Free Hysteria by Eva Gale

HYSTERIA
     
    by
    Eva Gale
     
     
    SMASHWORDS EDITION
     
     
    * * * * *
     
     
    PUBLISHED BY:
    Eva Gale on Smashwords
     
    Hysteria
    Copyright © 2009 by Eva Gale
     
     
    All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights
under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be
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    This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places,
brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's
imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the
trademarked status and trademark owners of various products
referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without
permission. The publication/use of these trademarks is not
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HYSTERIA
     
     
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    England, 1860
     
    Mother tied my corset too tight again today. I try to
blow out my stomach like a horse getting cinched, but she knows my
trick and hoists her skirts up to dig her knobbled knee into my
back while she pulls my laces taut.
    She must get me ready for my Doctor appointment, and
I cannot dare let my excitement show. So I lie abed and refuse my
tea and only when she pinches my arms so tight that tears come to
my eyes do I promise I’ll be good and do as she bids. But I dawdle
and fuss until she swears that I’m the most horrid child and that
she should have let Leery take me to the trolls.
    I’m not a child, though I act it. I am five and
twenty this December past.
    I should be married at this advanced age but no man
would have me for they all know madness runs deep in my family. My
father speaks to specters like they were corporeal and his brother
and their father before them. But my mother’s father did not care
she would give him demented grandchildren. He did not care about
his sickly daughter who would by miracle not die in giving birth to
her only living child. The old fool only cared that his horses
would be stock to the best stud in England.
    And so I am worthless.
    There are no horses anymore, my father gave them away
to save his soul from Sheol when the Priests came to drive the
demons from him. He now converses with Lucifer all the while mother
is brandishing a hot iron toward my skin swearing she will burn me
if I am not ready in time.
    I would die without my weekly treatments, and if I
showed the least bit of joy in them she would celebrate my
recovery.
    My hysteria runs deeper than a month’s worth of
treatment can cure.
    So I let her pinch me and I pretend to cry.
    She yanks my dress down over my head so hard the
buttons get tangled in my hair and though I shriek she does not
pause a moment. She scolds and laughs and tells me I’m mad like my
father.
    I agree I am. I would have to be to so willingly go
to what can only be my shame. But if I am shamed, then so are the
others that sit next to me on the hard benches not meeting one
another’s eyes. Not even when their names are quietly called do
they look up, for they know what is to happen and cannot break
their concentration of rebellion or relief would come all too
quickly.
    We sit on the bench, thighs pressed tight all of us
hoping that we may last a half hour, or an hour full if dreams be
made