seal_nonnie

Cleo knew very well that she should have stopped looking people in the eyes. There were futures there, pasts there, things she shouldn't have touched. Still, she did it anyways.

First, there were the people she met when she was still Clotho the Weaver, people who would ask about their futures and never get the answers they wanted. She can still see some of the people from back then now, with their dark eyes and dark pasts and dark futures.

Then there was Clio, the first immortal she had ever met that wasn't her sister. To be fair,  Clio had sisters of her own, eight of them, but they weren't tied together the same way the Fates were. Clio was a soft kind of person, shy and sweet with amber eyes too big for her face. Cleo never told her that she was going to die in the smoke and fire of a future going up in flames as the Third Gate was permanently destroyed. It still happened, and Cleo cried for the first time in years and the last time for centuries.

When she had been Queen of Spring and the Wife of Midsummer, she had looked into countless infant's eyes and told their parents of their futures in the most positive way possible. She had learned how to say "your son will be a serial killer" politely and "your daughter will die before she turns eighteen" with a smile on her face. It still felt like lying.

When she was nothing, few people asked her about the future. There had been a snobby little princess when she went by Cassandra the Witch who eventually got what was coming to her and a girl named Cass, barely old enough to sit on her mother's knee. That had been a sad encounter; forty years after moving in her time, she heard that River's Keep had been destroyed and the little girl with sky-blue eyes and her little sister had been the only survivors.

Last, there were her students: happy and sad and brave and nervous. Their futures had less blood in them, at least. Well, except for Alexandria. Alexandria, the one with the glowing gray eyes, had a long, dark future ahead of her. Miri, whose pale eyes reminded her of North Point, had a dark past that reminded her of the rumors she had heard, even in the Outside, of what had happened there. She wasn't surprised when it turned out that Miri was adopted. She was surprised that the darkness ended (or maybe started) with the mask of a King's Legion assassin, the infamous Dark Star herself if the cloak was any indication.

I’m sorry. I should have said something. I should have done something. I didn’t.

So you know that old phrase, see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil? It's that. Well, it's more like cult mindset, but they're kinda similar, so…

When that girl went missing, I knew what had happened, but I said nothing. See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil.

Then you came in, asking questions I knew the answers to and a few I didn't.

You made me feel… brave? scared? safe? in danger? calm? horrified? I don't know what, but it made me think.

You disappeared. I almost said something. Then my back turned black and blue and red. I didn't.

So when John came and I fought not to scream get out while you can, I thought of you, and I almost stayed silent like when she vanished or you.

But I spoke.

Father assigned me to show him around, probably with the intent to abandon him in the woods. Instead of killing, we talked. I told him everything. You would be proud of me.

It started with something like "you need to leave" and he asked why and I said "the girl isn't here, she's not going to be found, Father's too smart for that" and he asked what I meant and it all came rushing out.

It's been five years since you came. Four since John came. Three and a half since they found your body. Three and a half since we buried you. Three since I started therapy. Three since Father went to jail. Two and a half since the scars started fading. Two since I started talking regularly. One and a half since all of the court cases ended. One since I broke down in the middle of the night sobbing because my idiocy had cost your life. One since John held me as I cried.

Five years. Five years. For a girl expecting to never make it to twenty-one, that's a lot. I'm twenty-two now, in case you didn't know. Today's my birthday. When we met, I was sixteen. I was an idiot at sixteen. I was still an idiot at seventeen, but I was less of an idiot enough to end this. I just wish I could've gotten to know you better. I suppose it doesn't matter now.

Thank you for five years and sorry for my mistake.

Some days, Cleo thinks about dying. She thinks she’s figured out how to do it, finally. She’s tried before, back when she was the Weaver of Greece and then as Queen of Spring and after that as the Wife of Midsummer and in those long years where she was nothing. She’s Cleo now, Cleo the Teacher in Silent Sound, and she hasn’t found a reason to die yet.

The dreams still come, bright and horrifying. She dreams of cities turned to ash and stars falling from the sky. The visions still come whenever she looks people in the eyes, futures that may come to pass for children barely old enough to read and tired, worn adults. Sometimes, she makes suggestions, things that sound like normal advice but with a precognition no one else will ever know about.

When she first meets Alexandria Smith, she’s six and part of her seventy-eighth second-grade class. Cleo still looks twenty-seven, like she has since before the library burned. That night still comes back to haunt her some nights, with first the taste of ashes and sand in her mouth and the knowledge that humanity had finally destroyed a gate and then the horror of realizing that Clio was still inside. Alexandria knows how to read already, so Cleo pays her little mind until, in one way or another, they lock eyes.

Cleo sees fire and blood, cities in ruin and streets filled with shattered glass, drawn swords and words made weapons. She wants to scream, to tell the little girl to run away, but she can’t. The words stick in her throat as she sees the sun setting for the last time over a ruined world instead of a ruined city. She can’t tell Alexandria just what her future holds; she would out herself and doom the world.

So, when asked what she would become by the little girl with glowing eyes and choppy hair, Cleo just smiles and says, “you will live in interesting times,” and doesn’t mention that it’s a famous curse. She’ll figure it out soon enough.