“Can I use your phone? I spent my money on a soda at the corner store. I know I shouldn’t have, but it just kinda goes with the candy. Like, it makes your mouth all fizzy because of the chocolate, it’s far out, you should try it if you haven’t. Anyway, you don’t have to give me candy if you don’t want to, it’s just that my mom expects me in like, ten minutes and I’m about a twenty-minute walk from home, no change to call her, you know?”
“Oh, right on, sure, uh, never did the candy and soda thing, but probably a little candy in my mouth while having a coke, so I get it, yeah. Come in and use the phone, don’t want your mom to worry.”
The mother is looking down at her toddler, who hesitantly grins at the visitors, and the mother is thinking that one day she will be able to see her little girl as grown up as this polite stranger at her door. She thinks about that day a lot. Thinks about how much she can’t wait to watch her baby grow up.
The mother steps aside and invites them in with a motion of her hand, picking up the toddler so that she’ll not clog the entryway with her childish penguin-walk and need for her attention.
“It’s right over there,” the mother says, her chin motioning to a mint green rotary-dial phone that the cat has no intention of using. The mother puts the baby down into her playpen, and that’s when the cat slides her mask back on.
When she’s the cat, she’s not herself. When she’s got the mask on—when they all have their masks on—it’s like they’re somebody else, like they’re one person, almost. The mother doesn’t understand why they’ve all slid their masks on, why the cat isn’t using the phone.
“What’re you doing?” she asks, as the wolves separate and block two potential paths she could run toward. Although, the cat is aware in her shriveled husk of a heart, deep down where she may have once been a woman someday, that the mother would choose neither escape route. She would go straight for the baby, if she needed to.
“I’ve always wondered what it would’ve been like to have no mother. My mother is awful. Maybe all mothers are in their own way, except in rare cases. Have you ever spanked her? Slapped her?”
“What—why…”
“Yelled at her? Wanted her to be gone?”
How could the mother explain to this young girl, who is hiding behind a mask, that all parents, at some time or another, in their exhaustion, anger, love, and fear, have regretfully wished their child away? And why is she asking this?
Before she can choose to scream for help, she’s overcome.
* * *
The stars are attached to a black flag that reaches down to touch her elbows, like strings attached to planets. She feels like a puppet. Someone drugged her. The cat and the two wolves, have led her far away and she wonders what they found. Where they’re taking her.
“Here it is,” one of them said, one of the wolves. And yet she saw nothing. All she saw was the darkness and the starry light that flashed across her eyes when one of them bludgeoned her with a thick tree limb on the side of her head; she also felt a strange crop of small, warm wounds on her bare chest and the tops of her arms, where they took turns scratching, biting, laughing, howling, meowing. They beat her until she feels something pop behind her eye. All she hears is her heart warbling in her ears, all she feels is the numbness, the pounding in her head. She’s being beaten in all directions and on all her young bones. She’s fetal on the ground and so shocked she’s not even begging, yet.
“Please.” The swollen word oozes out, finally, with one or two of her teeth.
And the cat says:
“Let’s kill her.”
* * *
“Please!” the mother begs, but they’ve stabbed her too many times for it to matter. The baby screams and its pink cheeks are spattered with a few errant droplets of her mother’s red blood. The mother tries to roll, tries to crawl, twitches, never takes her eyes off of her child, couldn’t even beg for her child’s life to be spared, and dies trying to get to the playpen. They’d cut her throat. She takes a long time to expire. Her watery eyes have an apology for the toddler she’s unwillingly left behind.
One of the wolves has to use the bathroom, and excuses himself up the creaky stairs, not wanting to pass by any of the windows.
When he stands before the toilet, he notices a shadow behind the shower curtain that makes his heart leap in horror and surprise. A small shape of what could be a person.
Reluctantly, he pulls it open.
There stands the vampire bride from earlier, still in that white lace, still small, but this time with a knife. In his shock he doesn’t cry out, only suffers his slit throat with a gush, a gurgle, and hidden wide eyes.
After a while, the other two go to look for him and find nothing in the bathroom, only a cold, breezy window with a lightly billowing curtain. They figure he ditched them and went home to sleep, hopefully, never to tell anybody their secrets.
