Candle in the Attic Window(67)

And I am sure that, for a time – a continual epoch, perhaps, if only days or weeks, while I ate the hemp I wore and drank whatever moisture I splashed through– I will agree that I was insane.




When I came to ... which is to say, when I remember thinking clearly again ... I was in the bed of a well-lit room. The soft lips of a woman were pressed, cupping and lovingly over my mouth. The scent of roses and potent oriental blossom cradled me.

The Lady de Siverey sat over me, a smile of softness upon her face.

I shut my eye, afraid of the horrors attacking once more, afraid of the consequence of my sin of kissing a woman’s mouth.

When I looked again, she was standing near the open door of the room. “Well done, Jacques de Ronnay. Now, go, and do thou likewise.”

I told you before that I never saw her again. I am not sure that I did even then. For I wept and studied the door through which she might have passed. It was tightly shut, as if it had never opened to admit her. Perhaps this was my troubled mind and nothing more. Perhaps I have still never touched a woman so and am therefore clean before all the Saints and Mother Mary.

I assure you that I am now quite rational. Likewise, I know that I shall run and hide for the rest of my life.

I never laid eyes on that skull again, though I know I carried it for as long as my memory will replay. I also lost the map.

Yet, my story must go forth.

There are people, humans on the errands of nasty fools prancing as educated,, who would have us nurture and protect ancient secrets, as if to harness them in some future day or be harnessed by them as servants in reverence to unholy and alien gods.

Please. In holy houses and elsewhere, copy this letter. It must be shared with all. It is my testimony that this witness is correct in every account and that Man must know. These secrets cannot be trusted with the uncouth soul any longer. And you need look over your shoulder and into the night, forevermore.






Jim Blackstone is a scholar, educator, and writer with a passion for foreign languages and history. His most recent science fiction novel, Interference, was recently released by Golden Acorn Press.





Broken Notes





By Maria Mitchell



Broken notes, anemic strokes,

and withered snakes of wire

Incited the fear. The frenzy. The fire.

What was the reason?

What was the threat?

What horror was so dire?

Dust. Distortion. Solitude.

The truth of this room without

artistic interlude.

Rust. Contortion. Ineptitude.

The truth of this mind

without artistic interlude.

One hand can do many things

while the mind and horror sing.






Maria Mitchell read the poem “We Organized” from Patricia McKissack’s compendium The Dark Thirty in elementary school. Compiled from actual slave narratives by the Library of Congress in the 1930s, it had a vivid imagery of tyranny, slavery, Gothic horror, and retribution that motivates much of her poetry today.





Ghosts & Death





“There are two bodies – the rudimental and the complete; corresponding with the two conditions of the worm and the butterfly. What we call “death”, is but the painful metamorphosis. Our present incarnation is progressive, preparatory, temporary. Our future is perfected, ultimate, immortal. The ultimate life is the full design.”





“The Mesmeric Revelation”, Edgar Allan Poe





The Malcontents





By Mary E. Choo





Curious,

I planted the seedlings

just as the catalogue said:

on the stroke of midnight,

in late spring,

when it was more than warm.





They did well enough

in that part of the garden

behind the secret gate.

Some rose as high as my shoulder,

their lush leaves unfolding.

I was delighted at first

when they all sprouted heads

with succulent eyes and mouths.





Still, if it rained during summer,

they were quick to complain

about pests and blight.

Most grew feet

at the base of their stems

and wanted to walk;

shocked, I refused,

though I cried when I cut their feet off.





As the weather grew colder,

they challenged the frost,

demanding blankets;

if smaller, their feet did grow back.

Damp and shrivelling,

they began to whisper behind my back,

so I heaped them with cuttings

and latched them in,

hoping they’d die.





One winter night,

I could hear them plotting

in their hidden place,

the uneven tread

of small, softened feet,





and on the chill air,

sudden as the snapping of twigs,

their louder voices, angry,

calling me Mother …





the rusted gate hinge