"My childhood was lonely"
DECLAN I
Numbness. That was the first thing his mind registered when he was finally pulled from the depths of near unconscious slumber, his perception clouded by a dense cloud of swirling mist. Long eyelashes fluttered open hesitantly, to reveal a bleary pair of onyx eyes, their usually magnificent velvety black hue dim and faded due to exhaustion and sleep deprivation. The rosewood boards that made up the entirety of their apartment- apart from the bathroom, where the titles were marble- were cold and hard, his exposed skin doing nothing to preserve the precious body heat that would have put his shivering to an end.
Forcing himself to keep his teeth from clattering, Declan probed himself up to one elbow, in a halfway sitting position, his features contorting into a grimace at the early morning rays of winter sunlight permeating the room through the lace French drapes Lyarra brought home all the way from Paris. The regular pattern of human breathing coming from his left caught Declan’s attention, his head turning towards the ornate, four-poster bed almost reflexively. The covers midway over her willowy form, her skin smooth and unblemished, a waterfall of silken onyx curls sprawled on the pillow, she was an alabaster Aphrodite, a marvel, every inch of a sculpted vision come to life. To this day, Declan remained utterly convinced, and no one could change if mind, that if Pygmalion were still alive, he would have smashed his original Galatea to pieces to recreate her from scratch, with Lyarra as his model.
“The Gods may not be vengeful, but the Goddesses are a different story entirely, right?”
It should probably be disconcerting, the clinical way in which Declan approached the fact that she could obviously sleep with such tranquility while he was exiled to their bedroom floor, no different than a mangy dog. But it wasn’t. Because she was Lyarra and he was Diaval, and at the end of the day, that was all the difference that had ever existed between them. Or that was what he told himself as he slowly got to his feet, the world spinning in and out of focus for a couple of moments until he got ahold of himself.
She was tempered. Not controlling.
She was strong-willed. Not manipulative.
She was determined. Not obsessive.
She was committed. Not hateful.
She followed the rules. Not abusive.
He loved her. In the end, it all came down to that simple truth. Everything else was just a simple sentence. Words put together. Just another label we are so willing to place on ourselves, eager to be shackled despite our grand proclamations of freedom and autonomy. There is something comforting about the cage. When locked, you are allowed to stay, so you won’t have to think of leaving. Because leaving means flying alone, in unfamiliar skies of blacks and blues, where you might get lost and run in circles, where there will be no one around to catch you if you fall too hard, if your wings falter and crack.
Declan wasn’t a good flier.
He tried, at times, he even gave it all he had once, but just like Icarus, he got too close to the Sun and burned. His feathers weren’t waxen, but they melted nonetheless, leaving him to sink into the bottom of a bottle, a merciless sea with monstrous waves that choked and strangled the very air from his convulsing lungs, with creatures of emerald scales and bloodshot eyes that latched onto his flailing limbs and held tight, pulling him under, down a sea of black waters from which there was no return. He didn’t know if it was Apollo, moved by his human plight he could only watch as a silent spectator from above, or someone else of divine origins that deemed him worthy of being saved from his watery grave.
But someone, whoever they were and that was if they even existed, had caught a glimpse of self-worth in the utter mess Declan had made out of his life, and had sent someone in his path to ensure he got back on his own two feet. They had sent him Lyarra.
It had been her who had slapped, quite literally on occasion, a modicum of common sense into his befuddled brain. Who had offered him a hand when he had crawled so deep into the rabbit hole, the warmth of sunlight and the freshness of air felt but a distant memory, something that may have happened to him or just as likely to someone else. Who had demanded he grit his teeth and move at last, away from the standstill his choices had condemned him to, where he hopelessly awaited judgement like a prisoner on death-row. Who had seen straight through his empty façade of I am fine and I am handling it, and promptly declared him an idiot, because wherever the hell fine was, he was a billion galaxies away from it, and it was at her persistence that he admitted it and started acting accordingly. The most important thing of all, she had spotted his lack of a will to try (for something more, something better, anything at all, those first days) and she had been gracious enough to lend him some of her own, for if there were one thing Lyarra could never be blamed for was the lack of dedication. She was an independent thinker and a passionate project-enthusiast, a collector of imperfectly fractured artifacts as she often liked to call herself.
