I was born in the year 1458. That was the year the fields were especially fruitful. My mother, Loretta, was very Italian. She had met my father in Florence and they fell in love. There was a bit of opposition to the marriage, neither family quite trusted the other for being so foreign but the two made a lovely match and were similar in rank. So I was born after a year of marriage, conceived on their wedding bed. As a child I was beloved. My mother used to call me her little dove. I had milk-white skin and my fathers platinum blonde hair and ice blue eyes. It was no wonder that I was named Angeline. If only the people of Thornwood could see the real angels.
I was fifteen when I was married. I did not know much back then. My human life was like a dream. But I loved my husband. I don't remember his name, but he was taller than me with dark black hair and eyes to match my own. He was much older than me, maybe twenty five at the youngest, but that was not uncommon in those days. I remember our wedding night. It was April and the rain had just started. It was not yet mandatory but my dress was white (I almost always wore white it made me look even more like an angel). He was very gentle and loving. I had never known so much pleasure and I knew then that I was a woman. My son was named John. He had my blue eyes and my mother's Italian face and his father's dark hair. He was my sunlight. I loved him more dearly than...let me put it this way. I still love my son.
The plague claimed my husband in the year 1479. I was twenty one. But I did not know true pain until I saw the sores on John's arm. I have always known about God. I prayed morning noon and night. I went to confession, I stayed pure, I took communion. I was a woman of faith. I believed in God the way people these days believe in gravity. So I knew that day at the cross roads that the woman with red eyes was not human. But she said she could save my son. And so I did not hesitate to kiss away my soul. John lived to be very old. I watched him grow for ten years. It was worth it.
In hell I held out for fifty years. The memory of my son kept me going that long. And then I broke. I studied under Alistair. All my human memories were lost. Angelina died. I still don't know if she had ever been alive. But the cloud of black smoke could never erase everything. Every Demon remembers their real name. I was Angelina of Thornwood. I don't know why I can remember the rest now. I suppose I'd never tried before. I suppose it doesn't change anything. I will always be hunted. And the only dark-haired blue-eyed man I've ever met had to go crazy before he said he loved me. Maybe that's why I remember. He looks so much like my husband.
And so it goes. My name is now Meg Masters. And that was the story of how I became damned.