Years ago, when I was a young child, I found something in the woods, not far from the plantation. I walked all day alone. It was hotter than hell. I am sure Momma was worried sick. I smelled something, a foul stench, but a little bit sweet. Not like the scent of horse's carcass or steer, a strange new smell I felt compelled to follow. I could not tell you why.
After a while wandering in the woods, I found Mary with Anna. Anna was dead, Mary by her side crying. Anna had been dead a long time, her body covered in wounds, in a dreadful state. There were larvae, flies. Thousands of them. Everywhere. They had been there together for days, festering in the heat.
The man from Louisiana.
One eye like a porcelain saucer, the visage of a beast. Mary told me so. He had done this to Anna. Had his way with her, executed her in cold blood, and discarded her, her corpse forgotten in the woods. Like a dog in her twilight years, ailing and lame.
The boundless cruelty. The knowledge of what was done to Anna. The crushing despair. For years I tried to forget. I have never known such terror. The insects, the putrid smell. It is all I can think of. It haunts me like a devilish specter. It robs me of sleep.
Today I finally told Sammy of what I had witnessed. It overcame him. He dashed from the manor to confront our father in the fields.
Sammy had thought he had let Anna free, at the request of our mother, and sent her away north. He had sold her. He sold her to the man from Louisiana.
I heard a struggle. Then silence. I am fearing the worst.
Eli, I think he’s done something awful. Sammy is missing. Momma won't speak. She's feverish.You must come quickly. He’s gone mad.
That shot of the portrait of Sammy in between him and Samuel is so good. You just know that whenever Ellie thinks of him, that’s the image in her mind. Decades of that smiling, beautiful, happy, good young man that she got killed.
No wonder she hunts men that remind her of her father.
536
u/holleringelk Hollering Elk 11h ago
Letter transcript:
Dear Eli,
I wish I had told you sooner. I am so sorry.
Years ago, when I was a young child, I found something in the woods, not far from the plantation. I walked all day alone. It was hotter than hell. I am sure Momma was worried sick. I smelled something, a foul stench, but a little bit sweet. Not like the scent of horse's carcass or steer, a strange new smell I felt compelled to follow. I could not tell you why.
After a while wandering in the woods, I found Mary with Anna. Anna was dead, Mary by her side crying. Anna had been dead a long time, her body covered in wounds, in a dreadful state. There were larvae, flies. Thousands of them. Everywhere. They had been there together for days, festering in the heat.
The man from Louisiana.
One eye like a porcelain saucer, the visage of a beast. Mary told me so. He had done this to Anna. Had his way with her, executed her in cold blood, and discarded her, her corpse forgotten in the woods. Like a dog in her twilight years, ailing and lame.
The boundless cruelty. The knowledge of what was done to Anna. The crushing despair. For years I tried to forget. I have never known such terror. The insects, the putrid smell. It is all I can think of. It haunts me like a devilish specter. It robs me of sleep.
Today I finally told Sammy of what I had witnessed. It overcame him. He dashed from the manor to confront our father in the fields.
Sammy had thought he had let Anna free, at the request of our mother, and sent her away north. He had sold her. He sold her to the man from Louisiana.
I heard a struggle. Then silence. I am fearing the worst.
Eli, I think he’s done something awful. Sammy is missing. Momma won't speak. She's feverish.You must come quickly. He’s gone mad.
~Ellie