“We should have you commemorated. Painted, I should think. I would have suggested a sculpture, but anyone commissioned to do it would be so enamored by even your static form, they would never see it delivered.” she told him with cool seriousness one late, Sunday morning in his kitchen, watching him spread hazelnut praline over his still steaming babka over the pages of Law of Obligation: Contracts and Delicts.
“Do you speak from experience?” he chuckled, not looking up from his flowing chocolate sauce. He held a spoon covered in the stuff and nudged it breezily in her direction, knowing she would take his offering at her own pace. “After all, you have been spending quite some time around my beautiful self.”
“I have a fondness for wounded things.” she confessed with the same ease one would converse about the day’s weather. “They are beautiful to put behind a windowpane of stained glass and keep them here, featherless birds afraid of heights. There is just something so entrancing, so enthralling by creatures so terrified of letting themselves live, they would be content with spending the rest of their days in a precious cage made by those of my kind. I could never tolerate being shielded. It takes a certain depth of character to allow such vulnerability, even though those morons nowadays constantly mistake it for weakness. So weak they are, they don’t realize the only thing they are capable of is making gilded cages for anyone valiant enough to stay inside. Flying nonstop without ever allowing yourself a reprieve is a curse. Your cage limits you and holds you back, but the addiction of constantly seeking that next thrill, that next solidary mission, always alone, can be worse. Only by admitting we are flawed can we surrender ourselves to another’s companionship. It takes a certain type of courage, and I don’t have it. Like most, I have a lifetime ahead of me pretending nothing ever hurt because admitting it did is not an option, so no one will truly be allowed in. No protective cage with false promises of safety for me. So I made one for you.”
There was something in her voice that made Declan pause, although he went into great lengths not to show his growing unease and concern at what was being said. Lyarra never talked much about her past. On the rare instances some things had slipped out, most purely by accident, he was certain, she had been so furious, her teeth, sharper than he remembered, had violently sunken down on his forearm when he attempted to kiss her. He still had a faint scar to prove it.
“Come on, there must be something.” he would gently try and coax her sometimes, wondering what her life before he crashed right in the middle of it must have been like. He liked to make up scenarios in his mind, most of which were absolutely ludicrous, given the lack of any substantial information to go by, but he had a natural affinity for storytelling. The one amongst the many that stuck, and eventually became the version he entertained himself with when the diamond days were done, (but this came later, much later) was similar to the visage she presented in her adult life; a time of silk and ribbons, of pearls and satin, of ivory and gold. When she had first heard of it, she had burst out laughing, head titled back in sincere amusement, blinking tears of mirth away from her eyes. For the briefest of moments, he caught something in there, but it wasn’t his to understand.
“My childhood was lonely.” was all she said, and Declan never asked again.
She was flawed, of course, all electrical charges and scintillating wires, but the eye risked missing out on so much if it stopped only at what was visible. Declan was just the type of person capable of focusing on the sore redeeming quality in the midst of an individual’s mistakes, always the first to let go, to turn over a new leaf, to forgive. And if he liked to kid himself just a little that he forgot, there was no true harm, was there? After all, the easiest person in the world to fool is the one we see in the mirror.
Only there were a few moments, just a few fleeting, that it was just not as simple. And that meant the truth might be a tad more complicated than he allowed himself to admit. But it did not matter, because those moments were always gone before he had even named them as such. Like, today, for instance. Making your lover sleep on the floor after a failed dinner attempt on his behalf was a little excessive, by anyone’s standards, right?
Declan hadn’t meant to burn the chicken and macaroni. He had been looking forward to it too, considering how he had spent the better part of the evening chopping tomatoes for the sauce and following the recipe with religious zealot. Had he not woken up at five am to get the dough on the stove for the baguettes that had become increasingly popular in his bakery as of late, he never would have fallen asleep right there on the countertop, amongst onions and half-cut slices of parmesan cheese. It had just seemed like a good idea at the time, to let his eyes rest for a couple of moments. He certainly hadn’t intended to wake up 40 minutes later by the blaring smoke detection system, finding the kitchen in chaos and their food barbequed and completely incapable of salvation in the oven.
