20 May 1869
My dearest Philomena has been gone for thirty days. Or has it been forty? Forty-five? I have long lost interest in keeping count. Is there even a purpose in counting anymore? I have gained a confidence with my assumptions that she will never return; it is better this way.
Women like Philomena are unicorns trapped within the confines of human flesh: they are kind and pure creatures that deserve to frolic freely in beautiful, heavenly pastures rather than being held captive my man's ugly hands. I pray the unicorn within her heart has sprung free now that she is no longer imprisoned in this hell with me, no longer forcing herself to care for my new, wretched form in a place where our love no longer exists. Despite our marriage, and our child she carries, I pray that she can—who is to say she has not already—find a man to cherish, love, and protect her just as I once did.
With every passing day that she is gone, this great manor we built together falls further into a maddening darkness and an even more maddening silence.
With every passing day, madness thickens. It infects.
If being damned into becoming a monster has not already thrown me into the bowels of insanity, then this silence, darkness, loneliness, and boredom will surely have me slaughtered by the end of the month.
~Edgar IgnatiusCushing
YOU ARE READING
The Monster and the Butterfly
Historical FictionWhitechapel, London 1894. Sophie Wickes and her family struggle to survive, melancholy eats away at her father more and more with each passing day, and her passion for cultivating flowers brings no income. She must swallow her pride and set aside he...
