Lior at the Edge of the Dawn - Chapter 6: The Pigtail Monster
Lior at the Edge of the Dawn -
Chapter 6: The Pigtail Monster
by Eva Marie Woywod and friends - Dedicated to Mom.
The wind off Lake Michigan is sharp enough to cut memory. The waves breaking reflects his heart.
Lior sits on the stone lip of the breakwater just south of the lighthouse, knees drawn up, arms wrapped around them like he is still trying to hold himself together - a desperate attempt to keep the pieces together. His shoulder calls; an old ache that never quite left after nights when he had to become teeth and claws to keep smaller bodies safe. The silver strands in his hair (once knotted so tight they pulled blood) now lift and fall loose in the autumn wind, catching the first rose-gold of sunrise like threads of mercy.
Behind him, the city is still asleep or pretending to be after an endless night of holding back tears.
Ahead of him, the Bahá’í Temple glows soft and white, its dome a second moon refusing to set. The beauty set within all the pain was more than symbolism.
He is so tired.
The faeries brought him here, the same tiny lights that once hovered over hospital beds where children fought monsters made of needles and beeping machines. They tugged him gently past the encampment under the viaduct (cardboard palaces, torn blue tarps flapping like surrender flags), and still, impossibly, the children there had managed to laugh. One small girl with bare feet and a too-big coat had offered him half a bruised apple. He took it with shaking fingers and could not swallow past the lump in his throat.
Every step of this night has been a memory with teeth.
He remembers being the boy who growled instead of cried because crying brought fists.
He remembers the closet that smelled of mold and fear, the nights when hunger and shame braided themselves so tightly into his hair that each knot became its own small prison.
He remembers choosing (again and again) to take the pain himself so someone smaller would not have to.
The faeries hover now at a respectful distance, tiny lanterns bobbing in sympathy.
Selene lands beside him without a sound. Moon-girl, owl-winged, eyes older than both of them combined. She does not speak at first. She simply sits, shoulder to weary shoulder, and lets the silence be enough.
After a long time, Lior’s voice comes out cracked and raw.
“I thought if I just kept moving, the knots would stay behind me.”
He touches one of the freed silver strands. “Turns out they followed. They just… loosened. Like they were waiting for me to be ready to carry them differently.”
Selene nods. “Some knots aren’t meant to be cut out. They’re meant to be turned into wings.”
Far off, the first warm ray of sun strikes the dome of the temple and spills across the water like liquid forgiveness.
Lior closes his eyes. For the first time in years, the growl inside him is quiet.
“I’m still scared,” he whispers to the dawn.
“I know,” Selene answers. “But look, the grandmothers are coming. You don’t have to walk alone anymore.”
And there, on the horizon where water meets sky, the faintest flicker of fire-that-does-not-burn begins to rise: horses made of kept and broken promises, braids flying, owl-dolls tucked close.
Lior lets his head rest (just for a moment) against Selene’s moon-cool shoulder.
The trek is not over.
But for the first time, he is no longer walking it by himself.
The sun lifts higher, like a sunflower rising with the rays.
The knots in his hair glint like silver feathers.
And somewhere inside his chest, something that has been clenched since childhood finally, carefully, begins to open.
The silver strands are flying ahead of the riders (Josephina’s braid, Emma Dale’s prayer shawl threads, Catherine Moreheart’s stubborn gray wisps), weaving a net of light so wide no child will ever fall through again.
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