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My name is Ellen, and I’m pretty sure I’m cursed.
When I was swept onto a doorstep as a newborn people celebrated. They celebrated the first grandchild of the house in one place, and the next generation descended from Odysseus in others.
My mum was a psychiatrist and my mother was a goddess of magic, I have a younger half sister named Lilly and 4 cousins, 3 girls, one boy, and none of us are normal. A good example could be when I was 2. My sister was newborn. She was laid on my mother’s doormat in a green silk blanket stitched with owls. That’s what is seen as my sister’s birth, her appearance on a doormat with her brown curls covering her clover green eyes. Our cousins are different from that, their births were normal, but our lives less so.
The oldest of my cousins is a year younger than me. Her name is Aspen. She adores the water. I constantly questioned her when we were little
' why do you love the water ?'
to which she responded
' I find it safe, I can't hear Dad yelling in the water'
'you can't swim'
was always my response. but the woods outside our grandmother's house called to all of us, so When aspen was four she fell out of a tree into a stream. It didn’t take long until she popped to the surface, bobbing like a cork. Her parents were relieved that she was okay, considering she didn’t know how to swim, so she learned and we were allowed to roam together again, without supervision.
The new of my cousins is a girl named Audrey. Audrey is 6 years younger than her sister Aspen. Now if there’s one thing you should know about her it’s that she loves the earth. From age 3 she was able to identify the kinds of stone on the tops of the family’s kitchen counters, from white marble she’d trace at our uncle’s to the quartzite of our grandmother, she loved rocks. So how did we feel When she was 3 and the chunk of limestone in her path shifted to the side when she nearly tripped, she adored the woods and now we knew she wouldn't trip. so at age 5 she had every twist and turn, rock and tree commited to memory, including the stone ruins in the center.
the next of my cousins is the only boy, he, my sister and me grew up as siblings, he healed unnaturaly fast and at record speed in the sun, because the sweet photosynthesising child adored the light, warm against his skin and keeping him from burning