Covet Not
Authors: Arden Aoide
Covet Not
ARDEN AOIDE
Covet Not:
The Complete Sins of Lethe:
WANT NOT
I. A Consummation
Ia.
Not to Be (prequel)
II.
Devoutly
TAKE
NOT
III.
To Be Wished
IV.
Insolence
HAVE
NOT
V.
What Dreams May Come
VI.
To Be
Copyright © 2014 Arden Aoide
All rights reserved. This book or any
portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without
the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief
quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Hopefully.
[email protected]
Cover art by Jada D’Lee Designs
Copyright © 2016
Title and Epigraph from William
Shakespeare, Hamlet, Hamlet's Soliloquy
For Texas
Get your shit
together FFS.
Contents
Want Not
VOLUME ONE
A Consummation
Not to Be
Devoutly
A
Consummation.
Sins
of Lethe: Book One.
“To die, to
sleep.
To sleep,
perchance to dream–ay, there’s the rub,…” –
William Shakespeare, Hamlet
Human ash was
ridiculously difficult to work with when wet, but it was done. She had planned
on nice clean lines gently smudged against her dark brown eyes, but the ash
proved far too unwieldy. After watching it flake off when it dried, Shula added
a drop of oil to a good sprinkling of ash to the palm of her hand. It still
didn't apply evenly, and she looked more like a raccoon than a bride, but her
mother would share her big day now and she could take no other method to avoid
it.
Though
Shula would give her a 'A' for effort.
She
tipped the urn into her great-grandfather's rusted cigarette case, messily
covering the razor blade taped inside it. She filled it, spilling quite a lot
onto the floor, but she would have to get the broom out anyway. She pressed the
case shut gently, shook the excess ash into the sink, and put it into her purse
on the counter. She washed her hands and wiped down the sink, smearing the ash
into pristine caulk, infecting it like mold. She smiled grimly.
Shula
picked up her father's tiny grooming scissors and went to work on her hair
quickly. She started at the crown, cutting close to the scalp, but uneven in
its swiftness. She had a massive amount of thick curls, but they fell quickly
and silently, offering no protest.
Once
done, the scissors were nearly worthless, but she put them away. She
deliberately left several knotted strands stuck, so that her father would see
them later and be reminded of this day.
She
looked around the bathroom, avoiding her reflection deliberately, picking out
things that she hated and she tried to take comfort that she would never see
them again. Her stomach lurched in grief, so she finally looked at the woman in
the mirror, this stranger no longer, summoning strength with a glance. She
looked like a horror and she felt an acute anticipation for her unveiling
within the hour.
She'd
been told since she was old enough to understand that she was beautiful. Like
it meant something important. Like it would give her a choice between a husband
with a kind soul or a corrupt one.
For
the lucky, beauty got you a larger house to clean and maybe a house full of
beautiful children. For her, beauty would be an end. The end.
She
was newly eighteen, but she still felt so much like a child. Far too young for
what was expected of her. Her naked body, covered in constellations of
freckles, goose fleshed and covered in the dark remnants of her copious locks,
memories of braids and pigtails and innocence. It felt wrong to curl and primp
for a man older than her own father, no matter how many might have coveted the
position. Though decorating herself for the day's final end did seem to amuse
her, she wanted his disappointment of her to be profound, not just in their
marriage bed, but as soon as he lifted her veil. So, she had brought out the
scissors. She wasn't a girl any longer, and her hair had no purpose as it had
served her beauty with ultimate betrayal.
She
couldn't abide traitors.
She
watched detached, as she brushed the thick dead clumps that covered her breasts
and skimmed her belly, and clung to the hair on her pubis. She brushed it away
absently at first, but she found her senses heightened by her nudity and the stimulation
of her falling hair. She slid her fingers against her clitoris, smiling at the
rush of arousal, and realized that she would miss this. Sexual thoughts were
taboo, and unless you had the express consent of your husband,
self-gratification was punishable by a life married to Christ, sequestered with
the rest of the girls who would never be accused of keeping their hands to
themselves.
