Girl Desecrated 1984: Vampires Asylums and Highlanders Read online

  GIRL DESECRATED

  Vampires, Asylums and Highlanders 1984

  Cheryl R Cowtan

  CHERYL R COWTAN

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Virginia Colony: A Dark Heritage

  Chapter 1: Colonial Unrest

  Chapter 2: The Lure of Donald

  Atlantic Ocean: The Scent of Menses

  Chapter 3: Speak of the Devil

  Jamestown: The Predator’s Carnal Rule

  Chapter 4: Attempted Escapes

  Chapter 5: Highlander Invasion

  Jamestown Fort: Training the Tongue

  Chapter 6: Gazelle Tripping

  Chapter 7: Tongue Twisted Truths

  Jamestown: Human Pairing

  Chapter 8: Gilding the Heart

  Jamestown: Cain of Arran’s Field

  Chapter 9: Calling on His Name

  Chapter 10: Recordings of the Dead

  Chapter 11: Asylum Adventures

  Chapter 12: Sentinels and Watchmen

  The Virginia Wilds: The Powhatan Alibi

  Chapter 13: Adam’s Reach

  Chapter 14: All Roads Lead to Rome

  The German Ocean: He Who Let Her Out

  Chapter 15: A Gentleman’s Kiss

  Chapter 16: Blood Makes the Line

  Chapter 17: Lies Beneath the Leaves

  Chapter 18: Ancient Readings

  Chapter 19: The Lion’s Crouch

  Chapter 20: Like Flies on Honey

  Chapter 21: Cathouse Competition

  Chapter 22: Ravine Runaway

  Chapter 23: Séance with Mr. Spiritoe

  Chapter 24: Harvest Preparations

  Chapter 25: The Price of Eggs

  Chapter 26: Shadow Watcher

  Chapter 27: The True Self Revealed

  Chapter 28: Cain Lives Within Us All

  Chapter 29: It is Not the Heart, but the Flow

  Chapter 30: Life is a Feeble Gamble

  Chapter 31: Spies and their Lies

  Chapter 32: Surrender to Survive

  Chapter 33: Scarlett Appropriates my Face

  Chapter 34: The Firebird Burns Away

  Chapter 35: Duty is the Dagger

  Words from the AuthorDeepen Your Read

  Pretty Please for Reviews

  Dedications

  How Did the Novel Evolve?

  Image Copyrights

  Author Bio

  Book II: Master of Madhouse: Free Chapter: Queen Checks the Mate

  1 PETER 5 KING JAMES VERSION (KJV)

  8 Be sober,

  be vigilant;

  because your adversary

  the devil,

  as a roaring lion,

  walketh about, seeking

  whom he may devour.

  Copyright © 2016 Cheryl R Cowtan

  Cover design by Cheryl R Cowtan

  Cover images by Subbotina and PhotoMaximum © Canstock Inc.

  Literary Editor Dania Lynne

  Copy Editor Donna J Warner

  All rights reserved. If you wish to use brief quotations for media coverage, reviews or literary analysis, please use proper citation format and include my personal web site link at cherylcowtan.com. This book may not be reproduced or distributed in any form without the author’s permission. Thanks for understanding and supporting authors by complying with copyright laws.

  Written in Canada.

  ISBN 9780978088910

  Please visit the author at

  http://www.cherylcowtan.com

  Disclaimer

  All persons in this novel are fake.

  Fake, I tell you!

  True fakers.

  Fake products of my imagination.

  Names of locations, and my efforts to recreate the 1980s, are used in a fictitious manner, and are not meant to represent the company, actual setting, or current physical business practices of any property or person.

  VIRGINIA COLONY: A DARK HERITAGE

  ~

  ALTHOUGH SCARLETT WAS DEAD, I was convinced she would open her beautiful eyes and pierce me with a dark glare of sinful desire. May God forgive me, in some deceitful corner of my corrupt soul, I desperately wanted her to. And that is why I had to entrust her to the guard of others the night before her burial.

  The carriage wheels tore ruts in the wet earth with a loud sloshing noise, as they brought me ever forward to the place Scarlett would be laid to rest for eternity. We passed through the cemetery’s black iron gates, and though my hands started to sweat as we approached the gravesite, my eyes remained dry, for I had buried my tears with my soul.

  The wheels slowed, and my heart withered, a neglected fruit that would never again sweeten, now that my love was dead.

  Without waiting for the footman to open the carriage door, I alighted, and then handed my daughter down from the carriage. She stepped gingerly into the turned mud. She looked down with delight at the rainwater squelching up in bubbles around the bottoms of her leather button boots.

  She was too young to truly understand our loss, and she was too old to hold in my arms. Yet, I wanted nothing more than to clutch her against me as we faced the burial of her mother.

  I risked a glance toward the grave. A magnolia tree spread its leathery green leaves above the ground where my love would be laid to rest. I could not see the gaping hole dug around the tree’s roots for my neighbours stood in a ring around it. Shoulder to shoulder, like trunks they stood, their funeral clothes blending together to create an imposing wall of social judgement. But they were no better than I, or my love, for the toes of their shoes ringed the same fate that awaits us all.

