Misery subsumes all it touches, decay and beauty alike.
The rot permeating from the stately home and lush grounds tainted what should have been a sublime spring day. The noise from the horses’ shoes on the fertile earth along the roadway could not drown out the misery I heard and felt from that soil. Cries of anguish entreated me to turn around, to leave, to resist becoming trapped as they were. How could I find joy in my heart when my soul cried out with theirs, understanding I would surely meet my end as dreadfully as they, forcefully tethered to one who I despised and, moreover, feared?
There was nothing titillating about the abject terror rising inside me the day I arrived at what was to be my new home—my marriage home. Father had expressly forbidden me to return to my childhood residence, insisting I not bring dishonor upon him and Mother by refusing the agreement he had made with Edward’s father that Edward and I were to marry.
Edward was my cousin—but how I hated him! Hated what he had become, although he was once a peculiar child I had played with many times on the same grounds we would live on, growing more trepidatious as time passed and whose mannerisms grew more audacious. The kindhearted child I used to be felt pity toward him and his affliction—monomania—which caused him to fixate on various minute objects and interests the rest of us held in only a passing fancy.
His affliction, I could live with. His cruelty, I would not.
This cruelty was on full display as my carriage approached the big house and he stepped out from behind a row of Black faces and bodies as Black as ours—yet marred by various proofs of Edward’s maltreatment of them. The young girl with fresh scars across her face. The old man balanced on his right foot while leaning on a cane that pronounced his missing left foot. The younger woman who flinched as Edward brushed against her in the most brutish of manners. The fear in all pairs of eyes, mirroring that in my own, surely.
He helped me down from my carriage, falsities in place, manufactured charm on full display.
“Bettina. Welcome to our home.” I cringed when his cold lips met my gloved hand, the iciness of his demeanor permeating the fine cloth.
I tilted my head in a slight bow as I had been taught since childhood to perform, in deference I did not feel toward him—deference I rarely felt to any other person. “Edward.”
I allowed him to lead me toward the servants he had lined up to greet me. He introduced them as a group, in an offhand manner, then attempted to steer me away from them and into the house. I resisted and went to each person, individually, introducing myself and asking their names, offering each the same bow of deference I had been forced to provide Edward, this time the gesture genuine on my part.
My heart constricted as, one by one, their eyes opened in wonderment at my insistence on offering my hand. Not one of them took it. I gave them warm smiles, despite their reticence, determined to show them with my treatment of them that I was not at all the same monster as my husband to be had proven himself.
His monstrosity was no secret in our family. At one point, the adolescent Edward became deadly focused on human appendages. One by one, he severed the hands, feet, arms, and legs from various slaves’ bodies. More than one female slave had at least one breast viciously removed in his onslaught.
My favorite old cat in his home, Penny, had also been victimized by him. He cruelly forced her from me one afternoon and spent the evening severing her limbs from her body, one by one—bit by bit. Her screams of anguish permeated even the thick draperies in the house, where I had hidden, inconsolable and unable to rescue her.
The only reason Father finally gave in to my ceaseless begging to never go play at Edward’s again after that was because his last fixation devastated his family’s inventory of slaves; not because his violence toward other living beings had been acknowledged or rectified.
He had moved on from that fixation, I supposed. However, one never knew when he might return to it—or develop a nastier one.
At dinner on my arrival night, Edward droned on and on about how fruitful he had made his father’s plantation. My spirit wept at the pride beaming from him at his descriptions of forced mating between slaves to increase inventory and brutal, long hours of field work for them, with reduced food rations to save money for other investments.
Father also spoke of our slave-owning kin with the same pride. I had always been appalled at the sin in holding others in bondage against their will, especially since we were also Black people. How was any of that brutality and objectification justified? How could I be proud of a family legacy built on such abominable cruelty?
How could I be expected to carry out the bloody legacy of enslavement through birthing children I did not want to bear in the first place?
I had not much choice but to agree to the arrangements my father had made for my adulthood security, whether I agreed with them or not. I could, however, decide I would never bear children within that union. I could also use my new circumstances to do as much as I could to improve the lives of the enslaved in my proximity. Edward had a copious inheritance. As his wife, I would have some access to those funds. Freedom for slaves required funding and I was willing to do what I must to gain those funds.
I feigned a headache and retired to my bed early on that first night, racing up the old wooden staircase with Lita, the young woman Edward had “gifted” to be my servant, following quickly behind me. I beseeched her to sit while I undressed myself, accepting her assistance only when she adamantly refused to rest. I noticed her hesitance to leave my room and recognized the return of her fear. I was certain she could feel the same emanating from me.