Naturally,
Shula was quite adept with masturbation once she'd discovered her clitoris, and
once she'd heard about the sacrament of virginity, she'd tried out every
vegetable from the garden. She'd tried candlesticks, her fingers, and even the
hilt of a very large kitchen knife, though the horsewhip was her favorite.
She
would miss it all. James Agnesson ruined everything.
Earlier
in the week, when James had come calling, and he had sampled the food she had
prepared for him, she would have poisoned him had she known. As it was, her
hatred grew for him, rather than their situation, and her plans for their
wedding and honeymoon became quite morbid. She found that her future groom's
frustration wouldn't be nearly enough, nor her lack of hymen. He would not have
the gift of her purity, nor the proof of it, nor would any man now, because
even imagining his realization as he's rutting inside her didn't bring her
pleasure as it had when she imagined it was his son, Jared. She didn't want to
just ruin his day. She wanted to ruin
him
. For Jared, his confusion
would have been satisfactory enough, but for his father…death was preferable
than having him touch her.
The
day had come, and a more wretched ending was born. She would not have the honor
of seeing his face when he gazed upon her in their marriage bed, but like all
charity, it's best not to be selfish in your giving. She would strive for
humbleness, because martyrdom wasn't effective without a captive audience.
Her
mother had probably taught her a great many things, the domesticities of their
gender notwithstanding, and she'd taken almost all of it for granted. The one
thing that she'd always remember though, was the most profane: Sometimes
suicide and the Seventh Circle of Hell were a far desired fate if the
alternative was life and all the Circles combined.
Today
was that day. Her wedding day. Tonight, she would excuse herself early, and he
would surely allow it. Women, for she was a woman now, needed time to prepare
for bed. To ready themselves for their husbands and their pleasure.
She
would pull down the coverlet, open the cigarette case, and fashion a distorted
crucifix with her mother's ashes and the water from the traditional roses she
was sure to be beside the bed. She would lie down in the center of bed, pull
the razor from the cigarette case and slit both wrists quickly and efficiently.
She would spread her arms wide.
It
was pure drama, but if one gets to choose their passing, make it memorable.
Make
a fucking point.
Her
only regret was that she was sure her father wouldn't see. James was sure to
cover it up somehow, the drama of it, even though he'd have no scruples relaying
the slit wrists.
Her
father would probably never see her bled out on her mother's ashes and she
hated that. She hated her father even more than James Agnesson. She knew it was
wrong, but she was prepared for Hell, so all unspoken sins were at the forefront
of her mind.
As
it was, since she was choosing, she'd rather have the chance of spending an
eternity in Hell with her mother than with the likes of James, no matter how
horrible.
She
wasn't sure she believed in Hell of the after death variety anyway, but her
mother spared two years for her. Shula would never forget the fight, nor the
sound of the gun. Worse yet, she would never forget the sound of her mother
hitting the floor, nor of her father's silence.
And
his continued silence.
She
hated
him.
He
was going to give her away to that monster and her mother's death had been in
vain. She would have certainly stayed had she imagined this outcome.
Shula
had been betrothed to Jared Agnesson since the day she was born and they were
to be wed the day after she turned sixteen. She wasn't much happy about it, but
all the girls got married at that age, and Jared seemed nice enough. He was
painfully shy, quiet, and probably handsome, if one considered a boy handsome.
He'd not quite caught up with his brothers in stature and Shula wasn't afraid
of him like she was of other newly-made men.
James
had told her that Jared had disappeared into the woods after he took the death
of Anna, James' late wife, quite hard, and he had shown no signs of returning
and fulfilling his contract, so he had deigned to fulfill it himself.
She
wanted to be angry at Jared, but found that she didn't care. He hadn't owed her
a thing. She could not fault him for escaping when he could. At least he had
that option.
Her
mother had not wanted it. Shula didn't quite understand as it was normal for
girls to marry, and she couldn't imagine Jared had offended her mother since he
was so silent and awkwardly polite.
The
morning of her mother's death, every muttered curse spoke of Jared's father, and
she didn't know what that had to do with Jared himself. Shula belatedly
realized that her mother hadn't wanted her involved with the Agnesson family at
all, but she was never brave enough to ask her father why. They'd barely spoken
these last two years, and she didn't know what her mother saw in him, unless
she didn't have a choice.
