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I pick up the book and carry it to one of the pews. I sit down, setting it on my lap and turn the next few pages until I see Mary’s name. Her story is as Jericho told it. Draca fell in love with her at first sight and married her within weeks. The wall hadn’t been erected to divide the properties yet, but I wonder if what happened to her is what caused it to be built.
Mary’s story is a sad one. I read every word of it. Even the moment he found his beloved wife hanging from the wooden support in the cellar of the house he’d been building for her. It was their bedroom according to this account. I find myself feeling for Draca St. James. I feel his pain. His loss. I feel his heartbreak. And in some way, I understand the root of his hate, though I still can’t reconcile it with hate for all Bishops.
I glance to his grave again and shudder. I turn the page. This one is worn so badly I can’t make out many words, so I keep turning until I see Nellie’s name written in an angry oversized scrawl at the top of a sheet. This is different than the story-telling of the earlier pages. Here, Draca didn’t bother to weave any romantic tale. Nellie wasn’t a person. She was a thing. A pawn.
Like me.
I know this thought…these words are true. I am Jericho’s pawn. The devil’s pawn. The devil’s bride. The question is will I survive his game? His vengeance? Can I become his redemption?
Draca used bullet points in the pages devoted to Nellie Bishop. And I feel a little sick to read them.
The first entry is the night he took her. His initiating of the Rite. The Councilor, a man names David Bonaventure, signed off to give Nellie Bishop to Draca St. James.
The second bullet point describes Nellie. Describes how he stripped her bare and examined her. How he had her work as the lowest of the low of staff, keeping her naked as she scrubbed floors and cleaned bedpans. How he would wake her to send her to fetch water in the middle of the night. How he abused her until he exhausted her to the point she was skin and bones.
I think about the night Jericho took me. How he stripped me. There is a similarity, but where Draca was ruthless, Jericho gave me the shirt off his back, his warmth still clinging to it.
He talks about how he used her sexually. How he made sure never to deposit his seed where it might take root.
The next page describes the first game he played with her. The chase, he called it. He would blindfold her, and in the middle of the night, take her to a random place on the property, forcing her to return to the well, in what he himself writes, is an unachievable space of time. He’d punished her when she arrived too late. How cruel he was in his punishments.
We played that game, too. A similar one at least. If I hadn’t fallen and hit my head, if I hadn’t passed out, would Jericho have punished me like Draca did Nellie? I still remember his words that night. How he meant to draw the first drops of blood from me.
I consider closing the book, wanting to go back to the house. Back into his bed. To the warmth and comfort of it. I want to forget what I’ve read. But Julia’s words haunt me.
You should read their history. Your future is written in it.
I’m on borrowed time. I touch my stomach. I have nine months. Less.
I make myself read another passage. Another bullet point. A detailed account of how he brought her into this chapel. How he chained her to the altar. Whipped her until she bled so her blood would seep into the stone floor. I look up at the altar. Are the chains still there? Back in the shadows?
I turn the page. Jericho has said he won’t hurt me but, as I skip the next page and a half dozen bullet points, I wonder again if I didn’t ask the right question. If I should have asked if he would kill me once I gave him a child.
Draca St. James had Nellie dig her own grave the night before her execution. Her death was meant to be an execution. But the next morning, they’d found her body in the well. I’m sick to my stomach when I read Draca St. James’s words. His utter disappointment that he could not murder the innocent girl himself. How he could not hang her from a tree where her father would watch her corpse rot before he finally buried it when the stink got too bad and the flies became unbearable.
