“In Santa Pace” (Maiden) by RosaCobos

In the beginning, I knew nothing about the myth. I thought it was all about a swan princess and a madman magician, something mystical and mysterious and morbid set somewhere in the outskirts of Russia or Ukraine.

I never dreamed that it would be true. I never thought it’d hit home. I never thought it’d be me. Me rowing in a small white boat, on board with a snow white swan, mourning the memory of my sister’s humanity with an armful of her favorite sunflowers.

When my sister disappeared, the white swan had visited me every night, rapping on my windowpane with its bronze beak, its eyes glaring and tearful, mournful. It took a lot of scavenging in the local library to find out about the eccentricities of swans–and to read about the myth.

By the time I realized, it was too late. The spell was irreversable. Yet I could not flee and leave her. There was nothing left to do but mourn… and take her out into the water where she belonged and where she could not fly or swim because of her clipped wings and clipped webbed feet… and wait for my own turn. Wait for our magician father to return from his travels, unexpected, uninvited, and find me.

~Angreek87