Welcome to your punishment. Imagine if you will that you are to be punished for every lie you tell. What would be the worst possible punishment? Would it be looking at the faces of the those who suffered for your lies? Would it be hearing your own voice spouting such untruths? Could we develop a punishment more insidious and fitting? Or has one already been devised by someone who couldn’t take falsehoods to heart anymore?
~
“Don’t worry, darling, I’ll be right back,” Roy tipped one corner of his lip up in that heart melting way he had.
Henny smiled back at him and though her heart didn’t fully believe his reassurances, it beat out the drumbeat of the lovelorn. She watched him walk away as sadness settled into her heart, calming its percussion. As his car roared out onto the street and disappeared into the distance, sadness gave way to disappointment that he could still make her feel this way.
“Why am I so stupid?” She asked the empty air.
“You’re not stupid. You just haven’t reached the point where you want to do something about all those lies,” a voice cackled in her ear.
She jumped back and turned to face the speaker—her elderly neighbor. She forced a smile onto her face as she took in the scrawny woman’s wild grey hair and black sack of a dress.
“Hello, Janice, I didn’t realize anyone was here.”
“Too focused on that fool of yours. I know,” she grinned showing surprisingly straight teeth. “Might be about time to teach him not to tell lies, particularly such bad ones.”
Henny shrugged uncomfortably, rubbing her bare arms as a chill ran through her. “I think I need to get back inside.”
“As you wish, my dear, but I am right next door if you ever get tired of being lied to.” She patted Henny gently on the shoulder and hobbled down the stairs.
The heels of her shoes clacked loudly, making Henny question why she hadn’t heard her until she spoke. As she watched the older woman make her way slowly back to her house with her dark dress and silvered hair blowing in the soft breeze, every whispered warning to beware the witch next door rushed back into her mind. She shook it off and headed back into her house. Janice had been nothing but kind and helpful to Henny and her little family. She even forgave their dog digging up her prize tulips, refusing to accept money or help to replant them. The other neighbors just hadn’t bothered to get to know her. And witches aren’t real. She glanced over her shoulder one more time after repeating these reassurances in her mind, but she bit her lip a little as she realized Janice had disappeared without her door ever creaking open.
~
A few days later, Henny found herself on Janice’s porch. She hadn’t heard back from Roy until this morning when he called to ask her for a few bucks because he was running low. He called from her front step and rapped on the door until she opened up and handed over what little money she had. She plastered on a smile as he left a hint of a kiss on her cheek. Inside she was seething as the hint of someone else’s perfume wafted off of him in waves on his way back out the door.
As her door creaked open, Janice smiled sweetly at Henny, inviting her inside. She glanced around, curiously. Thick burgundy curtains were pulled back from the windows to allow light to pour into the room. A recliner sat in the middle of the window, with a cat perched regally on either arm like tiny gargoyles soaking up the sun. Off to one side, a loveseat nested between two bookshelves filled with worn tomes and crystals.
“Would you like some tea, dear? Or something stronger?” She offered as she gestured toward the loveseat and wrinkled her nose, “I saw your young man leaving like his tail was on fire.”
“No. I don’t think I could drink anything.” Henny looked down at her hands, feeling her shame rise forcefully to her cheeks as she avoided the second topic.
Janice reached out to pat her hand as she settled down beside her, “He is the one who should be unable to look a person in the eye. We have all had young, foolish love.”
As she raised her eyes to meet Janice’s, Henny felt a warmth filling her stomach as if she had accepted that drink. It gave her courage to ask, “But what do you do when you start to think that love isn’t good for you?”
“Teach them a lesson.”
Henny’s eyes widened as Janice took her hand and helped her up from the couch. She remained silent as the neighbor led her into a tiny back room where only candles lit a small altar. She tried to pull away, but Janice’s grip proved inhumanly strong.
“Just let me do one small thing for you. I don’t like how that man treats you.”
