tenderness is a bullet
1)
The first time you see her, you aren't quite sure if she's a monster or an angel. Perhaps, in parts, she is both. You understand this because you're a witch, too. You're good and bad, twined. Her eyes are cloudy stained glass, skin torn and burned like a devil's disciple playing too close to the pits of eternal flame.
You can't read her face. No smile, not a single line in the forehead. Impenetrable. But her hair flows lightly like a river that catches the sunshine and reflects it all around. She is beautiful like a seraphim but certainly doesn't show the purity of one. There is something to be feared in her.
She asks for your hands and you hesitate. Your hands are your way of experiencing the world, of speaking to nature. If she harms you in any way, then god damn your magic, god damn your healing, it could all go to hell for you. But what else can you do? There was a witch hunter in your swamp. You've nowhere else to go. And poor Myrtle, hidden in the gardens, she's countin' on ya too, you murmur to yourself as you reach for fingers.
When she touches you, you feel oddly at peace. Like you don't have to go running anymore. Whenever you touch a pretty flower, you can feel the fragrance of its life blooming into you. This, however, is quite a different thing. Yes, quite a new thing, indeed. You smile without meaning to and barely hear her saying you have a home in this house over the blood pumping in your ears. As you step inside you try to remind yourself to be cautious. You've never been able to trust anyone, you've always had to look out for yourself. It really could all go to hell for you. But would hell be so bad, if this monster with white wings takes you there?
2)
You watch Cordelia embrace Myrtle like a child seeks comfort in a mother. They're both so graceful, so beautiful and... Your hands are covered in small mudstains, there's soil underneath your nails.
Quickly, you see how little in common you have with the witches. Your clothes are mismatched bursts of color, nothing like the fashion forward of Madison or Zoe, nothing like the reserved playfullness of Nan, hardly anything to do with the daring boldness and elegance that Fiona carries with more ease than that of the Moon coming out at night. Beyond appearances, you never went to school. You don't talk like them, don't think like them, don't know the world like them. They call you naive, of course they do. You try to be polite and joyous in front of everyone, hiding your reservations and fears inside. No, you don't want to offend anyone or cause any trouble. You'll be fine here. Keep low. Stay in the gardens. Learn. Slowly, slowly. There's greater magic at work here and you understand this, even if you can't quite see where it's all going. You've always perservered. You will once more.
And indeed with time, you are able to look past these differences and just appreciate the women around you. You get to understand them. The same way you are with nature - how you want to see everything bloom, live peacefully - that is the same way you start to consider this coven. You want all the women to thrive, even if at times you bump heads with some. It's a slow process, admiteddly. The anger in Madison unsettles you most but you can see how torn and damaged she is underneath the firey pits of emotion. You know Zoe best, she's calm and rational, at least much more than anyone else. And day by day, you get closer to Nan who tries to teach you how to hear the voices of the dead, which you only manage once with the leaf of a tree, and you begin learning the stories of Queenie, who much like you, had to run away from a home that never wanted her. You still help Myrtle reclaim her powers and in turn she teaches the rites and histories that you never knew existed. No, never in your lonesome swamp land life could you have imagined the rich universe of experiences and stories women with extraordinary magic have created. You still feel unpolished, crude, a little too odd and uncertain but as time passes, you get a calmer sense of balance.
3)
The place you feel safest, most comfortable, most you is the greenery. It's Cordelia's gardens. You can't help being drawn to those green colors, to that life. Sometimes people and their words get too much, and you retreat there. Other times, you just crave to be with nature, to be yourself.
Cordelia is a potionmaker. You learn she is meticulous and creative, both dedicated and passionate. Her craft fits her. Independent, not one who enjoys to depend on others, but always someone who shares her work for the greater good of the coven.
In fact you hear her cry out once and you hide between a thorny bush. She talks to Myrtle about how helpless she feels and then you're suprised to hear her question not what she can do to be stronger but what she can do to make the coven more united.
There's something unraveling about her selfishness and how lowkey she keeps it, hidden underneath the layers of her black and white dresses, her pearls and sunglasses. You know you shouldn't fall in love with anyone's sorrow but looking at Cordelia's shaking body, you realize it's too late. You're already in trouble.
4)
Yours is a tender, frail dance. Cordelia is very busy, always thinking about a new potion, always trying to master the world around her through her blind eyes. Even if a little clumsy with opening doors or finding books, you've never found her anything but powerful, alluring, intriguing.
Reluctantly, she agrees to teach you what she knows. You sense a darkness in her, a darkness that burns her. You wonder who could have been foolish to break such a wonder's heart.
You learn, of course you learn. Azaleas, mandrakes, wildflowers, poison berries. You also learn, from scattered sentences or how her forehead creases, bits about Hank, bits about Fiona, a life of never being good enough in the eyes of those dear to her but still needing to be the best possible to provide and protect those entrusted in her care.
Your favorite thing is when she laughs, when her mouth opens, when her lips curve, when she twirls and dances alongside you, even if only to appease your desire to play just one more, always just one more, Stevie song. She doesn't have to be but she is profoundly kind to you.
5)
She takes you to your swamp or rather you take her or perhaps you both just take each other and go. You were scared it wouldn't be safe and she wanted to protect you, yet between a swamp witch and a blinded potionmaker, you're not really sure how good a decision this is.
