Virginia Ward

In the 1920's, the world was turning. The horror of World War I was giving way to a lost generation. A change in American culture from the exuberance of the turn of the century to the disillusionment that can only come after a generation dies wholesale.

Even though this was happening in the cities, where the loss of faith in the incorporeal was matched by the rise and rise of the material quality of life, I don't know whether any of us will be able to determine, even with the arts now open to us, whether some foreordained change in the cosmic order of things insisted that this pervade across the country. I can't rightly tell you if the dry, Northern winds we had that summer carried with them what I now know to be the death-knell of an old way of life, but I do know that they seemed sweet, and strange, and suffused with promise, that summer when I was seventeen. The last summer of my life.

I want to say, out the outset, that my Daddy was a good man. No matter what else he may have done, he always tried his best, and Lord knows those years weren't easy for him. Grandpere had been a soldier and had fought hard for the rights of the South. By the time the call came to defend the United States in what we then called the Great War, Daddy was too old. His season had passed him by, and he sent Richard. I think things might have been very different if Richard hadn't died.

And truth be told, I can't say he was wrong about Mama. Not absolutely. There was never any sign of Richard having the taint, or Daddy, or any of my cousins. When I was born different, how could he not suspect her? He loved her, and she loved him, I have no doubt of that. But to err is human, and sometimes, no matter how we try, we can't be so divine as to forgive.

When I came out with wings, what was he to think?

Of course, there was never any evidence. This was before the Advent, of course, and Changeling birth was rare. The Scopes Monkey trial hadn't happened yet. How could people like Daddy and Mama, sealed away in that honeysuckle shrouded antebellum plantation house ever be expected to understand recessive genetics. If that's what it was.

Daddy didn't act on his suspicions, as far as I could tell, but family breakfasts became a thing of the past. I had to keep my wings bound down under my dress, and the smiles I got from Daddy grew rarer and rarer. I tried for him, though. Bite my tongue if I lie, I did want to be a good daughter. His perfect little girl.

It was easy, in those far off years (though they must seem less far off to Karl and Daniel, bless them) to lose oneself in the little patches of swamp and cottonfield that we owned since Grandpere's pappy's time. Mama sickened, and died, and I cried, but then it was just me and Daddy alone in that big old house, with the servants and the staff. Cottillion came and went, and before I knew it, I had reached that strange summer, and was set to debut.

It was that year I met Clarise. "Are you an angel?", she asked me when she saw my wings. I blushed, and tried to hide them under my wrap, but she insisted on seeing. And suddenly, every day was walking, then running, to the woods to meet her. Conversations turned to long talks and long walks arm in arm, lazy afternoons on the riverbanks, until one day I kissed her, in my little blue boat while crickets chirped in the blue twilight. I won't ever believe that kiss, or what came after, was wrong.

The best days of my life were too fleeting. The inevitable happened, of course. Daddy, out chasing ducks with old Gooch, came upon us in the woods. He raised his voice first, and his fists later. I thought at the time he was disgusted with me, but now I think he was just afraid. He knew that if this is what I was, I couldn't hide it any more. "Witch blood!" he cried out. "Just like your whore mother. Corruption born in you from the seed." When he raised his hand to me a second time, Clarise flew at him. He still had his rifle, which clapped, once, like the start of a Spanish dance. She fell into the water. I ran at him then, and I do believe he did not think when he fired the second shot.

When I came back to the house, the night after, he turned bone white. I swear that even though some part of my wanted to hurt him, I never truly did. He was my Daddy, and I loved him. Even then. But his heart gave out. The storm that I had called over the plantation crashed and thundered, and the old mansion fell in around us. I was unharmed.

I know what I am now. Revenant. But it's never been my inclination to hurt anyone. I've always believed that everyone is a blessed soul, even if sometimes hurt or anger drives us to do things we regret. I fought so hard against the stirrings in my blood. I don't know if I succeeded at all only because I was changling. Sidhe, they call me, the rarest of the Changeling phenotypes. Somewhere in my genetic code lurks the kings and queens of the fey. Witch blood, my Daddy called it, and I found I had an aptitude for it. I studied magic. I had, by mortal standards, a lot of time. They say that I'm very powerful now. A mistress of nature magic and calling, as well as the magic of death. I've even met the Master Magus, who seemed like a nice man. I hear he's passed on now.

It wasn't until the 1980's that I met Karl and Daniel. If I hadn't died, I might still have been alive. They knew what I was, though Daniel asked me if I were an angel too, the first time. They told me what would happen to me, if I tried to fight it alone. They told me that I could use what I had been given to help people. I've always believed that helping people was a noble thing to do.

- Grimoire Diary of Miss Virginia Ward