Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/2199192.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage
  Category:
      Other
  Fandom:
      Original_Work
  Stats:
      Published: 2014-08-25 Chapters: 5/? Words: 6430
****** House of the Setting Sun ******
by lordetargaryen
***** Chapter 1 *****
I remember the spark of Momma’s downfall as if it was just yesterday.  My
family lived deep within the heart of Georgia, and the year was 1952.  We lived
on a little farm on the edge of Mt. Vernon, where there was little to see but
all farms and maybe a church or two.  I was six years old, and my bedroom was
right next to Momma and Father’s room.  Elroy slept in my room, in a little cot
in the corner.  He was just a little baby, and hardly more than two moons old.
 Momma told me that he slept there to make sure that someone was keeping an eye
on him when she couldn’t hear him.  I don’t know why she wouldn’t be able to
hear him, because he was loud.  Father called him “Lucifer” when he was bad,
and Mother just called him “Darling.”
Father was a fierce drinker with the temperament of an old dog.  Nobody messed
with him, unless they were white.  Not even Father was dumb enough to mess with
a white man.  If you were black, though, and you messed with him while he was
drunk, he would beat you down to a mash, and I was scared of him.  
Father never hit me more than twice a week.  He told me, “Althea, you’re a
flower and we can’t let you bruise.”  He would then dress me up in dresses for
church and he’d sometimes kiss me on my mouth.  I didn’t like it when he did
that, but I thought that all fathers were supposed to do that, so I said
nothing.
Sometimes I could hear Father hurting Momma in the middle of the night.  I
think Momma tried to cover her mouth to stop her screams, but it wasn’t good
enough.   I could always hear her cries.  She would emerge from her bedroom in
the morning with bruises blossoming under her dark skin, and sometimes I could
smell the blood on the underneath of her nightgown, and I knew that my father
had been hurting her.  I never called him “Daddy,”, he was always “Father” to
me, and I didn’t even like calling him that.
I reckon Elroy sleeps in my room to get away from daddy.  Momma never did want
him to spoil.
I was laying awake in my bed like I always did, and I was just watching the
mosquitos buzz along the corners of the room.  It was July, and summers in
Georgia are always hot and buggy.  The air is thick and hard to swallow, and
the bugs make it hard to see in the dark.  My hair grew when the heat came, and
I never could get cool with my mess of nappy dark curls acting like furnace
upon my head.
I was beginning to drift off to sleep when I heard Elroy beginning to cry.  I
could hear the squeak of the floorboards in the other room, and I knew that if
I laid still enough, Momma would just take care of Elroy.  I closed my eyes and
held my breath, turning to my side to feign sleep.
There was a crash and momma cried out, and I thought that I could hear her
tumble to the floor.  There was thud.
“He’s been crying off and on for two damn months!” Father shouted, and I could
hear him slap my mother upside the face.  He was drunk, and I was laying flat
to the bed.  If he could beat Momma, he could beat me just as well.
“James!  He is just a baby!” my mother shouted in a quivering voice.
“That child is the devil, Deloris, and you know it!” he retaliated and mother
was hit, again.  
I bit back a cry and slid off of my bed, slipping down under the bed frame to
find a place to hide.  I realized that I left Elroy when it was too late.  
I could hear Father’s footsteps through the blood that rushed in my ears, and I
wanted to scream at him to stop.  I couldn’t.  I held my breath and watched in
horror as he reached his blood-splattered hands into the crib to grasp my
brother.  He lifted Elroy into the air and began to shake the screaming boy,
tears of rage flowing down his cheeks.
Elroy stopped crying.  Elroy stopped moving.  Elroy stopped breathing, and his
heart stopped beating before my eyes.
I raised my dark eyes to the doorway to see my mother leaning against the
doorframe with a twisted snarl upon her lips.  She looked at Father with fire
in her eyes, and she spat words to fast for me to comprehend.  She rushed
forward, and I could see the knife.
