Dark Serenity

She had seen so many black men swinging in trees just because a white woman had pointed her finger at him for the simple sake of doing so. The white woman's beauty had really been put up on a pedestal ever since Birth of an Nation came out and their counterparts did their best to keep it that way. But then again this was her first time meeting her angle. With a stuttering voice she finally responded, "Yes sir I will do my best."

As she was turning away to finish her job she saw a few angry stares and not a few surprised stares.

The angry ones came from the white women, while the surprised ones came from the men. They were angry that a white man would visibly touch her in a kindly manner and give her a warming smile. Hell, they were surprised at the simple fact that he would even touch and smile at heart all.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Later that night the party eventually dwindled down a bit and pretty soon the guests started leaving. She was in the kitchen helping her mother clean after she was done with the kitchen she headed to the ballroom to clean up there.

When she arrived she was shocked at the huge mess everyone had left. Balloons, confetti, broken glass, napkins, and food scraps were all over the place. Someone was even courteous enough to leave her a puddle of vomit in the corner of the room. Letting out a sigh she grabbed the broom and started cleaning. Mrs. Smith said she wanted everything clean by the time she woke up. Not only that she wanted them to stay overnight because she had a guest spending the night, and they needed a big breakfast in the morning.

It had been a very long day she had woke bright and early to finish up the dresses for the female Smiths, had to clean up before the guests arrived, make the food for them, and afterwards she had to clean up. In order to get all this done she had to wake up at eight o'clock and was officially with everything until two thirty. She was glad that the Smiths had their dinner and that it only lasted for five hours. She and her mother both felt their muscles ache with pain by the time they fell into the guest bed.

Once her body went to the mattress she instantly went to her dreamland. The dreamland consisted of beautiful unicorns prancing around as she sat on a rock by a calming creek. It was a glorious day and the sun was smiling down upon her with such warmness. She was enjoying herself all too much, when she heard a small tree branch crack in the woods behind her.

She jumped off of the big rock and picked up a big stick, ready for whatever came her way. When the small little fairy child came into view she lowered the stick back down to the ground and gave a breath of relief.

"Come Eliza your gentleman awaits." The little fairy child said before giggling and skipping off into the woods, with that Eliza was behind the child excited by her mystery gentleman.

She followed behind as the child continued to skip and dodge every thing that was in its way. "Ms Eliza, keep up, he is getting anxious, and watch out for the pixies."

"Pixies? What pixies?" as soon as the question left her lips her face smacked into a little light blue creature with big sparkly blue wings. She thought she had hurt the small little thing but the pixie proved her just the opposite when it started to laugh. The pixie then swept down and whispered into the child's ear, and the child started to laugh.

"What so funny?"

"You thought you had hurt a pixie, but you can never hurt a pixie. Even though they are small, they are a very strong." The child giggled and skipped faster. "Hurry we are almost there."

They continued to skip until her legs got sore but she didn't care, she was having too much fun. In fact she was having so much fun that she didn't realize her skipping trip came to a stop. "We are here, Miss Eliza, there is your gentleman. Oh but wait." In a blink of an eye the ratty maid uniform she had had on before was gone and in its place was a beautiful soft pink fairy gown. The material was smooth and soft up against her skin.

The scent of lilies caught her attention, and she felt something on her head. Reaching up she founded a crown made from lilies. Now she really felt like a princess ready to see her prince.

Once her transformation was complete, she looked up ahead to see a tall blonde man standing with his back towards her, underneath a tall altar with vines and flowers covering it. When she took a step she stepped on a twig making it snapped. He turned around to face her and her breath caught in her throat, it was the man from the party.

With a huge smile on her face she ran up to him. He let out a hearty laugh when he saw her coming. "It took you long enough sweetness, I have missed you so much." He said leaning down to kiss her forehead. "Come lets dance." Magical soft music began to play, and a huge dance floor appeared.

As they began to dance Eliza couldn't believe this was happening to her. Just for that few seconds coming in contact with that tall blond haired man at the party she felt this pull. She wanted him, but was afraid to have him. She would have never thought in a million years that white men such as the man she met would be interested in a black girl and not to mention that he was dancing with her. She rested her head against his shoulder, enjoying the effect he had on her.

