by H C Turk
“Here is the clock you would sell, when you meant to sell my hide, bloody witch!” she screamed, and struck my shoulder, the bones becoming so numb with pain that I could no longer reach.
“You’ve driven Eric off, but I will have you wait for him!” she cried, and struck my spine, the clock’s corner biting into me so solidly that I shivered with an agony both unique and unbelievable.
“Your demon kind has ruined me before, but I’ll have you make amends or have you quartered!” she screeched. “You’ll be outside killing me piece by piece no more, but ill and inside until your betrothed returns!”
Stunning pain collapsed me. Then against my face fell the ceiling, which was only the timepiece; but this blow removed my ability to sense pain and to see, though I was startled by the force, wondering how any head could accept such a blow and yet live. I could not move, only hear, more babbling from the Rathel, then screaming from Elsie now upon her mistress as a final strike took my hearing and my mind.
Chapter 19
Running Like A Horse
A sinner was wetting me with her face. Was my mind so deteriorating that each dream became more bizarre than the last? No, it seemed my life was now so bizarre that all my nightmares came true, came in a vague sequence like days, the current supplanting previous worlds made in sleep, eras of witches burned with saltwater, a tiny boy lamed by the Rathel standing over him like an elephant, myself retching to death for having loved a sinner, for having touched him with my head as he crawled up my body toward my entrance. Now this damp dreaming came true, for the genuine Elsie was weeping above me, her eyes near mine, separated by a cache of bandages.
“Oh, praise God, child, you’re returning to us at last!”
Her weeping shook me, a soothing vibration, this sinner’s proximity not discomforting since I could not smell, though I felt I should be smelling something most profound, more moving than this unimpressive weeping. But at the time, I had no comprehension of emotion, and tears were for another race.
“Are you hearing me, child, are you hearing, dear Alba?”
I looked to her, but attempting to see this fuzzy face was painful, so I ceased focusing.
“Alba, are you with us, now? Are you with us again, lass?”
“I’m out on an errand,” I attempted to say, amused by that odd voice coming from beneath the bed, it seemed.
Then the sinner threw herself against that bed and partially against me, praising God and His offspring, Jesus, for whatever return she presumed, my clearest thought being that Elsie had enough concern for us both, and may she enjoy it. After stroking the fabric cache covering my head and weeping additionally, Elsie moved away, returning in a dream moment or a sinner’s minute with a wet rag to dab about my face as though I had use for further moisture.
I was beginning to comprehend. As I became more aware, I became more uncomfortable, for unspecifiable pain spread throughout my person. Finally, I had a clear reply to Elsie by stating, “It hurts….”
Because my words were understood, more weeping came—God help me. “Sleep…,” was all I said, though I wished to ask the woman to step away and allow space for my breathing, in that the atmosphere seemed as dense as water; but, no, this was due to a swollen nose. Sleep, sleep, I told her, but closing my eyes was painful, so I left them in a slit as Elsie blubbered, kissed the fabric around me, and withdrew.
Prayer continued from the woman as she moved about my chamber to no purpose I could imagine. And sleep I did, knowing nothing clearly but that praying, the last sound heard long ago when I first lost my senses, and first heard upon their resumption. Before had been only pain. That, too, was returning.
I next awakened to Elsie’s prognosis. She said the physician had done his best, but was uncertain of my recovery, what with all the damage from my having fallen down the stairs, as the mistress told him. But you’re not to be worrying, Alba, in that I know you’re healing, know your lovely heart and God’s great generosity will…. And I slept again.
I was bright and dim as though an oil lamp, but never fully illuminated. A constant with my coming and going was pain, pain to take my thinking, such pain that each awakening brought a desire for more sleep; but after days or years or lifetimes, I oft felt too much thick agony for rest. Another constant with each awakening was Elsie, the woman as everpresent as furniture. But one day the sinner before me as I awoke was not the servant, but her mistress.
No tears from this beast, as though she were a witch, but nearer to Satan than any type of human. She moved to my bed with her typical uninvolved look, and I knew my additional pain would be in hearing her speak.
“No witch can be harmed by a minor beating,” she informed me. “Both of us well know this, Alba. Yet you have been so foolish as to walk about London causing yourself grief and potential death with every step. Be thankful I have rendered you safe here.”
For long, I had recalled the cause of my position on this bed as though a stain, but the story seemed operatic: seen, comprehended, but unmoving despite its noise. But with the Rathel’s words, I felt only the truth, only her evil.
My voice was too strange a sound for any actor, but clear enough for revenge.
“When I walk,” I whispered, “I kill you.”
Though I clearly heard her final words, I remained uncertain whose final speaking was more important.
“You are the murderess, Alba, as both we know. Best keep the fact to yourself.”
• • •
In this manner, my living proceeded. A sinning man occasionally entered to pull white apparel from my head and prod about my face. Then some poultice he would apply, the fabric replaced, some speaking by him or Rathel. When this male physician was near me, Elsie and her mistress were immediate, the latter to preclude the white witch’s being handled by the doctor’s possible lust. Elsie’s purpose, it seemed, was to look between me and the Rathel with facial expressions not easily described.
