The Tormented Goddess

The Tormented Goddess
             
             
Sarah Saint-Hilaire

The Tormented Goddess

From the Series:

The Thorns of Life

By: Sarah Saint-Hilaire

Published in 2012

C
hapter One

             
This story begins long ago
when
people demand
ed
their freedom, but chaos stroke and the oligarchy fell into the hands of the anarchist mass.
There lived this
devoted old slave; she was wrinkled with as many folds on her face as hairs on her head, owned by the once powerful Singleton family. Gifted or cursed in her eyes to see the future she acted as
their
oracle,
bringing them fortune and richness beyond the reach of the
human
eyes. With this she earned a place of high standing gaining the affection of the family. When the proximity of a possible freedom was approaching, the very idea to leave her owner
s
as
game
to the
voracious
mass gave her remorse
, thus she aided them to flee.

             
Escaping a ce
rtain death their fear pushed them to venture to a distant island virgin from the impurity of men. This paradise was Atlantis, abundant with its dense divine fauna and blue waters, filled with endless creatures of the sea they were at last safe. The Singleton ever grateful to have survived bowed in appreciation for their fragment of the heavens on earth, but those hearts who were once blackened with money could never tame their hunger for more. Thus for more they asked.
“We would like a daughter from the heavens to share our happiness with us on this mortal paradise.” They praised the old woman. “Then you shall have whatever desire you want, freedom, wealth, anything. You have blessed us with sons but we crave for a daughter.”

             
This offer seemed fair, thus she begged the heavens for a girl with no match in
beauty;
Apollo granted her request but in punishment to have brought these dark souls to his encha
nted annex on earth
punished her by pouring the future into her old head, killing her painfully and
lethargically
. The only appeasement was writing them down, but such method only lasted a mere year. Condemned to her death bed the Singleton asked for her last will. Breathing her last breath she murmured “Burn the scriptures, burn them all, if you wish to remain with the mortals, listen
to me or you will suffer for many dreading centuries as I have with your daughter's birth.” She then died leaving the family in dispute
. The daughters’ father loved this woman as his
own
mother, a twisted affection in his wife’s eyes
creating jealousy. With the knowledge of controlling the universe of defeating time
she sought out the only possible resolution to her prospect mischief, she was to abscond
.

             
When the full moon pronounced it
self
in the clear night sky she gathered the manuscript and the infant
:
gift
of the heavens
she bore for nine
months, a priceless child named after the goddess of beauty Venus. Nestled on to a Scandinavian ship built to withstand all the ill tempers of Neptune, fashioned from the Viking people of the not too distant future, they made their way into the Mediterranean Sea. Fate turned against the traitorous, the storms grew furious, and the
invincible
ship failed. As the woman
attempted
to escape the sinking boat with her new born
,
her
ankle
slid
,
thus locking her to sink with the ship. She threw her child aboard a small raft and prayed her safe journey.

             
Gasping for air the warm salty water rushed down her throat ending her days and triggering the curse. As being the first victim her soul would be enslaved in the underworld as long as the manuscripts are not destroyed. Buried in the cold depths of the sea they would remain. Venuses raft managed to find its way safely after the seas took its prey. She arrived on the old shores of the once great city of Rome as a merchant was passing by, her cries of fright and hunger pushed the pity of the good lonely man to take her as his. As opening the basket the baby appeased her cries and stared with her golden eyes towards her new father
observing his
features. Wearing a humble tunic his young grey hair shimmered in the morning light bringing laughter to the infant and happiness to the merchant heart.
The chain on the
child’s
fragile neck indicated her name on a silver plate
“Venus” he read “and so she must stay.” Keeping her name and carrying the girl with him back to his home he admired the world with a new light, the light of a father.
He headed to Gaul with his new daughter, taking her everywhere
on the Eurasian continent where he had business. Growing into a stunning young lady, wise and bright, she filled her father’s loneliness.

             
“Papa” she asked as they reached the peak of a
cliff
staring into the count
r
y
“Don’t you find the view
beautiful?”

             
“Ah, but nothing is more beautiful than my Venus.” He gladly stated.
“I am growing into an old man and believe it is time for you to find a husband.”

             
“I will love no man greater than my father, and find myself too young to be wed. Why don’t you find a wife instead of me having to leave you? I could not bear it, that is why I accompany you, so why get rid of me.”

             
“My dear you are right, I presume I am still young enough for a woman to want me, but one day you shall be wed as well or you shall suffer the same loneliness I have before finding you.”

