The White Feather Memory

My heart feels full to bursting imagining the old library within the tower. My father and I are drinking tea, and playing chess. He was patient with me then, always giving me time to puzzle out my turns. I don’t even remember his anger before this moment. A beautiful red chaise that I used to read on while my father worked sits against the wall. Several large bookcases adorn most of the walls in this room giving off a cozy, homely feeling. Even as I cradle this one fond memory of my father I can feel the blackness ebbing from the corners of my vision. Something inside my mind, or my heart, breaks and I feel a rift as a new and yet somehow old memory starts to materialize.


The same lovely red chaise, the same walls and bookcases of my fathers library and the same chess board sitting, imposingly on the table by the window. My father however, is not the same.

He is cloaked and muttering to himself as he reads over tombs on his desk. The hairs on my arms start to prickle as I realize that I actually feel terrified of him.


I am sitting obediently upon the red chaise, my hands grasped tightly in my lap watching him intently. My father starts an intricate incantation and weaves his fingers through the air, something I’ve never seen him do. I stare transfixed as he completes this and then looks me in the eyes, his face an unreadable mask.


The fear slams into me as my father approaches and calmly asks me to get up, turn around, and stand very still. He removes my shirt as I subserviently stand and try not to tremble. Confusion, anger, fear and sadness fight for supremacy in my mind but I listen and I stay rooted.


The pain too, is just a memory, but I can swear I can feel it even now. A ripping sound fills my ears before the searing agony starts. It feels as though a gritty, almost sandpaper texture object is being raked across my back repeatedly. A single white object wafts into my vision and floats in front of me before silently falling to the ground. I stare at the white, silken looking feather unable to fully comprehend the implications or even remember what I just saw fall.

Despite the numbing pain, my father is telling me to move my shoulders or adjust my arms and I still oblige while silent tears are pouring from my eyes and comprehension still out of my grasp.

I hear these requests but also the faint mutterings as my father whispers “It’s all for the best.”