by Nikki Posthumus
Revenge is barren of itself: it is the dreadful food it feeds on; its delight is murder, and its end is despair. — Friedrich Schiller
Jennie Donnelly sat at her kitchen table, wrapped in her warmest, darkest shawl. It was not quite midnight, yet she could already feel that all too familiar tingling across her skin that let her know things were set in motion. She shivered again and wrapped her hands around her teacup to chase away the cold. Lord, if only this could have been done during the warmer months. But she knew that to ensure the house would be full, and for her small army to track any getaways, there would need to be a generous amount of snow on the ground. Jennie lit her second black wax candle and began to sprinkle various herbs over the burning flames, going from one candle to the next and back. Jennie closed her eyes and let her spirit reach out, out to the angry mob marching towards her family home.
She immediately felt the surge of hatred the townsfolk directed at the other members of her family. Felt the rush and excitement, and slight arousal, of the men with pitchforks, torches, axes, and hammers. Jennie squirmed in her seat as she felt the movement of the mob through the fields and small woods as though her own legs were doing the long trek. She smiled, dark and twisted, in her dimly lit kitchen as she watched and felt the mob growing closer and closer to the homestead. Finally, her twisted family would no longer be haunting her dreams.
Jennie Donnelly was conceived while her father was on the run after murdering Patrick Farrell, a neighbour. She had not even met the man she was supposed to call her father until she was seven years old, when he was released from prison. And the rest of the family was no better – always in trouble with the law or the neighbours, running around town and giving the family an even darker name than that which had followed them from Ireland. The “Black Donnelly’s” indeed. Jennie felt anger well up in her chest, the all too familiar pain of feeling outcast and forsaken by her peers and her community. And it was all her family’s doing! Well, she would be rid of them in just a couple of hours.
It really was all too easy to turn the townsfolk against her family; her brothers, and their shenanigans basically did all the work for her. All Jennie had needed to do was drop a few hex bags behind the beds of some of the men in town, and have some good old “herbal” tea with their wives, oh, and also with Father John Connolly, the fool. How easy it had been to direct his descent into madness! She had not even needed to whisper the ideas of a mob in his ear; the man had come up with his little “Vigilance Committee” on his very own. Jennie thought of the possibility of colluding with the good Father on another job, after this whole business with her family was over.
Focusing on the mob again, Jennie’s body swayed ever so slightly back and forth, while her mind travelled miles away. A slight murmur came from her lips, a chant from a long-gone religion, got louder and louder as the angry mob approached the cabin. She felt their increased heart rates as they approached the side entrance off of the kitchen. She could see the fear in her brother, Tom’s eyes as he woke up handcuffed in bed, and she saw the little O’Connor boy hiding under the bed. She worried for a moment about the boy, but let her worries drift. What judge or jury would believe the word of a little boy over the words of some of the most prominent men in town?
Jennie sneered in satisfaction as she watched Tom get dragged back into the house after a harrowing attempt to escape. This may not have been what the townsfolk had believed they were setting out to do when they started their collective march towards the Donnelly homestead, but this is what she had been pushing them towards all along. All she had really needed was that first hint of violence and her control over the mob had been complete. Jennie watched as her minions set the house ablaze and felt nearly God-like.
After all, why shouldn’t she? Poor, sad little Jennie Donnelly, the black sheep of the community she had wanted so desperately to blend into, and now outranked it. Jennie snickered to herself as she realized the irony that they were all now more a part of her, as she guided them psychically towards her brother, William’s house. Here, she left the crowd to finish the job on their own. She was certain enough that even the thickest amongst them could execute the same plan a second time – oh the headache that could have been avoided if she’d had the gift of hindsight!
But alas, the deed was done; enough Donnelly blood was spilled to keep the townsfolk sated. Now Jennie was far enough away from home not to have to be concerned about the curse of the Donnelly name following her. And she finally had the peace and revenge she so desperately had been seeking. As for the townsfolk that had been her eyes and hands, she’d keep them protected; she had enough Rosemary in her bundles to keep her minions safe. After all, one never knew when next she’d be in need of an angry mob.