Powders and syrups I received from the doctor to “Make me feel better.” I believed that Elsie’s prayers were no less successful, no more a failure.
My body wastes were collected in bed by Elsie holding a type of skillet, the metal about my sensitive areas causing me to shudder. Meals consisted of vegetables selected by Elsie, a bit of chicken slipped in with the parsnips, always dropped from my lips with no tooth mark, thereafter more odd expressions from Elsie, but these seen before, perfectly describable.
Eventually I was walking enough to use my chamber pot. Being separated from that skillet was the best desire I could form, except for ending the pain. With my consciousness returned, the pain increased by having my senses to invade. Misery from my damage became so great as to awaken me as though someone were gouging my eyes. Nothing else, nothing else in the world could I perceive but that agony when it peaked, a torment to hold me as completely as God. As though suffering tortuous theater, I stood away and watched my pain in disbelief that any force could be so relentless, so large, as though an elephant above me with frightening details and bulk enough to kill me if it fell with its entirety, this oppressive pain one of God’s creatures so exotic as to steal my mind.
In this manner, my days proceeded. The pain, ever with me, became less the horror and more the irritant. Eventually my senses improved, sight becoming normal, though my smelling remained imperfect. Elsie was ever at my side, caring for me as though I were an infant learning to walk. The physician came less frequently, the Rathel seen each morning to ask of my condition, conveying her hopes for my health, but never speaking with me while we were alone. And always between Rathel and Elsie was a screen, an entity created anew whenever they met.
Something old was missing. Looking up from my bed one morning, I found myself blinded, for a part of the chamber I could not see. High in the corner was a clean locale where there should have been a pet. No dust lay against my ceiling—and no spider, for it had been vanquished web and all, its home removed from my home. Only two friends in this household, and one had been expel
led, or murdered. And I knew my other friend was not the sinner responsible for this exile, this death.
No future was mentioned by friend nor enemy, no plans for my being lame until Eric returned, no comment from Elsie as to how I might live in a house whose mistress had bashed me like an animal to eat. I required no deliberation, for I had received enlightenment. To save Eric, Elsie, and all the world’s remaining witches, the Rathel would have to pass away. Being a proven murderer, I deserved to send her. Praise God for designs only He could fashion, only He could fathom. When again able to walk properly, I planned my departure, on a selected day dressing to exit the house and have the prickless Rathel killed by demons.
Though continually uncomfortable, I was growing strong, having been walking about the house, into the garden, intentionally passing much time away from my chamber and Elsie until the separation became common. I was feeling largely normal except for a stiff mouth and facial swelling, which remained. But I brushed my hair well as Elsie had when I was unable, and did the stuff up to be covered by a hat, finding a looking glass to make certain I appeared the lady, that I was passable in English society.
I was not. In the mirror, I found myself comical, for no longer was I pale. Much of my face was blue-grey with dark purples and red seams from gashes and bruises. One eye was misshapen, my forehead bulged above it, a scarred rent in the brow and beside my nose, which was both flat and crooked (therefore resembling Mother’s), my lips cracked with bloody healing. Regardless, my only needed modification was a thick facial net draped from my hat—and where had I learned that deceit?—downstairs a day when Rathel was absent, hiring a coach with Eric’s remaining money, into the city and gone for Penstone Place.
Upon accepting that reflected image as truly mine, I became concerned about being undesirable, thus less useful for my own objectives. But white witches are not pursued for their shapely lips. Besides, finding that humorous face to be part of the perfect, pale witch was so refreshing that I gained greater strength to support my resolve to divinely kill the Lady Rathel.
• • •
Because the driver was adamant about not entering Penstone Place, I allowed him to leave me on its periphery without the retribution this cowardly sinner deserved. I was not afraid to walk amongst criminals—how could I be when we were equals?
Near my objective, a portion of the city to house no ladies, a child screamed, screamed as though dying. And I thought: yes, I have the correct locale, one of sinners’ death. But after screaming further, the same child laughed as though senseless. But madness seemed no less appropriate, for my plan itself was insane.
Few people walked these streets, but only I passed without skulking against the walls, without peering from behind the opaque barriers of dead buildings. The farther I walked, the more I became the subject of these persons’ attention. None of the many comments I heard did I acknowledge: staring men croaking for me to come with them, as though my companionship would be humorous, what with their laughter. Remarks from a woman as to my being a “tart of no doubt great expense.” This was surely true, for whereas the cheap whore speaking gave only pleasure and took metal, I provided ultimates, and my fee was death.
How boring was the criminal’s surprise. On that barren street of burned and crumbling structures I had traversed before, out from a building’s niche like a cockroach from a kitchen crack leapt Giraffe. Oh, how startled I was by his presence. But his smell was dishonorable and he reeked of disregard.
“Good morning to you, foul sinner,” I told him before he could initiate his base speaking. “Next occasion come to me immediately so that we might begin our business without delay.”
