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From: rache <rache696@yahoo.com>
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Subject: {ASSM} Sylvia's Story by Rachael Ross (M/F, Fantasy, Magic, Violence, Rape)
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Date: Thu, 26 Apr 2007 06:10:01 -0400
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Sylvia's Story
By rache

Copyright 2007 Rachael Ross all rights reserved. Intended for adults
only
Story Codes: M/F, Fantasy, Magic, Violence, Rape, Historical Fiction

Note: The sex and violence in this story is not particularly graphic,
but some themes and depictions may be disturbing to some readers.

Note: This story is related to the "World Beneath" story I have been
writing, but it does not fall expressly in that timeline and may be
read separately, or as background material.


Sylvia's Story

I was born in Massachusetts in 1652, one of four daughters born to a
Dutch immigrant and his wife. I grew as any young woman of the day,
learning sewing and cooking from my mother, working the soil to raise
food for our family, and vegetables to sell and trade on market days.

My father often lamented the fact that he had no son, our only brother
dying in childbirth. We were taught that it had not been God's will,
but that of Satan to end his infant life. All goodness came from God,
everything else was the work of the devil. We attended church
faithfully and I was considered to have the fairest voice among my
sisters. I enjoyed singing then.

I was destined to be beautiful, a fact that made my mother proud and
she would spend the evenings brushing my hair. My father was proud of
me also, I think, but he was a practical man and he would most often
gaze at me from his chair and estimate my dowry. In those times a
young woman would have a dowry in proportion to her beauty, for that
was a currency in itself for the young men of the New World. My dowry,
I should be pleased to say, would be very small.

I was also destined to be intelligent, and that was a quality not
regarded highly for a simple girl like myself. Schools were forbidden
to girls, even if I might have spared the time for it, and so I
learned the barest of skills in reading and writing at church, and
only then so I could sing songs of praise and read scripture to my
sisters. I learned Latin, of course, and English as well and quite
secretly I came into possession of several books. One of them was
Spenser's The Faerie Queene, which was quite recent in America then,
and much discussed by the more learned members of our small town. I
would merely listen however, as a young woman should, keeping my own
thoughts and opinions closely guarded.

By the time I was 16 there had been many suitors for my hand in
marriage. I'd been old enough for several years already and I was on
the verge of becoming an old maid, which would have decreased my worth
considerably. I had no choice in my husband. That decision would be
left to my father. I couldn't even meet the man I might marry, except
by the wax window through which my sisters and I would peer.

The local farmers, whom I considered dullards at best, my father
constantly refused, much to my relief. I knew there would come a day
however when my father would accept a man and I both longed for and
dreaded its arrival. He turned out to be a fellow Dutchman, from
Connecticut, which seemed a very long distance. He was older, much the
same age as my father, and plump like a great pink pumpkin, my sisters
teased. But he was a landowner of good repute, and wealthy and a girl
could have much worse for a husband and master.

Arrangements were made for the following spring, some five months
away, for my wedding. My dowry needed to be fixed, and the man had
business to attend to in Boston. I was engaged and there was no hurry
now. I merely had to wait patiently and prepare myself for his bed, as
my mother assured me that was what most interested the man. She'd seen
his eyes follow me and there was no offence in it, he had acted the
gentleman and followed the protocol of the day.

Smallpox came to Massachusetts late that winter. One person in three
became sick with it, and most of those would die from the disease
eventually. There was little to be done as large areas were slowly
quarantined in an attempt to stifle its rapid spread, but the measures
were ineffective. It was a cold grey spring, followed by a long hot
summer in 1668.

I was lying on an old straw tick in the corner of our cabin. The air
was still and stifling, as if the world was a furnace, and there was
no relief from it. Across the room, on the dirty floor, my youngest
sister lay dead. Upstairs in the bed we once shared, another of my
sisters, Emily, had closed her eyes as well. My oldest sister still
lived and I knew this only because I could hear her, ranting madly as
she paced back and forth. I was sick, chills racked my body and my
head burned with fever. I'd buried our parents three days before, and
then I'd wept because I hadn't the strength to bury my sisters.

