Fear Of What May:
"Please..." She moaned defenselessly, weakly trying to shake the barb wire from her delicate porcelain wrists. She whimpered softly, feeling the edges of the thick thread cut into her skin. "I'm so sorry..." She sniffled quietly, her feet painfully arching as he drew blood from the tissue at her side. "Just let me die in peace." Her head hung low, her lips parted in sorrow as she felt her body respond more now than ever to the cutting.
He declined to answer, tracing the fine lines of her body with a sharp blade, grading them as he did. He pinched her wounds as to leak bodily fluids. He smiled to himself, entranced, he again wondered of the on-lookers to Jesus on his cross. To those mothers who drowned their children. This was passion, like no other.
"Just kill me!" She forcefully commanded the movement of her lower body with no result. Paralyzed from the waist down she was. Tears welled up in her eyes, shaking her head lightly and willing her teeth to stop chattering from the torment of the sulfur that had been packed on to the end of all missing limbs.
He lightly pecked his lips in the center of her muscles, on her stomach. To fear blood is to fear flesh and he feared neither. He looked up to her, standing in front of the barrel where her feet barely touched. He'd hung her hands to the rafters and day by day removed or amputated different body parts.
"Dear lord." She murmured, consciousness slipping from her soon in time. She heard the soft lullaby of grace of that who fell from heaven in what was left of her mind. "Dear God. I'm so sorry...Mother, Father, be with me now." Her face contoured in grief yet had a tint of some acceptance. She confessed her sins, out loud, but for only herself. "Walk me through the valley of death, take my hand..." She was numb to the wire now, no longer jerking but twisting softly.
"Your father isn't with you now." Dazed in the light above her head, how it bathed her and somehow soothed her soul. He twitched his eyes and fumbled in his pocket for what he needed to banish her to hell. He retrieved the lighter from his night stand this morning after which he had soaked her in gasoline. "And he won't be again." He stood back, flicking the lit lighter into the barrel and grinning to himself. What an consummation as this was.
The witch would burn in hell.
&
"Don't you look beautiful?" Coop smiled, wrapping his arms tightly around her waist and nibbling on the softness of her neck. He was delighted to see her now, as she'd kept him out of the bedroom for the last hour. He'd shaved, groomed, sprayed, dressed. He'd been ready to go. Now so was she.
"You really think so?" Phoebe beamed brightly, swinging the string of pearls around her neck for him to clasp. "I don't look like a car?" She laughed, moving out of his embrace and letting him take hold of the beautiful heirlooms. She pranced around in her short black dress, curving her feet in her high heels just like a ballerina would do in her first pointed-toe slippers.
"Well if you are a car, you're the best damn car there has ever been." He smirked, stepping
forward to fill the void between them and letting a tantalizing hand reach up and cup one of her large breasts. "You look gorgeous. I've never seen anything prettier in my whole life."
She leaned her head on his chest, rocking a bit within his arms. "You swear? Because if you're lying I'll kick your ass you know." She glanced up at him, nodding her head playfully.
"I swear on your best pair of stringy high heels that you are in deed lovely." He joked around in a sharp accent, giving her a light squeeze and then retracting his hand to a more appropriate place. He left her, going to the dresser and grabbing her little black hand bag. "I love you...and the baby, more than anything." His tone was serious, as pure intentioned and truthful as one man could hope to be.
"Ah, so you say." She rolled her eyes, giggling in a fit and walking past him and through the bedroom door to the living space. Biting her gum and scrunching her nose in humor. She threw her black scarf over her arm, checking her makeup in the mirror in the foyer. She waited for Coop, as he'd forgot to put on his tie.
"Your daddy is a silly one." She mumbled, dabbing her finger on the corners of her lips. It was only til after she'd said it that she heard an anonymous noise float freely through the air. Without words, was a song. She shot down the usual suspicions of a local fire siren, it was much too late for an ice cream truck, too soft for a car alarm. Like a music box from a dream. Like dancers spinning on a plateau. She stood up to full height.
"Coop! What're you doing in there?"
"Fixing my tie." He raised an eyebrow, coming out of the bedroom and shrugging. "Why?"
She shook her head, suddenly looking pale and distant. "It's nothing." She smiled weakly, waving her hands, slightly laughing at herself. "I'm hearing things." She looked around one last time before opening the door and letting herself leave, hand and hand, wrapped tightly with her husband.
&
"I'm pooped." Paige Matthews landed on the couch with a large thump, causing the dish of popcorn to go flying onto the floor that her oldest sister was holding. She covered her mouth, eyes wide and immediately trying to look innocent. "Oh, Piper, I'm sorry.."
Piper wiped her buttery hands on the thighs of jeans, tossing her head from side to side seething angrily. "Damn it! Paige..." She leaned off the couch, picking up the spelt bowl and gathering all it's contents. "I wish you would learn to be more careful."
"I said I was sorry." Paige made a face, putting her legs under her behind and taking the remote from the coffee table. "I'll help you clean it up later." She turned on the system, flipping in rapid speed through the programs.
Piper groaned, placing the bowl back into her lap, she was tired. A mess, crabby, and tired. She sat with her sister, boys gone to bed, her husband taking his shift at the club for her, all the lights out and the door locked. Henry had gone out for work, and there they were.
"What do you want to watch?"
"Something happy." Piper fluttered her eyes, close to sleep herself. She mentally went down her check list of things right before bed and couldn't remember not doing anything she wasn't suppose to. "You can pick." She laid her head back, staring up at the ceiling.
The craftsmanship was so amazing on the frames of the door. She smiled to herself, relaxing while her eyes dreamily followed the dancing bears on the ceiling. Then it came. A lullaby in her head, yet nothing she wished herself to imagine. She nonchalantly tilted her head forward, staring at the screen to find it on a late night talk show. "What're we watching?" The tune didn't go away but streamed in and out of focus.
"Conan. Of course." Paige laughed at a scenario that played out across the televison screen.
Piper sighed, leaning back to watch the bears once more, surely she was clear of mind and hopelessly tired. Something she'd picked up on while putting the boys to sleep with their mini cd player. It was so beautiful. Definitely she would have remembered such a sound as this one. She closed her eyes again, momentarily wiping it from her brain before it started again.
She opened one eye. "Do you hear that?"
"Hear what?" Paige yawned, flipping the channel again. She looked at her sister, and bit her lip. "Nope, I don't hear anything."
Piper was silent for a moment, listening carefully to the intriguing rhythm. "Are you sure? Turn off the TV."
"I'm positive. What's up with you? You're starting to freak me out." Paige shuddered, dramatically blowing over top her lips to make a chilling sort of sound. She turned off the system just as Piper had asked and looked around. "There's nothing. Silence and your breathing maybe."
Piper staggered up from the couch, padding over to the window and studying the street in front of the manor. She pulled the curtain to the side, eyeing around the street lights and squinting her eyes to look at the house across the street. "I can't believe you don't hear that."
"Piper, what is it?"
"I don't know."