Forward - Chapter 1

My mother wanted me dead.

So did my father.

Not to mention my five other siblings.

I couldn’t blame them for what they wanted. I was the spider, the creepy-crawly of the entire family. They just wanted to squash me and get it over with. They just wanted to toss me onto the streets.

Ever since they figured out what I could do, they had been plotting in the night, while they thought I was sleeping. It stung. They were my family. They were supposed to take care of me, to love me. Instead, they wanted me gone.

“Mother!” Natalia whined downstairs. I curled up in my bed, breathing in the scent of the dusty, thin blanket I had. I spent ever night like this, in the dark, hidden under my straggly blanket, curled up on the floor of the attic. During the day, it wasn’t much better; Natalia and Grenet would tease me royally and beg for more ‘stories’. They would always shriek with laughter if I did tell them one and would run away to tell on me. Whenever I mentioned the large scaly creatures in the forests, they would tell me I should have been eaten. If I told them about the loud machines rampaging through the streets in our future, they told me I should have been hit.

I could hear Mother brushing Natalie’s golden locks, the soft whisper of the coarse wood against her tangled hair. “Hush, darling. We mustn’t shout. We will wake that - that devil’s child.” Her voice dropped to a lower tone. I strained to hear more, knowing I was going to regret it later when Mother beat me for listening to them. 

“But Mother!” Natalie whinged. “Just do it already!” She hissed dramatically. “I would have. You and Father are too sympathetic.”

I shuddered on the bare floor, my thin arms wrapped around my chest. I was only nine at the time, a thin, straggly girl with short golden hair and green eyes. If I had talked to Mother like that, I would have received a harsh beating and a ‘time-out’ in the attic for a week.

Mother hushed Natalie again. “Be quiet!” There was a sharp slapping sound, and I winced, though I felt no remorse for Natalie. Mother would always ‘tap’ us on the back of our legs if we even opened our mouths to talk back.

“I’ve told you many times. Father is preparing . . .” Her voice drifted away, and I could hear the wanting in it. She was lost in another world, a world where I was gone. “Tomorrow.” Her voice was barely a whisper.

Dread and fear exploded inside me all at once. I jumped up so fast I could not breathe. Tomorrow! Just tomorrow I would be dead, gone from their hands forever. I knew this day would come - but I didn’t expect it so soon. It was as if they’d forgotten I was their daughter, their sister.

Nothing would prepare me for this. They could not just watch me die in front of them. Or would they? As Mother said, I was not their family. I was of another world, so they said.

“I have to go,” I whispered aloud. A rat squeaked in the corner of the attic, scuttling across the floor and disappearing in the wall. That was exactly what I had to do. I had to disappear.

I praised the Lord for my powers - but then I cursed angrily and kicked the wall. Grimacing, I hobbled over to the window in my thin bed clothes. My bare feet tingled with cold as a wind swept through the broken window. I was stepped around the glass shards and peered out of the window frame.

I was a good couple of meters away from the ground - perhaps ten at most. It was just enough. Sighing with relief, I swung my legs out of the window, breathing quickly. My ability to jump through time without being remembered wasn't something I could control. It would happen randomly. When I was talking to the baker, or begging someone for food, I would simply start to disappear. Nobody seemed to remember me. As far as the authorities knew, I didn't exist. 

Yet somehow my family remembered me. Maybe it was because of our blood connection. Maybe their hatred for me was strong enough to keep them remembering. Either way, I wouldn't need them anymore. I would leave, I would forget them. It was all about me now. I didn't need a family.

I leapt out of the window, the wind whistling past my hair. I could hear Mother’s screams, Natalie’s wicked laugher, Father’s shouting from the house, as well as my four other siblings’ shouts and gasps. But I would leave them behind.

I did not have any need for cold hearts in my life. I would go forward.

Forward.