She caved in around herself, taloned arms helplessly wrapped around her scaly shoulders, her face stretched into a monstrous but silent scream.
A scream I knew all too well.
I finally saw it. Now, I understood.
And the hate and the rage and the fear and the disgust and the shame vanished.
And all I felt was love.
I gathered her into my arms like a child. She scrabbled and fought, but I held on. Just like the stories. Just like in Tam Lin. And I didn’t care what she turned herself into whether it was snakes or spiders or fire. I understood it now. What it meant to love, and to be loved, that hard. She curled up in my lap and sobbed into my chest as I hushed her and stroked her hair. She was so small. Small and alone.
“Why?” she said. “Why why why?”
“A long time ago,” I said, “when you were still new, someone told you a story, maybe not in their words, but in their actions, in their choices. And in that story, you were a monster. And so, you behaved like a monster.”
She curled in tighter to me as I took the needle from my pocket, still threaded with the red string.
“You grew tough scaly skin that no one could pierce,” I said, “or see you through.”
I pushed the needle into the sole of my foot, gritting my teeth against the pain.
“You lashed out so no one could come close enough to hurt you,” I said, “or heal you.”
I pulled the thread through the hard skin.
“You hid yourself away in the dark where you wouldn’t be found by your enemies,” I said, “or your friends.”
I pulled her close to me, holding her tightly, then pressed the needle to the hard skin on the sole of her foot.
“Then when you found people, good people, you didn’t know what to do with them. So, you devoured them.”
With one quick move I pushed the needle through her skin.
She yowled, but I held tight. She looked at me accusingly.
“Because you were so hungry for love. Because you never trusted anyone to stay out of choice.”
I made a loop, guided the needle through it then pulled the thread tight between us.
The fourth knot.
Her eyes darted down to where I’d stitched us together, the other three knots sticky with our intermingled blood.
“We’ve done monstrous things,” I said. “But I don’t think that’s who we are. I think it’s time we admitted we’re not monsters.”
“But then,” she said quietly, “who are we really?”
I kissed the top of her head.
“Come home, my little shadow, and let’s find out.”
She nodded. I threaded the needle once more and pushed it through our skins. The pain flared white hot in my mind. The soles of our feet pressed together. Like a book, or two slices of sandwich bread, or two palms. Like a prayer. Like the house.
I pushed on.
“It’s okay,” I said, as my fingers became slick with blood, as her face raised to my face, as her sweating chest pulled close to my sweating chest.
“It’s going to be okay,” I whispered to her. “It’s going to be okay.”
