Seven Lagoons

I had received the letter from the widower over a month ago filled with horror and grief. She had been catapulted into a world she did not understand, and certainly one she did not want to be a part of. This land was unexplored by civilized humans; however its inhabitants knew it as if they had always been here. They crawled through the veins of this organism as do parasites in a fresh kill. My transportation was beginning to reveal his own concerns over the issue of our very survival of this retched place. If my equestrienne companion could sense something you would consider that I might have taken note. However I had not and thusly continued my push to what might have been my very last exploration.

The widower, Jane Montgomery as she is known to her former friends and companions, had befallen what to the people in her circles would considered an awful fate. She had been married to a well-to-do tobacco farmer of the great South. The businessman Maluable Montgomery had always succeeded in his former quests, including that of obtaining his wife, the beautiful siren, Jane. Maluable knew how to prosper in the usual and unusual ways, both of which he enjoyed to the fullest; however I believe he may have enjoyed the latter most.

Maluable arrived in the South some twenty years earlier than the events described here. While he had some monetary value he obviously had to pursue other endeavors to support his every growing curiosity in the strange. He was often seen carousing with the traveling gypsies that had also come over from the old world, a world he knew very well. They brought with them things of fancy and things of fright, the types of things that would give grown men nightmares and day shivers. Maluable was definitely different than his other high society, gold wielding counter parts in the areas of business he chose to envelop himself in.

One sort that brought him this far South was a curiosity in what some call the dark religions that crisscrossed this horrid country side like a plague of old world proportions. They called them selves religious but I so do not know what bounds a religion such as their lacked. Anything vile and seemingly obtuse would be apparent to them. They relished the things that should have expired in life, but lived on, while they chased the life from everything else that carouses in their land.

Maluable had purchased land in Louisiana that he claimed would relinquish the most wonderful leaves, a fertility that had not been seen in the rest of the country. It is a thriving industry again from an old world made new, this tobacco would make him rich he said. With the land also came an abundant source of labor, making him even more prosperous than his previous endeavors had every dreamed. A slave would provide the necessary sweat that would allow him to thusly provide the Northerners with their tobacco rolled as tight as the human finders would produce. The sweet, as well as pungent, smells that rolled from these fine leaves would entice the nostrils of the upper class, definitely a group that Maluable would like to see enticed, and cause many a rucass between husband and wife, and Maluable seemingly was good at that.

But my research has led me in a strange direction, as I had not desired. It seems that while I had been hoping to discover what had befallen the fair Jane, I had unwittingly discovered the dark side of Maluable, for he had enveloped himself in this dark religion of the region. It had worked its way in him as a tape worm does, feeding and festering making its host wholly uncomfortable while leaving him with such a deep hunger for more. It’s a revolting thought to have some other being encapsulated from within, but feeling a need to allow it there.

When Jane had first contacted me some six months ago, I could not understand what she had been describing. I was trained in legal matters and a wife in the South did not have much say in legal matters regarding her husband, except in the cases where the husband has passed on and as such has no male children to which the estate would naturally fall to. So I began my quest to discover this strange man Maluable Montgomery and his goings on, as well as his dealings both personal and professional. I contacted his family in England and also had correspondence with his former business partner in France, Luis DePladu. Mr. DePladu had informed me that he had dissolved his relationship with Maluable when more attention was being paid to the gypsies and less on their dwindling business. He said that Maluable had come to the Americas to clear his business head and begin to refocus his energies, although DePladu had estimated that the relocation was more to find his new fancies.

As I arrived in the small shore town of Seven Lagoons the ever brightening sun had perched high on my shoulder. This was indeed a strange place, it looked as if the town had begun an evolution, and then something had happened. I, of course, knew what had happened; The South was a mixture of old and new worlds. There were slaves who brought old dark religions and then there was new money. The two did not mix well. There were not more than thirty residents as far as I could discern, from the arrangement of buildings and the single solitary street that divided the township equally. It appeared as if there was no such concept of a governing body, which can be a deadly situation in remote locations such as this. I indeed feared greatly for my own life at this point.

The inhabitants of Seven Lagoons also seemed so strange, as if they were there in body only. Their eyes, while functional seemed to stare into an inexhaustible tournament as if they were witnessing some great event that had completely escaped me. I had passed a few of the dwellers when I finally found the courage to interrupt a person's great experience.
"Excuse me, I am Jonathan Berthold. I am seeking Jane Montgomery."
A blank stare was returned.

I queried another passer by, "Pardon me, is there anyone that can help me? I am looking for Jane Montgomery. She's a white lady. She has written several letters that come from here, or close to here."

