The unlikely union of light and darkness.
"My soul is ruined; made of dead stars, and darkness. And yet, you managed to find light in my hollow heart. Beauty in my unholiness. You mended the fissures of my being. And for that, I shall worship you fo...
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LILITH ELIANA CROWE had long given up hope of reaching her father. Had long ago ruined the memory of him. Piece by piece, the witch had stripped Maxwell Crowe of his flesh, had worn his bones to a dust, and at last, had rid him of his heart. Though it was a jagged thing, a malformed, and heavy weight in her breast, Lilith could not bring herself to part from it. It had once pulsed for her. Had once called for her. Had once stretched for her.
She couldn't possibly destroy it along with the rest of him.
Where he had been a ghost- a haunting reminder of all that was dead, and gone, and passed- his heart had been a relic, a memento that he had lived, and loved once, long ago.
It had been much easier, then, for the witch to hold onto his heart. Onto hope, rather than a horrifying coldness. A devastating reality.
She lived with ghosts.
☽
Silence.
Suffocating, terrifying silence: against her, above her, around her, like a plague, like the rot that belongs to dirt- to graves. Lilith bit down on her tongue, and willed herself not to scream back at the darkness. She laid perfectly still, instead, as a corpse ought to, and counted the wooden slabs above her- a leisured sweep forward, a measured sweep backward with the eyes, again and again until her vision started to cloud at the sides.
Outside, darkness had begun claiming its reign. It crept over the grounds, and rolled over the trees, licking the remaining specks of light in one swift stride. The girl turned her attention to the window, then, and with a small flicker of amusement, saw the pool of light evaporate before her. It reminded her of a child plucking flowers; the light gone, and dead before the ground could even mourn its loss.
With a sigh, Lilith forced herself up, and to the window. Her fingers hesitated on the lock as she peered into the night, her cheeks pinched red from the frigid May air. Though, in the back of her mind she found it strange, the witch could not bring herself to dwell on the fact. She leaned over the still, letting her curls blow wildly with the breeze, letting her sorrows drift away. And most importantly, why she had begun this ritual many nights ago in the first place; to mask the lingering perfume of woodsmoke. Of her mother's casket.
Though she still did not accept the fact completely, she could not deny it entirely, either. The closed casket, the firm refusal of her father, it all pointed to a grim death.
"A ghastly sight!" Whispered the villagers. "A horror that one should surely have nightmares of."
Shaking the voices away, Lilith closed the window, a bit harsher than necessary, and picked up an oil lamp. She sat at her console table- her sanctuary- set the lamp down, and pulled a sheet of fresh parchment. Plucking a quill from the inkwell, she began to write;
