Seven Deadly Sons

Ameline. (16)

Unhooking my mule, I make quicker work of going back through the trees, the light of the endless moon beating down above me to guide my way.

When I arrive back at the grove, I am so suppressed in horror that I just stand choked for a moment. Two.

He is still exactly as I left him, part of me hoped he would have got up and laughed it off, tossing back his glossy hair. The knife protrudes from his chest like such an anomaly that I refuse to look at him as I collect my shoes — a direct link back to me. Then, in the next moment, I hear crying.

Though, not exactly tears, but more like a creature mourning its owner. It is not my own tears, though I touch my face to make sure. That prince is not your owner. Calling him just prince removes any humanity I gave him.

Within a basket at the edge of the clearing — something I had neither noticed the prince go and retrieve nor someone else leave behind — a tiny golden cocker spaniel sits, whining. Jumping up to the edge of the basket, his eyes beg me "Please pick me up, miss. Please love me. I shall love you forever in return".

And his eyes look so much like the princes that I do. Reading his ribbon around his throat, I see his name is Oliver Twist. I wonder what made the Prince of Fury name such a tiny thing twist but, I suppose, to twist is to mishaps, and most deformations are made in anger. I scoop the — I check — boy into my arms, and am shocked at how much it feels like how my son felt to hold, in that first week. When he had cried and thrashed and screamed and I had considered throwing him down the rickety stairs of my house — but then had imagined his tiny pale head catching one of the loose nails, and the complete horror of it both stopped me and brought fresh tears to my eyes, so we both stood at the top of those steps crying.

Looking up from the bundle in my arms, I looked at the blood in front of me and it is exactly as I imagined my sons blood to look. The prince is still slumped in place, and I imagine crying but don't. I left bundles of blood-soaked napkins in the pond too dissolve and disappear before they are discovered.

I carry Oliver through the woods, back to the mule by the thousand-year-old tree, saddle and return to the slot at the farm, under the light of an old moon in the arms of a new. The waxing crescent is illuminated, and I know hard times are to come — especially if I get caught. I lie out on a pile of dress offcuts and straw hoarded on my plot of land, ignoring away the cold seeping into my bones. I take care to wrap up my new baby, curling my body around his whether he wants to or not. He happily turns in circles in the space the curve of me makes, leaning his back heavily against my stomach with a deep sigh and lick of his lips. Soon both my brown mule and golden boy are snoring softly in tandem while my eyes remain wide and open, still buzzing from all the alcohol.

The mule has been good to me, and I could be convinced the animal even cares for me — especially how he lays now, using his back to block the wind and any intruders. He doesn't know he is in a whole different realm to the one his ancestors came from, doesn't know he will never have children himself and that he is the last of his line. Still though, instead of worrying he sits and sleeps and looks after his owner. I believe I care for him too.

I wonder for a long time; about if who I have become could be loved by someone, if I will only be liked as a possession like my mother was if I will only ever be loved by murderers like me — like the princes. I wonder if I would have become a princess, and then my brain goes off on a tangent imagining all the dresses and clothes I would no longer have to want for, all the crowns and gold and jewels. I believe that is a life I could truly thrive in, a life I wouldn't want to destroy. I imagine finding my baby and bringing him to this world, too, so that we may live forever. He could grow up with the other children, I know the education system here is exceptional — he will never have the opportunity to study in my world, I can't afford it, he will become a fisherman like his forefathers.