MIASMIC Place Of Pendants 1

Chapter Two

Where’s The Pendant?

Awakening on that first day the light through the window hurt my eyes. My head felt as if a dozen jack hammers were tearing my brain cells apart. Not to mention the roiling of my stomach. Where was the damn bucket? Joe chose that moment to appear in the doorway. My head painfully spun to him calling me wife! I glared at him in wide-eyed horror.

“We are married Morgan...See!!”

He held up a wedding certificate in one hand and two photos of our supposed wedding in the other before brusquely throwing them on the bed.

“That’s impossible.” I had to hold my head from the pounding pain. “Where’s your mother? I need to speak to her.”

“My mother?” He looked to be thinking about it with a smirk on his face before answering. “My mother has gone to stay with her sister. She won’t be back, any time soon.” His smirk widening once again showing his blackening teeth.

“Sister?” another relative never mentioned. This has to be an hallucination or a terrible dream. There was no way on earth I would have married this foul-smelling roach. My stomach flipped over itself, I felt sick again.

He began bellowing at me. “What is yours is now mine! We are married and the union...” He grinned through his disgusting black teeth. “Is consummated.”

“I don’t remember marrying you. I couldn’t have...”

“Oh, but you did my sweet.” He leaned closer. “It was your idea!” He sneered. The putrid scent of him more intense stealing my breath.

“Your insane if you think I could or would marry you.” I sunk down into the bed trying to sooth the pain in my head and move away from the obnoxious stink of him. I wanted to go to sleep again. This has to be a dream, no, the worst nightmare of my life.

“You know.” He said in a gleeful voice. “I would hate anything to happen to Duffy’s store, or for that matter Duffy himself. It would be terrible if he met with a…let’s say a most unfortunate accident. Do you think anyone at the station would believe anything you say?” He winked at me. “Especially after I hum told them about your mental disability, and how I married you to keep you out of the nut house for having delusional psychosis.”

Delusional psychosis? What the hell! I didn’t know any police officers here but I am sure if I walked in there now they would throw me behind bars after what the roach told them. I knew there was nothing he could do to Duffy, but Duffy’s was my store, my only reason for living in Castle Cary. The only thing I held dear.

Joe left the room slamming the door behind him. All I could think of was that I was trapped in the Twilight Zone. For the moment, my head took precedence over everything else. Laying my head carefully on the pillow and dragging the cover up I would go to sleep and when I wake this would all be just a bad dream.

When I did wake it was afternoon by the light filtering through the window. My headache had dissipated to a light throbbing. I still felt groggy, as if I had spent the night drinking.

I should be so lucky, at least it would be a saner reason. Married to Joe! If it was true I was Mrs Roach. Oh God! I need the bucket!

I tried to think what my last thought was. I remembered arriving in London, booking into the hotel, buying leather, everything after that was just a haze. My brain was lost in quicksand. How the hell did I get from there to here?

I sat up far too quick causing my head to spin or was it the room? I laid down for a moment until the dizziness eased. Sitting back up a lot more slowly, my only thought was to pack my bags and get out. What about Duffy’s? I couldn’t just walk away from it, I could sleep there, but then the words edged into my mind of Joe threatening to burn it down. What the hell was I going to do? I had to find Mrs L, with not a clue where to look.

If I wait until Joe went to work, I could go through her drawers to see if there is an address for her sister. Not much of a plan but it was the best I could do at the present.

I suddenly remembered Joe saying the marriage had been consummated. I dropped my hand to my nether regions. Nope, that didn’t happen. I would know if it had, I would feel something, sore maybe? That thought alone was responsible for the next ten minutes of throwing up, and not in a bucket. Damn the clean-up was going to be a bitch. I was in my nightdress, so who changed my clothes? I could only hope Mrs L had done it before she departed for her sisters. I don’t think I could handle the alternative. I dismissed the thought feeling queasy enough.

My stomach rumbled. When was the last time I ate? Surely, I couldn’t have been lying in my bed for seven days.

I would have starved by then. I do feel weak but not so much that I felt I had gone seven days without food. I slowly got out of bed and stood on wobbly legs.