My mother barreled toward Father at full speed, slicing him across the chest
with her butcher’s knife, and she took Elroy back as blood sprayed her white
nightgown.  She laid the baby boy’s broken body as gingerly as she could in the
crib, and then she raised the knife once more.  My mother plunged her knife in
between two of my father’s ribs, twisting the iron blade into his lung.
I never called him “Father,” again.
***** Chapter 2 *****
Momma sneaks into the house while I’m scrubbing the dark wooden floors of our
small kitchen.  I look up to see her walking up the gravel driveway with a
light-skinned man clinging to her breast.  The July sun beats down on her
sweaty head, and her arms seem pinker than they did when she left.  His other
hand holds a bottle of dark amber colored liquor, and he must be drunk.  I’ve
never seen this white of a man touching Momma.
“You’re going to get everything you’ve ever wanted,” Momma whispers as she
half-carries the man into the house.  He’s wearing a crisp grey suit, his hair
is dark blonde, and his eyes are bloodshot and blue.  His hands are clean and
white all over, and they touch Momma as if she belongs to him.  This is the
part that makes my skin crawl, and I feel like throwing up my lunch.
“Oh, Sharla, are you going to take me to your bed?” he whispers and strokes her
cheek before pressing his liquor-soaked lips to my mother’s.
My mother brushes her long black braids from her eyes, and I’m reminded of
Medusa.  Momma won’t turn this man to stone, but she’ll do what she needs to.
 “Yes,” she hisses like the snakes that are Medusa’s hair.
The man grins wolfishly and picks my mother up, his hands clutching her thighs
so hard that her skin dents and will most likely bruise.  All men like to treat
Momma like this, and it makes the tears come to my eyes.  He carries her into
her bedroom and slams the door, proceeding to make loud, vulgar noises.
Momma’s plan is simple, and I know it.  Ever since that man killed Elroy, Momma
has been a woman on a hunt.  She finds the stories in the news or from the
women who visit our house in the night.  She hears about these horrible men who
abuse their children and wives, and she finds them.  She lures them in like a
fish on a fly, using her charm and her wit and the swing of her hips,  and then
she sleeps with them.  After they use her, she gives them their after-sex
whiskey, and poisons the drink.  A few drops of belladonna is all she needs to
knock a man unconscious, and a few more will take the breath from his lips.  
I can feel my knees creak and crack as I scrub bloodstains out of the grains of
the wood.  The last man hit Momma, and she smashed her bottle into his skull
ten times.  My hands hurt from bleach, and my nose feels as if I’ve snorted
fire.  I hate chore work, but if a cop decides to swing by, he needs to see no
evidence of Momma’s work.
Momma returns from the bedroom after an hour of loud sex.  Her hair is mussed
and her face is flushed, but she walks with a limp and I know that he hurt her.
 The look in her eyes says that she won’t stab him or beat him unless he hits
her one more time.  
“What can I give you, my dear?”  she asks the man with a heavy dose of
sweetness in her voice.
“Mmm…” the man hums as he zips up  his grey trousers, and he moves slower than
before.  He’s pleased.  “Bourbon.”
“Bourbon it is,” my mother says in a soft voice.  She walks steadily over to
the cabinet and attempts to cover up her limp with the saucy shake of her thick
hips.  Momma was never thin, but she was comfortable.  I like it.  She pours a
glass and discreetly administers 13 drops into the amber liquid.  She swirls it
in a circle as she whispers an inaudible chant, and then she turns to hand the
man his drink.
“Thanks, Sugar,” he murmurs and downs the drink in three swift gulps.  
My mother raises her brows at him, and she’s quite surprised by how quickly he
drank her liquor.  “Would you li-”
“Another,” he interrupts in a choked voice, and he hands her the glass.  I’m
not sure if  his voice sounds hoarse from the poison or the burn of the
alcohol.
My mother does as she’s told and places 13 more drops of belladonna into his
glass before handing it to him.  He takes it and sips it leisurely, and I
notice his eyelids drooping.  Momma did well.
