The Sunday Scaries
Volume 1, Number 42
Microfiction by Pat Harrigan
Content Warning: Language and Horror

Separations

Mary Goode, steadied by Master Goode, climbed onto the barrel. The sun was shining, the crowd was lively.
          Sixty shillings! announced Master Goode.
          The crowd jeered.
          Master Goode raised his voice above them: You have yet to hear a description of the merchandise! This young woman has the beauty of Venus, the wit of a Parisian mam’selle, the piety of a country parson, the subtlety of a serpent and and the cunning of the very D——!
          Some of the mothers in the crowd scowled at this sort of talk.
          I found her underneath a tree one day as the sun was rising, continued Mister Goode. A weeping willow that dripped with dew. She sang like a nightingale. Her dress was damp and faded in the sun.
          Sixpence! came a shout.
          Now sir, admonished Master Goode. You are ignorant of value. This young woman, my wife of three years, casts a bewitching spell over any man. Woe to any young sweet thing whose man beholds this creature. I will entertain a bid for fifty shillings.
          So the hour progressed, with Master Goode enumerating the diabolical virtues of his lady wife, and lowering the price accordingly.
          Finally, Hawkins stepped forward. He had been Mary Goode’s lover for five months.
          One shilling! shouted Hawkins, and she was sold.
          Master Goode spent the shilling on beer for Hawkins and his new wife, and they laughed together until the sun went down.
          As Mary followed her man to their new home, she asked, Will you love me now I’m honest, Sam?
          Sam Hawkins, whose child was even now stirring in Mary’s womb, kissed her.
          In the morning he awoke to an empty bed. He searched through the town, and banged down Walter Goode’s door on his hunt for her. But she was not there. Goode sat at his table, still drunk from the night before. Hawkins shook him and shouted.
          It wasn’t for me to give her a child, he explained to Sam, but oh she yearned for one. Where is she?, Sam asked, and Walter told.
          Hawkins rode his horse to the riverbank and hitched it near the willow tree. Mary’s dress was caught floating in its watery roots. To walk into the hanging branches would be a far journey, Bill had told him, and her family might not be best pleased by his arrival. But he would go, all the same. Picking up the shilling that lay in the dirt, he put it under his tongue and stepped forward onto the woodland path that would lead him, he hoped, to his Mary and her new life within. Gently he parted the branches.
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