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The floor could have fallen away from me at that moment as the reality of what Harrison had said fell upon me.“Take us to them,” I demanded as the fingers of dread spread a shiver down my spine. “Now.”
FAENIR
The child looked horrifically small, nestled within the arms of her weeping mother. Her body did not glow with the halo of life. Instead, shadows danced around her skin like vipers longing for blood; beneath was a slither of light that they worked hard to suffocate.
I felt theshadows tugging at me the moment we had entered their room, a cord pulling me with urgency. I wished to greet it as the death demanded, to reach out and claim the shadows for my own.If it was not for Arlo’s hand in mine and the way his presence grounded me, there would have been nothing stopping me.
The woman, Ana, hardly looked up from the child as we entered. It was as if she expected our company.She was singing a lullaby, rocking the child back and forth. The haunting sound made me want to flee the room, flee this place entirely. I wanted to demand that she stopped, yet it felt wrong to stop a mother consoling a child. Unjust. Monstrous.
Tears fell upon little May’s grey hued skin as Ana finally choked on the lyrics. I believed the little girl was sleeping until two dulled blue eyes creaked open and looked towards where we stood.
Did she sense the pull between us?
“That is the prince, mummy.” May’s broken voice scratched at my soul like nails across stone.
Ana nodded, swiping her hand over the small forehead of the little girl to gather the damp, red curls that hung around her hollow face. “A special visit for a special girl.”
“I want to see him. He is so far away.”
Ana looked up and stared directly into my eyes. Without outstretching a hand for me, she beckoned me towards her. “Your Highness, please… for a moment. Come and meet my princess.”
I could not reply, could not move a muscle as that ominous shadow lingered across the little child’s skin. The room was silent to everyone else, yet to me… the shadows cried out with wanting.
“Go to her,” Arlo whispered, sadness thickening in his throat. His voice tore me out of my thoughts.
“I do not wish to hurt them.” My voice did not sound like my own. It was distant and echoed as though I stood at the end of a long, barren corridor and shouted at myself from the other end.
“You may find,” Arlo said softly, “that your words may have the opposite effect.”
He urged me forward, fingers slipping out of my hand with ease. Without him holding me back, there was nothing stopping me from following that sinister pull.
Ana said something to me, but I could not focus, not as the child watched me with doe-wide eyes. I knelt down at her side, squeezing my hands upon my thighs to keep them from reaching out.
“Hello,” she said, her small voice wheezing with great effort.
“Hello,” I replied, unsure of what else to say.
“You are not scary.” May’s small, bloodshot eyes raced across my face. Her attention left featherlight touches, like little fingers tracing across my features to memorise them. “They said you were a monster, but you don’t look like one.”
“Perhaps you are just braver than the rest of them?”
Ana sobbed, pressing a wet kiss to the child’s forehead. “May is the bravest of them all. She has faced far greater pains than many could ever comprehend.”
“I do not doubt it,” I replied softly.
“Mummy,” May gasped, wincing as she tried to sit up, but couldn’t. “Don’t be sad.” The girl, with great effort, lifted her hand to her mother’s cheek and held it there, not concerned for the tears that raced over her small fingers.
“My sweet girl, I do not wish for you to be in pain anymore,” Ana said.
“I feel it going away now, mummy, like you promised. It is slipping away like the sand through my fingers... do you remember?”
“Nothing could ever make me forget.”
“I don’t hurt anymore.”
Because you are dying.
I felt it. Unlike Ana and Arlo, whose bodies sang with the light of life, May did not. I wondered if Ana knew that the child’s time was ending. May seemed to know and took comfort in the fact. Had her suffering been so terrible that death was the better choice for her?
