hanginggardenstories:

THE MYTH OF BEAUTIFUL GIRLS by Natalie C. Parker

The masks are not for my protection, but theirs.

I am the most beautiful girl who has ever lived. This, I have been told since the day I turned ten and came to my birthday party dressed for the first time in the red of a young lady. Instead of cheering and open arms, I was greeted by gasps and startled cries. Everyone from my own father to the good Lady Anat drew their hands to their faces and turned swiftly away. I thought perhaps my older brothers had come up behind me in some gruesome livery for the occasion and the crowd played along. But there was no one behind me, and my mother led me from the crowd and locked me in my room.

The next time she came to me, she wore an exquisite mask of gold and bone. The lips were bowed in a delicate frown, one hollow eye dripping jewel teardrops down a smooth cheek. Through the holes of those eyes, her own were a watery brown as she explained that I would be allowed to leave my rooms as soon as everyone in town had been fitted with a mask of their own. I wondered when I would receive mine, and she explained that my face was too lovely to ever bear such a blight.

“But why should you cover your face when it is mine that is too beautiful?” I asked.

“My daughter, my gift,” she began, her voice muffled by the mask. “When a beautiful girl such as you is born, the price of her beauty is steep. Anyone who looks at you will love you, that is the truth. They will not be able to help themselves, and it will not hurt you. Your beauty is a blessing on all of us. But when you love, the object of your love will not be able to bear it. Your love will kill any single mortal who tries to receive it.”

It has been eight years since I have seen the face of my mother, my father, my priest, my childhood friends.

When I leave my home, I pass through streets and markets filled with masks in every color and shape. Their expressions ever the same—frozen grins and frowns and grimaces and neutral lips—I see their lives in the small nicks and scratches that collect along the surface, in missing jewels and fresh carvings. I know Theia by the sheaf of wheat that bends along her left cheek as though pressed in a constant wind, and I know Pax by the crescent moon point of his chin, the sharp plunge of his forever-smile.

I don’t remember when masks became more real to me than faces. I tried again and again to recall the faces from my childhood. At night, when the only distraction was the silver moonlight on my damask bed sheets, I would focus on the memory of my mother. She had lips that pinched whenever I raised my voice too high, skin paler than my own with freckles splashed across her forehead like galaxies, or, was that only the speckled paint of her mask? The more time passed, the more the two images began to blend until I could no longer remember if the dip I saw in the chin of her mask was reflected in the bones beneath.

It’s easier than you might think, living in a town of masked faces. You can learn everything you need to know about a person by the width of their stance or the roll of their shoulders or the tilt of their head. Most like to stare from a distance. Their masks like shields between us until, having their met fill or their limit, they turn away without a word. Some turn their eyes to the ground when I come near. Others keep their faces straight ahead, determined to proceed as though I don’t exist at all.

Sometimes that seems the truest response.

I thought I should always be alone—a living shrine to something only others understood. How could I comprehend beauty when the only face I ever saw was my own?  Few spoke to me. Too afraid that I might fall in love with the sound of their voice or the cadence of their speech. At least, that is as mother explained it to me. People are so afraid of the possibility of my love, they prefer to never know me in the slightest.

Except for Theia and Pax. They were never afraid of me and I could see it plainly. It was in the easy way Pax stood with one hand resting on his hip, the way Theia’s head tipped toward me when others tended to tip away. We became friends when no one else was looking. Theia’s fingers curling between my own beneath the table, Pax’s shoulder brushing mine when we walked through the old ruins behind the market.

But it has been eight years since I’ve seen a face other than my own. When I look in the mirror, I see the same eyes and nose and chin that everyone else sees, but I feel no love.

On the night of my eighteenth birthday, I wait until the household is quiet, until the only sound I hear is the hollow song of a tawny owl. Then, I climb from my bed, slip my feet into the soft leather boots father gave me, and pull my packed bag from beneath the bed. It takes no time to escape my house and even less to race to the old ruins behind the market.

“Reanna!” My name called out sharply in Pax’s urgent tenor. “Reanna, wait! Don’t leave!”

I cannot ignore his plea. I drop my bag to the ground and wait for him and for Theia who races at his side. “How did you know?” I ask.

Theia drags my bag through the dirt, putting it behind her. “It was all over your face today. When you said goodbye, we just knew. So we decided to wait for you.”

“My face,” I repeat. How can I still discover ways to feel dissatisfied with it? “That is why I must leave. I can’t force this town to live like this. Not forever.”

Pax steps in front of me, resting one hand on my shoulder. Moonlight glints over the curve of his crescent chin. “We understand, we aren’t trying to stop you.”

Now, Theia moves to his side, the wheat bending over her cheek full of motion even as we stand still. She says, “But you must take us with you.”

I step back. Their hands fall away as I shake my head. “It isn’t fair to either of you. A lifetime behind those masks? I must go alone.”

“You don’t understand,” Pax begins.

“The masks stay here,” Theia adds.

“But I will love you,” I say, suddenly afraid. “I will love you both and you will die.”

“We don’t think so.” Pax moves close to me once more. “The myth says no single mortal can bear your love.”

Theia joins him so that we are a closed circle beneath an open sky. She says, “But we are two mortals, and we love you too much not to try.”

I cannot speak. All I can do is breathe and watch as they remove their masks and I finally understand beauty.

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Natalie C. Parker is the author of the Southern Gothic duology Beware the Wild, which was a 2014 Junior Library Guild Selection, and Behold the Bones (HarperTeen). She is also the editor of Three Sides of a Heart, a young adult anthology on love triangles publishing from HarperTeen in 2017. She is the founder of Madcap Retreats, an organization offering a yearly calendar of writing retreats and workshops.

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