Page 48 of Souls We Rip

The threat I launched stood between us like a blade.

The Goat Man stepped closer to me, the breeze it carried bringing his wax and old books scent, making me swallow.

“Throwing threats around, Ana?” it asked, its voice smoky, my head conjuring its touch earlier. It was a hand. A hand which made me curious and frightened at the same time.

What lay behind the skull?

“Have you forgotten that you cannot hurt anyone?” Its words lingered between us.

Something happened to me. I didn’t know how much impact your own name could have coming from the lips of an eternal being.

Inclining my head upwards, I stared into the deep blue swirls of its eyes. “Take it as you want.”

The blue swirls intensified, shining in the blaze of the candles. “If you so much want to play with fire, let’s get you burnt.”

Goat turned around, pushing my body to follow it.

One second, we were in the kitchen, sparring with words, and the next one, we were in his chamber, where a fire burned in the terracotta stove. My eyes caught the intricate airway it had in his room, the smoke floating outside through some tube.

A canopy bed filled with ponevi, red and black motifs meeting in the middle stood on the opposite wall. The blood and the darkness. Next to it was a small table with one chair, crimson wax and a raven’s feather placed neatly on top of yellow papers.

And the most heart-wrenching object was a large, golden mirror with red swirls like blood, circling in a dark matter. Crimson sparkles hit the glass from one corner to another.

“What is that?” I asked, my body being placed right in front of it.

Its hoof went past my ear as it tapped on the mirror’s glass. The Goat Man placed itself behind me, its eyes fixed on my reflection.

“Shall we stoke the fire inside you?”

Ana

Before my eyes was a family: two women washing their garments in the river. The sun was burning their skin, and they kept wiping the sweat from their foreheads. One had light blonde hair, sun rays reflecting on it and the other one, white threads slowly capturing her head.

A man joined them.

Without even a word, he slammed the older woman’s head on the bank of the river, frustration washing over his face. He was shouting something, but I couldn’t hear anything.

I pressed my ear to the mirror, but no sound came from it.

The younger woman ran away, hiding her face.

“Who are these?” I asked, the answer ringing in my head.

“This is the past,” the Goat Man came closer to me, tapping once on the mirror, enhancing their faces.

Indeed, it was.

That day, my mum and Angelica went to the river to wash all the dirty clothes from the previous day’s celebration.

This happened last year at the Girls’ Fair. Another year of failure for my family and me. I remembered how I stood, alone, in the middle of the meadow after a girl younger than me was picked as the last bride of the year. After the fair, my father picked up his belt. I couldn’t sit straight for a week.

That day, my mum chose to let me sleep in, and by the look on her face, she had not closed her eyes the entire night, tending to my wounds. I wore the scars he left me as a reminder, never to go astray from his words.

I watched my father using both of his hands to inflict pain. I had a surge of satisfaction that he had lost one of them. Quickly, I made the cross sign over my forehead and chest, dispelling the feeling.

The reflection of the Goat Man showed me its skull turned to the ceiling, and I knew it must have rolled its eyes.

“Can this Mirror show anything?” I asked, my eyes searching my mum’s face.