It was only natural that Lyarra had been less than pleased with him after returning from her office, case files and a copy of Principles of International Law in her arms. His nonsensical excuses and stammered apologies had only served to aggravate her further, tiredly pinching the bridge of her nose with her thump and index finger. By the time she had opened her eyes, Declan had already known fully well what was in store for him.
“I don’t like being harsh on you, you know this. But every established relationship needs to function by a few basic rules, otherwise there will be no co-existing with your partner. Next time you will do better for me, won’t you?”
Declan honestly did not know whether to attribute this to her domineering personality in general or her choice of career in specific (you don’t walk out of law school as anything but a driven perfectionist after all) but Lyarra never seemed to put a toe out of line, misbehave or outwardly express even the slightest hint of trouble following any of the rules that were such a fundamental part of their four-year-old relationship. He sure had a lot of work to do if it meant catching up with her. It was tiring, on occasion, that creeping feeling of inferiority that settled in the pit of his stomach, which would tighten into a knot as though he were struggling to digest something heavy and not entirely pleasant, but in the end of the day, she always had been the superior one out of the two. It wasn’t a natural process, mind you. She worked hard for it, Declan knew that better than anyone, being one of the very few in recent years that had been allowed close enough to catch glimpses of it, her struggle to maintain control over forces so much bigger than any mortal thing, life and fate and circumstance.
“What are you doing?”
A honeyed, musical voice snapped him out of his musings, and Declan whipped around to come face to face with a pair of the clearest blue eyes he had ever seen, which were scanning his with so much intensity, he would have felt less transparent under an X-ray machine. Her eyes had been the first thing he ever noticed about her, the first thing he ever saw of her, because he had a pesky habit of automatically focusing so exclusively on a person’s eyes when he met them, that he usually ended up missing the entire introduction altogether. That night in the five-star-hotel lobby in London, where she was a guest, of course, and he was catering for the same seminar she just so happened to be a key speaker at, he had spent the entire time when he ought to be paying attention to his cherry scones and blueberry muffins trying to pinpoint the exact shade of her breathtaking orbs.
Cerulean?
Periwinkle?
Cobalt?
Peacock?
None of them felt right, and he had been seconds away from giving up and admitting defeat, because maybe there just wasn’t a word in the English language that would do those velvety jewels justice. Fate had embroidered them with the softest piece of heaven’s fabric and Declan had been reminded of the sky that summer day in Switzerland, when he had been brave enough to venture into a hot air balloon ride, the cloud fragments inches away from his eager grasp, the snow-covered peaks of the Alps in the background stealing the breath right out of his lungs.
Everything that grounded him on this plane had been swept away within a single moment- worries, concerns, insecurities. Hands stretched in an imitation of wings preparing for flight, the wind roaring in his ears, he felt like he was standing on top of the world, invincible and indestructible by just about anything, the unlimited skies his for the taking. He hadn’t come back to that moment in a long time, but every time he did, he couldn’t help but remark on the entirely inexplicable feeling of familiarity that shrouded him then, as though this were something he ought to be doing regularly instead of an one-time occasion. It was old and new at the same time, like an outdated pair of gloves buried in the back of your wardrobe that have kept the shape of your hands even after not having been worn for years. Declan could still recall with perfect clarity the thought that had come to him after the balloon had descended back to earth, because it had been so foreign, almost like it didn’t entirely belong to him.
“In another life, I might have had wings.”
It was after that memory had flashed across his mind that Declan decided she had summer eyes indeed, and, in a burst of entirely uncharacteristic boldness, had somehow found it in himself to proclaim so to Lyarra herself before the night was over. Imagine his surprise, when she, instead of laughing right at his face, as any woman with a functional brain would have, blinked lazily at him and twisted her painted lips into a seductive purr that to this day he was half-convinced sent him into instantaneous cardiac arrest.
Now, four years later, he still could not believe she was real, let alone his.
