writing_shadows

We all played a part, didn’t we? Some of us played several.

The idea that the Fae snatch children is terrifying. I’ve known people it has happened to: torn into a nightmare world while your mind is still malleable, the arrogant certainty separating fact from fiction not yet established. But the idea that a child could be a Fae? I think that frightens me more.

Freedom is frightening, too. Possibilities and potential, wide open space waiting to be filled and a new life to be built. Frightening. But better than before.

I gaze blankly at my reflection in the glass. A china doll has no more expression than can be drawn in the stroke of a brush. As I try a smile, I see the hairline cracks in the porcelain flex, and splinter and skitter off a little more across my jaw. I dare not frown.

If I were more vain, I might paint myself up again, fill in the lines, exaggerate the eyes; whitest white on smoothest skin, darkest eyes and child-like gaze, but I am weary of being a thing to be looked at. My face was made to please, but my child is gone. I have left her behind.

I can live with the wear and tear. I’ve been through a lot in my life, and it shows. I can be more. I will be.

I turn up the hem of my dress to look again at my label.

‘Miranda’

The irony is not lost on me.