Our Painted Realities

I looked as if I’d been painted in brush strokes of blood, dark crimson seeping into brown, dregs of red, saturated and dried, hung down in front of my face, giving me a rather feral look. If people usually gave me a wide berth in passing, they were doing that even more so tonight with their blatant stares and shocked whispers.

The painting war at Gina’s shop had done much to lighten my mood, even though I hadn’t won the contest. Mare and myself against Gina, Dor and Iris wasn’t exactly what I’d call fair play, but it was amusing.

I didn’t want Castor to see me at my worst, so I had returned to his house in hushed enfoldment, hoping to make it to my room without incident. But he was there, waiting for me. He had something to show me.

I used to hear him cry, my reality and illusion twisted. I used to think I was guilty, I still am, but for quite another reason.

I should have known. The signs were there, all of them, the dreams, the feelings, a part of my past I could not release. What I had thought I had done was all a lie. Aiden’s lie, that I had become an unwilling participant in. My son was alive. Here. But the destiny of the curse is not yet done with him.

And even though I gave up, Castor did not.

So many things are yet left unexplained. The fact that Charming had seen what I did, or what I thought I did. Was she picking up on my own guilty conscious? I realize she doesn’t understand the things she sees and this is something that I have been trying to help her with.

And Aiden. Why would he leave my son with a woman in the Tahari? If he had gone to such great lengths to make me believe I had killed him, he obviously wanted him for something. Why didn’t he take him with him? The answers to these questions are probably something I will never understand.

It’s not that I’m not happy that he’s home, I am, blissfully so, but there is a part of me that knows if answers do not come now, that something more frightening will be laying in wait, and it’s that thought that terrifies me..

Castor bought Charming a Nar.