A tall thin man replied, "You lookin for the white lady? She's down the way. Over at the good doctors place. On the left," and with out a change in expression the thin man went about his way.

As I arrived at the door of the shack of the good doctor, a stench that made me recoil suddenly assaulted my sense of smell. It was thick and pungent, very much unbearable. The smell was so threatening that I then noticed that even the insects avoided the good doctor’s residence, which led me to think, what type of doctor was he?

"Mr. Berthold," a weak thin voice protruded the haze that was now burning my nostrils.

"Are you Mr. Berthold"

I then noticed a figure leaning around the side of the dwelling almost blending in with the unpainted wood of the shack as if she had not seem a drop of water in months.

"Yes, yes I am," I responded.

About that time the door swung open with such veracity that it almost clipped my forehead. As I stumbled backward my eyes caught the daunting figure now possessing the entry way of the not-so-well-to-do abode. As I had feared, with the mass of the door forcefully pushing the dead air in front of it toward my position and a more horrid group of smells invaded my body. I must have had some sort of viral reaction as my body over powered my mind and flung itself backward.

"Who are you?" the figure bellowed with such as tremendous roar as to produce bumps over the skin of my forearms.

With all that I could manage I responded as I picked up myself from the dirty grounds, "Jonathan Berthold. I am a lawyer from New York. I am visiting you because of a letter that Mrs. Jane Montgomery had sent, about a legal matter."

"The white woman?" the man again bellowed as he turned his burning gaze toward the figure of Jane who now had hesitatingly taken a few steps toward my position.

"She was given to me by my master. She was part of the deal." The doctor said with a smile revealing his horrid teeth that had been modified. As he purposefully stared at Jane with his lips still curled back I had the opportunity to inspect his exposed bite. If I were to see those teeth with in the woods without fully understanding what they belonged to I would assume that their owner was an animal. I could even see some stains of red close to the gums.

"What do you mean given to you? What right do you have to own this woman?" I asked as I dusted the dirt, old hair and pieces of what appeared to be rock from my clothing.

"My master, Mr. Montgomery give her to me. It was part of the deal. He wanted to dance with the devil and I told him he had to give up every thing to do that. He said he wanted to, that dancin with the devil was mo' important to him than anything else. So I said to him that he would give up his beautiful white bride and he said sure. The plantation was already in bad shape. He'd pretty much given that up chasin the devil. He was sure that the devil could give him something that nothin else could. He was a smart one. He had asked around about the Voodoo and what it meant to live for ever. So he knew I was a Voodoo doctor and he asked me to help him. I said I would on the count that he done three things for me. Number one, he had to let all of us slaves go. Number two he had to give his wife to me. And number three he had to do the Voodoo ritual of eternal life. Now I want you to know that I warned him. I told him that white man can’t do this. He said 'shut up and show me how!'"

"And where is Mr. Montgomery now?" I asked with hesitation knowing that this large man may very well reach over and take the life from my body at any moment.

"Round back. Come on!" the doctor said with poise.

As I made my way with the doctor guiding me we entered what seemingly was at one time a garden of splendor, a natural beauty so rare you might only hear it described and never see it with your own eyes. But it was far from that state now as it lie in ruins. And as we passed what used to be a Purple Heart vine, now only resting in eternal decay, I noticed the smell that was already harassing my nose get worse. And there he was, Mr. Maluable Montgomery sitting in a chair overlooking a winter’s meadow and watching the weeds grow erroneously and without care. He was sitting upright with his legs crossed as if he were relaxing taking in the view of what someone might of thought to be the garden of Eden itself. He was seemingly decaying at the same rate as his surroundings.

I could hear the whimpering of the sorrowful Jane somewhere behind me. As we closed in on the departed Maluable the doctor started in again, "See, the master he don't want to listen to me. He just said 'show me how,' so's I did. It killed him alright, but see he had already tricked the law here to make his white wife his slave, his property. And when he did that, he gave her to me. You can see the papers here," as he produced the warn, but seemingly lawful set of papers that did indeed document the proceeding giving Jane to this witch doctor.

I looked Jane in the eyes and pleaded for her forgiveness as there was nothing I could do. So you see, I left her there and headed back to New York where I could start pleading my case to the President of this United States of America to get rid of slavery once and for all. It was me who left Mrs. Jane Montgomery, once a socialite of the North, who had happened to marry the wrong man that had convinced a government of such an unlawful place that she was indeed his possession, in the despair that no civil American could endure. Thusly I ask you, if she cannot endure this as the former self she was, then how can we expect any man or woman to endure this?