Evil was beautiful.  The devil stared down at Claudia with the face of a china doll.  Claudia struggled to sit up, to get away.  The pain in her hand, which had woken her, was forgotten under the gaze of this creature of evil.

            “You’re alive,” The beautiful blond woman said.  She reached out and touched Claudia’s face with her bloody hands. It was Claudia’s blood but she did not particularly want it back. 

            Claudia grew still.  Like a frozen rabbit she felt her only hope was to be forgotten.

            “This place has killed so many people.  It’s hard to imagine.”  The woman smiled.  Her teeth were not perfect.  One was cracked and none looked properly cleaned.  This imperfection confused Claudia.  Not an angel of death then.  Angels would have perfect teeth to go with their perfect faces. “He throws us all down here and we die.  But you are alive, pretty, pretty little rich girl.”

            Then when Claudia didn’t respond the blond woman sat back against the wall behind her and began to clean her nails.

            Fear stilled and Claudia looked down at her hand.  It was wrapped in some cloth but she could see the blood ever so slowly spreading.  An arrow.  He shot me with an arrow. 

            “Stung by cupid’s bow, no worse harm than that.  Careful or that can kill just as well as any other shaft.”  The other woman said.

            The statement hit Claudia strangely.  It seemed love had burned far hotter and more painfully than her hand currently did.  Now it had changed.  Everything was different in this place.  Everything was different without hope.

            Her love was cold now.  It ran slowly through her veins like the recent off put of a glacier.  It was devoid now of passion and flame but not dead.  Ready to spring to life and burn her.  It roamed through her like a ghost not allowing her respite but not offering her hope either.  She wanted to believe in something but could not believe in him.  Her past trust and passion were far away, barely even a memory.  She could hardly recall any world but this.  Was there a world out there not pervaded with death and despair?  Was there a world with reprieve from pain?  It seemed she had never known one.  Her brief time of joy and security in his arms had been only a lie.  Even then hadn’t she been wary? Hadn’t she known deep down it was a fever dream, nothing to hold onto?

            Yet still he hummed around her nothing but a dull constant ache.  She’d always thought such a loss would stab, like an arrow, like cupid’s arrow.  She’d never suspected the slow constant bleeding that would come after.  She’d die of it but never know the passion of death nor of love ever again.  She was made for him and only him.  So her heart starved and died inside her.  But her brain had forgotten enmeshed in her current trials.  Both recoiled from a horror to immense to face.

            “I’m dead already.”  She murmured.  Her voice was soft and harsh like the cold hard rattle before death- and just as bitter.

            The woman’s blue eyes glittered.  Something about them was as dark as malachite.  They were the eyes of night hidden behind blue sky.  They were cruel and soulless with a howling wind so loud Claudia could barely hear her next words over the howl.  “You’re the one he intended to marry aren’t you?  You’re the only one who knows.”

            Why did she answer?  The dead do not speak.  There was no reason to fear or placate this porcelain doll with a blade.  “Yes, I am and no I don’t.  I know nothing anymore.  This is real so none of that was.”

            “Oh all of it was real.  When I see him I will rip his heart out of his chest.”

            Claudia stared in cold apathy.  Even the fear of death had fled from her now.  She searched for it and found nothing.

            “You loved him too.  None of the other’s did, whores and wretches hardly worth the skin they so quickly lost, but you and I loved him.”

            “Did I?” Claudia said.  “I suppose I must have.  My heart is bleeding to death it’s hard to recall anything.  I loved, oh, I loved.  I lusted.  Now it doesn’t matter.  That was miles up and it wasn’t death.”

            “You are a bit crazy already.” The woman said. Her smile was dazzling despite her teeth. 

            How did I ever think I was lovely with her in the world?  Claudia wondered.

            “Don’t worry I’ll take care of you.  You’re hungry and thirsty.  I know where to find the things you need.  I’ve been down here a long time.”  Her hand strayed down to a pouched at her side and rhythmically stroked it.

            Claudia lowered her eyes not able to gaze on evil any longer nor bear the strange beauty that lasted not only through poverty but imprisonment in hell.  It made her sleeping heart tingle.  Was it jealousy?  If it was it was too vague and distant to tell.

            “He told me, before he set me down here that he was going to marry you…you are the only one who’s come down here that he could have meant. I knew it was you the moment I saw you.  Your fancy dress and pretty ways.  At first…”

            You were going to kill me yourself, Claudia thought.

            “But you are the only one who could understand.  We understand each other you and I.  The rest of them are nothing and you’d do best to understand that.  They are gutter trash, whores and thieves…women of no worth to themselves or God.”

            “Or the devil,” Claudia stared straight at the blond devil angel as she said it.  She half expected flames to erupt.  She certainly didn’t doubt it.

            “My name is Eudora.”

            “Claudia.”

            “Now,” Eudora said, standing.  Her body moved like one long fluid line of fire.  It burned Claudia’s night starved eyes.  Eudora’s teeth gleamed like a wolf’s from her now superior height.  “Let us find you something to eat.”

            Claudia reached out her uninjured hand.  If I take the hand of the devil I’m lost, she thought.  But she was lost anyhow.  She was already in hell what did any further sin matter?  God had already judged her harshly and cast her down.  No chosen child of his could have ended up in hell no matter what the mechanisms of earth devised.  “I am one of the damned.”

Title Reference:
    *Shelly, Mary.  “Frankenstein” Penguin books USA inc. Co 1983: 136