“I was just thinking about getting us breakfast, honey.” he replied, his gaze slithering towards her bare legs, her shorts not leaving much to his already overactive imagination. Almost immediately, he winced at his mistake. Lecherous had never been a good look on him, because despite being an admittedly very attractive man, he carried a particular aura of innocence that seemed wrong to taint with leering looks and lustful insinuations. His attempts at being purposefully provocative served to make even him uncomfortable, like he was stepping into another’s skin, and therefore was usually spared from it whenever Lyarra decided she was in the mood for roleplaying.
“Don’t call me that.” she said briskly, her posture instinctively straightening, making Declan mentally slap himself for being such a blithering idiot. Seriously, how many times did he need to be told she absolutely despised pet names? “If I wanted something to cuddle with, I would have gotten a dog.” she always told him with an exasperated roll of her brilliant eyes. “You are a grown man, Declan. You don’t need to be coddled.”
“Sorry.” he murmured, scratching at the back of his neck unconsciously, like he always did when he was nervous. “It won’t happen again. So, breakfast. I was thinking I could whip us up some toast with orange juice? I will make you your coffee to go, if that’s alright with you.”
“No worries, I will order something on the plane.” Lyarra replied airily as she contemplated this. “Can you believe the company at first refused to cover our flight expenses? As if I were going to pay 900$ back and forth for plane tickets. God, these people!”
The contempt in her tone was impossible to miss, even by Declan, who, admittedly, severely lacked in tracking other people’s moods and signals. Nodding along in agreement, he scurried towards the kitchen, still unable to process the fact that he would be alone for the entirety of October, since the prestigious law firm Lyarra was a part of had taken over a massive case in London, and all hands on deck were required. From this day forward and until the trial was over and the case put to rest, his girlfriend and another half a dozen lawyers would be residing in the capitol, and Declan was unsure how he was meant to feel about it.
“I am happy for you. You deserve it. You have worked so hard, you have earned all the credit and acknowledgment.” he had told her upon hearing the news, and none of it had been a lie. Countless evening study sessions that spread well into the wee hours of the morning. Noons of haphazard meals with a plate of homemade food prepared by him balanced on her desk between a spreadsheet and a laptop, an extra pastry sneakily on the side, because he knew she wouldn’t pause her reading to grab herself even a wilting salad. Early morning starts that he left for his bakery at the crack of dawn, pressing a feather-light kiss on her forehead, where she was already ducked over the pages of a leather-clad tome written in stiff and cold words. He was so proud of everything she had achieved that he sometimes felt he was a second away from bursting with it, despite the strain and the fatigue it placed on her body and mind alike, because all this effort went into securing the freedom and wellbeing of innocent people, and her fierceness in defending those who had been wronged in any way, shape or form was probably the foremost of the reasons why he had fallen for her so irrevocably hard.
Still, he would miss her terribly; he already was, before she had even left. And, in complete and utter contrast to all that, the bubbly sensation in the pit of his stomach resembled relief far too close for comfort. The mere idea made him feel terrible. What sort of boyfriend is relieved when their partner is leaving, even temporarily? It was positively maddening in its untruthfulness. If there were one thing he was incapable of standing, it was being alone. He had been alone before her, and he hadn’t coped well.
Shaking those troublesome thoughts out of his head, Declan instead opted to focus on the bread and ham on the countertop, for the sandwiches weren’t going to magically assemble themselves. He had to drive Lyarra to the airport and then a store to open.
MALLORY I
The house was too large for a single person. Two bedrooms and sufficient storage space, a separate kitchen, two guest bathrooms and a fully furnished living room. Even while booking it on the seedy website that had the perfect makings of a spectacular fraud, (in all honesty, she had been surprised upon realizing the address actually existed, although she couldn’t decide if getting scammed would have been for the worse or for the better) she had known it wouldn’t be easy to live in, far too grand as to not unwillingly remind that solidary inhabitant of their dreary loneliness. This was a house meant for a family, even in a place like this, the smallest of small towns, where two years ago she would have been hard-pressed to believe anyone under the age of 190 would willingly exile themselves to. It didn’t appear as commodious on the outside; the strongly built concrete walls, old-fashioned windows with brass latches, heavy wooden door with an animal-shaped knocker (who the hell even used these anymore?) and traditional arch covered in ungroomed, but still sweet-scented, white rose buds served to give the place a rather medieval feel, something you would find perched on the top of a green hill in the middle of a fairytale, a welcoming sight for the weary traveler. The front yard had the potential to be rather charming, she had noted earlier, with a couple jardinières of poppies or maybe lilies, but Mallory was no gardener and she didn’t have the least bit of interest as to whether the house was aesthetically beautiful or not.
