Writing The Boxington Devil (M-VSL)

[Engel]

I decided, why not post a little horror story in honor of Halloween? So, I did, and not just a little one - a long one. I hope those who dare read it enjoy! - - - - -

The Boxington Devil

~1~

The silver had been her mother’s – ornate designs spiraling the handles, family heirlooms. It was set out for the party, nestled by each china platter. But it was nothing compared to the centerpiece brimming over with foreign fruit and juice, and this nothing to the tablecloth with its oriental silk, and this nothing to the high-backed chairs and the hardwood floors and to the great chandelier with its blazing candles.

The guests had come in that morning by ferry, the only practical way to reach Boxington Manor. It was a grand house with sprawling porticos and whitewashed walls, master of its own island at the heart of the bayou. To behold it was rare, so swallowed by the swamp it was, and as each guest arrived the world was met with a new gasp of wonder.

Everyone had been invited – everyone with status – merchants and their wives, the local government with its top hats and canes, the rich with their inheritances. They had been shown to their rooms, passed the day with leisure in the house’s parlors, and finally dressed and gathered in the front hall that night to await their hosts for dinner. They fanned themselves and gossiped in the glimmering candlelight, debating the manor’s integrity.

“I heard,” said one, Lady Robichau, in a whisper, “that he married her for her money.”

“A good reason,” answered her husband.

She hit him with her fan.

“Darling,” he went on, taking her arm, “do you impugn me for stating the obvious? Come; let’s stand by the window. Perhaps it will help to cool your temper.”

They went off.

Others were talking by the stair banister.

“My dear Sarah, don’t speak of yourself so! The spring of youth should not be tainted by –"

“– Self-pity or self-doubt. Your favorite cliché, mother.”

“It’s not a cliché,” rebutted Mrs. Villard. “It’s my own personal anecdote.”

“And we’ve all heard it quite enough.”

“But I’m right, you know,” said Mrs. Villard. “Why, one needs but to blink at her,” she gestured at Sarah, “to see her beauty.”

“Mother, can you blame the girl? Under this roof it’s a miracle she still believes in marriage at all.”

“Oh, no,” Sarah interrupted, “it’s not marriage that worries me. It’s no marriage that worries me. To be an old maid before one’s married; I don’t think I could stand it!”

“And you won’t have to, my dear. Stop tormenting yourself.”

“The spring of youth,” Mrs. Villard said. “The spring of youth…”

But at that moment their conversation was halted when a servant stepped out onto the stair’s landing. The hall fell instantly into silence, for everyone knew his purpose and everyone was again whetted with anticipation.

With a graceful bow he called out their names, and it was as if a trumpets fanfare had sounded when they arrived at last before their eager guests, out from two massive wooden doors – Lord and Lady Boxington. A hushed murmur ran through the crowd; all eyes locked on the hosting couple.

Their presence was at first a creature of shock, so glorious and heavenly did they carry themselves. No doubt they appeared as royalty: their air was a force of elegance, and haloes seemed to radiate above them. Closer inspection would have revealed in them a small sense of disquiet, but this was smothered by their opulence and grandeur.

Lady Boxington was a woman of age, her appearance reserved even in its magnificence. Her hair was drawn back in a jeweled bun, its gems glittering yellow, and in one hand she held a folded Chinese fan. Her caving cheeks were powdered, her lips painted, and her wrinkled hands had been smoothed by simmering wax. Her eyes, though sunken, bore an innocence and calm, and she wore a draping gown with an emblazoned flower print that trailed behind her as if fire in the wake of a goddess.

Lord Boxington was beside her, his arm in hers. He was a young man, and unlike his wife he flushed with heart-pumping vigor. His features were defined and handsome, his black hair parted, and he wore trimmed sideburns to his jaw. A tuxedo with sharp cuts contained his sculpted musculature, and his posture was one of dramatic exaggeration, an emphasis on his masculine perfection. His eyes burned blue in fiery passion.

“My dear, sweet friends!” he called out, reaching the floor. “How pleased we are to receive you here on this spectacular evening! I trust that your stay has thus far been pleasant, and your trip was not too depraved. The mosquitoes, I hear, can be monstrously unfashionable. But please, my wife and I dare not contain you any longer – into the dining room! We will eat yet tonight!”

