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November 27 - December 12, 2024
Louisa found Juliet outside near the well, hauling up buckets of water and dumping them over her head. For a moment Louisa paused, a curious warmth shifting low in her middle. There was something . . . appealing . . . about the way Juliet looked soaking wet, water running over her dark skin, the black blood of the undead rinsing away. Louisa grabbed the feeling and shoved it down violently. She’d heard stories of men, and women, who developed affections for Negroes, and she had no desire to do the same. Down that path lay ruin, and that was not for Louisa. She was respectable. Mostly.
character arc loading...
Louisa adjusted her grip and practiced the swing again, somewhat breathless from both the training and Juliet’s touch. “You are completely unlike any other Negro I’ve met.” Juliet laughed, the sound hollow. “Truth is, I’m just like every single other colored person on this plantation. You just ain’t paying attention.
“What is it?” Louisa asked, hurrying to stand next to Juliet. “Shamblers.” They were everywhere. Men and women ran down the street in wide-eyed panic while the undead lumbered after them, arms reaching out to, more often than not, clutch empty air. The smell was terrible, a sweetly foul rot that overwhelmed and made Louisa gag. A man tripped and fell, the undead swarming him quickly, the echo of his screams fading soon after they fell on him.
it's beginningggggggggggg 😨
Louisa didn’t want to understand what Juliet meant by that, but she did. Training with Juliet had caused her to see Negroes in a different light . . . but not nearly enough, it seemed. Louisa knew it wasn’t fair for someone as competent as Juliet to be trapped in a position of perpetual servitude, but that was just the way things worked, and it wasn’t up to Louisa to change things. Was it?
the scarecrow gets a brain... smh
She and her girls parted ways with Louisa and Juliet, Dessa taking a penny from around her neck and pressing it into Juliet’s hand despite her refusal. In resignation Juliet fastened the penny around her neck, and Louisa watched them go, a hollowness opening up in her middle.
the hoodoo penny !!
“I want to go with you. I want to be with you.” Louisa tried to put all of her feelings into her voice, to express how she hated the idea of being apart from Juliet, no matter whether it was right or not. Juliet’s expression quickly cycled through shock to anger and finally sadness. “You don’t deserve to be with me,” she said, and continued walking.
NO TF YOU DON'T DESERVE HER
“Enjoy your freedom, Kate,” she said, before strolling back toward the party. Despair surged through Katherine. She’d been betrayed.
rotten bitch! NOOO
“You stupid girl, the Laveaus are a myth,” said one of the girls who couldn’t stop crying. “You Haitians are so superstitious, believing in your spirits and the like. No one is coming for us. We’re doomed.”
watch ya mouth
The girls in the back let out strangled screams, while the men in the boat began to swear in French. The Haitian girl just smiled. “Don’t you worry none, it’s just the Laveaus.” A hand clamped on the side of the boat and pulled, causing the craft to list to one side. But it wasn’t the girl’s fabled Laveaus at all. It was the dead. The men at the front of the boat sprang into action, grabbing for axes and other bladed weapons, while the creature tried to pull itself into the boat. Katherine threw herself against the opposite side in her panic to get away from the putrid thing. The skin on
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😨🤢
A cold, wet, slimy hand locked around her wrist, as another undead creature rose up on the other side of the boat. Katherine couldn’t bite back her scream this time, and it shattered the still night. One of the men backhanded her across the face. The pain shook Katherine free of the terror of the dead, and gave her something else to fear. She managed to pull her wrist free of the dead creature’s surprisingly strong grip and scrambled backward to sit with the other girls. “You stupid girl! You’ll bring all of the shamblers in the Pontchartrain down upon us,” one of the men said. But it was
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omg
“Nice to meet you Katherine, I’m Camille. Now, let’s get you to freedom.”
THAT WAS SUM GOOD FOOD, YUP
Sue lay in her bed and examined the letter in her hands. She’d swiped it off of Miss Preston’s desk earlier in the day on a whim, and now she didn’t have a clue what to do with it. She didn’t know what it said. She’d never learned to read, and Miss Preston’s School of Combat for Negro Girls didn’t include reading in the curriculum. Killing the dead? Yes. Learning to set a fine dinner table? Most certainly. But reading? What Negro girl needed to learn her letters?
The undead poured into the room, their anguished moans sending a chill through Sue. For a single heartbeat she was back on her family’s farm, hiding in the woods as the dead over ran the house, biting her fist to keep from crying out in fear.
😨😨😨
“You ready, Miss?” Miss Duncan nodded. “Lead the way, Sue.” Sue squared her shoulders and held her head high. Then, with much care, she broke the glass and knocked out the loose pieces before vaulting out of the window.
🗣️SUE! SUE! SUE! SUE!
“To the road, to the road!” The other girls took up the call. And inch by inch, foot by foot, they slaughtered the dead, severing necks and clearing the way until they made their way to the edge of the grounds and to the road beyond.