As long as the walls stood strong, the rooftop didn’t leak, the water was running, the power was stable and there were absolutely no mice in her line of sight, the rest were insignificant.
Leaning heavily on her long cane with the silver end, she knew the next sensible move would be to unpack, starting by placing the piles upon piles of cardboard boxes in a more widespread arrangement around the unorganized living room, then checking their labels to separate the utensils from the clothes. She hadn’t bothered to bring any of her old furniture with her, instead choosing to sell the majority of the stuff, even those one might have argued could potentially have been useful, but still, much to her dismay, there was a lot to be done. However, as soon as the thought crossed her mind, she rejected it. All she wanted to do was to go to bed, lay down under the covers and sink into a sleep that would last 100 years at least.
“But you won’t really sleep, now, will you?” a haunting voice crawling straight out of her nightmares hissed maliciously into her ear, so abruptly that she nearly jumped. ”No, you will just stare at the canopy, awake for hours and hours, images of what is and isn’t flashing before your tearful eyes. And if you do fall asleep, you know I will be right there, waiting for you.”
“Shut the hell up.” she growled through gritted teeth and instantly regretted it, because the line between talking to ghosts and them answering back is actually extremely fine, as she had come to learn in the hardest of ways over the past year. Society has evolved in so many ways within the span of a single decade, even the stories we tell ourselves whenever reality gets too raw and too rough have slowly but surely been altered to fit the ways of life as we now lead it. In the real world, monsters don’t lurk inside closets, don’t dwell under beds. They walk in the light of day perfectly visible and tangible, intermixing with their victims, forcing interactions and intelligent conversations. They aren’t always deformed, and if they are, they have come up with an abundance of ways to cover it up- makeup, jewelry, pictures. There are no shimmering scales, bloodstained fangs, enormous horns. There are suits and bowties, gowns and brooches. There are no bubbling potions or malevolent curses, at least not ones audibly cast, only deals made in secret and favors exchanged in the dark.
“Didn’t you know? The original fairytales, as they were first written by the Grimm brothers and Hans-Christian Andersen, were so dark and twisted, they weren’t suitable for anyone to hear, much less a child. Of course, today we have Disney to thank for the sugar-tinted version of enchanted roses and wishes upon stars. We don’t talk about what the Big Bad Wolf actually did when he lured Little Red in a dark cavern, away from the road, where no woodcutter could hear her scream and beg. Or that Sleeping Beauty was aware of her surroundings the whole time, even while her eyes were closed, and she was crying inside as wandering hands slithered under her covers, reaching for something that wasn’t their own.”
Even as a child, despite having no one to read them to her, Mallory had always despised the stories every other kid fell asleep to. It was yet another peculiarity to set her apart from the rest, but she just couldn’t comprehend what everyone else found so entertaining. There is nothing noble or good or innocent about the sea-born daughter that thought giving up her voice and opinions would earn her a chance at true love or the little girl whose mother locked her in an attic, (for what is a tower if not a locked room atop another?) and her sorrowful calls went unheard of for days until she learned to ‘behave’, or the cowering woman dressed in silks and doused in perfume, waiting on the bed like a lamb to the slaughter, ears tuned for the echo of thundering steps outside her door?
Aurora’s story, especially, had always been the worst one of all. Even ten-year-old Mallory, growing up in stark absence of decent female role models (or any role models at all, to be precise) realized there was something horribly wrong with a man who called himself a prince, basing his title on nothing but a glittering crown, who felt entitled to putting his hands and lips on another’s body while they weren’t in a position to refuse him. Who, afterwards, claimed it was ‘for their own good’ and believed they should be thanked for the service they provided.
