A fortress in a desert of ash, where a family like no other lives, alone. A staircase in the shape of a seashell takes up the whole palace, a door for each floor, but they cannot be opened; nothing lays beyond them. Eyes shine behind its only window, looking down at the three children covered in cinder, who have been […]
‘There’s creatures in my wardrobe.’ I say. Not people, creatures. Their skin and hair melt into one another, both made form the same cloth of glowing darkness. Only their eyes are visible, they burst out of these sentient murks. They’re dim, yellow stars. There’s dozens of them, keeping still, staring. One has its limbs wrapped around the door, keeping it […]
I couldn’t burn it or someone would smell it. I couldn’t bury it or it would be noticeable, or throw it away, as someone would find it. I had no other choice. I grabbed it and pretended it was moth wings. Night fell as I slowly ate, and midnight came as I finished it. ‘Heart eating a heart.’ I could […]
My immediate thought was that I needed to get rid of my dew water. It was going to take me weeks to be able to fill up the whole jug again, if not longer. He smiled at me, still holding her heart. ‘Cœur.’ He said. ‘Seems fitting for you to be the one to catch me.’ ‘Only an idiot wouldn’t.’ […]
False violet, Robin runaway, Star violet. Dewdrops. I have always been fascinated by dew, ‘The waters which spring from the heart.’ I had always thought it a metaphor, or a legend to explain it, emerged from a less scientifically developed era. Many people of the past viewed dew as an elixir for immortality, a substance that originated from the tree […]
Catching moths is surprisingly easy. I learnt this as a child after my brother cut the palm of my hand open with our dad’s swiss knife. He licked the blade clean and left me to bleed out in our kitchen. Our parents were both out, I can’t remember where but I know we had run out of plasters. Afraid of […]
Wings for breakfast Dewdrops for lunch Heartstrings for dinner at midnight.
I left that very night. Hood up and eyes down, so no one would see it. No matter how hard I tried to remove it, it wouldn’t go away.I roamed the earth and never returned home. I even had a daughter, and named her Abel, to appease my sister, but I remained marked.
I faked everything. School was easy, my parents never checked The rest was harder, it wasn’t easy to pretend I was the best in my gymnastics class when I had never touched a baton. I acted sick for a while, to excuse my sudden failures. My parents worried, my father wanted to take me to a specialist, my mother stayed […]
‘Where’s Abel?’ my father asks. I’ve changed into his dead daughter’s clothes, dressed her carefully as if she were a porcelain doll, I have been wearing her face for my whole life, and yet he can tell us apart. ‘I’m Abel, dad.’ I respond. ‘Oh.’ That’s all he says. No questions about where I am. He doesn’t care, the thought […]