Jane of the Shadows: Chapter 1--The Beginning

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My inability to speak. My ability to scare people just by being. These things made me a creation of the Shadows. One can even argue that I am part of the shadows.

No. I do not exaggerate. I merely say these things because I am tired of knowing but not accepting.  I am good at that, too. Denying things. That I may call myself “normal” though God knows I am anything but. Besides, I do not want to be normal.

Normal… is so boring, isn’t it?

I’d rather stand on where I usually stand. Staring at people and making some uncomfortable. Swerving off unwanted attentions with my dark, almost black, eyes—Witch’s eyes my father used to say. He hated my eyes, my father. The same way she hated me. Well, I learned to live with it.

I learned to hate them back.

More her than the man I’ve always called my father, though. She hated me from the day she gave birth to me. She didn’t want me, you know. The village women, when I was younger and they thought I was dumb as well as deaf, always talked about the way she pushed me off the bed as soon as she saw my face. It was because I was the result of an incestuous abuse, they say. She was raped by her cousin who was also her guardian. That donor of half of my genes died way before I was born. Some say he was killed. Others believe that he met an accident while hunting. Eitherway, no one misses him. Certainly not me. And not her.

My father, the man she married, was somehow good to me. He patted my back every now and then, gave me milk and food, but he’s always been afraid of me. I know that much. He specially hated my eyes, especially when I train them on him. I give him the willies, he usually says. Still, I hate him the least. He’s one of the people who know I can hear so he talks to me like a normal person. I answer by nodding or shaking my head. Or by pointing. Even though I can read and write, he couldn’t, so we compromise.

She never talks to me. She treats me like a dog. A pet dog.

Sometimes she kicks me too, just like a dog. But not lately. Not since I twined flat wood boards over my shins—her usual targets—and she hit her foot pretty badly. It took days to heal. I was so happy that afternoon that I even stayed late outside cleaning the barn.

Now, there’s fear in her eyes when she looks at me.

I like it.

It makes me feel…powerful. Like someone no one would bother anymore.

Since that afternoon a few weeks ago, I’ve had this boiling something inside of me which tells me that I can use this. My angry, fearsome eyes. My hidden talents at protecting myself.

Somehow I’ve become more than the dumb girl living in the house at the end of the road. The unwanted one.

I am still unwanted. But now I can be a powerful one.

You see, in this village we live in, everyone secretly hates everyone. Everyone lies. Everyone wants to sabotage their neighbor and kill the animals and burn the fields. I know this. I do not exaggerate. It’s one of my “secret” powers since everyone thinks I do not understand them. Oh, but I understand a lot of things. I hear a lot of things.

I know that the vicar who taught me my letters and numbers is having an affair with the lawyer’s wife and that the lawyer allows it because he’s having an affair with the Mayor’s daughter. But the Mayor’s daughter is plotting against the vicar because she hates both him and the wife.

I know all these things.

Even the things they do in the dark. Because years ago, the Mayor started doing those things to me, too.

I was twelve and he smiled at me. No one smiles at me. People usually look at me with pity—because they know what she does to me—but I couldn’t remember anyone smiling at me before that time. I was struck still. I didn’t know how to react. When he offered his hand, palm up, with offerings of delicately wrapped chocolates, I shakily took them…and smiled in return.

I saw something shining in his eyes then, but I didn’t understand. Soon I found myself following him, my hand in his, as we made our way across town and into his private library inside his house. His hands were warm.

He didn’t speak a lot. Why would he? He didn’t know I could hear. That, he learned later. Way later.

One thing he did say was that he was going to be good me—if I was good to him. He knew I wouldn’t tell anyone, but still he said that I shouldn’t let other people know. He probably knew I could read and write. I love reading and writing.

He was insistent. Tugging at my face, at my shoulders, until I nodded and he smiled again.

Ah. He is a very good-looking man. He was quite young when he was first voted Mayor. He was very young when he married Belinda, his faithless wife—like his daughter. Sometimes, when he’s in a good mood, I can even call him nice.

That night, eight years ago, he smiled a lot. I hurt terribly after but his hands were warm and he said a lot of nice things to me. He gave me more chocolates. And he held me tight while tears escaped from my eyes. Since then, we’d meet every month.

He would find me wherever I was and then he would lead me to his house. Or his office. Or perhaps he would pick me up in his gig and we would drive for a while. I had stopped crying every afterwards years ago.

He did cry, though. One time, a couple of years ago, when I struggled in his arms and stared at him long and hard after I pushed him off of me and started rearranging my clothes. I think he understood that I didn’t want him anymore. That I was tired of being his plaything.

At first he raged. His large, muscled arms started moving in the air, but they stopped mid-air when I stared at him with my Witch’s eyes. He started shaking and then he fell on his knees. He started crying as he held on to the tattered hem of my day dress.

He kept repeating, “Don’t leave me. Don’t leave me. I need you, Jane. I love you.”

I don’t need his love. But I was moved by his tears. So I kept our assignations.

Now he gives me gifts. Gifts fit for a woman. He buys me clothes I never get to wear less she sees them. I hide them all in the shack in the middle of the woods. I have most of my secrets hidden in that shack. Sometimes, I allow the mayor to visit me there, too.

Next to the man I call my father, he’s become the second person I hate the least in this town.

I should have left this miserable town years ago, but where would someone who doesn’t speak like me go? To the city? How would I survive? This thought kept me prisoner here over the years.

Lately, though, my thinking has changed. I’ve discovered my powers. Such as they are.

And one thing more.

I know that I could use people. People who fear me. People who needs me. People who profess to love me. And I have.

Tomorrow, I would leave this place. My Mayor is going to drive me to Wiltshire. From there, I would brave the road to the sea to the New World.

I may not be able to speak, but I have learned that I do not need to. People do not listen to words. They listen to the blanket of authority and the fear it evinces. I have learned a lot from my Mayor the past eight years.

I have endured as much as I can in this town. Tomorrow—

—tomorrow I will change the course of my life.

I may be Jane the Unwanted, Jane the Dumb, but I will show them just how powerful this Jane could be.

I should go. I hear the coded knock on my door. My Mayor awaits. He must be crying in the rain. But I do not care. It’s time for me to use him as much as he used me.

##

RM

JANE OF THE SHADOWS will be a serialized novel published twice a week (Mondays & Fridays). I hope you enjoy this story and share it to others. See you!