Zoe's only wish is to be able to run barefoot through grass, but she knows it'll never happen. Ever since she was born, she's been unable to touch anything living without it instantly dying. It's a curse she would do anything to get rid of, but that...
The sun was high in the sky, not a cloud could be seen, and the faint sound of birds singing filled the air. I was in the garden, looking over the strawberry plants to pick the final strawberries that had at last matured. Droplets of sweat fell down my face. I loved summer. I loved all the life that came with it, but I also hated it.
The clothes I always wore didn't fit the summer weather at all. I had on a long-sleeved green dress that went all the way to the ground and up my neck. On my hands, I had black gloves that reached my elbows under my dress. I also wore black leggings and a pair of high-heeled boots. On days when the sun shone brightly, my clothes would make it almost unbearably warm.
The heat in itself wasn't the main reason why I hated summer, however. When it was colder, I wouldn't think that much about my clothes, which made the reason for why I wore them less prominent in my mind. But when I was out like that, under the sun, sweating, I was constantly reminded of it. The fact that there was life all around me also didn't make it any easier to deal with it.
My skin was cursed, and anything that was alive that came into contact with it would instantly die.
It had always been that way. From the moment I had exited my mother's womb, I had been a weapon. A murderer. And I hated myself for it.
I had spent so much time trying to find answers and a solution, but it had led me nowhere. The only answer I had gotten over the years was that it likely had been a faerie that had cursed me. I had done a test on myself to see what type of magic was within me. It had shown my own witchcraft, but also traces of faerie magic.
After that, I had read up as much as I could about faerie magic and especially tried to find something on faerie curses, but that all had just led me to one fact.
Faeries don't do curses.
I would, from time to time, try to find more information. Just anything really that could help me get rid of the curse. But every time it was the same thing.
Faeries don't do curses.
I had lived with it for so long that I had given up. I was doomed to never feel the touch of anything living against my skin. I had used to dream, when I was younger, about meeting just one person that could handle my touch, or it didn't even have to be a person. A cat, a rat, a spider, a flower. Just to be touched by something living. And how I had dreamt of running barefooted in the grass. But I had given up on those dreams.
After I had picked all the strawberries, I took them inside and cleaned them before putting them on a plate. From a cupboard, I retrieved a half-eaten sponge cake, some rusk, and cranberry marmalade. I went over to a wooden box that stood in a corner and opened it. The box was bewitched to keep the inside cool and from it I got whipped cream and cream cheese as well as some apple juice. I placed all things on a tray together with two small plates, two glasses, and some cutlery. Then I brought it all over to the living room.
Father sat on the cream-colored love seat, reading what looked like a letter. I placed the tray on the low coffee table before sitting down on the oblong ottoman that stood on the other side of the table compared to the love seat.
"What are you reading?" I asked and poured us each a glass of the apple juice.
"It's from the Priestess," Father answered and looked at me with a frown and sadness poured from his eyes.
My heart sank. I knew that look. Had seen it all too often. Whatever the Priestess had to say, it hadn't been anything good.
"Has something happened?" I asked, doing my utmost to keep my voice level. I took a rusk and added cream cheese on it to have something to do with my hands.
"Another sister has been killed. It's the fourth one in two months."
I added cranberry marmalade to the rusk, taking great care to ensure it was evenly spread.
"Do they know who killed them?"
"She says that they have an idea, but they want to confirm it before coming here."
I raised my head and forced a smile on my face. Father looked at me with an intense worry.
"Well, I guess I should get ready to pack," I said, and my voice shook slightly.
"Zoe, sweetheart, you don't..."
"Stop," I interrupted him. "Just stop Father. It's alright. It has to be done."
I placed the rusk that I had so carefully prepared on my plate.
"I think I spent a little too much time in the sun. I'm quite tired. I'll go and lay down for a bit," I said and fled to my room before Father could say anything more.
I leaned my back against the closed door and let my eyelids fall. There were tears that threatened to come out, but I forced them back. Crying wouldn't change anything.
It had been about one and a half year since last time the Priestess had wanted my services. That had been my longest time of peace for quite some time and instead of being upset, I should have been thankful that I had been left alone for so long.
If I could have been left alone always, then my curse wouldn't have been so bad. I could have been happy and just lived my life the way I wanted to. But that ship had sailed when I had been fourteen and the coven had realized the use I could be of. During the past one hundred and two years, during at least an eighth of the length my total life would be, I had been their ultimate weapon.
I went over to a potted plant that stood in a corner of the room. It was a type of ivy that had climbed up the wall and around the room. From it, I broke off one leaf, then closed my eyes and pressed the leaf to my lips.
When I opened my eyes again and looked at the leaf, it had gone from the lush and healthy green color it had just had to a dead and dried up brown. I opened a drawer in a desk that stood to the right of the plant. In the drawer were countless of equally dead leaves that I added the newest one to. Even though it always was a disappointment, I still held a little ray of hope that the outcome would one day be different. Or maybe I had lost all my hope, and the action had just become a habit.
I closed the drawer and instead took out a picture frame that I had hidden behind the ivy. In the picture was a woman and a man, both smiled wide. The man was my father and he still looked just like he had when the picture had been taken. The same kindness in his brown eyes. Short brown hair and the five o'clock shadow that seemed to always be there, even moments after he had shaved himself.
The woman next to him also smiled brightly. She had long, fiery red hair and startling green eyes. Her whole body was small, petite, and she wore a flowy and light green dress.
I had come across the picture by chance one day in a drawer in my father's room. He probably knew I had taken it, or at least suspected it. But he had never said anything about it.
The woman looked very much like me and was, without a doubt, my mother. It was the only thing I had of her, the only thing that proved that she had existed.
My mother. The first person I had ever killed.
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