Ella

Ella

Ella’s small bare feet strode through the warm wet grass.  Her journey ended at the back wall of a modest two-storey home.  She stood in the moonlight and gazed up to the second-storey window.  Her tongue dipped across her lips and a slight smile crept across her face. A summer breeze played with her long white hair.  Ella’s slender frame lifted off the ground until she floated directly in front of the window, her gown trailing around her, lifted by the gentle breeze.  She peered through the half drawn blinds into the darkness inside.  The full moon crawled between the blinds over the objects inside the room giving everything a sliced appearance, sliced in silver and dark.

She spread her arms and her eyes clouded over into bullet silver.  Her diaphanous silvery gown gathered around her in willowing waves and began to dissipate into a hazy mist.  The mist then sought every crack in the window frame and slid through.
In the room, the mist coalesced into the solid form of Ella once again and her eyes spiraled into their normal vapid blue.  As the mist solidified it blocked the moonlight and her shadow fell over the crib.

The baby whimpered in his sleep and Ella smiled, pointed teeth peeking from beneath her upper lip.  In two steps she stood over the crib, the small form looking snug and cherubic.  “Hello Baby Jeffrey.  I’ve been waiting for you.”  Her slippery whisper sifted to the child and Baby Jeffrey opened his eyes and stared directly into Ella’s.  I’ve watched you grow over these last seven months.”  She smiled full this time, her teeth translucent in the dark.

Jeffrey’s eyes widened and she held his gaze, her eyes diving deep into his, shutting off his frightened cry before he considered he should scream.  She undid the buttons to his onesy and stripped him of his only covering, exposing his soft skin.  Ella slipped her arms under the small plump body and lifted him, turning the boy so she cradled him in the crook of her left arm and her left hand held his thigh firmly.

She brushed the dappling of blond hair on his head with her right hand and rocked back and forth, slowly turning in place.  Dancing with the child she cried inside and hugged her baby.  She smelled the powdery scent of his skin and nuzzled him, inhaling deep.  Ella cradled his head in her palm and brought his face to hers, looking in his eyes again.  She smiled and it formed tight little wrinkles at the corners of her eyes and Baby Jeffrey’s eyes remained wide and wet.  She wiped his eyes with the pad of her thumb and kissed his forehead.  His eyes calmed and he presented her with a small smiled, displaying two tiny white teeth.  She continued her dance with him to the window and opened the blinds so the moonlight shone fully and directly onto them.

“Do you know how long I’ve been looking for you?  You have no idea how special you are.  You don’t even know who you are, do you Jeffrey Wallace Couture?  Do you have any idea where you came from…because I do.”

Her translucent gossamer gown swayed and mingled with the shaft of light.  Ephemeral, she hugged the child close and nuzzled him again; planting kisses on his cheek and neck.  She cradled the baby, his fresh skin glowing in the moonlight beneath the bright whiteness of her own.  “We are related you and I; almost brother and sister.”  Jeffrey’s cobalt blue eyes stared wide into Ella’s as she recounted her youth in the predawn hours.


A scant girl, not yet a woman but well on her way stepped over a puddle in the muddy road, lifting her full skirts as to not drag the delicate lace on the hem through mud and animal offal prevalent on the streets.  Various shops and vendors lined the sides hawking their wares to newcomers entering this city just two blocks from the waterfront.  The salty tang of the Atlantic Ocean smothered most smells of the close packed street.  Elanore was grateful, as she did not need to remove the kerchief hidden in her sleeve to dampen the offending odors of the filthy street.  The April breeze swept the tendrils of her blond-white hair from their pinned security above her ears and beneath her bonnet.

She reached the end of a commercial street and proceeded to stroll along a residential neighborhood.  Recently constructed homes were alive with children and families.  Elanore felt a tear well in the corner of her eye and pulled her kerchief anyway, dotting at her eyes.  She longed for a home and a true family more than anything else.  She continued her stroll and smoothing her hands across her swollen belly whispering kisses when she felt it kick.  Elanore found a bench in a park off the main road and eased herself onto its comforting wooden surface.  Her eyes roamed around the park, watching and seeing only happiness; children playing ball, giggling, flying kites.  Gaggles of women pushed baby carriages along the paths.  Snatches of conversations of their well-to-do balls and debutante soirees reached Elanore and she sighed.

