The Candle In The Window

The cabin in the woods had been abandoned for years, but one night, a candle burned in the window.

Charlotte stopped short, the sweat beading on her forehead and her breath a torrent as it rushed in and out of her chest. She could hear the voices behind her, the white men shouting their threats of rape and lynching. But those voices were hushed as she stared at the candle in the window. She found it quirky that the flame didn’t brighten the room behind it, but only sent its light as a signal to her… beckoning her.

The forest seemed to breathe with the cabin, as though the house was alive. Charlotte’s heartbeat raced in her ears, and it seemed but a drumbeat to the somber song of the breathing cabin. Thoughts of her father and brother began to flash into her mind, and as the voice of the white men quickly approaching her crept back into her ears, she could feel a hot fire begin to burn within. Her large, brown eyes flashed wide in growing anger.

These men… these monsters… had only one goal. They wanted to humiliate her, rape her, and then kill her. They had no love for her, her family, or her ‘kind’. It was men like them that had lynched her father in downtown Asheville only five years ago. It was men like them that had forced her brother into bootlegging, only to end up shot to death a couple of years ago. It was men like that who convinced her mother that the only living she was good for was dancing in the local speakeasy, debasing herself for the ego of the White Man. The fire inside became white hot.

“I will not be raped again,” she said to herself softly, the beginning of tears welling up in her eyes.

The candle in the cabin window flared, glinting in Charlotte’s peripherals. she turned her head slowly to the candle, letting the light of the flame wash over her fury. The cabin beckoned… She walked slowly toward the cabin’s door, never letting her eyes waver from the flickering candle in the window. The voices behind her grew to a cacophony, derisive laughter the crescendo of the violent and raucous ‘song’.

“Come ‘ere, you little black bitch! We ain’t done wit ya yet!” crowed the head attacker, spittle from his unkempt chin dripping onto his generous belly under a stained, white wifebeater.

His lanky friend spoke next, “Go ‘head, darlin’. Yous just git in that there cabin, and we’ll guarantee thatcha don’t come out.”

The threat was real, the violence of the words was tangible. Charlotte placed her hand on the door handle, its metal almost icy cold in spite of the heat of the North Carolina summer. Beneath her hand it vibrated in tune with her heartbeat. She could feel the power of the cabin. Charlotte knew that the cabin being alive wasn’t just a feeling, it was real. And it was intoxicating. The continued taunts and laughter from the men behind her suddenly seemed small. These men were nothing compared to what awaited inside the cabin.

The image of the flame was burned into Charlotte’s eyes as she turned slowly to look at the men behind her. Her hand never left the doorknob, she needed to feel that power and the courage it gave her. The hooting and hollering subsided quickly as her eyes met theirs. Charlotte clenched her jaw and turned the handle. As she disappeared into the cabin, the flame in the window winked out.

Inside the cabin was darkness. It seemed an open area much greater than what it should have been seeing it from the outside. And there was an ethereal light barely illuminating the emptiness. Charlotte spun around, looking for anything to give her a frame of reference. Her anger was quenched in the panic of not understanding.

“Hold on to that anger, sweet child. Yous gon need it now.”

A gasp escaped Charlotte’s mouth as she gazed upon the old woman seated before her in a creaky rocking chair. The woman sat calmly, but her eyes burned into Charlotte’s soul, and a seething wrath emanated from her like heat from a forge.

“Who…” she began with hesitation. “Who you be, old woman?”

“Who I is makes no nevermind, child. But, if you mus’ know, know that I be your momma’s granny. I was born a slave back in fo’ty eight, and I lived me a hard life, darlin’.”

The old woman held her arms to show the scars of whips and knives. She hiked up her dress to show the same welts upon her thighs. Charlotte also noticed that one of the old woman’s eyes was whited over, an angry scar running from the outer corner of they eye out to her ear.

“Many a white man had their way wit me after the war. I was angry, child,” she continued with a shake of her head. “I was angry… I wanted revenge. I wanted my pain to infect those that did this to me.”

The old woman’s voice deepened as she spoke, the aura of wrath about her intensified and the darkness seemed a little deeper. Inside, Charlotte felt a war between her own fiery rage and her ice cold fear of what sat in front of her.

“I prayed and prayed to the Good Lord Above, but He never answered my prayers. But sumthin’ did… right here in this cabin.” A rumble seemed to add to the tenor of her voice, it was otherworldly. “Sumthin’ answered, child. And now it will answer you.”

