Most Ardently

by Sheena Austin et al.

  Charity did the mistake to turn off the faucet. Richard heard it and opened the door. “Gentlemen, have you seen the-” he was surprised to see Charity in the men’s toilet, nearly fresh-faced without most of her make-up. “There you are,” he stepped in and walked to her. “What was that all about? Why did you assault me like that?” Anger was coloring his face and almost made Charity weep again. He did not look so handsome anymore. His usually amber eyes were black with hatred and his lips looked cruel rather than inviting.

  “You were having relations with that girl!” Charity almost screamed.

  “You made me bleed on our wedding day!”

  “What you did is far, far worse!” Charity turned away from him to hide the hot tears climbing to her eyes again. “On our wedding day! How-how dare you!”

  Richard grabbed her shoulders and pulled her against him. “Did you think this would be a ‘love marriage’? We married because your parents are poor and want a slice of what my family has, so don’t look so high and mighty, ‘miss Wellington’.” he twisted her maiden name and squeezed her arms. “I bet you have some side dishes in mind as well.”

  Charity tried to push him away. “How dare you blame me of your transgressions! I have never-” she pursed her lips together and looked down.

  Richard loosened his grip and turned her towards him. “You have never what?”

  Charity shook her head and looked away.

  “Look at me!”

  She did, reluctantly.

  “You have never...?”

  “I was saving myself for you.”

  That shut Richard up. He let her go and stared at her, stunned.

  “I was going to be a good wife to you, so you know. But you blew it and now my reputation will be spoiled and-” Charity swallowed some tears. “Goodbye, Richard.” she tried to do an elegant walk out of the toilet but her dress swung under her heel and she had to lean on the sink to regain her balance.

  “Wait what? You can’t divorce me.” Richard said with a deep, rumbling voice.

  “Of course I can, and I will.”

  “No.” The power of his voice made Charity stop and look at him. The rage had returned to his face and a vein bulged on his forehead. “You. Will. Not.”

  Something in the finality of his words made her run. She heard something break in the corridor behind her but she had no time to look what it was. Turning behind a corner she tried many doors to get them open until one utility room door swung open for her and she hid there, among undignifying mops and a vacuum she thought to be some kind of monster for a moment.

  Richard held an ax in his hands and thought he should call out to her but he had already seen where she went. And heard how she locked the door behind her. A little bitch would not expose him like that. Not on his wedding day. A single thought against his actions bubbled through his drunken mind and it said ‘maybe I shouldn’t be doing this but it ended when he slammed the ax through the door.

  “Let’s talk!” he said through the hole he created and peeked in. It was dark there so he could not see her but he could smell her ever disgusting perfume that was far too sweet and made him feel sick. “Come on. Come out!”

  Charity grabbed some spray can and sprayed it directly into the eye staring at her, unlocked the door when Richard was cursing her up, kicked him off the way screaming bloody murder, and running back towards the party. Richard followed her holding his one eye and the ax.

  His legs were longer, and he had far lower heels on his shoes so he caught up to her just before she could open the doors. “Let’s be rational about this,” he hissed and let go of the axe just so he could hold on to her. “You will be ruined if you divorce me. Nobody will want you. Your family will be poor forever and shun you for doing it. You will be all alone, penniless, and miserable. Your beauty will disappear soon and you will die in a ditch.”

  Charity looked into his eyes, one deep red and watering from the spray she had thrown into it, and one almost feverish. She could smell all the alcohol from his breath and could feel bruises appearing to where he was grabbing her. “No. I won’t stay with you. Not after this, you psycho!”

  “Then, I’ll silence you, bitch,” Richard tried to grab the ax that he had left leaning on the wall but his fingers slipped.

  Charity saw her moment and pushed him away with all her might, kicked open the door and prepared to scream for help again but someone stopped her from getting the door entirely open. A silent oomph and breaking of glass startled her, and she shimmied herself through the gap as fast as she could. Richard was trying to grab her dress but only kept her still for a second to pull off some feathers. The hitch in her movement was enough to unbalance her right at the top of the stairs.