“I visited New York, once, for a play on Broadway with my dad. I sat on the subway on the way back to the hotel, just looking at people when they didn’t know I was looking at them. I remember thinking, there’s someone in there thinking, just like me, like I’m thinking right now. And what happens when they stop thinking? When I stop thinking? Where does the thinking part of me go? Where does theirs?”
They leave the baby to be motherless and free. Someone will find it. Someone always does.
The cat loses the other wolf somewhere near the Hawthorne Hotel when a crowd of revelers passes by. He must’ve gone looking for his brother, she thinks, feeling abandoned.
* * *
“Let’s kill her.”
They abandon the body in a shallow grave they think nobody could ever loosen her from. Beautiful and dead, like a dried up rose, her eyes are open and the slice of moon that peeks from the trees glints in them like a blade. She’s a fairy tale: a filthy, sad story about dead, nice girls. And they laugh; taking turns urinating on her body for no good reason, other than they’ve been holding it too long. And they’re hungry now, so hungry, they leave her half out of her new grave.
Where she can still breathe.
* * *
And here is the vampire bride from earlier, the patient ghost in the diner. She’s a glimmer between the movement of leftover adults heading home or to the next party. The cat catches sight of her and doesn’t blink, doesn’t take her eyes off of her. The bride walks closer, without walking at all, seeming more to glide. She’s there facing the cat in a few blinks of her tired eyes. It’s as if neither of them exists, or perhaps nothing else around them does.
The cat removes her mask. Her face is unapologetic, curious, dirty, and soulless. She studies the bride’s mask, her shoulders, looking for a hint, a clue. She’s drawn to her and they stand there, silent, eyes like torches.
“Let’s kill her,” the bride whispers, her small hand stringing slowly up, painfully slow, to perch atop the cats shoulder.
“You don’t understand what it’s like,” the cat explains, blankly. “People put this, this animal in you, something happens, you’re not yourself anymore. You’re someone you never wanted to become. Something you became to deal with who you didn’t want to become, and I’m not sorry. I did it, but it wasn’t me. I was trying to be someone else.”
The cat hardly feels the knife sheath itself within the galloping vault of her ribs, burying itself in the grave of her liver and then twisting. She smiles; it’s over, it’s all over, she can wash her hands. She knows, now, what happens when you stop thinking.
* * *
At midnight, a girl in a bright white room, eyes watering from either the pulsating fluorescent light or the bobbing lilt of the return of consciousness, squeezes her mother’s hand in a hospital bed. She’s wearing the geometric rag of the typical hospital gown, bandages, IVs, and a breathing tube in her nose, bruised and swollen. She can see and feel her mother holding her hand. She’s been at her side the entire time she’s been unconscious.
“You’re awake. She’s awake!” her mother shouts, shocke
d, thrilled, and overjoyed.
They had found her in the afternoon on Halloween. Two dogs sniffed her out when their owner took them for a walk in the woods, and a little black cat sitting noiselessly by a tree, looked on with a curious waiting. Someone had said that meant bad luck, but she wasn’t dead, not yet, just almost. They’d found her just in time.
In the hospital room where she’s waking up, nestled within a chest of drawers for patients’ belongings, rests a gaudy vampire bride’s mask and a white lace dress.
1793
seaweed heads
E.F. Sweetman
THE SALEM MERCURY
Friday November 1, 1793
Young Missionaries Embark for Canada in Early Morning Departure.
Seven families of the First Church bid an early morning fare-thee-well to their devoted daughters. The young women have been appointed by Order of the Reverend Roger Hughes to travel north to Montreal, Canada as missionaries of the First Church. They are Anna Abbott, Lucy Jacobs, Rebecca Parker, Abigail Reed, Margaret and Sarah Williams, and Mary Younge. Reverend Hughes, unexpectedly absent at the dawn departure, selected the devotees to teach, tend the sick, and spread the Word of the Lord in the name of the First Church. It is the first mission of this nature created by Reverend Hughes.