Raising her hand to her shoulder, Charlotte’s breath caught in her throat as she saw the black-hooded figure that now stood behind her. Beneath the hood was nothing but darkness, as if no face existed for the thing whose hand the old woman now held.

With a smile that didn’t fit the old woman’s quaking voice, she said, “This here is my savior. This here is my wrath. I am the cabin, child. Jus’ as you are now to be. My time has ended, an’ I have given scores of souls to Hell. I’s earned my Heaven, even if it not be upstairs next to my God.”

She released the hand of the hooded figure and stood slowly. The few paces between Charlotte and the old woman seemed miles distant in the timelessness of darkness. But she soon stood eye to eye with her great grandmother.

“These ol’ bones need to rest now, Charlotte. The dealin’ of wrath I leave to you.”

The soul-burning stare returned, and Charlotte had never felt more open and vulnerable than she did in that moment. The old woman began to raise her hand to Charlotte’s cheek and spoke one last time.

“I warn you, child. This ain’t gon be feelgood time for ya. Hold on…”

Chalrotte’s heart nearly beat out of her chest with fear, and she tried with all of her might to yell out ‘NO’. But she was stuck in place, her feet feeling like blocks of concrete. Then the wrinkled hand touched her cheek, and it was though she had been struck by a bolt lightning. She arched her back in pain, only to realize that she was now tied to a bed. The interior of the cabin was now visible to her, and it appeared just as she expected it to be before she walked through its door. Now, though, she was tied up, and from the door she heard pounding and screaming.

“We know yer in there, little girl! We’s comin’ to git ya!”

Oh, God, she thought. Then they were inside, shattering the door into shards. The pain was just beginning…

Charlotte couldn’t say how long her torture may have lasted. It felt like an eternity. There were five of the white men that had chased after her, three of them repeat offenders. And they beat her as she lay there helpless. They beat her, they raped her, and they whipped her… Over and over again. she couldn’t close her eyes, either, for every time that she did, all she could see were the images of her father being lynched, or her mother being raped, or her brother being shot and drug behind a truck. Her physical eyes and her mind’s eye melded everything together, so that she still saw her own torture as she saw the visions of her family. It was real, and it was painful. Her fear gave way to sadness. Her sadness gave way to anger. Her anger became wrath.

The men finally had enough of having their way with her, then they began to flay her. She was so numb, though, that the pain of the skin being removed from her body was nothing more than a tingle. Another sensation caught her attention, however, and it was just what her growing wrath had been searching for. The more the skin was taken from her body, the more her essence, her soul, bled out into the floor and timbers of the cabin. Just as the old woman had told her that she was the cabin, so, now, Charlotte was becoming it.

Suddenly, she saw what was happening to her from above and behind the men killing her. But Charlotte was no longer within the husk of the only body she had ever known. Now she was something more formidable, more long-lasting. Her corporeal form felt the hands of the hooded figure on her shoulders, a force of affirmation and comfort contrasting with the carnage below. She watched as her body breathed its last breath, and she felt the full power of her own wrath and the cabin’s emobodiment of it.

“My turn…” she said. The five men below, laughing the moment before, looked around the empty darkness of Charlotte’s new world. Her vengeance was ready, and their pain was just beginning.

* * *

“That was a century ago,” Bobby said, whooshing his arm in an arc to the cabin behind them. “And as far as I know, the cabin still belongs to Charlotte.”

Bobby stood silent for several moments, letting the legend of Charlotte Brown settle into the minds of the little crowd of friends seated at the fire. Then he turned suddenly and threw his liquor-laden drink into the flames, causing them to flare wild and hot.

“SO STAY AWAY!” he screamed into the night and laughed and laughed at the frightened screams of the campers.

As everything died down, Bobby seemed to instantly change.

“Mel,” he said, his voice commanding, “let’s go. I’m tired.”

Melanie shook her head sadly at him.

“Don’t leave me,” whispered Stacy, Mel’s best friend.

“You know I have to go…”

“Mel? You don’t have to…”

“Mel!” yelled Bobby. “Now!”

He was already halfway around the cabin, having pitched their tent on backside. Mel hugged Stacy tight and reluctantly got up to follow him. Her anger burned deep within her. Why do I stay with him?

She looked up to see the front of the cabin, and, there in the window, burned a candle.