By the time Luxia was eight, the village had learnt to speak about her only in whispers.
"She's the mute girl", Hey'd say, "the one too pretty to be normal."
Even old woman, who had once pitied her, began to turn their eyes away when she passed. Her beauty was growing into something unnatural-elegant, eerie and impossible to ignore Pale skin like marble, full lips that never moved, dark lashes over wide, pale-grey eyes. When she stood still, people mistook her for a statue.
Men stared too long. Boys whispered cruel dares about touching her. Wives pulled their husbands close. Luxia, voiceless and quiet, felt their gazes like needles pressing into her skin.
She tried to disappear- wore ragged dresses, tangled her hair, walked with her eyes on the ground. But nothing dimmed the curse of her face.
Only her mother, Mira remained a shield. Mira would hold Luxia's face in her hands and say, "You are not their thing, little moon. beauty is a blade, and they want to dull it with fear."
Luxia only nodded.
Because what else could she do??
The chieftain's wife, Ada, once said to Mira in the market, loud enough for all to hear:
"It's not decent, letting her walk around like that. Something about her tempts men. You'll bring shame on us all."
Ada slapped her.
Luxia watched, unmoving, her hands gripping the basket of bread until her knuckles turned white. She wanted to scream, to curse Ada's name, but her voice would never come. Her fury lived behind her eyes.
Luxia lay behind her mother and stared at the ceiling. She didn't cry.
She never cried.
It was around that time that strange things begin to happen.
A mirror cracked when a boy taunted her at the well.
A candle hissed out when a drunk man brushed her arm too roughly.
And once-just once-when she was cornered by two older boys behind the church wall, the air turned Icy cold, and a black-feathered crow landed between them with a scream that pierced the soul.
The boys ran.
The crow stayed.
Luxia looked into its eyes and tilted her head. It tilted its head back.
And from that day forward, it followed her everywhere.