How do you explain to your fiancé that there are dark secrets-- even ghosts-- in your family history. And that some of those ghosts are not fully relegated to the past.
This is a sad, sweet, tale which echoes a time that many would like to forget ever happened in this country. But it did, and the ghosts of that time live on in many families in many different ways. There isn't a lot of explicit sex in this. It is more of a tone poem (writing which sets a mood), but it came to me almost complete in a single brilliant flash. I tried to write down what I saw and what I heard and what I felt. I hope that you can see and hear and feel some of that also.
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WARNING! This warning is possibly not needed for this particular story, but I am including it because it is needed for most of my stories.
If you decide to read other of my stories make sure that you read the disclosures and warnings at the beginning of each story.
All of my writing is intended for adults over the age of 18 ONLY. Stories may contain strong or even extreme sexual content. All people and events depicted are fictional and any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. Actions, situations, and responses are fictional ONLY and should not be attempted in real life.
If you are under the age or 18 or do not understand the difference between fantasy and reality or if you reside in any state, province, nation, or tribal territory that prohibits the reading of acts depicted in these stories, please stop reading immediately and move to somewhere that exists in the twenty-first century.
Archiving and reposting of this story is permitted, but only if acknowledgment of copyright and statement of limitation of use is included with the article. This story is copyright (c) 2019 by The Technician.
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It was a crisp, but not cold, end of October evening in the "middle ground" just north of Vidalia, Louisiana, when Shelly stepped out of the woods and walked across the harvested cotton patch toward a small square of grass and weeds that stuck out almost like an island into the empty field. If you looked closely at that square, you could see the remnants of a brick foundation sticking slightly out of the grass just inside where the weeds gave way to a cultivated field. In the middle of that foundation was a more modern piece of brickwork.
Modern, of course, is relative. These bricks had been exposed to the elements for at least a hundred years, but they were machine-made, kiln-fired bricks rather than the hand-made, sun-dried bricks that had once been the foundation of the house. Years of wind and rain had worn those soft bricks down to the point where only one or two courses still stood above ground level. With the strength that comes from the kiln, however, and without the severe winters of the more northern states to freeze and crack the mortar which held the bricks together, the benches and supports for what appeared to be a stone picnic table still stood as solid as when they had been built many decades before. The large picnic basket sitting in the middle of the table was even more modern. The food and drink inside, although classic foods of the area from days gone by, were freshly prepared.
A young man sat waiting at the table. Harold's dark skin and dark clothing caused him to almost blend into the shadows of dusk. His face brightened when he saw Shelly's white dress blowing in the evening winds as she crossed the cotton patch. Her peaches and cream complection was only slightly darker than the white dress which billowed around her.
She was married in that dress. And she would have been buried in that dress had they ever found the body... or the dress. No bodies or human remains of any sort were ever recovered from the ruins of the house. By the time the fire had burned itself out, there was nothing left but a thin layer of fine, gray ash, confined mostly within the four rows of bricks which held the house slightly off the wet ground.
Not finding the bodies was probably best. That prevented an argument as to where to bury the couple. Her family was part of the elite of Natchez. His pedigree was from the other side of the river and a little more mixed. In those days he would have been called a "quadroon," meaning that he was only one-fourth black. His grandmother was a house slave on a Louisiana cotton plantation. His mother was a "mulatto," meaning that her father-- unknown, but probably the Lord of the Manor-- was white. She was technically a free woman, having been freed by her master at his death, but her life was not much better than when she was a slave. She eked out a living in one of Vidalia's "sporting houses." His father... also white... probably from Natchez... was also unknown. Thus, through the introduction of two generations of unknown white fathers, the heritage of his mother's had been diluted to one-fourth.
Harold and Shelly were married on Halloween. There were several reasons why they chose that date. One was that they knew that the Justice of the Peace who could marry them would be highly inebriated on hard cider at the town Halloween party. He always was and this year was no different. With a shaky hand and slurred words, he was able to conduct the ceremony with a little help, but his mind was too muddled to fully understand what was happening or what he was actually doing.
The other reason for choosing Halloween was that it was possible to be married while still in full costume, including masks. That way the drunken JP would be even less likely to realize he was sanctioning miscegenation.
Shelly was dressed as a witch bride with a white dress, a black witch's hat, and a black silk mask covering the upper half of her face. Her long, blond hair was tucked carefully up into the pointed hat balanced on her head. Harold wore a Minstrel Man's outfit with an oversized black coat and a ridiculously large red cravat tied partially in a bow. All he used as a mask was a wide stripe of white grease paint smeared around his mouth. From a distance... or through a drunken haze... he looked like a white man in black face.
It wasn't until almost midnight that Shelly's family figured out what was going on and tracked down the JP. Shelly and Harold had used their real names in the official marriage book. The Justice became suddenly much more sober when he realized that he had just married the daughter of one of Natchez' most powerful families to a man, who before "The War," would have been a slave.
"She bewitched me," he screamed out. "I couldn't tell what I was doing."
Maybe Shelly's father believed him. Or maybe in his extreme anger he saw a way to rid his family of this dark stain. In any case, when a cry of "Burn the witch," was yelled out from the crowd, he raised his arm in the air and called for horses and torches.
"The Middle Ground" was part of Missouri back then. Actually, it still is, but back then it was also on the eastern side of the Mississippi. Since they standardized the channel for the Big Muddy, you have to drive into Lousiana and go hell and gone off onto back roads and field trails to get to it. The Middle Ground was-- and still is-- swampy ground and several of the horses fell when they stepped into deep holes that looked like shallow puddles, but the rest kept going until they reached the small house that Harold had built on the flood plain near the river.