The voice upstairs had finally stopped. It had been two days I
thought, perhaps three, since I'd dragged my youngest sister's body
outside. It was all I could have done and I slept fitfully, waking to
the sound of dogs fighting over her remains at one point. I had dreams
of my mother, horrible dreams, and I was mad for long periods of time.
But sanity was worse, the brief moments of lucid clarity when I would
become of aware of the pain in my body. I was dying and that might
have seemed a mercy if it would only happen soon.

I was perhaps mad once more, crazed with pain and sorrow, when I woke
to the full moon seeping through the open windows. My body was flushed
and tortured, so thin that my bones seemed to lance my flesh. It was
pain like none you can imagine and in my despair of dying I called out
for someone, anyone to help me. To ease my suffering. I prayed to God,
to his Angels and all the Saints. I prayed to Lucifer as well, when
God didn't answer, but there was still no reply. I was truly alone.

Except for the bird, a crow which alighted on the open window sill. It
was black and heavy, as if it had been gorging itself on carrion. It
frightened me for some reason and I tried to lift myself, to wave it
away, but I was weak and I fell coughing, unable to do anything more
than curse the animal under my breath.

I had not expected to see morning. I awoke however, slowly and without
any movement. My eyes remained closed, but I could feel the sunlight
on my skin, sense the brightness beneath my eyelids. And there was a
breeze, a cool breeze and it seemed the first in many months. It
seemed to bathe me and I may have sighed then, or just imagined it.

And a touch, soft and light, and then another, heavier now. The small
sensation of pins in my breasts and I opened my eyes slowly, blinking
against the light and found that same bird above me, standing on my
naked form. I'd long since ripped away my clothing, both for reasons
of madness, and my desperation to find comfort in the suffocating
heat, and they hung from me like rags. The bird's claws were in my
flesh and its eyes were black and shiny, staring into mine.

It was there with me and waiting for an answer. I knew that, although
I had not the wit nor reason to understand why or how. The bird was
offering me life, a respite from the pain, if only I agreed to keep my
promises. If only I'd meant what I'd said the night before. I was too
tired then, too sick to deny what I knew to be wrong. What may very
well have been my last breath on this earth was a whispered "Yes" and
with that I closed my eyes and dreamt no more.

I didn't feel the raven as its sharp beak tore into my flesh, into my
wrist just here, where the vein lies close. It broke the skin and
opened my weak vessel, sharing my blood. It was the compact, you see,
the binding of our agreement and while I slept the bird cleaned
himself, never leaving me. It watched and waited and that night my
fever broke. The pustules faded from my body, leaving no trace of my
illness, and my mind cleared completely.

My strength returned quickly and within a few days I was able to lay
my family to rest, praying for each of them in their turn. I rebuilt
our small farm, recovered much of our livestock and replanted a small
portion of our fields. My husband-to-be never returned from Boston and
I did not know if he were dead, or merely frightened to travel. It
mattered very little to me then and I felt no remorse.

The following winter was very difficult as I was alone and wholly
dependent on myself. I'd avoided the town and the people I'd known,
keeping my own company and the truth was that there were very few
people left. Many had died, most of the rest moved on to escape the
epidemic. It was a hard winter and I'd nearly forgotten the bird, but
one morning I awoke to find it sitting on my bed.

How it had arrived I had no idea, nor where the book had come from. It
was a large, thick tome written in Latin and evidently very old, the
binding hand sewn and the print hand lettered in fading inks, red,
black, and green. The bird was sitting on it, both of them on my bed,
and the raven held an amulet in it's beak as well. A silver medallion
hanging by a chain. It was formed to resemble woven thorns around a
blood red stone affixed in the center. There was no writing, no
inscription of any kind, and I puzzled over it while the raven
regarded me silently.

