Here is my entry for the WEP October 2022 challenge.
WAITING
She
waits wistfully at the window
Wondering
if he will be a no-show
Ready
and willing for his caress
In
her lacy, gossamer thin dress
A
draught plucks at her alluring beauty
Drawing
her heart strings tightly
She
reads a text message just received
‘Five
minutes, darling,’ her breast heaves
As
she waits to see the glare of headlights
Through
the country lane like two penlights
She
waits with bated breath, her pulses throbbing
Every
fibre of her being aching
His
key turned in the door
He
would satisfy her amour
Cherishing
their love affair
Tonight,
they would conceive an heir.
Lucinda waited one month,
then two months until she was sure, the conception was true. It was so hard being the hidden mistress but
she knew his wife was barren. The spell
she had placed upon his bride at their wedding feast had worked! Her training held true, through the maternal
line , secret all these years until the daughter reached adolescent and proved
herself to be fertile. These days of
planning ahead and taking all sorts of precautions made life much easier in
choosing their intended sire.
Lucinda sent a coded text
message, ‘your goods are ready to pick up.’
Ha! If his wife saw that he could spin a yarn and she would believe him,
the gullible hussy that she was.
The crystal ball that
Lucinda scried in to when the moon was full had shown her that the ‘belle of
the ball,’ the most ‘beautiful bride in the kingdom,’ was not as innocent as
her looks would make people believe. Hidden
beneath the exterior skin was a heart made of stone. One that wanted to be the wealthiest woman in
the realm. Oh, she really must get back
to the real world and get some sense of normality back in her life.
Lucinda was sure, absolutely
sure, that the foetus she carried was female.
She could feel her strength seeping through her womb. She sang songs to her; she murmured
incantations from long ago but then –
There was a blockage, a
barrier, pushing against her mind, pushing against her thoughts, trying to stop
her love. She would fight for this girl.
As the weeks progressed the
stronger the feeling became of something trying to stop her, trying to vie for
her attention.
At first, she thought her
spell was weakening and her lover’s wife was beginning to believe in her own
powers too much. Humbug! She didn’t have
any powers. She just pretended to get
her own way, not just satisfied with her own paramours she attempted to keep
her legal spouse under her thumb with her seductive powers.
Through the ‘power’ of
social media Lucinda learnt that Phoebe had secret assignations, more than one,
in the vain hope she would be carrying a child and therefore could tether Aaron
to her forever.
Lucinda sighed as she
checked her reflection in the mirror.
The beauty she beheld came from within as well as her outside demeanour.
She arrived at the hospital
ready for the scan, smiling benignly at the other mothers-to-be. The technician began the ritual of passing
the wand over her stomach which showed the first swellings of new life – her
daughter – Lucinda was sure the female line was strong enough to continue the
special lineage of her maternal line.
Lucinda glanced at the
monitor. No, no, no. That wasn’t right. It couldn’t be right. There was no way.
The sonographer smiled, you
have twins, my dear.
Lucinda managed a forced
smile, thanked her politely as she left the table, seething inside. This was not supposed to happen. Not to
her. There should only be one.
Her mind raced with
thoughts, discarding one plan after another.
She drove home on automatic pilot.
Took her tea to her room, sat in the nook of the window and gazed out at
the courtyard. Absent-minded she dunked
her digestive biscuit in to the hot beverage, her mind racing until the biscuit
crumbled in to the base of the teacup.
Just as she was about to
swipe the offending cup onto the floor in her rage she glimpsed Aaron’s sports
car pulling up to the door. She rushed to greet him, putting on a cheerful
face, pretending all was well.
He was happy, so happy with
her. She couldn’t let him down. The words would not come out of her
mouth. She would pretend and then, well
she would read and read and find a solution in the books of old, the books her
mother, grandmother and those before them swore by that could cure all manner
of things.
The time came. Lucinda howled, screamed, pushed hard and was
rewarded with the lusty cries of her first-born son. She pushed him off the bed and concentrated
on her daughter, so much easier this time.
The bright blue eyes, knowing, wise and so clear looked adoringly at her
mother.
Lucinda chanted the spell,
the incantation falling from her lips while the full moon rose and shared its
silver light in her bed chamber.
She swaddled the male dead
form, grabbed the ready-made box and called her loyal servant. She watched him trudged up the mountain side
and return empty handed. She heard the
wolves baying, the silence as they gorged themselves on the unexpected
feast. The leader of the pack stood on
the peak howling at the moon and she swore he could see in to her soul even
from that distance.
As Lucinda aged, her
attraction waned, Aaron stayed loyal to Phoebe and surprisingly they also had a
son and a daughter. Only time would tell
who would win this battle of inheritance, Aaron would acknowledge her
daughter. If Lucinda had anything to do
with it.
TAGLINE: keeping the power