Elanore shook her head, wiped her brow and swallowed her frustration.  “My situation is my situation.  I won’t begrudge them their happiness simply because that is what I lack.”  Swallowing her self-pity with her pain she pasted a smile on her face and wished for something to eat.  She knew it was at least another mile to the temporary shelter she had secured.

A shadow fell over her and blocked the waning warmth of the afternoon sun.  Elanore opened her eyes, pushing away her wishes and found herself starring into the chocolate eyes of a woman of her own age.  Elanore recognized her as one from a throng she passed on her way into the park.

“Pardon me.”  The woman interrupted, “But should you not be at home in bed in your condition?”

Unfamiliar with being addressed in so forward a fashion Elanore responded, her eyes darting for an escape.  “I was just on my way.  Just taking a sit-down.  I’ve a ways to walk still and I would like to arrive before dark sets in.”

The interrupter looked shocked as she put her hand to her high collared throat.  “Between you and me, you look near ready to burst.  Perchance do you need me to hail you a buggy?”

Elanore panicked, “Oh no.  Not at all.  I am fine.  Please do not trouble yourself.  We need the exercise.”  Elanore smiled her Sunday best, patted her belly and maneuvered herself to a standing position.  She wobbled a bit as a splash of dizziness struck behind her eyes.

The other woman took hold of Elanore's elbow, steadying her, “I am just thinking of the baby.  I hope to be with child someday and I heard it can be a trying time.  I just want to help.”

“Thank you kindly miss, but I think I shall be on my way now as dusk is coming upon us.”  Elanore curtsied slightly and stepped to the side to be on her way.

The woman looked around and noticed the park was emptying quickly.  She caught a member of her gaggle waving her in and she waved them on.  They nodded and continued their stroll.

Elanore thanked the woman again when the woman turned her attention back to Elanore.  The woman nodded and was about to say goodbye when Elanore’s stomach growled audibly.  Elanore’s eyes popped open and color splashed her cheeks in bright crimson.  The woman just looked at her with a gape-jawed expression before throwing back her head and laughing out loud.  Between her giggles the woman explained, “I am not laughing at you exactly.  I just have not heard a sound like that in a quite a while…well actually... I don’t believe I have ever heard a sound like that.”  Her laughter resembled church bells to Elanore and a smile crowded her face as well.  “You must be hungry.”

“Oh I am fine miss.  I shall eat when I arrive home.”  Elanore responded between deep red cheeks.  She held her belly and mentally admonished her baby.

“Nonsense, and call me Marisa.” She scolded.  “I don’t know how far home is for you but mine is just around the corner and you must have dinner with me.  Just give me your address and I’ll send my man to deliver the message that you’re supping with your new friend Marisa Welshire this evening.”

Elanore stammered and refused but Marisa would have none of it and grasped Elanore’s hand.  “Come right this way.”


Ella whispered to Baby Jeffrey, “To make a long story short Marisa insisted that I come home with her and home with her I went and had one of the best meals I had had in a long time.  Marisa served me roast lamb with spiced peaches and asparagus and mashed turnips slathered in fresh cream butter.  And there was even a lemon meringue pie, freshly made for dessert.  I had three helpings of dinner and even two slices of that sumptuous pie.  There was even a scoop vanilla ice cream to go with the pie.  Little did I know that was to be the last true meal I would ever eat.  I would have cherished it more.”


Elanore burped behind her napkin and colored her cheeks again before both women burst into laughter.  Elanore never felt more at home.  The thimble of wine slipped down her gullet smooth as silk after the meal.  She stood and stretched in the blue shift that Marisa had provided for her and was grateful to be out of the restricting clothing.  They sat in a sun room drinking another thimble of wine and Elanore thought back to the lie she had artfully concocted for Marisa when Marisa was ready to send her houseman to Elanore’s home to explain her absence.  ‘Husband’s away visiting family up north, in New York.’  Elanore looked at her new friend and felt a tinge of guilt for lying to her when Marisa had treated her beyond all good wealth.

