by Londyn Skye
12:15 a.m.: The storm ended just as quickly as it began. Thunder rumbled far off in the distance as Levi slowly backed out of his bedroom. Levi was indeed a logical thinking man … except when it came to Maya and Lily. His homicidal urge was just as impossible to resist as scratching the world’s most intense rash. His racing mind was ready to justify anything to keep Lily in his life. Not even the consequence of rotting hell could halt Levi’s overwhelming need to commit murder on his daughter’s behalf. The sudden storm that had blown in and awakened Dallas seemed to prove that it had literally taken an act of God to cease a homicidal impulse that would have indeed ended Levi’s troubles … permanently. He sat down at the top of his stairwell, lowered his head in shame, and let his soft murder weapon fall from his hands and tumble down the steps.
12:20 a.m.: With Emily Collins miraculously still breathing, Levi solemnly got up off the stairs and dragged himself to the barn. He went into an empty horse stall, kicked aside a pile of hay, and lifted the lid to a hidden compartment that housed all his journals, and other treasures that were sentimental to him. He pulled a small tin lockbox from within the secret compartment and sat down with his back against the stall wall. He then unlocked the lock to the small metal chest and took out a series of eight by ten, grainy photographs. The picture on top of the pile was one of Lily at three-years-old, sitting in Maya’s lap. Not long before Lily was born, many slave owners had begun the practice of photographing their slaves for insurance purposes. After Lily was born, Levi claimed to be doing the same. But his motives had absolutely nothing to do with insurance. Levi simply wanted time-stamped memories of his daughter and the woman he loved. He had to pay a significant amount of money to have every slave on his farm photographed to cover up his ploy. But Levi felt every penny was worth it to have the priceless frozen images of his daughter that he now held in his hands. Every year of Lily’s life, he had new photographs taken. He sat there treasuring all nine of them now, scrutinizing each one for the longest time, while sipping straight out of a bottle of whiskey. In every photo, Maya was straight-faced, sitting tall, looking like a lovely Nubian queen with her little princess on her lap. At age five, a flock of birds caught Lily’s attention and she happened to look up and smile as the photo was snapped. That picture of innocent childhood wonderment was Levi’s favorite. It was in that photo that he finally realized Lily was a splitting image of him.
As Levi slowly shuffled through his time-stamped treasures, he suddenly halted altogether and laid eight of the photos down. Left in his hand was the very first picture ever taken of Lily as a baby. He stared intently at it, recalling how something so tiny had completed his life. At 12:32 a.m., with exactly twelve hours to go in his ultimatum, tears began trickling down Levi’s cheeks, as he then thought about how completely meaningless his life would be without the precious baby girl that he was gazing at. His tears flowed even more at the thought of destroying the beautiful woman in the photo who was holding her. He cried even harder still when he realized that there was no other logical solution to the difficult life equation his wife was forcing him to solve.
6:25 a.m.: “Levi, are you alright?” he suddenly heard Maya ask in his sleepy haze. He thought he was still dreaming, until he opened his pasty eyes and saw her towering over him in the horse stall, where he had drunk himself into unconsciousness.
“I’m fine now,” Levi would usually say to Maya whenever she found him there. He would always let a kiss linger on her forehead, to let her know that it was the sight of her lovely face that instantly made him forget about his troubles. But this time, he did not utter a word. Levi only peeked at Maya briefly through swollen, bloodshot eyes as he lay limply against the stall wall.
As Maya watched him struggle to stand, she knew immediately that something was seriously wrong. She had never seen Levi intoxicated following any arguments with Emily. The true weight of his burdens was further proven by the fact that he staggered past her without giving her his usual forehead kiss. Instead of being warmed by Levi’s affections, Maya felt a cold chill race down her spine when he did not leave her with a sign of his love, only the putrid smell of alcohol wafting from his pores as he stumbled away.
Levi’s cold actions proved that not even Maya had the power to cease the splitting migraine caused by the ultimatum countdown clock, that was chiming as loudly as church bells in his aching head. Only one thing could stop the sledgehammer of time that was pounding away at him. At 6:28 a.m., Levi was on his way to beg for that very thing.
