Axe - Part One - by Michael Shorde

So it was that on that cool autumn evening in 1888, deep in the farmlands of England, that John decided to murder his wife. She bore him no children, and was only a useless, aging maiden shifting about her chores day by day. He gazed upon her with hidden contempt, the sly knowledge of her eventual demise.

“Go fetch me water, woman, I fancy a drink!”

“Is it not cold enough outside for ya? You’re a strange one, ya’ are! Fancy a cold drink!” she declared. Her dirty hair hanged in stands over the shoulders of her tattered dress. Her only dress, for John never saw to it to clothe her in a manner fitting a lady.

Firelight danced on his rough features as he glared at her from his crude wooden throne.

“Go, I say! Or I’ll ‘ave your hide, I will!”

“I’m goin’, I’m goin’. Ya’ strange rogue of a man!”

She snatched up the rope handle of the bucket and yanked open the lopsided door. The dank cabin inhaled a deep breath of cold air that flickered the fire. John frowned. “Well, get to it!”

Though she was not of great stature, she nonetheless waddled out into the night, and behind her closed the cabin door. “Fancy a drink,” she muttered over yellowing teeth. “Ah, ya’ waste of a man! To the dogs with ya’, I say!”

Past the rough stacks of firewood against the cabin, she waddled with no significant weight to warrant it – only laziness and soreness between her unclean legs. Past the chopping stump with the axe buried in its uneven ringed top, the roughen shaft angling out as is waiting for blistered hands to grasp it once more, to shed puss and blood along its surface.
Useless piece of a man, she thought. I'd like to conjure up something for you, aye!
And then: Stop it, Lillian! Ya' want to be hanged? Burned at the stake like the rest? Patience, woman, patience!

She made her way to the well, and sat on the circle of stones next to the winch handle. She sighed, her breath a stench carried away by a stiff burst of wind. She tied the bucket to the frayed end of rope dangling over the yawning mouth of darkness, and turned the winch.
Aye, a cup o' poison might do ya'. Bloody waste ya' are...

Unbeknownst to her, a figure slipped out of the cabin, the yellow light spilling onto the ground for a mere instant, a shadow gliding across it, and then…darkness.

As the bucket descended, a burst of wind ruffled her dress, and she glanced toward the cabin, the empty chopping stump. Turning her attention to the well, she leaned forward and peered down, listening for the slight splash of water. Confusion crossed her features. She ceased cranking, and looked around the property. Everything looked proper – the cabin, its windows aglow with transposing firelight, the stacked firewood against the cabin’s side, the vacant chopping stump – she turned back to the well.