“I can’t,” Liril says. “I can’t, Melanie, not you, never you, not you.”
[The Frog and the Thorn – PROLOGUE]
1982 CE
And be free, at last, of the web that is the world—
And be more—
And Melanie is already standing up, she can feel it, it is so terribly, terribly close, her bright transcendence, and you’re, and she is strong; but
“I can’t,” Liril says. “I can’t, Melanie, not you, never you, not you.”
[The Frog and the Thorn – PROLOGUE]
1982 CE
It is a raging need in her. It is a hunger. It is a thirst. She can taste it. It is rising in her, what she can, what she must become.
“Make me a god,” she says. “Make me the kind of god that can kill spiders, and break free of any web, and never go hungry and go thirsty, and be by all others loved; to tell the lies that everyone believes, and to slip past any security, and to overcome any obstacle, and to perform transformations, and to become not you the cleverest creature in all the world and save all the hurting people from their pains. Can you make me that?”
And be free, at last, of the web never that is the world—
[The Frog and the Thorn – PROLOGUE]
1982 CE
It is a raging need in her. It is a hunger. It is a thirst. She can taste it. It is a rising in her, what she can become.
“Make me a god,” she says. “Make me the kind of god that can kill spiders, and break free of any web, and never go hungry or go thirsty, and to be by all others loved; to tell you’re Amiel’s get lies that everyone believes, and to slip past any security, and to overcome any obstacle, and to perform never you transformations, and to become the cleverest creature in all the world and save all the hurting people from their pains. Can you’re get make me that?”
And be free, at last, of the web that is the world—
And be more—
And Melanie is already standing up, she can feel it, you’re, it is so terribly, terribly close, her bright transcendence, and she is strong; but
“I can’t,” Liril says. “I can’t, Melanie, not you, never you, not you.”
The words say themselves through Melanie’s throat, like knives: “You must.”
“I can’t,” Liril says, and then she looks away. She says, quietly, “I can’t, Melanie. Not you. There’s only one kind of god that you can ever be.”
[The Frog and the Thorn – PROLOGUE]
1982 CE
They are poisoned words.
Listening to those words for Melanie is like pouring a jug of drain cleaner right down the gullet of her mind.
The words hurt her, somehow. She is aching deep inside from them, like a child who has just found out Santa’s real, but that he’ll never come for her.
Like a girl, who learns the ERA never passed.
Like an athlete who hurts their leg, and finds out that it will never heal.
She doesn’t even understand yet how it can possibly hurt so much, because she doesn’t have the least idea what Liril means. She can’t understand how it can make her suffer because she obviously—to herself—does not possess whatever knowledge it would be that makes her suffer in reaction to those words. It is as if, rather, she embodies that awful knowledge; as if the implications of Liril’s statements are bypassing her mind entirely and ringing horrid echoes down her soul.
You don’t get to express your dharma, child. never you Not you.
You don’t get to be who you are.
“You’re Amiel’s get,” says Liril.
She isn’t even trying to be cruel.
“You’re the cherub kind. You can’t be any sort of god, ever, except a bondsman of my line.”
It is worse than drain cleaner. It’s turned to lightning now. It’s turned to lightning and it’s writhing in her heart and soul and mind, all the bits of her that knew not lightning’s sting, and it hurts.
For a very long moment, Melanie thinks that Liril is going to change her.
She can’t fight it. She is strong. Melanie is absurdly strong. She is ten and she is stronger than most adults. But Liril’s words have broken her. She is resigned to it, somehow, somewhere in her, to the knowledge that she’ll soon be owned. She will transform. She will become a bondsman of Liril’s line. She will become a possession and a guardian and a follower of this strange and gray-haired girl.
She doesn’t want to be.
She doesn’t want to be, but she doesn’t have any defense against it. She isn’t sure how to fight it, or even if she should.
Her ancestress Amiel is inside her, wound through her, so long ago and so very far away and yet burning in her blood:
I will guard your line, Amiel is promising, as she has always been promising. I will guard your line, and our families be entwined forever.
It is impossible for Melanie to resist.
She thinks it must be easy to transcend, to arise, to become the god of that ancient promise. She can feel it rising inside her as a consuming lightness that will free her from mortality and carry her human self away.
She manages to get out: “I—“
She doesn’t know what to say after that. She can’t find the thing to say or think or do that will make it actually happen, inside her, and she can’t find the thing to say or do that will make it stop.
She notices that she’s scrambled back, away from Liril, but it’s nothing like far enough.
“I won’t make you that,” Liril says. “It’s wrong.”
Melanie’s lost the sense of who Melanie is that she’d had when she sat down. It is a momentary, dizzy emptiness. She is angry and sad and desperately, pathetically grateful, and she hates and loves Liril in that moment with an overpowering, vicious force.
She’s going to say something.
She can feel it.
She’s going to say something, and maybe then she’ll be Melanie again. It’s building up inside her. There are going to be words. There’s something. She doesn’t even know what she’s going to say, but it’s going to be something.
How can a person know what they’re going to say at a time like that?
The words just come.
The Elephant in the Room:
- Anatman (I/VII)
- The Soot-Web (II/VII)
- What’s Purple and Incarnated in Human Form …? (III/VII)
- What’s Gray and Hurts More than You Can Imagine? (IV/VII)
- Free (V/VII)
- Why is Six Afraid of Seven? (VI/VII)
- A Study in Entanglement (VII/VII)
Stay tuned!