Revising

So I'm working with my editor on edits for The South Star. Kyra Leigh Queen Bee, I promise I haven't died. I've just been insanely busy with moving and teaching summer school. And taking care of two rowdy boys.
I'm going through the novel, line by line, and wringing out emotions and a sense of place. I'm also editing student essays in class. We're talking about editing vs. revising, and I've realized that I'm revising my novel as well as my life. When you revise, you add and remove. You move things around. You rip the foundation out to build a stronger one. You get to the bare bones and see what you're made of. That's me. I'm a revising fool. The book, as well as my life, are improving. I even had my Muse Nat read some revisions. She said this time I've done it. This time it'll be a best seller. I also have Natalie tell me I'm pretty and to eat more cake. She's a good friend to have.

I thought you, my gentle readers, might like a sneak peak into the new and improved book since you're getting the down and dirty version of the new Lauren, too. You know, that girl who stress eats donuts and then complains about it? That girl who is freaking out as the new school year approaches and she doesn't have anything but substituting lined up. That girl who obsesses over Tom Hiddleston, but knows deep down that Tommy will only see me on Tumblr. That's me, the mess, trying to be the best. Hey! That kind of rhymed. Remember in high school and college when I got all that poetry published in literary magazines? Maybe I need to do that again.

Anywho, here's the revised chapter one to that book you've probably all forgotten about. Let's hope my agent remembers it when I send it back to her after a five month hiatus. And, yes Maragreg and Emily, the necromancer book is coming along, too. The next chapter will be up tomorrow. I'll be finishing it up while my poor students are taking the PSATs. Oh, and I get to grade those essays, too. Lucky me!

Let us go back to a fake, not-so-far-off place known as the modern Confederacy.

 





 

Chapter 1

 

“I have selected your husband,” Father said. 

My fingers tightened around the expensive linen napkin in my lap as I looked at my father across the empty mahogany table that could sit three dozen guests, even though we never had visitors besides the Lees. As always, it was just the two of us. My brother Robert was away at military school and my older sister Caroline was dead.

I took in a deep, steadying breath before I spoke. Every word must be measured. I knew how to make Father think I agreed with him, and how to also get my way. Father always got what he wanted, but I did, too. He thought I was his loyal subject, and I wanted to keep it that way for now. “I am too young. I—”  

             “You will do what I say if you want to live,” he said, cutting me off.

I gave him a rehearsed, placating smile. “Yes, Father,” I said, nodding. Father loved that I had moxie, but there was danger in having too much.

My father was infamous for his violate and murderous temper, and it wasn’t just his citizens and slaves that he killed.  Last year, he executed my sister Caroline, who I thought he loved, when he had never loved anyone but himself.  I was smart enough to believe his threat.  I hated that my hands shook as I placed them back in my lap, and that I had to roll my lips inward to keep from saying something snide back to him, but in order to survive, I had to appear meek. If Father thought I was on his side, he would continue to spare me. Caroline had made the mistake of making her distain for him known. I kept my hatred hidden. 

Father started to say more to me, but was interrupted by someone pushing open the doors to the dining room. General Michael E. Lee marched in, his boots echoing on the polished wooden floor. He stopped and stood next to a large oil painting of hundreds of slaves in stockades, the gruesome depiction of the last slave revolt over fifty years ago.

A descendent of Robert E. Lee had been at Father’s side since the dawning of the Confederacy. Michael Lee was almost seventy, even though his sons were a little older than me, Gunner by a year, Brig by two. I regarded Michael, trying to see how he could have been attractive once, but it was hard to see that through his weathered features, hunched shoulders, and thinning white hair.

The Lees lived at Arlington, the neighboring planation, and when the Lee boys and I were little, we spent much of our time there together, exploring the hidden passageways in the house, running through the fields, and playing in the gardens. Brig preferred Caroline’s company to mine, but I didn’t mind being left with Gunner. The four of us always knew how we were to be paired off once we’d came of age.  

I would never love Gunner, but I wouldn’t complain. He was nice, and I enjoyed his company. I could get out Brierfield, I could have the freedom to do what I pleased, and I’d be out of Father’s ever watchful scrutiny. I could be happy with Gunner. We could have a family and maybe, in time, we could learn to love each other. I was luckier than most women in the Confederacy. 

Father’s earlier statement of my impending marriage isn’t what shocked me. I’d always known who I would marry. The realty that it was fast approaching was what I did not like.

I focused my attention back on the conversation between General Lee and Father, who were discussing a threat that seemed to be more prevalent as of late.

