2

Portly Clarissa for the third time passed along the wards lined up in a row. The pupils of the orphanage froze and tried not to raise their eyes from the half-rotten floorboards. I tried to remember all my sins over the past few days, because they didn’t bother to explain to us what they would reprimand for this time. To be fair, there were a huge number of these very sins for me. I could not be humble, courteous, diligent, like my best friend Ines. Dope, as Clarissa liked to say, did not stay in my head and climbed out to poison the lives of those around me. Unfortunately, it wasn't bullshit, but something worse.

A few years ago, I began to have very strange dreams, and a little later, terrible things began to happen to my body. For some time I thought that I was terminally ill or even poisoned by a curse. The fact that this is a fiction, and in fact, curses do not exist, I learned much later. It was the fear that had firmly settled in my head that awakened in me a thirst to get to the bottom of the truth at all costs.

Once, after another nightmare, I woke up with a wildly pounding heart, dawn was already breaking, and the first rays penetrated into our closet with Ines. I raised my hand to throw back the blanket, and only miraculously did not yell at the whole shelter. The fingers of my right hand were black, as if they had been rubbed with coal, I froze in horror, the blackness flowed from my fingers into my palm and seemed to be absorbed into my hand.

Gaining courage, I decided to tell everything to the teacher, then it seemed to me that adults would be able to help. But instead of helping me, they deprived me of dinner and ordered me to scrub the common latrine for three days. Clarissa did not believe me, accused me of lying and decided that I have too much free time if I spend it writing all sorts of nonsense. By the way, she called nonsense literally everything that did not correspond to her ideas.

“I have important news for you. In a week the inspector will come to us! the head of the shelter blurted out in one breath. Shouts of surprise passed through the small hall. Everyone began to look at each other excitedly, the inspectors were here only a couple of times, and then when I was still very young, but some memories remained in my memory. Some of them were very pleasant, for example, in those days we were fed heartily and even given new clothes. True, after the departure of the inspectors, they took her away.

- Silence! Clarissa yelled. “In the remaining time, you must polish your rooms to a shine and put yourself in order. If one of you dares to throw out some nonsense, he will be severely punished, and believe me, you will remember this punishment for the rest of your life.

She knew a lot about punishment. I have already been in the basement several times without food and water, have been shaved baldly and whipped countless times.

“It is a great honor for you ragamuffins to meet the dark magician in person!” Disregarding Clarissa's warning, everyone made noise again in surprise. Unprecedented for our outback entertainment, the dark ones were considered the elite. I was shaking, a cold sweat broke out on my back. Doubts have disappeared, they go through my dark soul. My fingers went cold with fear, lowering my eyes down, I saw a dark haze coming from my right hand. Hiding it behind my back, I abandoned what was happening and tried to calm down, otherwise I wouldn’t even be able to reach the catchers’ arrival, I would be tied up right now.

I woke up because Ines was pulling my hand, it turned out that we had already been released. There was little time left before dinner, and as if tied, I followed the other girls into the dining room.

Mira, what's wrong with you? the neighbor asked.

“It’s okay, I was just thinking.

- About what? Inez asked curiously, I looked at her dreamy face and my eyebrows went up. - I wonder what he is, this dark one? How old do you think he is? What if he's young? They would have come sooner, at least some new faces.

Inez, are you crazy? The Dark One won't even look at people like us, - but Ines just brushed it off, she has always been a very romantic person.

- You're right, but you can dream? In any case, this is good news, we will eat from the belly for several days!

At dinner, all the talk was only about the dark ones. I think the locals will be able to procrastinate on this topic for at least another six months, there was simply no other entertainment here. After the end of the day, lying on a mattress frayed by life, I tried to come up with a further plan. Nothing meaningful came to mind. I remembered how I first came to the conclusion about my nature. After a painful punishment at the age of seven, I decided to take matters into my own hands. Having judged sensibly, I started from the library, at that time I read with grief in half, but the thirst for knowledge took over. It took me several years to understand the main thing - I am a monster that should not exist at all.

In the history books, a fairly large part was devoted to the Order of Darkness - the glorious heroes who stand guard over our kingdom. Many descriptions of battles were accompanied by black-and-white pictures, in these tattered drawings, from time to time I could distinguish the blackened fingers of the combatants. But all the records that came across to me said that only men can be dark, then I, a sinful thing, thought that I was also a boy, just underdeveloped. This thought shocked me, for the next few years I checked the contents of the underwear every morning. Later, when my breasts began to grow, I breathed a sigh of relief, apparently, the extra organs below the waist did not threaten me. But this brought even more questions. The most important of them: what am I? I couldn't find the answer in any book.

Yes, the dark ones had women, they were all black-haired and black-eyed, pale and infirm, they often died very early and did not possess magic at all. I had light brown hair and gray eyes, average height and a thin body. As for the darkness, she behaved very strangely, then calmed down for a long time, then again tormented me with strange dreams at night. Most often, I dreamed of a dense forest, through which I ran with a wildly pounding heart and completely naked. Branches hit my face, roots of plants dug into my legs, and a huge dark cloud always tried to catch up with me from behind.

Everything changed in one day, at a history lesson taught by the mentor Inga, I decided on a question that had tormented me for a long time.

“Tell me, mentor, hasn’t magic awakened even once in a dark one?” The teacher narrowed her eyes, carefully looking into my face. She was silent for so long that I decided she would never answer.

“Actually, history knows several cases of manifestation of darkness in a woman. They all ended sadly. The female body and mind are very fragile, they cannot bear such power in themselves. All manifested women went crazy, lost power over their gift and soon died. That is why it is so important that every potential dark one passes the test. But don't worry, the renegades haven't been heard of in a long time, the catchers know their stuff.

