A Phantom and His Family

Prologue

Boscherville, France 1840

The night air was filled with the sound of a woman groaning in pain, her swollen belly revealing the cause of her distress. 

Madeleine Destler considered herself as a strong woman. Or at least, she tried to be.  After all, she has been through it all. Married at the age of 16 to Charles Destler, a stranger and true stone mason, and just when she starts to enjoy having him as a husband, he dies in a building accident and leaves her as a widow with a baby on the way.  As you can imagine, such stress would cause one to develop certain unhealthy habits. 

To her, the best stress relief came from the neck of a whiskey bottle but when that seemed to not work as well, then she had other "alternatives".  One of her favorite ones was found on her very rare visit to Paris, where a peddler of exotic goods showed her what he called a "hookah" and ever since then, she has used it to fill her lungs and mind with sweet, numbing contentment. 

It's totally safe. She thought to herself, Or else why would he sell it to me anyway? Besides, newborns die all the time, it wouldn't be because of my need of stress relief. Right? 

Her thoughts were interrupted as another contraction shot through her body, making her yelp in pain. 

"One more push, dearie."  The midwife instructed as her assistant prepared some cloths to wrap the newborn in. 

With a final scream and one more push, the baby was born and the room fell into total silence for a minute or so.

Not a sound was heard, not from the mother, not from the midwife, not from the assistant, and not from the baby.

"Mon Dieu." The midwife whispered as the assistant gasped in shock.

"What? What is it? What is wrong?!" Madeleine cried, anxious to see her child.

Neither the midwife nor the assistant responded. All that was heard was the midwife murmuring a prayer and the assistant leaving the room to call for the priest.

"Is it dead?" She whispered, tears beginning to form in her eyes.

Before the midwife made a responce, a tiny, soft wail resounded in the otherwise silent room as the woman looked down at the child and back to the mother in shock.

"Well? Give me my baby!" Madeleine demanded, her arms outstretched towards them.

"Are you sure, Madame?" She asked, her voice beginning to waver with uneasiness.

"I want to see my child!"

Hesitantly, the midwife made her way towards the bed, the mother's arms waiting for her child.

"It's a boy." She replied, moving away as Madeleine gently peeled the blanket away from her son's face.

What followed was an inhuman shriek of terror as the mother almost threw the child across the room in shock.

"That is not my child! That is a monster!"

The assistant appeared not a moment later, an elderly clergyman following behind her.

"Where is the poor child?" He asked, a sympathetic look on his face. The midwife gently took him from his traumatized mother and made her way towards the priest.

When he saw the face of the unfortunate child, he too gasped in shock.

"Is it alive?"

"Barely,  sir. The wee boy just began to breathe." The midwife answered.

The priest looked down at the child and then back at the mother. Then, he made his way over to her, the midwife trailing after him.

"Here is your little one, Madame. He needs to nurse."