• Chapter Two - Ezekiel

    It turned out that I had been wrong about the low traffic near my home – I’d forgotten that this was the year the winter festival was to be held in the city I lived nearest to. Travelers from what seemed like every corner of the earth passed by my house so frequently during the first few days of the festival that Ezekiel and I were trapped inside much of the time. We would spend the many idle hours talking or playing with Tsukiyomi.

    It was the day before the festival’s end that we began talking about our pasts – a subject I had tried fruitlessly to avoid until he had to leave.

    He told me all about his childhood, smiling at his fonder memories and showing the anger or sadness at the more painful ones through tightly-held facial expressions that did very little to mask the pain underneath his false smile.

    “I was born a few miles away from here,” he said, “in a small town surrounded by the most beautiful green hills you’ve ever seen – like rolling oceans of emerald, and so sweet smelling in the warmer months.” And his eyes lit up as he looked across the scene he’d painted for me. I smiled, closing my eyes to better see the landscape he’d grown up with. I kept my eyes closed as he continued to describe his homeland.

    “There were always wildflowers of every color in the summer – red, orange, purple, even ones as white as your hair,” he added, playfully tugging at a lock that had fallen loose from the loose braid I’d tamed it in that morning. I giggled, swatting his hand away gently.

    “The sky was seldom black, the way it is today,” he continued, “At its darkest, the clouds were a light grey-violet shade – a color almost as beautiful as the brilliant azure that covered the land like a blanket in the spring. I remember that I used to love to watch the sun rise and set – the different shades it would turn the sky were… soothing,” he said, struggling to help me understand this part of his life that I already shared so deeply, “and I found the peace in each rising and setting to be a sort of lullaby, helping me to start the day calm, or to more easily fall asleep each night.”

    “My mother – her name was Alisa – was a stocky woman, short and tan-skinned, with shinning blue eyes and black hair that was so thick and curly that most mornings she wouldn’t even bother to run a brush through it – if she did, she’d come home from the market with a new hairbrush to replace the one she’d snapped in two.” He laughed then, and the warm sound of it did not interrupt my daydreaming about his mother – it only strengthened the image.

    “She was kind and gentle, but she never let myself or my brother and two sisters take advantage of her. Anytime one of us set a toe out of line, she would tell us to sit in the corner. If we didn’t, she’d slowly walk to the kitchen, grab a wooden spoon, and slowly walk forward, counting the steps as she did.”

    “Needless to say, she never counted past three with any of us.”

    I was so engrossed with his story that I actually flinched when the tone of his voice changed.

    “And then came the day when I was sent of to a boarding school in a neighboring town.” His voice darkened so much, become such a sharp contrast to the cheery tone it had held before, that my eyes snapped open to scrutinize his face.

    “Truly, the boarding school wasn’t that bad. The teachers were strict, but fair, and the campus was beautiful – it had cherry trees everywhere, and in the summer the scent was intoxicating. I was happy there – I was taking classes I enjoyed, sitting next to students who were neither disruptive nor rude, and getting top grades in every one of my classes. I thought I was safe there – safe!” he spat, his pretty turquoise eyes narrowing into dark slits in his light-skinned face, his teeth clamping together until they creaked audibly. I cringed at his sudden snarl, flinching away and widening my eyes. A small, fearful noise broke the abrupt stillness – I realized with a jolt that the noise had come from me.

    Ezekiel flicked his sharp gaze to my face, taking in the fear that surely must have been there. Recognition, then chagrin filled his face, and he slowly relaxed, raising his eyebrows and unclenching his teeth – the muscles in his jaw were no longer visible through the skin.

    “I’m so sorry,” he said softly, reaching out slowly to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear, “It’s the first time I’ve ever truly told anyone… I guess all those years of suppressed anger finally caught up with me, didn’t they?” He smiled, but his eyes were worried and apologetic as they searched my wide, unsure ones. After a second that seemed to last for eternity, I decided his apology and explanation were both sincere, and allowed my tensed body to relax.

    He seemed to immediately pick up on my calmness, because he smiled and cupped my face in his hand, a sudden gesture that held no anger or intent. His skin was pleasantly soft and warm, despite the chilly temperature, and I resisted the urge to groan when his hand dropped back onto the bench next to his leg.

    “Shall I continue?” he asked hesitantly, “I think I might be able to control myself, but…” His wide eyes were still rueful.

    I smiled encouragingly at him, my skin still warm where he’d touched it. He smiled tentatively back, then looked out through the window as he continued his story.

    “For the first few months, everything was fine – perfect, almost. It wasn’t until January of my first year that the true hell began for me.” His eyes turned hard and cold, like chips of the stone they resembled.

    “I was walking toward my dormitory, talking with a pretty girl I had met a few days before – her name was Giovanni, and she had the softest gold hair, silky to the touch – and we were stopped by four boys in long trench coats.”

    “I knew these boys were trouble – they seemed to live in the headmaster’s office, and their mischief ranged from simple, childish pranks to tricks that almost sent some of their less-fortunate victims to the hospital. I wanted Giovanni to leave, but she refused. I hadn’t realized until she ran to the side of the leader, Maxwell, that she was stringing me along.”

    “I won’t make you listen to what they did to me specifically, though I will say I’ve never been in so much agony, nor have I ever been as scared, as when they attacked me. They beat me ruthlessly, calling me a genius teacher’s pet and saying I didn’t deserve to be in the school. A teacher finally caught them and hauled them to the headmaster’s again, but the damage had been done. As soon as my month in the hospital was done, I left that place.”

    There was a long, strained silence as I waited for him to steady himself again – I could see the ghost of the betrayal and pain he must have suffered through that day, and I was filled with a hideous feeling, stronger than any anger or disgust I had ever felt before, at the people who had hurt him.

    I wondered idly if I was feeling hatred for his tormentors, and the thought quickly sent me into a silent panic. Hatred might be a trigger for… For that. I couldn’t let that happen with Ezekiel so close.

    He looked at me suddenly, his turquoise eyes curious and calm.

    “Well?” he asked, smiling again, “What about you? What was your life like? Surely, it must have been better than mine.”

    I looked at him with wide, fearful eyes.

    “What?” he asked, cautious, concerned now, “Don’t you trust me?”

    I did… But did I trust him enough to tell him the truth? Would he run away, call me a monster if I told him what I had done? Why I had done it?

    In his eyes there was nothing but kindness, but I couldn’t find the words. The urge to cry shattered the last of my anger, and I turned away from him to hide my agony.

    “You’ll think I’m a monster,” I whispered, “You’ll hate me if I tell you the truth.”

    His hand was on my face again, soft and warm, with a gentleness that exceeded the sort that had been in his first touch. Slowly, he guided my face back to his, so that I could look into his eyes and see the sincerity of the words he spoke now.

    “You aren’t a monster,” he said softly, “Maybe you’ve done some horrible things before, but right now, in this place you’ve offered to me as my sanctuary, I only see a very kind, lonely soul. There is no monster sitting next to me, Amatsu.”

    His eyes were as clear as water.

    I took a deep breath, counted to three, and let it out softly, glancing up at his face as fear shot through me like electricity.

    “You’ll let me finish?” I asked, “You’ll let me tell you everything – every theory, every fact – before you start judging me?”

    He nodded, and as the first drops of rain signaled the end of the festival, I told the story of how I had murdered my own family to the first human who had ever shown me any level of kindness.