“Those who don’t believe in magic will never find it”

-Lewis Carroll


It was common knowledge that my sister would always be everyone’s favourite, Acebeth at only 16 was the envy of all the girls in the school and represented everything the boys wanted. She had inherited all the good genes of the family, jet-black hair with pink tips, brown skin and amber eyes, like the sunrise. Whereas I, Mirana, had inherited not only the albino gene from my father but also a sun allergy that only accentuated my genetic quirk.

“Look at that gorgeous swimming costume,” muttered Ace, holding up the one-piece swimming costume with reddish tones and white speckles. However, instead of looking at that piece of fabric I looked at her, how each colour blended with her body like a second layer of skin, then I looked at me in that basic black swimming costume, my bones were marked on every part of my body and when they weren’t it was the redness which became the protagonist making me look like a creepy spectre, the ‘creepy’ part being accentuated by my grey eyes.

“I shouldn’t go,” I muttered, feeling completely small next to my sister, as I always did.

“We’ll have a great time,” she smiled again, her dazzling red lipstick catching the attention of the shop assistants and a few customers.

“I’m going to burn,” I hissed, cringing at the thought of being in the sun for more than ten minutes.

“That’s all in your mind,”she denied confidently, “You’re afraid of the sun, that’s why you get burned.”

“I don’t think it works like that…”

“Believe me,” she pulled me closer to her, placing a hand on my shoulder gently, “you’re not going to burn, I would nevertake you to a place where I know you’re going to get hurt.”

“Ace…”

“Trust me”

“All right,” I sighed.

...

Five hours later I was back in the hospital room anchored to devices that kept making strange sounds.

“Back again, Mirana?” - smiled Rose, the nurse on duty.

“You know me,” I shrugged, sitting up and avoiding concentrating on the itch that was gestated all over my body, “I tried to go to the swimming pool”

“Ace?" she asked as an answer

“Yes,” I answered, opening the curtains to find a full moon brimming with light, brimming with an enviable solitude. In Westloch the sun lasted very few hours so most of the day was bathed in moonlight, my favourite part of the day. “My parents?” I asked with one finger tracing the perfect silhouette of that satellite.

“Your sister needed a lift to the library,” she commented with a hint of resentment.

“All right,” I sighed, smoothing out my white dressing gown, though I preferred to pretend it was a billowing layered dress with ruffled sleeves and a bow at the small of the back with a sapphire blue date.

Yes, that was better.

“I’ll go upstairs,” I informed Rose with a shy smile, “the stars are beautiful today.”

“All right, you’ve got ten minutes,” she indicated, tapping her little wrist watch.

I nodded and climbed the small spiral steps up to the hospital attic which hid a small vegetable garden where small hares used to hide to steal the freshly ripe carrots. However, my favourite part of that attic was the view.

The beautiful views of the whole of that small town where I had lived all my life, all my 17 years.

I walked with a smile to the edge when my view was blurred by a smoke ring coming from one of my chemistry partners who was nicknamed ‘The Mad Man’. I never knew the reason for such a nickname, but everyone knew him by it, no one knew how much he liked those five minutes before the bell rang or sitting in the back of the class to watch the others. No one else knew how much he liked to waste time, except me.

“Why do they call you that?” I whispered feeling the wind whistling in my ear and the cold of the night hugging my bones “The… Mad Man?” I stammered, knowing that the only thing I would do by starting that conversation was to open Pandora’s box.

“Because I see things,” he whispered, releasing the smoke from his lips in a perfect ring, “and I do things that others don’t,” his husky voice short-circuited my bruised body.

“You… see things?” I murmured with my eyes wide as plates observing his profile; his brown and extremely cold skin with his hands practically burnt. His tousled hair with some red highlights melting into the black of the night and his eyes… his eyes were somewhere between a dark blue and emerald green, only one eye really, it was the one that contained both colours. “Things that are not there?” I ended up asking looking at my white dress and my feet waving in the air looking like those of a giant compared to the city in the distance.

“Things that don’t exist” he clarified with boredom “my brother says that my eye is cursed” he pointed at it slightly but didn’t allow me to see it completely “and that it makes me behave in an… explosive manner.”

“And what’s your name?” I asked savouring the candy lollipop “Because I know that your birth certificate doesn’t say ‘Mad Man’” I laughed blushing.

“Why do you want to know?”he turned around for the first time with a grimace.

Wow

I never thought that madness could be disguised in such a beautiful way.

“Everyone says I’m dangerous, why don’t you listen to them and go away?” he continued, flicking his cigarette.

“Because I’m not a vampire,” I said simply.

“What?” he spat bitterly.

“I’m an albino” I confessed pulling my white hair nervously “because of my condition I can’t go out in the sun for long, and I’m not a reliable narrator of facts because I spend the day inside my head, that’s why they call me that. But I’m not a vampire, and you’re not crazy.”

“You speak very confidently considering you don’t know me,” he lowered his gaze to my lock of hair entwined in my fingers for a second, “I could be crazy, I’ve convinced you to sit on the edge of a building, maybe I want to push you,” he smiled lopsidedly.

“Or maybe I’m the one who’s crazy” I played along listening to the nurses call me “maybe I’m the one who wants to push you over the edge”I whispered getting up carefully “or maybe I’m a vampire wanting to take you to the other side”I smiled with amusement.

“I’m already on the other side,” he muttered sarcastically, “I’m a demon, everyone knows it.”

“Whatever you say, Sebastian,” I smiled, walking towards the door, “I’ll see you soon.”

“I don’t think so, Mirana,” I heard his reply before I stepped into the corridor, leaving my night’s adventure behind me.