It was a solemn leave-taking in the cold and misty morning. The departure was hastened due to Reverend Hughes’ unforeseen absence. In place of his Blessing, the women held hands in a quiet circle prior to climbing into the coach. Despite pleas for safe travel from attendant families, the women were silent as they boarded.
The stagecoach set off for Portsmouth, New Hampshire, where they are to meet a second stage to carry them on to Montreal. It is expected, by the urgency of the four eager horses pulling at the reins, they will reach Portsmouth ahead of schedule.
THE SALEM MERCURY
Tuesday November 5, 1793
Mystery, Tragedy & Death Strike Salem. Ten Missing Men Drown, Horses Blinded.
Salem is reeling in the wake of a terrible tragedy which has resulted in unspeakable loss of life as the drowned, half-buried bodies of Reverend Roger Hughes, and nine other men were discovered at low tide near the Blaney Street seawall on Friday, November 1st.
Sheriff Bailey Bartlett had ordered a wide search for Reverend Hughes and the other men when they failed to return home from a meeting on the evening of October 31st. The list of confirmed dead are as follows: The Reverend Roger Hughes; Robert Harper, Church Elder; Benjamin Morris, Church Elder; Captain John Russell; Charles Baker, Esquire; Isaac Simpson, Banker; William Cressy, Church Elder; Bertram Russell, Seaman; Isaac Watson, Smithy; Owen Higgins, Churchwarden.
In addition to the gruesome deaths, a mystery has confounded the sheriff regarding their horses: every animal is afflicted with white eyes rendering them completely blind. The horses were tied to hitching posts in front of Harper’s Round Table Tavern on Derby Street. Tavern hostler George Jacobs has never observed such a condition in any animal prior to those horses found outside the tavern on the morning of November 1st.
A somber Sheriff Bartlett uttered this statement: “I cannot begin to hazard a guess how the men ended up drowned, and half-buried in a pile, nor can I tell you how their horses were blinded. I was alerted to something amiss by Mrs. Hughes, Mrs. Simpson, and Mrs. Baker in the early hours of November first when their husbands failed to return from an evening meeting. All of the bodies showed evidence of death by drowning. From their bloated state, I believe this happened near to midnight. Unfortunately, there is no substantiation at this time that would provide explanation of what happened.”
Samuel Harper, tavern keeper, and nephew of Robert Harper, has reported that, while some meetings of the First Church business had taken place at the large table at the tavern, none of the deceased party entered his establishment the night of October 31st. Nor, does he have any notion of when the horses were tied to the tavern hitching posts. Relatives to the dead men are at a loss as to offer any insights as the families are overcome with grief.
THE SALEM MERCURY
Tuesday November 19th, 1793
Worry & Despair Following Tragic Drownings, Lack of Word From Young Missionaries.
As the days grow short and cold, dread shrouds the families of the seven young women of the First Church Mission to Montreal. No word, yet, of their trip, or as it turns out, of a final destination. Each day that passes without report of their safety increases the burden of disquiet in the hearts of those who long for reassurance.
This uncertainty has been a growing concern for the families, for it is in the wake of the mysterious drownings of Reverend Roger Hughes and the nine men at the Blaney Street seawall. Reverend Hughes was the originator of the First Church Mission to Montreal. At this time, he has left no written record with respect to the details of precise location of the undertaking.
The families report that each young woman was summoned by a handwritten letter from Reverend Hughes instructing them to journey as emissaries of the First Church to Montreal, Canada. It is naturally understood that weather and road conditions may hamper the post, yet as the days pass without word, there grows a mounting concern that if a search party was required, there is no one alive to indicate a destination.
Sheriff Bartlett provided no comment at this writing. All his efforts and concentration have been turned primarily to the unexplained circumstances regarding the drowning of the Reverend Hughes and his nine companions on the night of October 31st.
* * *
Entries of Extraordinary Interest From the Secret Diary of Virginia Younge, found inside the cover of A Young Lady’s Book of Verse.
