Preface

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emilee

When I was younger, and unaware of the world's capabilities, my mother always told me that if I thought hard enough, and wished long enough, my requests would be heard. Maybe this is true, and maybe I just didn't think hard enough, or wish long enough, and maybe I really could've had everything I stayed up at night dreaming for if I had only held on for a few more years, but I'll never know for sure, because I didn't.

All I know is that every morning my mother would softly wake me; fix me a good, hearty breakfast; and button up my coat before sending me off to school. And as I walked alongside Clarus Creek, towards school, I thought, and I wished, and somehow it made me hopeful in the hopeless world I lived in. But I was only thinking for myself, and only wishing selfish things. Occasionally did I desire strength. Frequently did I desire acceptance. Always did I desire that Carstan van Horne wouldn't show up to school.

But selfish thoughts and selfish wishes, it seems, are seldom heard and seldom granted. Always did Carstan van Horne show up, and always did he make my life difficult. And when I walked alongside Clarus Creek, towards home, I still thought, and I still wished, and it comforted me. My mother comforted me. She wiped the tears from my eyes, exhaled a heavy sigh, and told me that my differences weren't flaws, and that they didn't make me anything less than Carstan van Horne, or anyone else for that matter. And then when the next day came, and the day after that, and the day after that, when I walked alongside Clarus, towards school, and walked alongside Clarus, towards home, she was always there to wipe my tears, sigh heavily, and comfort me with sweet lies until sobs turned into whimpers, and whimpers turned into quick, quivering breaths.

Years passed this way. Until they didn't.

Morning. She woke me up like she always did. Fixed me breakfast like she always did. Buttoned my coat like she always did. Carstan bullied me, like he always did. I cried alongside Clarus, towards home, like I always did. I thought hard, and I hoped harder, like I always did. There was no reason for this particular day to be anything less than what my days always, always were.

But when I creaked open the door to my house, and sulked miserably inside, I found it empty. The furniture was all still there, the cabinets in the kitchen were still stocked, but my house, my once safe haven was empty--empty of all things that mattered. Gone was the smell of peonies. Gone were the contents of her drawers. Gone was the woman who kept me walking up and down Clarus Creek every passing day, regardless of how sad I could be while on its other end.

My mother was not home to comfort me. My mother was not there to wipe the tears from my eyes. She'd sighed far too heavily one too many times, and I think she was done with it, all of it; all of me. She was done with telling me that I wasn't flawed, because I was. She was done with telling me I wasn't less than Carstan van Horne, because he sure as hell went out of his way to show me how much I was.

My mother had run away.

I recall being the only one in the house for a long time that day. My brother was out with friends, trying hard to be accepted in an atmosphere that never accepted me, his little glitch of a sibling. My older sister, the eldest of the three of us, was still at school, studying relentlessly for a placement test that would determine which professions she should take up after graduation, which was just around the bend. My father wouldn't be home for hours--he was busy working in that large building in the city, in that desk with the spinning chair, jabbering on that phone for hours on end, in hopes that if he worked long enough he would receive that promotion. Thinking of it now, I realize that on that day that my mother disappeared, we all were immersed deeply in our own lives and our own lives alone, just as we always had been. They were thinking egocentric thoughts, wishing egocentric wishes, and letting other people interfere in these assessments only if they furthermore benefitted our own goals.

Thus, three calls were missed. My brother, because leaving his friends for a moment to speak with me, in his mind, would make him banished from their group. My sister, because making sure she knew every equation and every definition mattered more than knowing whatever nonsense I would have to distract her with. My father, because he was already dialing a different number, lusting the raise of which the conversation could bring.