Just as Levi entered the house, Emily had roused from her drug-induced sleep and immediately began screaming at Dallas to get out of her bed and get ready for school. Her gift to her youngest son for unknowingly saving her life was an earful of obscenities. After Dallas scurried out of the room, Emily laid back down, not knowing that attempted murder was the reason her hangover was worse than other days. Her headache, and the sick feeling in her stomach, immediately worsened when she heard Levi enter the room and drop to his knees near her side of the bed. Still in a haze, she slowly sat up and glared down at her husband, the look in her eyes silently asking him why he was annoying her with his presence.
Levi ignored her look of disgust and took hold of her hand before he spoke. “Emily, I know I’ve sinned, and that I’ve hurt you in the worst possible way any husband could. I’ve dishonored our vows and for that, I could neva’ be more sorry. I’ve asked God for his forgiveness, and now I kneel before you and ask the same. I swear to you, I’ll spend the rest ‘a my days tryna make things right between us. But for now, I’m beggin’ you to change your mind about me sellin’ Lily … please,” he pleaded, his eyes beginning to brim with tears. “Despite how she got here, Lily’s still my daughta’, and it’ll kill me to neva’ see ’er again.”
Emily looked over at the clock behind him and then glared back at her now weeping husband. “Six … hours … left,” she replied coldly. She then callously tossed his hand aside and walked out of the room, leaving Levi and his tears in a sorrowful mess alone on the floor.
Levi knelt there on the floor with his face buried in his hands, until his legs began to go numb. Using the little strength he had in his weakened arms, he held onto the nightstand and pushed himself up. When blood returned to his tingling legs, he slowly made his way over to the window, peered out, and saw Lily emerge from her cottage. She was energetically skipping over to the barn to begin her chores with her mother. Levi then looked back at the clock: 6:42 a.m. In less than six hours, he was expected to begin a life without seeing Lily happily skipping that way ever again. The thought of such a thing made Levi tear himself away from the window, and head straight down to his wife’s liquor cabinet again. Emily peered around the kitchen corner, saw him sifting through her supply, and devilishly smirked. Pure joy was coursing through her over watching the sight of her husband emotionally unravel before her very eyes. She was proud to know that he could now commiserate with the level of pain that would drive a person to drink. The thought of her husband’s anguish had her preparing breakfast for the sons she hated with a glorious smile on her face, for the first time ever.
Levi found a bottle of moonshine, snatched it from the cupboard, and proceeded out to the porch. Like a hopeless looking hobo, he sat slouched in a porch rocking chair with the bottle perched in his lap. He had no idea about the true power of moonshine. It numbed his lips and tongue on the very first sip. Despite the disgusting taste, he refused to stop drinking it, until his soul was just as numb. He continued to sip and rock and watch his precious little girl through swollen, bloodshot, tear-filled eyes.
7:30 am: Levi’s boys all filed out of the house to begin their assigned chores before school. The first five were oblivious to their father sitting there as they trotted down the steps toward the field. Wyatt, however, happened to look over and see his father drowning his sorrows. Stunned by the way he looked, Wyatt immediately stopped in his tracks. “My God. Pa, you alright?”
Levi kept his eyes on the only thing that matt
ered in his world at that moment. He sat in stone-cold silence and never even turned in his son’s direction. It was the first time Wyatt had ever seen his father drink. Worried about his despondence, Wyatt turned back to look at his mother with questioning eyes.
“Don’t you worry about him, son,” Emily said, leaning against the doorframe with her arms folded, a joyous smirk still planted firmly on her face. She glanced at her watch. “In just about five hours, your fatha’ will be just fine.”
Wyatt looked as confused by her statement as his father’s demeanor.
“Go on out into the fields with your brotha’s. You’ll have to be the man ‘a the house today. I’ll need you to stay home from school and do your fatha’s chores for ‘em.”
“Yes ma’am.” Wyatt glanced at his father again. The strong man that he knew him to be was gone. Through Wyatt’s eyes, his father looked completely broken. Before the heart wrenching sight brought him to tears, Wyatt trotted down the stairs to begin doing the work that his father was clearly too broken to do.
When Levi heard the door slam behind him, it brought his sense of awareness back and he glanced at his watch again: 7:32 a.m. Exactly five hours to go. This time, Levi did not sip from his bottle; he guzzled.
