She
© Trixie
She doesn’t know where she’s from.
Not anymore.
It’s not like it’s really important. She knows that much. People her age don’t care about their ancestry- their lineage. They assume things. That they were birthed against white sheets from pairs of straining thighs. That they woke with choked screams and blood stained bellies.
She never had that.
She doesn’t care.
Not anymore.
Of course she read about it in Giles book. It smelled of musk and in incense and the paper crackled underneath her fingertips. There were strange words and in the distance, she could hear the blond vampire talking- his voice tiny whispers against her skin. But all she could focus on was the words. So many of them. All different, and new. All dead ink lying against the parchment- reading her the future as if they were a crystal ball.
She never believed in magic much.
Buffy and her went to a fair once in Los Angeles when they were younger. Her sister kept a firm grip on her hand. Her fingers felt like razors- and her nails were painted a bubble gum pink. She liked her sister sometimes- when she wasn’t with her friends. She liked her when she took her places and they got popcorn and Buffy giggled about boys and told her secrets that made her blush.
She always liked to blush. It probably meant she was hearing things she shouldn’t be.
But she didn’t like magic.
It didn’t make sense. You couldn’t decipher it. Figure it out. And she liked figuring things out. For hours she’d write in her diary at night- analysing the day. Breaking it down into workable parts that she could put together and make a whole.
Her sister took her to a fortune teller and the old woman looked weary and old- as if she’d grown right from the ground, and had been stuck their for years- a helpless victim to dirt and sky.
The woman told her things- and her eyes were tiny pinpricks of light-staring straight into the soulless center of her beating heart. “Not real…” she cackled, with enjoyment and then grasped her hand- her skin dry like old grass- “You’re not real, little one.”
Buffy had sort of snorted and grabbed her, pulling her out, ignoring the shocked daze of her eyes- and telling her, “You let it slip to Mom, and I’ll kill you. She’d be pissed if she knew I took you to a friggin fortune teller… okay?”
She stared at her sister- her beautiful blonde sister- who stood over her like an avenging angel, and nodded. Nodded again, a marionette on a string.
After that, she decided magic wasn’t for her.
When she read Giles’ book, and her world came spinning down on the floor of the shop, she wondered whether or not the fortune teller had gotten a glimpse into the nether realm- and whether or not she was going to have to change her life over this- and whether or not her sister knew.
Her sister did know. And she told her things would be ok.
But they weren’t.
No matter how much Buffy stroked her hair and spun safe webs around her with her long arms and graceful voice- nothing was ok, because their mother- her mother- was in the ground and covered with the dirt the fortuneteller sprouted from.
She didn’t come from her mother. There was no nine months of happiness- of joy--- of… expectance. There was no birth, no blood- no sweat or pain. There was nothing. She wasn’t wanted, or waited for. She arrived without invitation and that was that. ~~~
As she watches the grave and hears the sermon- give her peace- she wonders what will happen to her wilting body now. Her sister has a firm grip on her hand, and her fingers feel like razors. But her nails are unpainted-clear- they shine in the midday sun.
She doesn’t know where she’s from.
Not anymore…
She looks up at the sky and sees a bird swooping down low, to arc through the air- and reach the heavens.
She wonders if it is her mother- and then thinks that she wishes she was with her-
Even if she doesn’t know where she’s from- she’d know where she was going.
End.