Child of Darkness

Trapped in the body of an innocent, she stalks the night,

gesturing for her pray, for her supper… the ruby-red feast.

With a sweet little whisper in their adoring, attentive ear,

she seduces them with a talent that her father would be proud of,

a baby siren among imbeciles!

Those foolish mortals take one look at her and think;

“Why, a child like her is harmless!

What is she doing out at midnight,

the time of wretches, witches, prostitutes, drunks and the

blood-thirsty?”

Even as her pearly teeth sink into their struggling necks, as delicate as the frail stem of a daisy,

their thoughts are of a tiny blonde-haired angel with eyes like liquid from the purest lake.

Her cheeks were as cold, as pallid as death,

like two ripe apples left out in the bitter winter;

motherly women and playful children would flinch as she nuzzled their necks like a babe.

Only would she warm when their blood was gushing down her throat,

adding roses to her complexion, and cherries to her pink plump lips.

For sixty-five years she never grew a millimetre, never gained a year

to her princess profile.

As toddlers became teenagers, teenagers became adults, and adults became

old, diseased and decrepit,

she was saved from the cruel touch of age and decay…

Men had marvellous theories, each one wrong in every sense;

was she Thumbelina, deserving of the limelight in the freak show,

or a child — a poor, sweet, darling child?

People of New Orleans disappeared into the fog of night, never to be seen again.

Slaves, babes, belles and beaus,

nobody was salvaged from the wrath of an immortal…

A doll personified, animated to walk the Earth and sail the seven seas,

she would pirouette through the streets of New Orleans as a ballerina would at a performance for royalty.

Soft curls and ringlets bouncing, she would steal down the alleyways, luxury capes flying, petticoats whirling, endless taffeta reeling and flowing like an emerald green sea, and little drawers peeking shyly from beneath her robes.

Nobody knew her haunts, not even her two fathers,

but to children of the town, she was an incredible mystery, however dangerous she first appeared.

A five year-old crowned Queen of Death.