Pandora

The story was that when Sloane-Vivianne Beringer was born, the sun on that brisk September dawn gave its very first shaft of light to the fair-haired babe that rested in her mothers arms. It poked through the cover of clouds solely to light the head of the sleeping child, a glowing crown of someone the world decided would be special (the acrid smell of her father's cigarettes be damned). The bitter wind blew through the open window and whisked the stench of nicotine and her mothers cloying candy coated perfume out into the world that shifted in the little girl’s direction.

Her the light and the wind and the earth three floors below the Beringers whispered, this one this one this one

The sons, the two Beringer boys who would now and forever stand off to the side, shivered as the air pricked their skin. The eldest felt his liver ache, flayed open and picked apart by the phantom of wings and beady eyes that haunted him so suddenly. The younger fell to his namesake, the after to his brother’s forethought, and resentment creeped up his spine as he looked at his new sister. Hindsight was 20/20 he supposed and he would not be so naive this time around.

The world whispered to them too, again it laughed.

Again Again Again

A world on repeat and none of them were quite sure it would be different. All of them were afraid that it would be.

Afraid to repeat mistakes, afraid to deviate from them. The paradox of second chances.

In the midst of this paradox, asleep to the tightening strings of fate Sloane-Vivianne Beringer grew up. She sprouted alongside the large white oak that had been planted in their front yard in the near months of her birth, one learning to reach up towards the light and the other learning to hold it. Oh and hold it she did. The sun followed her just as it had the day she was born, bathing her in a glow that lit her up like the neon sign for Aphrodites they saw as every Saturday waiting for their Mother to finish the long shift.

The little girl wielded her light like a weapon.

She knew it made Pryce, the eldest brother, smile in the distant way he always did when she snarked and snapped and batted her eyes, wrapping the world ever tighter around tiny fingers. Stealing fire.

She knew that no matter what she did she’d never escape the watchful eye of her other brother. Evan always felt his heart sting when he looked at his sister, regret and anger and ‘why couldn’t you just do as you’d been told’, piercing his lungs in a way he didn’t quite understand. Hindsight is 20/20 but he was never quite sure what he was looking back on. A different kind of love. A different kind of lifetime. The same mistakes that crawled beneath his skin, roiling to repeat.

(Missing pieces, afterthought, afterthought)

By the time their father died (Nicorette too late to stop a man who’s string had sat on the scissor blades since Sloane was 15) the girl had matured. Green and glassy eyed, curious and cutting, the world’s first perfect woman handcrafted in Missouri.

Men followed her like dogs. Panting and licking and falling to their knees the minute those eyes turned their way. Hands up, heads down, tongues out, cash in hand, whatever she wanted they gave her and whatever she told them they did. At thirteen, three different boys were just begging to take Sloane-Vivianne to her first junior high dance. They were the first time her world had turned topsy-turvy. She’d gone to the dance alone, stubborn as she was, and they’d followed her out back into the dry grass field behind the school when she’d gone to catch some air.

(That's the thing about dogs, she’d learn, when you stop feeding them they stop listening.)

She remembered the way the moon looked that night, the way the wind picked up and chilled her knees where they peeked out from her discount dress. She remembered being scared as they backed her up against the brick wall. She remembered the exact moment that fear turned to awe.

She remembered how their bodies fused at the shoulders, the middle one (Henry? Harold? She was never good with names) sucking the other two into him and blending like when she’d left all her silly putty too close together last fall. Skin melting into skin. She watched the hair, patchy and prepubescent, cover the new body like a diseased mutt. She remembered flinching backwards, smacking her head against the wall, when their faces elongated outwards. One malformed body with three canine heads all with snarling maws of still human teeth.

She’d still been scared then, when the heads came close enough for drool to drop onto her dress. But She remembered the second, the sound, the smell, of the minute her fear dissipated into the cold air.

(Fear of the beast anyway)

The dog reared back, pulled by the chain that had materialized wrapped around its neck. It let out a choked off sound, maybe a bark or maybe a scream, as it was pulled back to its master’s side. He was tall, like her white oak, pale as the moon with hair that fell to his waist, dark as a shadow. He smiled at her, eyes made of rough cut gems (ruby and amethyst) and teeth of solid gold.

“Terribly sorry,” his voice felt like the velvet of her Mother’s only good top. “He tends to run if you give him an inch of room.”

She was silent only for a moment, catching her breath and staring into gleaming stone eyes. “No harm done.”

“He’s stained your dress!” The man cried, yanking his beast to heel once again.

“It’s alright, it was on sale anyway”

“Still, that's no excuse” He said, eyeing his mutt. “You’ll let me pay for it won’t you?”

