Occidentalis
We were all born at night. Our mothers screamed and panted in their beds, doors barricaded, curtains drawn. They kept us secret, safe, as long as they could. There was a strict edict that we were prohibited from discussing our births in the schoolyard. They wanted us to love each other early, they wanted us to understand that we were all the same. They wanted us to forget that some of us were predators, and some of us were prey.
I was born with blue eyes, my sister too. My mother kept visitors away for the first few days, covering our heads with blankets and burying our faces on her shoulder when the others came near. My father simply grunted when he saw us, and went back to work. It was impossible to surprise him. You could pad up in the barn, quiet as can be, and when you got right up behind him, he would calmly turn round and hand you a slice of jerky from his pouch, his lean haunches relaxed as he took a break, as he answered our insistent whys and wherefores.
He built a stronger fence the year we turned thirteen. By then, our eyes had long darkened like those of everyone else in the valley. You could not tell one child from another, you could not have guessed which of us were to be hunters. Our front door, he replaced with oak, banded by iron. The clouds bled across the mountaintop every dawn, and we stood shivering in the sun, waiting for it to warm our shoulders before we loped into the schoolyard. The world was different in the daylight, the world was safe.
The answers came in the harvest moon. At the end of August, there was a dance. We all drank sweet cider for the first time, and we spun and whirled under the stars, laughing with the heady rush of alcohol. We were allowed to pair off, that night, with the understanding that full intercourse was forbidden. The geas was never broken. No-one wanted the painful punishment of a half-breed child. I lay that night in the long grass of my father’s field. I could hear my sister’s laughter, and further off, my mother’s. Sweet Tobin lay quietly with his head on my bare thigh.
I am sorry for what I did to him.
A bare month later, I stood in the main room next to my sister. We snarled and raged at the front door. My father had done his job well. The hinges held tight against our assault. He had not counted on his wife, though. We sat on the hard-packed floor, and we began to howl. She crept down the stairs, her amber eyes reflecting the lamp in her hand. It took only a second, and the latch was opened.
She let us go.
We ran full-out across my father’s acres, and sailed over his sturdy fence. I was hungry. I could smell the tiny milk goats in the high field, hear their bells tinkling as they twitched in their sleep. My sister twisted away from me, and headed for the woods. She was always wilder than I, and kinder. I kept on my way, and soon enough reached the shepherd’s cot. The stone house was ancient, but the goats were young. I dove into their midst, not bothering to stalk them, stupid as they were. I do not know how many I killed before I heard him crying. He lay among the goats, bloodied and torn. Poor brown-eyed Tobin whimpered, as much for the herd as for himself.
I stood for a moment stock still, and I turned my yellow eyes on him. Then I was gone to find my sister in the woods. The rest of the autumn is blurry, night after night sleeping out, the world revealed to me in layers of scent. It was the solstice before we returned, before all of the children found their way home. And they never spoke of anything that heppend. Things were the way they were, and that was the way of it. I married a man, lean and brown with eyes that flash in the lamp-light. We do well enough, and my belly swells with our first child.
But I am sorry for what I did to Tobin. When he lays his brown head on my bare thigh out in my husband’s field, he turns his face away, so that I will not see still the long and twisting scar on his left cheek.
I was born with blue eyes, my sister too. My mother kept visitors away for the first few days, covering our heads with blankets and burying our faces on her shoulder when the others came near. My father simply grunted when he saw us, and went back to work. It was impossible to surprise him. You could pad up in the barn, quiet as can be, and when you got right up behind him, he would calmly turn round and hand you a slice of jerky from his pouch, his lean haunches relaxed as he took a break, as he answered our insistent whys and wherefores.
He built a stronger fence the year we turned thirteen. By then, our eyes had long darkened like those of everyone else in the valley. You could not tell one child from another, you could not have guessed which of us were to be hunters. Our front door, he replaced with oak, banded by iron. The clouds bled across the mountaintop every dawn, and we stood shivering in the sun, waiting for it to warm our shoulders before we loped into the schoolyard. The world was different in the daylight, the world was safe.
The answers came in the harvest moon. At the end of August, there was a dance. We all drank sweet cider for the first time, and we spun and whirled under the stars, laughing with the heady rush of alcohol. We were allowed to pair off, that night, with the understanding that full intercourse was forbidden. The geas was never broken. No-one wanted the painful punishment of a half-breed child. I lay that night in the long grass of my father’s field. I could hear my sister’s laughter, and further off, my mother’s. Sweet Tobin lay quietly with his head on my bare thigh.
I am sorry for what I did to him.
A bare month later, I stood in the main room next to my sister. We snarled and raged at the front door. My father had done his job well. The hinges held tight against our assault. He had not counted on his wife, though. We sat on the hard-packed floor, and we began to howl. She crept down the stairs, her amber eyes reflecting the lamp in her hand. It took only a second, and the latch was opened.
She let us go.
We ran full-out across my father’s acres, and sailed over his sturdy fence. I was hungry. I could smell the tiny milk goats in the high field, hear their bells tinkling as they twitched in their sleep. My sister twisted away from me, and headed for the woods. She was always wilder than I, and kinder. I kept on my way, and soon enough reached the shepherd’s cot. The stone house was ancient, but the goats were young. I dove into their midst, not bothering to stalk them, stupid as they were. I do not know how many I killed before I heard him crying. He lay among the goats, bloodied and torn. Poor brown-eyed Tobin whimpered, as much for the herd as for himself.
I stood for a moment stock still, and I turned my yellow eyes on him. Then I was gone to find my sister in the woods. The rest of the autumn is blurry, night after night sleeping out, the world revealed to me in layers of scent. It was the solstice before we returned, before all of the children found their way home. And they never spoke of anything that heppend. Things were the way they were, and that was the way of it. I married a man, lean and brown with eyes that flash in the lamp-light. We do well enough, and my belly swells with our first child.
But I am sorry for what I did to Tobin. When he lays his brown head on my bare thigh out in my husband’s field, he turns his face away, so that I will not see still the long and twisting scar on his left cheek.