The Complete Collection (8 page)

Chapter 13

Hope is such a foolish thing.

Afraid of the punishment, my husband disappeared after his
crime.

He is a coward who attacks men braver and stronger than him,
from behind, in the dark.

He is a weakling who allows his wife to be abused by his
mother, and who cowardly takes part in that abuse.

My husband’s mother is happy about the Blacksmith’s demise—happy about my obvious pain.

I cradle my son protectively.

I have nowhere to go now.

Men came from the village to dig a hole in the yard, but
they left it at that.

With my son close by, I buried his father.

Shovel.

Dirt.

Shovel.

Dirt.

Burying my future.

Burying my love.

Burying my dreams of a family.

No!

I moan.

The baby gurgles, unaware as his mother climbs into the dirt
to embrace his dead father one last time.

I cling to the Blacksmith’s cold body, cover myself with
dirt.

I remember our first night, so long ago, when he tried to
clean his sooty touch from my skin.

And here I am now, filthy in the dirt of his grave.

I want the dirt. I want the filth.

My tears leave a muddy mess on my face.

No.

Patience, Jessie.

I gasp. The trees whisper.

I look at his lifeless body.

Patience….

The spring wind whispers.

Ok. I’ll try.

We will be together again.

We have to be.

But as the Blacksmith disappears further and further under
each painstaking shovel of dirt, patience is not what I feel.

Pain
.

Pain is what I feel.

And this is only the beginning.

Chapter 14

The
Blacksmith returns to me.

For the first time, he is at the
foot of my bed.

I am not afraid.

I am not surprised.

I do not ask questions.

Our son sleeps soundly as I rush
to him.

He holds my shoulders tightly.

He sees my face, damp with tears.
He takes my face in his hands and licks the path of my tear down my cheek.

The Blacksmith pushes the straps
of my linen nightdress off my shoulders.

I have nothing at all to hide from
him now — my heart and my body are fully his. I am not afraid.

He pushes me back onto the narrow
bed.

He has lost some of the tenderness
in his hands.

And I have lost my need for it.

The taste of my tears seems to
have awakened a deeper hunger in him.

He can taste my overflowing
mother’s milk, my painful need.

His movements now are strong, are
fire.

Hard, fast.

We evolve into our new season
together, one of loss and pain.

Of fear of the future.

Of trust.

He swallows my piercing cries and
our tongues embrace.

My fingers dig under his cotton
shirt and my nails scratch his back. I, too, wish to be baptized by his blood,
by his body. His fingers wind deeply into my long hair and pull, hard. I
welcome the pain.

I wish to be split in two by the
rough cut of a dagger and spun into a sky of twinkling tears, weightless.

In the silence he holds me
tightly.

We listen to our baby breathe.

Then he pulls away from me.

No.

His eyes hold mine.

Patience.

Patience.

I trust him.

And sleep.

Chapter 15

I know my son is dead before I even
feel his pitiful chest.

This time, I don’t scream.

I have no screams left.

I wake to a room that is too bright and silent. It is too
late in the day.

There is no movement. No sound.

I was stupid.

I slept like the dead.

And now my son is dead.

The old woman is at my door.

“Now, look what you have done,” she says.

My rage and pain render me incapable of speech.

She laughs and leaves.

I stand over my son’s cradle, now empty of life.

I gently lift his small, motionless body into my arms. My
breasts still burst with his milk.

Shhhhhhh
, I whisper to my baby.

As I have done so many times, I take my child to the rocking
chair.

And I rock.

Matthew, baptized by his father’s blood, is anointed in
death by his mother’s tears.

I sing my son into his new sleep, a sleep I hope to join
soon.

Rock.
Creak
.

Rock.
Creak
.

Rock.
Creak
.

Moon cradle…

I sing. The sound of the rocking chair comforts me.

Patience
.

I have lost my loves.

Hope is a foolish thing.

Patience, Jessie.

I stop my chair.

I don’t…

I listen. Listen to whispers. Think about our light. And our
darkness.

And I begin to understand.

My husband’s mother returns to taunt me, but stops herself
at the door to watch her daughter-in-law rock a dead baby.

I turn to the old woman and when she sees my face, whatever
words are on her tongue freeze.

I am smiling.

She backs away slowly.

I may be out of screams.

But she isn’t.

Isn’t that right, baby?

I sing.

Isn’t that right?

I bury Matthew next to his father.

Digging is easier this time, so while I’m there I dig one
more.

For me.

I no longer wish to leave this house. I cannot leave my loves
here.

I want to stay here forever.

The old woman is a little bit afraid.

I am enjoying it.

This is just the beginning.

I make my way to the village. Walking takes a long, long
time.

I am not strong enough to ride a horse, but the walking
feels good.

I visit a small house on the outskirts of the village, one
that many avoid.

Not me.

Today, the woman who lives there and I share our secret
wishes and darkness with one another.

She chooses carefully for me — the herbs must work
— the liquid will be painful.

But I am not afraid of pain. Pain runs through my veins.

I am one with it. This is who I am. I am changed.

Later, I bring the parcel to my room and mix some of the
ingredients with warm water.

My husband’s mother is curious, concerned.

Good.

I swallow the poison and lie on my bed, clutching the
remaining herbs in my hand.

She comes to my door.

“What are you doing?” she says.

“Dying,” I say.

Now it is her turn to smile.

“Finally,” she says.

As I drift off she taunts me with the empty cradle, rocking
it back and forth to confuse and torture me.

She will pay.

Patience, Jessie.

Yes, love.

I’m coming.

I turn to see his silhouette in the yard.

Through the agonizing pain slicing my stomach in two, I
grin.

He’s waiting.

I wretch and moan.

She watches and waits.

“Stupid girl,” she says.