I watch the white businessman fall into a deep sleep, and then I watch his
chest stop rising and falling.  Mother walks forward to kick his foot, but she
receives no response.  She grabs his throat and feels for his vein, and she
smiles when she finds no pulse within it.
“Grab the knife, Althea,” she grunts.  She sweeps one arm over the table and
clears it of plates, papers, bowls, and glasses.
My mother is not the sweet woman that she shows the abusers.  The man who used
to be my father turned her a twisted woman who’s life wraps around the work of
roots and magic in the ground.  She’s a tough woman with strong hands, a
grimace marking her full lips, and skin as black and scarred as the night.  My
mother always smells of herbs and dirt, and she tells me that it’s the
“witches’ perfume.”  
I grab the knife as she slams the man’s body onto the table.  I walk to her
side and look at the lanky man who lays haphazardously on our eating space.
“There’s not much meat, Momma,” I murmur and stick my knife into his thigh,
watching the blade sink through both cloth and skin to draw blood.
“We’ll make soup,” my mother murmurs, and she begins to shuck off his clothes.
 
This is my favorite part.  I like watching the abusers turn into all they are
and ever have been, a single slab of meat.  She takes his suit and folds it
politely, laying the clothing in the corner of the room where we store all of
the abuser’s clothes.  The have no use for them when they’re dead.  I can see
all of his parts when he’s nude, and I can laugh at how he’ll never use them
again.
“Skin,” my mother growls.
My eyes flicker up to hers with fear.  “Momma, you do the skinning!  I’ve never
skinned a man, before!  I don’t…”  I begin to mutter with fear and confusion,
and I don’t want to mess up in front of her.
“Althea!” She snaps as she cuts the man’s hair with a pair of kitchen shears.
 “You have seen me skin 39 men in your lifetime, and you know how I’ve done it.
 Pinch the skin and make a cut, and then it’s just like peeling rabbits from
there.  The fortieth man is yours.  It’s time.”
I swallow hard and look down at the cold steel in my hand.  The fortieth man is
mine, I think and wonder why this feels like such an honor.
I make a slow move to place the knife upon his chest, pinching the skin at the
base of his throat, where his collarbone meets and forms a hollow.  I suck in a
deep breath and poke the knife into the skin, ignoring the hot blood that oozes
out.  I’ve cut too deep.  I recover swiftly and lift up the flesh to find where
the skin meets.  I notch the area and begin to cut, and soon I’m peeling away
large sheets of fair white flesh.  I peel away the skin of his chest, keeping
it as intact as possible.  I peel the skin from his arms, legs, back, and
eventually I scalp him and pull of the mask of his face.
I look at the finished corpse, and he looks more naked than before.  The
businessman is a slab of raw meat like every other man that Momma has killed.
 He’s nothing to me, and nothing to her, and he’ll make a meal in no time.
“Butcher the meat,” Momma says as she gathers up the bloody peeled skin.  She
folds the wrinkled sheet as well as she can, and she then places it inside of a
canvas bag.  “Remember, Althea.  We have to remove what, first?”
“The innards,” I say and swallow hard, looking at the way the man’s middle is
bigger than the rest of his lanky body.
“And what innards can be eaten?”
I run my knife down the midline of his belly and poke into the stomach cavity,
the smell of his innards making my stomach roll.  “The liver, kidneys, and
heart,”  I whisper and continue cutting until I can reach every organ.
“And the lungs,” she adds in her raspy voice.
I train my eyes on the wall in front of me, and I watch the peeling floral
wallpaper as if it will move or do something.  “And the lungs,” I choke out.
 With a quick twitch of my shoulder, I wipe away my tears.  “The lungs are full
of blood vessels.  It will be bloody,” I add and deftly remove the man’s liver.
“Good girl,” Momma chides and reaches forward for the organ.  She’s pulled out
a glass baking dish to hold the meat, and she lays the liver down as if she’s
laying Elroy down in his crib.