Ergo, I was unanswered, in every sense of the term. I was lost, completely lost within the house I'd always run towards for comfort. It didn't make any sense. This was the place I thought of when Carstan hurt me. This was the place no one could vanquish. This was my home, and homes aren't built to lose. Homes are built to gain more members; gain more love. But had I ever had love to begin with? Did the way my brother's refusing to meet my gaze at school count as caring? Did my sister's knowledge of maths and sciences really teach her anything about the human heart? Did my father's uncanny ability to go weeks on end "forgetting" to greet me when he returned in the evening really make me feel like I belonged to the wood and brick I'd deemed a safe house?

Standing there when the last call went to message, I realized that home, essentially, was not a location for me. It was my mother, the only person who ever told me to think, because my thoughts had value, and to hope, because I'd always still have it. She was my home, and I had lost her, and it was all my fault. I was now homeless, in every sense of the term. I was lost within every adjective I could think of. They were no longer existent without my mother there to put meaning into their definitions. I was in complete shock; I was numb all over. I stood next to the phone for what seemed like a thousand lifetimes.

It took hours before anyone returned to the house. Dalton arrived first. I could hear him from inside, slamming a car door, letting out a boyish laugh to the driver, hopping along the stepping stones to the front door. So young, so unaware.

I knew she was partial to me, but my mother loved him best, and he loved my mother best. He wouldn't let me finish the sentence before he stormed up the stairs to his room. He didn't want to hear it. I was lying, he told me. He didn't want to believe our mother had left us.

Brandyce followed in a similar fashion, returning home an hour later. She let me say the words, that Mom was gone, but she didn't believe me. She insisted that I was being ridiculous, melodramatic, that mom was coming back. I showed her the empty drawers, and her denial grew louder and louder until she screeched, falling to her knees, whimpering about how this was going to mess everything up, and that it couldn't be happening, and how she refused to believe that it actually was. I didn't dare try to comfort her. I knew for a fact that anything I could say to her would only make it worse.

Eventually, the worst came around. From my solitary stance by the phone, I noticed the doorknob turn with vigor. A part of me already knew what was going to happen. My heart gave a lurch. My stomach twisted into knots.

Father.

He came inside like he always did: He first swung the door open heartily, humming a joyful tune as he hung up his coat. Then, he gave a theatrical exhale, and announced that he was home, after such a taxing day at work. The three of us then, usually, would run towards him, full speed ahead, straight into his arms. It was a magical kind of thing--how when we were just us, just the five of us at home, we didn't have to be what we were outside. Dalton and Brandyce still hugged dad. Dalton and Brandyce still spoke to me like I wasn't a kind of disease they had to explain to everyone wasn't contagious. There was no real judgement when at home--no long-lasting judgement, anyway.

That day, none of us got up. None of us ran. Father thought we were joking, going to come up and surprise him. He locked eyes with me, and I watched as all the happiness drained from his eyes, from his face.

I have never seen happiness in him since then.

He asked me what was wrong

I stared blankly.

He said he was sorry for not answering my call.

I stared blankly.

He asked me again what was wrong.

But I kept staring, hoping that somehow I'd be able to tell him with just a look. No words, no nothing. I couldn't find the strength in me to tell it to him. I could with Brandyce, but this was different. Somehow, this felt like it would sting more; sting longer.

Stepping weakly down the staircase, it was Dalton, of all people, who finally gave dad an answer: "She's gone, dad."

"What do you mean?"

"Gone."

"When will she be back?"

Dalton just shook his head.

And then the worst kind of dismay was plastered on our father's face. "Dead?"

"No. Just, gone."

Father sucked in a breath.

He swallowed.

He blinked.

He blinked again.

He fell apart.

The police were called immediately. My father drove us to the station, all of us, even me, with my differences he usually tried to hide. I realized he didn't care--this wasn't about me. This was about mom.

He showed them pictures, shouted that she needed to return home, that she must've been kidnapped, because there was no way she would leave us otherwise. But they gave us an indifferent shrug and a half-hearted apology. They told us there was nothing they could do to find her, because all of their forces were currently negotiating pressing subjects with the Establishment. Pressing subjects that somehow mattered more than a missing woman. I wondered what they might've been. Money? Weapons? Power? Something barbaric, no doubt. Something that wasn't as pressing. Something that didn't need to exist.

