Necromancer

Prompt: Write about someone who has a superpower…

They say only the most soulless of all cursed creatures are born after the span of seven new moons. They say that we are an ode to the festering dark of moonless nights. Mother, you should have known I was an omen the moment I was born. The midwife delivered a child clinging to death and then succumbed to it herself as soon as I was fast asleep in my crib. You should have known then that death has always been at my heels.

When did it begin mother? When did you realize that my shadow was never mine alone? Perhaps it all started with the death of the songbird. She was such a beautiful thing. I can still remember her crystal clear melody. Sorrow dripped from your eyes and you gave it to me to bury. You couldn't bring yourself to do it. I should have realized sooner that you had always been afraid of death. 

I couldn't bear to see you so sad, so I willed the bird back to life. I wove away the black shroud of death that had wrapped itself around the small, insignificant soul of the bird. I brought it back to you alive. 

I remember the horror in your eyes. The following sharp sting of a slap against my skin, the fluttering of the bird's feathers as it slipped free. I first learned what I was when you breathed the word out like a curse. 

Necromancer.

I drew into myself as you drew away. Before I was your youngest, your most beloved. After you could barely bring yourself to look at me. My brother became your life string. He was smothered in all the affection that once was mine. Nothing dead I brought back alive could remove the fright that had settled in your eyes at the sight of me. That darned golden songbird. It could have lived its second life longer than it first had I not wrapped the shroud of death around it again. I killed it and kept it that way.

Every miracle I performed drew you away. You locked me up. Every alive thing that shouldn't be was another door shut on me. For years I wasn't even allowed to see the sunlight but that couldn't keep life nor death away. There was enough decay and rot around me to coax back to life. A mouse friend to play with, a sapling to raise from rotted pollen snuck in. Not even when you stared into my eyes, crying, and broke every finger on my hands could you tame my abilities. 

My fingers never quite healed right but it was enough for me to crawl my way out of the hole I had been shut-in. My stolen freedom made you afraid. Who knew then that fear was an even greater monster than me?

I sat by the windowsill in the kitchen, silently coaxing the vegetables outside to grow. All pests died before they took any nourishment. I let the butterflies soar because you liked things of beauty but I had to kill the parrots. Their carcasses circled the field and I left them there to fertilize the ground.

When you found out that I was behind this you threw your best vase at me. It missed me by a hair's breadth. I tried to explain that they were no different from locusts that would feast at our food but you refused to listen. You never could see the necessity in death either like you could never see the wonder in the life I bestowed on things.

When my brother was carried home dead by the villagers one day you wept and howled and screamed. It was more violent than a reaction I had ever gotten. I thought if I brought him back you would love me again. But that was not to be. I exhausted myself to the bone returning him to you. I had never tried my powers on a human before. I was happy when you embraced him when he breathed again. Maybe there was some forgiveness there for me. I waited for your gratitude, for your apologies that you had finally seen my worth. Yet you kept your eyes forcefully from straying my way. I killed all the butterflies outside that day and contemplated doing the same thing to the warm body of the boy you held in your arms. Should I return it to being a cold, dead thing?

Weeks later when he went to the village he returned with flames and pitchforks at his back. The villagers wanted the dead to stay dead. You begged them for mercy and promised that all will be resolved. I didn't know then that these amends were to start with me.

A grave as dug in the forest. Deeper than what anything should be buried in. I went to look at it and nodded in understanding. The dead were to remain dead. Like the songbird. I would put my brother back in. I would make amends. 

Imagine my shock when you decided that death was to be for me. Foolish woman. Who do you think you were to get to decide that? to kill death itself? That was unholy too. 

The knife plunged into my heart couldn't stake me to the ground. The damp earth thrown over me like a blanket couldn't keep me buried down. The dark welcomed me like you never had and I decided that I had had enough of you. I crawled my way out -nails broken, hands bleeding raw. There was dirt in my eyes, my ears, my mouth. I found my way back home. 

Before I had wondered how a person like you could have given birth to a person like me? Now as I stand in front of your convulsing body and watched it die, I understood that we deserved each other. 

Necromancer you had called me but that was not all I was. I was death incarnate – a grim reaper. After all, there are two sides to every coin. You should have looked at my blessings mother. I leave you today to suffer their curse.