She took Henny’s other hand and pulled her into a circle she had drawn on the floor. As they stepped into it, a gust of wind swirled around them. Janice began mumbling strange words quickly under her breath. Henny held her breath and closed her eyes tight, unsure what else to do. Her lungs began to burn and her eyes popped open as the last words left Janice’s mouth.
The older woman patted her hand again and lead her back to the living room, where the cats observed them both warily before closing their green eyes again.
“I think I’m ready for that drink,” Henny croaked.
~~~
At first just hints of words echoed through the room. Then they coalesced into phrases and sentences in his own voice that he recognized for he had repeated them as often as he needed to in order to keep Henny content to wait for him and take care of him.
“I heard you”
“I have only ever loved you”
“You need me more than I need you”
“They didn’t have my check ready today”
“You know you’ll never do better than me”
Then the dust swirled around his feet and each lie rose up like a hurricane being birthed by the ocean. As if changed by the mere thought of the beach, it turned to sand, grinding away at his skin as it swirled around him. The words grew louder and more familiar phrases joined them. With each new lie echoed from his guided tongue, the swirling increased until he disappeared inside it. His screams drowned out the lies, yet still they came back to his remembrance as sand sloughed off his skin and his streams echoed through his deafened ears. At last, he found solace in unconsciousness.
~~~
When Roy awakened, familiar walls assured him he was home. The dingy sheets of his own small apartment held the sweat of his night terrors but no blood. When he reached up to his face, it seemed intact though the skin burned as if exposed to too much sun. He took a breath of relief and stood up from his bed, searching for his pants in the clutter on his floor.
“I’ll go to Henny. She’ll tell me everything is alright,” he reassured himself as he raced to the door.
As he drove to her house, he put the top down on his convertible despite the chill in the night air. By the time he arrived, he had the tousled windswept look that he knew melted her heart and other areas he cared more about.
He rang the bell. Her soft footsteps approached the door and pointed his most winning smile at the peephole.
“It’s late, Roy. Go home,” she said through the door.
“But you are my home, baby. I missed you.”
He heard her sigh, but the door didn’t open. “I can’t do this anymore, Roy. Go home.”
“I told you. I am home. Let me in.”
He thought he heard her determination waver, but he wasn’t the sort to risk it where a fool woman was concerned. He fished in his pockets for his keys. Carefully selecting the one she had entrusted him with and putting it in the lock. It didn’t turn.
“Baby, my key isn’t working.”
“I changed the locks. I can’t listen to anymore of your lies.”
“What lies?”
The door opened a crack and she peered out at him, so he could see her red-rimmed eyes and the knowledge deep inside them. “You know what lies.” She hissed and started to close the door.
He wedged his toe in the door and leaned his weight into the door until the chain strained and both wood and metal squealed a warning, “Come to your senses and let me in.”
“Go away. I don’t want to see you again,” Henny gasped as she pushed harder against the door.
“Young man, I would do as the young lady says and not come back,” a raspy voice turned him round
The overall picture presented by its owner should have convinced him to listen. At first he laughed, but she raised a double-barreled shotgun to reinforce her suggestion. Roy released a string of expletives and stepped away from the door. It promptly closed on his back.
“Old woman, mind your own business.”
“This is my business. We look after our neighbors in this neighborhood.”
She cocked her head to the houses across the street. Porch lights cast a soft glow on people standing inside open doors with phones in their hands. A few even waved their own firearms in salutation as he looked their way.
He spit on the ground at the old woman’s feet, “She isn’t worth it anyway.”
“She is to us,” Janice said.
He snarled and spit at her again before stepping into his car and pulling away from the house.
“I wouldn’t have done that twice,” she called after him.
An icy chill settled into his shoulders and began to spread from there as her words suddenly brought back the dream of of his own words coming to cause him harm. He shuddered violently and the car swerved…
~
Realized the title might have got friends who love horror and Jane Austen a little excited. Sorry. I wasn’t taking a dark take on Austen’s writings. Maybe next time? Probably not, but if you want check out some novels written based on “What if?” Questions involving dear Mr. Darcy and Miss Elizabeth, I can refer you to the writings of a dear friend of mine.
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