#odd child

Chapter One

The village was quiet.  It usually was at night.  Cassandra was awake, though.  Cassandra was always awake.

Well, almost always.  Every few weeks or months, there'd be a dream.  She didn't ever try to sleep but would just fall into a dream, then completely awake again.  

When she was younger she told people how she couldn't sleep.  At first they didn't believe her.  It was worse once they did.  She kept quiet about the dream moments, a little voice in her ear telling her not to tell anyone every time the thought crossed her mind for as long as she could remember.

Because it marked her as odd.  Many things would throughout her life but that was the first.   She simply didn't get tired.  Not ever.  Her body would, sometimes, if she'd done a lot of heavy work that day.  She'd need to eat and lay down then.  But she still didn't sleep.

Her mind, though?  Well, that never tired.  Something was always happening inside.  Thoughts of what had gone on that day.  Thoughts of the guard she'd seen from the garden as he was passing through that morning with the brightest blue eyes she'd ever seen and a goofy grin that reminded her of a puppy.  He took a lot of her thoughts.  She wished he'd stayed or she'd gotten to at least talked to him.

But Cassandra never talked to outsiders.  She barely talked to the villagers.  She wasn't allowed.

Her mother was embarrassed by her, she knew that.  She heard her say that she was too much like her grandmother, like her grandmother's whole family.  And that she herself had managed to live a normal life, why they refused to was just a disgrace.

She could feel it, her mother's disdain -- oh to be honest, it was more like hatred.  Her mother had left her home to get away from her family and what everyone knew and said about them.  She'd moved far away.  And then came Cassandra, and a whole knew village whispering how that girl was strange, she was a bit touched, and by implication, there must be something wrong with her mother too.

Her father… well, he was gone most of the time.  He worked long and hard in the fields all day, and evenings usually found him in the tavern.  Cassandra always wondered if he'd drank too much to hear the gossip about her or if he didn't care, or worst of all, if he agreed.  He didn't get nearly the scorn for her peculiarity that her mother did.  She thought the townsfolk believed he might not be her real father.  After all, if her perfectly ordinary mother had an affair with someone like her, it'd explain a lot.

She never told anyone that her mother wasn't perfectly ordinary, no matter how well she hid it.  Cassandra had seen her at times looking off as if there was something standing there when it was just an empty room.  Once or twice she'd seen her whisper to herself.  Cassandra wasn't sure what she was whispering but it definitely wasn't the Common Tongue.  

But Cassandra never told anyone.  And she certainly never let her mother know, or God forbid, catch her.  She was relatively safe, though.  Another bit of strangeness about her was how no one ever noticed her unless she was trying to be noticed.  She could stand out in the open, but off to the side a bit, and people would talk as if no one was there.  They never turned toward her, their eyes somehow never landed on her.  She was quite sure she wasn't invisible.  Just… unnoticed, by some quirk of luck.

She learned to keep secrets that way.  For if she told anyone the things she heard or the things she saw, all manner of bad things would happen.  For one, it'd be another black mark against her in that book every villager seemed to keep in their head of her misdeeds.  And likely no one would believe her if the people involved denied it.  Worst, she might not be able to hide in plain sight anymore.

Being an outcast, no one told her anything.  Her family even had to live on the edge of town, lest she corrupt the good folks there.  Her father… she didn't know how much he knew about the goings on in the town or anywhere else.  Another reason her mother hated her.  She said he enjoyed a drink before Cassandra was born but had been fun and happy when he did and still came home at a reasonable time.  After, well after he drank until he stumbled home late after dark, somehow never falling and breaking something.  He'd stumble all the way to his bed, where he'd collapse, yet wake up right as rain to head back to the fields in the morning.  He wanted little to do with her mother, and he was all her mother wanted.  

He didn't hate his daughter, though.  And no matter the rumors, she was his daughter, of that he had no doubt.  She didn't act much like him, and she didn't look like him -- maybe the nose if you looked really hard and really hoped for it.  But he could feel her, feel that connection, from the moment she screamed her first breath.  She had only let out one scream, though, and for a moment his heart stopped fearing the worst.  But no, she was just silent and looking at him with dark blue eyes, so dark you'd guess brown unless you looked close and near to her face.

