| (UNTITLED PREQUEL) |
| You see me now a grandam of this shadowy manor; tho', as a child, I once illumed these halls with my sprightly manner. My mother was a lady, level-headed and demure, unlike her iniquitous siblings, who were sanguine to be sure. She doted on me shamelessly, her only joy and child, allowing me to run about like some savage wild. She was an avid reader, inclining to the bizarre, reading strange indictments from ancient cultures far. She chanced upon a tome one day, which changed her life for good, turning her towards witchery, and away from motherhood. Aunt Lucretia came to stay, and take her under wing, whereupon she taught her many facinorous things. She putrified her mind with lies and turned her loving heart to welter basely in a life affused by ebon art. My father was a pious man, a papist born and raised (how he and mother came to wed still has me amazed). Hearing once Lucretia's words, father yelled and swore if she did not desist at once, he'd show her to the door. "Woman, with your idle talk, opening your hearts for evil influx to make house and corrupt ev'ry part. "Do you not fear the Lord," he cried "and tremble at His name? For if you turn your back on Him, you cede your soul to flame!" After father's outburst, dour Lucretia knew first, foremost and upmost, what she had to do. She followed father down the hall, and crept into his study and when she left him, shortly thence, her face was flush and ruddy. "Do not venture in there child, your father is not well; he's gotten so enraged with pique, that on his knife he fell." I could not comprehend her words, their logic sorely lacking. I ran straight through the study door to find a scene most shocking: father lay upon the floor amidst a sea of blood, draining with my innocence, imbruing my childhood. Islands of jequirity within a crimson sea, remnants of my fallen father's broken rosary. Nestled in the corse's hand, I spied a bantam blade, tho' its fingers did not gripe upon the hilt of jade. I knew at once, this quietus came not from his hand, and vowed that to my cutthroat aunt requital I'd remand. My mother, inconsolable, retreated to her books, as well as to her laudanum, which frequently she took. She stayed in bed for days on end, refusing company. My father gone, and now my mother lost as well to me. She slept her way through most of the day, and stayed awake all night. Studying her book of shadows by a candle light. My aunt usurped her role as dame of our family estate, charging the servants and the staff like a potentate. "How can I stop this vile shrew?" I muttered to myself, and found my answer in a grimoire from my mother's shelf. I stole out to a crossroad, as per the book's command, to make a midnight offering of blood from my left hand. Then there appeared a woman fair, yet of sinistrous mein. Cloaked in darkness, bearing light, which lit the dreadful scene. Around her person fearsome hounds grimly teemed and growled, as, in the distance, I discerned the screeching of an owl. From fear I froze, tho' my blood flowed, goading her approach, and to my circle's outer rim, menaciously encroached. stopping at the safeguard's edge, she looked me in the eye. Demanding I explain myself, or be prepared to die. Mustering my courage and remembering my oath, I bade assistance in the death of she that I did loathe. She condescended to my plea, but at a nefast price; that at next full moon, I was to bring an human sacrifice. She charged me then to find the thing Lucretia loved the best, then vanished with her hellish hounds to their infernal rest. After dressing up my wound, I hastened to the manse, in vain hope of procuring my mother's compliance. She cared not for her sister's sins, and even less for me, and vowed on me she'd place a hex if I'd not let her be. Lachrymosely leaving my mother to her books, spasmodically sobbing, my burthened shoulders shook. Plodding past the servamt's room, I heard Lucretia's maid. In claver rapt, she noticed not, I hearkened what she said. Lucretia had a paramour, of whom his gillie did say, could be distracted any time a maiden passed his way. |