Black Body Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Book I: Man’s Isle

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Book II: London

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Book III: Wales

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Book IV: Marriage

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Book V: Montclaire

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Chapter 43

  Chapter 44

  BLACK BODY

  {Being The TRUE

  Testimony Of A

  Genuine WITCH

  Condemned To Reveal

  Her RACE}

  a novel by H. C. Turk

  * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

  ©1989~2018 H. C. Turk

  HCTurk.com

  Book I: Man’s Isle

  Chapter 1

  As Weird As Sinners’ Ways

  When I slid in my baby slime between my supine mother’s legs, I did not comprehend the expressions of her accompanying friends, did not understand that one was a crone, and two were hags.

  I am now aware. As a matter of living I came to learn that Mother’s ancient friends were surprised by the abnormal birth, for they saw not a child with the expected crooked limbs and jagged features, but a pale daughter unlike any known witch sister, one considered perfect by the folk of societies and cities, those persons whom the witch calls sinners. Of any living category, the rarest member is the albino, the invert; and I am called white witch not because my magic is beneficial—for all born of Earth are evil—but because my skin is as soft as delicate petals, the hags and crones around me at my birth aware that I would not grow to resemble the average ugly witch, but pass as the loveliest of women.

  None of Mother’s friends had seen a white birth before, and only one could recall a witch born besides herself, Mother alone of these sisters in their centuries of living to have conceived, a rarity because the normal witch is repelled by intercourse, for all men are sinners, whom witches shun. Impregnation occurs only through rape, the man to force himself upon a witch the most extreme of sinners, the law of heritage alleging that the more despicable the man, the finer the daughter (in the sinning sense). My mother’s friends presumed my father to be utterly incorrigible, so fine is my appearance. But although my character is adequate and I am beauteous to sinners, I am, in fact, the freak.

  Although I could see at birth, I had scant capacity to understand, but those around me were able to predict more than my final appearance. They also saw too much sinner in this sister, a fact manifested as my love for the sinners’ seductive ways, a love condemning me to prison and this treatise.

  No more the fragrant wilds. After an early life of pure living in God’s wilderness, I find around me man stench and metal bars, for my home is the sinners’ greatest prison. Seduced too often by the city, I came to love its populace, came to love individuals and form with them a family. But my love failed and led to death, my family lost, and the white daughter in prison revealed as a witch and thus due to die. But I spare myself with words. Under Queen Anne’s auspices, I have vowed to expose every detail of my life and my sisters’ ways, Her Majesty’s good man and magistrate requiring my knowledge to end the mediocre evil of witches. With impunity I convey all my crimes, for my sentence of being quartered and burned as though meat for a sinner’s mouth has been commuted, though my imprisonment continues until death. My love remains as long. I will save myself, for God saves only sinners, His folk with dying bodies and immortal souls. His witches have forms that if unburned may last as long as Earth, but no witch will see Heaven; for our souls are no more than personalities, our eternity a death belonging to Satan. But by exposing the truth of my sisters, do I promote the evil of treason or the virtue in salvation? And the moral revelation I offer here is not that witches are dangerous, but that we are as human as any persons with lives and loves.

  • • •

  Despite a witch’s superior perceptions, my best recollections are of times after my birth, after the sisters’ surprise and their celebration wherein they shared my mother’s joy by sharing me, licking me clean and consuming the materials of birth that arrived with the latest witch. Descriptions of that initial instance and many others in this dissertation are enhanced by details gleaned from sources other than myself, as well as the retroactive clarity of contemplation. As well, I understand sinners and the soulless not only from having lived both lives, but from having loved perhaps one too many.

  I was born on Man’s Isle in the Irish Sea, sinners’ names used by witches, who are too naive to invent languages or coffee houses. We celebrate neither anniversaries nor holidays, and since our calendar consists of the seasons about us, I know not my date of birth, my numerical age. Suffice to say I was born near two decades before this testament, toward the end of King William III’s sinning reign. I am told that the current date is the Lord’s year of 1703, though at times the era seems Satan’s.

  I was reared near the hills, but within a hearty smell of the sea. The background for my early life was the verdant green of spring and winter’s muddy slush, scampering does and rotting fish, the scent of fresh blossoms and all the wild feces; for whereas sinners love the beauty of nature, witches love nature, all of which is beautiful.

  Our home was a trapper’s cabin of timber whose floor was the soil below, the walls log beneath a thatched roof requiring seasonal maintenance. Within were furnishings to satisfy only the poorest sinner: a coarse wooden table used only to support our folded Sunday dresses, sheep sorrel snacks, and poultice of fly agaric for that rare crop of tainted lasot consumed by a careless witch—the white baby—whose thick, uncomfortable tongue was soothed by Mother’s medicine. Beside each dress were our shoes, items worn only in winter and when attending church in the nearest sinning village of Jonsway. Witches have scant use for furniture since they rarely sit except to appease sinners beside them on a pew. Our beds were uncovered straw kept tidy by daily raking with our fingers, occasionally scented with a naturally deceased newt placed deeply within to provide a fragrant character to the straw, which otherwise would smell like a sinner’s barn, and barns are for livestock.

