He didn't know what to do. Didn't know how to understand what he saw. That man-not-man stood at the edge of the well, at all that shine now stained with blood, at the dead body, exactly like his own, that was likely floating in it. Staring down, unmoving, not even breathing.
Suddenly, all he could think about was being away from that place, from whoever he'd seen die, and whatever he'd seen born. Away and away. His heart beat like a drum, and his legs twitched. His foot snapped a twig, and the man-not-man looked up, fixed on him and…
The boy ran.
I am here to tell you my story. Here, in this small, lightless room. You want to open me up and examine my beating heart. You desire to know how I came to be what I am.
To understand the end, you must know the beginning. I will dissect myself for you. I will open my veins and I will bleed.
You likely find comfort in the fact that you have me contained. That I am here, waiting for my fate. You have made me out to be a monster. I ask, what is a monster if not a warning against the dark? I have done you a service. Perhaps you will recognize that, someday.
You have not yet realized this ending was inevitable. My path was set for me when I was five. This outcome is not a mistake. You made me.
We may not share blood, but I am your child all the same.
All I ask is that you spare Ianthe.
It is not her fault that I love her.
What I remember most about my father are his hands. Rough and calloused, scarred from a life spent in the mountains trapping and hunting, foraging for his next meal. His next day. I used to run my fingers over them, marveling at the stories that were written into his chapped flesh.
I will tell you this: Home is not a place. Home is an architecture of bones and a steadily thumping heart. Home is where dreams are born, and monsters are put to rest. It is where the soul can unfurl like the petals of a flower and find succor in the golden blush of each new day.
Home was my father’s arms. When I was in them, I knew nothing in the world could touch me.
In this memory, his hands are wrapped around the reins of a horse. He’s got me tucked up against his chest, and I listen to the thud-thud of his heart as the sun sets. Strands of his violet hair tickle my cheek. I wrap a bit of it around my fingers, entranced by the way it shimmers as though made of crystals, catching the light and reflecting rainbows.
He was as luminous as the moon, lighting the night of my life. I worshiped him.
That is what I remember of my home. His hands, the gentle sway of the horse, and his heart singing against my ear.
We were traveling toward the Boundary, though I didn’t know it then. I have a feeling we’d been wandering for a while, over vast, untamed distances, but I remember none of it. I just know that a moment before we crossed, Da wrapped his arms around me and whispered, “Hold tight, Cass. We’re going through now. You hold on. We’ll be okay.”
I was too young to hear the desperation in his words. Too naive to hear the worry. The Boundary loomed before us, keeping the shine in, and everyone else out.
I felt his muscles tensing. Coiling. Waiting. Anticipation hung on him like a shroud.
I remember what the Boundary looks like. A rainbow shimmer in the air that reached up to the sky until my eyes could no longer follow it. When we passed through it, I marveled at the shine on my hands, coating my body. I felt Da shiver behind me, a pained moan ripping through him.
I felt nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
The other side of the Boundary was much like the one we’d just left. Sagebrush, waist-high, scrubby trees, brown dirt, hard rocks, a dry riverbed, mountains in the distance and not much else. Not so much as a cabin or campfire in sight.
Da stopped his horse and slid off, before helping me down. He was pale, his body shaking. He had one hand clutched over his heart. “I hate that damn Boundary,” he said. “Never gets easier.” And that was all he spoke of it. He eyed me and then nodded. “You’ll do, Cass. Come help me set up camp.”
That was our first night within the Boundary. I helped gather wood while Da lit a fire. We ate a dinner of hardtack and stared at the moon until sleep claimed us. It was much like any of the other nights I’d endured recently. It was life, boiled down, and mine.
We had to travel for three days before we got to the first sign of civilization. Three days of quiet tension, of Da, grunting and muttering to himself. He did not seem happy, but then, I don’t think I ever remember him being truly happy. He was a quiet man at the best of times, even more prone to it when he was brooding, and I let him keep his peace, and I kept mine, watching the world pass us by. Watching my father’s hands on the reins of his horse, so steady and sure.
I marveled at myself and I marveled at the world around me. Everything seemed so much brighter, so much more alive. We were setting up camp and I was turning this way and that, watching the sun paint the world with all the colors of the rainbow, simmering just like my Da did. I must have made some small noise, for his voice broke through my reverie. “It’s brighter here,” he said, “because the shine is in your blood. It’s part of you, and so this land calls out to welcome you home.” His eyes were on me, full of sorrow.
We got to a small cabin late at night. Smoke rose from a stone chimney, blotting out the stars. Da got off his horse and let it have its head. It would stay close. The creature was as faithful as the sun. He took hold of my hand. I realized, for the first time, that my father was anxious. I had seen this expression on him once before, long ago. The pinched lips, the way he kept running his hand through his hair, a nervous twitch to all his movements. His voice was hard, but his gaze was soft when he said, “Cassandra, you behave yourself.”
I nodded.
We walked to the cabin and he rapped on the door.
“Who’s there?” A man shouted from inside.
“Chris,” Da replied with a grunt. “Come to see my sister.”
Shock tore through me. I had no idea Da had a family. I didn’t know he had a sister who lived in a cabin. I had no idea that he had people who weren’t born on the back of a mountain. People who weren’t wild, like us.
The door was flung open and a woman threw herself out of it, wrapping her arms around my da, sobbing against his shoulder. She had pale violet hair and skin, and bright eyes. It was impossible not to see their relation. Their shared blood was evident in their high cheekbones, slightly slanted eyes, and broad shoulders.
They held each other under the moonlight. Held on to each other and whispered. I felt awkward. Uncertain. Thrust into this strange world, I had no way to know what was expected of me, and so I stood and watched them whisper and cling to each other, silent and still as the night.
My gaze drifted, and I saw small heads peeking out from behind a concerned father in the doorway of the cabin, a boy and a girl, both a few years older than myself. I smiled at them, but they did not smile back. They edged away from me, as though I was sick, and they could catch it by looking too long.
“And who is this?” Annie finally asked, pulling away from Da and eyeing me.
“My daughter,” Da replied, coughing. “Cassandra.”
“Daughter,” Annie said, turning the full weight of her regard on me.
I realized then that I was an outsider being thrust inside. I was something that did not fit. I did not wear a dress, rather some buckskin pants and a tunic my father had bartered off some other mountain man. On my feet, I wore soft slippers of animal skin. I was not neatly combed, my clothes were torn and stained by mud and offal both. Likely, I stank.