There was a general bustle, and the guests moved towards their appointed chairs in the other room. Even as they seated themselves their eyes were locked on the two hosts in dissection; yet this criticism was soon to perish when they finally realized the sheer opulence of the room’s setting. The centerpiece swam in exotic scents, the plates wore golden trim, and the white chandelier burned angelically, a flare and slice of heaven. Those who did try to uphold their social investigation soon found themselves pitted against imported silk, crafted porcelain, and flashing silver forks. The touch of luxury smothered them all, so that when the Lord twanged a spoon on a spindled glass he spoke to an already conquered audience.

“As you all know,” he began, “we have gathered here today not for the mere indulgence of gluttony, but in a hopeful celebration. I speak, of course, of my dear wife, a woman of nobility, of character, and of a most supreme class. Gertrude, my dear,” and he turned to the Lady, “today is your day, tonight your night: your diamond jubilee has come! Another year to top your brow, another gem set in your crown! Have mercy on we, those less than divine, and allow us to spoil you, just this once, with cheer beyond belief!”

His voice had risen to a reveling baritone, and the guests followed it with proper applause. A few servants came wheeling into the room with a covered pillow just at the pitch’s height.

“But as we all know,” said the Lord, “birthdays can not run their course without presents.”

The guests instantly fell into a deep and curious hush.

“I thought,” continued the Lord, “that, after all, this is your diamond jubilee, and what would that be without diamond?”

The servants handed him the pillow.

“And then I thought, ‘Diamond? One diamond will never be enough.’”

The guests were teeming.

“And so,” he readied his hand on the cover, “I bought them all.”

With a tug he ripped the cover away, and all the room gasped in amazement. It was fashioned of pure silver, a hundred, no, a thousand diamonds set into its coiling lengths and chains – a necklace to rival all necklaces, a collar pregnant with the jewels of the earth.

“What do you think, my dear?” he asked.

And she, ever so slowly, touched him on his cufflinked wrist and nodded her fragile head.

“Then let us feast!” he cried, and the tension burst into cheer. He thrust the necklace back at the two servants as ten others rushed in from the kitchen. They carried platters and plates and pots and pans, all brimming with delicacies, and the dinner began with a bang. Portions were served, the piano played, the guests turned to each other for talk, and the room went ablaze with activity.

“What do you think of him now?” whispered Madame Pampalon as the soup was being ladled into her fine china bowl. She eyed the Lord as he sat back in his seat.

“A perfect gentleman,” answered her friend. “Those two were made for each other.”

Across the table, Lady Robichau remarked to her husband, “I wouldn’t mind a necklace like that myself.”

“Neither would I,” he said, plunging a fork into his salad.

She hit him with her fan.

And as the guests gossiped and talked through the night their general consensus turned itself – no longer a louse bent on money, Lord Boxington had transformed into a man of charisma and caring. He held his wife’s hand tenderly throughout the dinner and engaged those around him in splendid comedy and banter. How marvelous and congenial his true persona was! He won the women’s hearts and the men’s respect; he was sublime, he was polished, he was perfect. When he rose to leave during the second entrée (“Business, unfortunately, calls.”), they all mourned his absence with carefree complaints; they talked of him till dessert.

“I hope that you aren’t still worried about marriage,” said one.

“Oh, no,” chimed Sarah. “If I could marry someone as debonair as Lord Boxington, I’m sure my life would be a dream.”

“You see, my dear, you needn’t worry about age at all. If the Lady could do it, you can, too. It’s personality – that’s what matters.”

“And youth!” said Mrs. Villard, pointing her fork. “It’s all in the spring of youth!”
~2~

Lord Boxington, having just departed the party, made his way through the front hall and turned down a side corridor. He walked with a brisk nervousness, his shoes scuffing the carpet.

Business, he thought, the guests flooding his mind. What imbeciles.

The rest of the house was dark, lit only by a few sparse lamps, and a sense of vacancy haunted the atmosphere. As he passed the manor’s dim parlors he could barely discern ghostly figures in their gaping lounge chairs. But he rushed on, not daring to stop and confirm his fears.

I’ve been kept long enough, he thought, by those absurd buffoons.

