Delightfully Wicked - Prologue

Prologue

He was twenty-five when he attempted to murder the monster that destroyed the love of his life.
The screen door slams but its weight is too light to create a tremendous racket. Isaac Williams paces the front porch of his parents’ house in frustration. How could my family let something so horrible happen to the woman I love? He falls into a fetal sit, rocking back and forth, clutching his head in his hands. Isaac now knows the reason his sweet Ana had stopped writing him while he was away at university. He truthfully thought he had angered her by telling her not to travel to see him. Explaining that graduation would be soon enough and they could wed once he was home. Isaac never envisioned that his love would be torn into pieces once he arrived home. Ana had been assaulted while walking home from church and was now with child. At this moment, she is about to give birth.
“Why? Why didn’t you write me? How could you let something like this go unspoken?” Isaac screams and asks his father.
“Your mother and I knew what you do. You’d head home and kill the bastard which might have led to your hanging! Damn boy!” Isaac’s father, Jacob, lowers himself to sit on the front step of the porch.
“You’re pretty close to the truth there! Honestly old man…the monster deserves to die. He has withered a beautiful rose and slighted her life. How can you just ignore something like that?” Isaac throws his arms into the air and turns to leave the company of his father.
“No one knows exactly who has committed this unspeakable crime and what if, just what if…we accuse the wrong one? An innocent. Then what?” The weary man looks at his feet. He doesn’t even look into his sons’ face as Isaac turns to walk away.
“Oh, I’ll know exactly who by the end of this week. That I promise you. My sweet Ana and her unborn child will leave this town with me as soon as the babe is born and they are healthy enough for travel” Isaac feels like crying.
He could not, would not condemn her for these actions, they weren’t her fault. But could he really raise a child that wasn’t his? A child that was conceived from evil? What do I do? He hadn’t a clue. He can’t think clearly. Isaac enters the home and stomps upstairs and seizes the bag on his bed that he never unpacked. He is out the door again within moments.
Isaac arrives at Ana’s home within twenty minutes by foot. His heart felt as if it would explode. He drops his bag in the tall grass covering the yard by the porch. A pale withering man stands on the old wood structure barely attached to the home. His face is weary with dread, yet he smiles. Isaac ascends the steps and takes the man into a strong embrace and pats his back. He is careful not to jar the old guy around too much. The weak gentleman steps back and peers up at Isaac with glazed tears threatening to breach his bottom lids.
“Isaac. I’m so glad your home and that you actually came. She’s not in a good way boy. As soon as we can catch the bastard that did this to her, some of the nightmare will be over.” The man slowly moves himself backward to sit in a lone rocking chair by the door. The elderly gentleman gestures to the door with his arthritis riddled hand.
Isaac looks through the open front door of the weathered home. Glancing up the stairs, he feels his feet moving. Not knowing how to stop himself, he climbs the creaking stairs. Muffled sounds swim around his ears. Low moans, whines and grunts surround him and grow louder with each step. He finds himself with his fists grinding into the walls on each side of the door the sounds are emanating from. Isaac lowers his head against the wooden door with a heavy heart as the ominous noises die down and weeping replaces them. He drops to his knees as he hears the voice of Ana’s mother proclaim with hurt and anger that her baby is gone.
Minutes turn into hours as Isaac sits on the stairs of Ana’s home. Her lifeless body lay above him in a room with white curtains flowing from the wind. His arms still tingle where he had held the child that Ana bore. The child that died in his arms shortly after its mother had expired. He recalls the cold black eyes that had glared up at him from its tiny face. The inhuman form of its little head. The thoughts were maddening. He has to leave. He has to get out of this house.
Isaac walks slowly back toward his family’s farm with arms sagging and extreme fatigue plaguing every muscle in his athletic body. His bag becoming too heavy for his arm, he drops it beside the road and continues forward. Pushing, refusing to give up and refusing to give in. The hurt and hate have won. He can’t go any further. Falling to one side, he tries to catch himself with his left arm but his weight is too much for the trembling limb. He rolls to his back, half in the dirty road and half in the tall grass. The dusky sky will soon be dark, but he doesn’t care. He prays for numbness and is only met with pain. Isaac wishes for death too.
“Hoist the boy up on three. One. Two. Three.” Isaac faintly hears as he feels his body shift upward.