“Yes, Momma.”  I dig my hands inside and pull out all of the organs that are
inedible, and I discard them into the canvas bag.  I save the edible parts by
placing them in the baking dish.  “I’ll get the meat, now.”  I run my knife
under the muscles and detach them as simply as possible.  I gather up as much
meat as I can and place it on top of the organs, my eyes trained on the heart
as I cover it up.  
Mother breaks the bones in his legs and adds them to a pot of boiling water for
broth.  We silently make a large pot of soup with the meat and organs, and it
smells delicious while it cooks.
Once the pot boils steadily, Momma sighs and looks at the man.  “Let’s take him
to the pigs,” she mutters and grabs his arms.
We feed the carcass to the pigs on the farm, and when we return, the soup is
done and the entire house smells like businessman noodle soup.  It’s a good
smell, but I know that the soup isn’t for me.  Momma won’t let me eat criminals
because she tells me that the bad meat will turn me rotten.
We save jars of businessman noodle soup, and Momma gives me a jar for our
prisoner's meal.  
After the man who was my father was stabbed in the lung, Momma poisoned him
until he was unconscious and she grabbed rope.  I watched her tie him to a
chair in the basement, and he’s remained there ever since.  I’m sent to feed
him one meal a day, and I dump a bucket of freezing cold water on him once
every week.  We feed him the criminals that are just like him.  Momma says that
we feed pigs to pigs to watch the race eliminate itself.  She says that it’s
what God would do if he was still around.
I grab a large wooden spoon and take the stairs one at a time, and I brace
myself at the smell.  The man is not allowed any sanitary items, like a toilet
or sink, and he sits on a chair covered in his own filth.  It’s disgusting, but
he murdered my baby brother, and I figure that he doesn’t deserve anything
more.  
“Althea??” the man whimpers and looks around blindly in the dark, and his long
black and grey hair is obscuring his sight.  “Althea?!  Baby girl??  Daddy is
down here...please help Daddy…”
I say nothing.
“Sweetheart?” he asks in a softer voice, and I can hear his stomach growl.  The
man is shivering and thin, and his body is thin and deathlike.
 “Althea...please let me go.  I love you so much, baby girl!  Why won’t you let
me out of here??  Why am I here??”
I say nothing as I force the spoon of food into his mouth.  I notice that the
rope is rubbing his wrists until they’re raw and bloody, and I turn up my nose.
 I refuse to talk to him as he blubbers his thanks about finally having food.  
He slurps every bit of broth and meat off of the spoon, and he lets out
disgusting satisfied noises.  He’s enjoying every bite of businessman noodle
soup, and it sort of pleases me.  “Thank you,” he whispers once his stomach is
full and the jar is empty.
I say nothing and leave the basement.
***** Chapter 3 *****
Momma stopped letting me go to school about two years ago.  I turned 14 and
started asking her if I could have my friends over.  I was never popular in
school, but I did have friends that I wanted Momma to meet.  I definitely
wanted her to meet Ray, a 15 year old boy that I was very attached to.  Momma
told me that if they came over, they may hear the man who used to be my father,
or worse, they would find out about what we did.  At the time, I didn’t
understand why she’d be afraid of that, but now I do.  Justice is illegal.
Ray is now 17, and I still adore him with every beat of my aching heart.  I
wish that I could go to school with him, and then I could see him all of the
time, but I can’t, so I make do.
I pack a rucksack of apples, cheese, bread, and wine, and leave the house in
the early morning of September second.  The air is soft and floral, and I know
that Ray will be waiting for me in the clearing of the forest.  I slip through
the wheat field and dash into the forest as quickly as I can.  
The apple trees are heavy with apples and the wildflowers grow beneath their
twisting trunks.  There’s a path in the woods that leads to Momma’s tree.  I
follow the path, and it takes me deeper into the dark forest.  Birds catch my
eye and twitter at me, puffing up their feathers.  They seem to know where I’m
going.
