He calls her an angel and always has. He found religion when he found her. My mother, the angel. Granted my mother does not possess any of the deities' features of ivory skins, nor the slender legs of the goddess Venus, but yet he drew her as any serial killer would stalk his victims.. He drew her mesmerizingly, hypnotically, till his fingers numb, and his eyes veined streaks of red. Pretty impossible to compete with this...

I am caught at a crossroad of a physical world of hope and despair and the realm of the supernatural. On the way I am graced by angels and pixies and haunted by ghosts, psychopomps, and vampires.

Bare with my shifting points of view as I will try to weave a magic into this deftly structured tale. My life will emerge from a tapestry of voices, lives, and loves lost and found...

Unfortunately for me my mother's angelic powers do not extend to transforming a plain girl into a girl so beautiful that it would have not surprised anyone to know that this girl's mother was a celestial being. She does not have magick to make one's limbs long or one's skin glow. She doesn't believe in coloring your hair or wearing makeup. She rarely took me shopping when I was growing up. She told me I was beautiful without lip gloss or mascara. But, then, angels see beneath the surface of things. How wonderful you would say to have a mother who is an angel, who can make birthday cakes even when it isn't your birthday (which she did one year), cakes so delectable as to be almost hallucinogenic.

He is a funny man, my father. He has four front teeth missing. He has fake ones he wears, but when he takes them out and caught in the right mood you can ask him to laugh like goofy. Why is this funny one may ask? His k-9 teeth are not pointed but squared. Now that I am older I find myself insignificant standing next to him, tiny like I am alone in an elaborate diamond design embedded in the marble of a floor. I look stark black and white just like my father when he was younger, pale in skin and ebony hair. He is really quite a handsome man, striking as are all his family. My father asks," You claim to be right over your mother(the angel)?" To credit myself I did not flinch under the derision that saturated his tone. My chin actually lifted the slightest bit and I met him eye to eye. A smile curved my lips. But most instantly with a languid gesture of his hand he drowned out my impure thoughts of hatred and replaced them with screams and insults and trust issues also a light touch on respect and my role as a child meant I had just about as much say as a tree when its come to slaughter.

I seperated from myself and wanted to follow that girl back to her room. I wanted to apologize to her, and say something, but as I passed her, her face even more wane than I remembered, and traces of her ordeals written in every line of her body, she raised her eyes to mine. In that gaze I saw the same dancing spark as before, that same secretive glint of self-possession, of dignity, it was all still there. There was something else too. No ill between us, she said with a glance, and perhaps it was the twitch of her lips into what could almost (given the situation) be construed as a smile. It eased my heart just the slightest, even as it twisted my gut in bitterness at my own inexperience that had damned her. When my father and I actually spoke the words were bitter and war provoking. When I fought with him I felt like a little thief that had been caught. My father was the guard pulling me away like I was a vicious creature, all teeth and flying legs as I fought either to free myself or knock loose the teeth of anyone who managed to get near enough. Plenty of scolding from the guard, but silence from his captive, punctuated only by occasional gasps.

Once again I would seperate from myself to find once I stopped fighting and glimpsed at my face I was merely a girl. My large brown eyes roved, as if searching for some escape. When he would finally go to sleep at night I knew he had loosened his grip on me. But just slightly, he would never let go. Its as if someone came to my rescue and pleaded let her go. She is just a child. I turned to look at myself again. Again my face is thin but waif-ish and I look more like a fae creature than human. I reassess my initial judgement of myself as a "child". A look in those flaring eyes, and one could ever call me a child. My shoulders stiffen and I stare acidly at my father. "I am right!" My eyes flickered to watching myself again from outside the box of my life. I was intrigued, if nothing else. "Sorry" I said softly. "My mouth has run away with me." She stared at me distrustfully as she walked by me angrily. She sputtered "why do I listen to you?" I don't know, but I am what she really feels but will rarily ever say. I guess everyone has that. Someone outside themsleves. She hates me sometimes. I wanted to get away from there before my father changed his mind and was angry again. I close the door to my room. It is a bit cramped in here so I clear away some of my books. I sit gazing towards the mirror I had so absent mindedly hung where I could always see myself in it. My family had all been tall, dark people. This little creature that reflected was too fair and small. But she intrigued me nevertheless. I went over my father's raving on about my disobedience. Why didn't I tell him when he asked me why. "Because I am right!" I blinked startled that the girl in the mirror could actually respond in treason against my father. My father thinks I am Risilka Little Queen of the Spoiled Children. I layed down in my bed and whispered something sofly to myself, too softly. One would have to strain to hear, but no one was there to listen. Who was I becoming this strange child? No.. Not a child I reminded myself as I began to drift. "A Risilka."