            “I regret to report that there has been another attempted slave riot on a plantation in Mississippi,” General Lee said. “I knew you would want to be informed.”

Father leaned back in his plush dining chair as he ran his hand over his short, dark blond beard as he spoke. “I will not have another revolt. Give them harsher punishments, less food, and more work. They need to be reminded of their place. Make them suffer.”

Father paused and shared a smile with General Lee, and I tried to hide my cringe.

“Yes, President Davis,” General Lee said. He saluted my father again and sent me a sideways glance. After he left, I stared at the spot he’d just vacated, and studied the painting of that last great revolt while Father continued to sip his tea.

Slaves were treated with ruthless brutality and were nothing more than property. I had been taught this my entire life, but I didn’t believe it. Slaves were as human as the rest of us, but I kept this opinion to myself. While I was never cruel, I didn’t treat them with compassion. I had made that mistake once. When I was three years old, I had loved a slave, and my affection for him was the cause for his execution.

I turned back to my father, to the man who was responsible for so much death and hatred. Our hair was the same dirty blond, we had the same grayish-blue eyes and identical dusting of freckles across our noses. We looked so much alike and I despised it.

But we were different in one significant way. While I changed every day, my father hadn’t in over a century. He didn’t age. In actuality, Father was an ancient man, but he looked to be in his mid-thirties.

When he took over the country, he created his own religion, telling people he was so righteous that it made him a god. Out of fear or ignorance, people followed him. After that, Father said divine intervention made him immortal. And he was. In all these years, nothing had been able to kill him. I had a feeling something awful and unnatural had kept him this way, and I’d been wondering about his immortality for years. How had this man lived for so long when so many good people died every day?

“I have selected your husband,” Father said, repeating what he had said before, drawing me away from my thoughts. “I will make the announcement in a little over a week at the annual ball.”

“How soon will I be wed?” I asked.

He shrugged, like this day hadn’t been planned since before my birth. “I prefer it to be right away, but I will let you wait a while longer.”

“Will you at least tell me who my future husband is?” I asked, even though I already knew it must be Gunner Lee.

 “Daughter, you needn’t worry your pretty little self over it. Leave the thinking up to the men.” He patted me on the head like I was his pet.

“I am a woman, not an invalid. I’ll think whatever I damn well please!” I yelled, unable to maintain the facade of a weak, quiet girl. She was the opposite of my true self.

Father rose fast. I squared my jaw and glared at him as I readied myself for a slap that didn’t come. He had never hit me before, but I waited for the smack against my cheek, just like I waited for my imminent death.

He turned my chair to face him and took my chin in his hands, gripping so hard that his fingers dug into my skin. “You have spirit,” he said. “Caroline did, too, but she was passionate about the wrong things. She didn’t remember her place. And where is she now?” He moved closer, his face centimeters from mine. His breath smelled like the tea he always drank, like rotting earth and decay. He waited a beat for me to respond, but I refused. “Dead,” he whispered the word, his mouth turning up in a grin.

I glanced away from him, not wanting him to see the hard hatred in my eyes. I looked out the large bay window, to Brierfield’s plantation. Just beyond the fields of tobacco was the lake where my sister remains would forever be buried beneath the water.

Almost a year ago Father had our former nanny, Harriet, gag Caroline and tie boulders to her feet. I begged Father to spare my sister, but then he threatened to throw me into the lake, too. I’m ashamed to admit it, but I didn’t protest after that. I had and always would look out for myself first. It was the only way to stay alive.  

Father told me to go to Caroline and say goodbye. She was lying on the grassy shore of the lake, about to be killed, but she was smiling as she look up at the rising sun. “Don’t cry, Banner,” she said. “I’m not dying, but going to a better place.” She grabbed the lacy front of my dress and pulled me down to her, so she could whisper, “Look in the Northern Acres.”

Before she could explain more, Father yanked her away from me, threw her over his shoulder, and tossed her into the deepest part of the lake. I did nothing to stop it as I watched her sink. Even now, I had to bite the inside of my cheek to keep from crying. It wasn’t only because I missed my sister, but because I had been such a coward. I valued my own life more than my sister’s.

It took me months of searching, but I soon discovered what Caroline had hidden for me in the empty Northern Acres. Buried in a hollowed out tree stump were rolled up copies of The South Star, an abolitionist newspaper that was named after a prophesied slave boy who was supposed to form a rebellion against my father and liberal the slaves.