Having blurted out these facts that shocked me, the mentor continued to teach the lesson.

I will go crazy and die. Wonderful! I thought then.

However, several years have passed since then, and I still have not lost my mind. There was no need to worry about losing control of the gift, I had not had it before. With age, the darkness increasingly strove to escape from my body. It scared me terribly until one day it saved my life. At our shelter there was a small rickety stable, in which lived a single mare named Luna and a groom Malik.

Malik was in his forties and his favorite pastime was drinking. We hardly crossed paths with him, but everyone in the shelter knew that his wife had left him, and since then he has constantly applied to the bottle, cursing the entire female gender. One day I was sent to clean the stables for a fight with Silva. The local beauty did not appreciate the frogs in her bed and attacked me with screams. According to Clarissa, I should have endured the beatings, but in no case should I spoil such a beautiful face of her favorite. The head had many plans for this very face, she was going to profitably marry Syl, and it seems like she even found a money groom.

I was just shoveling a heap of manure from the far corner of the stable, which looked more like a lopsided barn, when someone else's hands squeezed my waist. Jerking, I practically screamed, then a dirty hand covered my mouth while the other held it across my waist.

“Hush, sweetheart, don’t flutter, you don’t want to be heard,” Malik whispered, but that’s exactly what I wanted, so I began to twitch with all my might, kicked his knee, he groaned and loosened his grip. Taking advantage of the moment, I escaped from his arms. Luna screamed loudly.

- Crazy bitch! hissed the groom, rubbing his bruised leg. He was drunk and smelled unbearably.

"Stay away," I said in a trembling voice.

“You will answer me for this, little creature. Why are you twisting your face? Don't like me? All the same, you will soon spread your legs in front of whoever Clarissa points to.

Let me go, I won't tell anyone.

“Of course you won’t tell,” Malik said with a nasty grin and made a sharp lunge to grab. I did not have time to dodge, and he managed to knock me down. The impact on the ground took his breath away and the stars flashed before his eyes. Malik tore at the collar of my tattered dress, and began to rummage around my chest with his hands. I clung to his face with both hands and squeezed as hard as I could. With a yell, he pulled away and immediately swung his fist, aiming at the face. She managed to cover her head, so the main blow fell on her forearm. My chest went cold, and this cold flowed into my hands. I knew this feeling very well and, probably, for the first time in my life I was glad of it.

“What the…” Malik croaked, not having time to finish. I opened my eyes and looked at him fearfully. Black oil cords stretched out of my hands, as if alive they wrapped around the body of the groom and lifted him above the ground. He wheezed and tried to tear them from his throat. He was hit on the roof several times. The sound of breaking bones filled the stable, sobbing with fear, I crawled into a corner and covered my ears. The usually calm Moon seemed to be furious and broke off the leash.

“Enough, please, stop,” I begged the dark part of myself. If I do not stop the darkness, the groom will die, and I will be hanged for murder in the square, or even burned as an apostate.

- Stop it! I yelled with all my might, and the darkness was drawn back into my body like obedient ribbons. The groom fell and did not move. I vomited several times, it seemed like a little more and I would spit out my insides, presumably, this would greatly facilitate the task of the catchers. Tearing my naughty body off the ground, staggering, I approached ... him. Blood flowed from the nose, ears and eyes of the stableman, his arms were twisted unnaturally. I was nauseous again. Luna continued to neigh wildly and rush about the stable. The shuffling footsteps of a watchman were heard from the side of the street, my heart sank into my heels, I rushed to the far corner and hid there. Something crunched on the roof, there was a deafening crack, and the roof, unable to withstand the meeting with darkness, collapsed to the ground. I vaguely remember what happened next, as I periodically lost consciousness. People came running, someone shouted, it seems that they did not find me soon.

When I woke up the next day in the medical wing, I learned almost all the details of what had happened.

"What's going on, oh what's going on!" - muttered, wiping the floors, an au pair. – What is this going on? No wonder the dogs in the village broke loose as if from a chain. And I said: be in trouble! And who listened to me? Eh...

I lay frozen and almost not breathing, it seemed that as soon as I move, the whole familiar world would collapse. What will they do to me for murder? Just hang up? Or am I waiting for a more sophisticated death for the use of dark magic? Pulling her right hand out from under the blanket, she looked at her fingers, they were of the usual color, nothing betrayed that they belonged to the killer.

"Oh, you've woken up, baby!" How are you feeling? Rai asked sympathetically.

“Fine…” I whispered, unsure what to expect from this usually kind woman.

“Well, you got it, honey. Does anything hurt? Don't worry, you were examined by a local doctor yesterday. Clarissa sent for him to the city especially, she was very worried.

— Worried? she asked dumbfounded, something I can’t believe that Clarissa cares so much about my health, especially in the light of recent events.

- Of course! Raya said with importance, “if a ward hoards under her command, it will have a bad effect on her reputation!”

“Reputations,” I corrected involuntarily. This was believed much more than in the suddenly awakened conscience of the head.

“So what did I say! Where has it been seen that only a repaired roof has collapsed? Oh baby, you're lucky you're alive.

“And Malik and Luna?” I asked almost in a whisper.

- The moon broke through the door and rushed into the forest, Hans went in the morning to look for her, but, it seems, has not yet returned. And Malik…” she sighed heavily and immediately frowned. - He was crushed, they pulled you out for several hours, but he was already that ...

It seems that I was lucky, no one understood what exactly caused the death of the groom. That's how I became a killer.