Disclaimer: I own nothing in regard to GWTW. I am not making any money on this writing.
Author's Notes: The suggestion for this story came from Novonia. She also had a suggestion that Scarlett becomes a secret reader and becomes much smarter. That suggestion is included in the story also.
The italicized words are from the Canon.
Chapter One
Rhett Butler was on his honeymoon in New Orleans. He was not happy. In fact, he was extremely mad. It was the middle of the night. He had thrown on some clothes and left his suite before he murdered his wife. He was walking angrily away from the hotel, he thought, 'How obtuse can a woman be? To continue to believe Mr. Wilkes is so wonderful.'
Rhett knew Scarlett had been thinking about Mr. Wilkes while in bed with him. He thought, 'She had probably been holding herself back in loyalty to the man.
An old woman, Raven, appeared out of nowhere, Rhett ran her over. He knocked her down, but he never spared her a glance. He didn't even stop to make sure she was alright or to help her up.
Raven knew all about the man. She had absorbed the knowledge when she had touched him. He was an incredibly angry man. He was mad at the world and how unfairly he had been treated. He never saw that most of the ills of his life had been brought on by himself. He had an oversize ego. He could not accept that any woman would prefer any man to him. The old woman knew it was because of the way he was raised. He was a member of the Planters class. People who thought they were better than anyone else. The man especially thought he was better than anyone else.
The man had been the oldest son of one of the richest planters in South Carolina. Neither the man nor his father ever acknowledged that they were rich because Alex Butler had been a pirate and had stolen from everyone and anyone. They both thought because they were born first, they were better than anyone else.
Raven had been around for a long time. She wasn't sure of her exact age, but she had been an adult when the first European ships had landed on the shores of what is now Florida. What was that settlement called that the Spanish had founded? St. Augustine? Yes, that was right. It was still around. She had been around when the French had arrived in what was now Louisiana in fifteen forty-one. She smiled as she thought about the arrogant French man who claimed the land for France not caring that the land already had owners.
Raven was a malevolent trickster. She was also a shape shifter. She didn't change shape that much anymore. It took too much energy to change into another person.
Raven's days were coming to an end. She could feel the last of her life force seeping from her body. She could take someone else's life force, but she was bored with this life. She had played tricks on so many humans from the Chitimachas and the Natchezs to the French to the Spanish to the English and now these Southerners. She had spent most of her life in New Orleans because there were so many humans to play games with. She could pretty much predict the reaction now. She was ready to move on. She had done all the tricks she had been taught but one. In truth it wasn't really a trick, but a punishment. She had an idea. It would take all her life force, but she would do it. She would find out what was on the other side. She would also fix that arrogant bastard's wagon. The man deserved it for being so selfish, self-centered, hard, and greedy. The only thing that would undo the spell would be his true love telling him she loved him. Not highly likely.
Raven had absorbed the knowledge that Rhett loved Scarlett, but Scarlett thought she loved another man.
The man would live the rest of his life living in his true love's mind. He would be able to hear and see everything, but not change anything. He would be able to hear her thoughts, but not be able to change anything. As self-important as the man thought he was that would be quite the torture to learn he really wasn't that important.
Raven took off running. She saw the man. He was going to be hard to catch up with. She kept running. The man stopped probably to figure out where he was. She heard him say, "Yes, Sherry's place is two blocks up that way. She will make me forget about a green-eyed she devil."
Raven never slowed down. She hit Rhett full force. She knocked him to the ground. As she made contact with him, she said, "I will send you back to where your romance with Scarlett started going wrong." She released her life force in order to enact the spell. The spell that was going to change the man's life. Today was his last night on this plane unless the woman he loved told him she loved him. With her last breath Raven chuckled. Those were almost impossible odds.
Rhett jumped up and started yelling at the woman, but he noticed she wasn't moving. Neither was he. How could he be lying on the street, the nasty street, and be standing there also? He watched his body disappear. He looked at his legs and they were translucent. What was happening? He felt himself being pulled away. The force was so strong he felt like he was in a tornado. He was traveling somewhere that was far, far away. All of the sudden he stopped. He had no idea where he was. Yet it was extremely dark. He had never known anything to be this dark. He must be in the country. He heard a voice. The voice was familiar, but he couldn't quite place it. It was a man's voice.
The man said, "Because, perhaps, of the betraying sentimentality that lurks in all of us Southerners. Perhaps—perhaps because I am ashamed. Who knows?"
A woman replied. It was Scarlett. The man was him. How? He would think about that later he had to figure out where they were. She said, "Ashamed? You should die of shame. To desert us here, alone, helpless—'
"Dear Scarlett! You aren't helpless. Anyone as selfish and determined as you are, is never helpless. God help the Yankees if they should get you." He stepped abruptly down from the wagon and, as she watched him, stunned with bewilderment, he came around to her side of the wagon. "Get out," he ordered. She stared at him. He reached up roughly, caught her under the arms and swung her to the ground beside him. With a tight grip on her he dragged her several paces away from the wagon. She felt the dust and gravel in her slippers hurting her feet. The still hot darkness wrapped her like a dream. "I'm not asking you to understand or forgive. I don't give a damn whether you do either, for I shall never understand or forgive myself for this idiocy. I am annoyed at myself to find that so much quixotism still lingers in me. But our fair Southland needs every man. Didn't our brave Governor Brown say just that? No matter. I'm off to the wars." He laughed suddenly, a ringing, free laugh that startled the echoes in the dark woods. He said, "I could not love thee, Dear, so much, loved I not honor more.' That's a pat speech, isn't it? Certainly better than anything I can think up myself, at the present moment. For I do love you, Scarlett, in spite of what I said that night on the porch last month." His drawl was caressing, and his hands slid up her bare arms, warm strong hands. "I love you, Scarlett, because we are so much alike, renegades and selfish rascals, both of us. Neither of us cares a rap if the whole world goes to pot, so long as we are safe and comfortable."