  Everyone in the hall turned to look at the commotion and saw the bride hovering over the first step, her dress torn, her make-up gone, her beautifully curled blonde hair partially loose and wildly hanging around, and one of her shoes in a 90-degree angle. They could not hear Charity’s ankle snap, or her corset whine but they heard how she screamed and smacked on almost every single stair before stopping at the bottom of the stairs, unmoving.

  Then the screaming, blaming, and general havoc started.

  CHARITY WAS NOT THERE to hear what had happened after she had lost consciousness but she was told about it in vivid detail after she had recovered a little and her best friend came to see her. Tiffany’s mouth almost foamed as she described Charity’s mother fainting, Countess Echam almost stepping on Richard when she came out looking like she had seen some horrors, how the champagne tower had fallen on the bridesmen who had been impressively drunk, and how Richard had been so kind, despite his injuries, tried to make sure that Charity was all right.

  They were sitting in the hospital cafeteria, Charity in a wheelchair and Tiffany in a chair she called absolutely the worst thing she had ever laid her posterior on, and both eating food Tiffany had brought with her. She had refused to let her best friend eat hospital food if she could help it. She, of course, could and had brought the most wonderful meal. Charity was grateful for that.

  “At least you are married now,” Tiffany ended her rant and smiled. “Ms. Richard Coleman. How does it feel to be his wife? I know he would be here today but he had some business to attend to.”

  Charity tried to disappear through the wheelchair seat and said with the smallest whisper. “I want nothing to do with him.”

  Tiffany’s smile faded, and she dropped her fork. “What do you mean?”

  “That story you told me how someone attacked us... It is a lie.”

  “No, it’s not.”

  Charity looked into Tiffany’s crystal blue eyes and shook her head slowly. Just as slowly Tiffany understood the gravity of the situation. “No.” she whispered and leaned closer to her. “Seriously? What are you going to do?”

  “Well, yesterday I was sure I would divorce him...but after my parents visited...”

  “You did not tell them?”

  “No.”

  “Will you?”

  “I... don’t know.”

  “I think you should divorce,” Tiffany said and hugged her. “Would you try the salad dressing love, it is divine,” she added when someone passed by a bit too close. “I brought it just for you.”

  Charity tried to smile and let Tiffany put some onto her fresh salad that made some people around drool a little but before she took another bite of it she indulged in some carbs. She buttered her bread and took a bite.

  Tiffany stared at her the whole time she was eating it. Seeing her eating anything that was not strictly measured by her diet was a new thing to see especially when Charity could not spend her usual couple hours doing cardio. “Do you want me to get you sweets too?” she asked carefully.

  “Whath-is thifs-.”

  “Now you are just being silly,” Tiffany laughed as Charity tried to talk and chew at the same time.

  Swallowing hard Charity smiled at her. “You know what, I think I will do it. I already survived the
attack, a fall, and the affair of his, no matter how fast it was. I must be invincible.” she winked. “With a friend like you, I can never lose.”

  “That’s the spirit. I’ll be here for you.” Tiffany placed her hand on the one that was not stuffing more bread to her face and petted it gently. “Slow down there. The food won’t run away from you.”

  “Ifth-,” Charity’s eyes widened, and she began coughing.

  “Are you ok?”

  Charity grabbed her neck brace and tried to inhale something else than the ungodly amount of bread and slammed the table with her hand.

  “Charity...?”

  Tiffany seemed to be dimmer than ever as Charity tried to pull off the brace, inhale, and get someone else’s attention, but they had been in the cafeteria so long that most people there were just other patients calmly dining with their parents. Small glittering spots appeared to her eyes as she slammed the table for the last time and with a wild twist she heard something crack in her neck.

  “Are you okay?” was all she heard, but the words were very, very far away.