Indeed, if he could have helped it there would have been no party at all; unfortunately, his wife had gone behind his back with the invitations. And though it had done wonders for him socially, dousing all doubt of his motives, it had been a merciless consumer of time. Even as he hurried on, blurring through the halls, his clock was ticking. Around a bend, across a rug, through an arch and down three steps: into the dark of the servants’ kitchen.

He paused then, collecting himself after his run through the house, and turned to a door in one corner of the room. Just beyond was the abyss of the cellar, and nestled there – his goal. He opened it with a jerk, and out wafted the aging smell of dust and wine.

Standing before the precipice of the stair, Lord Boxington inhaled deeply, bracing himself for the spiraling curl downwards, and then plunged. He circled rapidly into the depths, his shoes tapping against the cracked tile steps; he held one hand on the wall for guidance. Down, down, deeper and deeper, until he found himself in the buried expanse of the cellar. There he recoiled for a moment, blinded by the weak lanterns on the ceiling, and then looked out into the cluttered storage place around him.

His two men were already there, standing far back by the distant wall: dredged from his shadowy pool of premarital relations, he had ferried them in the other day, still unaware of his wife’s party.

“That you, old boy?” asked one. “Finally come to visit?”

The Lord squinted back at them.

“I say he’s drunk,” answered the other. “Life’ll do that to you.”

He paid no heed to their remarks.

“What are you doing out here?” he demanded. “You’re not being paid to lollygag around. Shouldn’t you be inside with her?”

He pointed to a small, crusted door with brass locks.

“No worries, my Lord,” mocked one. “We know what we’re doing.”

“It’s all taken care of,” said the other.

“The ties are tied, and the straps are strapped.”

“Of course, we didn’t have any drugs – but that’s beside the point.”

“Oh, and we managed a gag, as well.”

“Can’t do more than that.”

“It’s all waiting now.”

They looked at each other with chesire grins.

“So,” said Lord Boxington, “the situation is settled?”

“As it ever can be.”

“Then stand away – I won’t need you again till the end.”

He gestured for them to remove themselves to the other side of the room; they did so with grudging indifference, and faded away into the shadows and the piles of discarded furniture. He was once more alone.

Standing there in the cellar, Lord Boxington turned again to the crusted door with locks. Misery and apprehension clouded his mind, but a primal urge for survival drove him onwards. With one gallant stride he approached the door, its frame isolated on the barren wall, and took a grip on the handle. A thickening urgency hung over him, and when he at last stepped inside he was lost in the delirium of his scheming, finally unveiled before him.

She was on a table, bound, as they had promised, with a rope coil through her teeth. Her hands and feet were tied to the table’s wooden legs; her back was arched. A lamp hung stilly above, and this poured a spotlight of gauze and haze across her stretching figure – she was mounted, the star of her own dungeonous carnival.

Lord Boxington dared not draw near; the room’s illustration was far too vivid, far too real. He closed the door and remained by it. But though he felt caution, even pity, towards the woman on the table, a much more primal emotion had taken hold of him – she was nude, and this drove him back to the caverns of his lecherous memory. In the low light of the hanging lamp, his sick nostalgia boiled into view.

How had it gone again? Up on the oriental carpets, under the glossy gleam of paint and gold, he had taken her hand – yes, taken her down to the cellar’s depths. The choice was beyond her; she existed to serve. And how marvelous it had been to finally sate his lust with her body. She had been pure, blood coming rapidly with his bare-chested thrusting. It had come the second time as well, and the third, and fourth; there, on that very table, he had ravaged her until his hair was ruffled and his flesh slick. The swelling of her stomach mattered not – anything to escape the prison of his wife’s wrinkled brows, and her sunken cheeks, and her grotesque, yellow teeth. The picture of her countenance haunted him even at his moments of climax, tortured him, berated him, fought to drive him into fits of wild rage! The barbarity of her flesh, the insatiability of his own! How often he had screamed in torment, his youth wasted behind the bars of another’s age. And there, lost in the memory of his own perverse agony, a new terror began to froth beside him in the present.

What villainous contortions! She squirmed on the tabletop like a rat under a scalpel. The rope in her teeth contained her yelps; the bonds on her limbs denied her motion. Yet she flailed still, the pain of natural labor overwhelming. Fluids leaked from her. Lord Boxington felt vomit rise in his throat and stepped back even more, not daring to remove her ties – who knew where she might flee, whom she might tell? Instead he watched in agony, his composure pitiable, as his mate writhed on the table. And then, as if stamped in wretched finality, she belched blood across the floor and her insides ran down in it. A silence stained the air.

