"All families have their secrets, most people would never know them, but they know there are spaces, gaps where the answers should be, where someone should have sat, where someone used to be. A name that is never uttered, or uttered just once and never again. We all have our secrets."
Cecelia Ahern, The Book of Tomorrow
[-M-]
The door creaked open, and a slim woman with a wood serving tray entered slowly. She held the door open awkwardly, shuddering when it moved away and stayed open with a simple gesture on the girl's – creature's; not girl's – part, allowing her to enter and put the tray down on the floor.
"Mother?"
"…I've brought you food." She ran her hand through her glossy brown hair nervously, flinching when a strand caught on her ring. She smoothed her spotless, white skirt over her legs (toned to perfection with the help of a luxurious gym and altered surgically where they needed to be) and tried not to let her heartbeat go up like last time.
"Thank you. I'll leave it outside the door when I'm finished."
"You should eat it now; you're not supposed to open the door." It was unsettling; no matter what they did, how many locks she'd had installed, the girl – it wasn't a girl! – kept opening it as if it was child's play. She was forced to call upon the obedience – so unnatural; she didn't cry, or seem to get lonely, just did what she was told and read and re-read the books they gave her – of the monstrosity and taught her not to open the locks and deadbolts.
"Then I'm not hungry; I don't think I need to eat," she replied, turning away (thank God) and looking again at the book in her hands.
The silence was deafening. Closing her eyes, the woman attempted to sound sincere, "Is that an interesting book?"
"Yes. I haven't read this one before."
"…I'm going to leave now. I'll, um, bring your dinner a little earlier, then, since you aren't eating lunch."
"That's fine."
The door closed behind her. It wasn't long before the woman's footsteps were beyond hearing distance, and the girl heaved a sigh, clutching the novel to a just-beginning-to-curve-out chest.
"Would you like a moment?" said a voice, silky with its British accent, coming from what seemed to be the book.
"No," the girl replied, tone thick with unshed tears. She stared hard at the white wall opposite her, willing herself to stop, to breathe, and to listen. The man was wonderful, he'd been so kind, and she really ought not to take advantage of his patience.
"If you are upset, you mustn't let it stay inside," he cooed, "Let it out."
"Dr. Azar said I shouldn't let my emotions dictate my actions," she said quietly, flinching when a lightbulb overhead shattered.
There was a hum of something, perhaps pity, maybe amusement, but he didn't clarify. "What kind of a doctor allows his patient to feel so unwell?" he asked, sounding angry with the woman she'd come to know to obey. Raven stilled, mulling over his words. "I find it rather shocking that they'd do such a thing to you – your mother, especially."
"My…mother?" she asked breathlessly, eyes widening in realization.
Her manipulator had to work hard to keep the smile out of his tone, at how easy she was to shape, "Yes. She caused you to feel sadness just now, didn't she? By being so cruel?"
"Cruel…" the girl replied quietly, looking at the book with great sadness, like it was a bringer of the worst news.
"Sweet Raven," he said, opening to the page that contained the top-half of his face, and stroking her cheek with a tendril of paper, "You must free yourself of their influence. You are so much more," he said, trying to convey meaning where there was none. She could help him escape, yes, but with much training and careful teachings on his part – he mustn't allow her to learn of what he was, and he must push her hard to ensure she performed the spell correctly. She had the potential, but he wasn't sure she could handle the task.
She stared at him, eyes brimming with tears, then held the hardcover to her tightly and let it loose with one hoarse cry.
[-M-]
"Hello, Raven. Your mother tells me you've been rather vocal lately." Dr. Azar adjusted her glasses importantly and peered at the dark girl over a neat clipboard.
"Get out," the girl spat, eyes inadvertently moving to the spot beneath her pillow, where she'd hidden him.
The gesture wasn't lost on the psychologist, "What do you have there?"
"Stop."
The woman did, stilling briefly due to fear, then straightening up as she realized the girl wasn't the one in control. "Now, Raven, we've spoken about this once before, remember? We use a courteous tone when speaking to others to ensure that they will use a courteous tone back."
There was no reply, simply a harsh glare from eyes that were slowly beginning to turn red. The doctor waited for the girl to calm herself, but it didn't happen. The eyes retained their dull glow, brightening when the older woman made no move to walk away from him.
Gathering her courage (she wasn't supposed to be doing this!) she made Dr. Azar's shadow rise off of the floor, the silhouette a caricature of the woman, and wrap its gangly, now-solid limbs around her convex waist to pull her away from the bed and set her down on the opposite side of the room. The woman was shaking, but the girl couldn't tell if it was with fear or rage. She couldn't seem to decide either, an expression of utmost fury taking up the entirety of her red face before it seemed to become too much and she collapsed, knees making a loud, ugly sound on the floor.
The girl heard the sound of stilettos on stairs; a moment later, her mother ran into the room and took in the scene, from her still-glowing (though fading) eyes, to the unconscious woman across from her. She covered her mouth – it was a different color today, Raven noticed, more of a rosey pink than what she'd assumed was her mother's favorite red – pivoted, and sprinted out of the room, likely twisting her ankle when a heel caught on a dent in a floor board.
The locks turned, all of them, and she was left alone with Dr. Azar.
The girl crawled into her bed and pulled the covers over her head, trying to block out the image of a woman just lying there. Like she wasn't going to ever move again.
And the tears started coming. It got difficult to breathe. When had her room become so quiet? It was so quiet, it was loud. All there was was the sound of the woman's unconsciousness, like a scream that wouldn't stop, and her hacking cries.