Marisa laid on the chaise lounge under the light of the spring moon in her velvet blue night shift, trim and young.  Elanore ignored the silence in the house and listened to the frogs croak and the bugs whine in the back yard.  An oil lamp expended soft flickering light over the two of them.

“Thank you Marisa.  You have been more than gracious this evening.”

“Oh…” Marisa looked about expectantly and answered in a lazy voice, “Thank me in the morning.”

“I mean it Marisa.  And, I have to apologize to you.”  Elanore lowered her eyes.

“For what dear?”  Marisa cocked her head away from Elanore and a glint of a smile flittered across her features.

Elanore held her half empty glass of wine with both hands and looked into her lap.  “I lied to you earlier.”  She took a deep breath and barged into the truth with her eyes closed.  “I have no husband.  He is not visiting family.  I do not know where he is.”  She choked back a sob and fumbled with her glass to place it on the table between them before covering her face and speaking between her fingers.  “I do not know where the father of my baby is and I have no more family to speak of and  here you have been nothing but sweet and kind to me…”  She broke into racking sobs and curled on her side on the thick cushion of the chaise lounge.  A minute or two passed before Elanore felt a weight settle on her lounge and a cool hand brush back her hair that clung to the tears streaming down her warm cheeks.

“Now now my new friend.  I told you to thank me in the morning.”  Marisa’s voice caressed Elanore’s ears and her heart.  Marisa’s arms comforted her and Elanore wrapped her own around Marisa, drinking in the comfort.  Marisa pushed Elanore’s hair away from her face and looked into the faint blue eyes and dabbed at them with a kerchief.  “Here.  Take a sip of this.  You’ll feel better and you can thank me in the morning.”

Elanore sipped at the sweet heavy brew that Marisa placed in her hands.


A rending pain ripped through her back and she awoke with a guttural bovine roar.  Elanore bolted up in bed and screamed in pain again, as another assault throttled her innards leaving just enough time to take a breath before she strafed her throat a third time.  Elanore had never felt such pain.  She fell back on the bed and her hands surrounded her belly as her baby revolted and twisted rendering conscious thought impossible.  Her body contorted in pain.  She curled into a fetal position and immediately stretched out full length as searing pain ratcheted up her body.  A door burst open and two forms, illuminated by candle light, emerged from the darkness beyond.  The tentative voice of Marisa called her name and Elanore yelped in response.  Her back was on fire and her belly inflated.  She felt ready to burst.  Elanore drifted from consciousness and had difficulty deciphering between sleep and awake, but Marisa’s voice, always present and reassuring guided her through most of it.

“Relax dear.  My brother is here.  He is a doctor.  Here…this will help with the pain.”

Another voice, sharp and commanding echoed in her ears.  “Push woman!  Now!  Again!  One more time!  And again!”

It felt like days had passed when Elanore regained a semblance of consciousness.  Images flooded her psyche.  Marisa wiping her brow and cold towels placed over her eyes.  A towering man with a sharp grey beard between her legs.  The wailing cry of an infant.  Hands, pushing her knees apart.  Her insides ripping and shredding.  A bloody hand in flickering candlelight.  Dreamlike, she felt a tongue darting about her vaginal cleft and was unable to ignore the feelings of ecstasy as he nipped from spot to spot on her tender and painfully sensitive womanhood.  The sickening image of an angular man pulling a meaty, flattened, dripping object from between her thighs and gorging himself on it like a chef over his latest dish.  All of these images slapped at her brain.  In all the pain and commotion she refused to acknowledge her vision of two forms suckling on her baby’s belly, chewing on the umbilical cord like a fleshy straw.

When true consciousness returned, Elanore was clothed in the same shift that Marisa had loaned her before.  Now it fit loose and sail-like over her newly flat form.  Her belly for so long had been her first site every morning and the last thing she saw before drifting off to sleep at night.  Now it was gone. Replaced with nothing more than a slight bulge; like a rubber shackle on the side of a boat to protect it from slamming against a pier.  The bed in her dreams when her belly was large was replaced with a straw mat that barely concealed the pebbles and cold, hard ground beneath it.  The walls, grayed in streaks and lined with lichen greeted her view.  A muck-covered, barred window sat a hands length from the ceiling.  No more than eight or so inches tall, it provided the only source of illumination.