“And what do you say, mad girl, that you have business with me? Mine is the business, and yes, I shall have it of you,” and he stepped nearer.
“Very well, cretin,” I continued without one step’s retreat. “Presumably you would have me.”
That operatic line halted him, the male creature requiring a moment for his slow comprehension to grow. The basic content of my speaking, however, was well accepted.
“Then taking you I am, girl, despite what you say,” and he stepped another pace nearer.
“Very well, Sir Criminal, you will have me as though a husband, but I expect payment,” I declared, halting the male with my words. “For taking my sex at your pleasure, you must kill a person for me. Thereafter, my sexual portions shall be readily available to you.”
“Why don’t I just take you now and mark it on your tab?” Giraffe sneered, and stepped toward me with no further restraint.
I pulled forth the cold firearm stolen from the drawing room and pointed it low, toward his body.
“Because I will shoot your man-stick off, blackguard, if you touch me wrongly. Now, will you have my baby slot or not?”
Then I lifted my skirt to reveal a dearth of underthings below, and a realm of secret hair and flesh to draw men like flies to spoilt meat.
“Lap me here till dry, cretin,” I said, my phrase gained from this beast’s bulkier colleague during a previous sojourn.
The male found no disagreement, nearly throwing himself onto his knees before me and thrusting out his face, mouth open as he grasped my hips and began burrowing between my legs, which I parted for him. No mention was made of skin like winter. Of course, even a witch’s vagina is as warm as the lust expended upon it, and this criminal had some heat. Against the thin lips of my bottom, he placed his own, emitting strange sounds from his throat and mouth, a ludicrous language of passion no witch knew.
I rapped his head with the pistol’s barrel, and we separated.
“Enough of your consuming me, starving beast. If you would rub your man-stick in me and completely, you will do the deed I require.”
On his knees, the male agreed, like a starving dog promised that the miscooked beef would be thrown to him.
“You will kill a woman as she exits a coach before her home the upcoming Friday. She returns from the opera, perhaps with an older gentleman, whom you must not harm at the peril of your passion. Only the woman is to be killed, and she must be thoroughly murdered.”
“And after I cut her neck off, you will have me better when?”
“The day after she dies, I will be here for you to take. You see I have no pause in receiving you within me,” I declared, and with the pistol yet aimed toward the kneeling male, I thrust my bottom against his face, the uncooked meat for his perusal now, and later for the promised consumption, a great insertion of his tongue well aimed into my baby passage. Then I rapped his head again and pulled away.
“Kill her this Friday, and the following day you might mate with me till you die,” I concluded, gave good specifics as to address and identity of the victim, then walked away, looking over my shoulder to the criminal as though a skulking sinner myself. Giraffe did not follow.
Upon accepting fully that the man had not attacked me, I felt a grand relief approaching humor. I also understood that my resolve was a hiding device, for terror lived in this locale, and behind my demand for justice I hid my fear. Surviving the criminal was revelatory, exposing my dread of Giraffe: from his visage and smell, his touch as he held me between his hands with strength enough to lift me from the ground. Only his sexual contact seemed undangerous, for there he was a pet controlled by his own desires via a master’s taunting. But the only pride I took in my power was the expected salvation of my friends from sending Rathel to God’s realm and away from ours.
With a light step, I quit the criminal, needing but a moment’s walk to be in London’s better segments. But too near a disheveled building I stepped while too much in Penstone Place, and there was a monkey with his hands on me, arms wrapped about my torso to drag me into his home.
He threw me to the floor with more force than required to control me, the pistol slipping in my bodice but remaining. Monkey then looked down to speak, bending from a curious distance to view past my disarrayed veil.
“Cor, what an ugly one, your face. A dead dog�
��s arse is better,” he spat. “But weren’t I about to fuck that arse of yours when you were lovely? I bet your undoggy arse yet be lovely enough for my blind cock.”
I would have no business with this male—I would have survival. Before he could step nearer, I stopped him with a sight by spreading my knees, pulling the fabric from my bottom to display his spoken goal.
“Here is my sex, grand enough to kill so lowly a cretin as you,” I spake, and he looked at my pulchritude, the gnarly muscle he loved.
“I’ll kill you with my fucking,” he growled, and began to uncover his own sex. Therefore, I revealed my small but previously convincing weapon.
“Then please reveal your man-stick that I might shoot it away.”
With scarcely a pause, looking between my half-hidden face and the firearm, this monkey replied, “I believe not the thing can fire or you can aim it, wench lady.”
“Your desire lies where, blackguard, with my vagina or this trifling metal? Will you have a ball in your brain or your prick in my arse?”
My latest speaking influenced him to full hesitation, those words and the firearm detaining him as I stood.
“You will have me, sir, for a price.”
“You’re no whore. I can smell a whore, and you be clean.”
“Never will you fuck a lady like this,” I averred, and lifted my dress an instant to let it fall as quickly, the monkey watching that flesh revealed, then hidden. “But my cunt and arse are for your taking if you’re man enough to kill a killer.”