The Pin Cushion

TW: sexual violence, suicide, blood

This will end with me. I will make sure of it. 

The name Beatrice circles this house, hushed whispers from the servants or rebellious words from classmates. Stories of great great grandmother Beatrice, who pricked her hand on a pin cushion before killing her husband. An accident, it must have been, and yet as I hold velvet, the blood of my ancestors screams wrath.

Something insignificant became tradition with her daughter Amelia. The girl waited in the sewing room while the vile act was committed, playing with her dolls, when she noticed the stray needle. Blood soaked into the carpet, more than possible for a simple prick. Unsure what to do, she found the pin cushion, and stuck the stray needle into it, sealing the blood of her mother in it. She would forget it until adulthood. Her uncle raised her for the rest of her years in the house, allowing her to talk to her dolls before him. New blood in the velvet of the pin cushion would be the only thing she left behind before fleeing, avoiding a marriage she never hoped for.

A tradition began with her. A prick of blood, in exchange for courage. Or perhaps lunacy. Whispers began, that insane family on the top of the hill, committing vile acts with the help of satanic sacrifice. My mother never much believed it, but when grandma Florence died with her female lover, new blood on the cushion, she sealed it away in Beatrice’s room. Clearly, it had not been touched since her spur of fear, for cobwebs lay in the crevices, and the stale air of something forgotten released as a seal when I broke in. three pricks from my ancestors, blood dried into the stuffing.

Before Florence was her sister Hazel, crazy since birth. Rumor is she had killed the boys she danced with, thinking them better of the actions they displayed that day. The studio she frequented was closed down,  the pin cushion being returned to our family before the police could muster any details of the attack.

I pull out a pin with a black top, clean as a dried cake. Relief floods through me, for I’m not sure I could continue after seeing blood. It would add a realness to my situation I could not handle. Even now, months away, I feel his hands on me, grasping under the safety of my dress. Despite what mother might say, I only wear trousers, and refuse to leave the house. I have not attended my lessons in quite a long time now, even so close to graduating. Think of what they will say about us now. Our reputation is already terrible enough.

I don’t see why she worries. The stories and the insults flung at us, they will never end. Our family has clearly never much cared for what others think. Her worrying will only be the thing that kills her. It is not noble, nor is it clearing her nature. She has thought of this cushion just as much as the rest of us. 

She worries that I will never find a suitable husband with our family history following us. She might be right. But it certainly does not stop the worst of men from waiting on our doorstep, raping the women of the house in the dark, leaving them by dawn, something they never wished for growing in their womb. No, apparently that is what we deserve.

A knot grows in my hardening stomach, vomit threatening to spill on the antique carpet. At dusk, the carpet looks blood red. I wish to turn on a light, but no electricians have renovated this room, leaving it to rot in its own history. The pin swirls between my thumb and index finger. Shaking, my right hand reaches up to my left. If I do not do this now, never again will I be willing.

The pain comes rushing in as fast as the blood. My pale skin streaks with it, a bright color contrasting the death that follows this house. Before I become too dizzy, I push the pin back into the cushion, adding blood to the artificial flesh. Despite my doubts, a feeling of courage spreads through my veins. I know what I must do.

Along with the pin cushion resting on her nightstand, our family has kept great great grandmother Beatrice’s dagger, tucked away under her pillow. The room is a museum, displaying our shame in a suspended prison. That’s how I’ve always thought of it. But with the blood running down my finger, deep enough to bleed for some time, a newly realized feeling of warmth comes to me. This is protection. Beatrice was not crazy, she was the most sane of them all. 

Her dagger is small, something for a child. No doubt she had stolen it from a servant or common boy, for there’s no reason for a woman to possess something such as this. Unlike the pins, the dagger has been scrubbed of any blood. The murder could be nothing but a story, a silly tale passed down by the townspeople. But the weight of it tells me something different.

I lay on the bed she once did, watching the still curtains on the bed frame. I wonder how long it’s been since they’ve flowed in the wind, if the windows could even open if I tried. Nothing has changed in this room, staying eerily the same as it was more than one hundred years ago. Nothing changes. The men are the same, and so are the women. And yet we are the lunatics, for breaking out of this insanity.

My baby will never experience this world. She will never be subjected to what our women have, to what all women will someday know. She is safe with me. She is lucky enough to know the legacy of our women, rather than the shame that comes with becoming one. The blood on my finger joins what is flowing down my wrists, courage flowing into a sense of peace.