The newspaper wasn’t the first time I’d heard about the South Star. He was who people spoke about in secret, a powerful child who would save us all. The slaves were forced to belong to the Church of the Confederacy, but they had their own religion, full of sorcery and spells. I had always believed Father must be using some sort of magic to stay alive, and the South Star was supposed to have magic of his own, enough to kill my father. But The South Star was dead. My father made sure of it.

The grandfather clock in the hall chimed, drawing me away from my thoughts of the South Star. Father stood and spoke. “I must go. I am needed in my Cabinet meetings.”

At the door that led into the West Wing, Father was joined by his guards and escorted from the room. He might be feared, but he also had endless enemies. He killed the ones he knew about, but he had others. Since the only family members and the Lees were allow inside Brierfield, Father was always unprotected here.

I stared at Father’s tea cup, where a rim of brown stained the inside of the white china. I was supposed to be the most powerful woman in the Confederacy, but everything I did and said was monitored. I had no say in who I married, and I had to wonder why Father was being so secretive about it. Maybe he had someone else in mind for me. And if he did, I would have to accept it.  

I grabbed Father’s cup and hurled it against the navy wall. My hands shook as I swept my arm over the tabletop, knocking the dishes and silverware off. I sank to the floor, among the broken china and brought my knees up to my chest. I closed my eyes against the stinging tears and reminded myself I had to marry Gunner and I wouldn’t complain. This was my life and there was nothing to be done around it. I let myself cry for a moment, to wallow in my heartache before wiping my cheeks dry when I heard the door to the dining room open.

A few moments later, Nellie, my personal slave rushed into the room. Nellie was seventeen, petite, and slender. Her skin and eyes were the same light brown hue. Since she worked in the house, she wore a white dress and matching head wrap.

This wasn’t the first time she found me like this, breathing hard and staring down at something I’d destroyed. With her glove-covered hand she patted me on the arm before she went to work. Slaves were never allowed to touch us with their bare hands. We were taught that slaves could infect us with decease, but I never believed it.

As Nellie gathered up the broken pieces of china, I ran out the front door, yanked off my boots and stockings, leaving them where they landed. The lush grass of the front lawn was cool against my feet as I focused on the hazy, humid afternoon. My breathing was difficult and shallow as I felt Brierfield’s oppressing structure behind me. I needed to get away and clear my head, and the best place to do that was the creek. It was almost a mile from the house and so remote and far away from everything else that I could strip naked and sink into the calm, clear water.

I decided to take a shortcut through the slave quarter. The slaves were in the fields or the house by this time of day, so no one would be there now. I moved down the yard and towards the creek, until I heard a noise that made me stop.

A sound cracked through the air—like a clap of lightening.  The noise came again and again, and after a moment’s confusion, I knew what it was. A slave was being whipped, and for a second I was taken back to the first time I witnessed someone being wiped. At the time, I was only three years old, but I had never forgotten it because the slave being punished was my first friend.

I was too young to save that slave and I was too powerless to stop my own engagement, but maybe I could do something to stop this. I could control something.

I sped up my pace as I skirted one of the slave’s shacks and made my way to the whipping grounds. A male slave, who looked to be around nineteen, was tied to a large post. His arms were drawn above him, his tense muscles straining against the chains. The skin of his back was obscured by dark blood that glistened in the morning sun. I stopped short, shocked at what I was seeing. I had almost forgotten how slashed skin looked, how gruesome and degrading it was to be stripped and beaten.

I flinched when the whip struck him again. Most people would cower and cry while being whipped, but the boy turned his head to glare at the man who was doling out his punishment as he waited for another blow. He was defiant and brave, whereas I’d become a coward, afraid to speak, even in my own house. I wanted to be like him, to fight against my father and everything else I hated.

“Do you understand me now, boy?” Clancy, Brierfield’s plantation foreman, demanded. He yanked the slave’s head up by the short roots of his hair.

The slave didn’t answer. Instead he pushed himself to his feet, turned, and spat right into Clancy’s face. Then he grinned, a smile of white teeth that were stained with his own blood. Everything went silent as Clancy reached for the pistol on his belt. I knew what would happen next.  

My heart beat in my throat as I struggled to find my voice. “Stop!” I yelled after an extended moment. I gathered up the skirt of my pink calico dress and ran. I pushed Clancy away from the slave and the foreman fell to the ground. I knelt down next to the slave and placed my hand on his shoulder.

He turned to me. His eyes were an astonishing mix of green and brown. Staring into them, I almost pulled away, because of the burning malice in his gaze that wasn’t directed at Clancy, but at me.