Whisper Charlton (histrionic_life) wrote in light_of_may, @ 2009-11-27 13:40:00 |
|
|||
Entry tags: | #flashback, #solo |
I am Capable of Really Everything
Who: Whisper Charlton (then Chloe Nightingale), several NPCs
When: April 22, 1844 (flashback)
Where: Sotherton Plantation, Georgia
What: Whisper takes matters into her own hands when she thinks that she’s being replaced.
Warning: Blatant - but not gory - murder.
“Now see that possum he works hard,” Chloe sang quietly as she shook out the sheets she had just washed. It was always one of the more soothing activities she could engage in on these spring days; laundry. The rough soap may have hurt her hands but it was better than most other things. Even if she had company she did not care too much for.
“Hoe Emma hoe, you turn around dig a hole in the ground,” came the return call from a younger slave who was helping her. Sasha was her name and she had come to the plantation only a week or so ago as part of a purchase that had Chloe in fits that her entire family was quickly growing tired of. “Hoe Emma hoe.”
“But he can’t work as hard as me.” A smile curved Chloe’s mouth when she finished hanging the sheet up, flicking the water off her fingers as she glanced over at Sasha. Anything that she could do to annoy the other slave, she did.
Sasha made a bit of a face as she glanced up, and she did not return the verse. Every slave knew that song, but normally only the one in the fields sung it. House slaves had different ones, quieter ones that were meant to not draw anyone’s attention. Chloe, however, felt the need to make an exception just this once. “He sits a horse just as pretty as can be,” Chloe continued, picking the basket up and resting it on her hip. That was more difficult than it should have been, she had hardly any of those – a sore point whenever it was pointed out by anyone. Sasha had made the mistake of remarking on it her first day there. That had been the first problem. “He can ride on and leave me… be.”
“Not here to make trouble,” Sasha sniffed. “Just doin’ what I was told like you are. No need to be hateful.”
“Don’t know what you’re talkin’ ‘bout,” Chloe told her as they started back for the manor. “Just singin’ a song.” The other woman had no response for that and headed up the stairs quickly when they entered the house, clearly eager to be as far away from Chloe as possible.
Good, Chloe thought with a satisfied smile. Don’t want her hanging around me anyhow, she’s just a problem. There had been something about Sasha that made Chloe’s hackles rise the first day she met her, like she was a threat almost… it had started on only her second day when the Master had informed her that she had such pretty hair. Chloe had been standing right there when he said it, doing the dishes, and it had been all she could do not to throw a knife right at the girl’s back. How dare she come in and draw the Master’s eye? That was for her and her alone! She had spent years establishing herself and this Sasha… this nothing… she was a threat. Her brother had always said that there was just one way to deal with threats.
Setting her basket down in the closet, Chloe smiled at her mother where she was doing the dishes from lunch. “Havin’ a good day?” she asked pleasantly, smoothing out her apron, her hands lingering on the small bump that had begun to form there. It was beginning to look like the medicine woman was right again.
Amanda Nightingale eyed her only daughter’s stomach with a look of pure revulsion, crossing her chest and murmuring a prayer that had Chloe rolling her eyes. “Please, mama, you need to stop that,” she informed the old woman. “An’ stop puttin’ tansy and feverfew into everythin’ you make. I know what it smells like good enough by now.” Chloe had thought that maybe after the last time her mother would have given up. But no, old woman was stuck in her ways.
“It’s not right,” Amanda told her in a whisper, no doubt not wanting any of the Sotherton’s to hear. Yes, they all knew what was happening and none been than the Mistress, hateful old thing that she was, but all the slaves knew better than to let them hear talk of it. Well, except for Chloe, she had been whipped more than once for not keeping her insolent tongue inside her mouth. “You walkin’ around all proud as the devil that you’re carryin’ somethin’ you ought not be.”
“He loves me, mama,” Chloe informed her. Of that she was certain and nothing anyone could say would change her mind. Yes, she worried about how he looked at Sasha, but he loved her! Why else would he have refused to let the Mistress have her sold? Why else take her right up to that bed meant for him and his wife? There were a dozen things Chloe could think of that meant he loved her and none that meant the opposite. Nothing anyone said would ever make her think otherwise. It was only the fault of her skin – which he claimed to love the smoothness of and even the soft color – that she could not be his mistress, he had told her so many times. And she believed him.
Amanda shook her head. “That’s somethin’ I’d be doubtin’ if I were you.”
“Don’t you go sayin’ that,” Chloe warned, her eyes narrowed. As firm as her belief was it could still be shaken, if not destroyed, and when that happened she was likely to do things that ended with her getting whipped. The Mistress used any and every excuse that she could to have it happen, full of spite that Chloe was younger and more attractive and desired.
“Ain’t my fault,” Amanda told her. “I’d be watchin’ that Sasha if you want to keep on in your ways like they are, seems like she’s got the eye like you used to have. And nothin’ makin’ her belly rounder than it should be.” Chloe should have noticed the contradiction in that, her mother had always said she was too skinny, but she had latched onto Sasha’s name the moment it was spoken. So she was a threat! Well, that could not be stood for. Chloe would not be replaced by some young thing who lacked the sense to see that there was already someone there. She would not be set aside.
Without another word, the young woman turned and headed up for the third floor where she knew Sasha would be, likely beating the rugs out on the balcony for the Master’s room. Fire was licking at her mind and her thin limbs had begun to shake when she entered the room and heard the sound of Sasha singing quietly to herself out on the balcony. It was all too easy for her mind to paint a picture of Sotherton coming up to her, hands touching her hair and whispering things that were meant for her. What would become of her if that happened? If she fell out of his favor then nothing would stop the Mistress from having her beaten right to death, or worse, sold into the fields which Chloe was not strong enough for.
And there was Sasha, dark hair blowing in the light breeze as she shook out a rug. There was nothing special about her, nothing at all. She looked like a dozen other slave girls who worked in the house… was it because she was bigger? Chloe had always known that she was too small of frame, called sickly when she was growing and sometimes even now, but it had always seemed like such a good thing when it came to Sotherton. Had his tastes changed so quickly?
Doesn’t matter if they did, Chloe told herself as she stepped out onto the balcony, making not even a whisper of noise. Sasha’s singing and scraping continued, the young slave completely unaware of the danger standing right behind her. I won’t be tossed aside so easily as his wife. She was more afraid of living without the attention she was given than whatever she might get if she was caught doing what she was about to. No, she was not just afraid of it, she could not live without the attention. After so many years of it she could not imagine her life without Sotherton's constant touches. Especially if they went to another slave, if another girl was raised above her. No. Tears threatened to fall at just the thought of being turned aside.
Drawing in a deep breath, Chloe waited until Sasha was leaning over the balcony to finish shaking out the rug to run at her, one hand pushing her shoulder while the other went to the small of her back to help. A foot struck her in the thigh as Sasha tipped over the edge, screaming as she scrambled to grab something and failed, plummeting to the ground with the rug she had been cleaning falling slower after her. The screaming cut off as abruptly as it had began, though shouts from a little farther away took up – it seemed people had heard the doomed girl’s cries.
Chloe did not even look over the edge to see the result of what she had done. Limping slightly, she turned to head back down to the kitchen to help her mother with the dishes, mind at ease now that she knew the threat was taken care of. Sotherton was not going to be touching anyone but her. And if he did?
Well, there were always rugs that needed to be shaken out.