I was frightened, yes, and much amazed and eventually I overcame my
fear. I read the book slowly, struggling to grasp the contents and
finding that it required a certain mindset, if you will, a specific
arrangement of thoughts and patterns of thoughts, and as I discovered
these secrets I discovered other, deeper secrets and such things as
I'd never dared imagine.

It was magic yes, but I was relieved to find, or at least believe,
that it was of a type we called White Magic in those days. It was
astrology and numerology, and lengthy descriptions of herbs and their
uses, formulae for potions and medicines beneficial to the person who
used them. There were elixirs for pain, and the ease of sorrow, and
both to inspire and repel love, for the relief of afflictions great
and small. And spells, there were incantations and recipes, and I
studied them all, practicing this art for the remainder of winter and
well into spring, neglecting my work and heedless of my chores.

I was happy then, for the first time since the plague had come, and I
felt at peace. There was no corruption in me and I wore the amulet
without fear and shared my meals with the bird, sparing him seed and
crumbs and amusing myself by watching him. He seemed most intelligent
for a bird and for a time he was my only friend. For a full year it
was thus, a year and two months, until the spring of my 18th year,
although I'd seemed to age not at all.

And then the Indians, who were displaced Huron living in the mountains
to the northwest, they came to me bringing an injured boy. Their own
medicine man was ill and he'd asked the spirits for help, or so they
related to me in their broken English. The spirits had told them to
find me and I would not say I believed or disbelieved them, but I was
frightened , being alone as I was.

They were frightened as well and it was several days that I tended to
the boy in my house while his fellows camped in the woods nearby. I
used my knowledge gained from the book and soon the boy was well
enough to sit up and eat warm food. I was called the White Witch after
that and named Friend in the language of the Huron and their
neighbors. For some time after that I was never truly alone as they
would watch over me, secretly at times, and more openly at others. I
would find a freshly killed deer in the mornings, or a straw basket
filled with fruits and wild vegetables on my doorstep. In my turn I
made their mark upon my door, a sign that they were welcome, that my
home was theirs.

Other times they would bring me a request, for a certain broth or brew
which their shaman required. It was a decent and respectful
relationship, and an honest one, and I was sorry to see them leave
when the settlers from Boston and Philadelphia and elsewhere began to
reappear. Even many years later, though I did not see them, I still
found the occasional gift and I never lived in fear of Indian attack
as so many other settlers did during the violent years that were soon
to follow.

The town was rebuilt finally, in the spring and summer of 1673 when I
should have been 21, but I had all the youth and vigor of my 16 year
old self. People aged differently then, when an old woman was thirty
and a person might very well die of old age at 40 or 45 years. My
appearance was not quite yet suspicious, but I was beginning to wonder
about myself.

I watched from a distance as the town was rebuilt and along with it
the church, of course. A new preacher arrived soon after and I'd seen
his coming in the stars, but like a fool I'd ignored it. I was
comfortable by myself, with my Indian friends, and I believed myself
beyond the town and its preacher. I was the talk of the town, however
little I was aware of it. A 21 year old spinster of unearthly beauty
was more than just a rumor. Such a combination is sure to find
trouble. Any unmarried woman over 16 or 17 was a suspect, and to be
beautiful in an age where lust was a tool of the devil...The stars
warned me, as I've said.

It didn't help that I'd refused the advances of several local men,
calloused farmers who sought to increase their holding as much as
anything else. I'd been polite, but firm and sent them away one by
one. It wasn't natural of course, a woman living alone in the
wilderness. It wasn't right and that talk soon had the ears of the
preacher.

I'd gone to church, of course, every Sunday since its new
commissioning and that was how I'd been availed for marriage in the
first place. I sang as I'd been taught, and enjoyed once more that one
particular part of the community, but it wasn't enough to allay
suspicion. The preacher watched me closely, although he tried to hide
it at first. As time passed however he became more bold, as
familiarity fathers confidence. He would stare at me from the pulpit
and I felt myself naked beneath his gaze. So much so that within a few
months I'd begun to dread attending church and if there had been any
excuse I might have made, I would have taken it.

But in that time and place there were no plausible reasons to escape
our earthly obligation to worship God.

