Seconds before the curse had hit her, she had thought
that the loss of her family would be the most painful part. That was before she
learned about what a pain feathers were to groom and the sharp cracking pain of
a broken wing, before she came to realize that the ‘family’ she thought she
would miss was really just the sentimental memories of her childhood.
She did miss them. She missed the songs Trypho would sing
to her on dark, stormy nights when the walls of their house were rattled by the
wind. She missed Mihail’s gentle touch and Xena’s soft, hidden smiles. She
missed sharing secrets with her mother.
But Trypho had been dead for a decade before her curse,
mangled by a wolf attacking their flock. Mihail had followed him into death
years later, having joined the army he was sent to his death by men rich and
plump with lies and money. Xena had lost her soft smiles the day their mother
did not return and turned instead to hiding other things.
Xena’s secrets had led to her curse.
But was it really a curse? She had found there was so
much more to life when one was not bound by two legs and two hands, when one
had the wind to lift you up into the air, the ability to feel the sun on your
face and the spray of the ocean without fearing either.
Had she never been cursed she would never have met her
new sisters.
“Sister.” They all called each other sister but their
words held so much more. Sounds no human could understand or describe.
Sister-who-shreds-the-wind and sister-who-bites-hardest blended together with
sister-perfumed-as-a-rose and sister-who-sings-sweet, it was all one word and
yet many words, sounds and echoes and silences.
“Sister.” She called back, for there was only one
response to give.
They smiled at one another, sharp teeth that shone bright
under the glare of the sun. Below the rocky crags a lone traveler stumbled, delirious
with hunger or thirsty or perhaps merely unsure of his footing. Around him
whirled his life story, the screams of his mother at his birth, the cries of
his sister when he beat her in some game, screams and tears of friends and
lovers that created a whirlpool, drawing the sisters in.
“Sister.” Their third joined them, her claws scratched a
symphony onto the rock. “Shall we dine?”
Sharp teeth and hard talons bared they dove as one, three
hungry mouths opened in a scream.
No comments:
Post a Comment