A Just Dessert

Sarah was doing well in her ventures. She made more than she expected selling eggs and goat’s milk and taking on washing and mending each week.

Her husband, however, was less than thrilled. His blacksmith business was not doing so well, mostly due to the fact that he enjoyed his spirits too much. Jon was drunk all the time anymore. Sarah had debated feeding him an owl’s egg to cure his drunkenness, but their marriage was not really any better before he’d become a drunk and she didn’t feel it was even worth the effort.

Jon was extremely jealous of his wife. Women weren’t supposed to make money and the entire village was talking about it.

As Sarah walked home that day, pulling the little cart behind her filled with empty milk bottles, washing for the week and her youngest daughter, she listened to the two older girls chatting. They were terribly excited about the traveler that they had met; he had just gotten to the village and was selling furs, trinkets and exotic spices. But the thing the girls were most excited about were the cocoa beans he’d had. The traveler had given them a little taste of chocolate syrup he had mixed up and the girls had begged their mother to buy cocoa beans to grind into powder at home, but Sarah had hurried them off.

They were later than usual, and as she approached their cottage she could see Jon standing in the yard, a jug in his hand. She braced herself for a fight. Jon had told her that nobody was going to buy her eggs because everyone had chickens of their own. He told her that trading her mending services for the three little goats was foolish because no one wanted goat’s milk or meat these days. He told her washing and mending for others would make her fall short in her duties as a wife and mother. Jon had been wrong about it all and Sarah was grateful she hadn’t listened to him. His lack of work and indulgence of alcohol would’ve left them in a bad position if she hadn’t taken matters into her own hands.

As they approached, she stopped and handed her youngest daughter to her eldest daughter and gave the milk bottles to her middle child. She instructed them to go inside and stay there. Sarah watched her children make their way past their father, keeping their distance as they went.

Once she saw them enter the house, she gave her husband a long, hard stare and hauled the cart towards the barn.

“Where the hell have you been?” he demanded as he marched towards her.

“In town,” she answered. “It’s Tuesday. I always go to town on Tuesdays.”

“And this will be the last time you do,” Jon barked at her. “You are an embarrassment to this family. You make a fool out of me selling your eggs and milk… washing strangers’ laundry like you are some spinster. The whole village talks about it and I’ve had enough. You will stop!”

They were in the barn now and Sarah was gathering the wash from the cart. She didn’t let Jon’s demands slow her efforts.

“And what will we do if I stop? How will you pay for the lease on your blacksmith shop? How will we live?” she queried.

“I will pay the lease!” he snarled. “I will make a living for this family!”

“You won’t,” she stated as simply as if she were saying the sky was blue. “You will do what you do now. Drink and lose business.”

With that his fury broke and he hit her. Hard. The wash was strewn across the barn and Sarah only kept herself upright by clinging to the wall she’d stumbled against.

“You will stop, woman! You are my wife. My property. No more important than the beasts on this farm and if you don’t mind me I will ruin you. I will tell everyone in town that you are a witch and they will believe me! Half the village thinks you are anyway… no woman can earn money without witchery. You are crafty and disobedient and stupid and it’s time for you to wise up or I’ll tell them all and they will stone you and hang you!”

Sarah began to fill with rage. This nonsense was always the same; it had been the same for her and her mother and her grandmother. It was the same for every woman who wanted anything more than to please her husband.

She took a deep breath, gathered her wash and headed for the barn door, but Jon grabbed her and threw her to the ground.

“I will show you how to keep your head down and your mouth shut!” he raged.

And with that he was on top of her hitting her and tearing at her clothing. She reached up and put her thumb in his eye. Jon wailed in pain and anger, slapping her hand away he wrapped his hands around her neck and began to choke her.

Initially, her hands went to her throat, clawing desperately at his, trying to pry them off, but she quickly realized that was futile. She swung her arms to the ground around her, frantically searching for something… anything to use as a weapon. Sarah’s vision began to blur and panic stirred inside her and then her hand found something. The bottle of spirits! She reached and stretched until her grip was secured around the bottleneck and swung it with everything she had. As she laid the jug across the side of Jon’s face he loosened his grip, stunned, and wavered. She took a huge breath and swung at him again, this time knocking him off balance enough to push him off of her.

Sarah scrambled to her feet. She could kill him now, but instead spat on him and left him bleeding on the barn floor. Once inside the cottage, she barred the door and began planning. He wanted her to be sweet, submissive and dumb. Well she would show him how sweet she could be. He wanted her to be a witch and she could be that too.

The next morning Sarah took the girls into the village with her. Jon lurked in the doorway of the barn cursing her. He could go ahead. No curse could change her course now.

A few hours later, they returned and she sent the girls to pick berries while she baked. She prepared the cocoa beans and ground them down to powder, but that was not the secret ingredient. It was the little flowers from the Lily of the Valley that grew around the house that would do the trick. The pretty flowers were sweet. Sweet and deadly, just like her. Carefully she smashed the tender petals to a pulp and added a bit of extra sugar just to be sure the cake would be sweet enough.

With the cake baked, she made dinner and fed the girls who desperately wanted a taste of the chocolate treat.

“No, my dears, this is for your father,” she replied.

When Jon finally came inside, the girls were all in bed. His face was swollen and his demeanor sour.

“What did I tell you about going to the village? What did I say?!” he demanded.

“Do not be angry, dear,” she crooned sweetly. “I only went to town so I could make this cake for you. Never have you tasted cocoa before and I thought if I spent all the money I’d collected yesterday to make you something special, you would understand how sorry I am. I have been a disobedient wife. I have shamed you, but I will change. I want to be sweet.”

He eyed her with contempt, but sat down at the table. She served him a large piece of the decadent dessert and he ate it all without hesitation… or table manners. It did not take long after that.

At first she convinced him that he had drunk too much, but when the poison took hold and he lay writhing in pain on the floor, she dropped her sweet smile as fast as she dropped the truth.

“I could’ve killed you last night in the barn, but you don’t deserve a quick death. You deserve to suffer like the fool you are,” she whispered to the dying man.

Jon died that night and Sarah went out into the cool spring night and dug a hole in the garden. She dragged the lifeless body of her husband outside and pushed him into the grave, covered his body with rocks, and was filling the last of it in with dirt as the sun came up. Sarah was filthy with sweat and mud and vomit from her husband, but she had never felt better in her life. She felt free.

In the weeks to come, she and the girls planted a garden and got a great return for their efforts as if the earth was relishing the sacrifice. Sarah begged the owner of the blacksmith shop to forgive the lease, and he took pity on her and did. She made certain that she and the girls were in church every Sunday and always asked for prayers that her husband would return, if not for her sake, for her daughters. Sarah carried on, peddling her eggs and milk, busying herself with mending and washing, and tearfully asking if anyone had seen her beloved husband. Sarah reasoned that if she could play the role of a wife because it was expected of her, and play the role of a witch because her husband fancied her one, she could also play the role of a heartbroken woman, left by the only man she’d ever loved. And quite the player she was.