PROLOGUE | MUTILATION & MORTALITY

THERE WAS A wicked whispering in the shadows. In the faint moonlight, thirteen year old Sunday Harding felt the forest mock her as she obsessively flicked the sparkwheel of her older brother’s white lighter with the pad of her thumb.

The measured and deliberate strokes let out small doses of gasoline with no flame but the girl wasn’t searching for a light in the enveloping darkness. 

She sat atop a fallen log with her knees held close to her chest and her face directed upward. A storm threatened to awaken overhead and dusk was beginning to settle in beyond the misty peaks of the mountainous landscape.

Sunday’s head buckled down in exhaustion and her gaze followed the glint of onyx in the corner of her eye. A half-winged raven clambered up to the ground beside Sunday and she fell still, halting her breath in order to watch the bird. The creature pecked at the ground, unsettling its singed ebony feathers and the soft, wounded flesh underneath. The bird seemed to be burned, making the lighter in Sunday’s palm feel slightly heavier.

The maimed blackbird dug for a disturbed ground-worm nestled deep within the earth. The bird enticed the worm from its terrestrial chamber and decidedly lost its patience before resolving to jerk it out from the ground and into its mouth.

Sunday thought it strange for such a mutilated animal to still possess the energy to hunt and kill for sustenance. She flicked the lighter harder, feeling the small metal ridges dig deeper into her thumb. Only when half the worm’s flaccid pink body fell to the ground still twitching, did the lighter slip and fall down to the ground from Sunday’s grasp, causing the injured bird to flee and its prey to remain mangled and motionless.

Sunday blinked and looked down at her brother’s lighter laying on the ground with a trail of crimson running down its side. It took her a moment to realize her thumb was bleeding. 

After a little while, Sunday reached down to pick up the lighter and continued flicking its sparkwheel. Albeit more slippery, the metal continued to dig into her skin and the smarting ache continued to provide a relief.

From her vantage point, she could see the Old Chapel through the clearing in the woods. Enfolded by its surrounding chorus of trees and bushes, the Chapel was accompanied by a withering cabin nearby. Both holy grounds had long been vacant and empty of any worship or residence. Both reminded her of him. 

The image that persisted in her mind was the boy’s slate grey eyes. Except Sunday knew they weren’t only grey. Sometimes, always when he wasn’t watching, she saw a shimmering of the blueish hue like clear water over stone. The forest resumed its mockery of her.

Worthless.

Her skin tightened and her heart began to race furiously. The leaves rustled along the forest floor and the wind echoed eerily around her. 

Fraud.

It was the only time she felt something, anything beside the unnerving nausea that accompanied her wherever she went. It was always his words that played as a ceaseless record in her mind.

Ugly.

Her mouth felt parched and her ears thrummed with an anger she choked down. His mouth came to her clearly now, moving in a sly smile, lips always smirking.

This time, Sunday let the lighter fall on purpose. It all felt too much. It always did when it came to him. She wiped the blood from her hand on her shorts and swallowed down the lump in her throat.

Sunday wondered what he could be thinking about on that stormy night, and if ever, even for a moment, did he think about her. She hated him so much that occasionally, it was hard for her to catch her own breath, and she wasn’t sure she even wanted to remember how. It was those instances when Sunday wanted to carve out his heart in the middle of the courtyard and watch as he bled out for how he made her feel. Her hatred of him was the only thing she knew for certain.

As the forest continued to speak to Sunday, she ignited with the image of him. His dark obsidian hair that curled and curtained around his harsh cheekbones. She had watched his face come to fruition over the years. He was perpetually frowning, his thick brows down turning whenever he caught Sunday’s dark eyes in school. Sunday’s father was right, he was nothing but poor and pitiable, a plague that eternally poisoned Sunday’s tranquil world.

Except…Sunday’s eyes fell back down to the worm. Except, Sunday didn’t know which role she played. Was she the bird or the worm? The prey or the preyed upon? The endangered or the dangerous?

She grimaced, recalling the contorted state of the raven. Maybe it didn’t matter after all. Maybe they were both doomed to injury, a fate worse than death might be a life, unliving. Maybe they took turns playing each part, or maybe they just didn’t understand whose role was whose.

For several moments, Sunday sat shivering in the frosty, barren forest with the cold licking at her limbs. Something inside her started to rot and she recognized her mind beginning to fog and her senses distort, she struggled to pull herself back.

Somewhere in the echoing distance, the sounds of police sirens and an ambulance rang through the trees and her boy with grey-blue eyes was about to have his world shatter to pieces. It was all Sunday desperately had left to do, to pick up the lighter from the ground and continue her incessant flicking.