The Redeemer - Episode 2

 

The specters come in the witching hour. In the period the moon's silver light illumine the dark corners of a man's heart, Mrs Williams' demons reveal themselves, established in her sumptuous bedroom. The nocturnal visitors ignore the ethos of hospitality and occupy space  as their fancy dictates. 
 Some lean on the walls, fixing infernal glares— potent with condemnation— on her. Others ring the bed she lies on, chanting: "Shame!— shame!— shame!— shame!..."  in a ghastly tone;  and their chief crouches on her chest, and attempts to seize her breath; the cause of her waking many a nights gasping for air, denied the comfort of sleep . To escape them, Mrs Williams resorts to leaving the lights on, the TV blaring and the aid of soporific medication. A lamp and a radio lie on the bedstand as backup in case of a powercut.
 But this night, she is to be denied that means of flight. 
The weight she bears seem to exert more pressure than usual; the incessant chants of shame  strikes a concordant cadence with the fiendish howling of the storm raging without drowning all other considerations. She tussles and turns between the silk bedsheets, realizes the futility of struggling and then resigns to wakefulness.
She listens to the rains, stares blankly at the flickering images on the TV hung on the wall across her. A need to escape the oppressive room grips her.
"But to where? Where to go?" she mutters. 
Mrs Williams slips on slippers placed beside the bed and stands

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. She catcher her reflection in the full-length mirror fixed on the wall and is drawn to it. The image of the aged woman looking back baffles her. 
Where was the figure that made men jostle seeking her attention? Who could see it lost now in the folds of matronly embrace? With a wry smile, she sees her face still retains some of its erstwhile beauty, but the lines it was drawn on were loosing; the sharp features rounded with accumulated fat; the wrinkles were now firmly etched, a cobwebbed network around the eyes. Through the silk pyjamas she could see the outline of her full bosom— it sagged. 
With just over two decades of living, could she appears that old already?
Mrs Williams paces the length of the room a while in deep thought. Finally, she firms her resolve and exits the room. 
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Treading the tiled corridor quietly, she comes to her daughter's room door. It is ajar and the light within can be seen. Her heart leaps.
"Jennifer... " comes the involuntary thought. 
She hesitates before peeping through the doorcheek. Her daughter is also awake supine on the bed. She is holding her phone and a smile is on her face. It takes Mrs Williams by s1urprise. How long had it been? 
A reflexive shudder runs through her frame. Could it be? Four years? It has been four years already since that night. 
A night not unlike this one, with the  forces of nature unbound. 
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It was just two years after the death of her husband (Jennifer's father) she had succumbed to societal and economic pressures to remarry. There was no question of love in contracting the union. Chief Olu Williams had made that plain during the 'proposal'— it was to be his second marriage also. 
"See, you're still a pretty woman and I'm a prosperous man. Let me take care of you and your child. How long do you think this can support you?" He was referring to the supermarket she owned, its dusty empty shelves steadily spreading. Even then, there was something greasy in his manner; an air of reptilianness that belied his affluent portly bearing. But she overlooked it, discounting the repulsivness she felt as nerves. 
And so with little fanfare in a dank local government register office, she became Mrs Williams. Jennifer was in boarding school at the time. Her first visit to their new home— Chief Williams mansion— would mark the first occasion of meeting the men who was to be her new father. 
They ate dinner late that night. The three of them alone. The house's domestic staff dismissed early so the family could have time to 'bond' (as she put it). Thirteen year old Jennifer— flowering with pubescence— had scowled through out; avoiding eye contact with Chief Williams and gave brisk answers to all direct questions. On the other hand, Chief Williams had been surprisingly jovial. 
There was nothing in his manner that hinted of the abomination to place that night. 
She had lain on the bed, thinking of the strained dinner. Drifting between consciousness and sleep, her heart throbbed at its portend. In that moment, mouthing invocations for her daughter and the man she called her husband to be united, Mrs Williams heard the piercing cry. It was an abrupt sound that jarred the senses— like the breaking of glass. Only one person could have made it, and the only other person in the house who could also hear it was her husband. 
But already, somewhere deep within, with a maternal intuition, she immediately apprehended what was happening— an instinctive knowledge that chilled her. It was the reason Mrs Williams chose to shut her eyes to sleep; choosing to deny what she heard. 
That she heard the weak scratching at the door proved she had not been asleep. That she had first sat on the bed's edge, and wished desperately for the sound to go away spoke of the tumultuous yet undefined emotion that at the instant gripped her. It would not go away.
 With every step towards the door she felt the burden of age weigh her, and opening the tumultuous emotion crystallized into a big black mass of fear.
It was the reason on seeing her daughter—bent, with her hands on legs slightly parted; a red stain spread on the cotton nightgown rent from neck downwards, exposing the bare flesh beneath, and when Jennifer lifted incongruously dry face and was about to speak— something snapped within Mrs Williams. She rose her hands and slapped her daughter; a heavy stinging slap that made contact the same moment a crackling thunder boomed overhead...
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A sob gets caught in her throat. How many times had she wondered at the stranger possessing her that night? The one that shrieked at her shell shocked daughter never reveal what had taken place. With her hands the stranger tore off the remainder nightgown, and with her mouth instructed her daughter to burn it. The next morning, greeting the chief with a simpering smile— her daughter looking on.
How the need to hold her daughter and explain herself burns within her!
"Your mother is weak. I was afraid. What would people think of you? What won't they say? What would happen to us?! Can you forgive me..."
But as always, the belief that by never talking about a subject, she could deny it thralls her. AND as always, she is paralyzed by indecision. 
It doesn't matter as she realizes her daughter is now asleep. 
And so, she steals quietly back to her room: to commune— as always— alone with her demons.