  Seldom during daylight did we remain in our house. Our activities were gathering food, visiting friends, enjoying the forest, sitting on the cliffs and smelling the sea. After heavy rains, we would re-mark our home with perimeter defecation so that bothersome, tasteless vermin would avoid us. (Although affected by the subtle smells of nature, sinners perceive poorly with their noses, missing current information of weather and animal behavior.) The personnel in these adventures could not have been finer, for Mother and I were always together. And here I shall bear no protests of prejudice on my part, for no superior crone was ever owned by the devil than my mother, Evlynne.

  Winter somewhat curtailed our activities, for although no exposure to cold will kill a witch, we find pounding sleet unpleasant, and surely no witch would produce a fire for the warming. No witch would produc
e a fire except to court death. Most winters on Man’s Isle, however, were made mild by the warming currents of the encompassing sea. We lived on the island’s side facing England, whose coast could be seen on mornings of exceptional clarity. Jonsway was built near an inlet called Fairy’s Bane by the sinners, their reason for this appellation surely sensible to them alone amongst thinking creatures. Our friends attending my birth lived nearby: hags Chloe and Esmeralda north, toward Maughold Head, and crone Miranda south near The Chasms. To the populace of Jonsway, all these witches professed to be widows of seamen or generals (Mother was known as Mrs. Landham).

  Mother and I attended church each Sabbath. Our friends were not so bold, preferring to avoid sinners rather than mingle with them. Many years before my birth, Mother had found it necessary to move from her western home on the isle when sinners noticed that she had lived long enough to be dead. The settlement near which she moved grew to a fishing village, then a town with regular streets, combinations of buildings, and a population so large that only a sinner could be aware of every resident. Only recently had Mother allowed herself to be known, determining that her best response toward the ever-increasing sinners was to live amongst them to preclude their surprise at discovering her. Better they come to accept her as one of their own, though perhaps not one of their finest.

  Living near sinners is both deadly to witches and necessary for our survival, for without the occasional rape, the race of human witch would disappear. That intercourse is unacceptable to the average witch is one of God’s mysteries. All witches confirm perfect God as most righteous, as Creator of Earth and its inhabitants, including sinners, those folk with souls due eternal rest if only the truth of fine intention be fulfilled, God the Creator of good, which sinners must promote in order to find Him in the Heaven they will share. Only those accepting evil need fear death, for Hell will be their eternal home. Soulless witches, along with animals on Earth for a temporary purpose, are not evil in themselves, but transfer evil through Satan’s work of sexuality. Foolish, brilliant sinners, however, fail to comprehend that the difficulty witches inspire is strictly sexual. We steal no livestock nor cause disease, but witches are so ugly that sex seems repulsive to sinners who pass them. (Surely, our odor, so different from sinners’, must enhance that revulsion.) As for the white daughter, at my birth friend Chloe asked whether this was the type that must be kept from men, and wise Miranda replied: Nay, this is the type who cannot be kept from men; a fact proven while yet in my youth.

  We sisters are God’s proof that sex can tempt sinners toward evil. To the sinner is left resistance, for those strong of spirit can reject evil’s temptation in any form, sex or gold or political position. But even the finest sinner or witch is imperfect, and the former is sore pressed for sexual morality when a hag has been seen. The wife refusing her husband has that day viewed a witch. The seducer has brushed against a sister or heard her breathing. God tempers the sexual joys available to sinners by providing witches, repulsive women who are repulsive sex incarnate. But I, the invert daughter, was expected from birth to be the evil in sex that is excess enjoyment, my extraordinary sinners’ beauty eliciting not love, but lust. This horror I carry with me, for even as Mother when walking through Jonsway would make wives frigid without intent; I, when mature, would pass a pious husband and draw his lust. Accepted by sinners is that intercourse shared between husband and wife to promote love and add to God’s dominion is a joy they are due. Witches are from God for strengthening sinners, so that even while being poorly influenced, the pious will insist upon the purity of God’s provided love. But since witches are Satan’s tools as well as God’s creation, an objective view of our truth will have us pitied. I do not testify, however, to elicit emotion, but to gain my own salvation, a selfishness that of all my sinning traits may be most human.

  • • •

  Wren-beetles low in the trees signaling the sun’s setting awakened me. My first sight was of Mother rising from her bed across the cabin, rolling from her burrow in the straw to immediate alertness. As though floating, I was on the upper surface of my pile, too brazen to hide within as though an animal. Dressed in a coarse shift as I, Mother looked to me with some concern, and I was aware of her thinking. Certainly she had noticed my hair, for I had not combed the mass in two days. Mother’s was never tidy, having the quality of a guinea pig’s, whereas mine was perfectly straight and lustrous black. But I was ill from that wooden comb’s tearing along my scalp, ill from hearing of my perfect skin and perfect hair and perfect bleeding face. The supposedly lovely female sinners I had seen were shockingly different compared to Mother and our friends. Nevertheless, I had faith in Mother’s judgment that I of all witches would be able to move with impunity amongst the sinners, an ability that one day might prove vital. Being imperfect despite my appearance, however, as soon as Mother turned her crooked back, I quietly poked straws and twigs throughout my hair—along with a bug or two I had collected for nibbling—as though my head were a demented bird’s nest. Before Mother turned, I affected what to me seemed an angelic expression, then waited.

