"I can’t do this," I told the door, my voice so small it sounded like a mouse.
"Please," I whispered to no one, the word scraping my throat. Latest content publıshed on 𝕟𝕠𝕧𝕖𝕝⚑𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕖⚑𝕟𝕖𝕥
I pressed my palms flat against the wood. The grain dug into my skin. My breath came in quick, hot bursts. I wasn’t supposed to break here. I wasn’t supposed to run. But my legs felt useless and then suddenly not, a war inside me shifting the ground.
"Not here. Not now," I told myself.
"Not them," I added, the words a little sharper.
I slid down until I was sitting on the floor, my back against the door. My knees came to my chest. I tried to hold my tears like a secret. I tried to fold them away, but they slipped out anyway.
"Don’t cry," I said to my face.
"Don’t be weak," I told the hands that trembled.
My chest squeezed until I could barely breathe. The grief was a living thing. It wanted air. It wanted space. It wanted to be let loose. My fingers dug into the wood. I tasted salt on my lips.
"Why did they do it?" I whispered, like asking might change the answer.
"Why did they hurt what belonged to me?"
I stood so fast the room spun. My feet found the hall. The moonlight looked thin and mean through the windows. I didn’t wait for anyone to stop me. I ran.
"Run, run, run," I told myself aloud, like saying it would keep me moving.
"Faster," I breathed. "Faster than they expect."
The palace felt like a cage that night, but the air outside was a cut of freedom. I didn’t know how I moved so fast. My legs were engines I didn’t own. Guards called after me, voices distant and small. I heard them like they were underwater.
"Stop her!" someone shouted, and it sounded like a lie.
"Don’t let her go!" another voice begged.
I kept going. I ran past the garden where the roses drooped, past the stables, the guard towers, the wall that had always felt like home. The wind slapped my face. My hair streamed behind me. I surprised myself with the speed; it felt natural, like I had been built to move and finally remembered.
"Why is my body doing this?" I asked the night.
"What are you, Lisa?" I demanded, voice raw.
The path blurred. Stones hummed underfoot. I pushed harder through the cold that wanted to slow me down. I left the palace lights like a burning memory.
"I have to go home," I said, and it was sudden, a pull to a place I had been trying not to think of.
"I have to go to father’s house," I whispered, the name like a splinter in my mouth.
I didn’t stop until the city gates were behind me. The air here smelled like wood smoke and wet earth. The streets were quiet. People slept with the world turned away. I ran through alleys that remembered me, through doors that had opened for me as a child, and finally stood in front of a house with a faded blue door.
"Home," I said, and the word sounded both empty and full.
I pounded my fists on the wood until someone opened. No one did. I forced the latch and shoved the door. It creaked like a tired animal.
"Hello?" I called into the dark. "Is anyone here?" My voice bounced back at me, thin and not enough.
The house smelled of old bread and lavender. Dust lay on the table like a blanket. Portraits watched from the walls with eyes that knew me but couldn’t help. A chair sagged in the corner. The bed was unmade. It was all the same and all wrong.
"I thought if I came here I would feel safe," I said, and the words broke like glass.
"I thought I could breathe here."
I looked at the hearth and then at the window. A breeze moved the curtain like a hand reaching for me. My hands found the table edge, and I sank hard.
"I can’t do this by myself," I admitted, and my voice surprised me with its honesty.
"I’m tired of being me."
"You broke me," I told the air.
"You think you can fix this with a sorry? With a cup of broth? With a kiss?"
Something in me tightened.
"No," I said to the mark. "Not now."
My body didn’t listen. The change started slowly, a heat behind my eyes, a pressure at the base of my skull. My breath hitched and then dragged in jagged pulls. I felt a pressure in my bones, like a memory trying to get out.
"Not again," I choked.
The first sound was a low thing that came from the belly of the house, the sound of a wolf waking. It rose like steam. My hands went to my throat. My nails bit my palms.
"Stop it, I’m not a monster!" I told myself aloud, but the words were not enough.
My fingers curled against the wood of the table until the nails hurt. Pain was something I could count on, something I could hold onto, so I let it in. The pain cut through the confusion like a blade. The edges of the world softened, and then sharpened.
My skin prickled. Fur erupted under it like a tide. Bones rearranged, a chorus of small snaps and stretches. My spine lengthened. My hands became paws. My face pushed forward into a muzzle I had known in dream and blood.
I didn’t close my eyes to it. I watched. I let the wolf come.
"Gods," I said, because there wasn’t another word.
"What are you giving me?"
I stood on four legs in the center of my home. My senses opened like a door.
"Am I cursed?" I asked the empty room.
"Am I blessed? What am I?"
"Why now?" I demanded.
"Why after everything?"
Memory spilled into me in bursts when my father told me that he wasn’t my biological father.
Pieces started to fall into place. My unusual strength. The speed that shocked even me. The crescent mark that burned when I felt betrayed.
"Father was telling the truth," I breathed, my voice trembling. "He wasn’t my real father."
The words felt strange, like they didn’t belong in my mouth. I shifted back to my human form and stumbled backward and gripped the edge of the table, trying to steady myself. My knees were weak. My heart felt like it had been split open.
"But if he wasn’t..." I swallowed hard, tears burning my eyes. "Then who was?"
"Tell me," I said, my voice breaking. "Tell me who I am!"