I would come slowly into town each Sunday, arriving late so I could
sit in the back of the congregation. I blamed my tardiness on my
chores. But that did little good. He would still watch me, and after
the services were through, the Preacher would exit first, waiting at
the doors to greet his flock. He'd reach for my hand and take it as if
it were an injured bird, holding it just a little too long, a little
too tight as if to prevent my escape. He would stare into my eyes,
this man of God, and lick his lips like an old grey wolf.

On the winter solstice of that year I cast a spell which I knew I
would later regret. Surely working witchcraft on a man of God was a
terrible sin, I thought, but what choice did I have? It wouldn't hurt
him, the effect was to put that part of him which yearned for me to
sleep. I'd seen the stars and read them thrice, hoping I was wrong,
but knowing I wasn't. Very soon he would try and take me. This was my
answer, or so I hoped.

It worked for a little while, all through that winter and into the new
year the preacher was less threatening, less obsessive in his
attentions toward me. But if I have learned anything it is that fate
will not be denied.

On a foggy morning, early that spring, the preacher held me after
church, easing me aside and I had little choice in front of the
congregation. He asked me then if I would be able to help him with
certain preparations for the coming week. He was polite and respectful
and proper in all ways, and there was nothing I could do but agree.

The following day, Monday, I made my way reluctantly into the town,
each step a burden to my heart. I entered the church, calling for the
preacher in a soft voice. It was dark inside, the windows closed and
shuttered and I was surprised when I felt his hands upon me, pulling
me roughly inside as he kicked the door shut. He'd tossed me to the
floor and my head cracked upon one of the heavy pews. I rubbed my
temple, blinking at the red stain on my fingers.

He latched the door, locking it and he appeared to me not as a man,
but as a demon. His eyes seemed to glow dull and red, and his teeth
were bared. He was crazed with lust, consumed by it as the spell I'd
cast had finally been broken and that desire which had been pent up
for so long came flooding out all at once.

I pushed myself backward on my hands and heels, screaming only briefly
as the man was soon upon me, his hand covering my mouth while the
other tore at my dress. I could feel his body smothering me. He was
forcing himself between my kicking legs even as I tried to close them.
When I reached for his face, gouging at him with my fingernails, he
voiced his outrage and I felt his fist on the side of my head.

The world was black, with brilliant flashes of colors. He'd knocked me
very nearly unconscious, so that all I could do was lay there for the
moment. It was all he needed and I screamed into his mouth as he
kissed me, drinking my protests as his stiff and swollen prick ripped
through my hymen painfully. I wept then, defeated and lost, and I am
ashamed to say that I fought him no more after that. I just lay there,
my body jerking as he thrust himself into me over and over.

It seemed a long time, an eternity that his manhood spent within my
womb, but perhaps it was over quickly. It didn't matter, he finished
inside me, his hot seed spreading like a stain through my violated
womb. He kissed me repeatedly, heedless of the blood which covered my
forehead, running into my eyes to mix with my tears.

He left me and I didn't move from that place, from that house of God.
I just lay there, curled up on the cold hard floor. I felt his sperm
leaking from between my legs, and I knew there was blood there as
well. I wept and finally slept, waiting for nightfall to make my
escape.

When I did not come to church the following Sunday, the preacher came
to me. I had it in my mind to fight him once more, but he subdued me
in my own home, bending my shaking body over my own table. I screamed
long and loud and he laughed, tearing at my dress and exposing my sex
once more. He took me like that, from behind, jabbing his prick deep
inside me while he pulled my hair and called me whore, and Jezebel and
wicked Lilith of Hell.

When he'd finished, once more loosing his sperm into my body, he
turned my face towards him, his cock still inside me, and spit in my
face.

The following Sunday I was in church at the proper time, and there
were whispers and laughs and all around me the town was talking. They
knew, I realized. This town, the people in it, they had heard my
screams echoing through the church. They'd heard the man rutting
himself into my body like a wild pig and doubtless they understood the
purpose of his visit the previous week. I came to understand all of
that as I sat there in that church, staring at the cross and cursing
God under my breath.

