Sapphire's Grave Read Online Free PDF

teens, Queen Marie had found herself left almost entirely to her own devices. Encouraged by the teacher, she filled much of this time by reading voraciously, Trollope and Austen and the Brontë sisters, her imagination growing more and more vivid and inventive. At night, she would slip out while her mother worked or slept, and sneak into the barrooms in town. In these dark places, full of immodestly clad women, and dressed-up men bearing the wages of a week’s labor in the tobacco fields, she discovered new mystery and the promise of adventure. In these places, she became aware of a peculiar power that she possessed: power that made men leer and whistle and all but drool when she passed by them, making women giggle or laugh aloud, “You betta quit foolin’ wit’ dat gal. She justa baby. Gal, what you doin’ up in here? Yo’ mama know you up in here? You hear me talkin’ to you?”
    But Queen Marie was gone, not wishing to suffer the humiliation of being ejected, or worse: being found out and reported to her mother. But something kept drawing her back to these places. Her stories became dark and filled with veiled passion, expressions of things she could not fully comprehend but found words in her heart to describe.
    Only with Dottie did she share these stories: melancholy stories born of loneliness and boredom and anger at her peers; increasingly sinister stories, deliberately shocking or frightening and, as she began to discover the power of her own sexuality, increasingly lewd. Dottie was alarmed. “Girl, you betta stop talkin’ dat stuff. You gon’ git in trouble.”
    But Queen Marie had sucked her teeth and waved her hand. “Oh girl. I ain’t gittin’ in no trouble. What kinda trouble you think I’m’a git in? I ain’t gittin’ in no trouble.” Unconvinced of this, Dottie had invited her to church, hoping to save her from the darkness of her imaginings and the magnetism of her newfound sexuality.
    The service had been uneventful and uninspiring, as Queen Marie had expected, until he had wandered into the hot and overcrowded little church, world-weary, despondent, and impressionable, his gait betraying his intoxication even before he passed close enough to assault her with the aroma of corn liquor. He stood for several minutes in the doorway, his face rapt with attention. She thought him beautiful, tormented, and disconsolate, like a character from a tragedy.
    Under the spell of the minister’s dogma, he soon lay rigid with sorrow and repentance on the plywood floor. At Dottie’s urging, Queen Marie had come to the altar, too, not in sorrow for her transgressions, but intrigued by the mystery and despair of this handsome man. Sitting beside him on the mourner’s bench, she had not been able to fight the temptation to raise her skirt, ever so slightly, revealing her shapely right calf, slung over her left knee. He had blinked, but slowly, and shook his head before opening his eyes to meet hers, and they had smiled.
    He relieved her of her virginity in the woods outside her mother’s house that night, after a Sunday dinner marred only by her mother’s inquiry as to his marital status. He had lied unconvincingly, squirming beneath her mother’s disapproving stare, and disappeared before dessert, mumbling apologetically about a sick mother to visit. But her fifteen-year-old heart had been pricked by the possibility of him. She met him while her mother slept soundly, slipping out of the house in her white cotton nightgown to allow him to undress and adore her by the light of a brilliant moon, filtered by the branches of the elms.
    She had asked him then if he still loved his wife, as he had this morning before their bonding. For surely, he could see now that theirs was not a passing desire, but a union spiritual and fundamental, leaving no hope for his ill-destined marriage, no future with his wintry wife.
    He had been silent. Their breathing had joined the chorus of the crickets, the solo of an owl, and