Miranda
M. R. Sellars
Mi•ran•da [mi-ran-duh] – noun: Invented by Shakespeare for the heroine of The Tempest (1611). It represents the feminine form of the Latin gerundive mirandus 'admirable', 'lovely', from mirari 'to wonder at', 'admire'; cf. Amanda.
Blanque, MIRANDA: A perverse and sadistic murderess of early and middle 1800’s New Orleans, Louisiana, who is rumored to have derived autoerotic gratification from the intense suffering of her victims. Sister of Delphine LaLaurie, it has been theorized that the siblings were jointly responsible for the torture and subsequent deaths of numerous household slaves as reported in the New Orleans Bee, 1834. [See also Mistress Miranda; Devereaux, Annalise; LaLaurie, Delphine; paraphilia; sexual homicide; sadism; spirit possession, Voodoo]
– Excerpted from Hell Hath No Fury: A Comprehensive Study of Women Who Kill
Luettecke, Seitz, amp; Witt – BCM Press
Revised Third Edition, March 2006
PROLOGUE
Excerpted from Rowan Gant’s Personal Book of Shadows:
7/13 – 3:30 AM:
I can’t sleep. I need to but I can’t.
We have a really long day tomorrow. Almost 20 hours of sitting in airports and on airplanes, not to mention Ireland is 6 hours ahead of us, so that’s going to screw me up too.
But, here I am wide-awake. I suppose I could blame it on excitement, but I know damn well that’s not why. It’s that time of the year. The anniversary of Ariel’s murder is coming back around soon, and this is just par for the course. Hard to believe it’s been less than a decade now. Not even a full ten years since her death turned my life into this unending nightmare.