Sometimes she'd catch him between the field and the tavern, and look at him with those same eyes, right down to the expression in them, like she was trying to figure out who he was -- and not the way a baby would wonder who any person was, but who he was deep down in his soul.  He knew the first time she turned those eyes on him that she was different.  He loved those moments, the quiet talks that seemed meaningless but were actually deep discussions of things unsaid.

Her mother couldn't have been more wrong about his behavior though.  He didn't drink because of Cassandra, not exactly.  Maybe because of the guilt of not being worthy of this precious girl, but never because of her.  And he didn't avoid his home and his wife because of her.  He simply couldn't bear to watch how her mother treated her.

There were old stories about faeries and changeling.  Stories for children.  But every once in awhile, you'd hear a murmur.  Never anyone saying it clearly, but Thomas would hear a word or two and know they were talking about his darling girl.  But he knew better.  He held her the moment she was born, before her mother, even before the midwife.  And that feeling of her searching his mind was right there.  No one else seemed to notice.  They remarked on the unusual color of her eyes.  One or two even commented on the look in those eyes.  But no one but Thomas felt what was behind the look.  Even if the faeries were real -- highly unlikely -- and even if they swapped babies -- what in the hell would they want to do that for -- they could never mimic that.  Sure, the stories said they could copy a child down to the last freckle, the sound of their cries and their coos, every bit of them.  But no magic on this earth or any other would have been able to copy her soul and the way it pulled at his.

He thought about confronting the gossips when they'd whisper so.  More than once, he'd been tempted to beat a man half to death for words against his child.  He'd even get so far as to be halfway out of his seat.  Then he'd see those eyes in his head.  Those deep, searching eyes.

Cassandra never told him not to fight.  She never mentioned the rumors or the stares or anything about how she was treated.  But somehow he knew those eyes would not want that.  That if he took even one swing, no matter how well deserved, those eyes would never look at him quite the same way again.

Oh,  she'd forgive him, for that was her way.  He had never seen a more accepting and forgiving child.  She never showed even the slightest I'll will toward the villagers who shunned her, toward the children who taunted her, not even her mother, who seemed to have made it her calling to punish Cassandra for the sin of being born.  She would send medicine if someone was sick, giving it to her father to deliver as no one would accept it from her and possibly not from her mother.  She would sew dolls for the children, leaving them in yards when no one could see.  If a family was down on their luck, blankets and food would come to them, by various means that could never be traced to her.  

They reviled her and she cared for them anyway.

But Thomas… she would still love him and she would forgive him and she would accept that part of him as she accept the rest.  But she would never see him quite the same again.  To her, he'd be different, not in a bad way or a good one.  Just different.  But to him, he'd have lost something precious.

And so for the sake of those eyes, he kept his seat and held his tongue.  Every man knew not to come to him with any of their comments on the girl.  They told themselves it was because her mother had probably made a fool of him with some strange passerby, but deep down, it was fear, sensing that such an action would make him forget himself and God knows what he'd do then.

It was dark and silent.  Cassandra laid on her cot reading one of the books her father brought her sometimes by candlelight.  She was supposed to lay down every night as if she was sleeping.  It helped her mother pretend to not notice yet another difference, and thar was always worthwhile.  Nothing good came from provoking her.  She'd never harmed her, but she had worse ways of making Cassandra regret herself.

Her eyes started to droop, and then her whole body just slumped forward, neither falling asleep or fainting, something only Cassandra alone did.  It was falling into a dream.

She was just in the forest picking berries.  There wasn't a cloud in the sky, but there was no sun either.  Just kind of a diffuse light and pale gray sky.  A distant part of her wondered what it was -- it wasn't a clear day or a stormy day or a foggy day. Neither danger or safety.  Just… odd.  Kind of like her, she thought.

