Chapter 2 .:Hidden:.

.:Hidden:.
Identity: Kestrel Falconer
Date: March 14th, 2022

Early morning, sunshine through the windows. The tiny specks of dust in the air float through the light. I blink up at the ceiling, breathing in deeply, following a long crack in the plaster with my gaze. I hear the whisper of her hands brushing across the wooden floor, her soft murmuring voice. I sigh and sit up in bed, brushing my hair aside, blinking my eyes clear of sleep.
She is sitting a few feet away from the bed, crouched on the wood floor, tracing shapes in the dust with her long pale fingers. She continues her soft murmuring, words for herself, a simple continuing song on her lips as she touches the floor. She blinks at the floor, adds one last line in the dust. Her soft little murmuring song, running fluidly like a rainfall, stops in an unabrupt way, rather fades off. Then she raises her head to me, her short dark hair brushing her shoulders. Her hair is naturally curled, like several winding springs all falling together, something found in neither Rook nor I.
She blinks at me. Her eyes are pink, an unnatural translucent color. She smiles at me. "Hi." Her voice is so innocent. She leans forward, pressing her palms completely to the floor, and crawls over, pulling herself up onto the bed. Automatically she settles into my lap, leaning back on my chest.
I run my fingers through her thick, soft hair, kissing the top of her head. I am gazing across the room, out the window where the sunlight is filtering through the glass. "Good morning, Evi," I said quietly.
She turns her pink eyes up to me, blinks, and gives her me her bright smile, one of her hands around my wrist.

Thirty minutes later, we are in the kitchen, music playing on the stereo. Evi is standing on a chair, sucking on a slice of grapefruit and gazing up with the quiet thoughtful innocence she displays regularly. "Broken." She says, pointing with one finger at the chandelier above her. She blinks. Her eyes are illuminated up by the shine from the lightbulbs, and from an angle they look almost transparent. If you look closely at her eyes in the light, you can see the blood vessels behind, hidden inside, swimming like long, lucid, frozen fish.
"I know," I tell her, glancing up. She's right, one of the bulbs is burnt out, sitting dulled in the midst of all that brightness. I am standing behind Evi, brushing her dark hair. As I pull the brush through the collected strands, the curls flatten for a moment before I release them, and her hair springs back above her shoulders.
She stares with solemn dismay at the dead bulb. She's always had a pension for strange things and the way she wants them to be. Especially she is obsessed with things being in groups of five. Which makes sense, the overhead light in the kitchen holds five bulbs. When she was littler, Evi used to sit on the floor of the kitchen and gaze up at it, wide-eyed, counting the five individual sources of light.
"I'll fix it later, Evi," I tell her. I finish brushing her hair and lay the hairbrush on the table. Her full name is Evanthe Mae Falconer. Rook started calling her Evi when she was little, and now almost everyone does it. "What do you want for breakfast?"
Evi blinks at the light one last time and then turns her eyes in my direction. She sucks on the grapefruit and takes it out of her mouth, a drop of juice sliding down her chin and onto her shirt. The collar is loose, almost slipping down off of one of her slight, pale shoulders. The shirt is thick and soft, broad brown-and-pink stripes that match her dark hair and pale eyes. "I have breakfast," She says, sticking the grapefruit back in her mouth and blinking widely over at me.
I look over my shoulder and blink at her. She holds my gaze, casually, deeply, bright translucent pink.
"Okay," I sigh. I cut another slice for her and replace the rest of the grapefruit in the fridge. Evi hops down off of the chair and sits on the linoleum, slurping the last of the juice from the fruit held to her mouth. I ruffle her hair as I walk by, turning into the hallway, switching on the hall light as I go.
I turn the knob of the second door on the right and open it just slightly, peeking in. The room is dim, the only light coming in slivers from behind the curtains that are pulled over the window. There are a few piles of clothes scattered on the floor. along with scraps of paper, and a chess set strewn across the room. I make my way through the sparse rubble and over to the bed, piled with a thick comforter and several thinner blankets.
He sleeps with the sheets pulled up over his head, just like Rook does, curled up. I pull the blankets down. He murmurs in his sleep and tugs them back up again. I push them away from his face and lean in close to him. His eyes are shut tight, his chin curled to his chest. "Arrow." I ruffle his wispy blond hair.
He rolls over and opens his eyes, looking up at me. His eyes are gray. Not how they used to be. But I've gotten used to the smoky color. He blinks them at me.
"Come on," I tell him, blinking back. Arrow rolls back over for a moment, his face pressed into his pillow, his pale hair tousled.
I walk back to the kitchen, where Evi has crawled under the table and is sucking on the second slice of grapefruit. With one hand she is holding down Sorrel, the cat, and gazing down at her. Sorrel is still only a kitten, and doesn't know exactly how to at towards Evi. Being held to the floor on her back by Evi's small pale hand, she first flicks her ears and looks up passively, cautious. After a moment she changes tactics and squirms until she has rolled herself over. She swats at Evi's hand with her paws, pulling her ears back. Evi still holds to her though, observing the kitten casually and curiously, the grapefruit held to her mouth. Sorrel twists and attacks Evi's hand with her paws, biting too. Evi barely blinks, perfectly content. The claws don't even make a mark on her skin.
Arrow comes into the room a moment later, wearing dark jeans and deep blue t-shirt with a hole in one shoulder, his hair still ruffled from sleep. It is shaggy and almost the lightest blond imaginable, soft and wispy, nothing like Evi's. He yawns and turns up the music on the stereo as he walks down the hall and sits at the table.
After a moment he peeks under and blinks at Evi. She looks over her shoulder up at him at smiles. "Hi, Arrow,"
Sorrel slips out of her grasp and bolts towards the living room. Evi turns her gaze back to the cat and starts running after her. "Evi," I say, calling after her. She pauses and looks at me. I gesture to the grapefruit rind in her hand.
Evi runs to the sink and throws it in the garbage disposal. She turns on the faucet and washes the sticky juice from her hands. As she starts to dash away again, I grab her by the shoulder and dry off her hands with a stray washcloth, turning her hands up to me. Each of her palms are marked by a distinct, dark-lined symbol; a five-pointed star sealed within a solid circle. I look down at the familiar markings for a moment before blinking and letting her run off.
Her pink eyes, her scratchless hands, the pentagrams on her palms. . .the truth stares back at me, every day of my life now. Undeniable, inevitable, hidden.
The truth about her is hidden, and Arrow doesn't even know.

Author's Note

Any suggestions are welcome. This is a first draft.