This version had been the cause of a particular brand of ire and disgust over the years, well into her teenage life, and even as a grown woman, with a much better view and understanding of the world than her younger- yet still intuitive- counterpart, the most subtle mention of the story never failed to make her lips curl in distaste. Sometimes she was puzzled by her aversion towards what was, in the end, inarguably just a children’s tale, but it had always sounded so twisted and failed and wrong in her ears, as though this couldn’t just be it, it couldn’t possibly end this way. She could never quite put her finger on it, but it felt like parts were missing, some key detail that had been forgotten.
“It must be the pills”, she reasoned without conviction, because an alternative where she had finally gone off the deep end and was actively responding to non-existent, disembodied voices was not one she was neither willing nor presently capable of entertaining. She was not supposed to diminish the dose of painkillers for another two weeks, even if the consequent side effects were pulling at her last nerve. She would endure, though. She had had far worse done to her and she survived. Pain was her constant companion these days. A little bit more would hardly make a difference.
Where does it hurt?
Body, Mind, Heart, Soul?
Physical pain. Mental pain. After a while, there ceases to be a difference. It’s only ever pain.
Where does it hurt?
Where does it not?
Feeling as though she had just emerged from the bottom of the ocean, Mallory was violently yanked back into reality by a series of soft, yet persistent, knocks on the door. Tempted to leave whoever was on the other side waiting, she got on her feet unsteadily and started trotting sluggishly towards the direction of the sound. Her actual movements had only half-registered into her brain when she gripped the handle, glaring down at the person of the threshold so scathingly, they would have been completely justified to make a run for it.
“Good morning! Welcome to the town! My name is Rory.”
The image of the bright-eyed, overly enthusiastic teenage girl with her right hand extended towards Mallory was so surreal, she actually had to blink to ensure this was not just another very authentic hallucination produced by her drugged, messed-up subconscious. She couldn’t be more than eighteen, rather charming with ivory skin, waist-length waves of blonde hair and a sunny smile so sincere that it could have made flowers bloom in the dead of winter. Her apparent excitement at the prospect of making Mallory’s acquaintance didn’t seem to waver in the slightest, even the latter pointedly made no motion to shake her outstretched hand.
“I brought you something, as a welcome gift, you know. I have been told these are supposed to be homemade, but I can’t bake to save my life, and there is this bakery in town that makes the most divine pastries you are ever going to taste.”
Now a moderately-sized square box wrapped in gold gift paper and decorated with a black ribbon was being handed to her, even though Mallory had yet to breathe a single word. Unyieldingly making no attempt to thank the girl, introduce herself, or- Heavens forbid!- invite her in, she soundlessly took the package from her, fully intent on throwing it away at first opportunity. Aurora regarded her for a couple more seconds, surprisingly tactful not to stare too long at her cane, and then shoot the older woman another beaming laugh.
“Anyway, I will leave you to settle in, you must be exhausted. My husband and I, Phil, are your next-door neighbors, we saw the moving track from our window. Our house is the one with the red bricks, should you need anything. Don’t hesitate to knock!”
And just like that, she was gone in a breeze of a faint floral aroma, a natural skip in her step as though life had never let her down. Dumbfounded, not knowing what to make of this strange encounter she was still not positive actually occurred, Mallory closed the door and retreated back into the solitude of her new home, shadows lining the hallway due to the limited lighting. Her feet made no sound when touching the ground, almost as though she hovered over it, but the unmistakable clank, clank of her cane, of metal against wood, echoed across the empty rooms, sending piercing stabs through her battered heart.
Clank!
A pair of shining white Jackson ice skates, blades freshly sharpened.
Clank!
A triple toe loop, perfect landing, the sound of ice scratching under steel.
Clank!
The review of the judges’ score board, the number 1st flashing in bold capital letters.
Clank!
A tight embrace, a fiery kiss on her lips, a pair of clever foxy brown eyes locking with her own.
As she forcefully bit the inside of her mouth to halt the images, more came, increasing mercilessly in number and intensity.
The black feathers of her Odile costume.
The overhead lift that seem to stretch forever.
The pain, the crack, the blood, the glint, the sirens.
