Skip knew all about the devil. He knew how to tell when he’d been around and messed with people’s minds. Women’s minds especially.

The crackles of the 78 are still heard on the CD, a miracle of technological limitations, and the mournful voice travels through a fog of sonic interferences, faint and frail like the voice of a ghost. The nimble, long-dead fingers pick at the lone guitar with unearthly precision. Skip fills the room with utter desolation, dropping intricate, melancholy notes into the void. The words come out mumbled and incomprehensible. I can only make out ‘devil’, ‘man’ and ‘woman’, but that’s enough to conjure up a powerful story of unspeakable evil, and the opaqueness of the lyrics only adds to the sense of unholy goings-on. The other-worldly voice casts its mysterious spell and takes us to the other side, to the darkness, to ancient times now lost, to the disturbing things that always hide in the past, to damnable deeds and a sorrow never soothed.

It is a song possessed. Skip knew about the devil and the devil won’t let him rest.

Pandora Blake had amnesia for a while. There are no known photos of her, except for one that appears to have been damaged in a fire. On that picture you can see she has long eye-lashes like spiders’ legs. She had a sister, Constance, who was wrongfully convicted of murder and later became a nun. Pandora was almost named Clémence by her mother. She can’t help wondering if her life would have been different had she been called Clémence. To read a short story by Pandora on the showcase section of this site, click here.

© 2009 Laura Hird All rights reserved.