“There is a house in New Orleans, they called the Rising Sun. It’s been the ruin of many poor girls, and God I know I’m one.” My once beautiful and elegant mansion had become a land of a fiery hell, burned by its very own flames. I was a wicked woman but I never considered myself a crazy woman. I always knew that I was very intrigued by the anatomy of a human at a very young age, specifically at the time that I accidentally cut my finger in the kitchen. As soon as the drop of blood oozed out from the tip of my finger, I was mesmerized. Looking back now, I knew that I had to do what I had to do. I couldn’t tell anybody. Hell, keeping it a secret was probably the best decision for me and daughters. I loved my daughters, and I was wrong to have gone down such a terrible road that lead them to their misfortune. They could have been fine ladies of New Orleans, but my mistakes have lead us to flee to Paris, where we are living in quiet and obscurity. However, I’ll never forget the first time that I started my secret little hobby. As I grew up to be a fine lady of New Orleans myself, I had never looked back at my little fascination I had as a little girl. I had gone to the market that Sunday morning to bring back a nice chicken for dinner. I had told Abigail to prepare some chicken pot pie for dinner and I wanted a fresh chicken. I normally don’t go to the market myself but I had wanted Abigail to start on the pie early and it was such a beautiful day outside so I figured, why not? I had chosen the plumpest chicken and had asked the farmer to chop the head off right there as it would make it a lot easier to carry home. When he slammed that butcher knife down that chicken’s head, I was hypnotized by the eruption of the chicken’s blood out of its neck. A tingle of excitement trickled down my spine as I realized that I have not witnessed such beauty in such a long, long time. My walk back to my mansion was much quieter than my trip to the market. I was thinking to myself the whole way back, how I haven’t felt that sensation since I was a little girl. I knew that I had wanted to continue this exploration of the human body and to take it even further up a notch. But how was I to do it? I cannot risk my reputation, a reputation that I had built in this town for so long. If I was to really do it, I had to keep it a secret. It would be a dark secret that no one would ever know. What about my husband? Should it be kept from him too? I think that for now that would be the safest decision. He should be back from Virginia tomorrow, so tonight would be the night for me to have my fun. That night, after dinner, I had tucked my girls to bed and had instructed Abigail to meet me on the upper floor of the mansion after she finished cleaning up dinner. As I made my way up there, my heart was pounding with nervousness and excitement. The rush of adrenaline overflowed my body as I approached the door. The upper floor was simply an unfurnished attic that I made the slaves cleaned out. There were a couple of chairs and some antiquated paintings stored in the corner but was pretty much an empty room at the time. I had planned to make it an art room for me and my girls to paint in the summer. “Is there something you wanted to show me up here, Madame LaLaurie?” Abigail was sitting on one of the chairs in the corner. Her eyes had a glint of nervousness and confusion.
“Yes Abigail, I had much trouble tryin’ to catch some sleep last night. I kept on hearin’ these noises from above, as if some kind of creature wanderin’ ‘round up here.” In my hand, I was holding a small club, and Abigail’s expression had a sense of relief after my false statement.
“I’m very sorry Madame LaLaurie, but I haven’t heard or seen anything since I’ve been up here. Are you sure what you heard came from upstairs?” “I’m sure I heard it came from up here. Can you move all these chairs and painting out of the way, it might be hidin’ in the corner somewhere. Be careful with the paintings.” Abigail turned around and had begun slowly moving the paintings out of the corner. Here was my opportunity, to catch her when she wasn’t looking. My heart had never beat so fast, and at one point I thought about forgetting the whole damn thing. Abigail had turned around once again, her back facing me. As she was slowly lifting one of the dusty wooden chairs, it was my perfect chance… “Madame, are all of these paintings up here the ones you-,”
A moment later, Abigail was lying on the floor unconscious. I had used all my strength on that one swing of the club. I stood there for a moment, catching my breath, absorbing the whole incident that I just created. It was too late to go back now. I picked up the old wooden chair that she was going to take and placed in the middle of the room, followed by dragging her body towards the chair. There was a small patch of redness that appeared from the back of her head, a small preview for the rest of the night. A trickle of ruby crept down Abigail’s neck. I caught the drop of blood on my finger before it hit her dress, and slowly smeared it on my lips, now all rosy and red. A jolt of adrenaline stimulated my whole body as I quickly made my way downstairs to grab my “instruments” for the night. . The upper floor would now be a restricted area for anyone, and I was still debating if I should explain everything to my husband when he came back, or am I going to have to kill him too if he took it the wrong way?
I reminded myself that not a single outside soul from town was to find out about what happened tonight, although I wasn’t so worried. It’s easy for two people to keep a secret if one of them is dead. It was unfortunate that Abigail had to be the one, but I had to pick the easiest. One of the others would have caused way too much trouble since they were very strong, and things could have gone terribly wrong. I had to have more experience before I could start using the others. Too bad, she made such a scrumptious pie tonight too.