8:32 a.m.: Levi watched Lily skipping behind her mother to go hang wet clothes on the clothesline together. It was sinking in that this may very well be the last time that he sees his precocious daughter, merrily bounding across the fields in her jubilant childlike manner. All her firsts suddenly began rolling through Levi’s head. He recalled the dates and the moments like they were only yesterday. He began with the first time he ever saw her walk. To his and Maya’s astonishment, Lily’s first steps were sudden. At ten-months-old, she had suddenly gotten up off the floor the moment she saw her father walk into the cottage to read to her. She toddled three steps and fell, got up, and did it again. It was as if she was determined to get into her father’s waiting arms the quickest way possible. She stumbled her way toward him with a grand smile on her face and her arms outstretched, eager for him to scoop her up for a big bear hug. Lily’s eagerness to be in his arms was another sign of how her love for him was growing, just as quickly as she was. Such a thing brought joyous tears to Levi’s eyes as he hugged her that day. But only tears of misery trickled from them now as he sat recalling the precious moment that he had motivated his daughter’s very first steps. It was killing him to know that if he did not figure out what to do, he would never again witness another of her grand life achievements.
9:32 a.m.: contemplating, thinking of Lily, and sipping on moonshine.
10:32 a.m.: contemplating, thinking of Lily, and sipping.
11:32 a.m.: contemplating, sipping … tears trickling as Levi thought of Lily.
12:27 p.m.: With five minutes left in his ultimatum, Levi had yet to conjure up a single solitary solution to his ordeal. Outside of serious regret about not smothering his wife, nothing had come to Levi’s mind as to how to save all his children from senselessly having their lives torn apart.
12:30 p.m.: Wyatt trotted up the steps for lunch. He hurried into the house when the sight of his broken father was still too much for him to bear. As Wyatt passed by, all of Levi’s children came crashing to his mind again. Save six and hurt one, he thought to himself. He then glanced over at the daughter that he deemed as his beloved miracle. Save one and hurt six. Levi turned around and glanced through the window of his home. Heavy with hatred, his eyes nearly squinted shut when he glared at his wife, who was mindlessly going about her chores, like it was just an ordinary day. He touched the pocketknife on his hip. Kill one and save all seven … But Levi Collins was a logical thinking man.
Levi looked at his watch just as the long hand landed on the twenty-fourth hour: 12:32 p.m. The pocket watch’s hand moved in slow motion in his eyes. He swore the solitary tick shook his entire body and chimed as loudly as a massive bell on a church tower at high noon. Emily suddenly stepped onto the porch behind him. He could feel her presence looming over him like an evil spirit, but he was too disgusted to glance back at her. He knew he would only turn to find a look on her face confirming that the time had come.
Without ever glancing at the woman he loathed, Levi wearily gathered enough strength in his legs and arms to rise from his porch rocking chair. The depths of his inebriation hit him hard when he finally stood up after sitting there for hours. With the world spinning, he began marching down the porch steps, holding onto the railing for dear life. With no more railing to support him, he stumbled when his feet hit the dirt and then struggled to keep himself from falling flat on his face. Under wobbly legs, he began making his way toward two blurry figures near the clothesline.
Just like any normal day, Maya took a sheet down off the clothesline. But the sight that came into her view after she removed it was far from normal. By the way Levi was stalking toward her and Lily with staggered footsteps, she knew immediately something was off. Lily had her back turned, folding a pair of pants, oblivious to what was transpiring behind her. Maya, however, had stopped her duties altogether. Levi’s bizarre behavior in the barn earlier immediately flashed in her mind. With a pounding heart, she glanced over Levi’s shoulder and saw Emily standing on the porch, glaring at her with cold eyes. When Maya saw the look on her face, she knew immediately to stand in front of her daughter to block Levi’s path. As he closed in on her, Maya’s terror escalated when saw the bizarre expression on his face. It looked to her like nobody was truly home behind his eyes.
Lily suddenly yelped when she felt her mother grip her arm tightly. “Mama, you’re hurtin’ me,” she said, but Maya’s terror made her oblivious to her daughter’s words.
