Summary: A series chronicling the life of the Bellows family. Covers their early years as well as the eventual death of Sarah Bellows, and the consequences of that death. Overlaps with Ethel. Contains my own characters as well as characters from the film. Stories marked with an asterisk denote the ones that cover events directly or loosely mentioned in the film.
Main Tag: The Bellows Book
Fics:
grief is a most peculiar thing (sarah & ephraim)**
taffy and a warm jacket (sarah & ephraim)
words can never hurt me (gertrude bellows)**
Summary: An AU series about what could have happened if Ephraim confronted his prejudice during his time at medical school and returned to Mill Valley with a new outlook on his sister’s albinism. As he begins a secret relationship with Ruth, an albino circus performer, his relationship with his family becomes increasingly strained. In a different timeline and universe than my other stories
Main Tag Link: Pearl Street
Fics:
no one’s going to hurt you anymore (sarah & ruth) part 1 / part 2 / part 3
Summary: A short series covering Sarah’s time in the asylum, as well as her friendship with one of it’s long term residents, Emma Fultz.
Main Tag Link: Undesirable
Fics:
nowhere to go (sarah & emma) tw: asylum setting
tangled stiches - a short christmas tale (link to be added on Christmas Eve!)
Content Warning: Death and a small amount of blood.
Story below the cut.
“She’s dead. Look at her eyes.”
His colleague’s voices drifted across the room, but to Ephraim, they seemed as if they came from miles away.
Dead. Sarah was dead.
Ephraim stared at her as she lay on the floor, her long hair wrapped around her neck. Her skin was a sickly blue color, and her glassy eyes stared ahead at nothing. Ephraim clenched his fists at his side, his knuckles white. He felt his fingernails digging into his skin, drawing blood, and yet he showed no reaction.
Sarah, dead. Sarah wasn’t dead. She couldn’t be dead.
No, no it was just a bad dream. She wasn’t gone. She couldn’t be.
“Doctor Bellows?”
The sudden voice startled Ephraim out of his stupor. “Doctor Bellows,” the voice spoke again. This time, Ephraim recognized it as belonging to Alan, a surgeon with whom he had shared shifts a handful of times. “Perhaps….perhaps you ought to leave.”
So far Alan was the only one to notice the small trickle of blood that had slipped out of Ephraim’s fists and dropped to the stark white floor. Ephraim felt the warm liquid slide down his hand, and he looked down to see another small trickle of blood drip to the floor.
Red.
It was red.
He thought of the red dress that Ruth had once worn, and how striking it looked against her pale skin.
Sarah would have liked to wear red, he thought.
Alan noticed his colleague’s growing - yet very well hidden - distress and ushered him out of the room. “Doctor Bellows, why don’t you go to your office? I’ll send someone in to check on you.”
Ephraim allowed himself to be led out of the room and down the winding halls in the same way that he had once let Sarah. “I’ll be fine here,” he said to the young redheaded surgeon as they reached the office. Alan looked at him in doubt. “Really,” Ephraim assured him, “I’ll be fine. I will be.”
He said it to reassure himself than he did to reassure Alan. Alan raised an eyebrow as if to say “Are you sure you don’t want me to stay?”, but before the words could leave his mouth a nurse suddenly called out for a surgeon. He looked to Ephraim for some sort of sign that it was alright for him to leave, and as soon as Ephraim nodded he raced down the hall to see what was the matter and why a surgeon was so suddenly needed.
Ephraim slowly closed the door behind himself. He leaned against his desk, examining the small crescent-shaped wounds that now covered his palms in two neat rows of 4. Dried blood covered his palms and in between his fingers, but he paid little attention to that fact. All that he could see in his mind was Sarah.
All that he could see was his colleagues lowering Sarah’s body, desperately checking for any signs of life, and ultimately finding none. All that he could see was her long hair, her glassy eyes, her pale skin that was now tinted a sickly blue, and that red velvet gown.
She would have loved a velvet gown.
Ethel tentatively stepped into the office, her footfall barely registering in Ephraim’s mind. She leaned forward from where she stood, trying to make out any sort of emotion from his slightly hunched form.
As per usual, he betrayed no emotion.
“Ephraim? Are you...are you alright?”
Ephraim whipped around to face her, a startled look on his face. Realizing who stood before him, he quickly composed himself.
“I’m fine,” he said, setting his jaw tightly.
Ethel sighed. She should have known that he would behave this way, even now.
“After what you just saw, you aren’t alright, Ephraim. You aren’t alright, and you know it.”
She bit her lip in concern before placing a hand on his arm. “If you need anything, please tell me.”
Ephraim only stared ahead in reply, one hand absentmindedly scratching at the dried blood that covered the other. Ethel glanced down at his hands and noticed the blood. She wanted to help him, to run off to find bandages and to help him clean up, but she knew better than that. She knew that he would never accept help at a time like this.