As soon as I was dressed went downstairs to the kitchen. I needed food before the grumblings of my stomach alerted the neighbours. Joe was leaning against the counter with a coffee in hand. As soon as he sees me his face turns to a smirk. He takes a step forward, I take a step back getting into my defensive stance.

“Don’t worry my sweet I have no intention of…forcing myself upon you. You are not exactly attractive. I would go so far as to say you are quite ugly, really.”

“Well, your no Adonis. Have you looked in a mirror lately? Anyway, why did you marry me if you think I’m so ugly?” I grabbed the door jamb still feeling a little woozy.

“As I said what is yours is now mine. I want your mother’s pendant. So be a dear and go get it for me.” He chimed putting his cup down on the counter.

I caught my breath; this was the last thing I expected to come out of his mouth. No one knew about my mother’s pendant but me. I had told no one about it. How Joe knew was a mystery. “I don’t know what you are talking about. My mother had no pendant.” It wasn’t exactly a lie. My mother gave me the pendant on my thirteenth birthday, so it belonged to me and not my mother.

A sneer edged the corners of his mouth. “I see, so you are going to play games with me then? I know you have it and soon, I, shall have it.” Yeah, in your dreams buddy!

Joe was dressed in uniform ready for work. At least I would get some peace and quiet. Time to think of what to do. I sat down on the kitchen chair feeling as alone as I have ever felt. Mother was gone, Duffy and now Mrs L. How the hell did he know about the pendant and more to the point, why did he want it?

He might want the pendant, but he was not having what was securely hidden away. I just hoped that it would stay that way. I wasn’t afraid of Joe. I could handle myself in a fight. I just didn’t know how I was going to handle this so-called marriage. I hated him with every fiber of my body. If he was just an average man, an ugly man at that I would just walk out, but he was the local copper, and he did threaten to burn my store down. I don’t think he was joking about doing so. I needed to come up with a plan and soon.

For the next few weeks, I barely saw Joe. I turned Mrs L’s house upside down looking for anything that might tell me where she was or where her sister lived, there was nothing. In fact, there was nothing about her cockroach of a son either. I even ventured into the attic, still nothing. Joe never approached me when he was home, and if he spoke it was to find fault with me or call me names. That I could handle, I just ignored him like I would a moth. There were times he would shout; I returned the same.

Mostly the shouting was caused by my question about why I had no memory of getting married, and what happened to make me so sick. His excuse was that while we were at dinner at the restaurant, I became suddenly ill. When he took me back to my hotel, I fell going up the stairs causing a bump to my head. It sounded idiotic how did one bump their head going up stairs?

He smiled when he added that I had also suffered an injury to my back. Supposedly I had landed on a half-hammered nail affixed to the carpet runner. The nail had left a small round wound between my shoulder blades. Until then I didn’t even know I had anything wrong with my back. Next stop bathroom to see for myself. Although I could barely see it there it was, a small round scar.

His threats to burn my store down continued, assuring my thoughts he would do just that. He stopped asking for the pendant, which I found weird as he had given me the impression the only reason, he had married me was because of it. Nothing was adding up.

One thought hampered me. Why had I become so ill at the restaurant in the first place? Thoughts crossed my mind as to whether I had been drugged. Was his mother part of some scheme to see me married to him? Is that why she had not returned?

Why in God’s name would I have married him in the first place? He kept rattling on how it was my idea, perhaps I was insane, or had a moment of insanity at the time. Did that happen to people? A seven-day insane bunk?

Joe had no clue that I owned Duffy’s Antique emporium, and I let him think Duffy was still in charge but overseas on a buying trip. I wasn’t sure how long I could pull it off, but he didn’t ask questions and I didn’t volunteer any.

Duffy had owned the emporium. He was a close friend of my mother’s since before my birth. He was in part more of a father to me, he’d always been around. When he died, he left me the emporium in his will. I missed Duffy, the talks we had, his humour and wit, most of all his caring, patience and support with everything I did. To lose him only a few years after my mother took its toll. When my mother died it was his shoulder I cried on, the one I turned to for consolation.

Duffy did indeed die on a buying trip overseas, hence there was no funeral. I couldn’t say why I decided not to reveal his passing with anyone. Perhaps it was more my unwillingness to come to terms that he was gone.