The dancing seem to last for an eternity, but she didn't care it was peaceful, hypnotic, and everything else good wrapped up in one. Yes she was having the time of her life until she notice the blood smeared on his shoes. Taking stock of the situation, she couldn't help but notice there was blood on his pants. She took a step back to tell him so, but the words never came. Half of his face was covered in blood; his nicely pressed dress shirt was bloody.

She was too dumbfounded for words. "Honey what's wrong, why did you pull away from me? Come back here." He extended his right hand and that was covered in blood as well. Taking a few steps backwards she was about to run until he grabbed her. "Don't you dare run away from me. There is something you should know about me. I am not a very good person, actually I am a horrible person, I have taken many lives just for the sake of doing so, and I enjoyed it, I love being who I am and what I have done."

"But Eliza despite what you are, and where you came from there is something special about you, and I like that. I will admit I am a monster but will you be able to accept that."

"NO!" she said with her knee hitting his groin. And took off running.

He doubled over in pain grabbing his family jewels. Once he caught his breathe he shouted out her name.

"ELIZA, ELIZA COME BACK, ELIIIIIIIZZZZZZZZAAA." His voice faded into the distance, but she kept hearing her name being called.

"ELIZA, ELIZA, ELIZA wake up girl. It's six o'clock and we need to start making breakfast. Hurry, go get yourself cleaned up, we have big breakfast to prepare." Her mother said.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

After she was done bathing herself and puting on fresh clean cloths she hurried down to the kitchen to help her mother with the cooking.

They had to cook twenty pancakes from scratch, make about twenty-four biscuits, make the sausages, grits, and potatoes, cut up fresh fruit, and make fresh squeezed orange juice.

By the time everything was done they had set the table, and placed all the food in the middle. Everything was done perfectly. The dishes were clean, the eating utensils were nice and shining, and the crystal glasses were spotless. The Smiths and their guest should be happy with everything.

The Smiths came down all at once dressed and ready to start their day. Mr. Smith was an accountant and deacon to a big church family, Ms. Smith was a teacher at a whites only school, and Sally Ann, their only child, who just reached eighteen, was going to do something that Eliza couldn't recall or didn't care to recall.

They chatted about the dinner party last night while they were making their way to breakfast. They talked about how good it was to see old friends, and they talked about how awful it was. But they talked about the fact that Jackson openly touched Eliza at the party. Not only that he smiled at her, and people weren't too happy about that.

"Why are you worried darling? You acting like Jackson will end up marrying the nigger girl and run off into the sunset. Well he ain't he loves his position in the Klan way too much for that. Besides what respectable white would do with a nigger anyways beside fuck and leave them, he can't do nothing with her Susan."

"Robert, don't use such language in front of our child."

"AH hell Susan she's eighteen now and she needs to know this. Sally Ann you are more worthy of every man's attention even black men. Do you know why? I tell ya why it's because you are white. You are a white woman, a beautiful white woman now that you have grown. Every man on the planet earth will always desire you, and the black woman is the ones that want what you have, but can never get it."

"And what they want from us?"

"Innocence, virtue, beauty, the right to get a job that doesn't involve cleaning, the right to walk freely knowing that their men will do anything to protect their virtue. You see the black woman got the mark of Jezebel, that's why they are so envious now. They are tainted creatures that will always want what you have. Remember that."

"Thank you daddy. So where's Uncle Jackson? He disappear early last night and wasn't here this morning."

"Oh he went to make a darkie pay for a terrible crime he committed. An innocent white came into the church and said she was raped by a black man."

"OH my god that's awful. Whoever he caught, did he really do it?"

"Does it matter? If he did or didn't he had it coming all of them have it coming."

They all sat in silence for a while until they heard a knock on the door.

