by Ian Hall
It felt my heart freeze as still as Maxwell’s had been. I nodded mutely, permitting him to continue with what seemed the makings of a confession. He leaned closer as if to whisper into my ear. Just as I felt the first crystals of his cold breath on my neck, a sudden gust of wind blew past my bed, stirring the curtains. And Maxwell Clooney had gone.
My door opened, banging loudly against the wall behind it. William Roxburgh framed himself in the entry of my room, filling the opening by the span of his wide shoulders. Mildred and Maigret were just visible behind him.
Quickly, I pulled the sheet up so that only my eyes peeped out from under the hem, lest my stepfather notice my all-too rapid recovery.
“There is sewing to be done, girl. Your sisters are to attend the ball next week an’ as God is my witness, one o’ them will be the bride o’ Maxwell Clooney or I’ll flay your hide.”
Giggling followed his bald threat. My stepsisters forced their way past William, each trailing a banner of extravagant fabrics in gaudy colors behind them. They issued orders and ultimatums for the designs of their gowns, strewing the silk across me as if I were a seamstress’ mannequin.
There I sat, nodding silently at one frantic girl and then the other, keeping the sheet high over my face. Mildred took exception to my posture, yanking the covering in a sudden and startling motion.
“Pay attention, Arabella!” she balked. “This is no time for your silly nonsense. I must look stunning for Maxwell….”
As Mildred ranted, my eyes slid over to William, still standing in the doorway. I watched his own eyes grow round, confused, spooked, and finally enraged.
“What kind of witchcraft is this?” he crossed to my side, holding my chin and painfully turning my head side to side. Disbelievingly, my stepfather pulled at my arm as if to twist it off – finding it every bit as healed as my face.
William snatched up the streaming bolts of silk and returned them abruptly to his whining daughters, “Out!” he yelled at them. “Out before this sorceress casts a spell on both o’ you!”
“But, Daddy…”
“OUT!”
The final shout sent Mildred and Maigret skipping for the door in alarm. William followed after them, hollering for my mother.
Moments later she tripped into the room, welts of her own on her usually flawless complexion. Eyes red and swollen, hair a disheveled hive – I realized at once the cause for my mother’s unwavering obedience to her husband.
“What is this devil you’ve brought into my home, Isabella?”
At his bizarre question, both stepsisters craned their heads back into the doorway.
My mother stumbled over to my bedside, taking in my miraculous healing. She held my face between her hands and sobbed disconsolately.
“I am so sorry, Arabella. I only wanted the best for you.”
I covered her hands with mine, whispering, “An’ we both shall have it – all the best for the rest o’ our lives, Mother.” I beamed peevishly at each face in turn. “I am to be the wife of Maxwell Clooney.”
The eruption seemed immediate and violent. Roxburgh pulled Mother from the room, screaming her heart out. I last saw her as the back of William’s hand found her cheek and she fell with a hard crack to the floor.
Mildred and Maigret bellowed, wailed, and mourned the news. They tore at my bedclothes, pulled at my hair, and spat at me. William let them have their way with me and then shooed them from the room so that he may have his way, as well. By the time he had done with me, I lay in shreds upon my bed, bruised and scratched, bloody over every inch.
Before I fell into the blackness yet again, I heard him close my door and lock it from the outside. My open window beckoned as a means of easy escape but my battered body could not rise to its call.
I awoke to my room in darkness. My mother knelt at my side, gently shaking me and repeating my name soft as any lullaby.
“Arabella…Arabella…”
My eyelids fluttered open.
“I am so sorry, Arabella,” she wept, her warm tears stinging the open cuts upon my face, “I never meant for any o’ this to happen.”
“I know.” The two syllables were puffed out on all the breath I could muster as my mother tried lifting the full weight of me into her arms.
