Page 30 of A Grave Not Made For Mourning
A monster?Ma asked, her voice full, luxurious.
Before,I had said.When she was beautiful.
Ma kissed my head then and said something under her breath. For many years I’ve tried to remember what it was. But with every try, the memory has only withered more.
Ihave only withered more.
Some people heal with time.
I’ve only fallen apart.
I curl into a ball on the floor. How I hate it. I will always be alone. I will always be destined to solitude. There is no changing that. There is no fix. How can I live among others when I’ll always feel them? When I am always bound to disappoint them? I can’t feel it again. I won’t.
I want to cry, but it’s as if I’m no longer composed of water and now made of ice. Nothing flows. When it comes to finally being alone, I’m out of emotion to spend. But it’s still there, omnipresent. The boulder in my chest, the weight to my step, the crumbling in my bones.
No escape.
The birds chirp outside the house, a discombobulated sound to match my confusion.
There’s something outside.
I rise, wanting to lash out—kill anything in sight. Out the window, a bird is perched in the tree. I run toward it, arm stretched back and prepared to pull the poor thing apart.
It’s an uncontrollable bloodlust guiding me. A hatred. But it isn’t mine. And as I reach for the bird, I see the monster below.
A pernipe.
The very creature that killed my mother. I see this moment as a gift—a way to succeed where I once failed.
I stand, traveling down the colorful step and onto the broken path outside. Then, beneath the setting sun and the trembling trees, I wait.
The boy comes to life in my mind. I feel his warmth, his warning.“Do not fight, my love.Run. You have nothing to prove.”
I nearly hiss when I answer,“I haveeverythingto prove.”
The pernipe sees me, but I see Ma. Her legs sinking into the floor, becoming roots. When she finally died, those roots turned back to legs. They were still stuck in the ground, disconnected from her body.
That’s what I see when I raise my hand. Not the pernipe, but the sentient tree shaped like a woman, with green eyes and leaves instead of hair.
I see what one of them did to Ma.
Grabbing a branch from the tree’s trunk, I shudder at the sharp pain that radiates from the plant. But I hold the branch like a weapon, sending the tree an apology. When I feel its acceptance, I charge, every step sharp with the need to succeed.
I hit the pernipe—the once beautiful woman whose skin has been turned to bark—again and again.The pernipe strikes back. A hundred times stronger than I ever could.
I fly through the air, the impact brutal. The last time this happened, I lost consciousness and woke to the sight of my dead mother. This time, my back slams into a tree. The wind is knocked out of me, and I collapse to the ground.
But this time, I will do what I never could.
I raise my hand, summoning another branch. When it snaps free from the tree and floats in midair, it feels as though I’ve torn my own arm off. A cry of pain escapes me as I hurl the branch at the pernipe.
She falls. I stand. I reach for her life, doing what I never could. Instead of mending it, the way we’re taught to do, I crumble it, like a discarded piece of paper in my hand. I force her into submission, lifelessness.
It’s as if I’m crushing my own insides, stomping on my own lungs, suffocating myself. But it’s no more painful than healing something.
It’s exactly the same, and I push forward.
Reversely, I feel her life, buzzing my hand—coursing through my veins, like alcohol, like fire. It hurts, it burns, I want it to stop.
