Blackthorn

by J.T. Geissinger

And I know at long last that I’m free of this place and the stranglehold it has always had over me. Except for my dreams where Blackthorn and its ghosts will always find me, I’m finally free.

Oh, I like the beginning at the end prologue.

Hell is empty, and all the devils are here. —The Tempest

The sense of having been transported back in time is palpable. So is the electrical crackle of my daughter’s panic. She’s never been outside the city. I suffer a fleeting twinge of regret over that now, but I have good reasons for keeping her surrounded by skyscrapers and concrete. The women in my family go feral if left in nature too long.

“This place is like a creepy olden town from a horror movie. Those woods are probably full of escaped convicts. We could be hacked to pieces any minute.” “It’s not creepy, it’s charming. You’ve been watching those crime documentaries again. We talked about that. It’s not good for your mental health.”

“That’s Quentin, the caretaker. I told you about him, remember? There’s nothing to be afraid of.” “You didn’t tell me he looked like a zombie.” “He isn’t a zombie.” She whispers, “Mom, he literally looks like he just rose from the dead. I’ve never seen a person that color in my life. He might as well be made of clay.” “We don’t criticize people for their appearance. Be kind to him.” I raise my hand in greeting to Quentin.

Q is tall, stooped, thin as a rail, and has onyx eyes that gaze from under heavy brows with piercing intensity. He can stare for an unnaturally long time without blinking. His pale, parchment-thin skin stands in stark contrast to the severity of his antiquated black wool cloak, and his wispy white hair drifts around his skull like ethereal mist. His boots don’t have a right or a left, as he made them himself.

Q has looked exactly the same since my earliest memory from childhood when he gazed seriously into my eyes as I handed him his birthday gift of a brilliant-green scarab beetle I’d dug from under a barberry bush in the garden. He loves the creepy-crawly creatures of the earth as much as I do.

Our eyes meet briefly before I duck inside the car, and though Q is nonspeaking and always has been, I don’t need words to interpret his warning: Be careful. They already know you’re here. But of course they would. The wealthy and powerful Crofts know everything that happens in this town, and they have for over three hundred years.

My family’s ancestral home looms at the end of a long, rutted dirt driveway choked with weeds. As much a part of the forest as the centuries of dense undergrowth and towering trees that surround it, the brooding stone structure is cloaked in ivy

The house isn’t one structure, but many structures built over hundreds of years in a stubborn patchwork quilt of styles that lend it a chaotic, unsettled appearance. Part Medieval fortress, part Gothic mansion, and part rustic ruin, it defies easy categorization, much like its generations of inhabitants. An architectural Frankenstein’s monster, the place seems to radiate a sense of foreboding, as though it guards secrets best left undisturbed.

After a moment, she says quietly, “It looks like it’s haunted.” I meet Q’s dark gaze in the rearview mirror. Then I look back at the house and suppress a shiver. Home sweet home. Where all the hungry goblins of my past lie in wait for my return. I slide my hand into my coat pocket, run my fingertips along the smooth lines of the pistol nestled there, and remind myself to keep breathing.

The Blackthorn women are many things, but teetotalers isn’t one of them. “Bea’s quite precocious for her age,” observes Davina as she languidly traces a finger over one of the many marks carved into the ancient wood tabletop. “As were you,” Esme says as she glances at me. “But she’s an angel. You were a little devil. Full of spit and vinegar, just like your mother.”

“Tell that to Father O’Brian. Does he still make the sign of the cross over his chest when he sees you?” “Psh. That old fool. He’s the only person who can read from the Book of Revelation and make it boring.”

“Maybe if you didn’t purposely antagonize people, they’d be nicer to you.” Davina studies me silently for a moment, her gaze assessing. “We’re Blackthorns. We antagonize people merely by existing. We’re different, and we always will be, no matter how we might try to pretend we’re not.”

Uncomfortable for being called out, I shift my weight in the chair. “I’m not pretending anything.” “That hideous dye job would suggest otherwise. And why shoe-polish black, of all things? You look like you lost a bet.” “I’ll have you know, I get my hair dyed professionally.” Her tone is amused. “By Morticia Addams?”

Like all Blackthorns, I harbor far too many secrets for true intimacy.

I stare at the shadows slinking across the ceiling as my brain picks through a graveyard of memories, overturning mossy headstones to reveal the dark soil and wriggling insects beneath.

I see Q in the yard outside, chopping wood on a block. He doesn’t look strong enough to hoist a book over his head, let alone an axe, but, like so much else in Blackthorn Manor, his appearance is deceptive. He splits open a log with a single, powerful strike, then tosses the pieces onto the small pile beside him. It never occurred to me until this moment that chopping wood while wearing a tattered wool relic of an opera cloak might be considered odd.

Their butler is a character from Bloodborne 😆

Davina looks around in horror. “Good God. Remind me to get cremated.” With a gulp, Mr. Anderson backs out of the room and disappears. Esme marches over to one window and throws open the velvet drapes. Daylight floods the room. She turns back to us and huffs. “The best reception room, my behind! Who decorated this place? Dracula?” “The Marquis de Sade would be my guess,” says Davina.

Bea stares at the knife Davina’s offering her as if it’s the most fascinating thing she’s ever seen. Which it undoubtedly is. “Why would you want that in her casket?” “Because she’ll need it where she’s going.” I look at the ceiling and exhale in a gust. Why is my family so determined to be flamboyantly strange?

“Husbands? The Blackthorn women are far too smart to fall for that old trap.” By that point, I already knew my own father was regarded as nothing more than a means to an end, some disposable man my mother made use of when she felt the time was right for her to have a child. His identity was never revealed to me. I still don’t know if he was a stranger passing through or someone I saw at church every week. It’s the Blackthorn way and has been for as long as anyone can remember: men are only tools, and love is only for fools.

His eyes are the color of pale arctic ice. They’re ringed in a thicket of dark lashes. His hair is thick and inky black, waving down from a widow’s peak nearly to his shoulders. His jaw is strong, his lips are full, his burning gaze promises both hell and redemption.

Noo. Please don't do this to mee. Not the cliche MMC descriptions ! 🙈

“Go away, Ronan. Don’t come back.” Ignoring my demands, he looks me up and down, his gaze frankly sexual.

Noo. Authorrr

“Oh, those eyes. Those lovely, spellcasting eyes. How they’ve haunted me. If only you knew the power they’ve always held over me. Maybe then you wouldn’t be so cruel, little witch.” “You have no right to talk to me about cruelty, you hypocrite. And don’t call me a witch. You know I hate that.” “Of course I know. That’s why I said it.”

This was going so well before the cliche MMC barged in with his eye-rolling dialogue.

There’s a part of me—twisted, selfish—that wants to punish her. Force myself into her house, her bed, her body. Make her submit and beg for forgiveness for leaving the way she did. But I keep that dark part of me under control and unbuckle my belt instead. It slips through the belt loops and my fingers and clatters against the wood floor. I shrug off my coat and let it fall, too, then yank down the zipper on my trousers.

Well, that's my cue to add to the DNF pile. 😑