Sera Ch. 25

"Huh?" I asked.

"Yep. He had to ensure there was nothing sharp in the immediate area of where they had relations. But in the absence of any sharp implements, she only became increasingly violent to the point where he couldn't tolerate sex with her anymore. So now she's totally cut off, and it wasn't long after that when she physically attacked one of her attendants, accusing her of fucking her husband. The young woman took quite a beating, enough that she couldn't return to work. Alvere couldn't replace her and the others resigned soon after, leaving him alone with her. Now he needed his daughter back."

Lynette stood and approached Auntie Ashleigh, taking the empty glass that was held out for her and going for what I assumed was a refill. I couldn't help but wonder at that, thinking it must be some form of telepathy when Auntie moved us along in the story.

"So, now we may as well jump to Eleonore, her name meaning 'foreign' or 'the other'. Hm. Anyway, both her daughter and granddaughter describe her in so many words as the strong, aloof matriarch type. They didn't use words like 'cold' or 'dispassionate', but the documentation that Rebecca collected tends to make her come off that way. Collective information from outside, namely stories handed down from Alvere's family, describe a quiet girl who grew to become a quiet, thoughtful young woman, but never shy. This quiet demeanor is probably the reason why she didn't share much of what she knew with her own daughter beyond the necessary. All that said, some of her actions could speak of a very passionate person depending on what one reads into them, so it's left up to the individual to decide, I suppose.

"At this point," Auntie imparted with an amused smirk, "it shouldn't come as any surprise when I tell you that, at eighteen years old, Eleonore was every bit as attractive as her mother and although there's no mention of any uncanny likeness, we do know that she had her mother's blonde hair, bright blue eyes and very well endowed body. In addition, there are two quite obscure reports from ancestors of Coby's attendants that Eleonore's eyes had the same draw that her mother's had but, since she obviously wasn't pouring herself all over anything with a dick, I'd say nobody had a problem with her, hence the mere obscure mention of this."

With Lynette's approach, she paused as she accepted her refill before continuing.

"While her Uncle's family had nothing but positive to say about Eleonore and her time with them, she herself didn't pass along how she felt about them, having to leave there to take care of Coby in the state she was in, or what she thought of her mother at that point. She does get somewhat specific in terms of what went on when she did return, because she later knew it had to be passed on for the good of her daughter.

"She mentioned that she hadn't seen her father as often as she'd seen her mother during her exile of necessity. Usually working, he was often gone doing just that when she visited. In fact, not only did he continue to confine Coby to their home so that the mother of his only child wouldn't have to be committed to an insane asylum, but these visits were set up by him to ensure that mother and daughter had some measure of contact without having Eleonore constantly exposed to Coby's crazies during her formative years. The few times he was there during one of his daughter's visits, he was exhausted and, at that point, it wasn't like they knew each other that well anyway. With her as quiet as she was and the eight hundred pound Gorilla named Coby between them, I imagine conversation was... well... not too fucking much, right?"

"So anyway, the first thing she really notices after her return, especially once she and Coby are more comfortable with one another on these new terms, are the more disturbing behaviours that she wasn't previously aware of. The way it's been handed down, and once you have a feel for her from the details, you can easily imagine this quiet, studious young woman taking mental notes that, unbeknownst to her at the time, she would later relate to her own daughter. Anyway, as the attendants before her did, she saw Coby whispering to the root cellar, and was the unfortunate recipient of a sudden, violent attack after disturbing one of her mother's giggle-fests. Suffice it to say, she got schooled soon enough.

"Another thing she mentioned was the obvious emotional toll all this had had on Alvere. Once those barriers of unfamiliarity came down and he saw his daughter, she her father, I suppose it would have been easy for her to spot. Well, I guess the reason for the praise from her uncle's family was her ability to pitch in and get things done. She became the true woman of the house with a capital W, her quiet demeanor and beauty complimenting the social power of running her father's estate to remove as much burden from his shoulders as she could.

