The Curse of Arnford Manor - Chapter 6

Chapter 6: Toxic

Residence of Mr. D. Fielding, Holliston, NC
July 15th, 1931, 6:57pm.

Dean paraded down his front porch with his usual cocky stride. He approached the swing seat at the end, preparing to have a good smoke. This was a habit of his. It was his way of winding down after work. The porch seat faced towards the sunset, but Dean chose to sit there for less romantic reasons. He liked it because it was comfortable, and because it was out in the fresh air.

Dean had just finished filling his cherrywood pipe and had retrieved the matchbook from his back pocket when an icy breeze suddenly rushed past him. He looked up, towards the street-side corner of the porch. He was certain he must've been mistaken, but he could swear the shadow in the corner was getting darker... much, much darker. Looking around, Dean could see that everything else had an appropriate dusky glow. No cloud had drifted in front of the sun. But that corner was becoming as black as midnight!

Then, when it seemed the shadow could grow no stronger, Dean saw something stirring within – something big. The shadow lady rose from the darkness, though Dean could not fathom how she had gotten there. She advanced on him in a calm, graceful manner. Dean quickly realized the stranger was a woman, with a superb hourglass figure. For the most part, all he could make out was her silhouette, as the sun was behind her. But there were two things he was acutely aware of: her long, shiny hair and her absolute nudity! As she came within arm's reach, Dean was also able to see that her breasts were full and very firm. Not as large as his fiancee's, but still incredibly desirable.

He was totally paralyzed. A potent mix of arousal and shock rushed through his veins, making him tremble. He was mortified by the way his anatomy responded to the woman's presence.

The shadow lady seemed to relish the man's helplessness. She gently took one of his limp hands and placed it against her smooth navel. She brushed his fingers over the surface of her breast and stroked his palm a single time with her erect nipple. Then she raised his hand to her mouth and laid a soft kiss upon the tip of his index finger. After a brief pause, the shadow lady put his finger between her tepid lips once more. Only this time, she began to gently suck on it.

Dean's pipe slipped from his mouth and fell to the floor, breaking in two.

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Albright Road, Holliston, NC
July 15th, 1931, 7:04pm.

Theresa Colby moseyed merrily along the footpath, admiring the picturesque orange sky above the distant hills. She was on her way to invite her fiance to join her and her father for dinner.

Soon arriving at his familiar home, she stepped through the picketed white gate and started up the front path. But after a just a few steps, she saw something very odd. Her fiancee, Dean, was sitting in the swing seat on the front porch, tightly gripping the back of the seat with both hands. His gaze was turned towards the porch ceiling and he had a bizarre look of great urgency on his face. At first, Theresa assumed he was having some kind of seizure and was about to race to his side, until she caught sight of a head cloaked in raven hair bobbing up and down between his legs.

Her heart shattered into a million pieces. Theresa had never performed fellatio, but she knew what it was, thanks to a lewd young lady at her finishing school who often boasted about her expertise in the act. She looked on, shuddering, snivelling in despair. When she could stand it no longer, Theresa fled from the sickening spectacle as fast as her legs could carry her.

Oblivious to what his fiance had seen, Dean winced as his mysterious partner bought him to climax. His solid maleness throbbed over and over, with mighty ejaculations. But a brief instant of bittersweet ecstasy quickly became a horrific end. Dean's lungs failed, leaving him unable to breathe. His muscles froze permanently in their tense state, like petrified wood. He could actually feel his health and vitality leaving him through his cock. Finally, the world became dark and so very cold and then he was gone.

Dean's skin contracted closer to his bones and turned a jaundiced yellow. His face froze in a distorted moan of coital triumph. The flies wasted no time in settling on his lifeless meat.

Between his legs, the shadow lady's throat undulated as every last drop of Dean's thick, salty load descended into her unholy stomach.

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Residence of Mr. G. Colby, Holliston, NC
July 15th, 1931, 8:30pm

Alone in her dark bedroom, Theresa had been laying on her bed, weeping into her pillow for over an hour. She had no tears left in her, though she still couldn't stop crying.

How could he do this to her? She had never so much as thought of other men since he began wooing her. She had kept her body pure and she would've eagerly given herself to him on their wedding night, if he had only waited...

The closed door to her room had not moved, yet Theresa suddenly felt like she was no longer alone. She lifted her head from her pillow and immediately saw the shadow lady standing near her wardrobe, buck-naked. Theresa was too emotionally exhausted to be afraid of the intruder, or to scream for help, so she just stared at her, quizzically. Theresa hadn't gotten a good look at Dean's illicit partner, so she didn't even suspect that the stranger before her was the same woman.

The shadow lady smiled at Theresa and walked forward. She kneeled by the bedside, reached over and began gently stroking Theresa's hair. At first, Theresa was wary of the uninvited intruder. But in her deeply depressed state, it wasn't long before she welcomed the shadow lady's comfort. Theresa scooched over closer and the shadow lady embraced her. It bought back fond memories of the way her late mother used to hold her whenever she was upset. She nuzzled the shadow lady's supple bosom and stopped sobbing all together after a just few minutes.

Being coddled in such an intimate way awoke nascent instincts in Theresa. Without even thinking about it, she lifted her lips to the shadow lady's teat and began to suckle, only lightly at first. Within seconds, Theresa was actually drinking from her breast.

The substance the shadow lady secreted was icy cold and so bitter it seared Theresa's tongue like vomit. Yet, trickling down her throat, it felt wonderfully refreshing, like a glass of ice water on the hottest day of summer. It was a powerfully addictive sensation, which only made Theresa crave her mysterious wet nurse's milk even more. She wrapped her arms around the shadow lady's back and held her hungrily. The shadow lady grinned and pulled Theresa's head tighter against her breast with one hand, while gently petting her own nether regions with the other.

