Lillian

I was born Lillian Groer, daughter of Alfred and Lulu Groer, fraternal twin of Lukas (Luke) Groer. They called me Lilly, like the flower, innocent, pure and beautiful, from looking at me, nobody would ever think that they named me Lillian as a reference to the flower. I had long, frizzy blonde hair, it fell a little past my waist, my mother would pull it back into two braids before she sent me to school, but halfway there, when we couldn’t see our apartment complex anymore I’d pull the braids apart, running my fingers through the faint curls that were formed. I had the eyes of the devil, they said, a bright electric blue, almost hypnotizing, whenever they’d catch me doing something that I wasn’t supposed to, they told me that they saw the devil himself in my eyes, controlling me from behind a blue window. My cheeks were plump and my face was full of freckles, I burned easily in the summer.

My brother and I were born in Krems, Austria which is located about 80 kilometers from Vienna, but my father often traveled in his work, so we moved all over Europe. We lived in Berlin for a few years, moving to Vienna afterwards. We moved back to Krems and lived there for about a year before we got moved again, to Tychy, Poland, and that is where I remember spending most of my childhood, or the good years at least.

The good years happened before they started to get suspicious. The good years were brief, but some of the best years of my life, they started when I was eight, and we just settled down in Tychy, we lived in a nice apartment complex, two bedrooms with a great big backyard, it had a tire swing, I always wanted a tire swing. Unfortunately, as they always say, nothing lasts forever, and my good years ended a measly four years later...

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I just turned twelve years of age about a week ago, it was just the beginning of the hot and dreary summer. The world was greener than even at the peak of spring, the spring flowers had blossomed out of season, wilting away with the hot summer sun, and in came the colorful summer flowers scattered around the park and in the bushes of each apartment complex, I’d make flower crowns out of them, wrapping the flowers in my braids, I thought I looked pretty. I’d sometimes pretend I was some type of fairy princess, protecting my forest of enchanted creatures from the cruel outside world, they would be my friends in return for the protection and would bring me gifts; honey, fresh from the hives of the busy buzzing bees, tea and sweets made from the roots of the sugar tree that only blossomed once a year, sprouting pink flowers high into the powder blue sky