"Of course, she still had to see to the prominent reason she'd been brought back, and this included dealing with the ever increasing abuse and disturbing behaviour from her mother, who sometimes wasn't happy to sit in her room and giggle. Sometimes, she'd sit somewhere and wet herself just to make Eleonore clean it up. Sometimes she'd do worse. Eleonore told her daughter of how Coby started following her every step, right on her heels with an amused grin and breathing down her neck. Apparently, she wouldn't stop until Eleonore could get a locked door between them and, even then, Coby would stand outside laughing for some time before she'd go away. This wasn't something she did to her attendants or to Alvere, and this form of mockery developed into a certain attitude towards Eleonore that suggested she found something amusing about her.

"A bit further on- I'm trying to give all this to you in some kind of chronological order here- Coby started speaking of a family curse and asking her if she wanted to go to hell. At first, Eleonore's replies are a tolerant, "No, of course not Mere," type thing, but Coby kept on with it, soon adding that she'd send her there if she ever fucked Alvere, her own father. I'm sure studious Eleonore took this as nothing more than the ranting of a crazed lunatic, but I'm also sure she could see how things were escalating."

Auntie paused for a sip from her glass, in so doing reminding me of my own drink before she went on with, "About a year into her return, when Eleonore was nineteen, Coby was up to that little game where she'd follow her around. By then, Eleonore was somehow ignoring it and Coby had gotten so good at it that she could keep perfect timing with every step her daughter took. She said Coby could set the toes of her shoes an inch behind her heels, always right on top of her but never touching, and that it was as though her mother knew when and where she would move her feet a split second before she did. Well on this particular occasion, she was making Coby's bed with her mother practically as close as the clothing she wore when, out of the blue, her mother clobbers her with something and down she goes.

"Again, Eleonore's story doesn't include her feelings when she woke up tied to the bed while her mother giggled down at her with a knife in her hand, but I imagine she must have been pretty freaked."

"OMG!" I gasped.

Covering my open mouth with a hand, I actually feared for Eleonore. I liked her, somehow identified with her and, there in Auntie's den at twenty minutes after two, it was hard to imagine that all this happened so long ago in another place and time.

Sheila sat on the edge of her seat, wide eyed and waiting for what came next while Auntie Kathleen's glass had stalled halfway to her lips while she also paid rapt attention to her eldest sister. Even the ruiner was held firm by the story, sitting back in Auntie's chair as though it were his, but clearly hanging on every word.

"What happened next... Well, Coby forced herself on her daughter. She cut her clothes off, cut her own off and fucked her daughter with a potato. She'd actually gotten hold of a potato and carved a phallus, possibly for herself at first, but she used it on Eleonore. She giggled hysterically the entire time, right up until their simultaneous orgasm where she forced eye contact with her quite unwitting and unwilling daughter.

"Now from what I've already told you, you know that Coby and Eleonore bonded with this event and what that means, what it would have meant for Eleonore. Unfortunately... well, we know how Coby liked her sex and she did have a knife. I don't want to get into detail, but she wasn't exactly careful while cutting either of their clothes off with it, and poor Eleonore was never quite as attractive from then on.

"Oh, god." Sheila breathed with an expression of horror.

"Apparently, it was pretty messy," Auntie regretfully confirmed in a low tone. "So, she laughed even harder after she was finished with Eleonore, telling her she was going to hell and that she and Jesus would look down on her from the heavens and laugh while she suffered in the lake of boiling blood."

"I... can't imagine," Auntie Kathleen imparted to the room, shaking her head with a disgusted expression. "I just keep trying to imagine how it would have been to be tied there and wondering what the crazy thing was going to do next, but I just... imagine the psychological horror of it."

"Yeah, well this is what I mean about Eleonore," Auntie Ashleigh pointed out. "There's nothing in her account, at least as it was passed down, that indicates any feelings. Keep in mind too that she would have just had the flying experience, so I assume she must have been totally freaked, but the way the story comes across is... well, just different.

"Beyond that aspect though, this is the first documented bonding between mother and daughter, and this is what Eleonore learned and passed down to hers. One gets the impression that, while not putting much stock in being sent to hell by her mother, studious Eleonore did take her mother's talk of a curse seriously. I suppose she'd have to once her ability to influence people came about and she was able to guess that it was either the bonding, or insanity."

"What about Alvere?" I asked.

