I picked at the sandwich on the plate in front of me, my fingers sticky with bright red jelly, mouth stained with similar smudges.
There were cartoons playing on the television in the living room, the sound loud enough to ring my ears as I watched two figures chase after each other, the bright colors dancing on my face.
In the kitchen across that room was my mother, speaking in a low, worried manner to a man who'd come to our house after dark. I was not to leave this chair and disturb them which, oddly enough, I didn't dream of doing. Anything I promised my mother seemed to bind me. I didn't really care for their conversation in the first place. Adults were always heavy with emotions I didn't understand.
‘Sweetheart?’
I moved my head sideways, looking at my mother as if I'd forgotten she was there. She smelled of honey, of sweat and salty tears and something cold, bad. I loved her even if it wrinkled my nose every time she buried me against her chest for a hug. She hugged me a lot lately.
‘I want you to meet someone,’ she smiled, her mouth as red as jelly, but her eyes were sad. Big, sad puddles of blue. I started feeling sad too. The man droning behind her wore a long coat, his narrow face void of emotion. I furrowed my brow, his yellow eyes calling to me in a way that didn't need an actual voice.
‘It's okay, baby,’ she murmured, holding a hand out to me.
I hopped off the chair, stuck a jelly coated finger into my mouth, and walked past the television. I wasn't shy. I just didn't like strangers, especially not if they looked like they ate children.
‘You may call me Ruaraidh,’ the man said in a deep, accented voice. His eyes were glowing with moon—shaped pupils. I stared at them, when he gave my mother a curd nod.
‘Mommy?’ I looked away from the man to pull on the sleeve of her sweater. She looked down at me, brushed a hand through the tresses of my hair, and bent over. Her face was a pale shade of gray.
‘Don't be afraid, Reyrey, he's an old friend. Ruaraidh will look after you as if you were his own kin.’
I had never heard my mother speak like that and even though I liked the way it sounded, I didn't like where she was going. Something was not right. She didn't feel right.
Her arms held me, shaking, as they pulled my six—year—old body against herself. The wrongness, fragments of her pain, made me flinch as I tried to pry free from her grip, her crying face, most of all away from the yellow—eyed man whose fingertips started burning in a similar color.
‘I love you, Remy, I love you.’
* * *
I choked on my own breath, my eyes dancing through the darkness as the familiar outlines of my bedroom came into focus. My head was pounding, fingers clawed into the tangled sheets around my body. I peeled back the covers to place my feet onto solid ground as I bent over, burying my fingers into my hair, and breathed.
I goddamn hated that memory. I hated that my dreams could never be fathomless, forgettable, fleeting like another person's — I had to be plagued by the things I was most eager to forget. As my heart settled into a slower pace, I grabbed my phone from the nightstand and realized that it was only six in the morning.
Marvelous. Barely three hours of sleep. I sure as hell knew that there would be no use trying a second time, I'd most likely end up finishing that nasty nightmare. I had no need to revisit what happened after.
I scrambled to my feet, changed into a pair of leggings, and threw on a few layers before I grabbed my earphones and keys from the table. I went to do the only thing that seemed to help a little : go for a run when the rest of the world was still asleep.
* * *
I caught first light at dawn, jogging my usual route through a nearby park, hoping that the strain of exercise would empty my head enough to face the day. It was Sunday, which meant that I really had to catch up on some homework, and mentally prepare myself for a closing shift at the bar. I knew those were dull distractions in comparison with what was really on my mind — but I tried not to let my thoughts wander.
I skidded to a halt near a half—frozen pond, heaving sharp breaths through my mouth, my blood singing in my veins as I overlooked the surroundings that I had grown so attached to. My lungs were human, as human as my heart, even if I sometimes had to remind myself that I was not. Not human enough to disappear, I thought, running my knuckles down the sides of my legs trembling with fatigue, but still too human to stand a chance.
Those weren't my words, and the man who'd spoken them had not been human at all, but I had slowly come to learn their meaning. I would always be too different to be safe, but I wasn't fae. I had my mother's face, her mahogany hair and ivory skin. My eyes were an ordinary, human brown.
And yet—yet they had been after me all my life. I had become good at outrunning them, hiding, deceiving the most deceptive creatures. That didn't mean I never lost : it had cost me my mother, even though I'd never seen her death, it had come the same night Ruaraidh had carried me out of our home.
I sat down on a bench near the pond, the cold biting into my skin even through the fabric of clothing. It had been a while since I'd ran further than this city. I had lost the hope that it would do anything to change my destination. Eventually, we were all heading into the same direction, human or not.
I stared into the red—and—orange stricken sky as the grim feeling that was entirely my own settled into the withered nature around me.
Comments (0)
See all