Suddenly feeling faint, it was all Mallory could do to collapse on one of the high stool seats placed near the kitchen counter, vaguely aware that her entire body was wrecked with violent shivers. Taking slow, measured gulps of air to steady her breathing, oxygen felt like coal being shoved down her throat. Barely resisting the urge to claw at her breastbone, as though she were expecting to find some restraining collar there responsible for the unshakable weight that had settled on her chest, she quickly blamed her state on the lack of food. After all, she couldn’t recall eating anything during the six-hour ride from the city. With trembling fingers, she tore at the package she was rather surprised to still be holding in her hands, since a venture out into a grocery store was plainly not happening today.
Ignoring the logo and the store name, she carelessly reached into the box and pulled out what appeared to be a tartlet of some sort. Greedily biting into the treat, which might as well be laced with arsenic for all she knew, she was in no way prepared for what followed next. The crust was brittle and simultaneously rich in her mouth, and she nearly moaned at the hint of powdered sugar she was just able to catch underneath it. Her eyes- a kaleidoscope of a unique blue-green combination tinted with hazel specks- closed on their own volition to try and savor the explosion of strawberry and cream that had currently sent her taste buds all the way up to Heaven. Completely overwhelmed, Mallory stared open-mouthed at the small, already half-eaten pastry in her grasp, as though she were expecting it to sprout legs and start waltzing on her palm.
This might have truly been the best thing she had ever eaten in her life! Her vision, which had previously been flecked with black dots like smears of ink, growing dimmer at the edges, the colors fading in and out of focus as though the world was the canvas on an indecisive artist, now flooded with blues, whites and greys, allowing her to finally take in the scenery around her for what it truly was. It was like her body had been merely the vessel that carried her slumbering spirit inside, a hollow and lonely mass of atoms and particles, but now she had stepped right back into it, into herself, more awake and aware and alert than she had been since that fateful day her entire life had imploded in a comet’s explosion, leaving behind razor-sharp shards of a tainted past too painful to revisit and a stolen future too unreachable to dream about.
“How is it possible for a single morsel of anything to invoke such stimuli? What did the baker put in those, pixie dust? Have they been injected with heroine or something?”
Now more settled, heart no longer racing and palms no longer sweating, Mallory peered at the information written on the disregarded box with the closest resemblance to curiosity she had felt in a long time. The sigil was a rather intriguing design, an oval of thick, golden stokes enlacing a picture within the lines. It portrayed a bird perched on a branch in an abstract background of vivid pastels, all shades of translucent amber, emerald green and turquoise blue blending together to form a surprisingly tasteful pattern of merging colors. Normally, the collision would have annoyed Mallory, because it made it virtually impossible to make out a specific shape or even outline, but she found herself strangely enamored by the chaotic combinations. The black figure at the center came into stark contrast with the hazy, earthly background, pointing out the differences all too well. It depicted indeed a bird, with glossy black wings and a pointy beak, whose beady eyes appeared to be staring straight at Mallory even through the paper. Whoever had drawn this certainly must have put a lot of effort into it, because its gaze, a remarkable shade of onyx black, didn’t have the ferocious look that Mallory expected from such a predatorial creature. Instead, they twinkled with the intelligence and the warmth of a sentient being as they seemed to lock with her own. If Mallory hadn’t known any better, she could have sworn they were moving.
Oh, Dear God, she needed to look into that anti-depressant prescription again. Night terrors and excessive insomnia were one thing, but hallucinating flickering paintings was another entirely. Perhaps she ought to pay a bit more attention to what she was putting inside her body, unless she wanted to find herself saddled with operating on anti-psychotics for the rest of her life.
Raven.
It was a raven, she realized with a start, even though it could theoretically easily be mistaken for a crow, and she was not entirely certain she had ever seen one in real life, apart from various graphic interpretations on TV. She couldn’t pinpoint the origins of her sudden burst of confidence in the accuracy of what she was thinking, but in that moment, she would have willingly betted a hefty amount on money on the bird being a raven.
“Where have I seen you before? Like a fragment of a dream, or a dream of a dream, where I saw myself sleeping.”
“The Golden Grove Bakery.” Mallory read out loud, the words ringing clear and cold.
Maybe grocery shopping was out of the question, but a little dessert hunting has never hurt anyone. Right?
