Once upon a time, she had been shown a photograph. The woman had been young, the paper yellowed with age. She had had a wide forehead, thin lips, dark hair marcelled in the style of the decade; she had not been a beauty. Once upon a time, she had thought the mother looked nothing like the son.
Once upon a time, she had loved him.
"You see the danger," the old woman said.
She crouched, shaking, at the centre of a clear circle. All around lay shards of broken glass. Some were strewn, some were buried point down in the floor, gashes in the wood a centimetre deep. The room stank of hot metal.
"To me or to that thing?"
"To you, as long as you are with him."
Finally it was clear. They knew - he had known this would happen. Perhaps something ran latent in her as well, recognizable to others of the breed. Perhaps circumstance prompted the choice, and any woman in her place at that time would have done. Bile rose in her throat.
Even in tales, in the old tales, the young girl received a messenger of fire: her consent was asked and freely given, in understanding of what her womb would bear. But what court was there that would render her justice, for blood and flesh taken unknowing and made inhuman?
For hatred she did not look at the child. She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear and said, hoarsely, "Take him, then. Take him and get out of my sight."