Title: LIFT YOUR EYES TO HEAVEN
Author: Rosa Seravo (pseudonym)
Disclaimer: All characters in this story from Buffy the Vampire Slayer are
owned by Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, FOX, and the WB Network.
My Dear Spike,
I write and I write to you and you never answer, never answer. I write my
letters in my head and mail them with my mind but you never answer. Why don't
you answer me Spike? Can't you hear me? I hear you. I hear you rage and revile
me, I feel your spite, your hate. You curse me to daylight and you cry in your
sleep while you dream of me. You grieve for me but you don't come Spike. You
don't come.
Over and over you scream and cry...why did you leave me? I never left you, dear
Spike. I never left you darling, I only wandered, only desired, as I was born to
do and always will do. I am an animal, I am the lustful Evening Star, just as
you are, my sweet. That is why we died and became what we are, to be free of
rules and morals which chained us in the cold dungeons, choking in dusty
darkness when we longed for light, my love. You told me you loved me inside and
out but that was when I was helpless, frigid, like my little dolls that stare at
me, my only companions staring at me with their horrid glass eyes. Oh Spike, why
don't you come and put out their eyes?
You liar. Liar, liar, you talk and talk and talk of your hatred for Them. But
you want to be one of them again, don't you, you stupid creature? You want to
live like them and if you could, you would be human again in a moment. My little
Spike, you envy them, their Valentine love and children and mothers and friends.
Our love is the love of the wildcat, free, hot as the stars but theirs is cold,
shrivelled, false. You don't understand because you refuse to remember when you
were one of Them. But I remember my life as human, every day. I never ever never
ever forget and that is why I glory in what I am and I don't pine after what I
lost.
I wish I could kiss you now, Spike. I wish I feel you worshipping me. No one
worships me now and I am so cold.....
I remember when I was a girl walking the Earth. Cursed girl, bad girl, evil was
my destiny but foolish little urchin, I longed to be good. My love for God was
so strong, it burned like a flame in my breast. Spike, you fool, there is a God,
no matter what he says and he is wrathful and watching, watching. When visions
started I knew they were from God. I thought I would be a Saint like Joan of
Arc. Angelus likes to say he changed me. Arrogance. Mum was the first to put the
thought of evil in my head, told me the visions were from the Evil One, not from
God, that God would hate me and spurn me and send me to Hell if I did not banish
the sinful prophesies from my mind. I tried, my dear Spike. Oh, I tried. I wish
you were here right now to laugh at me and stop all of this thinking, thinking,
remembering.
Mum told Papa and he beat me until I hurt all over, every bone, every feeling.
When I confessed to Father Gregory he told me that if I would only pray every
waking hour of every day and consign my life to the Lord my visions would be
taken from me and God would show me His mercy. But they never did. They kept
coming and coming and they all called me witch and threw stones at me wherever I
went. Thought of my own evil grew and grew, big like a tree.
Then on my 16th birthday HE came. I feel so much when I think on him, monster,
lover, nightmare, dream, appearing at my window with his horrid, beautiful face,
shadowing me in my dreams, touching me in my sleep when he crept in my room at
night, taking my innocence from me, my dear love. When I confessed to Father
Gregory -- I thought it was a dream -- he called me Jezebel and drove me from
the little dark box with no penance or forgiveness. What a sniveling creature I
was then, how I despise myself, walking day and night in terror, fleeing my
visions, fleeing Mum and Papa, fleeing him, running to the nuns when the priest
would not help me. Oh, the Nuns were kind, they took pity on a girl imprisoned
in her mind. And when he killed my dear ones and I didn't cry enough, I fled to
them for protection. The holy sisters would grant it, but they exacted a price
-- a new prison for an old one. My visions would leave me if I took the veil and
left the world behind, never to know love or family, no children of my own to
inherit my legacy of sin. Spike, my dear creature, I am weeping. How you would
laugh at me now and we would play and forget. I feared Hell, and the love of God
still burned like a fading ember in my heart. I accepted the sentence and went
to my cell. HE was waiting for me, Spike, and he took me and freed me, just as
he freed you.
There you see. I remember. While you pine for fidelity and friendship and ally
yourself with the Slayer, I remember the victim that I was and the glorious
power I became. I love HIM because thanks to him, those who would not love me --
my parents, the priest, the other children of the town who threw rocks and me
and called me witch -- are dead. Yet I hate him, as you do, because he crushed
me to own me then ran away, reviling and despising me...the girl who had once
last chance to win the heart of my first true love, God, before the evil one
stole it from me.
I am all alone now, Spike, and still you do not come. I did something stupid, my
love. I took a one of Them as a lover. Just a poor mortal thing but he was so
much like us. I never realized a mere man could be so clever but he outwitted
me, Spike, and he has locked me away in his cellar behind bars I cannot bend,
where he comes and watches me, safe distance, with his horrid shining eyes. I
never hunt or make love, and have only my dolls for company during the long days
and nights. My dear Spike, will you not come? I know you can never forgive me
for my wild, free passion that would not be chained to yours. But you can take
pity on me. Come and free me, then punish me and send me away as they all do, as
they all have ever done. Perhaps God will reward your kindness. You do not
believe in Him, but you are a fool. If you lift your eyes to Heaven, Spike, you
can see the God who abandoned me. His vengeance is fearful. He made the Devil
who only acts with His permission. But you need not look down to a pit of fire
to find him. The Devil roams the earth in torment, bewailing his deeds, pitying
everyone and everything but the loneliest of creatures, you and I, his children.
Forever,
Drusilla