They told us if mom had really run away, she'd be flagged down at the borderlines of Eldae at some time or another. If she tried to sneak into Notness, she'd be beaten. If she tried to sneak into Betnedoor, she'd be killed. As if that was supposed to make the pain any easier to bear. As if that terrible knowledge was supposed to help us pick ourselves back up and move on from this. They told us the best thing we could do at the moment was stick together, wait it out, think positively, and wish for the best.

As if our requests would be heard.

xxx

I was fourteen then. Dalton was sixteen. Brandyce, eighteen. We've all grown two more years, yet we haven't grown at all. Not mentally. The scabs haven't healed yet; the scars haven't even surfaced. We keep picking at our wounds and they start bleeding again, and become a scab once more. It's never ending.

Brandyce passed the placement test. They recommended she work somewhere in the medical field, just as she intended. It is an honor to receive such results from the test--only the best of our country, Eldae, are suggested to such a job category.

Instead of saving lives, or discovering cures, or creating medicines like she assumed she'd be doing by now, Brandyce is forced to stay home and take care of Dalton and I. Since we are both not considered legal adults, we need a guardian who is, as they put, in their right mind. Our father, having lost his job, due to both lack of focus and sudden outbursts, vegetates around the house all day, staring at the ceiling and with relentless abandon calling for the wife that left him, as if she'll pick up the phone and answer. So Brandyce works simple jobs in town--close enough that she may be near us at all times. She has lost her charm, the light in her eyes. She is bitter now. Bitter at mother, for messing up her entire future. Bitter at Dalton and I, for not being considered by Eldae as adults. Bitter at father, for letting himself go like he did. Bitter at herself, for allowing herself to end up this way, as if she had a choice.

We have all fallen into the routine. Father alternates from feelings of elation to depression, and seldom leaves the couch in the living room we no longer live in. Dalton hangs out with his friends all afternoon, just to get away from all the bad energy in this house, and somehow manages to be at the top of his class. He aspires to do something wonderful with his life, for mother's sake. Something she would've been proud of. Brandyce takes care of us with a frown. She makes us dinner, keeps everything nice and tidy, and then slips out of the house in the dead hours of the night. I lie awake, holding my breath until she comes home.

No longer do I sleep. At first, there was too much to think of, too many things to wish for, too many things to keep me up. It took until later, much later, before I stopped thinking of the things I wanted, and I stopped wishing for them. There came a moment when I had to realize nothing was going to change. Blind hope was nothing. I knew better. I thought accepting that would give me less to think about, would give me enough solace to sleep through the night.

And yet, I still could not find peace in sleeping. When I woke, everything fell on me hard and quick like sleet, and it was an unbearable kind of ordeal. I couldn't allow myself to sleep. I still can't. Now, my mind shifts from topic to topic--how my day went, what I should do tomorrow, how many facts of Eldae's history can I recite, how many colors are in the sunrise when morning breaks, how many times can I break until the pieces are too small to break any longer.

My own existence leaves me wounded in every sense. There is no controlling it. There is no changing it. There is no maintaining it. There is no concealing it. There is only exist, and be wounded--literally, metaphorically, evidently, irrevocably. No day in my life so far has proven to exceed these boundaries. I have always been wounded, even before my mother left, and I am wounded now, even more so now that she is gone. I think about this from time to time--how I get more and more wounded every day. New wounds cover up old ones like counteractive morphine, and with every passing moment I grow further from my memories. Soon enough, I'm barely even going to remember what the pain was like, and when someone asks me if I've been hurt, I might tell themno.

I worry about that. I let that seep in when I'm feeling vulnerable. And when finally the morning comes, I wipe the tiredness from my eyes and move on, just like Dalton is, just like Brandyce is, just like father is not remotely trying to.

We dissolve this way. We don't think anything of it.

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