The bees, however, buzz peacefully, a lazy crocodile surfaces above the murky waters to great you, only his eyes showing above the river, trailing after your footsteps.
"It's peaceful," you tell her, waving a hand around, even though you know she can't see your gesture, "this was home."
"No one will ever take your home away from you, Misty," she tells you gently.
You don't dare to tell her, no, no, you don't want to be so forward. But home has started to be that little garden filled with her laughter.
6)
Thunder breaks like a mad wolf one night. You have nightmares. You have those nightmares, the ones where you burn and and burn and the fires never end.
You go to the garden, you want to sit under the little orange tree in the corner, but to your astonishment you find Cordelia there.
You make small talk and you try to get her to tell you why she couldn't sleep. Finally, somehow, you manage to convince her to go back to bed. You offer to walk her up the stairs, her hand feels warm and soft in yours. You open the door for her and expect her to bid you good night but instead she pulls you in and shuts the door. For a moment, you look petrified, taken completely by surprise, but she laughs sweeter than a lullaby, tells you she doesn't want to be alone.
She falls asleep next to you quickly. You watch her chest rise and fall as the lightning outside flashes.
When you wake, you are tangled in her arms, your hands around her, and you see her cheeks blush.
7)
When Hank comes in the gardens, you try to leave and give them privacy, but Cordelia asks you to stay. She says you two have more important concerns.
Of course you don't like Hank. You couldn't like anyone who can even look at Cordelia with a bad eye. Beyond that, you feel something very foul inside him.
But looking at how that gorgeous blonde speaks, you realize the love she had for him. Probably still has. You look at your hands, those tiny pieces of mud still lotched underneath your fingernails. Rough, hard, muddy hands. She wears pearls. This is a problem.
8)
You feel torn in all want her, of course you do, but you doubt she could see you in such a light, you wonder if she is still not over Hank, and you are very certain she has other things, more important things, to cater to than your childish whims and feelings. So you try to stay away. But it's hard. It's like seeing the sea storm and only wanting to run towards it, to be consumed by the waves.
You try to visit the gardens less often but there is really nowhere else for you to be, nowhere you can learn or practice. And as a witch in this coven, you have to take equal part in the work. You simply cannot avoid Cordelia even if you managed to force your heart to shatter away from her.
You bite your words around her, try not to tell her she's kind and beautiful and that's she saved you. You attempt to laugh less and not tell her any lame jokes or stories that would make her smile - that dismantles you.
More than want, you love her. You decide to learn to be a better witch so you can help the coven, and that is what she wants. But you distance yourself. You start going to the cemeteries, to the old French quarters, you pile yourself under the books Myrtle gives you. You put your energy in being distant and ambivalent in regards to Cordelia.
9)
Myrtle gives her eyes. They don't fit her, they look like a kid's mismatched marbles than anything fitting her grace but you're relieved that she seems comforted with her sight.
You walk past her, that day, and she stops you.
"You're beautiful," she utters, and it freezes your blood cold. "Of course I knew, I'd seen you with my Second Sigh but -"
Her sentences lingers in the air and you question if she realizes the effect her words have on you. Thankfully, she lets you go. You burrow yourself into the pillow and sheets of your bed and weep. The memory of those eyes dancing on you. Her lips parting and filling the air with that sound. A single sweet sentence. Her arms. The way the felt around you. You want to keep it all forever. You want to forget it immediately and never remember.
10)
You don't want to take part in the Seven Wonders. You'd prefer Cordelia to teach, for things to remain this way, or maybe slightly different. But you realize the grave danger that is upon the coven. Myrtle says you have no choice.
"Intent," Cordelia whispers before you start.
You look at the candle and wonder. What is your intent? What is it that you want? The fire insides you burns on the top of the candle and you move the little object across the table.
"I don't want to do this," you try to reason one last time. "I want to kneel and kiss the ground a thousand times, I am not the next Supreme."
Cordelia looks shattered, sad, although you're not sure why. Myrtle urges you and the other girls to continue with the next challenge. Cordelia only nods. You'll do what she wishes if it kills you.
11)
Falling to hell feels like walking in slow motion as everything else speeds up, blurs around.
You're back in high school, crying and yelling over a frog dissection you don't want to do. You can't harm anything innocent. Your teacher slams the scalpel you're holding into the animal. You scream.
It repeats. You're back in high school, crying and yelling over a frog dissection you don't want to do. You can't harm anything innocent.
You don't know how long you've been here, you have to get out. But all you side is that poor animal, placed on the table, that you need to save, that you need to protect.
There's a bright light that shines at the end of the classroom, and you hear her, the voice you know best, the voice you'd recognize in sleep or waking, in heaven or hell.
Come to me, she tells you, follow my voice, come to me.
"Intent," you tell yourself. What is it that you want?
Of course you want her. But more than want, you love her. Could you live a life where you get to be a mere witness of her joy, never the one to touch her, only there to see her kissed by the lips of others?
There's mud under your fingernails. Your skin will always be dirty, tainted. Unworthy to touch her. You can deal with this pain, this pain that rids you of her memory, but you cannot endure a life alongside her, unwanted.
The light flickers, fading away. Your guilty hands, rough and torn by brambles and bushes, hold the scalpel.