It had been the fall of autumn. I remember feeling the gentle brush of winter snow on my small arms as my mother held me in hers. My hands clutched at her shoulder as I buried my young face into her chestnut hair. She smelled like vanilla, magic, and death. All familiar smells. My father placed a reassuring hand on my back. Nights like these were not new to me, and I’m sure he was taken off guard by my squeamishness.Excerpt from Wickeds (working title) Prologue
“Look, my lovely.” He whispered in my ear. The sound of his deep, melodic, voice cascaded over me and my body relaxed. I twisted my head to see his eyes. They were like my mother’s, like the eyes of all our kind, eyes which spanned across the ages of history back to the war before time. His eyes were the color of palest gray, the color of the sky in the time before the light of dawn. To others, the color would have been otherworldly beautiful if it did not denote a killer. Instead the pale grey of his eyes were the eyes of terror, fear, and unmitigated horror, but this gray color belonged to the eyes or my father: eyes of steady safety and love; and the wild excitement he felt about this night glistened them with brilliance.
Image: Photographer Unknown