Several men struggle to lift the heavy twenty-five year old up to a horse-drawn cart. They had discovered him while traveling back from town after their daily sales were interrupted by the end of the day. One of the old gentlemen had recognized the boy as his neighbors’ son. Everyone in town knew the story. The recent tale of how Isaac had left his betrothed in pursuit of education. Left her here to fend for herself and her elderly parents. Left her here to a terrible tragedy of rape and ill conception. There wasn’t a person in town that hadn’t wondered just what Isaac had planned to do about it.
Scents of fresh baked bread and aromas of fruit and dew greet Isaac as he sorely rose from his bed. He inhales sharply and exhales a rugged breath. Lying back down on the bed, staring at the ceiling, he promises himself that he will find the evil bastard responsible for the assault against the woman he loved, the one responsible for her death and the death of her newborn child. The baby had perished only a few hours after Ana. The girls’ family was devastated. All Isaac could feel was hate.
He leaves the bed hurriedly and dresses. He descends the stairs quickly and passes his protesting mother on the way out the door. Isaac wishes to waste no time. There were matters to be dealt with and he needs information first.
“Isaac! You need to eat boy! You’ll need your strength!” His mother cries as she runs after him into the yard.
Isaac’s feet hit the ground running once again. He had taken a job with an elderly man cutting wood and clearing some land while he was in school studying mathematics and it had paid off nicely. He was strong and tall unlike most men in these parts. He’d rather walk or run than take a horse any day. Isaac knew he’d be in the bustling downtown area in no time at all.
Isaac finds what he is looking for with an hour of being in town. He knows everyone is staring at him, wondering. The church is small and quaint, but it is a very small town with a new-ish history. A handful of farm families had settled here over the last twenty years during the pioneer phase. Tennessee was lush with woodlands and valleys suitable for growing a variety of produce. It seemed easy enough for a family to start life anew and prosper. That’s exactly what his family had done shortly after he was born in 1801.
Isaac knows that several men in town had held a meeting about the incident after church that day according to his father. He is about to find out what was discussed and what information these men held. Fresh paint and lavender blossoms meets his nose as he enters the little white building. Inside he finds several men and women scattered among the pews toward the front of the room. He quietly places himself on the back row and listens to pastor. The preaching man acknowledges his presence quietly and politely wraps up his sermon.
Men, women and children slowly rise and a low buzz of whispers and giggles erupt as they greet one another and move toward the aisle. Several men greet Isaac and some whisper to their spouses. Those men turn around and make way back to the front. When all of the women and children are gone, a number of men gather around the pastor. Isaac rises and walks deliberately toward the group with determination.
“Isaac Williams. Good to have you home son.” Pastor Miller breathlessly speaks as Isaac approaches.
“Pastor. Congratulations on the new build.” Isaac says as he shakes the plump mans’ hand.
“We have much to discuss. Your father asks that we gather at your home upon the closing of the meeting tonight.” The pastor pats Isaac on the shoulder and walks around him gesturing to the other men toward the door.
Isaac is a bit taken back. He hadn’t expected this. He had honestly thought he would walk in and demand information. Guess the old man does care after all. He was certain his father had talked to these men. Isaac straightens his shoulders and follows the men out of the church. He accepts a wagon ride with a man he doesn’t know and the pastor. A million thoughts race through his mind on the bumpy ride home. Mostly about Ana. His rose. He had nearly hit the floor with exhaustion after her death. It felt as if his entire life was being suck out through his heart. Ana’s poor grieving mother had asked Isaac to name the deceased baby girl that he had held while they were preparing Ana’s body to be moved downstairs. He named the girl Ana Rose. He still prayed for numbness.
Jacob meets the line of wagons at the edge of the yard. Men descend and unhook their horses. A handful of men lead the horses to the barn behind the house. The rest join his father in the house. Isaac’s mother serves the men drinks with trays of fresh fruit and biscuits sitting on the small table in the kitchen and then she departs for the upstairs rooms. Over the next few hours the men discuss what will transpire over the next few days and make a vow to never speak of it with anyone else and never again after the week is over. The town had no acting sheriff. All criminal matters were in their own hands.
Isaac now knows his new enemy is part of a pioneer family that lives in the backwoods a few miles away with his elderly mother. Andrew Poole is about to meet an untimely end. The group of men trade what little information they have about the family and where the home is located. They decide that they are to detain the man, try him on the spot and hang him. However, Isaac has a different plan that does not include these men.