I made the decision to allow her to sleep in my room with me and helped her find a cot to make up for her sleep. I could not trust Edward to hold to the promise to not visit my bed until after we were married and if he did abide by it, Lita was in danger from him if she slept in the slave quarters. We both fell into troubled sleep, made only slightly less tumultuous by the relative safety we afforded one another against our common enemy.
Edward was fiercely unhappy at my actions and did not attempt to hide his feelings the next morning. The long, furtive glares he sent my way unnerved me as he performed them in utter silence. I felt his gaze burn through my bosom and settle in my womb, twisting and pinching the flesh found there until I grew increasingly more uncomfortable. Perhaps he sought to punish me through these visual assaults—I do not know.
To my surprise, he did not attempt to engage me in conversation after that first night and I took my dinners alone or with Mary and Lita. Nor did he do anything about the major change I had made to Lita’s sleeping arrangements. Instead, he seemed preoccupied with a foreign matter. His distraction emboldened me to make several more changes to the way he had previously mis-managed the house.
I asked Old John to take on the much gentler task of overseeing the stable boys, instead of him doing the same work they did, a position he could perform while sitting in the large chair Lita and I dragged outside for him. I asked Mary to allow me to help her in the kitchen sometimes so I could learn to cook. I gave little Charlotte the task of learning to read the storybooks I had packed along with me so I could take on her duties in the kitchen. I also arranged for a stipend from my own household allotment—which Edward had wordlessly assigned—to pay each one of them, with Charlotte’s going inside her hidden piggy bank, for the jobs they performed.
I had not ended slavery. I had not even emancipated the slaves in my own home. I had not begun to work on improving the plight of the field workers. Yet, I felt much better about having changed what I could as a first step.
My new duties kept me busy for long days. Once I realized I had not seen Edward much during that time, unease rose inside me. Wearing a better dress than I had taken to wearing around the house of late—in case feminine cajoling or distraction was necessary to assuage whatever further ire I might incite in him—I sought him out. His persistent gazes at me seemed to indicate lustful frustration and while I did not wish to further inflame those thoughts, I also understood I had to play my role as that of willing bride to be.
I did not welcome the thought of having him in my bed, though I knew it was part of my responsibility of being his wife. We were not yet married, however, so I would keep him at arm’s length. Such machinations might prove useful in requesting an increased household allotment so I could pay more of the people taking care of our property.
Still, my goal was not to elevate his lust any higher than required. I was still learning about contraception for when I could no longer hold off his sexual advances. I would not have any children, no matter how often he came to me.
It was difficult to remember exactly when I decided not to be bred like some animal, forced to bear and suckle young I did not need or want. I enjoyed children well enough—I simply did not want to bear any with this man or anyone else. I knew better than to voice this objection to anyone, especially my parents, who both would have died in apoplectic fits at hearing me deny them of what they deemed their God given right to be grandparents and have their familial line continued through me.
Edward had discussed our future children at length when he and Father made the arrangements for our union. I pretended to not hear the surreptitious tone raised in his voice at those times. He wanted babes desperately—I was just as desperate to not give them. I had a higher purpose.
My search for Edward took me across the expanse of the plantation. The lush soil yielded underneath my slippers and each step I took came with renewed hopelessness and desolation emanating from the ground bathed in the blood of other Black brothers and sisters who had lived and died horribly on that land. I breathed in the spring air, seeking relief—yet it was tainted by the smell of sweat and despair of those enslaved on Edward’s property. I sought to make the air truly light one day by ridding us of the plague that was slavery.
I finally came to a cabin at the edge of the plantation. Curiosity drew me into it, as I had not ventured that far on the grounds since my return as an adult. The cabin had not been there when I had visited as a child. The light from the open door fell upon a sketched form lying on the floor. My eyes adjusting to the dim light flowing into the room revealed more sketches in various positions. I located a candle and lit it so I could further my investigation.
I do so wish I had not given in to that infernal, insatiable inquisitiveness.
Before me, in various stages of completion were dozens—nay, hundreds—of grotesque sketches, each evoking feelings of sickness and dread. Violent swirls of black and red marked canvas, after canvas, designed in ways I did not immediately understand—even as they frightened me immensely. One complete drawing of a female form cast an insidious light on the other works, and I grew faint in my realization. On it were highlighted the womb and the breasts, both shown with jagged slashes marring the shapes.
The candlelight caught clay forms and bathed their surreal details in eerie revelation. Large forms shaped as wombs, small forms shaped as pairs of breasts, all serrated around the edges as if savagely torn from the bodies to which they belonged. I then comprehended the incomplete drawings for what they were—shredded pieces from the whole of those body parts. Other works depicted babes in wombs, clawing their way out—babes chewing at the bloodied breasts that suckled them.
