Winter

The quill pen gives an icy burn to my fingers as I pick it up. Subconsciously, I know what to do. I don't need an explanation for the quill, or the long scroll of parchment with decades of writing in a language I'm no longer familiar with.

Metal meets pulp, ink seeps in, and cold air fills my lungs.

“Mom,” I quietly sob.

Almost like she hears me, a feathery touch dances across my cheek. The howling of a winter wind is loud against my barren window, calling me. For a moment, the glass drew my gaze to stare at the vast winter that stretched for miles beyond my humble country cottage. My fingers still, the ink spreading into a black splotch.

Slick draws my attention back to the paper. I see my first mistake, stark below the neat handwriting of the scroll's last owner. Quickly, I scrawl my first word.

‘Hello.’

Simple, basic, but me in all my unimaginative glory.

I don't think, I don't process, I don't even realize what I'm doing before new words are on the paper.

‘My little dove.’

Cursive, swirly letters in a beautiful handwriting sit below my childish chicken scratch. I made that, but I don't know how. The room feels… warmer, cozy and bright. Like a fire had been lit, yet its place in my house remained locked and dull.

‘I missed you. Do you miss me?’

I nod. I nod, and nod, until my neck hurts and my sobs become gentle enough to let me think.

“Yes, oh yes, I missed you so much,” I cry to the hardwood desk. “I missed you so much it hurts to even think about! I missed you so much that it was hard to live with my own emotions!”

A breeze tickles my ear, guiding a strand of hair back to its place away from my face.

‘I wish you wouldn't hurt…’

And I agree. I wish I didn't feel so horrible. I wish I never felt this agony, and I wish to never feel it again.

“Can you stay with me? Just this once?”

The sun catcher that I once tucked away in the back of my closet now chimes, a soft tinkling giggle that I once heard from a kind fae. I know the answer before my palm flexes, shoving the hard side of the quill deep into my tender flesh.

‘You already know the answer.’

“That's not what I want! Goddamnit, can't you love me with my flaws this one time?! I never asked for a thing! I never begged before!”

I stand, and my chair slams back against the rug at my feet. It hits my ankle, making me stumble and lean over the desk. Yet, my hand does not waver. It does not stop its furious scribble, nor its attachment to the parchment.

‘No! You know I cannot stay! You know you are unworthy! You made yourself this way. You must learn.’

The last line repeats, over and over. My fist only clenches tighter with each pass of the phrase until finally, the quill snaps. Metal and cartilage dig into my scarred wrist and the meat of my hand. Blood mixes with ink, and ink is drunk by my wounds, flushing the skin with a squid's embarrassment.

I am free to step away from my desk, but my attention is still held captive by my mother's handwriting littered across the fibers. My blood stains both her words and my sanctuary, the metallic scent of it taking home where it doesn't belong.

My shoulder slams against my coatrack before I throw open the back door to my garden. Thin socks do nothing to heat up my toes while I drag my feet through jagged snow. My vision is consumed by white when I sit beside my tree house,

head resting against a carving in the old bark.