arabelle hart ♥ D5

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INFORMATION

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BIOGRAPHY

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Through billows of smoke and waves of fury, I peer. The handful of herbs burning at my feet produce mountains of brightly coloured haze, rising and falling like the tide. The air tastes bitter, like hazelnuts and winter evenings. Words spill from my lips readily, the chant etched in my mind. Enchanting words, magic neither dark nor light. My sister cannot walk this far, and so waits at home for my return. She is the good witch; and I am the wicked.

The first act of malice that sprung from my fingers and wove gloom into our lives was in the moments following my birth. Isadora was born, bouncing and glowing, a perfect cherub in the October moonlight. I myself came later, a tiny, twisted bundle who stole he life of my own mother as I came into the world. She died, and I came to be. Already, I was a thief who had felled the only person that loved me. I am the frost.

My father embraced me with open arms and never did the truth about who took his wife away cross his lips. Instead, he kissed my wicked forehead each night and rocked me when nightmares haunted my sleep. Isadora was the same; her face so open and her mind almost as wide as her smile. I loved them both with a passionate, thundering protectiveness I couldn't fathom and did not deserve. Because of this, they posed a great danger to a girl who saw only death in the future.

I was five years old when my father tucked me into bed and my sister leaned over to kiss me goodnight, and I decided to kill them, too. Each day I allowed my corrupted heart to expand and adore the two members of my family more and more, each breath a footstep toward indescribable pain. One by one, I knew they would die and tear me in two. The ticking of the clock only made that moment more fragile; more impossible.

That night was the last time I ever cried. Nine long years later, my father died. Some say it my my fault; yet only my memories hold the crystal-clear pictures of his eyes, staring backward at his own mind. For years, my sister and I had been training as healers, following in the footsteps of our darling mother, learning the herbs needed to heal and fix and mend. While Issy took to the trade easily, her keen eyes frolicking happily across the shelves filled with mixtures and medicine, I did not. Instead, clumsy hands resulted in even the most carefully prepared brews turning sour.

Poison, though, was the exact recipe I needed to end the life of my father. The community home was dark and cold, with draughty hallways and wick-less candles. That was okay. Luckily for I, it was void of any threats to my sanity - bar my sister. Isadora was the next and final death that had to occur in order to minimise the effects of death upon my scarred and cruel soul.

A short while before we moved out, I began to grow frustrated with my apparent inability to murder the girl I loved most. My mind could load the gun, and yet my fingers refused to pull the trigger. The battle with the physical elements was lost. It was then that I turned to witchery for the second time, calling upon the spirits to curse Isadora. Within months, sickness coursed through her bones, an agressive disease forcing itself upon her, ravaging her previously supple frame. I had succeeded in the worst possible way.

Together, at eighteen, we fled the Home in favour of our own tiny dwelling. People passed, filled with their own grave illnesses. Isadora, with her gentle hands, was unable to provide the antidotes she held within. Who, after all, would accept assistance from a person so debilitated that they could barely rise from their tangled sheets. And so, it came about that she would tell me how to respond, and I would deliver care.

Even as I fight to act upon her instructions, dark magic spills from my hands and seeps into the blood of my victims. Guilt pounds against my temples in a constant beat of regret. Perhaps it is my mother's fault for letting her lungs cease to rise and fall; or my father for not promising me that it wasn't my fault. Lies. I deserve the pain I find in the photographs of my family; a once healthy sister now confined to the house, a once alive father now confined to the ground. Even in the ancient photographs, I never smiled. That baby who sapped away happiness from those that needed it is the only one to blame.

The smoke clears, and I collect the basket sitting at my feet and return to Isadora. Still, we live in a sickly harmony of stolen kisses and live-wire hearts. Today.

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COMPLETE

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