“We’re leaving here tonight,” she vowed with a determination I hadn’t heard in her voice since the days before William Roxburgh entered our lives. “We will put this town at our backs and…”
“Take me…” I plead meekly in my weakened state, “to…Max…well…”
Cradling me like an infant, she carried me to the door. Yet, even the cloak of night did not shroud our deeds from the watchful eyes of William Roxburgh. He stood at the main door, a living gate between us and freedom.
My mother lowered me as gently as possible onto wobbling, unsteady legs. Dizziness struck me at once and I nearly fainted to the floor. Only sheer will and the thin thread of hope that I might yet make it to Maxwell kept me standing.
“Do not worry what happens to me, Arabella…”
They were the last words I heard my mother speak. Desperately, feebly, I limped my way to freedom with William Roxburgh chasing after.
I did not even make it to the garden gate.
He clipped a blow to my temple, and I fell into his arms. Thrust over his shoulder, he set off for the moors. The jab of his shoulder into my midriff seemed my only punctuation of time. The wind outside bit into my loosely clothed form, and the darkness around me did little to assuage the fear that grew inside.
Where was Maxwell? From an overnight bodyguard, he’d suddenly become very absent.
I felt myself being let loose, and I fell to the ground. My head hit the earth hard, jarring me, my head spinning with the force of the blow.
From the brickwork around me, the way I’d been discarded onto the ground, and the smell, I knew my fate.
The lime kiln.
I gave a slight gasp of recognition to his perfect plan.
To be burnt to death in the kiln’s large firepit, or thrown into the lime cup, and burnt by the lime itself.
I knew the routine. Each evening as the fire burnt low, huge stacks of wood were piled for the next day’s burning. It would take only the addition of more fuel to ignite the smoldering fires.
I tried to rise, but my bones protested even the effort of such an ordeal. My head still spun and, to be honest, I felt so tired, so beat upon, that I lay in silence. William walked round the fire of the kiln beside me, and I heard the sound of wood being thrown. It did not take long for the flames to crackle back to life. I watched the flames, my gaze fixed and hypnotized by the growing yellow swirls. Soon the roar of the wind swept through the firepit, and I could feel the radiated heat from the inferno.
“Dinna fear.” I flinched as Maxwell’s soft tone floated down into my ear, his breath rustling my hair. I gasped in relief; he had not forsaken me!
Then William approached, and my hero instantly gone. I grimaced at Maxwell’s cowardice. I shook my head, frustrated at being left again on my own to the devices of this evil man.
“No more will you sully my house, you useless cripple!” William stalked towards me. This time there would be no shoulder lift. He roughly grabbed my wrists and dragged me up the angled side of the kiln, my legs, knees, and ankles cruelly pulled over the rough brickwork, with no regard paid to my pain and discomfort.
At last he stood atop the tall structure and pulled my limp body up to his in a last, passionless embrace. He turned me to face the large crucible.
“Meet your maker tonight, dearest Arabella.”
I gazed downward into the dusty bowl, filled with the fine white powder, and I knew my fate. I felt so helpless, no energy to struggle against him, no fight left in me.
“Breathe your last,” William sneered, and kicked me over the edge.
Propelled by his foot in my back, I tumbled into the bowl, rolling like a drunken beetle into the fine talcum powder. The first panic proved the stifling of m
y breath, the thin dust coating my face catching in my throat, despite my efforts to keep my mouth closed.
Then the burning, my eyes, my lips, inside my nostrils. The welts the sisters had left on me all gathered the white filth. My sex stung like a thousand burning needles.
I knew I should have died there. But for some reason I continued to flounder, my exertions just forcing me further and deeper into the bowl, drowning in the cloying dust that burned, seared my insides, the pain far beyond any beating.
I coughed only once and felt the powder drawn deep inside my throat.
My mouth felt so dry after that first cough, my body spasmed in an attempt to gain more air. Struggling in vain, I gave up the fight, lying still to accept my fate.
Then suddenly the cold night air surrounded me, the wind now striking against my burning body, freezing me. I gasped with fright, sending a cloud of dust into the air.
Hands grabbed at me, flying me through the night.
