Recognition
What was always hers
So.
This is Cassandra.
She is standing outside the house
where her story began.
She hasn't come looking for a
beginning. Quite the opposite.
Cassandra believes there are a few
things she can finally leave behind.
She has even come prepared to do
exactly that.
Cassandra likes a plan.
Life has noticed.
The house is still waiting.
Let's go in.
cASSANDRA
I opened the door of the old house.
A whisper of the past brushed my skin;
a shiver flickered along my spine.
My birthplace - now a shrine of silence.
“The king is dead - long live the queen,”
I murmured.
I moved deliberately through the
hallway, the scent of amber coiling
around me.
My father’s essence, buried only an
hour ago.
A cracked chandelier gleamed faintly,
its crystals catching the last light of a
world long faded.
No tears. There was no need; we hadn’t
spoken in years. They had dried long
ago.
Slowly I ascended the marble staircase,
a portrait of my younger self staring
down. Not welcoming, but accusing.
He had shaped me in his shadow. I, the
puppet of his will.
The door gave way to my father’s dim
room. The amber hung heavy, clinging
like his will.
Everything meticulously ordered.
Structure where chaos once reigned in
him. I closed it softly.
The weight of his absence lingered. The
corridor stretched to my mother’s long-
abandoned room.
A faint trace of champagne and roses
hung in the air; her golden hairbrush
glowed with an eerie hue.
Dust cloaked every surface. He had
never returned here, I realized.
Pictures adorned the walls: her portrait,
a starlit beauty. Timeless, yet drowned
in despair and bubbling glasses.
She died too young, too sad.
Outside, a raven cawed. Its cry too
sharp, too knowing.
I drifted into my old room, a princess’s
domain turned ice palace. White and
rose, all frozen lace; crafted to impress,
never to comfort. My eyes swept the
space, finding no memory to claim.
As I descended the stairs,
my father’s voice sliced through the
silence: “If you go, you are no longer my
daughter.”
My reply echoed back, steady:
“I never was - not truly.”
Somewhere, a god smiled; his laughter
at my father’s words a distant hum.
I moved through the salons where once
a true king had sipped tea and war
plans were laid, but I was drawn to the
library. The only place I had ever loved in this house.
A faint warmth pulsed from the shelves,
as if unseen eyes watched me.
My father’s portrait loomed on the wall,
stern dark eyes following. His sharp
gaze, proud and preying.
Beside him my grandfather - the
former Duke - white-haired, blue-eyed,
gentler.
A lion of ancient times. I heard his
voice, reading to me of Troy and the
gods, my name a prayer on his lips:
Cassandra - like her, cursed with truth.
I remembered myself as a small,
solitary child, teaching my own hand
the craft that build worlds.
Nights when I curled beneath the desk,
a stolen candle flickering, as I traced
Odysseus’s voyages.
My only escape from the silence
beyond the door. My world was stories,
not this house.
I was a knight at Arthur’s round, a
queen of Avalon, a guest in Prospero’s
tempest, a witness to Denmark’s prince.
I walked Troy’s streets, rode like the
Amazons - a roar wild and free in my
blood.
And somewhere between dust and
dream, another presence stirred. The
breath of those who had always waited.
At last the gates of Olympus opened
and welcomed me. A mortal child
standing with light in darkness around
her. One ignited a fire that shaped me
like a blade; another gave wisdom
beyond my age. One’s shadows
caressed me; another revealed love no
mortal could seek.
Gifts of love born from their own
solitude. Visions of truth, a fire to
endure, a voice to defy.
All anchored in me, living, breathing,
growing. Their blessings glowed within
me; but light is never without darkness
lurking near.
At night, my grandmother’s whispers
haunted: “The child is doomed.” Mirrors
were covered when I passed.
They feared I might draw pure
darkness; their voices trembled. I saw
their eyes, our bloodline’s curse
etched in their minds.
A pact sealed with blood and shadow
long ago, binding them.
Love was absent: no kiss, no lullaby. My
hollow heart seemed a vessel for
darker forces; yet unseen to them, it
was already bound to the gods and
their gifts.
And here, in the library where every
secret of mine had once been laid
bare.
In this sacred place, a gift awaited, now
finally mine to claim. My fingers traced
the shelves and found my first journal,
hidden all these years. Inside - a white feather, its tips
glowing with gold - a relic from the
midnight garden,waiting to shatter
what must be gone.
My fingers trembled, but a whisper of
my name held me steady.
The air beyond the window shimmered,
heavy with a promise older than the
house itself.
I stepped outside; the raven was silent
now. A god waited, his presence a warm
tide.
“It is time,” he said, pressing a kiss to
my forehead, love blazing in his eyes.
My hands finding his, warm against my
skin. A token of comfort.
A silent promise of what was to come. I
stood between what was buried and
what would rise.
Wings unfurled from my shoulders. Vast
and luminous. Born again.
The house faded, its shadows
dissolving, as I rose.
Somewhere, the gods held their breath.
And smiled.
Well.
That wasn't quite the goodbye she had
planned.
Wings and all.
A little dramatic, perhaps.
The gods have never been known for
restraint.
Cassandra came to bury her father.
Instead, she found a child.
Herself, before you become concerned.
Though admittedly, this place has
already given us enough reason to be
cautious.
The girl beneath the desk.
A candle.
A book.
Stories large enough to disappear into.
Or perhaps large enough not to.
That's the interesting thing about the
places we escape to.
Sometimes they are also the places
where we become ourselves.
Cassandra takes the journal.
She leaves the house.
And for the first time, she is carrying
something from this place because she
chose to.
Not because someone gave it to her.
Not because someone told her
who she was.
Because it was hers.
There are still a few things in that
house we haven't quite accounted for.
A raven.
A feather.
A god or two.
We'll leave them where they are.
For now.
After all, we're only at the beginning.