Moving his fingers from his lips, Lord Boxington looked up at the limp woman on the table. Her thrashing had stopped, and her arms and legs had gone flaccid. Her stillness was that of a lamb on a butcher’s block. Carefully drawing a napkin from his breast pocket, the Lord smothered his nostrils and began to inch towards the table. Fighting revulsion, he scanned her for any sign of life: a vein was slowly pulsing in her neck.

She lives, then, he thought, and a weight lifted from him.

But then he glanced down between her thighs and gasped at the sight placed before him.

Perfect in its innocence, it bore pink skin and rounded features. Its limbs were curled in, its tiny hands closed; its crying was quiet, a barely audible whisper. So soft was its skin that it looked like smooth wax; as if a ladybug newly landed, it moved with a silent, gentle cooing. It was an ideal baby.

Lord Boxington reeled at the infant, unable to suppress his stomach any longer. He left a sputter of coarse yellow on the floor before looking back at it. There, in horrific purity, the symbol of his lust had been made solid. All at once the future came whirling madly into view: the child’s appearance, the other servants’ curiosity, the mother’s mind cracking, splintering, shattering under questioning – his own hellish part in the tragedy revealed! Why had he not thought of the implications sooner? He had barely been able to hide her plumping stomach, but to hide an entire human? Impossible! If she had only died in labor!

His eyes twisted back to the baby, its noises growing as it gasped for air, and he fell to his knees in defeat. Coattails splayed lifeless in the dust, he could think of only one feasible option: he looked around for a knife. Misery clung to him in his search, diseased him as his nails scrambled across the cracked ground, and at last delivered into his hand the sad remnants of an old bottle. He tore off his cufflinks.

But then, just as he had pressed the glass to himself, another idea flashed in his brain. He wobbled to his feet again. There, in the grotesque gauze of the lantern, the baby still cooed. With what a depraved mind he looked to it then, his blue eyes mad, clamoring over, raising the shard into the hazed lantern’s halo. He readied the plunge, his muscles gone stiff, and drove in an arc toward the new infant’s head; his conscious would not interfere.

There was a crunch.

~3~

Later that night he stepped into the bedroom on tiptoe, slowly closing the door to prevent its moaning creak. After a delicate journey across the carpet to a chair on the room’s other side, then a sinking into its leather confines, the Lord let out his first breath in hours. He stared into the room’s dark, lit only by a dim bedside lamp, and then moved to undo the laces of his sopping wet boots. But he was not alone for long: a question soon came whispering on the air.

“Is that you?”

He turned a sour eye to the bed’s expanse and to his wife’s back. Despite his efforts she had woken, or perhaps never been asleep at all.

“I’m here,” he answered, and then he tossed a boot onto the floor.

Silence again fell as he undid his buttons and removed his clothes. He hung them on a corner of the wardrobe but kept his ears attentive, for he knew that another comment of usual dry wit would follow.

“Darling,” she said.

He almost laughed to himself.

“I owe you a certain thanks.”

But at that he stopped, and he turned to look towards her unmoving back.

“…For what?”

“All of it,” she sighed.

His eyebrows arched, and he took a solemn step closer to the edge of the great, grey bed.

“It was too bold of me to send the invitations without permission,” she went on. “You’ve been nothing but generous; I shouldn’t have tangled your affairs. Forgive me, won’t you?”

The Lord moved to her side and looked down at her decaying figure, at her gentle eyes and the web of silk she had wrapped around her thinning hair.

“Clau–“

“No,” he said, and he pressed a finger firmly to her lips. “You must always call me… my love.”

There like that they remained, frozen in time as two fading silhouettes, the meaning of age washed away. Each slivered silver minute, and the summer’s glow of the hour’s gong, and the chilling bite of midnight, blended to create one perfect, timeless moment. He could have felt love for her then, but she rolled away and the hands began to turn again; out bloomed the wrinkles of hagdom, and she was once more but a living corpse in a cover.

“You often,” she sighed, “remind me of him.”

