Blackthorn

by J.T. Geissinger

I fell in love in that house. I nearly died there, too.

It’s to this place I now return, having fled twelve years ago after my mother’s death. Or murder. Depends on who you ask.

The women in my family go feral if left in nature too long.

“Never be ashamed of the things that make you different. That’s where your true power lies.”

“We’re Blackthorns. We antagonize people merely by existing. We’re different, and we always will be, no matter how we might try to pretend we’re not.”

You never forget your first love. Especially when he’s also your worst nightmare.

No greater fool exists than a teenage girl ensnared in the trap of first love.

Though on the verge of adolescence, she’s small for her age, so she’s often mistaken for being younger. She often acts younger, too,

“Don’t be ridiculous. Blackthorns don’t need therapy. We make other people need therapy.

It’s the Blackthorn way and has been for as long as anyone can remember: men are only tools, and love is only for fools.

his burning gaze promises both hell and redemption.

He’s the one who first taught me that the most beautiful things in nature are those that will kill you the fastest.

“Oh, those eyes. Those lovely, spellcasting eyes. How they’ve haunted me. If only you knew the power they’ve always held over me. Maybe then you wouldn’t be so cruel, little witch.”

His pause is long enough to be uncomfortable. Then, his voice low and his gaze intense, he says, “Does our daughter know who her real father is?”

your child doesn’t exist. I miscarried shortly after I left. Bea’s father is an ocular surgeon who lives in Los Angeles. Dr. Brett Lattman.”

She’s nine, Ronan. The math doesn’t work.”

There’s no pain on earth like that. It’s horror, shame, humiliation, rejection, anguish, disillusionment, and abandonment, all in one. When she’s made to feel worthless by the man who holds her heart, a woman either crumbles and never recovers or grows a callus over the pain to survive.

My daughter’s eyes are reflected back at me in the bathroom mirror, that same remarkable shade of palest ice that belongs to the boy who abandoned us so long ago.

The disease only affects the males of the Croft family tree. As it usually strikes around the transition to adulthood,

“enemies” is no longer the right word for what we are. Maybe it never was. Maybe I only wanted it to be so I could feel like I was protecting myself, when in reality, there’s never been any protection from him. He’s always been the snake with the apple, and I’ve always been Eve.

There isn’t a happy ending to our story. There can’t be. Our fate was written in the stars long before we were ever born.

“I don’t know anything except I’m glad you’re here. Let’s leave all the other bullshit for tomorrow. We can have tonight without having to figure out what it all means right now.”

Whatever’s going on in that town, the Crofts know about it. Probably have a hand in it, too. What you said about your family dying in odd ways…”

“One good parent is far better than two assholes.”

pride.

stubbornness.

fuck-you energy, too. We don’t like to get...

We’re the outcasts and the troublemakers, the malcontents and the misunderstood, the proudly, defiantly other. We’re tenacious as brambles and have as many sharp thorns, and if you hold us too tightly, the drops of your blood from the holes we pricked will remind you to be careful thereafter.

We’re Blackthorns. We’re weird, we’re wild, and we don’t care what you think.

“I’m sick.” My pulse jumps. “Sick? How sick? What’s wrong with you?” His voice changes from soft to flat. “I shouldn’t have said anything.” “Are you dying?”

“No,” he says softly. “I had nothing to do with it. I would never have harmed Elspeth. She wasn’t like the rest of that family. She was different. Different from any other woman I’ve ever met.”

“That’s why you always warned me away from Maven, isn’t it? Why you were always so adamant that I keep my distance, why you said all those awful things and tried to make me hate her. She’s yours, isn’t she? Maven Blackthorn is half Croft. You’re her fucking father.”

Solstice has the highest percentage of unsolved missing persons cases in the whole United States.”

In Solstice, nobody who goes missing ever comes back.

the Crofts.” “Who else? They own the media, the politicians, everybody who counts. The last thing they’d want is some bad PR that could affect their stock price.”

But these wounds we suffer that cut deep to the bone when we’re young and unarmored remain with us forever, regardless of how much older we grow or how far we run from their origin.

“You’d be surprised what I can see in the dark.”

large mosaic of black-and-white tiles depicts a wolf with a lamb in its jaws. Above the wolf and its captured prey floats a moon, full, black, and ominous. It’s the Croft family crest. I’ve

Eight Blackthorn graves have already been exhumed.” I’m shocked by that. “Eight?” “Yes. And I’m sorry to have to tell you this, but every coffin opened so far has been empty. Including your mother’s.”

Medical literature has no comparable cases. We can’t find any instances of it outside our family. We believe it’s a genetic mutation, but we can’t pinpoint it on our DNA.”

Once I claim you, you’re mine forever.” His eyes are dark and endless as he repeats my words. “Not even God can keep you safe from me.”

Blackthorn Manor is no place for the uninitiated.

I don’t have friends. I have secrets. I have baggage. I have emotional scars. But friends are one thing I’ve never had and still don’t because I’m a Blackthorn.

If we had a family motto, it would be “Go fuck yourself.”

“I had that dream about being a big black dog again. Only this time I was hunting.” “Hunting for what?” She shrugs. “I dunno. I couldn’t really see because I was in like a cave or a tunnel and it was dark. But I think it was like a lizard. Only huge.”

“All my life, I’ve been heavy. This weight is invisible to everyone but me, but it’s there, every day, weighing me down with every step. I didn’t choose it. It was given to me. It’s mine to carry, except I don’t want it anymore. I just want to feel soft. I want to be light and easy. But there’s nowhere safe for me to put this weight, so I have to keep carrying it until the day it finally breaks my bones and grinds me down into dust, and there’s nothing left of me.

He rasps, “I’d burn it all down for you, Maven.” Trembling, I whisper, “Burn what down?” “Everything. My whole life. This whole town. The entire fucking world if you asked me to. If you said you were mine and meant it, I’d light a match under anything that would keep us apart, then plant our fucking flag in the ashes.”

know exactly who you are, Ronan. You’re mine. And I’m yours. And that’s it. Got it?” Lips parted and eyes shining, he stares at me in stunned silence. “Do you really mean that?” “Yes. I claim you, devil man. And you claimed me a long time ago. We belong to each other. Nothing else matters.”

There’s a battle being waged for your soul, child. Very soon, you’ll have to choose sides.”

The pestilence spreading through your blood like poison. The Old Serpent is stirring. Soon he’ll rise from the sunless void of the deep to fulfill the prophecy and claim the one promised to him, the queen who will rule by his side in hell. Renounce him before it’s too late! Repent and save your soul!”