The Cambion

My parents weren't able to have a baby together. Mother says this made them very sad, and she would cry and cry, and Father says he would feel so helpless that he couldn't stop her tears. But one day Auntie Lilli came to them and told them a secret, a special secret for having a baby. And whatever that secret was, it must have worked, because here I am! And I have Father's hair and Mother's eyes and they both say I am the most perfect child in the world.

Of course, I can't live with my parents yet. They say I have to stay here with the woman who birthed me, at least for a few more years. I'm supposed to call her 'Mother', and I do if there are other people around, because it pleases my parents, but when we don't have company I call her Agnes, because that's her name and she's not my mother. It upsets the others, but I don't care. They aren't my real siblings. All you have to do is look at them and you can tell the difference. Any idiot could. They're all flushed and pink and noisy, constantly breathing in and out and beating hearts and spewing mucus. It's disgusting. I'm glad I'm not like that. But Mother says that I will become more and more like that, until no one will be able to distinguish me from normal people. That frightens me- I don't want to be like them. And I tell Father that the villagers can't tell, anyway, but he says that the sharpest amongst them have noticed a few tell-tale signs, but they don't dare move against me while I'm so young because what if they're wrong and the church takes dim view on child-murder. And then I ask why I can't just come live with them, where it won't matter that I'm not quite human and then they look very sad again and say that I couldn't survive in their home. And I say well why can't we just go somewhere far away from everyone anyway and they say that it's not an option and to be quite and behave myself.

And I do because I love them and I'm afraid if I don't they'll stop visiting me and then I really will be nothing but a stupid human filled with disgusting blood and breath and mucus.

I sometimes wonder about Agnes, tho'. Sometimes I think she knows full well what I am, birthed from her body or not. But it's like... she doesn't care. And sometimes she looks at me with such tenderness and tries to stroke my hair and murmurs about how beautiful my father was, and it frightens me because I don't think she means the man everyone thinks is my father (whose name is Henry and who is not handsome by anyone's standards and anyway he drinks too much), I think maybe she means my real actual father, and I don't like to think about that so I run away. And then other times she can't bear to be around me and just looking at me makes her cry and really, those times are better.

The preacher likes to come around every so often and rant at my so-called siblings about how their antics will land them with the demons in hell. I always laugh behind my hand at this because even if my parents say I'm not fully demon like they are, I'm demon enough and the other children are already stuck with me in this life, so it's like they can't win. The best part is that the preacher thinks I'm an angel, because I'm so much more clever than him and I never get caught at anything and Mother makes certain that I know my bible really well and can quote it on demand because she says you never know when it's going to come in handy, even as a demon. Maybe especially as a demon.