Night of the Banshee

Night of the Banshee
  
     Apples blush red with touches of green like love in its callow youth too young for Hades yet plagued by Stygian hearts. Rowena’s thighs are muscle-bound from hard labor.         
     John and Rowena take up serfdom to harvest apples for a feudal lord. Their vassalage collects them pounds and pence for the season when crops are lean.         
     The apples are made luminous by dew drops. Ro says, “Here let me feed you some.” With her hand stretched out in friendship he bites into the flesh of her offering. A smile illuminates her face as he chews the sweet pulp.         
     “Mmmm. The apple proffered by thy hand is the sweetest from the tree. Let me savor this hour with you.”         
     They feed each other in a harvest feast, partaking of the forbidden fruit meant for the market. Their lips glisten with the evidence of their eating. But they are taste testing the product before it reaches the street vendors. And at their slave wages, they deserve a little bonus.         
     Ro says, “Liken unto the Rowan Tree, thou art my protection who keeps me unsullied. Suitors have drawn nigh upon our threshold but none further because thy oaken fist brings their desist.”  
       “Ours is no drunkards waltz with the mead as our instructor.” The peach blossom sky blushes as the sun withdraws his fingers from Rowena’s tresses.
     “My noble knight, a fallen woman crossed my path with the direst news. She laid claim to having known your brawn whilst we were betrothed. Of course, I dismissed such gossip as the fantasies of a jaded lover gone awry. But her waggish tongue told a tale which only a fly on the wall could know of our fashion when sans apparel. Tell me that she is a madwoman and there is no more substance to her ramblings than a ghost under the Samhain moon.”      
      “I must confess to having had the oddest encounter one night when the hounds bayed across the moors. A woman approached me in a courtly manner and proposed that we share ale in a nearby tavern. Her bearing seemed noble and a brew innocent so I joined her among the beer-soaked gents. She also spoke of the very same things which lovers keep secret between each other.”         
     Rowena replies, “A banshee has made her appearance round these parts. This particular spirit preys on husbands because her man died in a war with our clan.”         
     John says, “The notion of a banshee reaping husbands is more than passing strange.”         
     The plum red sun sinks silently. Ro gathers apples in her basket. She ties her locks into braids. She replies, “You stood a shrouded chance of never facing my music in your earthly flesh. You see she could have brought to bear her might upon you in a ghoulish way whereby you taste death so strongly that you succumb.”         
     John says, “You speak of this wraith with the intimacy of a woman who knows ectoplasm like kitchenware.”         
     Rowena replies, “My father ran afoul of fate in his last battle with the opposing clan. My wail lent itself to mourning on unnatural haunts. I found sustenance in pies women left out as offerings for me to Passover their households. But a life of grief weighed heavily upon me. I foreswore weeping and gnashing of teeth. This Banshee’s stab was aimed at my heart for our marriage to be routed by rumors of your frailty cast like dandelion seed to choke out the flowers in our garden of love. She desires to kill two birds with one stone, my heart and your life.”       
     John says, “What a savage heart to wreak vengeance so cruel.”         
     Rowena replies, “Do not speak such words for her tit did not make me tat. Never think of me that my affections are so easily swayed.”         
     John says, “Nor are mine subject to the spook of such a raven.”         
     Rowena replies, “Such a cat is not worthy of my claws. Just keep thy trousers on when I am absent and all seams will stay sown.”         
     “Can you ferret out an antidote for her arsenic laden blood?”       
     “She has a voyeur’s heart which I fed with a recitation from my diary on our love life. She wouldn’t take any other form of recompense. Please forgive me. Besides she left her petticoat buttoned with you so she told me. Now, unlace my corset so I can remediate your unsung chivalry.”