  A RATHER GROSSED OUT skeleton was poking a fresh corpse at its feet and clicking its jaw to form morse-code words to anyone willing to stop and stare. Some did, but most just hobbled, crawled, floated, or inched away worrying about their own things, like how it sucked to be dead. They had no time to spare for someone who still had their flesh on and did not even have their mind with them yet. It would have been a different thing entirely if she had been awake and screaming at what was remaining of their faces and asking what was happening to her-that was always entertaining.

  The skeleton kept clicking her jaw, her long worn out garb that still conveyed that she had once been a nun even though now it was hanging on her like it had been put to dry on a pole instead of a human being. She was obviously worried about the state of the new person just idly lying on the street showing her strange knickers. They were all lacy and white for everyone to see so she used one of her bony fingers to slowly poke the edge of the dress made of dead birds to hide the oddly round bottom. In her day bottoms were not like that and she wondered should she perhaps help this stranger who had arrived on the street, hurtling through the low hanging white clouds like a very heavy raindrop that was able to scream for a full minute before becoming dead silent.

  In a fit of jealousy for not having vocal cords to use herself, the nun swiped her hand bones on her garb and walked away. She snapped her jaw to some younger dead and cussed at them the best curses she had ever known when she lived-plus some she had recently learned. The kids replied with the same attitude given to them and squirted fresh-looking blood from the bullet holes they all sported in their chests in worn-out anger.

  Appalled by the nun’s behavior and sailor cursing, a lady in a simple cotton dress and a bonnet hurried out of a bookstore she had been browsing the newest publications to help the woman scattered on the cobblestones. “That is not a way to treat a fledgling, sister!” she yelled after the bone woman who simply kept walking and showed her a single finger behind her back that pointed to the heavens. “It is Christmas time, as you well know!” The kids looked appropriately sorry for being equally rude and wished her ‘Happy Holidays’, ‘Feliz Navidad’, and ‘Peace’ before they disappeared to an alley. She smiled at them with rosy cheeks and waved at them before looking at the unmoving lady in white. She gently brushed her curled hair off her face and rolled her on her back.

  The fledgling moaned in pain, or concussion caused shock but did not open her eyes veiled behind impossibly long lashes. She had contusions and bruises around her neck. Her death had not been easy, she sighed and petted her soft skin with only a little shriveled hand of hers.

  “Do not worry, I will take you somewhere safe,” the woman whispered to the newly dead and beckoned her friends to come to help her.

  Adamantly rotting corpse in the bookstore let out a wet sigh and grabbed her friend, a dusty mummy grabbing on dozens of papyrus scrolls and quills she needed for reasons, and headed to help.

  CHARITY OPENED HER eyes into a view she never thought she would see in her life, and in a way, she didn’t. Her death offered her that pleasure.

  In front of her a woman dressed in some kind of history reenactment dress, a zombie in 80s neon-colored clothes, a mummy directly from her childhood nightmares, half skeleton-half person wrapped in a sheet, and very hairy thing with blue skin and a wolf head as a hat and very little anything hiding her chest or private parts.

  She decided that fainting was her best choice of action.

  Next time she fluttered her eyes open, only the history channel escapee woman was there, sitting right next to the bed they had laid her on, reading a thick book. It was more of a brick than a book but she was holding it like it weighed nothing and looked at the words like they were everything.

  “Who-” Charity tried to speak with a hoarse voice.

  “Shh,” the woman said, lifting a single finger, her eyes darting back and forth on a page.

  Charity said nothing before the finger went down, a bookmark was firmly between the pages, and the woman looked at her in the eye.

  “I am sorry to tell you this, but you are dead, my dear. You died in the World of the Living, and are now in the underworld to atone for your sins.”

  “They are not sins, Pru!” someone yelled beyond the only door that lead into the room. “They are personality issues!” that same someone continued with a voice that sounded like they were trying to drink water while speaking.

  “For me, they are sins, Em, and I believe we agreed that I am the one to do the introductions not to overwhelm our guest!”