  Her cackles inspired my own laughter, though I attempted to keep my eyes closed. Never shall I find a sound more delightful than the shattering cackle Mother so carefully concealed while within Jonsway, lest the populace look to the outskirts for attacking hordes. (But what do sinners know of humor? They defecate in pots and consider it cleanliness.) I looked up to her smiling, brown teeth and pointed, warty nose, aware she was not angry; but Mother was seldom angry with me, and never when my intent was harmless. This day, she playfully hobbled toward me after gathering from the table a handful of glasswort and beach peas, which she threatened to apply to my head as she declared with a wonderfully nasty tone:

  “And now we must feed the puppy, for certainly this is a sinner’s pet and not the fine daughter she once was,” and she tousled my ear with a handful of shoots. Before I could squirm away, Mother dropped the food and grasped my shoulders. “No, this is no sister, not with that shining hair and smooth skin—not the first crease, no lump to be seen. And since a true sister is subject to burning by God’s wise sinners, who could be more worthy of a witch’s flames than a sinner imitating my daughter?”

  Forceful Mother grasped my entire body, dragging me to the fireplace while explaining my due, her earthy breath of eatings in my face as she squeezed me. Even at this young age, I had been taught a witch’s death, that only burning or quartering would send a sister to her devil. But Mother had taught me to live without fear, and I was laughing as she dragged me to the fireplace not used since the sinning builder died; for a witch uses fire only to imbue her strongest potions with death, and flames are never loosed within her home.

  She crammed my hips into the fireplace and cackled as she sat upon my chest. Unlike her tall and skinny hag friends, Mother was a broad crone, her mass too great a burden for any child to bear, sinner or witch. But I was a true daughter despite my appearance, and though breathing was difficult, our love was a joy. Uncontrollably I laughed with delight as Mother straddled me, removing her weight from my torso. Then, with the kindest of ugly voices, she spoke again.

  “Ah, but that is no laughter, child. That is some composer’s music made by a tin instrument pointed at a paper with scribblings, the sound of sinners’ debasement, as though they can improve upon the wind or surpass a locust’s buzzing.”

  I was no longer laughing. In that moment, I determined to never laugh again until achieving a true witch’s cackle, which later came with good spirit and firm intent. But I felt no humor then, for the world was too grave. No sight could have been more pleasing than my wise and wonderful mother above me, and I wished for nothing more than to be like her. I felt I had the worst of both humanities, for not only did I have to look the freak, I had to aid the sinning folk in their evil.

  “I don’t wish to be strange, Mother,” I told her as though pleading. “And I would not have people hurt one another—my only desire is to be normal.”

/>   She looked to me with a firm visage that sinners found intimidating, though I knew her gaze was no more severe than education. The erratic hair of her head was different in hue from that of her face, brownish grey versus coarse black on her nose and moles. I, in comparison, lacked character and life, a featureless person, blank body.

  “Prince Satan and his Lord are responsible for your appearance, girl, responsible for my visage and for the evil all witches supply the sinners who would kill us for it. But allow yourself no prejudice, for sinners and witches are as similar as they are different. Regardless of appearance or immortality, sinners in their greed invent more evil amongst themselves than any witch could imagine, so are neither better nor worse than we. Only God is totally good.”

  Mother then stood and looked down to me, her tone and slight smile signifying a change.

  “Comb your hair now, Alba, and wash your face in the stream whose water is cleansed by pebbles.” She then aided me to my feet, making certain my shoulders and back were straight, unlike her own. “You will learn to be the witch you are and the sinner you seem. In both worlds you must live properly, daughter, but only one will kill you.”

  • • •

  I was no surprise to Jonsway, for after being raped, Mother staggered through the alderman’s doorway with a horrid tale of a harmless woman demeaned and damaged. Although amazed at her allegation—such a revolting wench raped?—the authorities’ astonishment grew vastly upon later proof—a real child?—nearly exploding when the perfect daughter was seen. Mother had a tale for me as well, facts she felt I might later need. No rape, she mentioned, would have the barren invert bear offspring. Fine with me considering the process of inception. First came a heinous man, Mother’s beau so disappreciative and perceptive of his lover that he promised to leave for London if he could find nothing better in Jonsway to couple with than a dry witch. So enamored was he with the crime that his loins had been burned with a rod in punishment for a previous rape. His manhood had not been molested, however, Mother’s final details being about men and their flesh sticks, which they cram within women in order to squirt baby-makings. Rather like shitting in reverse, is it not, Mother? I offered. After some deliberation, Mother could not disagree.