• It was half way through winter when I found out the truth. I was trying to sell our cow to buy us more food or maybe even another cow because that one had gone dry. The child was not yet ready for anything outside of milk but I had to try something or we both would die.
    My sister and I agreed that we would never steal no matter how bad things got so that was out. So there I was in the market place trying to sell our one possession of worth so we could be fed for a month or two. It was better then nothing. I was sitting by the cow huddled up holding the baby as close as I could so that she wouldn’t freeze. The for sale sign was around the cows neck and I was holding its rope in case it got spooked.
    I overheard my sisters name. I opened my ears more, trying to hear the conversation and was shocked by the truth. I looked out of my dark hood to see the dress maker. She was reviewing what had happened to a merchant. She described how she saw my sister having the baby and immediately rushed to tell my sisters almost father-in-law. HE had commanded his son to kill my sister. Its HIS fault that her fiancé had killed her. But more overall…it was the dress makers fault that he found out.
    I felt my jaw twitch as anger vibrated through my body. I immediately stood shoved past the man who was asking about purchasing my cow and headed back to my home. When I got there, I started a fire and left the baby by it and, rather than putting the cow in its pen left it in the house. I hurried back to the marketplace, but the dress maker was no where to be seen. I got more and more angry the longer I looked.
    Then I found her. In what appeared to be her store. It was dark now, and cold, very cold. The dressmaker was trying to start a fire in her cold house. I slinked around the back and hid beneath one of the open windows in the shadows where I belonged, And waited.
    She was preparing a bath. I sensed the concentration heat of the kettle on the stove. I could feel it as if I were the heat itself. As her water was finished warming I felt her pour it into her bathtub. It was a small bathtub clearly one for the poor. Obviously she wasn’t considered one of the inner circle members of the family she served.
    She had put scented bath salt in the tub and stirred it up now. But I didn’t move. I could wait. At the moment I had some patience. I felt the change in the boiling water and knew that she had undressed and lowered herself into the bath. She lay there like she had all the time in the world. The water was cold by the time she got out and dried herself, and at that point I was impatient. So I climbed up to her roof and lowered myself into what seemed to be her bedroom.
    I sensed the heat of her body getting closer, and closer. I stood in the open, waiting to see her reaction to seeing my face. She entered the room, but did not see me in the darkness, rather, she went to her bedside and lit the candle, I turned to face her back as she did this trying to make my face neutral.
    I failed. My face was one of malice and hatred. I hated her with every inch of myself. My sister was dead and she killed her. She killed her. Her master killed my sister. I killed her master. He killed my sister. She indirectly killed my sister. I’m killing her for killing my sister.
    She gasped when she say me, her face was full of pure fear. Like I was a ghost. Her eyes informed me that she could tell I knew. They were pleading with me. Begging me to not kill her. She killed my sister so I’m killing her.
    “y…you!” she stuttered. “ The master said that he would dispose of you!”
    Dispose of me? What had I done? What did my sister do? Why would he dispose of me? Did I threaten him? Threat…threat…he was going to dispose of me. I couldn’t help it. I laughed so loud that I swore I made a dog bark from across the street and some one yell ”Shut up!” I laughed so scarily, so ruthlessly, so evilly that the fear in the dress makers eyes turned to terror. When I stopped I smiled at her and she shivered.
    “Please, I beg of you. don’t kill me. She was a wrench. She was a wrench.” the dress maker repeated.
    A wrench? My sister would not have been pregnant if not for that b*****d. b*****d. The first cuss word I had ever thought about anyone or anything. The church would have me damned for it. The same with my powers. I knew that they would call me a witch and burn me on a stake if they knew. And they would. I would explain myself to them and if they would raise a finger to me I would be rid of them to. This who village was writhing with the corruption of my sisters almost family and I would cure them of that by killing them. Because they all knew. All of them knew. Thanks to the dress maker. Yet, none of them had raised a finger against the family.
    The woman shrank as she pleaded with me. But my expression of evil did not fade from my face. I looked down at her and watched her plead. Watched her bow to me. Watched as she grasped the dagger in her robe that she plotted to stab me with. I let her make her move, she stabbed me right in the shoulder. I should of felt pain, but all that was left was numbness and rage. I feigned to the ground and she stood up.
    “You filthy vermin.” she spat on me then turned away. Mistake. I closed my eyes and let my body go limp, I rose out of my body in a puff of raging black smoke and invaded the dress makers ear holes to find her brain.
    I found out that I could do this along with many other powerful things after I had killed my almost brother in law. My sister had taught me to use my fire powers before then. I took control of her limbs and wiped the dagger of my blood through her hands. Then I threw the weapon to the side and brought my heat into her body. As her body burst into flames so did my own. I released her and returned to my body. I was returning my body to normal as she started to scream and run around. The room was on fire now from both our bodies. I tipped the candle on its side to pretend an accident.
    As the dress maker fell to the ground before me and I looked into her panicked eyes and put my finger to my lips. “Sh,” I said and giggled “our little secret.”
    I left before anyone had come out of their homes to see what the commotion was.
    The baby was asleep when I got home, she was so skinny, I needed to get her some form of nourishment and fast. The flames ran woodless in the fireplace, as long as I was alive and willing to burn it would. As I lifted the baby up and placed her in bed I saw it: the cow was dead. It was our only source of anything. Money, food, hope. All was lost to me, well maybe not food. Only the child mattered to me. She and my revenge was all I had now. I went to the kitchen and took out our sharpest blade and began to gut the cow just as I had watched that murderous butcher do to our parents years and years ago.
    All was lost, but my revenge.