And at that he really did despise her, and in hate moved from her side. Off to the wardrobe he went again, and as she talked he ruffled his clothes and stared blankly into the mirror.

“I can still picture it: your first arrival from the mainland, just a dreary young apprentice with your purse of potions and tinctures. How careful you were! Such a delicate young man. I often wonder, if you aren’t an angel sent to guide me in my hours of failing?”

He stoically rang his pants.

“My little doctor, always by my side,” she said. “Do bring me some water when you come to sleep.”

When he finally finished with his clothes, their wrenched moisture running on the hardwood, he went to a little table with a pitcher and a glass. There he poured her water, and, with a curt look over his shoulder, poured her something else.

“Here, darling,” he said as he took his place in the bed beside her. She drank with a few pecking sips, then set the glass aside.

“Clau–“ she began, but he stopped her with a hush.

“You must always call me… my love.”

The lamp went out in a hiss.

~4~

The next morning, in the same spot that Lord Boxington had dumped his dreaded, dead infant into the channel of the swamp the night before, two servants discovered something peculiar in the trappings of their net. With a heave they brought it onto the dock, and there stood aback in a manner of curious horror.

It was a great, gaping fish, with an appearance most readily akin to that of a bass, but so mutant in form as to truly be undistinguishable of any species at all. Its girth was gigantic in size, and its whole body seemed bursting at the seams with a stuffing of either muscle or fat, as if it had swallowed something altogether too large for its stomach. It had bulbous green eyes, fins and a tail of a material like heavy velvet, and an oily pattern of blue diamonds on its back. Already limp, the servants deduced that it had expired in a struggle with the net. And, perhaps most bizarre of all, it had a long, lax tongue which draped across the dock’s planking from its lips.

“Do you suppose it edible?” asked one of the servants.

“I do suppose, indeed,” said the other.

“You don’t suppose it might be toxic, like a frog?”

“Hardly,” said the other, and he moved toward it to perform a sort of autopsy. “For one, the coloration is neither diverse nor bright, such as to provide a warning. Secondly, it has neither ribbons nor blotches as patterning, but this rather helpless diamond motif. And as you can see here, its flesh is moderately slick, and exerts no sticking fluid, which might be supposed venom. I say it’s a perfectly palatable dish.”

In this method of thought they both deemed their catch quite harmless, and suspected that it might make a fine addition to the kitchen. They did not suspect they had set any new record, but fancied the idea regardless, and were intent on weighing the fish presently to find out.

Both took hold of each other’s hands under the belly of the creature (for it really was so large), and in that manner bore it up into their arms like a child in a cradle and made their way across the lawn. On their way they passed several fellow servants who all voiced the same amazement at the beast, not the least of whom was Peter, one of the farmhands.

“I’d say, oh, a five and fifty pounds, eh?”

“Not at all!” shouted Brutus, one of the original captors.

“At least one hundred, and then some,” said Cassius, the other.

“Probably ate something, though, eh? I say you lose ten pounds, smallest, when it’s gutted.”

“Even if it loses twenty pounds,” replied Cassius, “the weight is still astronomical!”

“So you say,” said Peter. “Back at the market, it’d fetch a pound, at most.”

“Hardly!”

“You say hardly, I say back home, it’d be bad luck enough to even taste. That’s where you lose the money – in the luck.”

“I say it’s lucky enough,” said Brutus, “to possibly set the record.”

“Well,” answered Peter, “you can use the wheelbarrow, anyhow.”

So it was that the two found transportation for their catch; they presently wheeled the great fish to the side of the house, and there determined to weigh it on a set of scales. Wrestling it back out of the barrow, however, proved strangely impossible: with each grip they took, the fish’s flesh seemed to grow slicker and slicker, until it was altogether backbreaking to even lift its tailfin.

“Perhaps we should just gut it, then,” proposed Brutus. “It has clearly eaten something which is weighing it down, and the removal of this, apart from lessening the load, would deliver unto us the fish’s truer measurement, as well.”

“Yet to gut it in such an awkward position,” said Cassius. “We may have to slit it directly across the back, rather than the underside, due to its position in the barrow.”

“Then let us make haste! Do you have a knife?”

“I do.”