Both women began to moan – louder, louder, louder...

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Room 4, Redford Inn, Holliston, NC
July 15th, 1931, 8:41pm

The four witches and Swift Coyote were gathered around the main bedroom discussing the discoveries they had made that afternoon. Swift Coyote, who had eagerly removed his chafing shirt and jacket upon returning to the room, sat on the double bed alongside Nina. Levinia was seated on a stiff wooden chair nearby and Nerine was leaning comfortably against the bathroom doorframe. Demi was uncharacteristically distanced from the others. She was stretched out upon the single bed, engrossed in the leather journal she had so shrewdly recovered from the church.

"...As for the priests," Nina continued, "The first one just dropped dead one day, with no apparent cause. His replacement hanged himself about a year later and the second replacement fell out a glass window and died of his injuries. Though I'm sure that the word fell is just a kind euphemism for hurled himself.

"By then, the proper church in the town had been built, so it was decided that the manor house no longer needed an exclusive chaplain."

"These priests are starting to sound more and more like early victims of the curse, rather than the ones who cast it," Levinia opined.

"We got the same impression from their graves," Nerine stated. "We also made an interesting discovery at the cemetery. We found the graves of four of the men who suffered the unusual deaths. At each one there was a... what did you call it?"

"A spiritual void," Swift Coyote responded. "It means that their spiritual journey has been interfered with. Their spirits are not where they are supposed to be."

"Yes," said Nerine, "but in particular, the void around one of those graves was connected to the manifestation we fought in Applebury. Now, we worked it out and if we're right about these men fathering the babies abandoned at the Arnford, then the man in that grave is the father of the orphan Katherine."

"Katherine?" Nina exclaimed in surprise.

"Yes, the one whose body was never found."

"Not only that, but it was in her bedroom that the manifestation first took physical form," Nina clarified.

"And that was the same room where they found the first victim, as well, wasn't it? The young man, Daniel, who had also come from The Arnford as an abandoned baby?" Nerine asked.

Nina nodded.

Nerine continued, "Then I think I understand how the manifestation came to be. Bear with me here:

"All living things have a life force that is created by a melding of their mother and father's life forces, yes? But these babies have an abnormal parentage. Their fathers seem to be ordinary men, but their maternal heritage... is something very dark. I suspect that the essence of those children is a balanced fusion of life-force and death-force, or corrupt energy.

"I think that on the night that the manifestation appeared, one of those offspring, Daniel, donated the corrupt half of his soul to another offspring, Katherine. When it combined with her own corrupt half, it produced a full body of corrupt energy. Katherine became the manifestation!"

"But how could Daniel donate his corrupt energy to Katherine?" Swift Coyote asked.

"How does a man usually donate his essence to a woman?" Nerine responded with a facetious smile.

"Oh... Right," Swift Coyote sheepishly acknowledged that he'd understood.

"I expect that they were drawn to each other, once they'd both reached maturity... like a sort of biological clock. These offspring would have powerful instincts to unite their energies and create a manifestation if ever the opportunity came about." Nerine theorized.

"Do you think the man knew that she would kill him afterwards?" Swift Coyote asked.

"I don't think she did. I think he died the instantly after orgasm," Nerine answered. "Nothing can survive with only half a soul. Once his dark half had been passed over to Katherine, his body would have been destroyed. But to answer your question, I wouldn't be surprised if he knew the deed would be a self-sacrifice. Many creatures willingly sacrifice themselves to serve their life cycle. The male black-widow spider deliberately impales itself on the fangs of its mate during sex. Such is the power of instinct.

"Of course all this is only a theory... But even if I'm right, it still leads us back to the bigger question: who is the shadow lady?"

"I think her name might be Marcia Arnford," Nina offered.

"So do I," Levinia agreed. "Marcia Arnford lived in the manor during the late 18th century. She was the wife of the local landowner. According to the records I read today, she had an extremely dark temper. She was reputed to be very abusive to at least one of her children. She used to have furious outbursts where she would scream about her intentions to, ‘Escape God's judgement.' She flagrantly shunned the religious beliefs of the rest of the family and had some kind of conflict with the manor chaplain, the first of those three priests you investigated," Levinia explained, nodding at Nina.

"Then in 1799, she suddenly committed suicide and shortly after that, the manor suffered a long series of misfortunes," she continued.

"Like it had been cursed?" Swift Coyote hinted.

"Indeed," Levinia replied. "Three years later, one of her daughters disappeared without trace, never to be seen again. Within five years of her suicide, the manor chaplains started dying in quick succession. The crop yield for the plantation began to decline over the years, though the yields of every other farm in the region fluctuated normally. By 1830, the manor had been abandoned by the Arnford family all together."

"Gerald Colby told me that Marcia Arnford was supposed to be buried somewhere close to the manor," Nina said. "But when the hotel extensions were built around the original house, they never found any trace of her. It's possible that her grave was in an area where no renovation was done. But the work was extensive, so that's not likely. The other possibility... is that Marcia Arnford didn't stay buried."

"You're thinking that her body is still walking around?" Levinia guessed.

"Our lore makes mention of several forbidden spells that can make a person immortal. If she was a dark sorceress and tried to perform such a spell upon herself... a ritual suicide would have been required," Nerine said. "The caster rests until they've gone through rigor mortis, then they awaken. By that time, the family may have already buried her. The entire process would have imbued her with dark powers."

"Powers like the shadow lady exhibits?" Nina asked.

"Possibly, yes," Nerine answered.

"Then that might be the answer," said Nina. "But there's only one way to be sure: we need to go back to the Arnford and find that grave."

"I don't think so!" Demi proclaimed, looking up from her musty old book with excitement in her eyes. "Listen to this..."

Continued in Chapter 7

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