Chapter 1
Ten years later, Issy woke up with sticky dry tears resting on her cheeks and a sick feeling in her stomach. Today was the day, the day she had lost it all.
She reached for a tissue on her bedside table and spat out the terrible taste that clogged up her mouth and then flicked on the switch of her bedside lamp.
She lay in bed, and stared at the ceiling waiting for her eyes to adjust to the light, her heart feeling so heavy that she feared if she tried to sit up it would tear through her skin.
After a moment she forced herself to get up and she hastily dressed herself in unflattering trackie bottoms and an old sackboy T-shirt she'd borrowed from her ex and had never given back. She donned a coat and navy blue beanie as well as her black biker boots. She opened the man sized window but before she climbed through she grabbed the bottle of thick brown alcohol she had hidden under her bed from the night before and her penknife from her desk.
When her feet collided with the soft autumn leaves that lay everywhere over the cold frosty ground, she stumbled tearfully towards the lake. It took less than a minute to get there but she knew she was alone, no one would follow her here, the lake Susan Pillot had drowned at the age of two-and-a-half by the hands of 'faeries'.
Issy didn't believe in faeries now however, what she saw was her own demons, beasts to haunt her nightmares and torment her soul. Issy wasn't sure what she had seen that night, but it hasn't been faeries, it was something else entirely because fae were supposed to be kind.
After Susan had died there had been two rumours that were easily believed around the town. Number one was that the two children had gone out into the dark without their parents knowing looking for faeries but having not been able to see the younger one tripped and fell into the river, that was the story the police published. The second theory was that Isobel Pillot had lured little Susan from her bed with the thought of seeing faeries and had pushed the toddler into the deep water because of a dark jealousy that siblings often had when one received more attention then the other. One thing was clear though, no one actually believed the fae had done it.
Issy sat at the edge of the lake in deep thought. Maybe she had done it, killed Susie to gain the attention she had never had and invented the story of the fae just to get over the guilt. It seemed perfectly logical, all the reasons people gave to support it seemed rational.
Issy took a deep swig from the bottle, washing down her black thoughts with the fowl taste of the unknown liquor. She coughed into the river what wouldn't go down and then took another swig.
She then took the bone-handled penknife and flipped it open, the blade was delicately encrusted with pearls and gems and engraved into the iron was the name Susan.
Issy pressed the knife onto her bared skin and hissed as the sharp knife drew blood. She did it again and again, each time digging the blade a little deeper, letting it bite a little harder, until her left arm was covered in ten bleeding lines. She knew it was stupid, harming herself for a sister she barely even remembered, but she couldn't let herself forget the pain she remembered all to clearly after Susie had died. So each year Issy carved the time she had been gone into her skin and would feel the pain again.
After she had finished with the knife she folded it and slipped it into her right boot. She took the alcohol and drank it heavily until the mixture tasted sweet and then the liquid was all gone.
She was drunk and bored, but she would stay out here all day and all night, it was her way of mourning.
Issy smashed the bottle against the ground, she held the neck of it and laughed psychotically at its broken edges and the brown glass shards that lay by her side.
She jumped up in anger and began throwing the prices into the water, causing violent ripples on its surface. Finally she threw the top of the bottle in and sat down heavily onto the earth, her vision blurred and her mind feeling fuzzy.
Then something occurred to her and she refused to let the thought go. She giggled giddily to herself, she could kill them.
"I don't believe in faeries." She yelled sniggering and snorting at the lake. "I don't believe in faeries."
But nothing happened, the lake didn't even stir, not even by the wind.
"I don't believe in faeries!" She shouted moodily, like a naughty child that wanted telling of for something it had done wrong.
Still nothing.
"I don't believe in faeries!" She screamed drunkenly standing up and tripping into the black water.
She fell face first and flailed desperately into the water, trying to get some air into her lungs. But something was holding her down.
She could see nothing, she must have been imagining the blacker then black shapes that flitted through the water or the beautiful snarling faces of women with sharp teeth and shimmering fish-tails that glowed menacingly in the dark water.
She felt hands, no, not hands, hooves pulling her downwards, trying to drown her. Excitedly the hooves pulled her downwards, accompanied by the menacing whinny of a horse-like creature.
She felt dizzy, not because of the alcohol but because of the lyrical voices that echoed in her head, singing words she couldn't understand, inviting her to take a dip.
The hooves dragged her down and down, deeper and deeper, her lungs exploding for breath. Begging her to take a breath. Issy struggled one last desperate time before she breathed in the cold, sweet tasting water.