Momma’s tree takes almost 15 minutes to reach, but I’m always intrigued when I
finally get there.  The tree is a large weeping willow with her branches
reaching higher than all of the other branches in the forest.  Momma hangs her
old jewelry from the branches of her tree, and it makes the tree seem like a
classy woman.  I dance forward and walk around the tree, my eyes roving across
her thick roots.  Forty skulls line the bottom of the thick greying trunk,
rotting and crumbling like the dirt.
I run my fingers along the tree’s trunk and smile as the wind whips around me.
 Vials of herbs and oils glint and tinkle from the tree trunks, and the wind
suddenly sounds like magic.  Maybe this is where Momma gets her magic from.
 Maybe the tree has been giving her powers all along.
I suddenly remember that Ray will be meeting me at the clearing, and I abandon
the tree with a flicker of remorse.  I hope that I’m not late, so I run as fast
as my legs can carry me.  My old blue dress whips behind me, snagging on
branches, but Ray is more important than a dress.
I burst into the clearing within minutes, and I’m swallowing down gasping
breaths.  “Ray?” I call in a whisper.
“Hey, Baby,” Ray murmurs in a low voice, stepping out of the shadows.  Ray is
tall and has lighter skin than me, but not by too much.  His skin is like the
coffee with cream that I like to drink, and his voice is like the rich black
coffee that Momma drinks.  He’s lean and strong, a cowboy from his father’s
ranch.  I hear that his father is nice, but I’m too afraid to meet another
father anytime soon.
I step forward and wrap my arms around Ray’s neck, grinning from ear to ear.
 “Ray!” I burst in a whisper.  I’m squeezing him as if I’ll never see him
again, and sometimes that’s my legitimate fear.  “I’ve missed you so
much...it’s been a month!”
“I’ve missed you too, baby,” he murmurs and his full lips find the hollow below
my ear, and he places three kisses there.  “Life has been hell without you.”
“I know,” I murmur into his neck and wipe away my tears with my fingers.  “But
we have the morning to ourselves.  The whole morning.”
“Ours,” he says and pulls away to examine my face.  His pink fingertips skim
across my cheekbones as he gazes into my eyes.  His eyes are light hazel, where
mine are almost black, and I’ve always found it interesting.  Black people
usually have dark eyes, and he has the eyes of a white man.  He pauses for a
moment as he examines me, and suddenly he just presses his lips to my own.
I melt under Ray’s touch, and I feel as if I’m a popped water balloon.  I’ve
become nothing but liquid love, and I feel as if Ray is breathing magic into
me.  I kiss him back with wet suckling noises, and no music has ever sounded
sweeter.  His hands find my lower back and his fingers knead into the muscles
that line my spine.  I gasp at the pressure and push myself up against him,
allowing his fingers to slip down to the round of my bum.  I can feel Ray smile
against my lips, and he’s soon kissing my jaw and groping me in a way that’s
nicer than Momma’s ever been groped.  It feels good, I feel good, and
everything just feels good.
 
***** Chapter 4 *****
A week after my meeting with Ray, Momma wakes me up in the middle of the night.
 Her voice is urgent as she rouses me with cold fingers shaking my thin
shoulders.  “Althea!  Althea!” she urges and tweaks my cheeks.
“Momma?” I ask wildly and whirl up to a sitting position.  I cover my bare
chest with handfuls of my blankets, and I’m concerned on why my mother is in my
room.  I instantly think that someone has caught her killing the abusers.
 “Momma, what’s wrong?”
“Get up,” she whispers and strokes my nappy hair out of my eyes.  “Get up and
come into the livingroom, Baby Girl.”  She leaves my room with an erratic sort
of air about her.  She’s too jumpy, kind, and touchy.
I rise and tug on my white cotton nightgown, concealing my budded body.  Momma
is rifling through a shoebox when I enter the living room.  She lifts her eyes
to me as she raises an item in her hand, and I can see that it’s a lacy white
undergarment.  “Althea,” she murmurs and smiles at me with empty eyes.  