There were many times over the years I felt the heart-breaking absence of family. I had friends from school I occasionally went to dinner or movies with, along with faithful customers and suppliers at my store. I missed my mother most of all. She was a beautiful woman, bright blue eyes and honey blonde hair. I had black hair and brown eyes, obviously my colouring must have come from my father, a man I had never met.

Mama was funny and gentle, she always made me feel like I could do anything. She read to me every night, one book or another, even up until the dreadful accident. I honestly couldn’t remember a night she didn’t.

She was a huge hugger, one of the things I missed most about her. Mrs L was not.

Although I had not met up with friends since London. Two of them Caroline and Joanne sent me messages saying they were moving. They left no forwarding address. How very odd. I had a sinking feeling Joe had something to do with it. My world felt like it was shrinking around me.

Most meals I spent alone, or I stayed at the store working out. There were some things that had become hateful tasks such as Joe’s washing. My preference was to burn them. In an attempt to reduce the sickening smell of him. I added an overabundance of rose, carnation and lemon oils to his washing. His rancid scent carried into his clothing, through the house, just everywhere. The oils helped but only slightly.

Pegging my nose when doing his washing was the only way to get it done. Why was I doing his washing? Because he would leave them all over the house until I did, dirty wart hog, and he continued with his threats to either burn my store down or have a few mates come in one night to smash things.

I began making plans to move my store to another location. I took time out of my day to check any area as far away from Castle Cary as I could find. I even checked any promising sites in Scotland. Storing away cash payments so I would have money to spend for removals was the only way I was going to be able to get away.

If I was going to make the break everything had to be done in secret. The hope is to locate to a place he would or could not find me. I would have to change the name of my store and possibly my name as well.

This was not going to be an easy task with him being a police officer.

Every day I left home to be followed by a police car. It wasn’t Joe driving. In fact it was a different person each day. They also followed me home. They never came into the store but sat a little way down the road until I was ready to leave.

Over the next few months my store had three break-ins. The only thing stolen was the cash money I saved from the safe, and three times I had new locks on it. An expensive venture. I knew it was Joe, each time a robbery occurred he was off on one of his so-called secret police duties, that had him missing for days sometimes weeks at a time.

I decided to hire someone to help me in the store as business had picked up from my online sales. I hired a woman named Ula. She had been the only one to answer my newspaper advertisement.

Ula and I hit it off from the start and boy did she learn fast. How to run the online auction site, inventory the stock, and sort out my invoicing and banking. She was a downright bloody blessing. During break times, we sipped tea in the back room. I listened as she told me about her farm and of her husband Sloane, whom I got to meet on her third week of working in the store.

Ula fifteen years older than I was just a little shorter than my five feet seven. She had a stunning head of cropped white hair that stood to attention, giving her the wild, I will scratch your eyes out look. Over the next few months Ula and I became good friends, no we became best friends, and she was a hugger just like my mother had been.

I was unsure of why I felt such a strong connection to her, perhaps it was something about Ula that reminded me of my mother, though I have never told her such.

Ula is a strong outspoken woman who never held back, and a humour to match my own.

I admired her knowledge and expertise with herbs and their uses. Ula had herb fusions to sate the worst of headaches, aches and scratches for a stream of local customers who came to the emporium. A walking herbal encyclopedia. One thing that did seem strange was the constant suggestion that maybe I should come stay with them for a weekend, week or month. She made the comment every few days whether in jest or whispered.

Ula’s husband Sloane a broad six-foot six Scot had flaming red hair streaked with silver, and a beard to match. I had never met anyone so tall or who loved his wife with such devotion and adulation. He often called in to bring Ula’s lunch or pick her up after work, staying for several hours, while the three of us chatted away.

A far cry from being at home with the stinky swamp rat.

Ula and Sloane had a farm just outside of town. I had so wanted to visit but something in the pit of my stomach urged me to keep our friendship a secret. I even recited her phone number to memory just in case Joe checked my phone. I had no reservations the bastard did so on a regular basis. I could always smell where he’d been, which was just about everywhere in the house.

I learned fast that if Joe thought I was friendly with someone he paid them a visit, and either they would leave town or refuse to speak to me again. The situation was becoming intolerable.