The Thornhill Home for Wayward Children sat at the edge of civilization, built on land that no one else wanted. It was a fortress of grey stone surrounded by dead forests and rocky soil. They sent children here when everywhere else had failed.
Amelia arrived three weeks after the fire, silent as a grave.
The headmaster, a severe man named Mr. Blackwood, looked her over with cold assessment. "Another mute?"
The constable nodded. "Selective mutism, they think. Trauma from seeing her employers' house burn. She's the one who saved them, actually, but—" He lowered his voice, though Amelia could still hear. "There are rumors. Strange things follow her. Deaths. Accidents. The family wanted her gone."
"We specialize in strange children here," Mr. Blackwood said. "She'll fit right in."
He was right. Thornhill was full of children that society had rejected. The violent ones. The mad ones. The ones who saw things that weren't there or heard voices or had fits. And, apparently, the ones who could see the dead.
Amelia quickly learned she wasn't the only one with the sight. There was a boy named Thomas, ten years old, who claimed to hear ghosts whispering prophecies. A girl named Sarah who insisted demons visited her at night. An older boy, Marcus, who said he could see auras around people showing their true natures.
Most of the staff dismissed these claims as delusions. But Amelia knew better. She could see the spirits clustered around Thomas, drawn to someone who could finally hear them. Could see the dark entities that tormented Sarah. Could see that Marcus wasn't entirely wrong—though what he saw as auras was actually the leaking energy from people's suppressed emotions.
These children were like her. Different. Gifted. Or cursed, depending on how you looked at it.
For the first time in years, Amelia didn't feel entirely alone.
-----
She'd been at Thornhill for two months when the marks appeared.
Amelia woke one morning to find strange symbols on her wrists—silver-violet lines that glowed faintly in the dark. They looked like intricate script in a language she didn't know, winding around her wrists like manacles.
She stared at them, heart pounding. She'd never seen these marks before. Where had they come from?
*The binding is breaking,* a spirit whispered. It was one of the ancient ones, a shade so old it had forgotten its name. *Your power grows too strong. The seals your mother placed can no longer contain it.*
Amelia touched the marks gently. They didn't hurt, but they tingled with power. When she concentrated, she could feel energy flowing through them, circulating through her body like a second heartbeat.
She tried to hide the marks under her sleeves, but they had a will of their own. During moments of strong emotion—fear, anger, sadness—they would flare brighter, glowing through the fabric.
It took three days before someone noticed.
Sarah saw it first. She watched Amelia during morning chores and gasped. "Your arms! They're glowing!"
Other children turned to look. Amelia quickly pulled her sleeves down, but it was too late. The damage was done.
"She's marked!" one of the boys shouted. "The demon marked her!"
"I saw it too!" Sarah insisted, both fascinated and frightened. "Symbols, glowing like moonlight!"
Mr. Blackwood was summoned. He grabbed Amelia's arm roughly and yanked up her sleeve. The marks had faded to faint lines, barely visible in daylight, but they were still there.
"What is this?" he demanded. "Did you cut yourself? Draw these?"
Amelia shook her head mutely.
"Speak, girl! Explain these marks!"
But she hadn't spoken since the fire. Wouldn't speak now.
Mr. Blackwood's face darkened. "The children say they glow. That they're unnatural." He pulled her other sleeve up, found matching marks on that wrist too. His grip tightened painfully. "Are you possessed? Is that it? Has some demon claimed you?"
Amelia tried to pull away, but his grip was iron. Fear flooded through her—and the marks responded. They blazed bright silver-violet, lighting up the room.
Mr. Blackwood released her with a shout, stumbling back. "Dear gods! She IS possessed!"
The other children screamed and scrambled away. Only Thomas and Marcus stayed relatively calm, watching with intense curiosity rather than fear.
"It's not possession," Marcus said quietly. "The color is wrong. Demons are red or black. That's… something else."
But no one listened to him.
-----
Priest Huan arrived two days later.
He was an elderly priest who specialized in exorcisms, or so Mr. Blackwood claimed. The old man carried a worn leather bag filled with holy symbols, blessed water, sacred oils, and ancient scrolls so old the edges were brittle and yellowed.
Amelia was brought to the headmaster's office, where Priest Huan waited. He studied her with sharp grey eyes that held both wisdom and suspicion.
"Remove your sleeves, child," he said, not unkindly.
Amelia hesitated, then obeyed. The marks were visible now, having grown more prominent over the past days. They pulsed gently with their own light, beautiful and terrifying.
Priest Huan leaned close, examining them. "These are not the marks of malevolent spirits," he said finally. "The symbols are too ordered, too… pure. But they're certainly not natural." He looked up at her. "Can you tell me where they came from?"
Amelia shook her head.
"Will not or cannot speak?"
A shrug.