The next morning Isaac leaves the table after breakfast and makes his way to the barn shortly after daylight. His father is already busy in the field as most farmers are on such a beautiful late spring day as this. Isaac throws a bag onto the ground and stuffs in a rope and anything else that can be considered a weapon that will fit into the bag. He leaves the barn and heads straight for a wooded area to the right of his home. He knows the area pretty well. His family had purchased this land when he was a baby. Isaac had roamed these woods many summer afternoons that gained him a scolding and a good switching from his father when he’d return home after dark. He knows exactly where he is going.
The tiny run-down shack is surrounded on three sides by marshy swamp smelling of mildew and rot. He sees a small framed woman behind the home hanging clothes on a rope running from a thick oak to the back porch. The front door stands open as Isaac makes his way to the dilapidated house. Next to the front porch he slowly moves himself into position to peer through a window and spots his target quickly. Quietly taking the rope and a small ax from his bag and placing it into one hand, he steps up on to the porch with his long legs and is through the door within seconds.
Approaching the thick man from behind, Isaac quickly winds the rope around the man’s neck and pulls him to the floor. Placing his knee square in the flailing mans chest and raising the ax above his head, Isaac stares into the face of the man who ruined his lady’s life and eventually causes her death.
“You Andrew Poole?” Isaac whispers with anger. The man fighting under his strength stunk of perspiration and filth.
“Who are you?” The smelly man grunts.
“I’m the man that’s gonna send you to hell.” Isaac raises the ax higher and the man pushes up and bucks wildly.
Andrew sends Isaac crashing into a nearby wood stove and the ax flies from his hand landing underneath a small table by a window. Isaac hears the man scream something he can’t clearly understand and jumps up quickly, ignoring the pain in his back, and runs after him. Andrew exits a door in the kitchen on to the back porch and then Isaac sees him lunge forward diving into the knee-high grass behind the house. A crisp snap rang in Isaac’s ears. Andrew is no longer screaming. In fact, the man lay motionless as Isaac stood there on the back porch trying to formulate what has just happened in his brain.
Isaac shakes his head and tries to make sense of what he is seeing. A fine mist is slowly rising from Andrews’s body. It hovers above the man and forms a large body shaped mass. Isaac is stricken with fear and tries to move backward onto the house. The mass floats in his direction and before Isaac can turn and run something slams into his chest knocking him flat on his back. He tries to breathe, but nothing happens. Isaac starts to panic and tries to get up. Finally air finds him and deflates his chest. His heavy breathing is the only thing he hears for mere moments. His senses are clouded by pins and needles all over, like his entire body is asleep.
A screeching woman’s voice breaks him out of his daze as she approaches the porch. She bends over the lifeless man on the ground, shakes him, shoves him. Crying in torrents and hugging Andrews’ body, rocking back and forth.
“You’ve killed him! You will pay by the mother of the moon and all that grows in the darkness. You will pay!” The old woman cries.
“Are you ignorant woman? He fell and broke his fool neck. Although I had every intention of taking his life before the coward ran! He raped my fiancé and now her dead body lies!” Isaac screams back the old woman who sat there in the grass shedding tear after tear.
“Did you see this atrocity with your own eyes? How do you know it was my boy that committed such a horrendous error?” The woman rises shakily and staggers toward Isaac.
“Several townsfolk saw this man in the area on the day it happened and proclaimed him guilty already. I was just saving them the trouble of lynching him and hanging him! You crazy old crow!” Isaac grits through his teeth.
“You have taken from me the only thing I had left to love. Fiancé you say? Then you loved her. Mark my words stranger. You will live with your actions until your death. You will see the truth. May your every day be filled with sorrow and grief! So be it. By the mother, her minions and the moon. So shall it be.” The grieving woman growls as she slumps toward Isaac pointing an accusing finger toward him.
He shakes his head and backs into the house, bends down and grabs his ax under the table and rushes out the front door grabbing his bag on the way. What the hell just happened? The damned fool killed himself! That crazy woman has cursed me! Isaac runs through the woods as fast as his muscled legs will carry him. Once home, he runs in to the barn and finds his father standing there looking at him.
“Son. What have you done?” Jacob’s head drops and his shoulders sag as he watches his only son drop to his knees and shed tears.
Jacob had known all along what would happen. His father was right. He did something stupid. Thus the reason he hadn’t written to his son these past few months. Isaac knew he would have to go away yet again to keep him from hanging. Or would he? Would the folks in town really see him as a murderer now? Either way, the situation has ended badly and all the loose ends need to be tied. Justice has been served to the man that committed the crime. This fact alone should be enough…but it isn’t. Isaac isn’t satisfied. He knows what he must do. He knows that the old broad that cursed him must be dealt with. Isaac wept.