Being born with a particular birthmark is the lurking fear every parent has in their hearts when they bring a child into this dark world. Your parents are the only ones who have never received relief when creating life, because they knew your soul would be damned for eternity when he finally comes to claim what’s his.
Moodboard // Prologue // Part 1 // Part 2 // Part 3
This fiction will be dark. It will contemplate eternal life as prescribed by schools of thought ruling the 17th century, most notably Christianity. Will use Biblical references, so if that’s not your thing then sit this one out. Dark themes, violence, and heavy angst.
Centuries.
It’s been around for centuries.
At least, that’s what your mother told you when you were old enough to start asking questions. The prophecy has been around since before she was born, before her mother was born, before her mother was born, and so on. It had been around for hundreds of years, but still somehow held a significant amount of fear in every parent’s heart. It was the sweat dripping from a mother’s face, not from the pangs of child labor, but from the fear her daughter would be born with a heart shaped birthmark over her collarbone. It was the way a father gripped onto his bible with one hand and his rosary in another, praying to God that his child would be born blemish free to escape the fate of her being damned at birth.
Unfortunately for yours, they never got to breathe that sigh of relief. They never got to celebrate the birth of a child, because when you appeared in the dark birthing room, the wet nurse swaddling you and cleaning up the blood from your body, she gasped. And your poor parents, they knew. They knew as the nurse handed you to them that they would see that darkened skin, directly over your collarbone, in the form of a heart. In any other world or time, they would think it was cute, a marking from God that you were loved. But it wasn’t any other world or time, it was your time and your village and you were damned from the moment you came into being.
It didn’t matter that you were born a lady. It didn’t matter your father was one of the most prominent men on this side of the river, it didn’t matter that your mother had that wet nurse sworn to secrecy and kept you covered. You all knew: your time was ticking away; every time you left the house your parents would pray you would return and every time you went to bed they would pray you would be spared. But they knew, they knew.
The demons that haunted your parents at night were the same ones who haunted you. They were the ones who kept you up late at night, kept you reading whatever lessons were taught that day or on a particularly worrisome night you flipped through your bible, hoping to find reason amongst your growing fear. It says those that shall be baptized will be saved, but the holy water could never cleanse your skin of that mark. He who believes will be saved, he who denies will be damned. You believed with all your heart, but you knew it didn’t matter.
And shall come forth; they that have done good, unto the resurrection of life; and they that have done evil, unto the resurrection of damnation.
You were turning twenty this year. Twenty years of fear, years removed from the prospect of marriage. Normally, young ladies would be sold off to whoever their fathers wanted them to be, to help strengthen themselves and make allies with other higher born families. Your parents only had you, and to save you the possibility of one day being dragged from them and a husband they never saved you a dowry, they never contacted other families who had strong young boys around your age you might marry. The young, handsome Richard who had often visited with his parents, the Count and Countess, had showed much interest. His parents were eager to negotiate with yours, but they refused. Your handsome playmate stopped coming.
That was okay, though, because you would hate for someone to care for your and then have to go through the inevitable. To your ten-year-old mind, however, you could not fathom for the life of you why you were being denied one of your few pleasures in this world. Cute Richard, who would go out to the garden and pick the weeds that grew flowers because your mother would kill anyone who touched her roses. He would carry them in for you, dirt still clinging to the ends of the roots that he upheaved, bringing them to you with a shy smile. You would take them from him, always getting dirt on the clean fabric of your dress but never minding.
You didn’t understand it was for the best until one day in church, six years later, however. Sitting in one of the front pews with your parents, you noticed them turn to greet whoever is coming to sit near them. You turn like the obedient daughter you are to smile politely at the newcomers, only to be greeted with the Count and Countess. They must have recently come to visit the town. Richard was with them, having grown into an agreeable young man, but your smile falters at the pretty young thing next to him. She’s your age, but gorgeous: long cascading hair and petite features that make you want to rush home to hide under a rock. She smiles at you, but you turn to the front and act like you didn’t see.
You miss most of the sermon as you go through so many emotions. Anger towards your parents for squashing all possibilities of settling down with Richard. Sadness towards missing out on the opportunities his new beauty must be receiving as the future Countess. Betrayal for Richard for forgetting you so easily while you still pine over him, even in his absence. Finally, you settle on acceptance.
Acceptance because you come to realize Richard would have never been happy with you. Maybe for the ceremony, when you trap him into a marriage. Definitely not when he undresses you later in the night, when he lays eyes on your tainted skin and remembers the age-old tales mothers tell to their sons. Never trust a woman with a heart-shaped birthmark. You’ve heard elderly women crone in the marketplaces. She’ll only bring death to your door.
Literal death or not, it doesn’t matter. Because the living dead would show up to claim their property, whisking away whatever poor soul is branded at birth to become whatever they deemed was necessary. In certain circles, you heard that whoever is branded is destined to become the wife of the undead, the vampire, the life-sucker. No matter what way they spun it, you had your own convictions. Damned eternally, cursed to walk the earth with the one who takes away your soul.
So you accept the fact you’ll never have Richard or any other man for that matter. If it keeps the monsters from your loved ones’ door, you’ll gladly suffer the burden of loneliness until darkness comes to take you, once and for all.
