Page 32 of Hekate: The Witch

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he told me once, loved wooden toys. When

he visited, he filled my palace with his small gifts.

Once, I asked him about his brother, my father,

but his eyes darkened with something

unnamed and he stormed out of my halls.

The next day I found a carefully crafted

eagle sitting over the fireplace.

A gift, an explanation or an apology?

Perhaps all three.

The Grief Abated as I Grew Older

But something else took its place:

a wish, a curiosity, call it a thirst.

It came from the knowledge left to me

by Charon.

All things have a purpose.

Not every purpose is good.

In my palace, all alone,

the more I thought about this,

the more my need grew to know

what he meant.

Time passed so slowly for immortals,

but it did pass. In Styx’s waters

I saw my body was growing,

my childhood escaping from me.

I was a lonely child.

Lonely in ways I had never been

inside my mother’s home.

I felt her absence sharply.

Like an eagle’s talon lodged

inside my heart, a constant wound.

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