Sins & Sinners

Orisha. 1

I already couldn't sleep, but out here, in the open with the trees and animals and other wild things, the feeling that was currently rendering me almost completely incapable of sitting still was magnified tenfold.

I didn't need Asphodel to slither from the old willow tree's branches and hiss in my ears that something's coming, but it was reassuring all the same. Cassie was acting completely oblivious — I don't think she felt it — and all while I got dressed, I was wondering if everyone had been right all along and I actually was going crazy.

The scent of freshly mown grass, willow leaves, and pond water carried on the gentle breeze that only agitates the already ramrod straight hairs on the back of my neck.

There's a charge in the air, some sort of electric energy that has my heart beating faster, my mind racing, and my body on the edge of my seat. I feel like a kid waiting for Christmas. Something's coming. And, judging by the excitement as opposed to fear flowing through my veins, it's something magnificent.

I jumped when a small patch of water sausages quiver for a moment, before Belladonna steps out, glowing spring green eyes trained on me.

"Don't do that," I breathed, hand clutching my chest, "you scared the hell out of me."

Belladonna gave me a look that told me she wasn't sorry in the slightest before crawling over my legs and coming to rest on my lap, body curling up and eyes closing though her fur was standing on end, her tail flicking restlessly, and her muscles tensed like she was about to pounce on the most delightful prey she'd ever seen in her lifetime. She sensed it too.

Asphodel didn't seem to be bothered though, coiled up my arm and sleeping blissfully on my shoulder.

I'd never felt this wired up before. Most of my experiences with non-humans had been pretty calm, even finding Belladonna and Asphodel.

It happened when I was nine.

I'd been dreaming that I was playing in the woods at our summer house in Greece while Cassie was out with mother. I hadn't been alone, my playmate was a writhing shadowy figure that moved like the wind with laughter that tinkled like bells.

We came upon a dense forest where I heard no animals and none of the plants or trees seemed to move. Everything was still and quiet, like the entire forest was holding its breath.

But we continued on playing. Until I heard a distant meowing. I followed the sound until I reached a clearing where a black cat with glowing eyes like the healthiest spring grass lay on a coiled black mamba with iridescent scales and a scarlet underbelly.

I'd had it in mind to retrieve the animals but the moment my hands touched fur and scale, I was awoken by the god-awful shriek of my mother.

Turns out, that same snake from my dream had been coiled on my belly while I slept, the cat laying like a Sphinx next to my sleeping body.

I couldn't tell you how they made it into the house or why a black mamba was loose in the US in the first place or why it didn't kill me or Cassiel. To be honest, I didn't really care.

Belladonna and Asphodel had never been dangerous to me, they're been protectors, guides, friends. Besides I was messing around with weird shit long before they came into the picture.

After passing the time by wasting pages in my sketchbook, trying to focus on something, Zuriel finally emerged from the house, a smile on her face and her hand in the air waving goodbye to our parents.

Walking her to school was the only reason I got up at this time when I'd usually been falling asleep. Under normal circumstances, I'd either go back to sleep while she was at school or drink a spell to just forgo that day's eight-hours.

But with how wired I am right now, I don't really think that'll be necessary.

The walk to school was uneventful.

The sun was coming out and the sky was turning a bright Sunday blue, the morning's rays illuminating Zuriel's blonde hair and making her look ethereal. It was the definition of a picture perfect day.

It will storm today, Asphodel's breathy, melodic whisper-sang into my ear and without taking my eyes away from the spot in the sky where they were fixed, I said to Cassie, "Bring your umbrella."

If it had been anyone else, they'd have protested or at the very least, questioned me. After all, there wasn't a single cloud in the sky, not even any humidity.

But Cass and I had been through this before.

I never told her how I knew things I couldn't explain. Sometimes Asphodel whispered it to me, sometimes Belladonna purred it, and sometimes I just knew it. But either way, in the end, I was always right.

She'd learned to just trust it.

When we reached the school building, a sprawling three-story school with immaculate grounds and equally-nice looking students, everyone started immediately calling out greetings to Cassiel who smiled and returned them.

Out of the seven classes on my schedule, I attend three.

AP Studio Art: Drawing, AP Music Theory, and Botany.

I attend them for no reason other than I like drawing, plants, and music so they're useful to me.

School has always been inconsequential to me. I don't see the use in wasting hours of my day not only going to class but being bothered by people all day and doing homework and participating in extra-curricular activities and suffering through student's stress of exams, just for the sake of a high-school diploma.

It was for people who wanted to get into good, conventional colleges and get good-paying, conventional jobs.

Nothing wrong with that, of course, it's just not for me.

Besides, I wouldn't want to spend eight hours a day here dealing with all the glares from other kids who think I'm a circus side-show.

Cassie was openly aggressive to anyone who was open with their opinion of how weird I was and because of how popular she was, everyone wanted to be in her good graces, but no one wanted to have to play nice with me and risk being labeled as the "freak's friend" either.

The solution was to just ignore me and it was one I was completely fine with.

Cass turned to me, giving me a hug, minding Asphodel curled around my arm and Belladonna sitting at my feet.

"See you in third."

I nodded. "See ya."

All too eager to get out of there, I didn't waste any time turning my back on the stone and glass before me and heading southeast, toward the downtown area.

As I walked to my usual breakfast spot, I saw familiar shadowy bodies among the humans, obviously invisible to them judging from the way human's eyes slid right over them without stopping for even a nanosecond.

These shadowy figures are the reason people think I'm crazy. They're called daemon and as far as I can tell, I'm the only human that can see them.

Since I could see and interact with daemons for as long as I could remember, I'd never known that I had to hide it.

It was daemon children I played with as a child. It was daemon who looked after me when my parents weren't there. It was the daemon who protected me and kept me safe and loved me when I didn't even love myself. They'd been there from the beginning, how was I to know no one else could see them.

Obviously, adults wrote it off as imaginary friends until I got too old and the started to see it as me just talking to things that weren't there but by that time the damage had been done and I was the kid people looking at my parents in pity about and said hey would pray for.

But really, by that time, I didn't care.

I don't need humans or their standards or their wickedness or their judgment. I want no part of their bigoted, prejudiced, fucked-up and war-torn world.

I have Belladonna. I have Asphodel. And I have the daemon.

That's more than enough for me.