The Irreversible Reckoning

  ***

  My episodes came on without warning, though they always occurred in the evening. I would be sieged by a sudden dizziness, one that was so terrible that I would lose my balance and immediately crumple to the ground. I would be panicking, and I never knew if the panic had begun before the dizziness hit or after. By the time I hit the ground, Lucy or Macie were generally with me, picking me up, putting me in bed, laying with me until I fell asleep, which tended to happen rather quickly, thank the One God.

  Except when I was asleep, I would always have a dream that was the same and yet different every time. I would see her in the prison, in a dark, windowless cell, her arms stretched to their farthest limits and shackled to the wall, and Caspar just sitting in front of her, watching her.

  “This is what you need. A man’s discipline.” He would say. Her wrists would twist against the cuffs keeping them bound, and the longer she struggled, the worse the wounds. Sometimes, it was just him, but other times, his friends would join him. They never touched her, not in that way, anyway, though lashings—the go-to punishment of the Old Spirits—were not uncommon. They just sat and stared, or when he lashed her, his friends would egg him on, because they knew watching her was somehow worse, because they knew that it made her more sick than doing the unspeakable would make her. She never cried, not unless a man I had never seen before came to visit. When Caspar left, this well-dressed man would come in, grasp her face in both hands, kiss her, and then just hold her. Caspar’s cruelty couldn’t break her, but this man’s kindness did. In his arms, she would weep softly, whisper that she was in pain, that she was so tired, and he would inject her with something that made her sleep. Even after she drifted off, he stayed, holding her, keeping her warm by wrapping his coat around her shoulders. On his arm, he bore a tattoo of an eagle spreading its wings, and that made me think that he was American, but when he spoke, his accent was distinctly Pangaean. When she awoke, he would be gone, and Caspar would be back, and all traces of her earlier tears would be gone.

  I saw all of it like it was happening, but I could not have seen it even if it really were happening. Only Brynna had that power, to see what was and what could be. I only had the power to see what would make me the saddest or angriest or most afraid.

  “I am very tired, so I am going to rest until I must go to work.” She told me through a yawn that she stifled with her hand. She stood and began to walk towards her and Macie’s bedroom. “Macie was alright while I was gone?”

  “Better than last time, but she still woke up crying for you.”

  “My poor love.”

  “She took Slumber Root early this morning, which is why she is still asleep.”

  “I figured as much. She will only take Slumber Root when it is you who offers it to her. She tells me to shove off. So stubborn, she is. She always has been. I swear, Illa learned it from her.”

  “Yeah, right!” I said with a laugh, “You passed Illa your stubbornness right through her umbilical cord.”

  “Did I?” She asked through another yawn, “I don’t believe it. I am not stubborn at all.”

  “Right. And I’m not dramatic.”

  “Point taken.”

  “Hey! That is so rude.”

  “Goodnight, Violet.”

  “Goodnight, Lucy.”