Prologue

(written in 2009)

The healer took me in her arms and held me to her chest, eyes shut and cries stifled. I was uncertain as to which of us was frightened more, as I trembled in cold fear when she tried to steady me in a tight, comforting hold that only my mother could provide.

As her eyes were shut and warm tears were leaking slowly from them, mine were frozen in a wide stare, jumping slightly from side to side due to the short, jerky movements of my body. My shoulders were pinned down, and I could not feel where my arms were; if they were glued heavily to my sides or if they were wrapped around her body I could not tell—I was numb.

I felt her swallow, lips pressing together then releasing, jaw loose and pained, brow deepening without control.

She didn't speak.

She just held me, body swaying softly, so soft and smooth that I could not remember when the swaying began.

I felt my body then moving with her, shifting my weight from one foot to the other, as she swayed and swayed, and then began to dance. My mother and I danced, in the warm glow of our home, clinging to the only comfort we had—each other.

I would remember these moments for the rest of my days, those dances with my mother.

And when my father died I danced with him too, perhaps to try and give him an ounce of the comfort that my mother had once given me, when I killed him.

I can still see the blinding lights, the beautiful powder snow that had freshly fallen from a storm the night before.

And my half-naked body that was dragged to its cold, biting surface.

I remember the smell of burning wood, the sound of cries and pleading, the crackling of broken glass.

I can still taste the forgiving liquid, feel the thickness of the prayer candle; the way I swooned and swirled when I went to light it, the way I knelt over and surrendered myself to the floor to pray.

I can feel the tears that I didn't cry, the desperate fear that I’d created; the fear that I had been waiting for, for so very long.

The deafening music, the resonating screams.

 I held him at the spine and danced, danced with the father whom I hated but loved so obediently.

The father who destroyed everything human in me, who at last killed my mother after years of torment, and later stole from me what I needed most to finally be whole.

But it was alright.

Because now that he is gone, seven years later, I have finally found a way to have what I was always missing.

Seven years later, in his echoing absence that is more deceitful than most, I have found a way to be with what I couldn't live without.

I have finally found a way to become whole.