Of
course she didn't have a choice.
But,
it must have been something terrible for her to take her own life to prevent a
marriage to a harmless boy.
She
took comfort that she wouldn't bleed out on her own bed, her grandmother's old
bed, because she would be moving into James Agnesson's house, but thankfully
she wouldn't be required to be mother to men who were older than her. Surely,
he could see the wrongness of it.
A
wrongness she wouldn't tolerate. Shula was pleased she could still feel relief.
Her
betrothal to Jared had still been under contract, but the death of a mother, by
Law, would postpone any such commitments until she reached majority. Her
contract was amended, and signed by both her father and James one day before
her eighteenth birthday, replacing the son with the father. If she would have
known at dinner before, none would have left the table alive.
That
was three days ago, and Shula can't imagine why it isn't a scandal. She was
appalled when he had married Anna, as they had been close in age and grew up in
church together. Shula would be his third. The mother of the five boys: Jacob,
Jonah, Josiah, Jared, and Jude, had died during childbirth, and James Agnesson
had married Anna, newly sixteen, and she died last year of an apparent suicide.
Anna had been the same age as Jude.
The
rumor was that Jude had found her in her bed, and that was all Shula had heard
about it.
Shula
could guess, but that made her feel smug, and she wondered if that even
scratched the surface of what her mother might've known. Her mother
knew
something, and her father knew it too, but curious as she was, she'd rather die
than know, unless she could find out today.
Two
suicides in two years, especially after his last wife's sudden death, should
bring about a much more intense scrutiny. There was a reason her mother hadn't
wanted her in his house, and it had been worth her life. Shula had not
forgotten that.
She
was relieved in a way. She was lonely, but trusted no one, and it was a scary
existence.
She
watched herself in the mirror as she touched herself expertly. She always had
philosophical thoughts on sin. She liked to list them in her head from ones she
deemed not so bad to the worst ones, like cruelty and complacency. She didn't
understand how this God-given pleasure was only a means to tempt and trap.
As
a woman, she wasn't allowed to read The Bible. Only the men were allowed, and
it was up to them to explain their sinful natures to them. Sometimes Shula
would sneak a few paragraphs when she cleaned her father's room, if he had it
out of the locked trunk. It was paragraphs and paragraphs of confusion, and she
would turn the pages quickly, looking for the list of sins that would seem an
obvious addition. She never found them.
So,
she compiled them in her head. Sins, taxonomy of.
She
would write them down, but she hoped that her corpse would display his deepest
sins and eat at James Agnesson the way God's disappointment was supposed to.
After
Shula brought herself off, she took a few deep breaths and grabbed the broom
behind the door. She swept up the remnants of her youth and the death of it,
and when she was finished, she looked toward the dress hanging on the hook on
the door.
Her
mother's beautiful, meaningless frock, yellowed with age, and smelling of decay
and mothballs. The lace was matted with cobwebs and even blotting it with a
washcloth thickened the strands.
She
fished out her father's scissors and snipped the lace from the bodice, eyeing
the netting of the veil briefly, knowing it would cover her thoroughly, until
it was lifted.
The
lace lifted easily and she dropped it carelessly into the trash. She pulled the
dress over her head, slipping it onto her naked body, mindful of her mother's
ashes. It was a little too snug, but she knew it would give just a little as
the day went on.
She
stepped up to the mirror and she still looked terribly young. Even with her neutered
hair, and her darkened eyes, and low bodice, she still looked much too young.
It
was a tragedy.
The
only thing that kept her tears at bay was that this was what James Agnesson
would see when he lifted her veil.
He
would see who he'd chosen to be his wife.
Shula
affixed the veil to her head and covered her face and chest. She grabbed her
purse and suitcase, and walked it to the front door where her father was
waiting. He opened the door without a word, and led them to the car. The veil
was sheer enough for her to see images, and the haze of black from the ashes
made the sky look like rain.
Jared
Agnesson sat heavily on the front steps of his tiny cabin. He was going to need
to build a fence and get a dog. Maybe several of the Doberman variety.