The Definition of Dysania (A Collection of Short Trepidations)

𝐁𝐮𝐫𝐧𝐭 𝐂𝐢𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬

Did you know that fairies lie?
They do so, blatantly, all the time.
However, they also can give you the best times of your life.

But the fact that you know that is unending torture.

***

Once upon a time, I went to a dance. It was in a lavish palace; I had my gown on.

I even got a bit of closure from my mother's grave, and the willow that flourished atop it.

I had a carriage, too.
Oh, I had it all, that one night.

But only for one night.

One night alone.

But that one night was wonderful; I caught the eyes of every suitor, even the prince.

He only danced with me.
So, this is love, I thought.
His eyes agreed.

Oh, how I thought that's what it was.

***

I had to leave swiftly after the clock tolled.

I bolted down the stairs, and I was so hurried I broke off one of my glass shoes.

A bit gauche, don't you think? To leave so early at midnight. To leave such a mess, too.

I barely made it out of the palace with everything else intact, and even then, the rest decayed off the side of the road after I left the main gate.

I stumbled home, secretly disgraced, mostly heartbroken.

I was right to be.

***

When the girls got home, they were alight with chatter and gossip.

Simply could not stop talking.

Not once did they talk about me—even though I knew they would not have realized it was me.

It was a masquerade, after all...

I was forlorn the rest of the week and I got many beatings for it.

I did not even bother to clean up the cinders as well as usual, so one twilight my dress caught an ember and danced with it.

I have many burns now.
They healed horribly, due to no rest.
My 'family' didn't care.

So, I did not either.

***

I was even careless enough to mix rat poison with their porridge one morning.

I was even careless enough to ignore their pleas.

I was even careless enough to let their bodies and that godforsaken building rot and decay where they lay.

I was even careless enough to let the animals go free in the village; I laughed at the destruction they caused to those who ignored me and groped me and didn't give a damn that my father never came back from his latest trip across the seas.

***

However, I did care enough to wash a dress for myself—to apply as a maid at the castle.

I got in as a maid, without elaboration or questions.

***

I got to hear all of the gossip, and my only fleeting thought was how much my sisters would have enjoyed it.

The mindless echoing chatter of those that we are told are superior to us, due to birth.

They said that the prince was to marry!

They had boundless joy!

A young princess from an enemy kingdom, his duties will save us all from war, they exclaimed!

The castle was aflutter with life and relief that the average commoner wouldn't even understand the purpose of, even if they would have been the ones most affected by war.

But, oh no, the noble's supply of sugar and other imports cannot be interrupted, now, can it?

***

I took a day off, and I escaped out the 4th story window.

Past the stairs.
Past the hallway.
Past the ballroom.
Past the polished floors and statues that could see everything.
Past the main gate.

Tears dropped down my cheeks all the way. But no one saw them, after all, it's only a masquerade, isn't it?

Wasn't it?

***

I saw phantoms of my heartbroken innocence strung across the grass next to the well-worn road.

I kept walking until my shoes were worn through.
I kept walking, even when my feet bled.
I kept walking, even when it felt like I left my heart at that castle.

Could a broken heart be left in two places at once?
A piece was still clinging to life here—my childhood home.
It was broken down by ivy and rot, but it was as beautiful as any palace.

As any night.

As any pair of eyes.

***

I staggered to the overgrown garden in the backyard, and like a beacon, it was still there.

My mother's grave and the willow tree above it.

There were other things, too.

Four more graves. One for my father, one for my stepmother, and two for my sisters.

Only my mother's had the willow tree though.

It had grown from a mere shillelagh that my father had brought back when I was young, and when her death was too.

***

I walked forward, untethered to my recent past.
It will not drag me down anymore.

My mother was standing there, and my father was too.
My sisters have gone on, the stepmother is somewhere else.

We sat next to the willow, and let life grow a bit wilder.

A bit more like fire, and like the cinders that I was never any better than.