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| Found on www.blockstory.net |
I didn’t know I was a monster until the moment I held the boy I loved in my arms, his blood blossoming in the water like so many scarlet roses scattered upon the sea.
* * *
The first time I saw him, he was alone on the shore, sitting with his knees tucked up to his chest, bare feet splashed by the lapping waves. The hills rose up behind him, green and gold, touched by the sun. That same sun illuminated him with an ethereal glow and his fine, yellow hair gleamed like a halo.
I watched from the loch, keeping only my eyes above the water
as I had been taught. He was the first human I had ever seen and when he lifted his head and gazed out over the water my heart stopped. I felt as though he
were welcoming me with his slow smile, consuming me with his wide, hungry brown
eyes, though I knew he could not see me.
When he stood and began to walk
along the sand, hands twisting in the beach grass, I slipped silently out of
the water. My neck and head elongated as my feet morphed into hoofs. I shook my
horse body. Water droplets flew off my white hide and sank into the sand. The
sun dried my sleek body quickly, but still my sky-blue mane dripped, dripped.
I blew a loud gust through my nostrils and the boy turned. His
eyes bulged as he watched me approach with an expression frozen between terror and curiosity. I paused a
few yards from him and tossed my head, pawing the sand. When I whinnied he jumped and cried out, as if jolted awake. He scrambled away, tripping and falling onto his
back, then lay there staring up at me with rising terror. I lowered my head,
gazing at him with wide, friendly eyes. Tentatively, his hand rose and he
laid a finger on my muzzle.
I blinked, and he was gone,
swallowed up by the golden hills.
* * *
Brimming with excitement, I waited
for the boy to return. And to my delight, he did; again, and again.
His name was Baen, and it was his curiosity that made him
brave.
“I canna sleep for thinking of ye,” Baen
confessed. “An when I do, I dream of ye. I ken I should be afraid…but I’m not.”
My heart beat a little faster at
his words, but I could not tell him that I dreamt of him too. Since I could not
speak, I just nickered happily and blew loch-scented breath into his face.
Baen was careful. Smart. He put a
blanket over me so the glue of my slick hide would not catch him. He wore
gloves, so my curly, constantly sodden mane would not freeze his skin, and he
never allowed me to carry him near the water.
Together, we owned the shore. We challenged
birds, and shadows, and the wind itself to races. Baen stacked rocks,
driftwood, anything, and I jumped over them with him clinging to me, screaming
for joy. Sometimes while I galloped, mane tossed by the wind, he would hold out
his arms as if he could fly. When we collapsed upon the sand, breathless and
tired, Baen crawled between my forelegs, his back against my chest. I draped my
neck over his shoulder and sighed as he tickled my chin.
I did not know what I was, not yet.
I was drunk on happiness, stupid with hope. Dangerous.
* *
*
“Isla,” my mother scolded. “Stop playing with him and get it over with.”
I ignored her reprimands. I was ignited with love, dreaming of a different life. The yearning to be more then horse in Baen’s
company became my universe; the desire to hear my name upon his lips my
compass.
My mother wasn’t worried, not really. She knew what I did
not.
* * *
In human form my blue hair curled
about my face, tumbling down my back, sleek and shining. My skin was rosy and
smooth, my body voluptuous, and strong. Though I bore no shame in nakedness, I plaited
plants and shells together to cover my body because Baen covered his. I wove a water
lily into my hair and watched myself in the water, waiting for him to arrive.
I was flawless. Irresistible. I was
a goddess molded in the image of my ancestors. But my reflection made me uneasy;
I saw the darting edge of something unknown glinting in my eyes.
That afternoon Baen assured me that my iridescent
green eyes flickered with mystery and secrets, nothing more, and I believed him.
How could I not? My soul was made of water. I was light, and liquid, and
restless energy. Baen was shadows, and solidity. He was earth and fire.
The distance between us thrummed
and sparked, drawing us nearer, nearer, until at last shyness melted, and our
hands wound together. Sun kissed and bright we danced, hand in hand. Our
laughter, his husky and low, mine high and chiming, twirled through the damp
air. Lulled at last by the rustle of the wind through the grass, and the cry of
birds as they wheeled, Baen fell asleep in my arms. I gazed at his face, so
handsome and kind, enraptured by his trust.
Later we
sat on a large rock, our feet dangling in the water. Baen traced my palm, and I
trailed a finger down his cheek.
We were reckless with love.
He leaned toward me, and I,
foolish and falling, met him. I was all longing, all wanting.
Our lips touched. Melded.
The taste of him- New, startling,
like nothing I had ever savored-and the heat of him against my ice-cold lips,
and the feel of him, so soft, so giving.
Flesh.
Blood.
Bone.
Only a
moment, a second, of pure unrivaled bliss and then bliss gave way to hard, crushing
instinct. The thirst for blood devoured
me from the inside out as I devoured him. I was fangs, and claws. I was
ripping, and rending, fueled by his screams. I was the she-devil born from the
fathoms below.
I plunged into the loch, dragging
him with me, down, down, ocean deep. Twisting, and lithe, and gloriously
deadly, I reeled.
Baen wrapped his arms around my
slippery form, twining onto me as if it were proximity not distance that would
save him. It was the feel of his lips-so hot-pressed to my ear, and the sound
of my name gasped in his sweet voice as I crested a wave that broke my fervor.
Baen’s blood clouded the water,
stained it red. His grip loosened and he fell from me, his lips as blue as the
sky.
My heart shattered, the pieces cast
adrift like flotsam.
I carried
his limp, ragged form to shore and laid him tenderly upon the sun-warmed sand.
“Baen,” I sobbed, cupping his face
with my hands. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I didn’t know...I didn’t know. I am a
monster.”
“Isla,” he sighed. “I…knew.”
* * *
I left Baen on the beach; his body cold and wet, like mine.
I looked back only once, tears slipping down my perfectly
sculpted cheeks. Then I dove into the water that had once been my home, but was
now my prison.
I didn’t know I was a monster. I didn’t want to be one. But
now…
Now I don’t know how to be anything else.
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| Found on www.wendyjargonncom.blogspot.com |
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| http://www.deviantart.com/art/The-Kelpie-260434761 |