“What’s wrong, Momma?” I repeat and take a seat on the ratty old loveseat.  My
fingers play with the frayed green fabric, pulling out stray strings and pieces
of fluff.
“Baby Girl, it’s time to fish,” she says in her gruff voice, sighing and
holding out the box.  “This is your worm and you are the hook.  Wear this
tomorrow when you go to town.  You’ll need to show off the goods-” she grasps
her breasts.  “-when you drag them in.”
“Momma...I can’t…” I whisper and shake my head, looking at the new lingerie
that fills the box.  “Momma...I’m not an adult, yet.  I’m a-”
“Does it look like I care?!” she snarls and stands up, slapping me upside the
face.  I hold my cheek and stare at her with tear-filled eyes, my head feeling
fuzzy and pained.  “You’re going to help me fish, and you will NOT complain,
got it??”
I nod minutely.  “Yes Ma’am.  Yes.”
“Althea…” Momma growls and drops her head into her hands, letting out a sigh
after she takes a few deep breaths.  “I’m going to tell you the secrets of
fishing, okay?  First, act as sensual as you can.  Be a Goddess if you feel
like the man would like a Goddess, or be a maid if he would like a maid.  You
are to be anything that the abuser wants, okay?” her eyes are intense as they
lock on mine.  
I nod and feel as if I can’t breath.  
“Take him home before you have sex with him.  Tell him that you’re hungry for
his big hands all over you, or tell him that you have a scratch that nobody can
itch.  Remember that every man is different.”  She looks down at her hands and
makes a face.  “Flirt with him.  Touch his arms or hands or face if you need
to.  Only touch his thigh if he’s reluctant to come with you, that always
works.  Remember to bring.  Him.  Home.”
I nod and wipe at my eyes, and I can feel fear burning a hole in my stomach.  I
don’t want to do this.  I don’t want to lose my virginity to anyone but Ray,
but I’m too scared to do anything different than what my mother says.  I don’t
want her to hit me or worse, curse me.
Momma growls and gets to her feet, storming past me.  She grabs her coat and
wraps up in it, muttering to herself as she does so.  “I’m going to the bar to
fish.  Prepare the table.”
 
***** Chapter 5 *****
I keep my eyes focused on the concrete that stretches before me, lined with
cracks that part to allow weeds and flowers to touch the air.  My hair is
pulled back into a simple bun, my eyes painted with Momma’s makeup, and I wear
a plain red dress.  The lace lingerie makes me itch as it rubs against my
underparts, and I try not to walk like a fool.  My heart beats in my ears,
mixed with the clicking sounds of my scarlet heels, and I’m terrified of what
I’m going to do.
The spirits told Momma that a man has been taking his wife for granted, and
she’s lost three babies to his aggression.  She told me that he is almost as
white as the business, but his eyes are brown, his hair is dark, and he is not
clean shaven.  He’s supposed to be some big time police officer, and I don’t
understand how a man of the law can do something so unlawful, and I’m headed to
the meat shop to find him.  Momma daubed perfume on my wrists and throat, and
she told me that I am the prettiest woman that she’s ever seen.  I don’t
believe her.
I can see the meat shop at the end of the block, and I hurry up a bit,
clutching my coinpurse as tight as I clutch the Bible when Momma does her
hoodoo.  I can hear a commotion from the alley to the left of me, and I sneak a
glance.
A scruffy looking brown-haired man is shoving a woman against a wall, holding
up her thighs with his thick fingers.  He spits something that I cannot make
out, and I instantly know what is happening.  Momma has told me about this
several times, and she told me to never go into alleys with any man, if I can
avoid it.  This man is taking this woman, forcing himself upon her as she gasps
and cries out.  
Why is nobody stopping him from hurting her? I think to myself and then I can
see the firearm hanging from his belt.  He’s the cop.  