             
Settling in the Italian countryside, in a wooden house the Merchant decided to take in a wife as his daughter suggested, but he had the misfortune of
choosing a woman with the heart of a snake. The woman
green of
jealous
y
of Venus’s beauty and bewitching intelligence wished by all means to get rid of her. With her new husbands advancing age she feared that all his fortune would go to his daughter,
furious
she decided that her greatest desire must be accomplished, Venus must die! The
cold hearted
woman burnt the
ir cottage with the young Venus sleeping inside. Happily waiting her rivals death the merchant arrived
home unexpectedly seeing the whole scene he tried to rescue his loving daughter but the horrific flames killed him. As he died he cursed his wife that she shall suffer the worst possible death. The night
claimed
its victim once again.

             
The fumes of the fire blew away
by
daybreak, but the night forgot a soul for Venus was intact. As the old slave warned long ago on her death bed, all of the manuscripts must be destroyed for the family to remain mortals.
After the curse claims its first victim the rest of the Singletons when they meet their death has
their
soul and body condemned to immortality. Being twenty years of age Venus was forever trapped in the human
body’s
height
of energy, but the remaining members of the family died of natural causes leaving them trapped in their rotting flesh.
Growing insane of the horrendous state of their corpse they performed
insane rituals in the hope of gaining back their mortality, the insanity of their sect is to grave to speak of.

             
Awakened to find her fathers blackened by the flames her humanity shattered when it came to dealing with the murderess.
The
merchant’s
wife was convicted for
witch craft, and the cruel woman did indeed suffer a death fit for her crime. She was burnt at the stake encountering an equivalent intensified pain as her dead husband had
. Venus watched her body obliterate into dust till the very end.

Haunted by her memories, she began to suffer from visions of her past. With the intensification of this sinister event she sought out refuge but when the dark ages of war past by her village her suspicions where only confirmed, for she was immortal. Pushed to depart her decaying home to avoid any suspicion she travelled as the merchant her father was.

             
The lustful endless style of life gave her the opportunity of becoming the most educated woman roaming the earth. With the money she made in various domains, she schooled herself into the world’s greatest institutions of our past.
Excelling in mathematics,
medicine
, battle
tactics
, law and a multitude of other domains her favorite of all was humanities. Being lifeless gave her a
desire to know everything concerning this mystic event. Her gender never diminished her opportunities even though she lived in an era of inequality between the sexes, with her charm and compassion to knowledge she was irresistible. Since the creation of the University of Oxford she came almost every century, this particular time coincided with the education of the Charleston’s near the sparking debut of the Edwardian era.

C
hapter Two

             
Frederic Charleston was off to his second year at oxford, as for Edward the second his youngest brother, being the most brilliant student of his
elite he managed to get himself a high standing position at the University. Having an ancestry of bankers, their father Edward the first sat on a fortune, which he maliciously tracked down to the very pence. The eldest Daughter Victoria, doted of bleached curls and an over tightened corset, was
in line
to be married to her father’s associate, being twice her age this arranged marriage was emplaced to avoid suspicion of her
becoming an old maid, and as well to save the family honor tarnished by Frederic.
Though the engaged couple’
s marriage was to be in only months’
, she already envisioned herself as the youngest widow of England. The pilling colds within the family did not trouble natures thrive for teasing those you love, an aspect constantly reminded by Victoria’s siblings. The last child of the family was Juliet, little Julie could still count her age on her fingers, her innocence and kindness charmed everyone under the illusion that she was an angle, but the
y
seemed to always forget those
literal
corns sprouting
through her skull, present in every child’s height of youth.

             
The story begins in the auditorium of the University, with all the students and professors assembled the institute’s directo
r began a new year by barking
a few words on the technologies acquired by the establishment. After the non-ending welcoming lectures the students where summed to the gardens, where stood tables gorging of treats, scones and sweet tea. With the women’s suffrage sliming the access to superior education, due to some radical irrational movements which ruined everything for anyone else, Venus could not officially obtain her
admittance. Meeting with a professor with the pretext that she was in need of a historical clarification took the opportunity to demonstrate her highly developed cultural knowledge, the professor enchanted by her wits sought no harm in discreetly admitting her into the department.

             
Venus was walking out of the flower gardens towards the terrace and tea table, where she crossed Edward. Bewitched by her beauty he ran to his brother to inform him on his discovery.