Elanore sat up, groggy.  Her hair fell about her face, heavy and stringy with grease and sweat.  Her body felt feverish and she croaked a sound.  The word came out like water in her fuddled mind and sounding like a rusty chain to her ears.  She wheezed a dry, brittle sound and called for water again, sounding more human.  She felt sticky and gritty all over and refused to open her eyes again.  Elanore wiped away the crust from her eyes with fingers that felt like straw and crawled beneath the window.  When the sunlight touched her skin her flesh recoiled and burned.  She yanked the raw flesh from the beam of light and bobbed her sunken eyes about.

A key turned in the lock and she noticed the door, flush with the wall.  It hadn’t even registered in her mind as a door until that section of wall swung outward and a form appeared in its place.  Any light that existed in the room fled before the onslaught of the towering form that appeared in the doorway.  Sunlight fled his presence as did Elanore.  An instinctual signal sped through her and forced her to back into the farthest corner she could find as her bladder emptied itself down her legs and left a steaming trail.

“I smell your fear and it is roses and summer to me.”  His voice, slithery and foul, like rancid fish, curdled her insides and sent her eyes rolling upward in their sockets.  “My sweet, sweet, succulent Ella.  You are mine and you will look upon me as I am your creator and father.”

Elanore obeyed and opened her eyes and became fixated on the figure before her.  She felt her minds need to supplicate herself before him.  All she could do was take him in.  His grey hair pulled into a long tail tied with a black ribbon and laid over his right shoulder to lie atop the bulging muscles of his chest.  He was the largest man she had ever laid eyes on.  Her body and mind was torn between bowing before him and throwing herself on her back and proffering what meager earthly, womanly gifts she had left.  She settled for not moving from the curled ball that she had formed in the corner of her cell.


“And do you know what he did then baby boy?”  Ella asked.  “He smiled at me.  He knew what was going through my mind.  And all I could do was crawl up the wall.”


Elanore clawed with broken fingernails at the stone wall and attempted to insinuate herself in the cracks between the molded stones.

There was another body behind the man and Elanore had neither idea nor care until it slinked from behind him.  Marisa stood off to the side of the man with Elanore’s baby in her arms.  It cooed softly and sucked on its thumb.

His voice echoed in Elanore’s ears and crawled up her spine.  “Fear not for your spawn as it has been well cared for these past weeks.”

Elanore’s jaw dropped at the last word.

“Yes, weeks.” He thundered again.

Elanore’s mind raced at the implications and something ripped from her mind, like an animal emerging from hibernation.  “My baby!”  She screamed.  She tried to stand and had to force her body to cooperate.  She crawled toward the venomous bitch holding her baby, but the large demon grabbed her by the scruff of her neck and flung her back to the wall where Elanore landed in a limb-sprawled heap.

“You must be hungry enough by now.”  He jeered in that dusty voice.  “You will feed soon and I will be there to watch.”  He smiled and licked his leathery lips with a liver colored tongue shaped like a prune.  That smile sent a quiver dancing up Elanore’s spine.

Elanore was a husk of a woman when the man came to her again.  Her eyelids were dry leaves scratching across a sandy beach when she opened her eyes.  Fingers like twigs and arms formed of winter branches, she curled away from him when he entered carrying her baby boy.

A thick sprig of blond hair lay upon his head and he waggled his arms at dust motes floating in the air exposing three teeth in a beatific baby smile as he giggled at the escaping dust.

The warped husk of her heart beat once with regret and she curled on her side facing the wall and ignored the constant hunger pains that throbbed deep within her soul, pains from which she should have died months ago.  Pains that she knew now could not be satiated with meat and sauce.

Elanore could feel his smile curdle up her spine and heard the familiar clunk of the door as it locked.  An unfamiliar sound followed a few seconds later.  She rattled her brittle body into a roll and stared at the door where her seven month old son lay swaddled in a diaper.

It was three days later before she drained his screaming body of blood save the last drop which fell from her elongated fang followed by her last tear.


