Ahhh . . . the sight of my name branded in ink in the whimsical loops of my poet’s handwriting has quickened the blood in this odd new body of mine. Down on the snow-covered streets of the city, surges of ecstasy careen through my soul—my flourishing, strengthening soul, stifled no more. I spread out my arms, and my eyes flutter closed at the pleasurable thickening of my bones, my muscles, my organs, my skin . . . My fingernails harden, my lungs swell with air, and the shadows cease dripping from my sleeves.
I smooth out the feathers lining my skirt and say with a pleased sigh, “Let them see me!”
Off I then traipse to a section of the city where clusters of chimneys pipe thick plumes of smoke into the steely winter sky—where brooding brick mansions and acres of land give way to smaller homes built of wood, butted together on streets down the hill from the neoclassical columns of the state capitol building.
A chorus of church bells peals to the north and the east—a clanging commotion I don’t care for in the slightest, for it reminds me of that white-haired bishop’s pontifications. My shoulders jerk at each bong.
Si. Lence. Your. Mu. Ses!
A one-horse carriage rolls toward me, its driver an older man with the face of a prune who shrinks down in his seat when he spies me wandering toward him.
“Aha!” I shout, and I raise the hem of my skirt to better clamber through the snow. “You look like you’re close to meeting my old friend Death, sir! Not much longer until that rickety heart of yours stops ticking and you slide feetfirst into your grave!”
His eyes bulge from their sockets. “W-w-what did you just say?”
I smile, warmed by his terror. “I said, not much longer until Death fetches you from the comforts of your bed and sends you down into the cold red clay of the Richmond earth!”
The man tightens the reins and sends his horse galloping away with a whistling wind that tousles my hair.
A black cat leaps over a brick garden wall and stops in my path. With piercing green eyes like the two pools of Hades, the beast traps me in a stare that congeals the new blood in my veins.
“What is that?” I hear a woman ask from the house connected to the garden wall, and I assume she must mean this foul feline.
The beast arches its back, its ebon hair standing on end, and it hisses with a show of needle-sharp fangs.
I bare my own teeth and hiss back with a breath that sends the cat rolling over, mewling with the cries of a frightened kitten. It then bolts across the street on a blur of dark legs, and I lean forward and shriek from the depths of my belly to ensure that the scoundrel never crosses my path again.
“Oh, God! What is it?” asks the woman again, and I look up to discover small gatherings of men, women, and children—mortals with complexions of black, white, brown, and pink—huddled together on the stoops and porches surrounding me. The woman speaks of me, I realize. I’m the dreaded “it.”
Everyone watches me, judging me, wondering what I am, their mouths agape, arms corded around each other. Again, I lift the hem of my skirt to keep the soot-powdered fabric from dragging in the snow, and I rotate around for all to view me, proud of the purple-and-green iridescence of the feathers on my skirt—impressed with the ability of my slippers to smear smudges of charcoal across the virgin white powder.
As I turn I call out:
Beware, a maiden unrefined,
Leapt out from a darkened mind,
Lo! She sees yon gawking faces,
Feed her fear, not charming graces,
Watch her!—creeping, sweeping o’er,
Reaping rhymes of death and horror!
“Who brought this grotesque girl into the city?” shouts a man from behind me, and I whirl around in his direction.
The Right Reverend Bishop Moore plods toward me in the snow, his thin strands of white hair blowing against the shoulders of a gray woolen cloak, a rust-colored scarf coiled around his neck. A breeze ushers the musty smell of his church ahead of him.
He balls his gloved fists by his sides and tromps toward me as though he aims to knock me down. “Who is responsible for her?”
“Come inside,” says a mother in a house on the corner up ahead, dragging her children indoors. “This is far too horrible for you to see.”
“This is all in bad taste!” calls a man from an upstairs window. “We don’t tolerate anything bizarre here in Richmond. And on a Sunday, no less.” He swings his shutters closed with a thwack that makes me flinch.
“Shall I fetch my musket?” asks the woman at the house beside me, and I notice she’s a sturdy specimen of the human race with broad shoulders, massy hands, and shrewd-looking eyes that might excel at focusing on a moving target.
“Whose trick of sorcery are you?” asks the bishop, stomping closer, his voice echoing across the houses. “Did the devil send you?”
I lean forward, my hands clenched on my skirts, and respond with another howl that could summon the dead. Ha! I hope it summons the dead!
Something explodes nearby, and an object whizzes past my right arm with a scream of hot air. I stumble backward, the world brightening, loudening for a dizzying moment, and a metallic taste scours my tongue. When I come to my senses, I find the source of the attack: across the street stands a man in a dun-colored hat who holds a smoking pistol.
“Did you just try to shoot me?” I shout at him.
The fellow doesn’t respond. Doors slam shut around me.
I march toward the assassin. “I said, did you just try to shoot me?”
He shuffles backward in the snow, slipping for a moment, his hat sliding down his forehead, then he breaks into a run in an eastward direction. I tear after him, but another gunshot rings out from behind. I dive to the snow, swallowing a mouthful of slush, and the woman who threatened to fetch her musket says, “I almost hit the demon!”
“Leave this city!” calls the bishop. “I don’t know who summoned you or what you are, but someone will pay for this egregious sin. Richmond is no playground for devilry!”
Someone throws a stone at the back of my head. My eyes sting with tears. These fools aren’t simply frightened—they’re violent.
I push myself to my feet and run northward to a place I know well—the Burying Ground on Shockoe Hill—that city of the dead high on the crown of Richmond.