Without being asked too Eliza emerged from the kitchen and went to greet the Smiths visitor. There stood Mr. and Mrs. Vermont with a middle age Romania woman behind her. "Move out the way gal." the lady said, pushing Eliza out the way as she headed towards the breakfast room with the woman and Mr. Vermont right behind her.

"Lena it's so nice of you to join us." She heard Mrs. Smith say from the other room. "Eliza, Martha don't just stand around and do nothing go into the kitchen and get the Vermont's something to drink."

"Oh it's no need for that, after what I have seen last night with your lazy maid, I have decided to bring my own personal maid over to prepare my food. If that's ok with you of course?"

"Oh that's just fine Lena. Have a set and tell me all about your new maid."

"Well as you know the previous help I had was no good at all. All those damn darkies were lazy good for nothing, won't even work from sun up til midnight like they use to, and on top of that we have pay them too. So that's why I got me a little gypsy woman. She works hard unlike them and don't complain unlike most of these niggers around here, and I don't have to give her anything except a nice warm bed to sleep in."

Eliza and Martha stood there and listened.

Susan pricked up with all the good news as her best friend was going on about the maid she had. Her husband on the other hand had just come in and sat down to eat without a word. Both just sat and ate while the two wives went on about their lives.

For the longest time Eliza and her mother just stood there waiting to be dismissed to go do more work that was required of them. When they heard knocking on the door Susan ordered Martha to retrieve the visitor, while Eliza stayed still, in her place.

A few seconds later Jackson came into the room where everyone was. He looked disheveled and messy. He stood there taking Eliza in with his gaze. She was pretty for a black, no scratch she was beautiful for any woman.

Mrs. Smith noticed this and sent Eliza into the kitchen to squeeze more fresh orange juice.

He could tell that she had white blood in her due to the fact that she had red nappy hair, she was light skinned with a dusting of freckles on her cheeks, the simple fact was her mother had to be a half-breed. He wonder, what was that white man thinking when he laid up with her mother. Why was he crazy enough to have a baby by a black woman?

But then when he first saw Eliza last night he saw why? She was too cute for words, or what his father used to say, too cute for a black woman. She had this certain essence about her pulling him in, when she came to offer him something to eat at the party. His wondering ceased about her when he heard his brother speaking to him.

"Did you take care of that problem last night Jack?" his brother said

"Sure in the hell did." Jackson said with a big smile upon his face. "Me and the boys found out where he lived kicked down the doors, beat him with an inch of his life, hog tied him, and lynched him in the biggest oak tree we could find. It took us all fucking night to find a good sturdy branch, but when we did Dave cut his pecker off, we then poured tar on him, and torched him like the morning sun."

"You should've been there brother, his body went up in flames the moment we set fire to it. We brought the girl that he raped, so she could witness the man who ruined her life, truth is, she wasn't even sure we got right man or not, but in the end it doesn't matter, because they all look the same to me."

"Who was the girl he raped?" Mr. Vermont asked

"Donna Walters. Robbie's wife"

"OH shit Jack you just might've killed a nigger for nothing, everyone knows she let anybody get a chance to mess around with her. She's not that far from being an Oh' Johnny girl. I just feel bad for Robert though. She must have gave it to him real good in order for him to put a ring on her finger." Mr. Smith said nonchalantly.

"Well if she did crawl into that man's bed willing or unwilling, he deserve what he got. He was probably thinking of the mere fact of touching a white woman, and the law in South Carolina will always protect the women from potential danger. Did you not see Birth of a Nation? That's a damn good example." Jackson said

"Yeah" they all said together.

"The director was trying to warn us about these niggers around here. The men are thinking awful thoughts about our women, and who knows what the women are thinking about us? It is best, as the superior race that we keep them in their place. We have to keep them at the bottom and any other race for that matter."

Martha was stunned at what she just heard. These people were openly having a conversation about killing a black man for what might be a false accusation. She had been used to white people calling her names such as half nigger, half-breed, mutt, dog, and sometimes sand-nigger because often times people confuse her with a foreigner.

So many times Martha had wanted to up leave and take her daughter with her. But then reality would always sink in, she had little to no education, she was a half-breed woman who didn't know her white father. And the only skills she possessed were cooking cleaning and sewing. If she quit on the Smiths now she and Eliza would no longer get their income to help keep a roof over their heads.

