kiara riddle { three } wip

KIARA RIDDLE

and i walked and i walked and i fell down
(down down).

They found you on their doorstep on a winter night. There were snowflakes lacing your lashes, and the cold had turned your nose into a bright red button. Miss Meryl says that you are the prettiest baby she ever saw — full head of ebony hair, porcelain skin, clear blue eyes the size of saucers.

Your mother mistook the Academy for a house. She must have been in a rush, because the sign in the front clearly stated, in all capital, gold letters, that the building before it was an academy. But she opened the gate anyway and left you there on the snow-dusted doorstep.

Miss Meryl was the one who brought you up, but you never saw her as a mother. In your eyes, the only mother you ever had was the one who left you on the doorstep of the Academy. You have no parents; since when did you need any? (Or at least that is what you try to tell yourself.)

Over the years, you have come up with many reasons why your mother gave you up. One, she didn't have the money, two, she was a teenager and wasn't ready to have a child, three, a combination of one and two, and so on.

You don't think much about her anymore. Sometimes she'll creep into your head at night when your mind wanders and there's shadows under your eyes from lack of sleep — so you just shove her away. She does not belong in your mind.

You think a lot at night —
you think and you think and you think and you think until you're lost somewhere in black, icy oblivion and there is no going back.

Miss Meryl says that you're unfocused, that your mind goes elsewhere during lessons and that is why the other girls make fun of you. And you are unfocused — you don't care about Miss Meryl's magic lessons, because it's all bullshit, bullocks. She must know that you are a nonbeliever — everyone else does — but she refuses to admit it. Instead, she is harder on you than everyone else and gives you special attention during class.

No wonder everyone thinks you don't have a single brain cell.

You never asked to be a witch, you never asked for any of this. But here you are, and why?

You have never been able to conjure up an answer to that question.

Miss Meryl proclaims that it is fate that brought every single one of the girls in the Academy here, but you have your doubts. You always have.

"You're just upset because you couldn't brainwash me like everyone else, because I'm stronger than —"

And Meryl slapped you across the face at your defiance.

That was the last time you ever openly defied the beliefs of the Academy. But just because you were quiet about it didn't mean that it would change anything.

One of the girls, Anara, had a special disdain for you. It began with sneers and petty jabs, shoving you against the wall of the stairwell when she passed by. But as the months went on, it gradually escalated, becoming more and more violent. She called you rat, and constantly chastised you for being a nonbeliever.

("Your head is empty, rat," she once growled.

"Let me help with that."

And she grabbed you by a fistful of dark hair and slammed you against the wall.)

You would have bruises, just little paint splotches of green, yellow, and blue all clashing and blending into one another along your ribs and hips. But you sucked up the pain and dealt with it, you told no one; you were an outcast. Even if you did tell, no one would have cared, anyway.

It can't get much worse, you told yourself.

my lungs were filled
with tar that day;
i couldn't breathe and i
could feel the ceiling crushing into me.
everything was full of black
and cherry wine.

there was purple on my ribs,
across my knuckles in blotches,
on my arms and legs.
but not purple like the lavender in the dusk sky,
not purple like the violets in the field.
purple —
violent, ugly,
tinged with crimson underneath and black on the surface.

kiara riddle looked back at me
in the broken bathroom mirror,
her face fragmented by the spidering cracks.
but i could still see
all the cherry wine stains
around her half-closed hazel eye.

i tried to cry —
pain was splitting through my nerves
like little needle knives —
but all i had were empty sobs
and dry swollen eyes.

they walked out with not a bruise
or even a fading red mark,
just a bloody fist
from when they punched out the mirror.

and i kept my lips sealed,
stitched together by thread.

it was okay,
it was just a little cherry wine.

PART THREE

PART FOUR