“Where’s my baby?” I say.

I am confused.

“You killed it,” she says.

“You did!” I cry.

She laughs.

With those last taunting words, her face is near mine.

And as the witch in the village instructed, I hold tightly
to the special herbs and draw upon my hatred.

Eyes to eyes, I am dying.

She is stunned by the fire and darkness she sees in me. She
stumbles back a bit.

“Wait,” I whisper.

Outside, the spring wind whispers my name to the trees. I am
finally one with them.

Jessie…

Chapter 17

We watch from here.

Now, I see everything.

I watch the old woman hire men from the village to bury me
in the hole I dug for myself.

Perhaps she is scared of my last cursed breath.

As she should.

She arranges to have proper headstones mark our places of
rest.

She can’t bring herself to use Matthew’s name so his just
says “baby.”

The Blacksmith reaches for my face and turns it from the
graves.

I place Matthew in a tuft of grass where he is comfortable
and the Blacksmith takes me in his arms.

His lifts me in the air. Our kiss is like the sun.

I watch the old woman shuffle back to the house, looking
behind her; uneasy.

I look into his eyes.

Is it time yet?

He shakes his head.

I smile and look after the old woman.

Soon…

Suddenly, she stops.

The wind whistling through the trees sounded like a word…

Didn’t it?

Soon.

She shudders and shakes it off, tells herself not to think
such silly thoughts.

But still makes sure to lock the door behind her.

Chapter 18

The old woman sits in the quiet
house alone, sipping a cup of tea.

She has aged in the last few days.

She can’t shake this feeling of uneasiness. Alone, but not.

There is something else here.

In the distance, three gravestones keep watch.

She did feel some regret for the baby, but that moment
passed soon enough.

The little wretch deserved it, as did that useless girl.

She took her in, gave her a roof overhead, fed her, and
then…

Repaid how?

With a betrayal. Engaging in such shameful behavior, with a
common blacksmith no less…

An embarrassment.

What choice did she have?

The baby was asleep when she smothered it.

It was probably the best thing for the child.

Still, she misses her son. And the next winter will be hard
with no help.

Perhaps she could hire someone from the town.

But wait.

“What is that noise?” she says to no one.

The noise is coming from upstairs.

Rock.
Creak
.

Rock.
Creak
.

Rock.
Creak
.

It’s the rocking chair
, she thinks.

But it can’t be.

A chill runs down the old woman’s spine.

“Who’s there?” she whispers.

Rock. Creak.

Rock. Creak.

Rock. Creak.

Hesitantly, the old woman makes her way up to the room, the
one that has been locked since Jessie’s death.

The rocking chair keeps rocking.

Her bitter heart races. The girl tricked her. Fooled her
with some magic into thinking she was dead.

She’s not so dead after all.

The cane is gripped tightly in her hand. She once taught the
girl respect with this cane. She would be happy to do it again.

Gladly.

She reaches the door and finds herself too terrified to open
it. The rocker is still slowly creaking, back and forth.

She pounds on the door with her cane.

“Who’s there!” she cries.

The rocker abruptly stops.

The key is in her hand, but she can’t bring herself to use
it.

Though it pains her back, she leans down to peer through the
keyhole.

On the other side of the hole there is an eye staring back
at her.

She tries to catch her breath, move quickly down the stairs.

And then she realizes the eye on the other side of the door
wasn’t brown.

It was the tiny, pale blue eye of the infant.

She screams.

And screams.

* * *

Later, the old woman returns to the
room and blocks off the lock to the door with a sticky pitch. The key will
never work now. No one can get in.

Or out.

She worries she might be losing her mind.

To settle her nerves, she does something she hasn’t done in
decades:

She opens a bottle of Irish whiskey left behind by her son,
and drinks a glass straight.

She can feel the alcohol burn through her body, and allows
herself the luxury to think that the earlier sighting was her imagination
— a hallucination, raised by stress.

Despite this, she sleeps uneasily.

She tosses and turns.

Her dreams are merciless.

She finds herself wandering the yard in darkness, clouds
suffocating the light of the moon like pillows.

The grass is cold on her feet.

In the distance, she can hear the creak of the rocking
chair.

This time, she follows the noise.

Rock.
Creak
.

Rock.
Creak
.

Whispers in the trees tickle the back of her neck.

She makes no sound as she stumbles on, her cane loosing its
footing on the uneven ground.

The sound draws her.

Closer.

Her aging, creaky heart aches with fear.

Hitting a stray root, she stumbles and falls at the foot of
a tree.

The tree is the source of the noise.

Looking up, she sees her son swinging from a branch.

Her dear son. Hanging by the neck.

Under the weight of his dead body, the branch moans and
groans a refrain:

Rock.
Creak
.

Rock.
Creak
.

“No!”
she cries.

She sees her son’s dead eyes, open, and her breathing stops
in her throat.

His stiffened lips forming dead words.

“Wait…” he whispers.

The old woman moves her aching joints, wrenches her body
backward and away from the corpse of her son.

A shadow stretches across the moon.

She turns, frightfully, to look.

Jessie stands behind the graves:

Four graves, but one empty.

She is waiting.

“I’ve gotten good at digging your filthy holes.”

She raises the shovel high over her head.

* * *

The old woman wakes in terror,
screaming.

She is relieved, vows to stay away from that dirty whiskey.

Then she hears a noise in the darkness.

Her nightmares have come alive in me.

“That’s not all I’ve gotten good at.”

My smile is as sharp as the cleaver in my hand, which I
found exactly where I had left it.

I hold it high, and swing it down.

I cut her scream in half.

I smile and look up out the window, not bothering to wipe
the blood from my face.

I can’t see him in the shadows, but I know he is smiling,
too.