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The Vanished Bride Shaina Tranquilino September 16, 2024

The story of my mother’s disappearance had become the stuff of legend in our small town. She vanished on her wedding day, slipping away from the reception like a shadow, leaving behind a confused husband and a lifetime of questions. I was only a baby, cradled in her arms during the ceremony. For years, people whispered about her—some saying she’d run away, others that something more sinister had occurred.

Growing up, my father never spoke of her. The wedding photos were removed from the house, her belongings stored in dusty boxes in the attic. I was raised by my father and grandmother, two ghosts who pretended the past was a forgotten dream. But it wasn’t forgotten. Not by me.

On the day of my twenty-first birthday, I found the letters.

It was a stormy night, and the attic had always held a strange pull for me. My father was out of town on business, and the house was eerily quiet, save for the rain tapping against the windows. I climbed the creaky stairs and sifted through the old boxes until I found one with her name on it: Presley Beckford.

I hesitated before opening it. The scent of aged paper and lavender lingered in the air as I carefully pulled out an old bridal veil, brittle with age, and a stack of yellowed envelopes tied with a faded ribbon. They were addressed to my mother in handwriting I didn’t recognize, and each one was dated a week before her wedding day.

I untied the ribbon and began reading.

The first letter was brief: “My dearest Presley, I know you love him, but you cannot marry him. There are things you don’t understand, things that would ruin you if they came to light. Meet me at the old chapel before it’s too late.”

It was signed only with the initials J.H.

The letters that followed grew more frantic. Whoever J.H. was, they were desperate for her to call off the wedding, warning her of secrets hidden in my father’s past. He spoke of betrayals, of dangerous lies, of a promise broken long ago. I couldn’t reconcile the man in these letters with the father I’d known my whole life. But the final letter was the one that stopped my heart.

“Presley, If you go through with this, everything will fall apart. I have done everything I can to protect you, but I can no longer stay silent. I know you’ve kept our daughter’s birth a secret from him, but soon the truth will come out. Please meet me tonight at the chapel. This is our last chance to escape.”

I dropped the letter, my hands trembling. Our daughter? I was born before the wedding? My father wasn’t my father?

The pieces began to fit together in a sickening clarity. My mother hadn’t simply vanished on her wedding day—she had run. But not alone.

I rushed to the old chapel on the outskirts of town, my heart pounding. It had long been abandoned, overgrown with ivy and forgotten by time. I pushed open the heavy wooden doors, the scent of damp stone and decay filling the air.

There, in the flickering light of my flashlight, I found an inscription etched into the stone wall behind the altar: “Presley Beckford, 1972-1995. May you rest in peace.”

A chill ran through me. I knelt, brushing away the dirt, revealing a hidden compartment in the floor. Inside, I found a small box. Inside that box was a photo—my mother, standing beside a man who wasn’t my father. J.H., I realized. The letters had been from him, my real father.

I pieced together the truth that had been buried for so long. My mother had fled the wedding to be with the man she truly loved—the man she had already had me with. But something had gone wrong. Perhaps they had been caught. Perhaps my father, the man who had raised me, had discovered the truth.

And in that moment, I knew—she hadn’t just disappeared. She had been silenced.

The letters had led me here, to her final resting place, hidden in plain sight.

I left the chapel, the rain washing away my tears. The truth had been uncovered, but justice was still waiting.

I would make sure it found its way.

IM OK WITH BEING THE VILLAIN!!!

One of the things that life seems to keep me on my toes about is that not all people are going to like you. Thats kind of obvious at this point. But! What is not obvious is that people wont like you just for the sake of not liking you!

I have come to the understanding that, people have this notion, I have probably said it before in another post that. People really do think that the world is supposed to operate the way they perceive it to be. That the world is a one size fits all case. Which, we should know by now that it is not!

I bring all of this up because my sister recently had a conversation about me with some other family members. In a vague dismissive kind of way but in a way! I have a very short fuse when it comes to people I trust and I fuck with. These family members and I have burned bridges, each of us on our own side with one another. And well! It is what it is.

ON November 14th I had found out that my great aunt had passed way! She and I had a very good understanding about one another. Or! At least this is what I think. She was born in the 60's and grew up in the 70's and raised children in the 80's and late 90's. Which this means she had seen the epidemics that effect Harlem and other places in America. Although she is my great aunt I knew her as my aunt. The ranking system in my family is a little messed up. I'll probably discuss that in another post.

Knowing who my aunt is, it greatly saddens me that she's no longer here with us. As a spiritualist, I don’t grieve for her in ways that other people do. I grieve because I know she must have been lost and sad and scared in her transition over. Well, it was more of a…….I know she has rather than a must have. Earlier that day I decided to paint a picture of a bear. On my down time I like to practice my watercolor painting.

I was scrolling though the gram and I happen to see an oil painting that I really like and though that I could do it in watercolor. try my skills out. Sharpen them.

Once I was able to go my little room and started sketching the bear. I felt this magnetic pull. I just assumed that it was me bing hyper focused. Or! That I was inspired by (Keisha) the stray abrasive cat that meows so loudly outside the defact. But as I sketched, the magnetism grew stronger and stronger and I would see is my aunt in my head. I thought that she may have been talking that stuff about me.

The falling out that I have with my great aunt goes way back to when I was homeless. Which I do think is very petty. I was house hopping at the time and had very little to myself. I was depressed and defensive and trusted no one and took whatever help I could at the time.

I felt abandoned and very unloved. which is why I love my spirits and the Orisha. These two power house has had my back so much and has gotten me through so many dark times in my life that I'm just like. I love you more than the members who are alive. Having this deep spiritual bond and connection. Means that for my safety, things are known about people. Information becomes extremely clear. So that no matter what I was never caught off guard by anyone. I'm not blaming anyone or anything. I'm mearly stating facts about my spiritual experience.

As I started the actual painting. I looked over and decided to use my gouache paint over my watercolor paints. The good stuff. So I started to paint and I just began to make it more and more detailed. Moments after, I get a call from my sister stating that I was right! That my aunt had died. (I had told my sister that I sensed DEATH and that I had thought it was my great Aunt)

I knew my aunt like to dabble in things that were no good for her. I also knew that she was a women who needed help, therapy and concealing. Don’t get me wrong, She was not one of those people who you could not have around you. She was. She was very much so the life of the party. She would make you laugh and had a way of bringing you in to her energy. It was sad to know that this light of hers had been put out. And the fact that It was done by her own hand bothers me.