I wait to spy on him as he finishes and throws the woman to the ground,
throwing a few bills and some change at her.  She huffs and clumsily gets to
 her feet, and her eyes are wide,  and I know that she’s scared.  Her innocence
has been torn away from her and that man deserves to die.
The woman leaves in a taxi, and I walk slowly behind the man as he goes to the
meat shop.  He orders a rack of ribs and some sausages, and then I walk up and
then step back, acting indecisive.  I don’t want any meat; the meat is standing
beside me.
“Hello there,” I whisper to the man, and I bat my long black eyelashes.  Almost
everything about me is black.
“Fuck off,” he says after a quick glance over my supple body.  
I stiffen and wonder how hard this will be, but I try again.  “I see that you
are ordering meat and I...er...I like meat, too.  I like a different kind of
meat.” My hand finds his chest, and I attempt to arouse him with the soft touch
of my fingers.
The white man looks at me and laughs, and his eyebrow is raised in an odd
expression.  It’s as if he’s contemplating what to do with me, and that
encourages me.  “You wait here,” he says and walks forward to greet the butcher
once more.  “I’ll be back in ten.  Please keep it cool for me,” he says in a
sly voice and tosses the butcher a dime.
I’m grabbed by the arm, a bit forcefully, and pulled out of the meat shop.  The
man tugs me down the sidewalk and back to the alley where I first glimpsed him
molesting that poor woman.  My breaths become shorter as adrenalin pushes
through me, causing me to twist against his hand.  
“Please don’t hurt me!” I cry out and try to pull in the other direction.
The man throws me against the cool brick wall, and both of his eyebrows are
raised.  “Did you really think that a white man would want a Negro like you?”
he spits and looks me over with dark brown eyes.  “Did you really think that I
would lower myself to those standards?”  He pulls out his gun and tosses it
between  his meaty hands.  
“I didn’t mean to offend, Sir!” I gasp and begin to quiver as I stare at him.
 “Please don’t shoot me!  Please!  I’ll do anything!”
The man laughs and tucks his gun into the back of his pants, and his eyes
change to something of more humor than anger.  With a single swipe, he slaps my
face and knocks me to the pavement.  I can hear a snarl tear its way out of his
throat, and his spit falls upon my face.  
“You’re going to lay there and experience what white men give to trash like
you,” he sneers and his fists begin to fall upon my body.  I cry out as he
lands blows upon my face, arms, torso, and legs.  He doesn’t miss a part of my
body as he beats me.  I’m soon smelling blood and then I can’t see.
I’m unconscious for only seconds, but it’s enough time for him to leave me
bleeding and bruising in the shadows of the alley.  I lay there for a good ten
minutes before getting up to hobble my way home, holding my gushing nose the
whole time.
Momma meets me at the porch, her hands on her thick hips, and I can see a
confused anger marking her face with a scowl.  She thought that I would be the
perfect lure, and here I am, coming home to tell her that I could not catch her
fish.  I could not complete her mission.  I am a failure, and we both know it.
 My heart constricts painfully.
“Momma, he hit me,” I whisper in a tiny voice and blink away the hot tears that
fill my eyes.  My body aches as if I’ve been dragged behind a truck, and all I
want to do is lay down.
Momma growls and struts down the steps of the porch.  She slaps me upside the
face, and her own face twists up in anger.  “He saw you, and he beat you?!” she
shouts and slaps my other cheek.  
“I didn’t mean for him to...I did what you told me to!  I touched him and
flirted and I-”
She laughs in my face and grabs my wrist.  “You did not do good enough,” she
spits and squeezes my sore wrist.  “He now knows your face and that you want
him.  He could look for you and find you, Althea!  Now take off your clothes
and go bathe yourself.  We have women coming.”
I can feel disappointment like a thick plume of smoke that clouds my brain and
wraps me in nausea and sorrow.  “I’m so sorry, Momma.  Dearest Gods, I am
sorry…” I whisper apologies over and over as I fill the tub.  My body screams
when I lower myself in.