She kissed his neck again and her eyes sought the full bright face in the moon.  “So here we are baby boy.  Just you and me.  Both of us descendants of the same evil bastard and both of us have the same blood yet different routes of conception.”  She danced in the shaft of moonlight again, rocking back and forth.  “It took me a long time to track down his lineage but I found it.  After that I had to go forward in time instead of back.”  She rubbed her face nose to nose with the beautiful boy…so similar to her own lost one.  His breath was fresh in her nose and she put her head back in pure maternal pleasure.  Ella would have shed a tear had her tear ducts not dried to husks decades ago.  “You have no idea what I’m talking about do you baby boy?  Ella smiled full at him again and cuddled him close.  She opened her mouth and felt her teeth grow.  Still embracing him in the crook of her arm she tilted his head with her other hand, kissed him one more time just below the hinge of his tiny jawbone and the tips of her teeth pricked the delicate skin of his neck.

A low growl slipped from the doorway into her hearing.  She whirled and watched the large German shepherd creep around the door, its hackles raised.  She thrust her right arm out to the dog with her fingers splayed and tilted her head in its direction, her eyes narrowing to slits.  Deep in its brain the dog registered true fear and widened its eyes.  That instinctual voice in its head screamed RUNAWAYRUNAWAYRUNAWAY.  But it just froze, confused by a second voice uttered in strength and heart, PROTECTTHECHILDPROTECTTHECHILD.  It felt the tingling run of urine collect in its body and shook its head as a third voice pierced its fragile mind, uttering vile curses that slithered into the crevices of its instinct, LEAVE BITCH!  THE CHILD IS MINE!

The dog chuffed and shook its head to shake loose the dank feelings that slinked around its mind like a carnivorous mite.  The dog chuffed once more and uttered a low growl, baring its teeth.  Ella returned the grave gesture and hissed…half in surprise at the temerity of the canine and half in fear.  For the first time in decades she felt fear.  The dog stepped forward and slunk low to the ground, every muscle tense and molded under its skin.  She turned her body to keep the child from the dog and her concentration slipped a notch.  She heard a sound she dreaded.  The baby let loose a loud stabbing shriek, its mouth not two inches from Ella’s ear.

Ella’s scream joined that of the child, only hers from extreme pain.  She jerked her head and lost all concentration.  The dog launched itself at Ella and caught her in the throat, its teeth cracking together with a loud crunch as Ella’s throat dissipated.  The three of them tumbled backward, the baby rolling from Ella’s grip as her hands went for the scruff of the dog.  She couldn’t focus from the pain ripping into her neck and the rattling wail of the child still pounding inside her skull.  The dog shook her like a trailer in a tornado and dragged her away from the child lying on the floor all the while chomping for a better grip on the quickly eroding neck of its prey.

Other cries erupted from the hallway after the baby’s wail.  The child’s mother landed in the room like a rocket with Jeffrey’s father fast on her heels and both stopped short.  Jeffrey’s mother darted over and scooped up her baby pressing his small body into hers.  Jeffrey’s father ran to look at what the dog had done and halted before grabbing it by the scruff when he distinctly heard the woman hissing.  He watched her writhe on the floor and noticed the moonlight glint off her blood spattered teeth.  He swung his bare foot into the side of her head and observed the last shred of skin rip clean from her neck as her head separated from her body and rolled under the crib.


13 YEARS LATER…

The door closed behind them, locking the two of them in the closet.  Jeffrey felt sweat break out on his forehead and he huffed to clear his throat and could think of nothing to say.  Her hand touched on his shoulder and slid down his arm until her hand wormed into his.  They held hands for a minute before he took a tentative step toward her.  He could feel her breath, peppermint, as he neared her.

They faced each other, mere inches apart as the party music muffled by the closet door disappeared entirely when it dawned on him what was about to occur.  She stepped closer and smiled in the dark.  Their faces edged closer and their lips touched in fearful adolescence as instinct took over.  They slowly encircled their arms around each other and his lips left hers to sweep down her neck, kiss by kiss.  He meandered over the soft meaty spot just below the hinge of her jawbone.  He kissed that tender spot again and his eyes clouded over in ecstasy and his teeth lengthened.  She couldn’t even scream.