The strange glances and stares I had grossly misinterpreted as lust became clear in that dusty cabin filled with the monstrous artwork: Edward had found a new focus for his monomania.
I fled the cabin and ran the entire way back to the main house, followed by haunted whispers grown into audible moans and admonitions for me to save myself, lest I be yet another victim fallen into bondage.
I gathered Lita, Mary, and Old John together to tell them about my macabre discovery. I did not delude myself that I had earned their complete trust in the short time I had been there—however, I beseeched them to help me do what I knew needed to be done. Lita’s eyes lit up. Old John praised God. Mary patted my hand and said she would make the first steps.
Later that evening, Edward requested to have dinner with me and arrived at the table in a sweaty, manic state. How had I not noticed how glossy his eyes had grown? How could I have overlooked the way his body twitched and danced even as he sat? I murmured platitudes when I was able to hold back the bile threatening to spew through my throat. Edward paid no attention to my discomfort. Tension boiled up and up in my chest and I gasped aloud several times when Edward started to speak disjointedly about “our” children.
Thankfully, he did not continue long because he fell too drowsy to hold his head up. Mary had, indeed, taken the first steps.
When Edward finally collapsed onto the table, Lita and Mary emerged from the kitchen with a large cloth and Old John brought four stable boys into the dining room to help us drag Edward onto the bedsheet. Moving quickly through the night, a forbidden band of ghosts travelling through the sighs and whispers of older ghosts, we arrived at the defiled cabin. Old John had spent the afternoon setting up a different type of artistic space for our endeavors.
We lay Edward on the floor, fastening the shackles that were built into the floor of the cabin. We barely had time to make sure they were tightened before Edward began to wake. His gaze filled with fury as he realized his situation. He began to laugh frenetically, loud maniacal bursts of noise free of humor. Before he could form any words, I grabbed the serrated blade Old John had thoughtfully lain out and stabbed at Edwards mouth. In the aftermath of his shock, I forced the blade into his mouth and cut his tongue out in a jagged swipe.
Lita cut his trousers off with another knife and viciously removed his penis with exaggerated motions, leaving uneven ripples of flesh around the gaping wound. Old John sat slowly on the floor next to Edward and relished in slowly and unevenly sawing at his tormentor’s foot with a large rusty serrated blade. Mary held Edward’s leg down to allow the older man his due.
I removed one of his ears. Spurred on by the hate in his eyes, I removed the other, taking great care to leave irregular cut patterns. Edward passed out after the second one. Mary and Lita and I helped Old John remove most of Edward’s other leg, just above the knee. Mary tied off the stump to prevent him from bleeding out. We then went to work on his arms.
When our task was completed, the three of us surveyed our handiwork. The white of the sheet, dark red of his blood, and the black of his skin matched the color scheme of the other oddities—of his creation—in the same room. Blood flowed copiously through the cloths we applied but Edward would remain alive. He would be unable to speak or move around unassisted, but he should not expire unless we deemed it so at some later point—a certain event to occur at an undetermined time after I secured the means we all desperately needed from him.
Most importantly, he would not be able to hurt anyone else ever again.
We returned Edward to the house after a day or so when we were relatively sure he would not develop an infection—which also happened to be after I severed the nerves in his eyelids and his neck to prevent him from communicating effectively to anyone else. I had likely destroyed more than only those nerves in what was left of his body—no matter, as he only had to remain alive until after our nuptials. I sent a stable boy into town to alert the authorities and doctor that a terrible accident had befallen my betrothed.
He had been found in the woods alongside our property, the apparent victim of a vicious animal attack. Just look at the jagged and frayed edges of flesh that remained! I apologize. I feel extremely faint when I must gaze upon the wounds. I swoon! Yes, it is a pity what happened to him. No, he does not seem able to communicate with anyone except me. He will need lifetime care. I am insulted at the mere hint of the idea that I no longer wish to marry him! We will marry immediately. Of course, I, his betrothed, will take excellent care of him. I weep for the babes I will not be able to nurture alongside my beloved. Alas, it was not meant to be for our union. I will find my fulfilment in caring for him, alone. No, I do not require any additional help—Edward has left our estate in perfect order and the accounts hold an excess of funds to continue the management of our plantation and household for many years to come. Edward and I would live together on his family estate until our final days—he, my singular focus—of course, outside my immediate freeing of our slaves and hiring those who were willing to work at fair wages. I, the singular focus of his enduring nightmare with no legacy to pass on other than that of having to watch, silently, as the household progressed without his influence—and never knowing when or how his ultimate and imminent end at my own hand would come.
Originally published in NIGHTLIGHT: A Horror Fiction Podcast (2023)