Cassius unsheathed a lithe, bendable knife with a curved blade from his back pocket, and then pressed it to the fish’s hide. He began to bear down ever so lightly, but damaged a mere two scales before a sense of sudden mourning struck him. Attempting to trump this feeling he made one last weak slice, but then his willpower collapsed.

“You, Brutus, take it from me,” he moaned. “I can’t bring myself to cut it.”

“How preposterous!” exclaimed his friend, but he, too, on taking the knife, could never force himself to make a worthwhile incision.

“It’s far too beautiful,” said Cassius as he gazed longingly over the oiled skin. They both agreed that nothing so gorgeous could be so prematurely wounded.

“Then we shall simply have to empty it through the gullet,” said Brutus. “I’ll hold open the mouth so that you might reach inside and remove whatever weighty food has kept it from budging.”

“A fine solution,” said the other. “But you can reach inside.”

Cassius then took the fish’s plump lips in both hands and spread them wide, allowing Brutus to extend the entire length of his arm down its throat. However, just seconds before Brutus’s readied limb had made its fated plunge a great clamor arose to halt them both.

Out from one of the manor’s side doors the Master Chef, in blazing white attire, dashed with a frying pan brandished in the air. With one definitive knock he sent Brutus to the ground, and then, begging for forgiveness from this atrocious deed, fell pleading to Cassius’s feet.

“What barbarity!” Cassius shrieked, and his foot began rising; but the Chef was a master of manipulation, and with a single jingling pouch quelled the entire situation.

“You must excuse my manners,” the Chef began as he once again took to his feet. “I had to stop you before it was too late – I have a proposition, and a delicacy, to be made, and make!”

The Chef then delivered an account of how, as he had stood scouring vegetables for that night’s dinner, a flood of gossip swept through the kitchen to inform him of a perfect culinary rarity just fished from the swamp. Being excited over its weight rather than its taste, however, its two captors had decided to instantly flay and preserve it for shipment to the mainland and the office of records. Under no pretense of elegance, the Chef had charged to the scene, upsetting numerous maids on his way, in order to halt the certain massacre of his mind’s already piquing vision of an entrée.

“So you see,” he concluded, “I did it for justice, and for beauty!”

“We intended on delivering it to you, anyway,” said Cassius. “But now I’m afraid you must be charged for so rude of an attack.”

Brutus groggily awoke and rubbed his head.

“Such is the price for art,” the Chef lamented, and he surrendered the pouch completely.

“But might I ask,” said Cassius, “why you so insist on retaining its whole form? Is not gutting necessary in the preparation of such a food?”

“Gutting,” said the Chef, “would ruin the surprise. I intend to cook this fish whole, and serve it whole, though it will be spiced on the top. The recipe may seem odd to you, but it is a foreign tradition, and meant to infuse the creature with all the flavors of its last meal. Being either carnivorous or herbivorous, it may only ingest the purest of matter in its natural surroundings, making everything its gut contains an exact compliment to its gut itself. Nothing on its inside may be disturbed – and certainly no amount of its flesh may be flayed!”

And with that the Chef dismissed Cassius from his hold on the fish, wheeling the barrow himself through the side door from whence he came and away from the reach of its two captors.

“I suppose no record’s to be set, then,” sighed Brutus.

“No,” replied Cassius, “but I’ll take a safe guarantee over a farfetched chance any day.”

He jingled the pouch once again.

Inside the manor, the fish passed through gloomy brick corridors and by great belching furnaces and steaming water pipes. Still more servants strayed from their duties, their faces peeping through doorways and around corners, to catch a glimpse of the Chef’s fabulous monster; washers abandoned their dishes, maids their brooms and buckets, tailors the rungs of clothing they had still to repair, and stable boys, bridles about their necks and polish in their hands, stared with eyes of amazement; the creature’s onlookers surrounded it like the walls of a parted sea, ready to break and swallow it from all directions at any instant.

Into the kitchen the fish at last reeled, and now with sudden ease did the Chef and his many followers and apprentices bear it onto the long table in the room’s center. It landed with a massive thud, sending the chopped vegetables beside it into the air, and shaking the hanging meats in the larder.

“Spices!” the Chef cried. “We must have spices!”