“Ephraim, please.”
Her hand moved to his shoulder now.
“Please take care of yourself. Please.”
Ephraim wasn’t sure when exactly she had left the room, but when he finally turned back around, Ethel had gone. Knowing that he would most likely be alone for some time, he turned back towards the windows that covered the wall of his office. He turned back to his thoughts.
Sarah’s footsteps were heavy now. There was no doubt as to where in the house she was, and it was easy now for Ephraim to find her. She was just within his reach and he reached out and grabbed her arm, harshly twisting her next to him, when suddenly-
- when suddenly there were footsteps fast approaching his door. Ephraim turned around quickly as the door opened, not quite sure of what he expected but entirely sure of what it meant for him. To his surprise, only Alan stood at the door, his shirt now bearing the stains of a hasty surgery.
Alan studied the doctor’s face. His expression was somewhere between hope, fear, and relief - if such a combination even existed. It stayed this way for a moment before falling flat again. “I’m sorry,” Ephraim said. “I thought-”
“You thought I was Sarah, didn’t you?”
Ephraim looked up from his desk, his fingers tapping steadily against the dark wood. Alan moved slowly towards him, trying to find the right words to say.
“Don’t worry. I did the same when my brother died. I thought I heard him everywhere. I thought I saw him too. It’s just how the mind deals with grief. You know that as well as anyone.”
You know that as well as anyone.
Was it a reference to his extended time working at Pennhurst, or was it a reference to his ever-growing list of deceased family members? Ephraim wasn’t sure, and at this point, he wasn’t sure if he wanted an answer.
And grief…
Yes, there was grief. Ephraim almost hated to admit it, but he was grieving Sarah. In fact, he was already a textbook case of the stages of grief that he had so often witnessed in patients in the asylum.
Grief
Yes, Ephraim Bellows certainly held quite a lot of grief within him.
“Ephraim took a cautious step forward. When Sarah didn’t flinch, he took it as a good sign.”
- January 6th, 1886 -
Ephraim watched as his sister greedily gobbled the small piece of taffy. She was huddled in a dark corner of the basement, and her large blue eyes were wide as she stared at him.
What does he want?
"It's pretty cold down here, huh?"
Sarah only nodded in reply, her chin tucked close to her chest. Although he knew that it was dangerous, something in him coaxed him to move closer to Sarah. Looking down at her thin white dress, he had an idea.
"Do you...do you want my jacket?"
Sarah furrowed her brows. Was this some sort of trick? It had to be, didn't it? Ephraim was always so mean to her when Harold or their parents were around. Wouldn't he hit her or call her an ugly name if she took the jacket?
Still, she was so cold, and the basement was so damp....
Sliding the jacket off of his shoulders, Ephraim extended it to Sarah. "You can have it if you want it. No one will mind."
It was a lie. He shouldn't have said it, and he knew it, but Sarah looked so sad and he only wanted to reassure her. He only wanted to help her - to make her warm, if only for a few moments.
Again he pushed the jacket closer to her, and this time she tentatively took it from him, being very careful to avoid his touch. She laid it on her lap before looking up at her brother.
"You can put it on, Sarah. I don't mind."
This time, he wasn't lying.
Sarah looked down at the jacket again before looking back up to her brother.
"I don't know how...I don't know to put it on."
Ephraim tilted his head in confusion. He had seen young children struggle with their coats and jackets before, but Sarah should have been old enough to know how to dress herself.
"What do you mean?"
Pulling the jacket closer to her, Sarah looked down at the basement floor, as if in shame. "I've never worn one before. Mama said I didn't need one."
Ephraim shifted from side to side, unsure of what to do. He could help her put it on, of course, but how would she react to him being so close to her?
Ephraim took a cautious step forward. When Sarah didn't flinch, he took it as a good sign.
"I can help you...if you want me to," he offered.
Sarah glanced up again and gave the same shy nod that she always did. Ephraim carefully moved forward and helped her to her feet. He held the jacket behind her as he explained how to put it on, and how one arm goes in first while the other is held behind you as you place that arm through the other side. He knelt in front of her and buttoned the top few buttons, leaving the rest undone. Sarah was practically swimming in fabric, but at least now she would be warm.
As he stood back to admire his work, he was startled by how small Sarah truly was, even for a child of 5.
She doesn't get enough to eat, he thought.
Sarah bounced her arms lightly at her side. She was almost happy.
"It's so big!" she exclaimed.
Ephraim chuckled.
"Well, that's because you're little."
Sarah nodded.
"But someday I'll be big, and then maybe Mama and Papa and Harold will love me! Maybe even Grandmother will too, but I don't think she ever loves anybody."
