Two

All I could focus on was the little toy bear burning in the corner. Its’ left leg a pile of chard ash as the dancing red and orange flames moved up to consume the next exposed piece of brown fur. I knew that bear deep inside me. Just like I knew this room, but I couldn’t place it not with the way the light had paralyzed my ability to look anywhere else. Somewhere deep inside of me screamed out, but it seemed so unimportant, right now. Slowly, too slowly I realized that heat bubbled against my skin causing sweat to trickle down my spine. I could smell flesh burning, was it mine? Or was there someone else in the room? I finally pulled my eyes away from the bear, as its’ face became consumed with fire. I searched the walls around me for a door any door. I spotted the ornate wooden door, that, that had meant something to me, across the room. Even though it was a mere 13 feet away, the flames made it seem like miles.

 A sickening crack erupted above me. I moved to the side just as a timber landed inches away from me. was trapped. The roof had clasped in front of the only door. Plumbs of chocking darkness exploded around me, as a hot breeze swirled around the room.

“New air,” the flames cheered, as they grew larger and hotter. The orange-red, begin to swirl, brilliant, white. Fear churned in every part of me as I searched for a way to escape. But with each second, I could feel blisters form on my skin and hear the sizzle as my clothing charred. I wouldn’t survive more than a few more moments here.

Black smoke began to surround me. I needed air. My head started to get heavy. I was going to die here. For a brief moment the smoke cleared, and I could see a woman kneeling with her back to me a few paces away. “Run,” I tried screaming. However, nothing came from my cracked lips. The moisture in my mouth was gone. But as if she heard me her face turned to me, black hair surrounding her like smoke, blue eyes meeting me. Worry etching itself across her perfect features.

The metallic sound of shears as they were forced together and apart again made me jump. My hands traced my arms and face shocked to find that I was not in an inferno. I looked around the room desperate to see anyone, but the woman standing in the corner.

 I was met by two exhausted forests.

“Sorry, it took me a long time to find someone who had a pair of shears,” she paused looking me over, “you know, you don’t have to do this.”

“I do,” I whispered, surprised that my voice was not scratchy from the smoke.  

Just a dream. You weren’t there. I reminded myself. You weren’t there that day.

“I just had the dream again,” I explained, when it looked like she would push it.

She nodded. She knew what dream I was talking about, it was always the same. My dreams were always filled with flames and her eyes.

Remembering the full extent of what I had asked my sister to do, I ran my hand through my hair. It coiled around my fingers. I could feel the dust and dirt of days of travel on the normally silky locks. They were an oily, a strange slickness that I had never felt in my hair, well not before that day.

 “Are you ready?”

I nodded bracing myself as she pulled my hair into her hand and start to cut.  I squeezed my eyes shut as the first cut was made. The woman’s eye met mine for a brief moment an accusation posed on her lips. It took four snips before I could allow myself to open my eyes again. To run away from her stare like I always did. Like I always had. Accusations of “Not good enough, never good enough” greeted me like an old bitter friend.

Even with my eyes open, I couldn’t look down afraid of the sight I would see. But as my head grew lighter and lighter I knew I had to come to terms with who I would be. With the next snip, I glanced down. My eyes found a few little strands floating to the floor. They danced in the air for a few moments, until the little bits of night sky curled slightly against the red dirt.

I took a deep breath wondering how those things could be my hair. They seemed too light to be the heavy braids that I had worn my whole life. I could see myself six moons ago on my twelfth birthday. My hair braided like a little crown on top of my head. It had weighed so much, I had begged my nurse to let me wear it down, just this once. She had laughed lightly at that. Her laugh floating like honey through the air. How I longed to see her again. For her portly frame to pull me close as if protecting me from the world. To smell the Lavender in her hair and the smell freshly baked pastries that followed her around like perfume.

“Done,” my sister said.

 I reached up to my head to feel it, but it took so long to reach hair, that I nearly stopped. She had cropped it short. My hair, short. I had never cut it before. In twelve years I had never cut my hair. But, I knew now that I would not grow it long for a long time, likely years, maybe it would never be grown long again.

“Do you want to see it?”

I wanted to say no, but my body betrayed me, and I slowly nodded my head. I knew that the person I would see would not be the same person I had been all of my life. The girl would be a stranger. However, there was nothing familiar about any of this. My sister handed me a small chunk of mirror. One of the edges had wood that had been expertly craved. It had been her mother’s, a gift from our father.

“Lark?” I whispered, my voice forming a question with her name.

“Do you hate it, I can change it,” she assured me.

“No, this was your mother’s wasn’t it? Father gave it to her?” I could hear the uncertainty in my voice as if I was moments away from tears. Of all the things that could break me, a piece of a mirror seemed unlikely. But Lark's mother had shown me more kindness than my own.

“Yes, on the day I was born. Forgiving him his first living child.”

The words had been a cruelness of his, the queen had lost two children at birth. A boy and a girl. Beckett and Lillianna. They were the reason that few people knew the princess’ true age. Two years later Lark had been born.

Lark’s eyes met mine, she knew what I was thinking about. We had both grown up knowing the names of the prince and princess, who had not made it to their naming days but had been named anyway.

“Take a look Aspen,” Lark said.  

I took a deep breath afraid of the child who would meet my eyes. She had a thin face from days of walking with too little to eat, her lilac eyes were too soft for the face, there was still light in the light that I did not feel. But the thing that struck me was the hair. Her hair was almost completely gone a fuzz sat around her skull. I wanted to cry out, to beg for my hair. To beg to go home, no matter how impossible.

“That can’t be me,” was the only thing I said, my voice hollow.

My sister nodded her head. Her long dyed brown locks moving around her shoulders. I tried to look her in the eyes to figure out what was going through her mind, but she looked everywhere else in the little room, but at me, until her eyes settled on the pile of black hair.

“I’ll take care of this,” her voice little more than a whisper. She knew why I had chosen to cut my hair, she knew that the pain was still blooming in my chest. Slowly she reached down and gathered every lock off the ground and walked out the door.

 

By the time I could pull myself together enough to even say okay, she had left the room. I took a deep breath. Forcing myself to focus on the issue at hand. It wasn’t just tradition, we couldn’t look like we had our whole lives we had to become someone else.

But who was that?

I looked in the mirror, to learn about the person I was becoming. I looked like a boy. The clothing I wore was a few sizes too big. I tucked my pants into my boots realizing that I looked like some of the message boys who were always running about.

A messenger boy, that was who I would for now. But I would need a backstory. Lark could help me with that, for now, I could still be the girl I had always been, just with shorter hair.

After six work cycles we would finally be leaving the Farms and going to Jeley. We would be out of this city, we would be out of her reach.