Katherine "Kissin' Kate" Barlow (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
ikissdhimbck) wrote2010-10-31 12:46 pm
ikissdhimbck) wrote2010-10-31 12:46 pm
Entry tags:
OOM sorta: In her room, Kate dreams...
It's quiet.
The office is dirty. Sawdust on hardwood, and cobwebs... cobwebs everywhere.
This isn't the way it begins. It's always begun outside of Heyser before.
But this dream is different. It feels different.
Kate finds herself sitting in that hard wooden chair, hands gripping the armrests, boots stuck to the ground with blood.
The paperwork on the old desk is scattered, stained with spilled coffee and blood. Sunlight comes in from the tiny window in the adjoining cell, lighting one word amongst the smeared and ruined scrawlings.
Murderer.
"Didn't reckon I'd ever see you again."
The yellowed leer hasn't changed.
"That... makes two of us."
He's sitting across from her, hands clasped serenely over his swollen gut.
Red, red lips stain his pallid skin.
Kate goes to move her arms, surprised to find them suddenly tied down.
"Figured I wasn't gonna take any chances, this time around."
He winks, nightmarish laughter leaking from him and sticking to the shadows of the room.
"What'r you doin' here?"
"Can't exactly go home, can I?"
"Fair enough. What am I doin' here, then?"
"What's it like?" he asks, with boyish impertinence. "Havin' all that blood on your hands?"
Kate scoffs, looking away.
"Now, now... hear me out. You used to teach."
"Until you burned down my school!"
"Blame aside, Miss Kath-er-ine. I'm wonderin' how those pretty lil' hands go from chalk dust t'callous."
She keeps her attention turned away, but she can hear the sneer in his voice, the angle of his chin as he tilts his head to squint at her.
"Or maybe it's not the hands. Maybe it's the heart."
Silence.
"What's the definition of 'conscience'? How do you spell it?"
"What do you want?"
"A lesson."
She looks at him, now. He's begun to rot in patches, like the corpse he is.
"That is what you're good at. Teachin' lessons."
"You're tryin' t'make me out to be a monster. I ain't."
"Where are you from, Miss Katherine?"
"What?"
"I come from Galveston. Didja know that?"
She closes her maw, and stares.
"Momma picked cotton. Paw worked the stockyards. Got paid a half dollar a day. Wasn't much, for a family of eight. Me and Jimmy, sometimes we'd pick up odd jobs so we could afford salt pork on Sundays..."
"Why are you tellin' me this?"
"...We'd cut by the schoolhouse sometimes, on our way home. You know, to this day I still don't know what it looks like inside? When I was fourteen, momma got the typhoid. So did Susie, and Laura..."
"Stop."
"...Ginny was twelve when she started in the fields. She used to have such pretty hands. A little bit like yours, Miss Katherine. Soft, and small. She worked eight months before Mr. Snyder took her to his bed..."
"Stop."
"...He shot paw when he tried to bring her home. Didn't kill him, but that might've been the worst thing he could've done to him. Couldn't work stock no more, so he lost his job at the stockyards. William starved to death at four, and my family, cut to half the size it was, became my sole responsibility--"
"Stop!"
Her scream echos in the sudden silence of the room.
His lips curl, dead white and humorless.
"Everyone has a story, Miss Katherine."
Her shoulders hunched, she stares at the blood on the ground.
"Like that little blonde-haired schoolteacher who lost everything. Her legacy in spiced peaches, and three murders. The 'Angel of Green Lake'."
"Miss Kath-er-ine?"
She pulls her head up like she's dragging it out of thick mire, lifting her weighted eyes to his face.
Only he's not there.
"What's the definition of 'conscience'? How do you spell it?"
There's a muzzle nestled below her skull, hot and sharp and--
“Mornin’, Miss Katherine.”
“They’re destroying the schoolhouse! They’ll burn it to the ground if someone doesn’t stop them!”
“Just calm your pretty self down a second, and tell me what you’re talking about.”
