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Even the summer breeze seemed cold now. No matter how tightly Pearl wrapped her scarlet cloak around herself, she couldn’t get warm. The tips of her fingers stung, still half frostbitten from holding her hands in the snow until she couldn’t anymore. And even a little longer after that.
Scott deserved it, the pain. He deserved to feel just a fraction of what she felt, this frozen emptiness inside. And it was the only thing left between them, the remnants of what should have been. When Pearl was hurting, Scott was hurting, and that was the closest she was ever going to get to togetherness.
But right now, sitting on the windowsill of her tower, she would give anything for a bit of warmth. Her body refused to shiver, only aching. The sun toasted air did nothing to ease this icy feeling within.
She knew Scott wasn’t feeling this cold, that came not from snow and ice.
A spec of warmth at her side, a presence. “It’s alright Tilly baby…” Pearl untucked a hand from her cloak to run through Tilly’s fur. At least Tilly cared about her, even if the world didn’t.
But Pearl’s hand found no solid form to rest on. It passed through the warmth as if it were no more than air.
She drew her gaze away from the window. Tilly was not the source of the warmth, she was curled up and sleeping on the other side of the room. Instead, beside her was a hovering purple light. It wasn’t a trick of the sun, no this was a physical thing.
Pearl pulled her hand back, gaining as comfortable of a fighting stance as the thin window frame would allow as she reached for the axe strapped to her hip. It all happened as one instinctual motion. How quickly had she learned to fear the company of anyone other than herself?
“Be not afraid.” The light flickered as it spoke. Its voice echoed, seeming to come from everywhere all at once, layered and ethereal.
Pearl only tightened her grip on the handle of her axe. “I’m not afraid.” It was a lie, but it was spoken with enough confidence that she could convince the part of her that knew the truth that it wasn’t.
The light moved back slightly, giving Pearl the space to step down from the window. “Lying is futile. We sense your fear.”
“Who are you? What are you?” Still, Pearl worked to steady her voice. If not for the light, for herself.
“You know who we are, better than most. Though our nature is not what matters.” The light grew brighter for a moment.
A sense of familiarity creeped into her, cold unwelcome claws. The feeling of this presence. The feeling of being watched. Though she couldn't quite put her finger on why or where, as if there was something blocking her memory from going any further. “And what matters then huh?”
“Your nature, Pearl Escent Moon.” Her name felt wrong in its echoing voice. She opened her mouth to ask how it knew her full name, but a small part of her mind told her it was useless to ask. Told her that of course it knows. “You have been abandoned. You are in pain. Why do you sit here alone?”
A small laugh escaped her, a quick disbelieving giggle. “What? You expect me to be having a party?” Her grip on the axe loosened.
The light shifted, and Pearl got the impression that, had it had a head, it would have cocked it. “Do you not wish to seek revenge?”
That question gave Pearl pause. Of course she sought revenge. Revenge came through frostbite. Revenge came through fear. Revenge came through being the evil they all thought was deep inside.
But that wasn’t revenge, was it? Pity. Fright. Affirmation. Driven out of her in bursts of emptiness, a wolf with its back against the wall snapping its teeth. Because in the end, her finger tips were the ones growing black. In the end, all those people were getting what they wanted, her gone.
“No, not revenge.” Pearl’s shoulders sagged.
The light came closer, and Pearl didn’t pull away. “What, then, do you seek?”
Pearl’s hands fell to her sides. She took a deep, slow, breath. And it was then that she realized she was feeling warmer now. Somehow, so quickly, the light had become almost comforting. Company that was not wishing for her end. “I…I don’t know.”
It was true, she didn’t know what she wanted anymore. She wanted to be alone. She didn’t. She wanted to be cold. She wanted to be warm. She wanted to hurt. She wanted to be hurt. She wanted to prove she wasn’t evil. She wanted to be the monster. She wanted Scott. She wanted him dead.
“Strange.” The light sounded genuinely confused at her response. “The others, they have been unkind to you. You are hurting.” That was true, made obvious by the dried tear lines down her cheeks she hadn’t bothered to wipe off from the night before. “Should you not wish to do the same unto them?”
And maybe she should have. And she did. And she was. And she didn’t. And she wasn’t. She was the wicked witch of the woods. She was the growling wolf. She was the girl crying herself to sleep. She was the dog beaten into the corner.
So what then, truly, was her nature? Everything and nothing at all. Who she was and who she had been forced to be.
Pearl didn’t answer the light’s question.
“Your pain should not be yours alone.” That was the last thing the light said before it vanished. And Pearl was, again, left alone. Slowly, the coldness returned to her chest.
She crossed the room, and carefully, without waking Tilly up, lifted her and placed her in her own lap. She sat there for a long while, stoking Tilly slowly, resting her back against the wall.
Tilly was warm.