After I’m clean and dressed, I begin to do my job of setting the table.  Momma
has a meeting tonight and I want her to be happier with me when she wakes up
from her nap.  I lay out the fine white china and silverware, and I bring out
the good linen napkins.  I light candles up the middle of the long walnut
table, and then I light the incense.  The air is thick and fragrant when mother
wakes.
Mother says nothing as she sets up her tools at the head of the table, laying
down chalices, knives, herbs, dolls, and more candles.  She lights the candles
and whispers to  herself as she does so.
“Momma?” I whisper and walk a bit closer to her, looking at where she’s laid
her Bible in the center of her tools.  The edges of the her Bible are stained
with browning blood, and herbs are ground into the black leather cover.
“Open the door,” she murmurs and looks up at me with vacant eyes, and I can see
the shaking of her hands.
Someone knocks on the door and I jump.  “Yes, Momma,” I whisper and hurry off
to swing the screen door wide open.
Three women, clad in black, flow into the house as if they’re sliding over the
air beneath their feet.  A warm breeze floats in on their wake.  “Close the
door, Honey,”  the woman in the front says.
The first woman looks stern and majestic, and  her hair is a dark raven black
color, her eyes light blue and not matching at all.  The followers are battered
and walk with limps, their eyes flitting nervously around my home.  One has red
hair and green eyes, the other brown haired with blue.  They’re quite plain and
empty looking, but not ugly.
“Madame?” the leading woman asks as she walks into the kitchen with a measured
pace.  Her nose is held high and her stance is protective, but still as cold as
the winter’s bone.
“Hello, Anne,” Momma says, looking up from her Bible.  “Was your journey nice?”
“It was fine,” Anne responds with a sigh.  “Margaret and Rose were beaten,
again.”
“He hurt Ella,” the redhead says quickly as if she’s been pricked.  “I could
stand him hurting me, but Ella...she bled for ten minutes, ma’am!  She bled and
bled...she can’t even sleep…”
“It’s okay,” The brown haired girl begins to console the crying woman.
 “Margaret, just focus.  Mrs.Bradley told us that Deloris took her husband from
her, and she can help you too!”
“Compensation?” Momma asks the leader, Anne.
“I have ten for each girl,” the woman says and she holds out a few bills.
 “That should be enough, correct?”  I can sense her underlying fury.
Momma nods.  “Who’s first?”
“Margaret,” Anne and Rose say at the same time, and their eyes flicker over to
their quivering friend.
“Me?” the young woman asks, and her eyes are as wide as a doe’s.  “Rose, you
ca-”
“No,” Rose says firmly.  “Go ahead, Sweetheart.  Sit down with her.”
Momma looks up at me as she grabs her bag of cat bones, shaking them
methodically up and down.  “Go to your room, Althea.  Pray that Margaret’s
husband finds solace away from  his wife.”  Her eyes are more cold than vacant,
now.
“Yes, Momma,” I say and give the women a final glance before darting off to my
bedroom.  I close the door and sit on the floor, pressing my ear to the crack
between the door and the doorframe.  I listen hard to what mother whispers to
the women.  I hear a vague story about how abusive these men were, and then
Momma begins to talk about what she’s going to do to them.
Momma only tells the women the first step to fixing their lives, and she weaves
the plan of how we first pray for peace.  “We pray that these men find solace
in a world far away from their wives, and then we stir up the mix,” she
murmurs, and I can hear her long fingernails clinking against glass bottles and
ceramic bowls.  “Two cat ribs, a handful of graveyard dirt, olive oil, baby’s
blood, and just a pinch of-” I can hear Margaret squeak.  “His beloved’s
 hair.”
She grinds up two mixes for each woman and instructs them to bury the mixture
underneath a tree in their yards.  This will keep them safe while the Gods take
care of their husbands.  Relentless “thank you’s” are exchanged, and I’m asleep
by the time they finish eating dinner.
 
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