Page 69 of Changelings
So much of Imogen’s life, the decisions she’d made, came down to her birthmark. All her life, people had reacted to it. They’d seen it, not her. And so, after years and years of this, Imogen didn’t bother showing anyone anything of herself. Why provide anything more when all they saw was skin-deep?
It stung to admit it, but in a way, Imogen had given up. On the people around her. On her hopes of having her own family and friends.
She was proud of the life she’d made for herself in her cottage in the forest, but if she was honest, it was the best hiding place of all.
You don’t need to hide.That’s what Neomi had said.
Imogen wasn’t entirely sure she believed it yet, but adangerous little niggling had taken root low in her belly. Something like hope. Like the seedling of belief.
Pulse fluttering at her throat, Imogen stepped into her bedchamber to look through one of her bureau drawers. Under a stack of old shirts, she found the single mirror she kept in the cottage. An heirloom from her mother’s side of the family, it was an ornately tooled silver hand mirror that she only brought out when she had to trim her hair.
The reflective face had tarnished somewhat, but when Imogen held it up, she could still see her image in it. Imogen flinched to see her reflection, but it was more habit than surprise or dislike. Drawing in a deep breath, Imogen held the mirror in both hands and made herself look.
She turned her face this way and that, looking at every edge, every reddish hue.
The longer she looked, the closer Imogen came to another realization.
The mark was worse in her mind. There, it could be grotesque, dominating, all-powerful. If she’d been asked to detail her birthmark from memory, how she described it wouldn’t have been entirely accurate. The borders weren’t quite so far out on her cheek. Her left eye wasn’t so hidden as she’d imagined.
What stared back at Imogen in the mirror was…a face. A human face.
Nothing more, nothing less.
The longer she looked, the less strange it seemed.
Neomi had been right—but also wrong. It wasn’t about her birthmark. It was about the fear that lurked behind it. Fear of rejection, humiliation, pain.
They were lessons Imogen learned early, to hide, to be ashamed. While her family had tried to tell her, to coax her back from her fear, it wasn’t their voices she listened to. It was easierto give into the doubt and hurt. There was a sort of comfort, of safety to shutting out the world. Giving up on others before they could hurt her.
But in creating her own buffer against the world, she’d isolated herself.
She hadn’t allowed anyone in and no one had bothered to push past her defenses.
Not until Balar.
Kurun-inanda.That’s what he’d called her mark. Goddess-blessed.
You don’t need to hide.
Not from him. Not from the life she wanted to live.
Try not to be afraid,she told herself. The fear might not leave all at once, too deep inside her, but that was all right. Seeds took time to grow.
Start with one thing. Just one thing.
She could do that. She could tell him.
Heart in her throat, Imogen replaced the mirror in its drawer—atop the shirts this time—and hastily shoved her socked feet into boots and her arms into the sleeves of her coat. She winced at the blast of cold air when she opened the door, but she made herself hurry outside into the wintry day.
Her feet crunched the frozen ground loudly, although she could hardly hear over her own hammering heart. Could she really do it? Did she dare?
How was it she didn’t fear Balar, yet he of all people was the most terrifying?
She found him around the side of the house, hard at work chopping firewood. Shadow watched on lazily, as did Chestnut and the goats from the pen, all crowded round with their heads poking through the rails to see.
Imogen stopped in her tracks, immediately an eager spectator herself.
Balar’s big body steamed in the cold, his breaths puffing from his mouth. His coat had been thrown over the top rail of the pen, and he’d shoved his sleeves up to his elbows. Even with the dusting of snow on the ground, he hadn’t bothered with shoes, he and his brothers preferring to modify wool socks by cutting off the foot portion.
