Chapter 1
I’d been in this position before and sometimes I would stay here for hours. Just looking. And it would be no different today unless my brothers find me like they always do.
Though how could I step away and turn my back from the demarcation that separated the lands into one straight line. I spied a winter bunny, bouncing happily into the stark white snow that padded and dug in the ground on the other side. The trees were barren of leaves; its icy branches like nails reaching towards the blue cloudy sky.
They were always told to fear this place. Fear what was on the other side.
I, on the other hand, didn’t necessarily fear what was on the other side. No, I wouldn’t use that word. Abhor. Despise. Detest. Those would be more accurate words on how I felt about them on the other side. And I knew I wasn’t alone in that endeavor.
A cold gush of wind from across the line blew my midnight locks away from my face. The straight tendrils drifting gently like waves in the sea. I wrinkled my nose in annoyance. Just thinking about those people sent shivers down my spine, but what could a mere human do? As history states, humans have done a lot to them with enough manpower. With enough fear. With enough hatred to fuel the anger and blind our decisions. Yes, humans could do a lot.
“But you don’t think like that. You’re different.” The voice chimed in with a childish hopeful undertone.
Vana rolled my eyes, but I couldn’t keep the twinge of shame at my own thoughts.
The voice has been with me ever since I could make a thought. Always in the back of my head. Imagine not being alone in your own mind! To always be fighting with someone else for it.
“The only one fighting is you, Vana.”
“Be quiet!” Vana hissed.
The startled bunny squeaked at my outburst and ran through the invisible line separating the two seasons. The bunny’s stark white fur instantly morphed into various colors of black and brown before quickly darting behind a bush, pushing up small puffs of dirt in its path.
“Camouflage is such a….. wonderful mechanism, isn’t it?” Waves of awe came from the voice, but Vana almost missed a hint of sadness in the voice, hidden in the back of my mind, behind the nauseating; almost giddy feeling of awe. Almost.
“Natural camouflage, that is, but that is nothing natural.”
The demarcation rarely, if at all, has any effect on the wildlife. They could come and go as they please, but humans on the other hand? Well, tons have tried. Many have died. Whether from animal attacks, the constant below zero freezing temperatures, or them.
Humans are not welcome. That is made clear.
“Islafell isn’t safe for humans. Not that they aren’t welcome.”
Mother said having a voice in your head is normal. It’s only your inner voice, she says; intuition guiding you through life, but an inner voice isn’t supposed to be like this. Is it? An inner voice is simply a monologue of your own thoughts and not a manifestation of its own. Maybe my intuition is just stronger than others? A strong intuition for a strong personality, I suppose. Though that didn’t make me feel any better; it only made me feel more different even if the difference isn’t as apparent and forthcoming as skin color, missing limbs, or even blindness.
It was easier to hide my difference, and I should be grateful for that. End of story. It’s useless to whine and moan about it.
I stepped closer to the line. A few inches from it. I could feel waves of the chill slapping my face and arms. It… didn’t feel like I was going to die of frostbite. I never got this far before. As children of Metha, they would dare one another to cross it. It was all shits and giggles until one little boy Nathaniel Pafvel went a little too far some years back.
“A memory best left forgotten.”
I was 10, tagging alongside my brothers’ friends, who were all almost 10 years my senior, but I idolized my brothers and followed them around any chance I could get. And that meant going on top secret outings…… especially at night.
They didn’t know I was there. How could they? I was quiet as a mouse, overstepping broken twigs and dried, curled up leaves just in time to see the fire lamps bobbing in the distance. Their raucous laughter breaking through the bugs chittering, frogs croaking, and the occasional hoot in the distance. I looked up seeing the stars peeking through the canopy of the trees. I have always been a tall girl, even at the age of 10, but the trees….. The trees rose high in the air and some so high I couldn’t see the leaves. Still, dark statues guarding whatever resided here.
I kept a safe distance away, but close enough to hear them talking which wasn’t all that close. They talked so loudly, almost shouting into the night sky.
“This is a bad idea. Go back now. Go home and go to bed. Forget about this.” The voice intervened.
I gasped, tripping over an easily avoidable root sticking out like a gangly finger. I fell on my hands and knees, the force jeering my teeth. And the leaves! Oh fates, the leaves crunched under me like a pile of stale bread.
“What was that?” My eldest brother’s voice, authoritative and strong. Just like their Father.
I scrambled behind a tree, knocking my knobby knees together, hoping the world was dark enough to hide my periwinkle nightgown, one of the only nice clothes I had now smudged and grimy with dirt.
I held my breath and waited.
“Probably a rat or something. Scared of a little rodent, ehh.” A loud guffaw echoed. She recognized her second oldest brothers’ laugh. A laugh that rocked the walls of their quaint house with joy.
My eldest brother scoffed, “Hardly, but that didn’t sound like a rodent. That was a way bigger.”
“Okay, a deer, then. Come on, we’re almost there.” A girls’ voice filled the air. The airy and flirtatious voice made me gage internally. Girls always gawked over my eldest brother and even though his oblivious nature to it never minded the girls. It sure burned Vana. The fake kindness and a warped sense of self- importance they use as a gateway to get on my good side as a means of heightening their worth to finally reach him. It didn’t work on me, but I did enjoy the bribes they so graciously bestowed upon me. New shawl, fluffy mittens for the winter, sturdy shoes, and even a beautiful periwinkle nightgown.
