CORDELIA’S CURSE

CORDELIA’S CURSE
by Priscilla Bettis

Five-year-old Cordelia’s little knees trembled as she crouched in the tiny space. The bricklayer had given Cordelia an apple and her very own candle to chase away the darkness if she’d be a good girl while he worked.

“It’s like a game,” the bricklayer said through the shrinking hole of light. Lumpy scar tissue streaked one side of his face and pulled his mouth to the side.

Cordelia was in the wall of the new manor house, between the fireplace and the cornerstone. “I don’t like this game.”

He opened his mouth as if to say something, but he looked down and shook his head instead.

Cordelia’s feet prickled from being in an awkward position for so long. “Tell my mother to come get me now.”

Do as the man tells you, her mother, a washerwoman in the city, had said as she tucked a thick stack of bills in her bosom. Then she had picked up Cordelia’s baby brother and hurried away.

The bricklayer dragged his wooden trowel along the face of a brick. It made a hollow, scratching noise. “I can’t do that, Cordelia.” His voice cracked. He laid the brick a bit askew and tapped it straight.

Cordelia could see only half of his face now through the remaining rectangle of light. The hole was just big enough for one final brick.

“He shall lay the foundation thereof in the firstborn,” the bricklayer said, sounding like a preacher man now.

“I don’t understand,” Cordelia said.

The bricklayer let out a long breath. “The truth is, Cordelia, only a child’s soul can frighten the dirt haints away from the tobacco crops.” Another hollow scratch, and then the hole was gone.

“Do you mean soul like a dead person in heaven, or do you mean like when Mother says, ‘Well, bless my soul’?” Cordelia’s words spilled into the silent darkness beyond the reach of her candle. She tilted the candle sideways to make a pool of wax on the floor and set the candle in it as she’d seen her mother do hundreds of times. Then she pressed her ear against the wall and waited patiently for the bricklayer to answer.

He was taking a long time to respond, so she leaned back until her bottom touched the gritty floor and she could unfold her numb legs.

By the time the candle had burned half its length, Cordelia’s young mind finally realized what had been done to her, that she’d been leftin the wall to die. She cried and begged the bricklayer to let her out, and she yelled for her mother. Nobody came.

A spark of anger flared in her chest and grew to a raging fire. She curled her fists and pounded the wall, picturing each strike landing on her mother’s sweaty bosom or the bricklayer’s crooked mouth. She demanded the bricklayer or her mother set her free. When that didn’t work, she broke down in panicked sobs and screamed for the master of the house. Surely he would right this terrible wrong.

Only the silent darkness answered.

Cordelia cried herself out and collapsed on her back. It was getting hot in the little space. Perhaps the sun was higher outside. Perhaps the candle flame was warming the space.

I’ll just have to free myself. She was getting awfully thirsty, so she’d have to hurry.

Trouble was, as much as she kicked and pushed against the masonry, she wasn’t strong enough to break through.

Exploring her small tomb, Cordelia discovered there was stone or brick on all sides and above her, but the floor was only packed dirt. She dug at the floor, figuring she could tunnel down then under the wall.

The dirt was hard and full of pebbles that tore at her skin and nails. Desperation and thirst drove her efforts until her fingertips were shredded and her hands grew slick with blood. She paused to rest on her elbows and knees, dizzy and in pain. Her parched tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth. The candle was very short now, and its light revealed that for all her work, the hole was only as deep as her forearms were long.

That’s when Cordelia remembered the apple. She could eat the apple for energy and dig some more.

Cordelia shook her head. One apple isn’t enough.

Instead, Cordelia held the apple with her bloody hands, both the fruit’s slick skin and her blood gleaming in the candlelight. “Dirt haints,” she said, her voice rising to a shrill pitch, “this apple is for you.” She placed the apple in the hole. “Punish them!” she screamed. “Punish them all!”

A vibration rose from the ground. The apple wobbled, and a hand made of dirt with roots for veins and beetle heads for fingernails reached up from the bottom of the hole and snatched the fruit offering.

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An abandoned manor house sits alone like a forgotten tombstone. Inside, the spirit of a young girl cackles as she creeps from room to room. Outside, the surrounding fields lie black with rot and disease as they have for the past two hundred years.

Fiction © Copyright  Priscilla Bettis
Image by B. Hunter