66 brushes exactly.
On the dot.
No more, no less.
All of the women in my family on my mother’s side always had long, beautiful, platinum hair and youthful features. Pair that with icy blue eyes and skin the color of porcelain, and we always stuck out in a crowd. Even my great grandmother was beautiful, her skin soft and smooth. Wrinkles were never something that any of us had, but when I was young, I never gave it much thought. Ignorance was bliss after all, and for the longest time… I was blissfully ignorant.
All of that had changed one Saturday morning. Every day before I could run off outside and play with my brother, my mom insisted that she brush my hair. It was almost like a ritual of sorts. It had to be done all in one sitting, and she could not stop once she started.
For as long as I had hair on my head, I can remember her doing this. First, she would spray something on it, the liquid tinged a light shade of red. Then, she would run her fingers through the strands, gently tugging out all the rats before she started in on the brushing.
Sometimes I squirmed in my seat, whining about how hard she was tugging the brush through my hair, and other times I would just give up, slumping down in the chair as she worked through my platinum tresses.
“Can we please do this later?” I whined, my bottom lip jutting out as I begged, crossing my arms and slinking down in the chair.
“Like it or not, it needs to be done.” Her words were final. No room for argument, but I was always one to push.
“But why!” I grumbled, staring up at her in the mirror, her own platinum locks cascading around her face, in a halo of waves.
“Freya, please. I know you don’t understand now, but you will when you’re older.” Her hands rested themselves on my shoulders, trying to reassure me that she would tell me when the time was right. But I was young and impatient.
“I’m going to be late to May’s birthday party though, can’t we just-”
“No.” Her voice was stern.
“But why?” I groaned, my eyes drifting to her cool blue ones that were currently looking anywhere but at me.
“Because I’m your mother, and I need you to trust that I know what’s best for you. This hair brushing that you hate so much, is something that has to be done. It’s a tradition that’s been passed down for ages, and it’s something that we must continue to do if we want to live a normal life.”
My eyes narrowed and my shoulders slumped as I eased back into the chair, allowing my mom to once again work her fingers back through my hair. “And what happens if we don’t brush it? What’s so abnormal about us?”
With a quick spritz of the red colored spray, she ignored my comment and started counting as she brushed.
“One, two, three, four, five -”
“What happens?” I asked, my legs swinging back and forth in the chair.
“Six, seven, eight-”
“Mom, come on. It can’t be that bad,” I murmured, wiggling in my seat.
“Please sit still,” she chastised. “You’re going to make me lose count.”
Anger simmered deep within me. I knew that she was probably making all of this up because she just wanted any reason to get me to behave. ‘I was born at night, but I wasn’t born last night,’ I thought to myself. Before she could even get to fifteen, I reached up and plucked the brush from her hands, throwing it across the room.
My eyes met hers in the mirror, a smug grin tugging at my lips. “Guess you have to tell me what happens now, don’t you?”
I had never seen my mother as terrified as she looked right then, but the second those words left my lips, her hands shook and her eyes widened as she staggered away from me.
Fear coursed through me the second I had realized why. A strange crawling sensation began to scatter across my scalp, small black insects parading along my hairline and feasting on the flesh of my head. They built up like a crust, a moving, writhing, wriggling mess caked along the front of my hair and clinging to my bangs, snapping them with sharpened teeth. A cry broke from my lips as I fell from the chair, my hands flying to my hair, desperately trying to shake off the bugs.
Strangled, blood curdling screams erupted from my throat as I rolled around on the floor, my mother quickly grabbing the brush and feverishly running it through my hair, yelling the numbers aloud as she counted.
Thick, red rivulets of blood dripped down the sides of my face, staining my skin with the consequences of my actions. Tears blurred my vision as she counted, my lips trembling as she ripped the brush quickly through my hair, strands of it falling to the floor.
“55, 56, 57, 58…” She counted, her voice wavering
The second she reached 66, an audibly loud sigh of relief left her lips, the brush clattering to the ground. Black specks fell from my hair like ash, the bugs laying in a defeated heap on the floor around me. My hands desperately reached for the strands of platinum laying on the ground, my eyes meeting those of my mother’s.
When she handed me the mirror and I looked at my reflection, I nearly started bawling all over again. My beautiful platinum hair had been stained red, and a couple of chunks were missing.
“Freya,” she started her voice soft and strained. “You must do as I say. For the rest of your life, you will brush your hair 66 times a day or there will be consequences.”
“But why 66?” I asked, my hands shaking and my breathing ragged.
“Because, my dear, it is tradition.” Her voice cracked and her brows furrowed. “We must pay homage to the 66 women who die every year to keep us young and beautiful. Their blood is on our hands.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, my eyes searching her’s, confusion paralyzing me in place.
“There is a price to pay for beauty, and when we disobey those that gave it to us… The consequence is severe.” Her hands gently tucked a strand of hair behind my ear as she looked at the two of us in the mirror.
“Our bodies are riddled with parasites.” Her eyes dropped to the small black specks littering the floor. “The second we forget that we are but vessels, slaves to this…” Her voice trailed off, hauntingly blue eyes connecting with mine.
“As you very clearly witnessed, our bodies will not hesitate to remind us of that.” With a sigh, she picked a stray bug from my hair and said, “because beauty is only skin deep… But traditions and curses are buried much deeper.”