Last spring, I whipped up this eerie little tale for a 1,000 word challenge. Though I didn’t win, I learned a lot about shaping prose in a limited space. Anyway, Happy Halloween! 🎃☠️👻🐊🪦
The Perfect Wife
Beaureguard Jackson Wilkes glared down at the cheap pine coffin that held his deceased wife. That whitewashed pine box had cost him fifteen dollars.All Beau wanted to do was bury Jessamyn and get on with his life. Why pay for a sateen pillow interior? The dead don’t need comfort.
He sighed. As soon as this was over, he’d go deep in the swamp and meet Bedford and Jeb to hunt some gators. Shooting those dumb bastards always cheered him up.
Reverend Rowe finally shut his trap. He’d been wastin’ daylight droning on and on about Jessy’s spirit goin’ to heaven and
The Reverend nodded. Beau and his brothers, Bedford, Jeb, and Jubal, hoisted the coffin up easily. Beau would not tolerate a lard ass wife, and he’d told her so. Together they carried the coffin into the family mausoleum. Daddy said that Jessy didn’t really belong in there, being that she didn’t bear no live sons for the family, but Momma overrode him. It wouldn’t do to have Jessy’s coffin popping out of the ground first big rain.
Beau nodded and shook hands as the few mourners left one by one. They took their fool time, too. As the Reverend finally took the hint and left him alone, the first cottony wisps of fog crept round the tombstones. Damn it. Much more and shooting’d be impossible.
A shadow crept outta the fog. Callie Walsh emerged, dressed in midnight, looking like the hag of town whispers. Ignoring Beau, she crossed to the mausoleum and bowed her head. Her inky veil hid her face, looking like one of them weeping angels on the rich folks’ tombs. Why a good-looking white woman lived in the swamp supposedly making spells and charms was beyond him.
Why she was the reason Jessy died and Sheriff O’Connell was stickin’ his nose in business between a man and his wife. She gave Jessy airs and ideas that kept her from being a proper wife to her husband. He balled his fists in the pocket of his Sears suit jacket. “Get outta here, whore.”
Callie raised her head but didn’t turn. “You killed her.”
Beau strode over and grabbed her shoulder. “Did you hear what I—”
Callie whirled and flung gray dust that burned his eyes and clogged his nostrils. He began choking and sputtering. She kept one hand on Jessy’s tomb and made a gesture he didn’t understand with the other. “I curse you with the wife you always wanted.”
“You bitch.” He swiped at his burning eyes, blinking at the grit that made them stream. Night had fallen and a full moon hung, ponderous and weary, over Bald Cypress bearded with Spanish Moss. Its light painted the path that led to his ramshackle cottage. “What the hell?
Fear jittered in his veins. Maybe that Callie really was a witch. How else could he be here now?
Cheery lamp light flickered in the spotless windows, calling to Beau, like an echo of Jessy’s usual greeting, Hey handsome.
Goosepimples raised on his arms. No one should be in there. Sherriff’s orders.
“Jessy?” Durn fool. She’s dead. Unless that hag brought her back.
“I gotta get outta here.” But his feet disobeyed and shuffled down the weed choked path.
The paint-chipped door creaked open, and his jaw-dropped at the sight. It looked like a page outta one of them women’s magazines that Jessy gawked over each month. Ironweed and Bog Iris sat in a Mason Jar next to Jessy’s chair. Her knitting lay mid stitch on the frilled table.
On the other side of the fireplace a brown bottle of beer sweated next to the wingback he favored, and in between lay his hound, Dixie. She lifted her head from her paws and her tail thumped in a cautious greeting.
“Girl, what you doin’ home? Jeb’s supposed t’be watchin’ you.” Dixie whined softly as he approached and flinched as he touched her back. The smell of Jasmine filled his nostrils. She stunk of Jessy’s perfume so much that he wouldn’t be able to use her to hunt for days. “Who done give you a bath? You ain’t let nobody touch you but…”
Jessy. She was the only one who could coax the hound into a bath.
The clank of spoon on tin startled him. “Jessy?”
Three steps took him to the tiny kitchen, where every surface groaned under the weight of fried chicken, Lane cake, and collard greens. All his favorite food. All the things Jessy had never been able to make like Momma did. “What the hell?”
A mewling wail made his stomach drop. No baby ever graced this house. Jessy hadn’t wanted any. That’s how she ended up dead. Again came the cry, followed by a murmured “hush.”
Anger flared. It was just like her and that hag to pay a trick like this on him, making him think he’d killed her. She shoulda been dead after all that blood. She would be when he got his hands on her and that hag Callie, too.
Beau stormed back into the living room and grabbed his gun from the rack. The over-greased stock slipped from his hands and clattered onto the floor. The shiny barrel told him Jessy’s over oiled it again.
Anger became fury as he stomped down the hall to where light glowed from under the bedroom door. “Woman. How many times must I tell you…”
The smell of jasmine caught him short and brought him to his senses. I buried my wife today. She’s not here, right?
A rolling creak, like a rocker on worn floorboard.
Beau’s trembling fingers pushed the door open.
“Hello, handsome.”
A scream stuck in his throat, threatening to throttle him, like he had her.
Her turned and fled into the night, missing signposts now hidden in moonshadow.
And tripped into the arms of a waiting gator.