"I see." Priest Huan opened his bag. "Well, whether you're possessed or blessed, these marks represent power that you're too young to wield safely. We must suppress them."
He began his ritual. Blessed water splashed on Amelia's wrists, making the marks hiss and steam. She bit her lip to keep from crying out—it burned, like acid on her skin.
"By the authority of the Celestial Court," Priest Huan intoned, tracing symbols in the air with ritual precision. "We bind this power."
More water. More burning.
"By the wisdom of the heavens above, we seal this vessel."
Sacred oil next, painted over the marks in intricate patterns. This hurt worse. Amelia gasped, tears streaming down her face.
"By the balance of the Three Paths, we suppress this gift until such time as it can be properly controlled."
The pain built to a crescendo. Amelia's vision went white. She felt something inside her being forced down, compressed, locked away. It fought back, her power struggling against the binding, but Priest Huan was experienced. He knew what he was doing.
"RETURN TO STILLNESS!" he shouted, pressing his sacred scrolls against her wrists.
Amelia screamed—the first sound she'd made in months. The marks flared one final time, so bright everyone in the room had to look away. Then they faded, sinking back into her skin, becoming invisible once more.
The pain stopped.
Amelia collapsed, gasping, her wrists red and blistered where the holy water and oil had burned her.
Priest Huan looked tired. "The marks are suppressed, but not gone. They'll return eventually. This child has power, Mr. Blackwood. Significant power. Whether it's divine blessing or spiritual contamination, I cannot say. But it's there."
"Can you remove it?" Mr. Blackwood asked.
"No. It's part of her, woven into her very soul. The most I can do is suppress it temporarily." He looked at Amelia with something like pity. "The binding won't last forever.
As she grows older and stronger, it will weaken. The marks will return. And when they do…" He shook his head. "She'll need proper training. Or she'll
need to be locked away for everyone's safety."
"We can manage that," Mr. Blackwood said coldly.
-----
That night, Amelia lay in her bed, wrists throbbing with dull pain. The marks were invisible now, the power pressed so deep inside her she could barely feel it. But it was still there, coiled and waiting.
Thomas crept over to her bed in the dark. "Are you okay?" he whispered.
Amelia nodded, not trusting her voice.
"The spirits say you're special," Thomas continued quietly. "They say you're going to be someone important someday. Is that true?"
Amelia didn't know how to answer. She didn't feel important. She felt cursed.
"My grandmother could see ghosts too," Thomas said. "She said it was a gift from the Gods. That we're meant to help the dead move on, to ease their suffering. Maybe that's what you're supposed to do?"
*Maybe,* Amelia thought. But how could she help anyone when she couldn't even help herself?
Marcus joined them, sitting on the floor near her bed. "I saw something in you earlier," he said. "When the marks were glowing. Your aura was incredible—silver and violet and gold all mixed together. I've never seen anything like it. You're not cursed, Amelia. You're… I don't know what you are, but it's not evil."
Sarah peeked out from under her blanket. "The demons that visit me were scared of you," she said softly. "When your marks glowed, they all ran away. You're the first thing that's ever scared them."
Three children, as broken and strange as she was, trying to tell her she wasn't a monster.
Amelia wanted to believe them. But the pain in her wrists reminded her of the truth: the world would always try to suppress her, to bind her, to lock away what made her different.
Because people fear what they don't understand.
And Amelia was beginning to suspect that no one would ever understand her.
-----
The binding Priest Huan had placed held for three weeks.
Then, during a particularly vivid nightmare, the marks blazed back to life. Amelia woke screaming (another broken vow of silence), her wrists burning with silver-violet fire.
Mr. Blackwood burst into the dormitory. "Again?" he roared. "The marks have returned?"
Amelia couldn't make them stop. The power was pouring out of her, responding to her fear and pain, rejecting the suppression that had been forced upon it.
"That's it," Mr. Blackwood decided. "This child is too dangerous to be among the others. She'll be isolated until we can find a more permanent solution."
"No!" Thomas protested. "You can't lock her up! She needs help, not imprisonment!"
"Silence, boy! Or you'll join her!"
They dragged Amelia to the isolation room—a small stone chamber in the basement, barely larger than a closet. They locked her inside with nothing but a thin blanket and a bucket.
In the dark, alone, Amelia finally let herself break.
She'd tried so hard. To be good. To be quiet. To be invisible. To help people. To not use her power. To suppress who and what she was.
And it had never been enough.
Would never be enough.
The marks glowed brighter, responding to her anguish. And for the first time, Amelia felt something new toward her power: not fear, but anger.
Why should she suppress it? Why should she hide? The world was going to hate her anyway. Call her cursed anyway. Lock her up anyway.
Maybe it was time to stop trying to be what they wanted.
Maybe it was time to be what she was.
The marks pulsed in agreement, and Amelia felt her mother's binding crack just a little more.
She was now eleven years old.
And she was done pretending to be powerless.