©Soul Heiress
Mimi
Wolske, May 2014
All Rights Reserved
Heiress
to it all,
whatever
it all entailed,
since
her auntie died...
who
was survived by
her two
children,
a boy
and a girl...
she
waited on
a
placid jetty that was
populated
temporarily
with the
ignorant
who
awaited the voyage
to
accompany her.
Her
knowledge of
the
being, of the
dreaded
truth, and the
obscure
circumstances
surrounding
her aunt's
cause
of death
were
things that were eked
out
as though from a dream
and intensified
as they angled
down
the shortcut on the
precipitous
hillside from the
deceased's
home to the water.
Perplexing
were the vegaries
of
hateful cousins' personalities
once
they realized the inheritor
was
the sole possessor of
the extravagant
figurine
with
unclear pictorial intent, an
object
coveted since it
simultaneously
could
be
the serpent-woman Lamia,
a
benevolent Jinn, or Nakh
with
her seductive singing voice—
all
three as monstrous as the twins.
Scenes
and half-sounds only
artists
and poets could describe
could
save the beneficiary's life,
but
either these aesthetes edited
out
the bizarre visitations in
the
nightly dreams of those
believers
and followers or
their
notes and correspondence
were
not preserved save for one...
a
line in an abstruse poem:
"...confessed his acute fear of
the gigantic nameless thing."
The
deceased's children claimed
their
mother became
panicky,
eccentric and
that
after nights of
incessant
screams to be saved
from
the claws of some
escaped
denizen of hell,
she
fell into a fitful silent trance,
which
lasted weeks, until
at
last she sat straight up
in
her bed, clutched her chest,
and
succumbed to the waiting horrors.
Young
Allegra, the sole heiress,
believed
the statuette, or
the
fetish—if that's
what
it was—to be so
singularly
hideous she
wrapped
it and hid it away
never
realizing she'd
stumbled
into a dark cult
totally
unknown, except
by two;
the idol was too
diabolic
for any recognized
school
of arts to lay claim.
Although
packed away,
the
figurine (which stood
ten
and twelve inches high
and
was of exquisite and
artistic
workmanship,
the
green monster with
its
sensual serpent body
and a
face too handsome
for
what it might be)
never
lost it's power;
it
sang too Allegra
at
night while she dreamed.
Fearsome
and
unnatural
nightmares,
which
could become a
malignancy
to the heiress if
the
talisman came into the
hands
of the evil twins,
plagued
her sleep and showed
hidden
and undecipherable
characters
on its base...
which
she never noticed
when,
frightened by it,
she
buried it in some box.
What
unhallowed
cycle
of life had become
her
auntie's world at the end?
Surely
it was nothing
she
could conceive or
willing
took part. Were
the
twins part of some
curious
form of devil worship?
Such
deliberate bloodthirstiness
repulsed
and chilled the
inheritor...made
her shudder,
awed
her into silence.
The
night previous to
descending
the precipitous
hillside,
local police came for
information,
explaining some
of
the town's women and children
had
disappeared when they
wandered
into the dark haunted
woods
where no town's men
dared
to venture, and then
came
the incessant cries, the town's
men
relayed, soul-chilling chants...
oh,
and dancing devil flames.
Waiting
on the jetty in the
late
afternoon, the heiress
studied
her surroundings.
Across
the water lay
miles
of woods where
day
never came, where
those
who worshipped
the
horrors of darkness
stayed
out of sight. On this
side
of the water, the pile of
dank stones
and fragments
of an
aged and rotting wall.
Allegra
brought back the
memory
of the police and
the
soul-gripping cries
she
heard in her dream...or,
was
it a dream? Faintly
audible
on the other side—
a
curdling shriek. There.
It
came again, and again
at
infrequent intervals and
always
when the wind shifted
and
ever-expanding ripples across
the
water...something dropping in?
There
was something...
something
evil here; laws and
morals
thrown aside by each
one
in the small group on the
jetty...and
the inheritor reluctant
to be
left alone for fear one of
them
may be unholy and
might
advance a step toward
her
and the casket—
then,
something happened;
something
beneath the waves
and
in the deep waters.
The
chanting began slowly
and
in hushed tones by
the
twins and the priest.
Memory
never died, she
reminded
herself as black
spirits,
moldy from the
rumors
thrown to the
forgotten
bottom of the
sea,
came up from the depths
with
shrill screeches and wails.
She
climbed onto the coffin
when
all locked eyes on her.
Primal
mysteries through which
not
even her thoughts could
pass
cut off the otherworldly
intercourse
when the hillside
opened
and vaporous beings
jettisoned
up, up, up...and then
down,
down, down, all coming
directly
for Allegra. Or, were
they
coming for the soul in
the
coffin? Not knowing or
understanding what she was doing, she
crossed
her arms above her.
The
giant thing circled; it left
trails,
outlines of the others,
then
coming back to form one.
Was
this what auntie saw?
It
swooped down, into the
coffin,
then shot to each
of
the twins, then, as if savoring
the
frightened prayer of the priest,
dove
and took his soul, too.
When
she opened her eyes, she
knew
she inherited nothing from
her
aunt; she was the Soul Heiress.
The
matter of the cult,
the
twins and priest, the
missing
women and children,
and
the figurine had
vanished...any
innocence that
that remained
was stripped
away and
reformed by the
giant,
shaped into a raving,
delirious
monster of stone
becoming
the idol of unknown
origin,
about a foot in height,
waiting
for the next soul.
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