"Unfortunately, Alvere came home much later to also be greeted by knife wielding Coby. By the time he could beat her off, he'd been dealt several stab wounds to the back. She fled and he found Eleonore, managing to free her. He must have told her Coby was still in action because she went looking for her."

Fearfully, I asked, "Wasn't she too injured?"

"I don't think Coby meant to kill her. Alvere yes, but not Eleonore. See, it was in her mind that bonding with her would send her to hell, so I think she preferred to let her live. A lot of what Eleonore suffered were probably superficial wounds that would have satisfied Coby's twisted desires while also scarring her daughter's beauty forever. So," Auntie continued, uncrossing her shapely thighs to cross them the other way, "it's off to find Mere, isn't it? And guess where Eleonore finds her?"

Auntie Ashleigh looked around at us, taking the opportunity to sip from her glass while she resettled. Without any of us venturing a guess, she told us with a grim smile.

"The root cellar. Yep, she'd crawled down there and closed the trap door behind her, sitting down there in the dark with her self-inflicted wounds and the knife she used to make them, whispering and giggling loud enough for Eleonore to hear her from above."

Here, Auntie's smile became almost apologetic when she told us, "Most of this story comes from Eleonore when she bonded with her daughter and, at that time, she told her that she'd closed the trap door, weighted it and called the local authorities that existed at the time. They came and took Coby away and then she moves on with her story. However, shortly before she died, Eleonore amended that part of the story with another version of events.

"In the revised version, she closed and weighted the trapdoor like in the first, but then went back to alert her father to the fact that she'd secured Coby and that she was going to get help. Unfortunately, he was dead when she returned to him. Again, she relates no emotional impact or state of mind, or at least none was ever passed along as her daughter retold the story, but... She said that after she left her father, she went out to the shed and returned with an axe handle."

"Ohhh..." Sheila toned with a tear running from the corner of each eye.

"Yuh," Auntie nodded thoughtfully, finishing with, "She un-weighted the trap door, crawled down the ladder and sorted her mother out for good. She told the authorities that Coby had fallen to her death in the act of trying to hide from her crimes, and they apparently believed her. I suppose they would, under the circumstances. Even if they didn't, y'know?"

We all nodded, saying nothing as she went on.

"Also in her original account, she sold her inheritance and moved to Saint John where she settled, met a man who soon disappeared after knocking her up, and had a daughter. In her later, revised version of events... she was already about five months along by the time she got to Saint John. She never met any man there at all."

In the heavy pause that followed, my mind fell on its bum. I looked at Sheila and saw she was just as stunned as I was. Auntie Kathleen could only stare, first at Ashleigh, but then from me to Sheila in awed silence.

"Well..." Auntie Ashleigh spoke thoughtfully while swirling the ice in her glass, "I suppose Alvere came to see a beautiful, strong, proper woman in Eleonore as much as he did his daughter, and it's not unreasonable to assume that Eleonore would have seen a man in her father, the only man she'd likely ever have time for. Add to that Eleonore's draw and the hell of Coby between them, and... well... In any case, this is how the knowledge of bonding and its importance came to us."

Another heavy silence followed until Stevie cleared his throat and spoke up.

"That may have been the first known bonding, but I doubt it was the first one ever."

"Oh?" Auntie Ashleigh asked, looking at him with raised brow and a slight challenge to her sad smile.

"I very much doubt it," he assured, taking a drink from his glass before elaborating. "Because I'm totally with you on the theory that there's a mystery woman between Seraphine and Coby, and this account of Eleonore's bonding almost proves it."

"Enlighten us," Auntie invited with a tone that said she was already aware of where he was going, but would enjoy hearing it from him.

"Easily. First off, Coby obviously wasn't bonded, and we know this because Eleonore's account doesn't so much as suggest any ability on Coby's part to influence those around her, beyond the fact that she had eyes that could draw men. If she could, there'd be no way in hell they'd ever keep her in that house for a minute. Yet, she obviously knew the importance of bonding, and probably what it would accomplish if she referred to it as a family curse, if she believed it would send Eleonore to hell. This leads to the logical conclusion that somebody must have revealed the actual process of bonding to Coby but, for whatever reason, she was never actually bonded herself."

