The child was born on the longest day of the year; when summer?s sun begins it?s slow decline to darkness. A second child. Uneventful.

Her hair was sparse at birth. A haze of dark sable. At her left temple grew a patch of silver. As her hair grew out, it would be noticed and commented upon.

***

Twenty two years and six months later the second generation was born. A first child to the second child. It was a stormy December. A cold end to a burning summer. A cold beginning to a new year.

Her hair was sparse as well. A haze of dark honey. Unblemished by any other color.

***

The second child, M, was precocious. Her large, deep set black eyes examined and calculated

***

The first child, E, was quiet. She had similar powers of observation.

***

The sickness started in the cradle of her pelvis.

Her entrails were inflamed; her skin cold as ice, lips and tongue dry.

She was not a naturally neat girl. Her mother?s obsessions, which would have been vented upon her, were turned to dealing with the help. They had a fair amount of help, a houseboy, gardener and nanny for her mindless, violent younger brother. The family was not rich; it was a matter of circumstance and cheap labor that lead to this privilege.

Circumstance had changed.

Now the mother berated her daughter for doing the laundry. She had done it wrong. Using the green basket instead of the beige to hold the clean clothes. The day before the mother had shrilly derided her for doing nothing.

Damned if I do, damned if I don?t. Thought the girl, enduring another attack on her personal hygiene, her choice of dress, her laziness, her lack of care, her weight.

She was numb now.

***

I will grind the bitch down to nothing. I hate how insolent she is.

Everything she does is an insult to me. Kids at her school hate her! Does she realize how that makes me feel? How could she be so selfish?

She has pretensions to be a writer. An artist. But the little fuck got a low mark on her advance placement in art. Some fucking genius.

She read my e-mail yesterday. She said it was an accident, she was looking for something on the computer. LIKE I BELIEVE THE LYING CUNT! I bet she reads everything of mine. So what if I owe 5$ to the student loan board? What is it to her? She just wants to embarrass me.

I read her journal yesterday. I think she knows I read it. Her drivel is pathetic. Writing about her dreams. What bullshit.

***

She met K on-line. One night when her friends had ditched her and there was no one left. The house was cold and silent. Pleasantly so.

K loved people. K loved helping people. K talked that first night of spirituality and hope.

?If you had been abused? the girl later told K, ?you would have hit me and hit me. And I would have enjoyed it. And off we would have gone.?

?Yes.? he replied quietly. He felt the weight of that alternate world. A world where her addiction fed his, his hers... In some moments he could taste that world. Feel the crunch of bone beneath his fist, the swell of blood over his fingers and see the opalescent blue-black of his handiwork.

But K loved people. And hated seeing them in pain.

***

Her father was a silent saboteur. Recognizing his wife?s razor sharp instinct for torture, he passively fed her victims. His favorite feed was his own daughter. He would dress her up like a Christmas ham and fling her to the mother?s tender mercies.

No, he never directly abused. Save for the occasional violent episode, leaving the girl?s eyes blackened, her nose bloody with rug burn. He left it to his wife.

***

When she closed her eyes at night the furthest she could remember was living in a large house with a sloping lawn. There was a creaky rocking horse mounted on springs in the basement. It was painted in deep earth tones; a stiff, molded plastic replica. She became mesmerized with it?s deep charcoal eyes. Sloppily airbrushed but soulful. Quiet.

Some days she would sit and stare at those eyes for hours. Knowing they held a spirit entrapped.

The neighborhood was rough and dirty. Drab, careless houses hid behind large, brown spotted yards. Everything reeked of indifference. Children played with a feral intensity on the sidewalks and streets. In among the decaying metal husks of cars. It was the barrenness of their lives that made them cruel. The children sensed their futures in the frustrated impotence of their parents.

Her parents were different. They watched their neighbor?s comings and goings with a calculating eye. They knew they would not live in these... lower class areas of town for long. They were both determined and clever. They were better.

She wasn?t aware of their silent disapproval. She wanted a friend.

***

?What is my gift?? the girl was pestering K.

He didn?t respond. She had a constant need for reassurance. So many questions. Endless questions. He was irritable that day; his sickness bore down on him, smothering him in a hot, achy malaise.

?I want to know,? she said quietly, hurt.

K looked down at his hands. Feeling her hurt, her unending hurt. It frustrated him; he wanted to tell her, to be able to explain the sensations, emotions, visions. But words failed him. And then she was hurt.

?Chicken, I can?t tell you that.? He summoned up all the patience he had to explain one more time. ?We?ll find out.?

?What is your gift then??

?I don?t like to define it.? K looked at the girl, cross. ?You always have to define things.?

The girl withdrew. K returned to his computer. He rarely stayed upset for long.

***

M?s nature was revealed 3 years after K and the girl met.

***

K knew he loved the girl instantly. 3 months after they had met he confessed it to her.

Sex.

Her first experience of it was warm and pleasant. She had chosen K because he wasn?t desperate. He stood back and let her decide. They had used condoms the first few times and penetration had been difficult. The thick, latex ring around the bottom constricted K uncomfortably and the sheath wasn?t long enough to unroll to the base.

The girl decided to use a different method. They bought contraceptive sponges from a drug mart in an old, forgotten mall. It was an awkward experience; the cashier was an thin-lipped disapproving woman. The girl looked at the cashier and saw a life of bitter denial. This insight didn?t ease the girl?s embarrassment; she tried to be nonchalant as she paid.

K smiled at the cashier, his soft, accepting smile. She scowled back as she distastefully dropped the box into a bag.

The girl snatched the bag and stalked off, angered at the woman?s attitude.

?Why did you smile at her? She was a bitch!? the girl later fumed at K.

?Why be mean?? He asked, genuinely surprised.

?Do you know what she was thinking about us?? The girl stormed.

?Of course. You can?t imagine the thoughts I see.?

?How can you stand it? Being in their heads?? She waved at a random knot of people. ?It must be mindnumbingly banal!?

?There are no normal people.? K replied enigmatically.

She stared at him, daring him with her white-green eyes. ?What does that mean??

?I?m hungry.? He replied, meeting her intense desire to know with an elusive, quiet mind. ?Let?s go. We can try these out.? K smiled broadly at her, his blue eyes flashing mischievously.

?You?re awfully horny for a monk.? She admonished, relinquishing her passion for knowledge.

He was silent, but his smile remained.

***