  The drowning voice did not reply but Charity could hear dragging footsteps slowly moving away from the door. She pulled the fresh covers tighter against her chest.

  “Who are you?”

  “Oh yes, excuse my manners. Things have been a tad challenging lately and I-” she sighed and smiled to Charity who looked like she was about to leap out of the second-storey window and become roaming the streets per tradition; screaming her head off. “My name is Prudence, Prudence Edwards, and my friends sometimes call me ‘Pru’. You are in the house I share with my friends Em, Nefera, Atenea, and Taka. And to add, Lisa, whom you have not had the pleasure to meet yet. You might have seen a glimpse of everyone else just before you fainted.”

  Charity tried to mouth words but nothing really came out.

  “I know this is a big shock and I hope you will stay here with us, as our honored guest for the time being.”

  “I-I can’t be dead!” Charity whispered.

  “The unfortunate fact is that you indeed are, and so is everyone in the Underworld.”

  “Is this hell?”

  “Oh, no. Not hell. Just... a place where we can think things over.”

  “Things like what?”

  “Life, mostly. What we did wrong and how we could better our souls so we can move on to the Heaven... or next life, or oblivion, peace... Everyone thinks differently about what comes next but nobody who has left after finding their peace has ever returned to complain about it, so it must be wonderful.” She smiled to Charity. “May I ask what is your name?”

  “I... my name is Charity. Charity Cole... Charity Wellington.”

  “Nice to meet you, Charity Wellington. May I call you Charity?”

  “O-Of course.”

  Prudence nodded and got up to leave. She did not want to shock the poor woman anymore, so she just left a bunch of pamphlets on the nightstand and hoped she would read through them before running off. So many people always insisted on running off...

  Charity looked at Prudence leaving but did not relax even when she had closed the door behind her. Somewhere in the house she was existed a walking, perhaps talking, dust mite filled, MUMMY. And a zombie, and a skeleton! She wrapped her arms around her knees and squeezed them tightly against her chest to stop her body from shaking violently. For her, it could not be true. She could not be dead just as she survived a murder at
tempt by Richard, that Dick of a man. Her life could not be over so quickly.

  “I am only 21 for fuck sakes!” she whined into her kneecaps and cursed more than she had cursed in her entire life. Letting out the pressure helped though and after exhausting her dirty vocabulary, which was not very extensive, she collapsed to the comfortable bed and let out a long wheezing sigh.

  A single thought surfaced her mind; she needed more proof.

  Charity rose from the bed swiftly and caught a glimpse of her reflection from a large mirror in the corner. It was beautiful and ornamented but also very worn and the gold paint was chipping off. Her reflection was slightly off in the partially blackened glass but seeing herself stopped her in her tracks.

  Her wedding dress was torn and splattered with blood and God knows what, her hair-do was absolutely ruined and no longer looked like a million bucks, and she was covered in bruises. Touching her neck, she followed the track of where she remembered Richard’s hands had been and where her neck had partially broken, on her arms she remembered slamming on the stairs, and when she placed her fingers on her forehead she remembered the bread that had choked her.

  BREAD. A piece of bread had been her undoing.

  Charity stared at her skin, which was unbelievably sickly pale and rested her hand on her ample chest. Out of habit she took a deep breath but noticed that something was wrong. Something was missing. She tried to survey what it was but her mind tried to go on a knot thinking it.

  Something flickered past her reflection in the mirror. Charity turned around fast when she saw it but nothing was out of place. The room, including a rich red-colored carpet, a heavy-looking creamy dresser, the small bed, and the door were all the same. The strange wall lamps were not flickering or turning off but there definitely had been something just behind her.

  A cough right next to her ear her made her jump.

  “Oh sorry there, lass. I thought I’d come to say hello and ask if you’d like me to open up a window for ye,” a voice right behind her said. “It is a bummer that I can’t open it for ye tho, so would you mind tearing it up yerself?”