Mark of the Fey

The mark sat on the back of her right hand just above her wrist. Twisting and looping in delicate grace, this beauty was not meant to be hidden as the Sighter’s marks were, but worn for the world to see. It was beautiful and intricate art woven into her skin almost painlessly, and it would sit there forever more. Long after the artist is gone and after the need for it passes, after the owner is withered away, the mark will still live and glow and thrive. This is magic and it is a gift, not to be possessed or controlled or abused, but borrowed, loved, cared for and used. Some people don’t understand this, and those people- those whom are subjected to such taint and impurity- cannot bear the marks of fey. Unlike the girl we follow now, walking home looking as ordinary as she could. The girl who stops to have a word with the mailman, the girl who goes to public school, the girl who was raised by an accountant for a mother and will never meet her father. She is editor of the newspaper, photographer for the yearbook, activist in the key club, a regular attendant to the hottest parties and popular among her peers. This girl who thinks herself more normal than most has secrets even she doesn’t know about, all hidden in what she thought a rare, abnormal, amazing birthmark on the back of her right hand, just about her wrist.




Dianna has blue eyes, rosy cheeks and golden freckles scattered over the bridge of her nose and tops of her cheeks; her sweet, round face is framed by a halo of soft, golden hair that bring out her luminous cerulean eyes framed by long, dark lashes. Dianne is beautiful and sweet and loved by all, and her beauty is only added to by the strange birthmark she wears proudly on the back of her right hand, just above her wrist. Against her pales skin, the near-black mark is a captivating wonder, strange and stunning. It has four petals and four vines; each petal is split in half and one half is striped while the other’s edge is lined with specs; each vine grew from between the petals and was outlined by more small specs. Dianne thinks the specs are freckles and the rest just a perfectly placed pattern of coincidence, making for a rare beauty but average birthmark.

When she was younger, she liked to pretend that it was a mark from the angels, or maybe by a witch, and she was granted a gift, or she was cursed- depending on the drama of her mood and the current circumstances in her life. When her mother grounded her and she was angry, Dianne was known to slam her door and yell, “I know I’m cursed because the witch left me with you and this awful, unfair life!” and then she’d pout and say to herself, “I must have done something awful when I was a baby to make the angels angry enough to send me here.” But more often she would say what a blessing she, her family, and her friends were and she’d thank the angels that left her there.

Nevertheless, Dianne knew she was special and her mark was only proof to her. At night she’d lay in bed gazing at it, wondering or simply memorizing the patterns she knew so well. No one could use the phrase “I know this place like the back of my hand” like Dianne, because no one knew theirs better than she knew hers. Pale skin, five fingers, three branching blue veins, one dark pattern.