He held out his pale hand and the blank palm saw a stack of neat gold coins blink into existence. Sloane-Vivianne knew that just one would pay their rent, but the way they gleamed and shook in his still as death hand gave her pause.

“I think I’d rather we just let it go”

“That's your prerogative,” The man had grumbled, shoving the coins back into his shadows and turning away from her, leading his dog out onto the football field until he disappeared from view.

Her chest felt a strange sort of hollow after that, she sat on the curb out front until her brothers came to pick her up. They stared at her like they’d known, she stared back daring them to ask, nobody said a word the whole way home. Her dreams were haunted by gemstone eyes for weeks afterwards, but how strange was it that they were different types every time.

The world went fuzzy like that a couple times after that, like when she swore up and down her first boyfriend’s family had a cow with the same eyes as the woman she’d seen missing on Dateline just the week before. Or when she’d gotten lost in a corn maze her junior year and had stubbornly ignored the ball of yarn that rolled out from the stalks, staring at it with the creeping sense that this one was going to lead her deeper in rather than out (she’d ignored the tortured roar when her friends had led her out her hours later).

The last time she remembered her world twisting was the day of her Mother’s second wedding, a real one this time with a real white dress and a real bouquet of cornflowers. Her stepfather’s name was Charles and he was richer than what she was sure men were allowed to be. Dark hair, dark eyes, and for just a moment when he stood saying his vows, a dark chestnut coat on the stallion's body that shimmered like a mirage beneath his waist.

(She stood next to her Mother wondering how in the world no one had noticed the groom becoming several heads taller.)

He’d winked at her as they cut the cake, like they shared a secret. It was the first secret she didn’t feel dirty keeping. Charles was kind to all of them and didn't smell at all like cigarette smoke. Pryce kept his distance though, muttering something about rocks and chains and choices that wouldn't be made again when she’d asked about it. She didn’t know what that meant, but she did know that her step-father looked at her eldest brother like an apology.

It was after Charles (after his money mostly) that she was introduced to Dominic.

Her Mother had been enchanted instantly, “good family” she’d said, and she wasn’t wrong. The Sommers owned half the real estate in southern Missouri (Sloane-Vivianne knew better than any that there was probably some truth to the rumors that anything Oliver Sommers touched turned straight to gold). The family had been enchanted with her right back, like most people usually were, and somehow she'd ended up engaged to a man she’d barely met at the end of the same winter.

She’d thrown a right tantrum at that, screaming at her Mother till the sun went down and locking herself away in her room, hiding from her Mother’s rage and Evan’s judging eyes. It was Pryce who’d talked her out of her ire, said some things were the way they were

(She always felt her eldest brother knew more than the rest of them and whatever he knew kept him in permanent defeat.)

(She wished he’d let her in on the secret).

So she held her breath and picked out a wedding dress. She hadn’t been in love, so she wouldn’t know what she was missing. The family was good, the money was better, and Dominic was…

Fine.

Another pup to play with, although more arrogant than what she was accustomed to (she made a note to never stop feeding this one).

Their wedding was scheduled for June and the date crept up on her before she knew it. So now, as Charles rolled his ruby red rolls royce through the iron gates of the Sommer estate, Sloane-Vivianne, for the first time in her life, readily welcomed the familiar shimmer of her world twisting sideways.

It always glittered a bit, the estate, like it was two seconds away from showing her something that made her skin prick and hair stand on end. It was part of the reason she hated it here so much.

“Pay attention” Evan hissed in her ear. That was the other part of the reason. Her second brother always got tetchy at the Sommer’s estate (tetchier than usual anyway). Always watched her more carefully when they were here, like he was expecting her to take a wrong step and knock down his house of cards.

“We just got here.” She sniped at him. “What do you think i’m going to do, Evan? Accidentally trip and kill them all? What's my wedding to you anyway?”

Evan narrowed his eyes, “It's not about the wedding”

“Then what's the issue? Huh?”

Her brother only stared at her, and for a moment she could have sworn she saw sadness flash across his face before the expression settled into resentment and he turned away without giving an answer.

“Fuckin' asshole” she muttered, crossing her arms and waiting for the world to shimmer into existence some beast with a very particular appetite (blonde hair, about 160 lbs, hazel eyes, name that starts with E).

“Watch your mouth!” her Mother yelled from the front seat and she rolled her eyes. “So unladylike.”

Sloane-Vivianne was out of the car before Charles put it in park, eating up distance in minutes as she made her way towards the back of the property and the willow tree that hung over the lake. Her Brother yelled after her, and she heard Pryce plant a firm hand in his chest as he stopped the younger man from running after her like an angry minder. Dominic wouldn’t care if she came to greet him, not if she batted her eyes and smiled just so when he showed her the new clubs Charles had brought as a wedding gift.

