The House of Dupree

[unknown]

The House of Dupree

posted further down, I am reserving this spot for the final version...

[unknown]

to be continued...

[unknown]

***

[Jennifer O'Dell]

Sure, post the response.  We would like to see all the fruits of our (and yours) hard work. 

What kind of a publication is Bewildering Stories anyway?

[unknown]

Hi Jennifer

At first I thought this might be a rejection letter, but I asked some people at writing.com and they assured me that they want me to re-submit.

http://www.bewilderingstories.com/submissions.html

***

This is the e-mail
Hello, Wayne...


Word is back from a review editor, who points out some matters of detail that seem important.  More at the end...



= = Begin forwarded message:


The prose seems like a fair imitation of late 18th, early 19th century English Gothic Horror, e.g. Ann Radcliffe, Matthew Gregory Lewis, et. al. It does need some grammar and punctuation clean-up, and I noticed at least one misspelling that spell-check won't catch, i.e. "too" instead of "to."
 
I noticed a few instances of anachronistic or inapposite usage:


-- Morphine wasn't available for pain relief until the mid-nineteenth century. A late eighteenth century physician would likely prescribe laudanum (tincture of opium).


-- I doubt whether  late eighteenth century English gentry would refer to their farmhands as "serfs." Legally, they weren't "property" like black slaves,  nor were they indentured servants or bound to the land like the Russian peasants of that time.


-- Finally, I think the word "hierophant" to describe the Vicar, and others attending the dying father, is inapposite. A "hierophant" was a priest in one of the ancient Greek mystery religions; I believe it is also one of the characters in a deck of Tarot cards. Of course, the Vicar et. al. could be sinister characters with some relationship to the ghouls, or zombies or whatever, but that's not apparent in the story.
 
Finally, I agree that the story has an incomplete feeling to it. It's like reading the legend of the Hound of the Baskervilles without Holmes and Watson going on to investigate and solve the mystery.
 
So, what we have is imitation Gothic purple prose with an incomplete story. I wouldn't vote to publish as is.


 = = Forwarded message ends = =


I'm sure the details can help.  The gist seems to be, then, that "Strange Diary" is an account of a story; that is, it is not yet a story itself.


Best of luck...


Don

[Rachel Dearth]

Those editors can be so picky! Anyway, it seems like they are being overly critical, but everything they suggested can be easily fixed.

I'd ask Rockessence to go over the final draft for spelling errors, and omit that word "hierophant" and make it a priest or pastor instead. Shows how observant I am, I didn't even notice that word, hierophant in there.

The rest of the verbiage is pretty easy to fix, too.

Your main problem is going to be the investigation.  I'd make one, at best, a couple of days or weeks after Anna's disappearance, culmianting in them actually finding her, in pretty horrific shape.  If you can't think of anything, make her turned mad, made into a ghoul or something and hiding out in graveyard, feeding off corpses, something like that.

Rachel

[Jennifer O'Dell]

Thanks for posting that, Unknown.  I think they want you to resubmit it with corrections. Have you got around to making them yet?

[unknown]

Hi Jennifer

I made the corrections, I don't agree with them, but I made them anyways.

If you notice, at the end of the letter the editor tells me, I have a story which is not a story.


Hi Rachel

Thank you for your suggestions. 

[Jennifer O'Dell]

You still need to resubmit it.  Editors are all about trying to discourage people from becoming writers, sort of like Darwin's surivival of the fittest. Lots of times, the people who are the most talented aren't the ones that become the most succesful, but the ones who work the hardest to succeed....

[unknown]

Hi Jennifer

Thank you dear

I will resubmit, and I should look for other places to send it. I got lucky that the first place I sent it was interested.

Also I personally think the Devil's Pen, is very good its to bad the story is about a writer. Who is extremely successful even though their is an element of the supernatural, or insanity.

[unknown]

I may just rewrite the whole Story as a novella... in three parts.

I have so many ideas of what can be done with the characters and so many avenues of the plot that are not in the story, or would be entirely new.

I don't think its fair to even ask people to reread something they have already read, so I will try to get my act together--struggling really.

I want to incorporate conventional 3rd person narrative with the diary entries and letters etc., and stick to a more gothic style than was then was the case in "Anna's Tears."

I have been working slowly on a companion piece for the Devil's Pen with Charles Sterling, Williams Friend being the main character. Also I have plans to do one on Myra, and perhaps Suzette. Just because I love the characters and I have created a fictional place for them to dwell in.

I see there is a contest for a horror/erotic short story the winner is guaranteed to be published, I want to rework the Obliette for this contest adding back the erotic scenes which I cut.

I am dying to try my hand at heroic fantasy in the style of Robert E. Howard.

