Octavia

Octavia Part 1

Octavia

by D.S. MARTINEZ

© 2015

My wife Octavia was the most beautiful creature I had ever laid eyes upon. Her eyes were dark and serious and her hair was a cascade of lush sable curls. She came from a family of modest means. Her father's side was of good English stock and her mother was of the Irish and German persuasion. Her father Mr. Randolph was a tailor and her mother a seamstress and laundress.

We first met at an opening in local gallery. I was an amateur artist and collector of oddities from a wealthy family of bankers and merchants. She was looking at a painting of Venus the goddess of love and her son Cupid. She noticed me looking at her and gave a smile and a nod and walked away. I pursued, introduced myself, and asked her name. Octavia...it was something about the way that she said the name. I felt goosebumps. I couldn't let her go. So, I asked if she would allow me to escort her to lunch after the art showing was over. She agreed.

And we had lunch together every week thereafter. I learned that she had no suitors, because of rumors of an imagined Gypsy heritage in her mother's family. This made me ecstatic. I professed my love for her and proposed on the spot. She looked at me with her exotic dark eyes and once again gave me her smile and said yes. But, there was one problem. I figured it must be her father. I was such a rash and love-struck fool, that I had forgotten to ask her father's permission.

I accompanied her to her home near the end of the town square. Her father was in his shop. I approached Mr. Randolph with Octavia by my side and asked for his daughter's hand. He told me that it wasn't his final say. That Octavia's grandmother had to approve of me. I had never heard of such a thing. But, her grandmother was German, so I took it to be some old custom.

I inquired about said grandmother and found that she had been arrested for poisoning a villager. I was shocked and confronted Octavia during our weekly luncheon. She confessed that her grandmother was a healer and maker of love potions and the like. This made me begin to believe that the stories about Octavia's Gypsy heritage might be true. But when I looked at her head, how it had fallen to her shoulders, and how she looked up at me with those eyes, I forgot about the rumors.

We went to the jail in a nearby village called Derby and found the constable. We were led to a small cell that gave off the faint stench of sweat and human waste. An old dark skinned, gray haired woman in bizarre clothing sat on a cot humming a tune. She looked up and said something in an unfamiliar language and Octavia replied in kind. Then they began to speak in English. The old lady spoke with an accent that was at times Irish, then German and then something else, unfamiliar.

Octavia introduced me to the old crone and I bowed my head. She looked me up and down and then nodded. She told me that her name was Hekuba and that she was born in a place called Wallachia, and migrated to Germany as a small child and then to Ireland and eventually to England. She confessed that she was a healer and card reader, but that she had not poisoned anyone. Someone had broken into her home and drank the wrong potion. But, because of her reputation, she was automatically guilty. She asked me not to petition for her release, as I had offered. She had accepted her fate. She made us promise her something and then sent us away. Octavia was in tears.

Octavia and I were married two weeks later in a small family only ceremony. Life was idyllic. We went to social events, openings, and readings. Then the message came that old Hekuba had been put to death. Now I found myself having to keep a promise. We had to journey to Hekuba's cottage outside of Derby.

We arrived in Derby and tried to hire a carriage to take us into the rural area outside of the town limits. We couldn't find anyone brave enough to drive us. The outskirts of Derby was named Derbyshire, but the people called it the "Old Haints Woods", meaning the haunted woods. The woods surrounding it, was known for brigands, bandits, Gypsies, Tinkers, Travellers, and other manner of outside folk. One had to travel into their territory to get to Derbyshire proper. Finally, when we upped the fare, we found a man who said that he would take us. So we hired him and a strongman for protection and we were on our way.

The woods seemed empty. There was not one brigand about. Yet, I felt as if we were being watched. Octavia directed the driver through the Haunted Woods. I deduced that she had been there before. We arrived at Hekuba's cottage. It looked like a giant mushroom. Upon entry, I noticed that there were all manner of bottles and jars of liquids and dead plant matter. Dried frogs, birds, other animals hung from the low ceiling. The whole place reeked of the incense that I had once smelled in a church. It was a thick and resinous odor.

Octavia walked over to a cabinet and pulled out several bottles. Once again it was all too familiar to her. Some of the bottles contained a thick brown liquid, while others contained red. Octavia placed these into her satin, beaded handbag. She found a wooden box and took out two parchments and added these to her purse. I stood and watched in a hypnotic state. I was transfixed. I had to be led out of the cottage by Octavia by the hand. We climbed into the carriage and drove away. Suddenly, the little cottage seemed to disappear in flames behind us. Before we left Derby, Octavia took three bottles from her bag and dumped them into the well. I sat like a mannequin and watched as if paralyzed.

The events of that day haunted me. I purchased books on occult subjects. I was obsessed to find out what happened back in Derbyshire. Octavia assured me that everything was okay and that nothing out of the ordinary occurred. But I knew better. I began to question Octavia constantly, until she had fallen ill.