All about a flurry arose as cooks looked here and there, plundering the pantry and throwing cabinets ajar in a search for every seasoning at hand. They brought forth bottles of vinegary liquid, and small tin boxes filled with powder; they brought dried peppers and casks of wine; glass jars rattling with cloves, vials of exotic cinnamons, bags of crushed lemon and plates of minced herbs; crockery brimming with morsels of chocolate, earthenware pots filled with every type of spice imaginable; and brimming vats of pickled meat, should the strange ingredient by chance be needed.

The Chef went instantly mad over the corpse, dashing it here and there with spice, injecting it with flavored fluid and pounding its fins with tenderizing hammers. He stuffed garlic in-between its scales, ran wreathes of parsley round its neck, lined its lips with berries and spared no crevice its fair share of ginger. Meanwhile, the lesser cooks stewed a stimulating broth from the juices of shrimp, crawfish, and plantation peppers; they melted butter into it, poured in quantities of honey, and lavished it conclusively with two or three sprigs of mint. This, then, they filled a grand clay vat with, in which the fish would be shortly immersed.

After all preparations had been completed, the Chef carefully sank his culinary masterpiece into the liquid of its marinating broth, then ordered the door to the oven opened. It took no less than three of his cooks to pry the massive metal portal asunder, embers of hot red whirling from it in escape; and then, with the composure of a funeral march, the grandiose dish was steadily borne toward its fate.

The oven’s heat was so excruciating that no person could bear to stand by it for more than an instant, yet into its flare the monster of the vat was driven. Ornamented as if a conquering general or victorious king, that beast slid back into the oven’s brimstone interior, logs exploding beneath its perch on a lofty iron grate. Then, in a swoon half of excitement and half of terror, the cooks again sealed the great metal door and locked the fish away in the confines of a hell on earth. Their Master Chef was full of glowering approval.

The dish would be done in five hours.

~5~

For the second night in a row the two Boxingtons descended the grand staircase into the throng of their guests. Reigning gossip still clung to the remembrance of the diamond necklace, so spectacular on its cushion, and to the perfect manners of the young Lord. He invited the guests to take their places once more in the dining room, and promised an even greater surprise than that of the previous night. This sent all of them into a giddy state of laughter, and his wife, to conceal her own blushing, put her fan before her cheeks.

A steady stream of piano music drifting in the air, all of the guests moved on to take their seats – all save one. A prim and proper lass of blooming seventeen had removed herself from the crowd, and she now stood smiling in a corner of the front hall next to a hanging tapestry. This was Sarah and, her mother and Mrs. Villard having already taken to the dining room, she made no attempt at diverting her worshipping glances toward the Lord.

“My dear child,” he said, approaching her as still more guests drained to their seats, “I would ask for your name, but find myself too shocked at the possibility of your displeasure. Has the weekend not been suited to your enjoyment?”

“Oh, no,” she beamed.

“No! Then we must attempt a remedy immediately! Tell me what you desire, and it shall be yours.”

Sarah flushed as blood rose to her cheeks, and then made an awkward curtsey.

“My Lord,” she laughed, “you misunderstand me. I have not had any displeasure this weekend. It has all been quite lovely.”

“Yet you still ‘have not’ something,” he went on, a curled finger under his chin. “I have an idea – take your place beside me this evening. It’ll all be in good fun, and most convenient when I reveal my latest surprise.”

“It would be an honor,” she smiled, and with that he led her into the dining room.

“Friends, fellows, ladies and gentlemen!” the Lord exclaimed on reaching his seat at the head. “Our weekend has drawn to a close, though I hope it shall live on in memory for some time to come!”

All of the guests nodded in agreement (one poked Mrs. Villard).

“My wife and I have had a fabulous time, and look forward to inviting everyone back for another social joust in the near future; we will certainly look for any excuse afforded to us. But let me not drag us so quickly to the end of things – this night has barely begun!”

At that the kitchen doors again burst open, but instead of ten waiters with individual dishes, this time ten emerged under the labor of a single mammoth platter topped in a dazzling silver dome. Its absolute reflection stunned all present, and with immense care it was settled into the middle of the table. The Master Chef himself had arrived to do the unveiling.

“I have heard tales,” Lord Boxington whispered, “of monstrous creatures lurking in the swamps at night, of horned alligators and witches practicing the dark arts in their wretched hovels. But never –“ and he said this with absolute gusto “– have I heard of a dish so glorious, so appetizing, so unequivocally rare as the one before us tonight!”