Her stomach rebelled slightly at the archway already set up beneath the willow when she’d arrived. The chairs set up in two neat rows leading up to it, she wasn’t sure she even knew enough people to fill them all.

“There’ll be narcissus on the aisle markers” a voice startles her in the midst of her reverie, lilting and masculine. “Fitting, yeah?”

She whipped around, saw no one but shimmering air.

“What? Where– where are —?”

“Where are you?” the voice teased back. “Say? Do you want to practice?”

“Practice” she whispered, looking behind the willow (no one there).

“For the wedding!” (by bushes at the edge of the property line, no one there.) “I’ll be the groom.”

“Where are you?”

“Over here!” a glimpse of a man between the trees. Another glimpse, farther into the forest.

She followed without thinking, chasing flashes of light and the glittering silhouette, her apprehension melting away as the chase began to feel like a game. He laughed with her as she nearly caught him, brushed the small of her back when she could have sworn he was in front of her.

“I thought we were practicing?” she called after a while, giggling through ragged breaths. “Am I ever going to meet the groom?”

The laugh that echoed around her would’ve been eerie if it didn’t curl and lilt like her heart had done since the minute they began the chase. Her head whipped around, trying to pinpoint where the laugh hid amongst it all. Turning and turning and turning around until there were lips against her own. A strong hand cupped her face, drawing her in as she fisted her hands into the front of his jacket. The world shimmered and slipped between the trees, warm and inviting in a way it had never been before.

Was this what love felt like? Is this what she’d be giving up?

Her lungs wheezed for air but she couldn't bear to bring herself away from him. She didn’t know if she could give this up, the first time she felt something more than bland indifference for a man she’d shared breath with. Her eyes pricked with tears from the thought of losing something she just now had the chance to gain (or was it from the way her chest burned for oxygen? the man still held the blonde of her hair in a vice-like grip)

He didn't let her go until she beat at his chest and when they pulled apart, heaving and ragged, the first thing she noticed was the moon. Strange being that she remembered the sun when he’d first held her.

The second thing she noticed was that her first real love had the head of an ass.

“Something wrong?” he’d asked, smiling with horse-like teeth.

She backed away, now wiping at her mouth with the back of her sleeve, spitting and stumbling to put distance between them.

He laughed at her, harsh and unpleasant. (Had his voice always had such a bray to it?) “I thought we were practicing.”

She opened her mouth, voice cracking with a fear she hadn't truly felt since those first few moments behind the school at her first junior high dance. Trapped, cornered by a rabid animal but this time she knew there'd be no collar to stop him as he came ever closer.

“Stay— stay away!” she realized as she looked at the wall of trees around them, that she was terribly terribly lost.

“Don’t be afraid.” he told her, in a tone so sickly sweet it reminded her of her mothers old perfume. “I’ve got a gift for you.”

The strong hands that had held her moments prior now gripped tight on a copper jar. “A wedding gift, from us to you” the man jeered. “don't you recognize it?”

She stared at him, fear creeping more steadily into her bones as she looked at the familiar copper of the — “Is that my daddy’s Urn!?” she shrieked.

“It is!” the donkey shrieked back, voice laden with a mirth that unsettled her. “It is! It is!”

“Open it!” he urged, shoving the jar roughly into her hands.

“Sloane!” a voice called from behind the trees. “Sloane!”

“Evan?”

“Open the jar!” the man bellowed.

“Evan!” she screamed, looking desperately for her brother’s face. “Evan!”

“Don’t Ope—”

“Open the Jar!”

“Whatever you have!” her brother’s voice trickled through the leaves. “Don’t open it!”

“Evan!” she sobbed, as the man crowded her against a tree. Pressing what was left of her Daddy insistently into her chest.

“Open the jar” he whispered, breathing hot against her ear.

“Sloane!”

“Open it” his hand caressed the curve of her jar. “You know you want to open it.”

“Listen to me! For once in your life Sloane, fucking listen!” Evan yelled from somewhere to her right.

She slid down against the trunk of the tree, sobbing and clutching her Daddy to her chest.

“Open the jar” the man crouched in front of her, wiping hot tears away from her eyes.

She felt, more than saw, her brother come crashing the foliage. Felt the fear that radiated from him before she even realized she’d twisted away the top of the urn. Felt the man in front of her get swept into the swirl of ashes and wind with another braying laugh.

“Sloane!” her brother screamed, tear streaked and red faced, as he lost himself to the storm of dust.

(Hindsights 20/20, afterthought, afterthought)

Sloane-Vivianne Beringer sat with her back against the tree, watching as the world shifted and swirled in a cloud of gray.

Smelled like cigarette smoke.