  I drew in a lungful of the humid air, hoping to add fortitude to my waning courage. I had to be strong. Every man and woman in our fair community was here to witness my grief, some with satisfaction, and some with relief. No matter their purpose, all would gather an accounting of the events here today, to be relayed at future balls and parlour teas, as a comeuppance for my betrayal in marrying an outsider.

  I clasped my daughter’s gloved hand in my own, and made my way forward. They watched us approach, not in silence, but without welcome or gesture to make it easier. The soft humming of their murmurs was for their ears only. The only other sound in the graveyard was the soft plops of the last raindrops, and the mud sucking at our boots.

  There was no place for us at the edge of the maw, but I walked on, my chin high, my eyes resting on each face before moving to the next. I would not let them make me feel an outsider at my own wife’s funeral.

  Then to my surprise, the left and right flanks tightened to make space for us in their circle. It was a small sign, but one that brought me hope for the future acceptance of my little girl.

  Silence hung. I should have spoken a few words, but the sight of the slender coffin at the edge of the grave turned my thoughts into cold, sluggish clay. I released my daughter’s hand and wiped my palms down the front of my thighs.

  My woollen pants were much rougher than the memory of the smooth-grained wood of the coffin. I had rubbed the grain soft with walnut oil until it shone, each stroke a loving apology to the woman inside.

  The magnolia tree’s branches had protected the wood well from the morning rain. Only a spattering of drops shimmered on the little oval window, not enough to obscure the view of Scarlett’s face within. Her splendour was framed as if she were a painting hanging above the mantel, instead of a lifeless woman being viewed for the last time.

  In contrast to the dark grain of the coffin, her skin shone alabaster white, unflawed and as smooth as marble. And her mouth… My fingers twitched to trace those lips that were still full and dark like wine.
Closing my eyes, the memory of her lips on mine caused a heady rush. Soft… as soft as rose petals against my skin. My loins warmed beneath my funeral pants, jolting me to an awareness of my surroundings with a horrific sense of shame.

  Gritting my teeth, I contemplated the magnolia’s grey trunk to defuse my passion. It was dark from rivulets of rain. The trunk was as much a betrayer as her lips. For it too took me back to the recent past. This tree had been a silent witness to my hands gripping the bark above Scarlett’s hair as I had turned her mouth into a little circle of surprise with my heated thrusts.

  Someone coughed delicately into their kerchief. My blood started at the sound. I did not want to be existing in this place, yet I must. I must hold together for the service. I must stay alive, face life without Scarlett.

  I shifted my stance to hide my flush from the prying eyes of those ladies best known in the community for their chin-waggin’.

  “Je-sus!” Pastor Smith’s voice boomed with exuberance.

  All eyes turned expectantly to the pastor who was finally prying open his Bible with soft hands.

  “Jesus Oh Lord, we do not ask for your forgiveness, but thank you for your guid-ance.”

  His meaty jaws snapped on the syllables causing his chin to quiver above his white collar.

  “We do not ask you for your blessing, but thank you for your clemency, for we are but sheep in your colossal flock, and we are often tempted to wander astray.”

  A few murmurs of agreement caressed the warming air, but I could not join in with true repentance. The Lord’s name had shaken loose from my faith, driven out by the depraved trail I had embarked on with Scarlett.

  The loss of my soul rattled the ragged sobs lodged deep in my chest, threatening to thrust my grief out through my tight lips.

  “And thank you, Oh Lord, for the good book which tells us to be sober, be vigilant, when faced with the roaring lion. Today, we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.”

  I was not the only man to darken my brow with a frown at the pastor’s choice of words. Skirt hems whispered at the edge of the yawning grave as the womenfolk shifted against his unconventional sermon.

  “Jes-us! Luke wrote of how you healed Mary of Magdalene of seven devils.” He held up five fingers, for the fingers on his other hand were holding steady his black, leather-bound book. “Seven! Oh Je-sus, Our Lord. Seven evil spirits and infirmities!”

  The sun’s golden rays broke through a misty cloud and brushed the grey stone shoulders marking the dead. I could have chosen a spot in the open grass for Scarlett’s burial. I would have, if Ebba had not warned me of the need for tree-root binding. Ebba with his voodoo tales, which seemed conclusive considering all we had survived.

  Still, I had to wonder what would happen if I ignored Ebba’s frantic advice, if I buried Scarlett under the carpet of green. Would she dig her way through the warm earth to roam wild under the night sky? Over time, would her flesh slip from her bones as she scoured the villages?

  A shudder coursed through me at the thought. I was thankful I’d had the foresight to listen to the man, as he, Ebba had stuttered his way through slaughtered English to swear the magnolia roots would hold Scarlett’s impaired soul fast within the earth. It was on his advice, I had selected the base of the only tree in the cemetery for her everlasting rest.