“Don’t fear, my sweet,” Maxwell’s voice soothed, but seemed far too late to save my body from its grisly demise.
Then I plunged into dark, cold liquid, the shock forcing me to open my eyes. Maxwell held me, his arms round me as I felt drawn through the water. He held me by the waist and spun in a circle, the water forced in turgid waves past my head. Had my love saved me from the pit, just to drown me?
Suddenly I felt his head by mine as he spun. “Will you join me?” he roared, his lips so close to my burning face.
I shook my head. If I survived this ordeal, I would be scarred for life, and could not bear to have him look at me. But the pain refused to die. The burning now intensified, the liquid passing down my throat, forcing my lungs to work, only exacerbated my suffering. The cold water had proved only a brief respite, for now I surely died slowly in his arms.
“Will you join me?” he repeated, his wet grin wild before me.
With my dying breath, I gasped, “Yes.”
And I closed my eyes as he kissed my neck, a fitting end to a passionless existence.
But although my mind relinquished its grip, to my chagrin, my body refused to die.
I felt a teat placed at my mouth. Nature’s milk burst into my mouth, and I knew the nourishment it promised. It tasted of Maxwell’s elixir, yes, but more powerful, more potent. No alcohol dilution this time, just the milk itself in the purest form. I drank until I felt my body would burst with power.
I opened my eyes, Maxwell’s wrist still between my jaws, my mouth still suckling on the warm, thick elixir. We stood, chest deep in a black pool, dark, moonstruck clouds drifted overhead. Maxwell’s eyes burned into mine, just inches away. Trees on one side told me we were in the Esk River, but I didn’t recognize the pool.
I looked into Maxwell’s laughing face, and I suddenly mirrored it, my smile spreading, throwing my previous cancers aside. Gone were the pains, gone the burning skin, banished in a lifetime I’d left behind.
In its place lay power, excitement, and something I couldn’t quite initially grasp.
Lust!
In my thin nightdress, my chest felt on fire for the right reasons, my nipples grazing Maxwell’s jacket, the rough, serge material almost painfully rubbing against me.
And between my legs? Gone the lime dust, gone the pain, replaced by a heat that could only be described as a deep hunger. An extreme itch that had to be scratched.
I felt Maxwell pressing against me under the water. The chill seemed not to have dampened his ardor, and I pushed myself against him, rubbing myself against his loins’ protuberance. Like the lowest trollop, I shamelessly humped against him, causing the beginnings of eruptions inside me.
Everything seemed to happen at once.
My hands pulled at his trews, ripping them asunder in my quest to free him. His hands tore at my chemise, shredding it, then grabbed at my breasts, crushing them, pulling at my nipples, causing me to gasp in pleasure.
Then his manhood lay at the doorway, prodding, nudging me, almost as if asking for permission.
I grinned at his thoughtfulness, but could wait no longer. I grabbed under his shoulders and thrust downwards, instinctively spearing myself on him, sinking on his full length in one thrust.
I wept. Tears of joy and repression broke free and streamed down my cheeks as I ate his mouth, my jaws gnawing against his. I dug my nails into his back and ripped his jacket from his body, throwing the shards away across the dark water.
I felt him walk against me, and I wrapped my legs around him, allowing myself to be carried out of the pool and crushed downwards against the grassy bank.
With wild, coursing thrusts, he ploughed against me, and like a harlot, I accepted every one, and pushed back for more.
Slowly, like an approaching storm, I felt my pressure build.
My sex, filled to overflowing, burst asunder, and I cried aloud in both pain and release.
Maxwell bit against my neck, and sucked from the arteries he’d opened. I cared not.
Then he offered me his own neck.
“Bite me!” he roared.
I thrust my mouth against him, and felt my new teeth tear his skin. Inflamed by the aroma of his elixir, I drunkenly fed again, then felt the initial rush of his release inside me. It made me drink deeper and, as I sucked, he emptied himself inside me.
Tearing my lips from his neck, we howled together into the darkness.