I had moved, that same day I'd understood the truth, I'd left my home
and sought refuge in the forest itself. I was the White Witch, I told
myself, and I would have my revenge. I went deep into the White
Mountains of New Hampshire, finding a camp only recently abandoned by
a hunting party of Mohicans. They were ranging farther north now as
New York became more heavily settled and I was grateful as it provided
me with the shelter I required.

I began my spells, of which there would be many in the following
months, as soon as I was able. I was injured and hurt and for the
first time in my life I knew hatred. The spells I used were from the
oldest portions of my tome, written in a language so dense that I
often found myself lost and confused, having to translate odd symbols
and glyphs into words and thoughts which were alien to me.

It was exhausting and I fed only on what I could catch or pick or dig
in the mornings before dawn. I grew dirty and thin, my eyes turned
yellow and my skin sallow and wax-like. And my belly grew round as the
time passed, the preacher had done his work well and planted me with
his child. I did not love it.

There were one hundred and seventeen souls living in that town and
surrounding area. Men women and children. That summer their crops
died, their water turned to poison in their wells and streams ran dry.
Their dogs turned rabid and their livestock perished from starvation
and sickness. Smallpox broke out, and then cholera and plague. Some of
them tried to leave, but I'd prepared my magic well and they carried
disease and pestilence wherever they went.

Madness swept the survivors and they spent their days lusting after
one another violently, killing themselves and their families in the
name of love. The town burned, all of it except the church. The
preacher was safe as well, so long as he remained inside, and so he
did. I could see him in a piece of quartz, his reflection carried over
space and time. I watched all of it, rocking on my heels, chanting as
I called upon the forces of hell to do my bidding.

Only at the end, at the very end did I emerge from my wilderness
retreat. I walked slowly, down paths long hidden from mortal eyes. I
had changed and then I knew I was corrupt and evil and a breeding
ground for hate. My belly was swollen ripe, it was all hallows eve and
I was seven months pregnant. I could feel the bastard in my belly
kicking impatiently as I walked through the dust and ashes of what had
once been a thriving community.

There were the skeletal remains of those who had ignored my desperate
cries for help, trapped beneath half-burned timbers in their homes. Or
buried in the dirty street and I stepped on them without pity, my eyes
on that church, white and pristine and standing like a monument over
the graveyard the village had become.

I pushed open the doors, though they were boarded shut with stout wood
and iron nails. They opened with a crash, a splintering of wood, and I
walked inside, feeling all the powers of hell coursing through my
veins. He was there, that man who had raped me and put his child in my
womb, hiding, on his knees like a beggar, pleading for mercy. He'd
gone mad and he was now little more than a ragged scarecrow, a parody
of humanity. I felt no pity for him.

I took him with my knife, pushing him back easily to the foot of the
alter, with the holy cross above us. I opened his chest, dragging the
blade through muscle and bone, and using it to pry his chest open so
that I could reach inside and pull free his beating heart. He was
conscious as I bit into it, feeling that weak muscle split as an over-
ripe tomato, spilling blood down my chin and neck to the tops of my
heaving breasts.

There was one thing left and I waited for it, living in the snow and
ice of the mountains. Soon after sunset in the new year, as the full
moon rose above me, I gave birth to the child I'd carried for nine
months. It was painful and bloody and I did it alone, screaming into
the night. It was a boy, and as I sat up to see him there, between my
spread legs he opened his mouth, gasping and trying to breathe for the
first time.

I took the umbilical in my hands, knowing what I had to do, and I
wrapped it around his neck and pulled tight. I strangled that child,
that part of me which I did not want and for many hours I sat there
with it, looking at the tiny body until I felt strong enough to walk
away and leave him there in the bloody snow.

I made my way west after that, alone and unwanted and wishing only to
see the end of the world and to know this grand mistake was finished.
I was a servant of Satan, or so I judged myself. Certainly he had come
to my aid when God had not. He had saved me, he had given me strength
and knowledge, and I'd used it finally to an evil and vengeful
purpose.