  It had been a crude business, standing side-by-side with my overseer, as my finest field hands dug carefully around the base of the trunk, digging and refilling until they had exposed a cradle among the roots big enough for my darling.

  The looks the ladies now cast at the stark hole affirmed what I already knew. It was in poor taste to have the grave lying open for the service, but I could not walk away until I was sure Scarlett was tucked securely beneath the tree. And then I could never come back, for I could not trust myself not to dig her out with my bare hands.

  “Jesus, as it is written in the Scriptures of Mark, we know this kind cannot be driven out by anything but prayer, and so we will we pray! Oh Lord! How we will pray…”

  I removed my hat, pressing it tight against my chest waiting to follow his words of devotion. But, the silence dragged on and finally, it came to my mind that Pastor Smith was not pausing for effect. He had stopped speaking.

  His mouth gaped without words, his voice stuck somewhere behind his bobbing Adam’s apple. The good book trembled in his hands adding to my unease.

  Suddenly afraid the pastor had seen the unthinkable, I cut my glance to the coffin to note the angle of Scarlett’s chin. The leaf-dappled sunlight cast new shadows on her cheek, and I was unexpectedly unsure, thinking her head had shifted slightly. From where I stood, it was difficult to see through the partially reflecting coffin window, but I squinted, searching for any moisture on the inside of the glass to prove she still breathed. The longer the moment held, the more chills crept along my arms, little tickles of fear suckling on my anticipation of her rising.

  One of the men standing by the grave’s edge cleared his throat. I tore my gaze from the coffin and searched for the sound. It was my cousin, Zebadiah. He stood like me. All the men stood like me, with their black hats in their hands, heads lowered to hide their thoughts from the women. Their features were adjusted with appropriate lines of grief, but the tension had moved through their shoulders like a string yanking them upright into a watchful stance.

  Zebadiah gave me a meaningful look beneath his black brows. He knew. All the men knew we had to get Scarlett into the ground before the day wore on. Ebba had said night must find her in the wooden embrace of the magnolia.

  I addressed the pastor, my deep baritone rumbling with emotion, “Good man, please continue”.

  He jolted out of his reverie, and his voice broke through the tension, higher in pitch than before.

  “Lord God…” He blinked the sweat from his eyes. “Lord God, you spared not the angels that sinned. You cast them down into fiery hell, to the chains of darkness to wait for judgment day.”

  The magnolia roots had to be the chains of darkness around Scarlett, for the Lord had not rescued us. We had been left to our own devices to deal with this unearthly occurrence. And like all men below God, we had made mistakes.

  During the digging, a main root had been scored by the shovel, and I worried the tree would weaken and die. I had had a mind to cut the throat of the slave who had let the shovel’s blade slip, for if the tree died, then what would hold Scarlett down? I had almost convinced myself to commit the careless slave to the earth alongside of her, when I recognized the sense of influence, that familiar shadow of compulsion persuading me. I can’t be sure it was Scarlett ensuring she would have an eternal servant to see to her everlasting needs. For if I put him down, she would not be alone in the earth, and the thought comforted me. And the slave’s body would provide the nutrients the tree needed to thrive and repair the score, ensuring its survival.

  Oh, yes, my logic, whether mine alone, or tethered to her will to survive even past her demise, had almost been the death of one of my best field workers.

  An Indigo Bunting let out a trill, a cheery song, reminding me of better days, of hope and happiness and all the lofty promises a blue canary can sing about.

  I searched within myself for the man I once was.

  That man, I once was, did not enact lascivious activities with women, or so easily cut another’s throat. That man would never have listened to the words of Ebba, much less have given credit to his voodoo superstitions from the Dark Continent. Before Scarlett, the slaves’ mumbo jumbo had never made my eyes water in fear.

  That man I once was, I must endeavor to become again. I would have to learn to be content to be part of one world only—this world. I had to forget that other world of pleasure and temptation for it was the path to hell, and yes, I believed that now. After what I had been through with Scarlett, I believed in the unfathomable world of spirits. I
accepted the immoral and vigorous malevolence of Satan and his sycophants. And it would be Ebba’s mumbo jumbo that would save us all.

  The pastor’s next words pulled me from my thoughts with apprehension.

  “Lord forgive us for we had fellowship with the devil,” he said, his voice sunken to a whine worthy of a helpless ninny.

  I spoke his name roughly, drowning out the distressed whispers of the ladies. Pastor Smith jumped at my reprimand and raised his bleak eyes to mine. His head shook at the end of his neck like a bone rattle, but the good man heeded my warning, slowly closing his Bible.

  Our moral shepherd did not have the religious constitution needed to provide salvation for any of us who’d had a hand in this tragic event. We had put on the armour of God, and there was no undoing what we had done. My faith, my belief in myself as a good citizen, everything I had thought was truth was scattered to the wind, and no one on this earth could put that to rights. Things weren’t as simple as living and dying. I understood that now.

  “Let us pray.” Pastor Smith lowered his head, as did the rest of us.