Green Eyes
Joanne’s eyes were green, not just the iris but the pupils and the eyeball as well. Different shades of green but all glowing faintly with their own light. Normally any child like her would have been have been killed but now there were enlightened and people understood it was nothing but an anomaly, a defect and not some sign of demonic possession. Society had taken huge leaps forward and Drs strove to heal the eyes.
Some people still pulled back in fear and made the evil eye to ward her off, the sign had little affect on the girl and she learnt to ignore them. Just after her thirteenth birthday cramps and blooding marked her as no longer a child and her vision began to change.
Little motes seemed to drifted in her line of sight, sometimes glinting silver and sometimes seeming to steal all the light from the other dancing particals in their strange wafting dance. The opticians discovered a strange thickening of the lense but nothing else when they investigated.
Then violet flares seemed to shoot out from the darkness surrounding people, Joanne was sure the darkness hadn’t been there when she was growing up. Maybe it was a madness brought on by her adnormalities?
Fear began to hurt her normal cheerful demenour. Concerned her mother called in Granny. Granny was ancient and still chewed raw leaf remadies, she was from the northern tribes and her face looked like weathered wood, it felt like soft furry baby rabbit and her eyes glittered with keen interest in the world around her.
It was a danger to bring Granny in, she did not always rule in your favour, she always did what was for the best regardless of if it seemed to be the right or moral thing to do. Joanne trembled at the glare as the wrinkled gnarled hands pushed at her belly and forced her eyes wide. Granny hardly spoke, and smelt of cedar wood and rosemary.
A tongue click at the close examination of her eyes, made the girl jump. “You see the spook lights.” Said the soft voice – Joanne nodded not being quiet sure what was meant but it sounded like it could be the name for the flashes and mists she had been seeing.
“Your Science and your modern medicine can not help her.”
Her mother wailed at the statement but Joanne was not surprised, she had grown ups in the shadows of society knowing how very different she was, reminded at every turn that even decades before she would have been killed for what she was.
Abnormal, deformed, different.
A look from the old woman stopped her mothers cries of despair, Joanne smiled it was as if the woman had been told she was a stupid child. A bleating lamb.
“You shall come to the North with me.” Again it was a statement and the girl found herself nodding, no longer afraid. She looked to her mother, she was surely going to object but she looked worried and confused and then just nodded.
“I’ll help you pack,” she said quietly.
“Not needed,” barked the old woman and she began to hum and held out her hand. Joanne looked to her mother and saw the hesitance there, the girl felt a jolt of fear and excitement interweaved and tangled, then she took the old woman hand. Part of her was disappointed that there was no broom or pestle and mortar that could fly them. Instead they got on the train and the old woman chewed herbs that tanged the air and made the other passengers noses wrinkle. A man in a business suite tutted, the other passengers glared and edged away from him.
People were paying Granny more attention than her with her green skin and strange eyes, this had never happened to her before and it felt puzzling and wonderful!
“You will learn to read the spook lights.” And a smokey amber lump was produced from a pouched and handed to the girl, it was vaguely sticky but also oily, it smelt of bunt sugar and reminded her of stories at mid winter. “Eat,” was all that was said and so she popped it in her mouth, it was smokey and seemed to crack and trickle honey down her throat, carrying a warmth with it. The girl sighed and slipped into a dream of lights twisting and turning and changing there in the sky, she was flying through them, her spook lights and they made her buzz no longer black and sinister – they filled her up and encapsulated her, she felt alive and safe and wondrous.
Ice had once covered this landscape and that ice was there again now glittering and beautiful a reflector for the dance in the sky.
She awoke lips tingling, they had arrived, it was dark outside – she had known it would be. The dark would stay for a good while Granny had told her.
Next there was to be a ship, they did not go below deck but watched the stars appear through the sea mists. Little hidden jewels she might have missed if the old woman hadn’t pointed them out to her. And then there… a spook light but more, seemingly tangible, rippled across the sky. To Joannes amazement everybody around her oohed and ahhed and Granny smiled.
“You have a lot to learn child.”
The girl nodded and smiled, she could not be odd here in this place for it had been waiting for her.
Posted: Monday, October 7th, 2019 @ 7:47 am
Categories: Flash Fiction.
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