"Shh, shhh," his voice soothed. Arms crafted from her own shadow wrapped around her, pressing her into a wonderfully warm nothing; false hair tickled her reddening nose and supposedly-intangible hands wiped her tears away. He kissed her forehead and began singing some lullaby she didn't know and couldn't really find pleasant, but no-one had ever sung for her before, and that was better than any nicely phrased lyrics.
So she hushed and clung to his false form, trying to stifle sniffles that she was becoming increasingly aware were disgusting and to stop being so pathetic around this person who was listening and she really should have something more interesting to say.
The girl quieted and pulled back to stare at what should've been a face but was really head-shaped darkness, like a black veil between her and what she was really looking at. She opened her mouth to say 'thank you', but was cut off by his mouth on hers, or what she assumed was his mouth, since it seemed like what a mouth would feel like if hers was touching it, and then she dimly realized that this was what a kiss would feel like.
She stayed stock-still while he pressed her down onto the bed, fingers rummaging around her, in her hair, on her sides, massaging the muscles in her legs, and weaving with hers in a tight grip that she returned just as strongly. His mouth left hers; she stared at the shape of his head bemusedly, trying to figure out what he was doing. He kept 'looking' at her, then pushed her nose to the side and claimed her mouth again.
'Let me show you something,' he whispered.
She let him remove her clothes and complied when he asked her to keep quiet, though it was hard. When you saw stars, it was hard not to sing.
[-M-]
The girl stared at the bulge. There was really nothing to suggest that she couldn't get pregnant, nothing her mother or Dr. Azar or the stranger (but could she really call him that, with everything they'd done together?) had said to make it impossible, but she just hadn't thought it could happen.
She hadn't thought she'd ever stop loving her mother, either. Or that the shadow that flitted around her room during the day and held her close to his imaginary warmth at night could become her point of focus, the one thing she looked for every morning and closed her eyes to at night.
"We'll have to think of a name," said the voice, silky and charming, like always, but now containing a kind of fondness that it hadn't before. "Something beautiful."
She rarely replied; the shadow did nearly all of the talking. She spoke with actions. Disbelieving caresses of her rotund stomach, soft touches to the shadow's 'face' and 'hands'. And, of course, hours upon hours of practice for releasing the shadow from its leather-bound prison.
The shadow liked to stay close to her now, pressing up behind her when she read, massaging her feet and back and neck at the end of the day, kissing and touching her and making her want him even if she was drowsy and couldn't possibly think of staying awake another moment. He was almost clingy, asking if she'd like something from him increasingly often and truthfully, it was unsettling. But she liked it.
She liked the questions and the stories and the kisses and the touching and the way his voice got a little bit deeper every time he started talking about the child and how he became increasingly against staying in the same house as her mother.
"Once you release me," he promised, "I'll take you away. We'll travel all over the world, and I can show you all the beautiful things there are here."
"What things?" she would ask.
He would reply, "Oceans, with fish of every color and shape. Mountains, with crisp and cold streams and dark caves and tall trees. Deserts, with shifting sands and hypnotizing sunsets. Ice caps, with lights that appear at night and glow in the sky. Jungles, with beautiful plants and curious animals."
"What else is there outside?"
And so they came; stories about music. Language. Dance. Worship. Battle. Food. Drink. Clothing. Government. Anarchy. Nature. Mankind. Beasts. Birds. Magic. Science. Myth. Legend. Tales upon tales of terrible, wonderful things that she had never heard of, never seen, smelt, tasted or felt.
"I want to see these things," she would say.
"I will show them to you," he would reply, with a touch to her hair or hands, and a brush of his lips on her brow.
Storytelling would eventually become a pastime, with him coming up with something wild and impossible, and asking, begging, her to join him. Tentatively, she did. She told tales of beautiful dragons and wicked mermaids and cunning sorceresses and fortunate heroes and cruel children. She spoke of places she'd seen only in her mind, tart berries she couldn't taste, sweet music she'd never heard, elusive tongues she'd never learned.
The shadow would push her to keep talking, keep describing these things that didn't exist and these people who couldn't live. Together, they weaved entire lands of magic and lore, with clever girls and frightening beasts and powerful enchantments.
Their days would pass by like this, until her mother came up with the meals and tried not to look at the child growing inside her and not to feel the anger the shadow sent towards her. Tried not to ask if the girl had left sometime in the night or day, or why she'd returned if she had.
[-M-]
Once upon a time, long, long ago…
"Please – no, no, please, don't do this - !"
There was a queen who longed for eternal beauty without suspicion of her humanity…
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I would take it back, I would undo it – but please - !"
And so she gave her virginity to a demon, in exchange for a fortune that could give her what she most desperately desired.
The union resulted in the birth of a child…
"You bastard! You evil, twisted, evil - !"
…Who had the immortal beauty her mother desired...
…And the beastliness her mother feared.
"No!"
And this child was called…
"Raven!"
The girl was locked away, to never be seen or heard of. The servants did not speak of her. A priest was called to observe her, but fell prey to her power.
"No, ooh…"
It soon became clear the child was as dark as her sire, for one night…
"Raven!"
…She called forth a beast out of a cursed book…
"I hate you! I wish you'd died! I WISH I'D DIED SO I WOULDN'T HAVE TO KNOW YOU!"
And the beast devoured the queen and the servants, and everyone else in the castle.
And they all lived happily ever after.
…
…
A/N: Might change the ending one day, but I liked writing the fluffy corruption bits.
Review~!