Sigh.
How am I going to explain this to Mama? I couldn’t think about that now as I stared at the light getting smaller and smaller. Jumping up from my hiding place I scurried to catch up to the girls’ incessive giggling.
It was only a few minutes of creeping before I paused, looking up and seeing exactly where they were heading.
In the dark, Islafell glowed like a star that fell on the Earth. A blue beacon of ice and snow. They were forbidden to go there! They couldn’t possibly be going there!
But they were and by the time I got close enough Nathaniel Pafvel was already screaming at the top of his lungs. A tortured scream that echoed across the forest and shattered the peaceful serenity of the night. So much screaming. The girl calling for help. My brother screaming for them to calm down and Nathaniel. Oh, the fates, his leg…….
“Vana!”
The moon turned to the sun, and I found myself standing right in front of the demarcation. I sucked in a breath, the chill crawling into my skin and seeping into my bones. A snowflake fell on my nose and sent a violent shiver throughout my body.
“What are you doing?” A sturdy hand ripped me from my stupor and came face to face with Porter.
Everyone always marveled about how we look nothing alike, but we were also almost 10 years apart. My black hair that blended into the dark to his blonde hair that shined like the sun. Green eyes that people find bewitching compared to Porter’s brown eyes people find comforting.
“Just taking a breather.” I took a deep breath to adhere to my point.
He raised a chiseled brow and looked me over, sweeping his eyes like a doctor trying to find an ailment before eyeing Islafell. Brown eyes hardened like stone.
“Did you see…. them over there?” It was a silly question. We knew they rarely cross the line into Metha’s lands as they prefer their own. It was rare to see them at all.
“Just a bunny if you want to count that.” I uttered jokingly.
“Why didn’t you kill it? That would have made 10.” I flinched away as he held up 9 already skinned bunnies.
“Ugh, how can you stand to even touch those!” She ripped her arm out of his grasp, sidestepping his burly frame.
A tap on my long-forgotten bow strapped to my back alerted me of a man 6 feet tall and looks almost exactly like my older brother except his nose was much bigger and his blonde hair was much browner with soft waves that fell to his shoulders. Remy. A name he loathed more and more as he aged. Confident that he didn’t ‘look’ like a Remy and a name like that wasn’t irradicable like he was.
“You can’t hunt, Van. You get too distracted.” He gave Islafell a weary look.
“Well, what did you catch, Rem?”
Rem enjoyed hunting much more than any of them. Sometimes spending hours in the forest conceptualizing traps and strategies for any animal. His ideas, often, dangerous. The scars on his arms and chest were evident enough.
His smile grew, stretching a pale thin scar on his jawline. He held up a finger before running behind a couple oak trees. Vana rolled her eyes. Always extravagant, but when he pulled out a buck the size of a wagon, I gasped, and felt my eyes widened. The extravagant was well worth it.
“Oh, the fates, Rem! That’s the biggest deer I’ve ever seen!”
I inched closer to the deer as Porter whooped and gave Rem a congratulatory slap on the back which sent them into playful tumbling. The deer had 3 arrows embedded in its eye, stomach, and chest and blood slowly oozed from its wounds. Dark eyes wide, staring at nothing.
“Something.”
The mystery of the afterlife. You’ll never know what’s there until you see it, but by then it’s too late to tell the world what you saw.
The deer fur, typical brown of the summer but turned an almost black starting at its stomach. Tentatively touching its fur. I realized the density of its fur was different coarser and thicker.
“Where did you find this deer?” I looked up from my spot next to the deer to see Rem in a headlock and Porter’s face red with laughter.
“It was just crossing.” He said once released, pointing to Islafell.
“Did you feel its fur? It’s like its body is permanently stuck between summer and winter.”
“What does it matter, Vana? Its dead and Mother could use a fur coat for the winter, anyways.” Rem hefted the deer on his shoulders as if it was nothing but a pack, “Since you didn’t catch anything you have to help Mother cook.”
It was always like that. I watched as Porter and Rem turned their backs and headed towards their cabin on the outskirts of Metha. I wasn’t terrible at hunting and my aim was…. decent enough, but when that arrow met its mark, it was like the arrow was piercing me instead. It was something I hated just as much as eating it. Though it was normal to eat meat in every meal, especially during the winter and a lot of people didn’t share my same resentment for it.
The voice made a soft moaning sound. A sound that is all too familiar with me when I go hunting.
“What is it?” I whispered, low enough so my brother couldn’t hear.
“It’s always sad when they die.”
“This is how it is. Everything must die.”
The voice paused. Paused so long I forgot the conversation and were home watching my parents cheer as my brothers brought in food to last a month. Paused so long I got caught up in my daily task of cleaning and skinning the deer with Mother, watching over my nephew and the pot of rabbit stew and soon nightfall came.
Exhausted from the day’s work I stared around my room. A small room no bigger than
I closed my eyes, feeling the weight of the warm bear skin blanket over me. The rhythmic hooting of the owls was all it took for sleep to take me under.
“Not everything.”
