Excerpt from the journal of Miss Noralei Gloom, dated Summer 1885 and discovered a fortnight ago beneath the floorboards of an abandoned cottage on the outskirts of Kingston Upon Hull, East Riding of Yorkshire: They say confession’s good for the soul, but I don’t have a soul so I wouldn’t know. I just want to jot down my side of the story, and I might as well begin my tale on the night I met Sir Clement Wrenright Bibbershaw. I was selling flowers around eleven o’clock when he came strolling by, all decked out in his fancy duds and carrying a silver-headed walking stick. He was a quality gentleman, to be sure, and I’d had my eye on him for awhile, but now it was time to take action. Of course a gent like that wouldn’t give a second glance to a withered old hag with saggy tits and veiny skin and a cocked eye and warty nose and a bird’s nest of gray hair, so I packed away all my wrinkles and woes and changed into something he’d feel more comfortable in – a buxom lass with smooth flesh and straightforward eyes and soft auburn hair. Oh, I was a sight to behold, if I do say so myself. I did the spell with six black crystals – which I carried in my garter inside a little leather bag made from my ex-husband (who gave up the material most unwillingly). The crystals packed a wallop and did the trick in two shakes of an imp’s tail, their energy jolting through me every which way, up and down and over and under and around and through, till the ugly was on the inside and the pretty was on the outside. And after I’d fixed myself up proper, I spruced up my dress, too – nothing fancy, just a little decolletage and some lace around the edges. The street was pretty much empty; the other flower girls usually hung around the theater a few blocks over, and they never worked past ten anyway, so I knew I’d have the gent all to myself. As he got near I stepped into the lamplight so he could see me clear, and called out, “Flower, sir? Won’t you help out a poor girl and buy a flower?” “No thank you,” Sir Clement muttered, and started to pass me by. “Don’t you think your lady deserves a nice fresh violet, sir? Think of the smile it’ll bring to her face!” He stopped and turned, his countenance surly. “My ‘lady’, as you put it, has gotten exactly what she deserves, and it isn’t violets!” amazon/dp/B00PEEEHLK
Posted on: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 04:28:29 +0000
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