When I close my eyes, I see her face. She is consuming this place like rot consuming wood. The master is a shell now. I watched him at dinner tonight.
He barely ate, barely spoke. Just stared at nothing with eyes that seemed to see things the rest of us cannot.
After dinner, I saw him follow Deline up the stairs like a dog following its master. There is no other word for it. He has become her creature entirely. The other servants are leaving.
Two field hands ran last week. Marie packed her things and fled in the night 3 days ago. I know I should go, too, but something keeps me here. Maybe it's loyalty to the family I've served for 10 years.
Or maybe it's the terrible fascination of watching something unfold that I know will end in darkness. I feel like a witness to something important, something that needs to be recorded, even if I don't survive to see anyone read these words.
On June 18th, 1854, James Lavo made a decision that shocked everyone who knew him. He appeared before a notary in New Orleans and signed papers granting Deline her freedom. According to Louisiana law at the time, a slaveholder could manumit a slave under certain circumstances, though it required extensive paperwork and justification. The notary, the same Baptiste Chioalier who had recorded the original sale just 5 weeks earlier, noted his concerns in the margin of the manumission papers.
Mr. Lavo appeared in deteriorated condition, weight loss apparent, hands trembling, eyes unfocused. When I questioned whether he was certain of his decision, he responded, "She was never mine to own. I see that now. Some debts transcend property laws." He signed with a shaking hand and departed quickly, as though fleeing from something only he could perceive.
But freedom papers did not mean Deline left Bellamont. If anything, her presence became more dominant, more oppressive to those who remained. She now occupied Margarite's former rooms. She wore dresses from Margarite's wardrobe.
She sat at Margarite's place at the dinner table across from James, the two of them eating in silence while Celeste and the remaining servants watched with growing horror. June 30th, 1854. Celeste wrote, "She is the mistress now in every way that matters. The master does whatever she asks without question.
Yesterday, she told him to dismiss the overseer, a brutal man named Garrett, who has terrorized the field hands for years. The master did it immediately, giving Garrett 1 hour to gather his things and leave the property. When Garrett protested, threatening to report this irregular behavior to the authorities, the master just stared at him with those empty eyes and said, "You will leave now, or you will never leave at all." Something in his voice made Garrett go pale. He left without another word.
Later, I saw Deline standing on the veranda watching Garrett ride away. She was smiling. Not a pleasant smile, a smile of satisfaction, like someone checking items off a long list. I heard her murmur something I couldn't quite make out, but it sounded like "Five names left.
The reckoning continues." It was around this time that people in the surrounding community began to notice that something was wrong at Bellamont. Deliveries that were once received with polite efficiency were now met with hollow-eyed servants who accepted goods without conversation and hurried back inside. Social calls went unanswered.
Letters requesting James's presence at various business meetings were ignored. On July 4th, Independence Day, the entire district traditionally gathered for a celebration at the Devo plantation. James Lavo did not attend. When Etien Deo, the same man who had warned James at the auction, rode to Bellamont to check on his neighbor, he was met at the gate by Moses.
"You best not come up to the house, Mr. Devo," Moses said, his voice low and urgent. "Things ain't right there. Master ain't himself. And that woman, she's something else.
Something wrong." But Devo insisted, and Moses reluctantly led him to the main house. What the old planter found there disturbed him profoundly enough that he wrote a detailed account to his attorney, instructing it to be kept sealed unless he met with an untimely death. The house itself felt wrong, he wrote.
Despite the summer heat, the interior was cold. Not cool, but truly cold, like the temperature of a grave. The windows were shuttered despite the daytime hour, leaving the rooms in a perpetual twilight. I found James in his study sitting in the darkness.
He barely acknowledged my presence. When I asked after his health, he said, "I am learning, Etien. I am learning what I should have been taught long ago. That actions have consequences that echo through time.
That debts accumulate across generations, and that justice, when it finally arrives, is absolute and cannot be bargained with." I attempted to reason with him, to remind him of his responsibilities, his position in society. He laughed at this, a bitter sound devoid of humor. "Position," he said.
"Society, these are illusions, comfortable lies we tell ourselves to justify the unjustifiable. I see clearly now. The bill has come due." It was then that she entered the room.
Deline. She moved with a grace that seemed unnatural, as though her feet barely touched the floor. She placed a hand on James's shoulder, and I swear I saw him flinch, not in rejection but in something approaching ecstasy mixed with pain. She looked at me with those bottomless eyes and said, "Monsieur Devo, how kind of you to visit.