My Voice for My Heart

Prologue

He knew the girl, but in this state, where every sound made him want to fly away, where he needed to watch his brothers, where he was distracted by the light on the water, and the feel of the wind in his feathers, he couldn't say how.

She was important to him. To them. She was more important than safety and food and shelter. But his mind failed him. It wouldn't hold onto thoughts, as soon as one passed through, it was replaced by another, more basic one.

Consciousness. Instinct. Consciousness. Instinct.

He fought against the instinctual urges, tried to push them away and hold onto the ones that told him he was more. That she was more.

He floated across the water, watching the girl where she sat on the shore, watching him just as closely.

Too close. Too close.

His animal brain screamed at him, but his true self, his conscious self, said not close enough.

She watched him carefully. Her dark blonde hair floated in the breeze, catching his attention when it glowed in the sunlight. She pulled her knees up to her chest slowly and it didn't frighten him. Her chin went to the tops of her knees and she watched him with greedy eyes, as if she couldn't get enough of him.

It made him preen.

He lifted a wing and then another, flapping them so she could see just how beautiful he was. He lowered his head until his neck arced into a graceful arch and she smiled. She nodded at him, yes, you are beautiful. He could hear her words even though she hadn't spoken.

Her hands came up to her legs, pulling them in tightly and his eyes alighted on them curiously. Her hands did not fit. Consciousness again pulled at him and he could almost feel the hands. He could remember hands; he had hands once, hadn't he? Her's had been small and cool and he had held them in his own. The thought was gone a moment later and he extended his wings in agitation.

The hands that rested against her skirt were not the hands he had just seen in his mind. These hands were red and swollen, the skin chapped and split. It made him feel angry, but anger was not an emotion he could understand in his current state and it translated into fear. He needed to flee, find safety. He felt a body against his own and saw a brother. He was surrounded by brothers. They had floated closer when he had swum to the girl. They watched her with their small eyes as curious and needy as he had, but now they sensed his agitation and were as anxious as he to move, to find safety, to go away.

He extended his wings until the air pushed him and he could fly. He heard his brothers' wings and felt the wind they created. He immediately forgot about the girl. All of his senses were free and full, air pushed beneath him, wind moved his body to and fro, he glided, drifted, swirled and stroked. He saw the lake from high above. Safe.

He saw a small white speck at the edge of the water. He was curious, what was it? Was it safe? Would it harm him or his brothers?

He circled and dipped. He could see a tiny sad face.

How did he know "sad?"

He felt his heart break.

What was a heart?

Danger! His mind cried out and he changed direction, away from the lake and the tiny white thing that had made his heart pound and his mind struggle against thoughts it couldn't handle.

**********

I stood up, brushing my hands along the back of my skirt as my beautiful white swans flew away. Each flap of their wings broke my heart a little more and I found myself pressing my ruined hands to my chest, like I could keep my heart there, inside me.

I wiped away my tears and winced when the salty liquid touched an open sore on my fingertip. I didn't dare make a noise. My stepmother had told me, one sound, just one, and they would be lost to me forever.

So I pressed my finger into my skin, relishing the burn and ache. I look around the grass, finding the pile of yellow distaff thistle I had made. It was deceptively pretty, yellow blooms, angled and spiked leaves, white fuzzy looking stems.

But those stems were not fuzzy, they were thorny. When I picked each plant, the thorns dug into my skin. I had tried wrapping my hands in cloth, digging around the base of the plant and lifting the whole thing out of the ground, but the thistle released an oil that was in the roots. It saturated the cloth and got on my skin. There was nothing for it.

I had to mash the plant, clean out the seeds and leaves, flatten and wash it, then brush it. Ever step was torture. My joints were so swollen from the continuous injury I did to them that I worried I wouldn't be able to finish the task my stepmother had given me.

I was running out of time.

Nine months. That was all I had. One month for each man. One month to fashion a tunic that would turn them from birds to back to men.

I had frightened Bhaltair. I knew it was him, staring at me with silver eyes as he boldly glided forward, preening and displaying his beautiful white wings. I wanted to tell him he was beautiful, even in this form, but I couldn't make a sound.

I could not speak until I finished the shirts. I could not tell anyone what I was doing. I could not tell anyone where my princes were.

If I spoke, they were cursed.

If I failed to make the distaff thistle tunics, they were cursed.

If I told anyone what my stepmother had done, they were cursed.

I wanted to cry out at the unfairness of it all and looked up at the sky. There, high above me, were the swans; dipping, soaring, flying.

They looked free up there, but I was earth bound and alone. 
Come back, I called to them with my heart, don't leave me!

But they continued to circle, until Bhaltair struck out in a new direction, and they all flew away from me. He didn't swoop down, he didn't look back. He was fully, completely, devotedly swan.