Monday 25 Nov 1793
It has been nearly one month and I am unable to lift myself from the terror that plagues me day and night. I do not sleep. My suffering for failing to act will never cease. I fear not just for my own sanity, but for my dear mother’s as well. She knows I am made wretched from something awful, but she can never know what it truly is. Mother’s ailing body suffers so from her arthritis. She worries, as do all the others, that no word has yet come from Montreal. I cannot bring myself to speak of it. I do not have the words. I can only hope she will never know of the horror that would devour her if she learned the truth that is buried in my heart. She must never know any of this.
Let her believe Mary is in Montreal teaching, tending to the sick, and spreading the Good Word of the Lord. Let her keep hoping that snowy weather and bad roads cause Mary’s letters to be delayed. Let her never know the awful truth.
She attends to me with loving care, which I deserve not, nor can I barely accept, save for the reason that I dearly love my mother. I see how hard she tries to get me to eat and drink. She sits up, night after night, to calm my terror, to drive away my nightmares when I finally close my eyes. The lack of rest harms her, but she will not leave my side. It is I who should be caring for her! But all I can do is weep. My heart breaks more when she begs me to tell her what sickens me.
If only I could. It would murder her if I should.
There is little sensibility in what I write.
It came to me that if I were to write it down, I might be relieved of the horror. I have torn out the pages of my prayer book in order to hide this terrible revelation. I will write while Mother naps. And after writing it, I will bury it away forever, and hope it will banish the demon that shows himself…not just at night anymore. He has now begun lurking in the shadows of my room, and in the corner of my eyes during daylight.
Prayers do nothing for me. I no longer believe that God will protect me, for I am damned. After it is written, I shall bury it all in the sand and the muck and the seaweed. I will bury the secret, the evil, the horror.
Yet, now I can’t bring myself to write the words to this Hell. I simply can’t.
Tuesday 26 Nov 1793
I grow sicker and weaker. It is more from lack of sleep than lack of food or drink. I can barely scribble out these words in a way that makes sense, but I can foresee no other c
ourse to release me from my awful, haunting visions. I can think of no other way to rid myself of the black demon, who now shows himself to me behind my loving mother as she tries to comfort me. The stench of low tide and dead fish fill my nose when I see him hanging over her. I write this to release myself. And I weep, for I cannot bear to see my mother’s face. It is there all the time, now. The demon’s grey-toothed grin hovers just over her loving & concerned face. His red eyes burn into my brain.
I must rid myself of this.
Mary, my sweet sister Mary, and those silly girls mistakenly believed they were safe in their secrets. I don’t know where they found their dreadful instruction, but I suspect Anna. Anna Abbott is the only girl foolish, and proud enough to heedlessly disobey. She boldly owns her grandmother’s gift of healing the sick by laying-on hands. Her brother, Nehemiah, is in trade to Africa and East India, and rumors fly that he smuggles in strange relics, despite Reverend Hughes warning from the pulpit that objects of that nature are powerful and dangerous.
Last summer, I discovered their secret practice when I was awakened by Mary as she chanted in a strange tongue while burning twigs of sage in our bedroom grate. I was frightened, and I began to scold her, but she begged me to go back to sleep. She tried to calm my fears by explaining she was learning an ancient practice to heal Mother’s rheumatism. She would not listen to my urgent demand that she stop, she just bade me to let her be. From that night, I knew she endeavored to hide any practice of ritual from me. I had no choice but to watch her in secret.
The first time she crept out at night was mid-October. I followed her to Derby Street, where she met Anna, Abigail Reed, Lucy Jacobs, Rebecca Parker, & Margaret and Sarah Williams. They went on to a circular clearing in the woods past English Street. I watched as they joined hands and prayed. Then Anna lit a fire, and they all danced around it. As they sang and chanted, the fire changed colors. They spoke in a strange tongue. I stayed hidden until we were nearly home, then I confronted Mary with what I had witnessed. She was not shameful. Instead, she was delighted, and silly! But she warned me that I must never, never tell a soul because it was Witchcraft. I cried to her, how could she? Mary laughed again, so careless, and said she would deny everything. She reminded me that making false accusations of witchcraft was disgraceful. I reminded her that we were Godly people, and that Reverend Hughes would surely have something to say about this if he knew of their actions. I warned her that we all could be shunned, but Mary would not repent. She swore they had done no wrong,
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