“Trout Walker has—”
“Now, don’t go saying nothing bad about Charles Walker.”
“We don’t have much time! You’ve got to stop them!”
“You’re sure pretty."
The office is dirty. Sawdust on hardwood, and cobwebs... cobwebs everywhere.
"Kiss me.”
Slap!
“You kissed the onion picker. Why won’t you kiss me?”
This isn't the way it begins. It's always begun outside of Heyser before.
But this dream is different. It feels different.
Kate finds herself sitting in that hard wooden chair, hands gripping the armrests, boots stuck to the ground with blood.
“You’re drunk!”
“I always get drunk before a hanging.”
“A hanging? Who—”
“It’s against the law for a Negro to kiss a white woman.”
“Well, then you’ll have to hang me, too. Because I kissed him back.”
The paperwork on the old desk is scattered, stained with spilled coffee and blood. Sunlight comes in from the tiny window in the adjoining cell, lighting one word amongst the smeared and ruined scrawlings.
Murderer.
"Didn't reckon I'd ever see you again."
The yellowed leer hasn't changed.
"That... makes two of us."
He's sitting across from her, hands clasped serenely over his swollen gut.
Red, red lips stain his pallid skin.
You still want that kiss?
Kate goes to move her arms, surprised to find them suddenly tied down.
"Figured I wasn't gonna take any chances, this time around."
He winks, nightmarish laughter leaking from him and sticking to the shadows of the room.
"What'r you doin' here?"
"Can't exactly go home, can I?"
"Fair enough. What am I doin' here, then?"
"What's it like?" he asks, with boyish impertinence. "Havin' all that blood on your hands?"
Kate scoffs, looking away.
"Now, now... hear me out. You used to teach."
"Until you burned down my school!"
"Blame aside, Miss Kath-er-ine. I'm wonderin' how those pretty lil' hands go from chalk dust t'callous."
She keeps her attention turned away, but she can hear the sneer in his voice, the angle of his chin as he tilts his head to squint at her.
"Or maybe it's not the hands. Maybe it's the heart."
Silence.
"What's the definition of 'conscience'? How do you spell it?"
"What do you want?"
"A lesson."
She looks at him, now. He's begun to rot in patches, like the corpse he is.
"That is what you're good at. Teachin' lessons."
"You're tryin' t'make me out to be a monster. I ain't."
"Where are you from, Miss Katherine?"
"What?"
"I come from Galveston. Didja know that?"
She closes her maw, and stares.
"Momma picked cotton. Paw worked the stockyards. Got paid a half dollar a day. Wasn't much, for a family of eight. Me and Jimmy, sometimes we'd pick up odd jobs so we could afford salt pork on Sundays..."
"Why are you tellin' me this?"
"...We'd cut by the schoolhouse sometimes, on our way home. You know, to this day I still don't know what it looks like inside? When I was fourteen, momma got the typhoid. So did Susie, and Laura..."
"Stop."
"...Ginny was twelve when she started in the fields. She used to have such pretty hands. A little bit like yours, Miss Katherine. Soft, and small. She worked eight months before Mr. Snyder took her to his bed..."
"Stop."
"...He shot paw when he tried to bring her home. Didn't kill him, but that might've been the worst thing he could've done to him. Couldn't work stock no more, so he lost his job at the stockyards. William starved to death at four, and my family, cut to half the size it was, became my sole responsibility--"
"Stop!"
Her scream echos in the sudden silence of the room.
His lips curl, dead white and humorless.
"Everyone has a story, Miss Katherine."
Her shoulders hunched, she stares at the blood on the ground.
"Like that little blonde-haired schoolteacher who lost everything. Her legacy in spiced peaches, and three murders. The 'Angel of Green Lake'."
Angel of Death.
"Miss Kath-er-ine?"
She pulls her head up like she's dragging it out of thick mire, lifting her weighted eyes to his face.
Only he's not there.
"What's the definition of 'conscience'? How do you spell it?"
There's a muzzle nestled below her skull, hot and sharp and--