Virtues We Write In Water
The baby clawed her way out of her mother, leaving a torn up and bloody corpse behind. Her first cries caught fire, and the house smouldered. The midwife picked her up from the mess before the flames could reach her, thinking she was doing a kind thing. When they were safe under the light of the moon, she looked down into the little girls green eyes, and something in them looked back.
Charles Evans found her curled up in the woods, screaming her throat raw, clawing at her eyes. Monster, she was screaming, a hound of hell. And there was his little babe, swaddled, covered in blood, sleeping peacefully on the forest floor.
The midwife begged him, spit flying and blood dripping from her fingernails, take her to the river. Let it have her.
But Charles couldn't bear it, riddled with grief he looked at his child and all he saw was that she had her mothers eyes. He carried them both to the village shaman, who took the babe with shaking arms.
She’ll be worse than her mother, he said. This one will show no mercy.
But Charles Evans was a sentimental man who loved his mad wife with every part he had to give, and chose to refuse the warning.
There was no celebration for her birth, and in a town that worshiped cats, she was named after their deadliest foe.