remember your childhood home in India? A little room upstairs that your father never allowed you into? Well, a weird murmur awoke you on a scorching night, lured you upstairs. You stood on tiptoe to peek through the keyhole and saw your father on his knees, surrounded by profane decoration and muttering to the shadows. Appalled, you ran downstairs, away from that little room that remains locked in your nightmares.” The pipe's glow intensified; a flame rose from the skull bowl, coloring the bathroom red, and smoke was blown straight into her face.
​
Coughing, Victoria bent, bracing herself against the sink with both hands.
​

“The Captain’s swagger stick blows weren't enough to keep his willful Indian wife away from Dr. Satyapal’s speeches regarding their country's political freedom; at the same time, he had found himself under his superiors' spotlight. On that night, I passed on to him previous knowledge about Thallium poison. Soon after, illness consumed his wife's life, and the political crisis escalated, leading to a prominent role in the Amritsar massacre. He called my name again. A simple suggestion moved the ambitious Geoffrey Mowbray in his direction with a bureaucratic solution involving a rank promotion to Major. It's only natural that you, who spend an entire life worshiping a man responsible for the murder of hundreds of innocents, didn’t shy away from taking a child's life, sparing no effort to save his soul.”
​
“Will such cunning attempts never see their end?!” Victoria struggled to straighten up back into her elegant posture, crossed through the smoke, and, almost touching the mirror, confronted the shadows, “The Major warned me that lying is your weapon of choice. When I asked you, ‘Is my family’s debt satisfactorily paid?’, the answer was ‘The agreement is signed in your father’s favor.’ Obey the terms set by yourself, then, because neither my father nor I owe you anything or need to listen to such blatant fabrications about our family.”

---

“Inspired by such reckless inventiveness, a proposition was about to be presented to you. Regrettably, you really are your father's daughter, Miss Morison. So passionate about carrying out his wishes. So shall it be, to fulfill all wickedness.” The glow went out, and the shape fell apart, sending those fragments of shadows swirling in a vortex that deepened into the mirror.
​
The light came back. The train noise reached her again. Victoria picked up the compact case from the sink. She gently put makeup on her frightened face. After studying her reflection, Victoria smoothed the dress, adjusted the hat, and headed for her much-delayed brandy at The Ladies Retiring Room, which would help her devise a non-committal way of revealing to Mowbray that Waters was a Nazi saboteur and definitively get rid of his disgusting type.

---

Peter Michael Waters, whose real name was Theodor Hofer, rapped his knuckles gently on the baggage claim door. Donald Barr, the bent middle-aged attendant, smiled and moved away when he saw the uniform.

“I forgot to pick up a book in my suitcase.” Hofer handed him the receipt.

“It should be here with the rest of the passengers’ personal luggage.” Barr walked to the back of the Baggage Car.
​
Hofer followed him, taking the Enfield revolver out of the coat and twirling it in his hand. He waited for the attendant to bend over the suitcase and brought the gun down on the back of his neck. Barr fell and rolled on the floor. Hofer put the gun back in the coat, knelt, pulled Barr’s scarf, and strangled him until his watery blue eyes stopped moving. He dragged the attendant’s body under the Major’s coffin and locked the baggage claim door. Hofer opened his suitcase, removed a few clothes and an Oxford English Dictionary latest edition, moved the false bottom cover, activated the radio, put on the headphones, tapped “German-shepherd” -- his operation codename -- on the Morse key and listened. He repeated the message twice before receiving an answer. Hofer tapped a message back: “Geoffrey Mowbray is on the train. I repeat, Geoffrey Mowbray is on the train.” After long moments, the confirmation of his message came. He tapped the Morse key again, "The locomotive is painted black. I will hold the key as a location signal." He let the headphones fall, locked the Morse key with the book, got up, and walked to the opposite side of the room. Hofer opened the loading door, received a cold wind gust in his face, and heard the Heinkel bombers getting closer and closer, covered by heavy clouds, in a diversion on their escape route after blitzkrieg over London. As the rail squealed in a fast, sharp curve, leading the train to the approaching Forth Bridge, Hofer jumped.

---

Victoria was bringing the glass of brandy to her lips when the bombardment started. She was thrown from wall to wall as the train cars plummeted to the bottom of Forth River. A stinky mass of shadows swallowed her, and a commanding voice gave Victoria one last lecture:  
​
“Your colonial education inspired me to draft this agreement in Latin, Vicky. Being a cunning brat, you solved the three-choice challenge and settled the debt for my career’s salvation. But your rudimentary Latin prevented you from understanding the record of another debt, the one concerning your mother's health. For that wish, someone of her own blood must voluntarily deliver their soul. I devised my strategy based on your commendable obedience, persuading you into killing a child. In this way, you willingly condemned your own soul. Now, Vicky, my loyal half-breed daughter, fulfill the agreement and take your father’s place in hell.”

Denis Winston Brum

Denis Winston Brum developed his writing skills working in the advertising business. He published the children’s book As Férias das Fadas, the young adult book As Quatro Linhas and the novel Redemoinhos, all in paperback. Brum also released the adult e-Book Adiós Pampa Mía. He has previously published an essay on the movie Excitação and the short story The Heretic's Fork with The Bitter Wolf. You can find him on Instagram @deniswinstonbrum