I am still looking for actual examples of an insanity trial from the eighteen hundreds so if anyone has any leads on this, please let me know.

Thank You

[Rachel Dearth]

Mary Todd Lincoln was involved in an insanity trial in 1875. Her son had her committed.  Here is a link to it (although there is no transcript):

http://law.jrank.org/pages/2639/Mary-Todd-Lincoln-Insanity-Trial-1875.html

This second one is a pretty comprehensive link to many great American trials from 1638 to 1949:

http://law.jrank.org/collection/10/Great-American-Trials.html

Hope you find something useful on it.

Rachel

[unknown]

Oh, thank you so much Rachel...

You are an angel...

[unknown]

The House of Dupree

edited: August 21, 2007

Anna’s Homecoming


The Lady Anna Dupree’s breeding was apparent in her every word and gesture: she was self-confident, commanding, and quick to anger--but she also possessed a loving heart and an active, ever-vigilant conscience. The Norman and Saxon blood had mixed to a wondrous effect in this tall, thin, raven-haired beauty. Women envied her high cheekbones, her sparkling black eyes, and her full rich, sensuous lips. Those lips, left men speechless before her.

The only daughter of a noble’s house, she had been spoiled since birth, her every whim catered to, that, had only increased her naturally domineering and self-centered personality. A strong inclination towards self-sufficiency and personal accomplishment was the only thing that kept this childhood pandering from becoming debilitating, and making her weak, and dependant.

Lady Anna was returning home from a unbelievably exciting, and mind opening trip to London. It was the first time in her life, she had left the confines of Warwickshire. She was delighted; she had been able to attend the wedding of her favorite cousin Edmond, and his darling sweetheart, Elizabeth Walsh. As a child she was in awe of the older Edmond, who had been her trusted companion, and protector on many a wayward misadventure, and co-conspirater in crimes of mischief. Anna still held a secret crush for this daring childhood companion. She had planned to tour the continent with this divine couple, on their honeymoon. But, word arrived just before their scheduled departure, that her beloved father, had taken ill. So she rushed home to be with him, in his hour of need.


The hypnotic drum of the rain nearly put Lady Anna to sleep. She set aside her treasured, first edition copy of Milton’s, “Paradise Lost,” closed her eyes and drew the warm wool blanket up around her shoulders.

She dreamed. It was twilight and a little caravan of roughly clad peasants marched along beside her, up a deep rutted, overgrown forest trail. At the head of this caravan were primitive two-wheeled ox carts. The carts were piled high with the stiffening corpses of the newly dead.

Soon the little caravan entered a clearing in the deep forest, a roaring bonfire at its center. Black-robed men climbed from the carts, and began hauling bodies from it. Loud moans and shouts of anguish arose like a obscene chorus. Accompanied by the constant sizzle, and crackle of the blaze. The uncanny black-robed figures threw corpse after corpse, into the bright flames, sending sparkling showers up into the air. Dead flesh began piling higher and higher, only to be slowly consumed by hungry flicking tongues of red and yellow light. The stench was unbearable, overwhelming. Even in her dream-state, Lady Anna became sick with nausea.

When the black-robed figures, had thrown the last stiff gray corpse upon the blaze, they turned in unison; raising there arms and pointing their fingers slowly, ominously at her. She backed up, forearms lifted in a warding gesture. The peasant crowd angrily moved in, gathering quickly about her, shouting accusations. 

“You did this!”

“She killed my baby!”

“Get her.”

“My dear husband, is dead!”

“Burn her!”

She tried to escape them, pushing and jostling to free herself from the enclosing circle of arms. “I didn’t do anything!” The Lady Anna protested. “Leave me alone! Get away! Stop it!”

The crowd mocked her, “She didn’t do anything.” They grabbed her roughly by the arms and legs pulling her from her feet, carrying her sideways between them, towards that flesh devouring inferno. She kicked, and twisted trying desperately to free herself from their grasp. Now they swung her back and forth, chanting in a mean spirited sing-song, “She didn’t do anything.” As they let go of her--she flew upwards and outwards in a high arc into the air, her momentum slowed for an instant at the apex, and then the heat began searing her flesh as she descended…

***

Four proud stallions drew the elegant, brass railed carriage through the thundering storm, sweat beading from their brows, nostrils flaring, their hooves gouging the muddy trail in a galloping rhythm that splashed muck up along their flanks and bellies.

She awoke with a start. Her face was flushed and heated. She put a hand to her breast, trying to still, her wildly beating heart. The scent of burning corpses seemed to linger distressingly about her in the air.

Lady Anna let out a long sigh, Oh God, she thought as looked out the window just as the carriage neared Harper’s, rumor-haunted cemetery. She watched little droplets of rain connecting and splitting apart, as they ran down the widow pane; forming intricate and unpredictable slippery patterns along its surface.

