Prologue
Him.
She was beautiful. An artist, a writer, a flower picker. I watched as she braided her younger sister’s hair, and listened as she sang a lulling lullaby. It was a quiet summer’s night, the kind people only recall happening in their youth. A lazy smile escaped from my lips, as her laugh cascaded down the walls of her little cottage. Her laughter filled the empty cobblestone streets below her, as if the world quieted to hear the sweet sound.
I was caught so off guard in my thoughts that her little sister had rushed to the window, and I had missed it, which almost gave away my hiding spot perched in the oak tree. The little girl’s golden hair danced softly in the summer wind, her russet eyes open wide at the sky of stars. I remembered being that young once, head always tilted upward, which blinded me to the darkness that existed in this world.
It wasn’t long before I saw her pale, starlight colored-arms wrap around the small child. Her long, dark brown hair danced in the breeze as the little girl’s blonde joined it. Their innocent awe at merely a night sky made the corners of my mouth pull up; as I shot a shooting star into the universe. The girls shrieked in amazement, and laughter twirled out the window; whisked away in the night wind. I heard her say to her little sister, “close your eyes and make a wish, and I’ll make it come true for you”.
With one more fleeting glance, I disappeared into the shadows from which I came, the harmonious joy getting further away as I returned to the place I belonged. She’d know me soon enough, and the world would crumble.