She reached for a raspberry. "Ow!"

She had pricked her finger on a thorn she hadn't seen was there.  Well, that was hardly unheard of with raspberries, she was just normally better at it.

Another berry, and yet more thorns.  She swore she looked and saw nothing before reaching in.  She had gotten the twinned berries, and knew exactly where they had hung… but even knowing the thorns were there and having the scratches to prove it, she could see no thorns.

It went on and on, a new scratch by an invisible thorn with each berry she plucked, no matter how careful she was.  She was no stranger to scratches on her hands after picking, but her sleeves weren't stopping them on her arms like usual, even though they weren't big or deep scratches.  More like the cloth just wasn't there.

She grew more and more frustrated, blowing hair from her face and glaring at the bush.  Even with thorns she'd always liked the job, because it was the one time she didn't have to hide her expressions or feelings.  The one time she got to feel free.  But this?  Well, this was simply ridiculous.

She kept trying, and scratches kept coming.  Finally she had a very small basket… except it was mostly leaves?  But she'd had the berries.  She'd seen them, felt them in her hand, watched them drop into the basket.  So how did she end up with leaves, and why?

Forget it, she decided.  I'll get extra apples instead. 

- Debut:

• Yooa (Oh My Girl) - Bon Voyage

• LunarSolar - Oh Ya Ya

• Kim Namjoo (Apink) - Bird

- Comeback:

• CLC - Helicopter

• ONEWE - Parting

• Lovelyz - Obliviate

• Taemin - Criminal

• Everglow - La Di Da

• fromis_9 - Feel Good (Secret Code)

• Odd Child - Wind

• Serri (Dalshabet) - Come Closer

- Mandopop:

• Shaking Chloe - August (for the fans)

• Bonbon Girls 303 - Ahead of Super A Warning

• BonBon Girls 303 - PLMM

• Xu Yi Yang - OMG

- OST:

• Jung Eun Ji (Apink) - How's Your Night (She is My Type)

- Special:

• Chung Ha & Christopher - Bad Boy

• eaJ x Seori - It just is (feat. Keshi's Strat)

• X Lovers - Love (feat. Young K of Day6)

• MAX - Blueberry Eyes (feat. Suga of BTS)

• Young K - Enemy

If you're ever feeling restless, just get up and walk around your house. Your family will just hear your footsteps or the shuffling of feet (it depends how you walk) and they will get creeped out because it's not a very 'normal' to do

My family has gotten used to me doing it during the day so, when I do it at night, they know who to tell to stop and say "Hey. We're trying to sleep here."

- Debut:

• Day6 | Even of Day - Where the sea sleeps

• Maka Maka - Burning Power

- Comeback:

• Dreamcatcher - Boca

• ITZY - Not Shy

• Taemin - 2 Kids

• Brave Girls - We Ride

• Cherry Bullet - Aloha Oe

• Sojeong (Ladie's Code) - Island

• SeJeong - Whale

• Sleeq - Go So Hard (feat. Alisha)

• Odd Child - Race

• Rocket Punch - Juicy

• Surl - Don't Say No (feat. Jay Park)

• Saturday - D.B.D.B.DIB

- C-Pop:

• THE9 - Sphinx (Debut)

• Silence Wang & Shaking of THE9 - Tell Me A Joke

• Fanxy Red - Sanlitun Girls

• BonBon Girls 303 - Bonbon Girls (Debut)

- Summer:

• D1CE - One Summer (CLEF CREW Project - Take 2)

•Ravi, Yeri, Kim Wooseok - Sorrow (Cool Remake) [2020 Cool Summer Project]

• Kim Namjoo, RAVI, Kang Seung Sik - Summer Memories (2020 Cool Summer Project)

- English:

• BTS - Dynamite

- Special:

• Oh My Girl & Keanu Silva - Rocket Ride (feat. Mougleta)

• BLACKPINK & Selena Gomes - Ice Cream

• Red Velvet - Milky Way (SM Station)

• Young K - Greatest