joan hale {district five} fin

One Mother promised — she promises you. She leans into your cradle and whispers — but it sounds more like a serpentine hiss — that you and you alone will hold the sun between your two tiny hands. You and your mother have more in common than you would like to admit; you do not keep promises, and neither does she. [Like mother, like daughter.]

Two she cursed you blind with the gentle sway of the rocking chair and the crackle of the flames dancing beneath the arch of the fireplace. She tangled your heart with hers until your hands could not pull apart the mess she had made. She filled your ears with poison — "I love you" — and left it to fester beneath your flesh in the darkness oozing in the wake of her receding footsteps.

Three too old not to notice the bottles, too young to understand the why that seems to stitch its shadow through your skin. Your father's slurred voice scrapes your eardrums but you cannot decipher his taint, you cannot see for she blinded you. ("Not Hales," he accuses. "Not Hales.")

Four you look at her; you stare into a mirror. Eyes, eyes you can't seem to scratch from your mind, bore into your own. You peer into blue and ice that matches your own — but the dulled steel in her eyes cannot compare to the gleam dancing in yours. Flesh fair as rose, fair as yours, seems to broil against your father's presence — you don't know why, and you don't ask. You only know of the distance that seems to grow between your parents and that Mother leaves at midnight and she returns in the blood of the dawn, dark hair ruffled by a pillow. And your father will mutter something under his breath — "Not Hales. Not Hales."

Five Mother stops making promises. You don't know why, and you don't ask. She stops reading you stories, she stops tucking you in at night. You don't know why, and you don't ask. Your nights are immersed in silence, and it punches holes in your eardrums.

Six it is the North Star that plants its silver kiss upon your forehead. It is the wind that tucks you into the haven of your bed when darkness swallows the light in the sky. Its silver arms take the place of your mother's, for she is rarely caught dead at the Hale house after the sun sinks. Your nights are filled not with her empty promises and hollow smiles, but this — dark hair sprawled around your face, turned to the skies in wonder, turned to the North Star in hope that it will lead you away. The North Star has promised you, and you believe. It promises you adventure, it promises you hope.

Seven, eight, nine there are holes in your sneakers from the scrapes of the sidewalk and tears in your shorts from racing past thorn thickets. Your feet carry you to the playground and fields and anywhere children play and your house glares at you from far in the distance. The spaces in the Hale house stretch out to infinity; your mother and you leave voids in your adventures.

Ten, eleven you open your eyes; you scream. Years spent in distance from the house you dared not spend so much as a day imprisoned in, you had forgotten everything that had broken there. You try to turn around and collect what you had left behind, but all that awaits you is a barren wasteland and distant siblings — Saxton, Legion. And the Hale house is gray before your eyes in every season. Winter sweeps you in its frigid arms and clouds the color of pale slate roll in with the biting wind that cuts you like a knife. Gray, gray, gray; any other color is too good for a house like this. Blankets of snow wrap around the roof, but it is no winter wonderland here. And summer bleeds its golden light into the earth, but light dares not touch this house — only darkness may prevail.

Twelve ["I was promised."] She was promised — but you never promised anything, because promises are too fragile for hands like yours. You dare not spill promises from your lips, parted against struggling words, for they shatter on your tongue. Saxton Hale — her name hangs heavily over yours and the absence of her presence, so cold against your bones in a promise that you will never forget her or the blood on her grave. You promise nothing, you only turn your eyes to the stars and wonder why she had to leave.

{ table: zoë }

THEY SAY HOME IS WHERE
YOUR HEART IS SET IN STONE
IS WHERE YOU GO WHEN YOU'RE ALONE
IS WHERE YOU GO TO REST YOUR BONES