Reclining in Auntie's chair, he paused long enough for a quick gulp from his glass before continuing his oration.

"So, if Seraphine is Coby's mother, then Seraphine would have had to be the one to tell her this. Except, how could she even know to tell her without actually having done it, right? See the problem there? No, my guess is that Seraphine did have a daughter who she had a sexual relationship with and, at some point, they discovered this bonding process the same way... well, the same way me and and Mum did. (Ahem) So yeah, this daughter of Seraphine eventually gives birth to a girl of her own, probably fathered by one of the men collected by the so called River Witch, and that's where Coby came from.

"Coby grows up wherever the River Witch's home base was located and gets some kind of indoctrination to know about the bonding but, either rejecting the bond, or being rejected in some way, she leaves and shows up in... Where was it?"

"Newcastle," Auntie reminded, her smile almost a reward, but now with cautious warning in her eyes.

"Right," he nodded, "So, my theory is that she left, possibly even fled her home. I base this, in part, on her later fears of 'a man, sometimes men' who she believed were out to drag her back there. Why would they have to drag her back if she didn't have to run away? Also, she considers the results of bonding to be evil, otherwise she wouldn't have insinuated that it would send Eleonore to Hell but, maybe more importantly, this also speaks of her opinion of the River Witch back in whatever living hell she came from. Anyway, Coby fucks off on her mother and grandmother, makes it to Newcastle, hooks up with Alvere Leger and that's how she knows to bond with her daughter for whatever crazy reasons."

"Not quite," I sneered. "Why would Coby run away from the only normal she's ever known? How could she see her mother, whoever she was, as evil without normal people to compare her to? You make it sound like she might have had a bible to tell her so, or something. And how could she run away and make it to Newcastle all by herself? Sounds pretty unlikely to me. And what if Seraphine had another daughter, an older sister to Coby, who she did bond with? Then she'd know to tell Coby about bonding, wouldn't she? So there!"

I looked at Auntie Ashleigh and gave her a curt nod with a, "Hm!"

Auntie rewarded me with an even wider smile, looked at my eye rolling cousin and asked, "So, how about it?"

Still reclining, he didn't reply right away. He only gazed steadily at my forehead for some moments, probably too chicken to look me directly in the eyes, before he finally did answer with the kind of placating tone and expression that a person would use with a child or an idiot.

"If you'd been paying attention, I said that it was my theory. People are forced to make these when short on facts and details, such as our family history is according to Aunt Ashleigh herself. Yes, it's possible that Coby had a sister, but I personally doubt it because that would begin a different branch of the family, which Rebecca and/or Aunt Ashleigh would surely have discovered by now. I'd also point out that Eleonore wasn't exactly one for spewing information, and even lied for years about-"

"That's just guessing," I ground, quickly angered by the way he was talking to me. "You even said that you were guessing, but theories aren't built on guesses, they're built on the facts you do have! If you don't have enough facts, you can't make a theory!"

Of course, I mostly agreed with his theory, but there was no way I was going to tell him that, especially with him talking to me like he was. Sheila and my two aunts looked at him now as he began to answer me in that same enraging tone.

"As I was saying before you interrupted, Eleonore didn't volunteer a lot of information, and I have a gut feeling that one hell of a lot went on that she didn't relate for whatever her own reasons were at the-"

"I don't care about your stupid gut feelings. If you can't give me facts to back up your idiot theories, then keep them to yourself, Einstein!"

"Well here's a fact for you, since your fuzzy little head obviously isn't capable of thinking along two tracks at the same time: The River Witch was active at the time and-"

Here, the arrogant, obviously forgetful jerk sat suddenly forward, grabbed a document from Auntie's desk and looked at it before he could continue.

"-Newcastle was well within the area she haunted, so Coby would have been aware of the legend!" he ascertained, crumpling the page and throwing it at me. "You don't think she mentioned anything of what she knew about that to Eleonore!? You don't think she'd have used that inside information to terrorize her with!? Of course there's a lot Eleonore didn't say, it's just that you're too stupid to read between the lines! Fuckin Airhead!"