She could see that they were finally drawing near to the river port town, of Shipton-on-Stour. How different it looks to me now, she thought, as she watched scenes of rural life roll past her carriage window. Scenes that flowed with the memories of childhood, here were the little stone-ender cottages of the shepherds and farmers, now the mills, the docks and warehouses. The carriage rolled through the quiet of the night to the village square and stopped before the Red Lion Inn.


the vicar

In the heart of England there is a rift, known as the Cotswold Edge. It is a limestone escarpment, rising up to divide the land between the heights above and the depths below. The Highest point is Cleeves Hill, where the ancient long barrow, known as Belas Knap lies.

St. Edmonds, is a sixteenth century cathedral, in Warwickshire: it is built of a hardy yellow limestone, known as Cotswold stone. This stone has been a sought after building material, since the days the Romans walked this land, and even before. The nave of St. Edmonds is narrow, confining, almost tight. Stone pillars line the aisles, like trees along a forest road, leading one up to the raised altar.

Above the altar is a round, stained glass window. Every year on the feast day of St. Edmond, Sol’s golden light will shine gloriously down through those divided glass panes, illuminating the interior, at the appointed hour. Two brass bells will toll, from the high tower, sending reverberating waves of sound out into the expectant countryside.

Near the podium stands a heavy, sweaty man with a lisping, almost feminine voice. His name is Augustus Rudolph. He is a big man--with a small soul. His mind lusts after power. In his youth, he fled from the rigors and hardships of society, to the arms of mother church. There, to his surprise, he found others like himself who studied the occult arts.

There were things that went on in the abbey, things that no one ever talked about, things that as a young man had filled him with burning shame, actually making him shudder in disgust. Degrading and depraved acts that his superiors turned a blind eye to, if they did not actively endorse. He vowed to himself that he would never become like them. He had often felt pangs of guilt and remorse; mentally flogging himself for the sins he committed to gain favor, in the eyes of those who could be of use to him.

Yes, to be sure, he had once felt guilt, but he never tried to stop what was happening, nor did he ever refuse to play the role of willing accomplice. He nolonger feels shame, in fact his conscience had been silent for years, what's the use of speaking if no one ever listens? Besides, he had developed a taste, for the unsavory, the unwholesome. 

***

Augustus Rudolph had taken great pains to ensure that the parish church he was assigned to, was an ancient place of power, and directly aligned along the straight track from Avebury. How long had men worshipped on that very spot, only the standing stones that lined the way gave any clue, for nothing remained of the megalithic structure that once stood there.

The rain, could be heard, beating a steady rhythm on the stained glass windows, which lined the aisles of the tall, narrow, cathedral. One of the doors opened with a long, raking creak. The Vicar turned to see. A man stepped in, his light brown wool coat, pulled up over his head. He was drenched from the night rain. He dropped the collar of his coat back into place and closed the tall elaborately carved, cathedral door. It gave a heavy, clink and thud, as it closed firmly into place. His head bowed, he crossed himself and then approached the Vicar.

“Father, something has happened at the mausoleum.” The groundskeeper said, the strain apparent in his deep, gravely voice.

“Not grave robbers--again!” The Vicar said, with a cracking high note, of disgust.

“I think, you better come see for yourself,” the groundskeeper said.


***

The rain beat relentlessly upon him, his boots spashed through puddles, shimmering black in reflected moonlight. He walked, warily, along the trail that led to the nearby cemetery, he waved the lantern about from side to side, as if Lucifer might jump out of the ominous dark shadows of the ancient wood.

As they neared the mausoleum, the caretaker said “Look there, Father, em doors have been burst from the inside.”

“Nonsense!” The Vicar replied, irritated by the suggestion.

“I may not be educated like you, Vicar, but I know, what I know. If the doors were broken from the outside, the pieces would be on the inside.” He said firmly, lifting a remnant of one of the heavy doors. Then, lowering it, slowly down again upon the mausoleum steps. As if this proved his point, he looked up at the Vicar, with steadfast conviction in his eyes.

The Vicar looked down at him, shook his head with disdain, and then walked through the shattered remains of the unhinged doors. As he raised the lantern to examine the interior of the mausoleum, the sight that met his eyes made him gasp, involuntary, the hairs rising on the nape of his neck and forearms.


***


***



to be continued...

[Veronica Poe]

Nice way to build the story.  The imagery is very vivid, the narrative peaks your interest and makes one want to read more.

So where does this fit into the chronology, beginning or middle? I thought that the original Diary of Anna Dupree was very effective when she was going insane and we didn't know what happened to her.  My lone complaint would be that I don't quite know where this piece fits iin.