The silver dome was torn asunder, and there, in the midst of the entire company, sat the garnished mass of the peculiar fish! Its skin has been turned scarlet by the cooking, its diamond pattern a shade of Arabian purple, and its fins had both shriveled and spiked so as to stand erect as perfect bristles. Only its eyes had remained unscathed, but these had pooled into an even deeper shade of green, their murky gaze locked upon the Lord, locked upon his very soul.

Everyone gaped wildly at the dish, perhaps out of hunger or perhaps bewilderment, and the room seemed exactly frozen in time as the Chef procured a gleaming metal blade. Even the Lord had not quite expected so exotic a creature, despite the servants’ tales, and he shared his guests’ astound in every aspect. Slowly the Chef inserted his blade into the fish’s spine and, with a brief succession of jagged tears, divided the beast in two. Down across the table its sides fell in crisp reverberation, and the contents of its stomach were at last made bare.

There, coiled amid entrails and spiced vegetables, a limp pink thing lay curled. Though partly digested and fully cooked, its appearance was unmistakable, and its flesh a perfect smoothness likened to wax. The guests at first drew back in shock, but then instantly rose to achieve a better view. It was a gargantuan red grouper.

Silence filled the air for but a moment before the Lord, relieved of something he was not even aware, let out a merry, resonating laugh.

“My friends!” he cried. “My friends, my friends, the dish is undeniably peerless! We shall have two meals in one!”

Like a champagne bottle uncorked, hundreds of chuckles, shrieks and giggles flooded the atmosphere and glanced the lofty ceiling. But just then, to everyone’s further surprise, a lively tune bubbled up in order to heighten the merriment.
“My friends,” the Lord chortled, holding his stomach, “you must excuse me for this quite unconventional tune, but you see, the only way to end a singularly unique weekend is with a singularly unique song. I invite you all to dance, dance, dance as you’ve never danced before!”

And with that he took Sarah’s hand in his and swept her into a skipping jig beside the table, for the lively tune was no other than a jolly Irish melody, a band playing just on the other side of the room. So rare in high society is the opportunity presented to throw the trappings of class mannerism aside that as a result the motley crowd joined immediately in on the jig. Around and around the dinner table they spun, the Chef meanwhile portioning the fish in the center, as pure joy left their lips unrestrained. And a lyrical voice rang out as well, directing their dance with such playful verses as have never been rivaled before or since:

Ye maids of Dunhallow who're anxious for courtin',
A word of advice I will give unto ye:
Proceed to Banteer to the athletic sporting
And hand in your names to the club committee.
And never commence any skirts on your programme
'Till the carriage you see flying over the hill,
Right down thro' the valleys and glens of Kilcorney,
With our old darling sportsman the bold Thady Quill.

For ramblin', for rovin', for football or courtin',
For drinkin' black porter as fast as you'd fill,
In all your days rovin’ you'll find none so jovial
As our Muskerry sportsman, the bold Thady Quill.

At the Cork Exhibition there was a fair lady
Whose fortune exceeded a million or more,
But a bad constitution had ruined her completely
And medical treatment had failed o'er and o'er.
“Our Mother”, said she, “sure I know what will ease me,
And cure this disease that will certainly kill.
Give over your doctors and medical treatment,
I'd rather one squeeze out of bold Thady Quill.”

For ramblin', for rovin', for football or courtin',
For drinkin' black porter as fast as you'd fill,
In all your days rovin’ you'll find none so jovial
As our Muskerry sportsman, the bold Thady Quill.

Their dance continued far into the night, interrupted in segments so that they might partake in actual eating, but never lessened in spirit. It is said that even across the swamp, in towns as distant as forty miles, the magic of that party was carried by the wind. Fishermen on their brigs, farmers in their fields, and even witches by their cauldrons – none failed to take part in the cheer-filled and eternal reverie of the glorious Boxington Manor.
The End
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As always, I hope it was fabulously enjoyable. I would greatly appreciate any and all feedback (especially on this story, since it jumps around so much and deals point blank with what the reader is expecting). Hopefully I haven't failed so miserably in presentation, and the 'surprise' worked out all right. Thanks for reading!