Maya gripped Lily even tighter and pulled her in close. She looked over at Emily again as she began stepping backward with Lily. She then locked eyes with Levi and began shaking her head, tears already stirring in her eyes. “Levi! Don’t you listen to Emily! Whateva’ she said, don’t do it! You’ll regret it!” she warned. “This ain’t you, Levi! What’re you doin’?! This ain’t you!” she screamed, as he staggered toward them looking catatonic. “Levi stop! Don’t listen to Emily! Lily’s yo’ daughta’ too! Don’t you dare forget that! Whateva’ she told you to do, you’ll regret it! Don’t you dare hurt your own child!” she yelled, attempting to snap him out of his bizarre trance.
Upon hearing her mother’s pleas, Lily’s mouth fell open and she looked up at her in confusion. The confused look still remained as she then glanced at the man she had only ever known as “Master Lee.” That very man then tried to reach around Maya to snatch her.
Levi’s sudden movement was met with the ear piercing shrill of his name and a fierce blow to his jaw by Maya’s fist. “YOU PROMISED ME! YOU SWORE YOU’D NEVA’ HURT OUR BABY!” she erupted. She suddenly became insanely combative, striking Levi repeatedly with a closed fist as he continued to try to grab Lily. Levi felt nothing, however. Moonshine had indeed succeeded in numbing both his mind and body. He was seeing double and was uncertain which child to even grab. Despite repeated blows to his face, he kept on reaching for Lily, until he finally had her in his grip. He lost his balance and stumbled when Maya began yanking Lily away. While on his knees, he grabbed Lily’s ankles before Maya could drag her too far. He stood up and pulled Lily toward him, but Maya’s motherly brute strength kept her daughter firmly in her grip. Lily cried out in agony when her wrists and ankles then became the gripping points in a merciless tug of war. Maya’s desperate unfiltered pleas accompanied her battle. Her words had no ability to penetrate Levi’s severely intoxicated brain, though. The haze of his mind was equal to the dirt cloud they were now shrouded in. Only Lily seemed to be absorbing the repeated phrases that revealed the true identity of the man who seemed to be trying to rip her feet clean off her body.
The brutal battle and Lily’s shrills of pain had commanded the attention of the entire farm. Her heart shattering cries even drew Wyatt from the kitchen to the porch. With the massive dust cloud surrounding the sc
uffle, he could not see clearly, though. “What’s goin’ on?” he asked his mother, looking confused.
“Maya’s fightin’ with your fatha’! Go help ’em!” Emily screamed.
“What do you want me to do?”
“Get the whip!”
“Whip?” he asked, looking confused. “What whip?”
“It’s hangin’ in the barn!”
“But I don’t wanna whip Miss Maya!”
Wyatt’s neck cracked from the force of his mother’s hand across his face. “Don’t you dare disrespect me, you worthless heathen!”
Wyatt held his aching cheek, his chest heaving as he glared at his mother with disdain.
“NOW DO WHAT I SAY!” Emily screamed, shoving him.
Wyatt stumbled slightly and caught himself before he fell down the porch steps. As he went in search of the whip, his secret hatred for his mother was running rampant on his mind. From the time he could comprehend words, he knew his mother equally loathed him. He could not ever recall her telling him that she loved him. But he had most certainly internalized the countless times she had told him that he was a regretful unwanted mistake. The pain of her words was now embedded in his nerves, muscles, and every bone in his body. His body was one that his mother had only ever touched with the sting of a leather strap, and never the warmth of a motherly embrace. Her constant belittling and brutality had caused Wyatt’s hatred for her to fester in his soul for sixteen years. His mother’s callousness was the reason he looked forward to working with Maya in the barn every morning before school. She never failed to greet him and his brothers with a smile and a much-needed hug. He loved that Maya even spoke to them like they were human. Her warmth and simple affections were the antidote for the constant mental poison his mother injected into his mind that sometimes made Wyatt want to hang himself. Maya’s loving motherly medicine was indeed his saving grace. Now, here his mother was, asking him to brutalize the only woman on the farm who had ever shown him any compassion. The thought of such a thing had Wyatt seething inside by the time he found the whip. His mother’s blow to his face seemed to have caused sixteen years of simmering anger to transition into a boiling rage. As he yanked the old, dried out whip off the wall, that rage was now ready to erupt with volcanic force. He stormed out of the barn with it, wishing it was his mother’s back he could lash it across nonstop, until he stripped the demon from her soul.