Despite her husband being a preacher that's still wasn't enough to bring in the money they needed. She prayed to God that something better would come along, and she didn't have to keep cooking, cleaning, and making clothes. People don't understand how hard she worked.

Her hands began to knot up, and come in into unwilling fists at how hard she worked, but she could do nothing about it now, but just pray that her daughter would never become a maid by the time she was her age. She thanked God that her younger sons were in Canada.

"Martha go into the kitchen and fetch us some more grits and orange juice. And tell that girl of yours to fix Jackson's room up for him. He had a very long and tiring night."

"Yes sir Mr. Smith."

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Back in the kitchen Eliza was having too much fun with the middle aged woman. When she first saw the woman she assumed that she didn't speak English judging her by her skin color and the clothes she wore. She instantly kicked herself for thinking that. She was judged all the time by her skin color why would she do it to anybody else that showed kindness.

She also found out that the woman was working for the Mayor of South Carolina for free as well, which was very odd to her.

When the woman spoke she had an English and French accent and spoke with such a proper tone. She found the woman was well educated about everything there was to know about.

She was good with numbers, she talked about the black plague, Anne Boyleyn, King Henry, Napoleon, talked about how much of an idiot Columbus was and Queen Elizabeth as if she knew these people personally. Not only that but the woman spoke fifty different languages as if that was possible and the woman gave her a taste when she switched from Chinese, Japanese, Cambodian, Thai, Russian, French, Arabic, Swedish, and Greek. The woman could go on with all the different languages, but Eliza's head began to hurt with all the things she was learning from this woman. The woman even talked about the many houses she had whenever she traveled and the jewels she possessed. She got a glimpse of her fine jewels when she saw the blue diamond earrings the woman was wearing.

How could anyone not, they were huge. So that brings to mind the question she was just itching to ask.

"May I ask you a question ma'am?"

"Yes, sweet little darling."

"If you are so educated, speak these different languages, have many houses, and fine jewelry. Why are working for the Vermont's for free?"

"Who said I was working for them for free, child."

"Mrs. Vermont and you just said that you were working for the Mayor for free."

"AAhh is that what I said now? I like you very much, cher, but you are yet very hard of hearing. I have never said I work for the Vermont's for free, the woman said I was, and as for the Mayor, he is going to pay a hefty price."

"Huh, I am not understanding you ma'am."

The woman just laughed "I know but in due time you will. Lets just say in the end I will get what I came for, and then some. Now if you excuse me I have to take juice to the Vermont woman."

On her way out, Martha stepped through the kitchens doors with a disgusted look on her face. "Mamma what's wrong? Why are you looking like that?"

"I just heard something, that I don't want to hear ever again. Eliza listen to me, Mr. Smith order you to go clean up Jackson's room. Once you are done please do not stick around and talk to this man, avoid this man at all costs, and please do not get trapped up in his web. He is a horrible man."

"Mamma why are you saying this to me?"

"Because I heard you dream about him last night, and there only one reason why a woman will be dreaming of a man she just met that doesn't involve money. Now go upstairs clean his room in a hurry and then leave as soon as possible, ok."

"OK"

~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*

Eliza was almost done with cleaning the room Mr. Smith's brothers or Jackson used from what she heard. She was tidying up the bed when she heard the bedroom door slam shut.

Jumping with a scream she turned around to face the person that just came in. Jackson stood there with a pile of dirty clothes in his arms. "Hello there, Eliza that is your name correct." He said discarding the clothes to the floor.

"UM yes it is why?"

"Has anybody told you, you shouldn't look a white in the eye and ask unnecessary questions?" he said taking a few steps to her.

Taking a few steps back trying to put a distance she rambled "Yes I have heard but pleas—"

"shhh don't say anything and listen, that's another thing don't ever back talk your superiors, you should always shut up and listen. Now before you got all mouthy I was going to tell you looked very pretty today with your nappy red hair pined back."