It had been fantastic. An orgy of destructive wantonness that I’d never considered could exist in my world.
Slowly my eyes became less blurred. I looked past his naked shoulders to the moonlit clouds, scudding overhead.
“What just happened?” My thoughts still lay shrouded in an impassioned mist.
He lay atop me, panting, grinning like some Cheshire cat. “Tonight, my love, you have become a new creature.”
I held him tightly, then my attention got drawn to my left arm. In the moonlight it seemed to be normal. I smiled, then untangled myself from his embrace and ran my fingers over the skin.
“My arm,” I said. “It’s healed.” I suddenly remembered the burning in the lime kiln. “The lime? The burning?”
Maxwell’s fingers swept the hair form my forehead, and his smile pushed the cares from my mind. “All gone, my love. You now are perfect.”
“I feel strong.” I kissed his lips, this time with tenderness.
“Oh, our kind is far greater than any other.”
I looked at him with consternation. “Then you could have done this to me at any time?”
He nodded.
I felt suddenly cheated. “You could have saved me before the burning lime?”
His expression fleetingly showed concern, then he smiled again, melting my anger in seconds. “But you see, we had to let Roxburgh believe he’d killed you.”
“Why?”
His fingers caressed my cheeks, and he lowered himself for another kiss. “Because revenge is much more satisfying when it’s savored slowly.”
I considered this for a moment, then felt him move against me again.
“Plus, we still have a masquerade ball to plan.”
In what seemed mere seconds, Maxwell swept me off to the seat of his estate, Chorley House, perched on the hillside overlooking a nicely manicured part of the Esk River. Even at some distance, the vast stone and mortar compound appeared palatial in grandeur. I had never imagined something so splendid. As we neared the building, I made out high parapets standing as bookends to a mass of regimented windows. The small, central door had pillars on either side, and trees lined the hillside, yellow turning leaves glistened in the growing sunlight of dawn.
“Was your uncle a duke?” I gushed through my amazement.
Maxwell enjoyed a chuckle at my expense. “I must confess…” he stated, smiling, “my poor dead uncle was something o’ a ruse to allow me to return to my original home after some time living in the village…too long for my taste.”
I felt confusion pulling at my features. For the first time, I heard my love’s ch
iming laughter and found myself joining in.
“What do you mean? There was no uncle?”
Maxwell bowed deeply at the waist, “May I present Albert Chorley, Laird of Ormiston, ma’am.”
“You?” I searched my memory for information. The old Laird had been dead many years. No heirs had left the old house to decay, yet I saw none.
“Among many monikers I’ve assumed over the centuries, my dearest. This most recent identity has suited me well. I was able to maintain almost total anonymity, living above the village an’ seen only by my most trusted servants.”
I found the simple question nearly impossible to articulate, “How… long…”
“A tad under two hundred years.” A haunted look glazed Maxwell’s eyes.
“An’ so what brought you to come live in that godforsaken place? Flemingston is hardly a mecca of excitement.”
“Again, I had to let a generation go by, so that none would recognize me on my return.” His eyes grew bright again. “Besides, I had to wait on you coming of age.” He faced me and took both of my hands in his. “You, Arabella. I waited for you.”
“Me?”
“Well, indirectly I’ll admit. But…essentially…yes…I waited for you.”
Maxwell walked me to a graveyard set out deep in the gardens. There, four tombstones marked well-manicured plots adorned with marble angels and freshly offered roses. I read each name carved within the golden plaques set into the tall stones: Desiree, Mary, Katherine, and Jesthina.
“These are my previous wives,” he said, a lilt of both sadness and adoration in his voice, “all very beautiful, all very charming an’ all very mortal. I spent a lifetime wi’ each o’ them an’ laid them each to rest while I continued on, alone an’ unchanging.”
Maxwell turned to me, desperation overtaking his visage. “Never again do I desire to know the pain o’ such loss.”
“I don’t understand,” I flailed. “Could you not have done for them what you did for me; changed them to be like you?”