I suffered a desolation of the soul and I was weary of life itself
when I was found by David, who was calling himself Joshua then. I'd
been foretold of the meeting, reading my own fortune by casting stones
into a pond and reading the ripples. But still, I was unprepared for
it and I must admit I rebelled at first. I resisted his interest and
friendship, but I was unwell and I required such attentions. He nursed
me back to health slowly and we talked much of the world and our place
within it.

This was very nearly 1707, near what is now Detroit, I suppose,
although it had a different name then. Just a fort built by the French
and operated by traders of fur and whiskey. I was 55 years old then,
and I looked very much the same as I had forty years before. David was
already old then, much older than I, and it was a chore to seduce him,
but a welcome one nonetheless. He was my first lover and though I've
had many since, he is always my darling. My savior.

Soon thereafter we made our passage to Europe and Paris. It was there
that I was ultimately initiated into the Society as their Seer, and
into the Circle of Darkness as a Witch of the Old Covenant. Edward had
settled us into a grand chateau in Burgundy, with a remarkable
vineyard renowned for its vigor and quality. And it was there that I
was first able to see our influence on human events as we worked to
bring about the French Revolution in 1789.

That experience of not only seeing the possibilities, but being able
to choose from them, that was the great catalyst which brought me to
understand my place in the universe. Before those years I had truly
been a child, and I had seen things only as a child does, afterward I
was able to declare my true purpose and loose the chains that had
bound me to Satan's service. I serve neither heaven nor hell, nor even
mankind. I serve myself and all those who would be free of tyranny.

"But of course," Sylvia smiled at me, her soft blue eyes shining. "We
who would do such a thing are all tyrants in our hearts."

"Are we?" I looked at the woman, sitting there some 350 years old and
looking all of 20 perhaps. She was so beautiful with her dark auburn
hair and pale skin. "I don't understand."

"You kill, do you not, Jennifer?" She looked around at us, the Dark
Circled gathered. "We have all murdered and taken great delight in it.
It is the tyranny of the strong over the weak."

"And has little enough to do with our purpose." Valentine countered,
as he had to being Valentine. "We are tyrants only by nature."

"Oh, well put!" Julia laughed softly, reaching for the bottle beside
her and pouring more wine into her glass. "Our purpose is pure, even
if we ourselves are not."

"I feel so much better now." Christine giggled. "You frightened me for
a moment, Sylvia." She reached out to stroke Sylvia's knee.

"I for one am glad to be a tyrant." Wendy told us with a smile. "How
boring should it be if we were not?" She drank the remainder of her
wine and licked her lips. "Now if you'll excuse me, I know of a young
man just down the street who is waiting eagerly for my kiss..."

"Bad girl." Valentine laughed.

"...And I'm starving!" The succubus grinned, flashing her razor teeth.

"I'm hungry too." I sighed, looking up into Valentine's dark eyes and
finding agreement there.

"Goodnight, my dears. I think I'll take Jenna home now, the poor girl
hasn't had a bite all evening!" He grinned at his little joke and I
rolled my eyes, giving Julia and the others soft kisses before we
left.

"Do you miss it?" I asked Sylvia, my voice soft as I hugged her
tightly. "Your baby?"

"No." Sylvia said, and then took a deep breath as we held each other
for a long heartbeat. "Sometimes."

End
Rache696@yahoo.com
www.asstr-mirror.org/files/Authors/rache/www/index.htm

Author's note: I'd had this idea for a long time, but never really the
time or energy to fully write it out. As I was writing "World Beneath"
however I began wondering if it wouldn't be usable background material
for Sylvia, one of the characters in that story. Even a rather
condensed treatment of my idea (as this is) would be far too long
however, and so I've elected to present it as relevant material, but
external to the "World Beneath" timeline.

Hopefully this will not confuse an awful lot of readers. -rr 26 April
2007

'

-- 
Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights
reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated.
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