His voice went on in the darkness and she heard words, but they made no sense to her. Her mind was tiredly trying to take in the harsh truth that he was leaving her here to face the Yankees alone. Her mind said: 'He's leaving me. He's leaving me.' But no emotion stirred. Then his arms went around her waist and shoulders, and she felt the hard muscles of his thighs against her body and the buttons of his coat pressing into her breast. A warm tide of feeling, bewildering, frightening, swept over her, carrying out of her mind the time and place and circumstances. She felt as limp as a rag doll, warm, weak, and helpless, and his supporting arms were so pleasant. "You don't want to change your mind about what I said last month? There's nothing like danger and death to give an added zest. Be patriotic, Scarlett. Think how you would be sending a soldier to his death with beautiful memories." He was kissing her now and his moustache tickled her mouth, kissing her with slow, hot lips that were as leisurely as though he had the whole night before him. Charles had never kissed her like this. Never had the kisses of the Tarleton and Calvert boys made her go hot and cold and shaky like this. His lips travelled down her throat to where the cameo fastened her bodice.
The treble piping of Wade's voice said, "Mother! I'm frightened!" Into Scarlett's swaying, darkened mind, cold sanity came back with a rush.
Mystic Rhett didn't know how, but he knew all of Scarlett's thoughts.
Scarlett had remembered what she had forgotten for the moment—that she was frightened too, and Rhett was leaving her, leaving her, the damned cad. And on top of it all, he had the consummate gall to stand here in the road and insult her with his infamous proposals. Rage and hate flowed into her and stiffened her spine and with one wrench she tore herself loose from his arms.
Mystic Rhett admitted to himself that he had insulted her with that question once again.
"Oh, you cad!" Scarlett cried, and her mind leaped about, trying to think of worse things to call him, things she had heard Gerald call Mr. Lincoln, the Macintoshes and balky mules, but the words would not come. Mystic Rhett was trying to help her think of names to call him but no matter how hard he thought the slur God damn bastard; she did not hear it or think it or whatever it.
Finally, Scarlett had called him, "You low-down, cowardly, nasty, stinking thing!' And because she could not think of anything crushing enough, she drew back her arm and slapped Rhett across the mouth with all the force she had left. He took a step backward, his hand going to his face. "Ah," he said quietly, and for a moment they stood facing each other in the darkness. Scarlett could hear his heavy breathing, and her own breath came in gasps as if she had been running hard.
Scarlett said, "They were right! Everybody was right! You aren't a gentleman!"
"My dear girl, how inadequate!"
Scarlett knew Rhett was laughing at her and the thought goaded her. She said, "Go on! Go on now! I want you to hurry. I don't want to ever see you again. I hope a cannon-ball lands right on you. I hope it blows you to a million pieces. I—"
"Never mind the rest. I follow your general idea. When I'm dead on the altar of my country, I hope your conscience hurts you."
Scarlett heard Rhett laugh as he turned away and walked back toward the wagon. She saw him stand beside it, heard him speak and his voice was changed, courteous and respectful as it always was when he spoke to Melanie. "Mrs. Wilkes?"
As Mystic Rhett heard himself speaking to Miss Melly, he wondered why he was always so respectful of her and so disrespectful towards Scarlett.
Prissy's frightened voice made answer from the wagon. "God almighty, Captain Butler! Miss Melly done fainted way back yonder."
"She's not dead? Is she breathing?"
"Yes sir, she is breathing."
"Then she's probably better off as she is. If she were conscious, I doubt if she could live through all the pain. Take good care of her, Prissy."
"Yes sir."
"Good-bye, Scarlett. I have left you one of my pistols. Make sure you don't miss. You only have six shots. I have left you a small knife also."
Scarlett knew Rhett had turned and was facing her, but she did not speak or turn around. Hate choked all utterance. After she heard his feet ground on the pebbles of the road, she turned around. For a moment she saw his big shoulders looming up in the dark. Soon he was gone. She could hear the sound of his feet for a while and then they died away. She came slowly back to the wagon, her knees shaking.
Scarlett stood there by the wagon. She couldn't believe it. Rhett had truly left her. Left her in the middle of a battlefield.
Scarlett then leaned her head against the bowed neck of the horse and said, "God damn bastard." She then cried.
Mystic Rhett wondered if she had thought of that slur on her own or if it took a little time for his thoughts to filter through her brain. He also once again wondered why he had abandoned her to go fight in a war that was already lost. A war he hadn't believed in. He said, "Yes, I am a God damn bastard for doing this to you, my dear Scarlett."