Chapter Text
In contrast to the opulence it tastes today, the Schlatt family had humble roots. The curse of knowledge that binds the sons named heads of the clan record that the first Schlatt came with the mass migration of Germans into the United States in the middle of the 19th century.
Seeking refuge and renewal, Jonathan Schlatt was drawn by stories of the land of the free. He came from a family of businessmen reduced to ruin after the calamitous end of the First World War. It was said that he dredged up the last of his family's diminished wealth and bought himself a spot on a ship, leaving them behind to languish in poverty. He was young then, reckless and desperate.
Realizing during the trip that he could not speak nor understand English, he tested his fortunes with a Mennonite community in Pennsylvania. To his reasoning, living off the land should provide him with a more stable start than trying to haggle with foreigners.
While his first few days went well, he found himself shunned by many of the community's respected members. He was vain and over-eager and talked mostly of money and expansion, things they viewed contrary to their way of life. Since they could not turn a nonetheless helpless man away, they settled for letting him live in a shack half a mile away from their village. Near enough so he could still join them at work in the fields, yet far enough to keep a wide berth from him until then.
It was much to their puzzlement that he somehow wedded one of them, a humble girl born to a house of cartwrights. "She was dazzled by his talk of business," many whispered amongst themselves, and the whole village agreed that their marriage would not last long in bliss.
Indeed, it did not. His wife died at childbirth, and in the time when Jonathan still grieved while caring for his son, a bitter winter struck the valley where they lived. The cold made the baby sick, and Jonathan carried him in a panic to the village, wrapping him with all the clothes he had while fighting through the chill as he struck out in the dark, howling night. The dirt roads were buried in snow, and no wagons nor horses were in sight. Both made the journey on foot slow and treacherous. Jonathan barely saw the lamplights from the houses in the distance when he knelt on the ground, lamenting his cruel fate as he wrapped his freezing child in his arms.
At that moment, the wind went silent and the chill stopped. Before Jonathan stood a mighty spirit, decked in chains of gold and jewels, and crowned with light across two large horns. It set a warmth into his body and bade him stand, naming itself Mammon. Jonathan was beside himself with fear and awe, and he groveled before the spirit, praying to God that he be spared from this apparition. Yet Mammon silenced him, telling him that he need not pray since he will offer him something more valuable than safety. "Anything," he told Jonathan, "Anything you wish of me I will give, and I will ask nothing in return but that you would make good use of it, for I am more generous and merciful than this God of yours."
In his desperation, Jonathan answered, "Then will you make sure that my child will survive this night? And that he will not share my fate, poor and disheveled and famished until death?"
And Mammon replied, "As you wish, it shall be so. Your child shall survive this night, and he shall not share your fate. He will grow rich and well-groomed and stout. Indeed, his hands shall flow with wealth, and everything he touches he will have twofold. And he shall enamor all and be counted great in the esteem of many. And so shall his sons and the sons that follow them after."
"You are generous and merciful, indeed," cried Jonathan upon hearing these words. "But now, what shall I give in thanks? For this winter has been cruel, and I have nothing to my name but the clothes in which I swaddle him."
"Have I not told you," Mammon answered harshly. "That I will ask nothing in return but that you would make good use of my gifts? But so that I put you at ease: let your sons scatter their seed across the face of the earth and use my gifts to sate their every desire. With this shall you pay tribute to my generosity and mercy. With this shall I be satisfied."
Then, the spirit bade him return to his shack. When he did so, Jonathan found that his son shivered no more in his grasp and cried heartily than ever before. Overjoyed, he set it into his heart that he shall do as the spirit told him.
Many winters worse than this passed, but Jebediah Schlatt lived through them all, growing unbowed. Jonathan watched quietly as everything the spirit told him came true. He did grow rich, for he did more than the other field workers could. He did grow well-groomed, for he always appeared and acted orderly in front of others. And he did grow stout, much to the delight of many of the young women.
Verily did Jebediah Schlatt enamor the people of the valley. They would always ask for his help, and he would always give them what they needed and more. Some thought he could make things twofold than before and said, "Here is a miracle-worker, this son of Jonathan. May he and his own be blessed." And the women fawned over him, for in their words, he was as broad as a mountain, as tall as an oak, as comely as a minister, and as strong as a horse. The mothers often begged him to sit in the furthest row of the assembly to keep their daughters' eyes from wandering.
Soon, he too was wedded, and his wife bore him twins. Jonathan was a proud grandfather, and he had no worrying thought in his mind for many a year as his grandsons grew. There came a time when he had the whole family move further from the village, where they could talk to passing merchants and finally get started on his dream of growth and expansion. From there, he made connections with enterprising families, and soon the Schlatts drew the attention of many who sought support in their ventures, for it was said that money never ran out in their hands. Among these were the Matthews, who later became a family of steel magnates.
It was a time of growing prosperity for the Schlatts, and while Jebediah was at first overwhelmed, he welcomed the change in the family's status. He knew first-hand how terrible his father's old life had been, and he wished he would enjoy more of it.
Then, Jonathan fell gravely. Despite all the wealth they spent, the family could not get him back to good health. And Jebediah was dismayed, seeing the once bright face of his father reduced to a look of constant terror and anguish.
He did not know that Jonathan was not ailing in body alone.
A month passed, and Jonathan passed away. On his deathbed, he left Jebediah a letter. When he read it, he thought the contents strange and passed them off as his father's mind grown addled with pain and disease. Yet, when he read further, he found himself unnerved by what he wrote.
For many years, Jebediah always wondered why he could fix anything broken within ten seconds and make things multiply in his hands. His father would tell him to keep the matter secret, explaining that it was nothing more than a gift from God.
But now, his father was telling him what he had was a gift from a demon as part and parcel of his wish to spare his life from certain doom. He told him, too, that his sons will share in his fate, and their sons after them, that he had no other duty in exchange for this gift than to swell the number of sons in the family by any means possible and make sure they used the gifts to their hearts' desires.
What unnerved him still was what Jonathan wrote before his parting words.
"Looking back, I realized that I may have doomed our family by making a deal with a devil. I worry now about what lies ahead for me after death. Still, I believe that this sacrifice was worth it. Worry not over me, for I would do the same thing a thousand times for you. Enjoy the rest of your days, and make this prosperity last for as long as there are Schlatt sons on this earth. Only make sure you heed the words, for while he may have been more generous and merciful than God, he may also be more vengeful."
What Jebediah thought of it all was unclear. But what was known was that after reading the letter, he told his family that he had to attend to something his father left for him. He kissed his sons and wife goodbye, went away, and never returned.
After a frantic search days later, they found Jebediah still in the valley. His body hung from a rope on a branch, his legs nipped by wolves, and his beautiful face torn by birds.
Talk spread in the community they abandoned of the news. They lamented the fate of the widowed mother and said that those who the Schlatt men love must always be unlucky.
