By Rogerline Christopher

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This is part of my prologue from my novel Faust and The Bleeding Hearts. It follows Faust trying to get back her mortality from death themselves.

I’m a freed woman. That’s what I thought in the carriage that was bringing me to my new home. A free woman stuck in a stuffy box that feels like it’s going across the country when I’m moving one state over. 

          I remember being desperate for a bath. I spent a long time in that carriage gagging at my own scent. Of course I was looking forward to cuddling up against my lover but not as much as I was looking forward to a bath. After that I’ll have all the time in the world to count the scars along their face. When the carriage came to a stop I wanted to kick down the door and suck in a lungful of air. That’s not what It likes. They want a docile and delicate woman. 

          I’ve never been free or a woman before but I was off to a good start and I won’t ruin it. Off my plantation and free from the shackles of slavery I won’t dare do anything to set me back. 

            I think I arrived a few moments before sunset. The manor looked like it didn’t belong here like it erupted from the earth rather than built. It wasn’t made out of wood like many manors and plantation houses were. It was a big house, with high walls made of stucco. The setting sun turned the white walls from a rich golden yellow to amber. Heavy came the night and it dominated any of the remaining light. 

          At night the stucco walls are bone white. They look like they’re glowing against the darkness. The manor looks like a beast who comes alive under moonlight. I sometimes still feel the wind cutting against my skin that night. How it came out of nowhere and was icy cold. The lightning that struck the earth despite there being no clouds in the sky. There wasn’t a storm brewing because it was already here. Beside me in the form of a person. Or what I thought was a person. 

           It took my hand and led me toward the beast I called Anthropophagus. 

          Death and The Maiden. That was the painting that hung above the dual staircase in our home. It’s the first thing I saw. It’s a renaissance painting of a partially naked woman being held by a cloak of darkness in the shape of a person. They’re in a field of flowers. The maiden appears to be aroused in death’s hands. One of her breasts spilled out of her dress. She’s completely smitten by It. 

            The painting, much like the house, is alive. It changes when you blink, possibly melts off the walls while you look away. It changed each time I looked at it. It showed me both men and women as the maiden and sometimes a person who looked like they were neither gender. 

            I remember walking through the manor thinking of every way I’d decorate each empty room It showed me. How good it felt to be clean and in an Emma Victorian evening gown like I had always imagined. It’s a lavish gown with off the shoulder bell sleeves and lace trimmed bodice. I was in a manor, I owned it, and now I look the part. I felt more powerful with each step, so powerful the house didn’t dare creak or groan as I walked it. The power of now owning such a large house vanished upon looking at the painting again.

            The painting this time was featuring my love, It. The painting captured all of my favorite details about them. Their massive hands and the acne scars on their face. There was a scar in the painting that I’ve never seen on their face before. One that traveled up the outline of their jaw to their ear. I never recognized the clothes they had on. But based on all the layered pieces of a white dress and the headdress made of flowers it must have been a wedding dress of some sort. 

          That was them without a doubt but who was standing over them. A tall man or woman with a face that almost seemed purposefully scribbled out with paint. Whoever they were, they had a hand on It’s shoulder. It looked like a painful grip. 

           The more I stared at the painting the more I felt the fear in each brush stroke. The strokes cried out for help in the parts that were thick with texture. The feeling dropped off the canvas and coated the walls of my home. The horror on their face is embedded in my memory. Pupils turned to dots, tears glazing over in their eyes. And although they tried to smile, fear was plastered on their face.

Process

I’ve been working in this book since my junior year of high school. I took a long break after multiple attempts of trying to rewrite it. Long story short, the story I wrote when I was seventeen was never gonna be written by a teenager again. I take a lot of inspiration from all the horror movies I watch but especially Junji Ito’s Tomie.