This story is marked M for some disturbing imagery.
Amara collapses on the old wooden chair with a
thump. She sighs. Freija gives her no mind; for a second her ear twitches, but she remains completely still, curled up in a ball of white fur with soft accents of charcoal grey.
When do we lose ourselves to the world? When does fate squeeze the last drop of your childhood, your innocence? Can we pinpoint the exact moment in which we've left the child behind and embraced the adult? When does chaos become order?
She throws her wand on the desk before her like it is the single most disgusting thing in the world. But -feeling guilty- she quickly changes her mind. Lazily she leans forward and reaches for Rósza—but even though her fingers are so close, they're still far enough that without one last push she cannot grasp it.
She shakes her head. She's too tired...
Leaning back into the seat, she drops her head back and stares at the ceiling. The paint is faded and shows its age without an ounce of grace; around the lampshade, the paint is cracked and there are small cobwebs gathered where the ceiling meets the walls.
She wonders where the spiders are. They probably can't stand to live in this place either.
She closes her eyes. She's tired... so tired. She's been here for five hours and already she's anxiously awaiting her departure. Eight -eight days in here and then she's back at the school. But time here has a twisted reality. She wonders what Emi was doing? She seemed well at the Yule dinner yesterday, but she always seemed well -laughing and glaring daggers at poor Miss Richards. A smile forms at the corner of Amara's lips, before it slowly fades into nothingness; she wonders how blissful it would be to be in her shoes. With no one expecting anything from her, with Victor barely pays any attention to her existence, she would have no responsibilities—but most of all she would have the luxury of being able to say "no".
She misses her. She loves her so much. Her baby sister, earnest, loving Emilia -the light of her eyes. Her sole beacon of light in this agony they call her life.
She places her clammy hands over her eyes. They feel cold and lifeless. She rubs at them, hoping that if she can successfully lie to herself she won't have to admit that tears are forming under her eyelids.
Amara never trifled with faith or religion. Or, no—wait. She did, at one point, but it's been so long she no longer remembers what having faith feels like. After she spent night after night praying to the obscure pagan gods of her mother to bring her back—only a child, just a child begging the Universe to give her back her mother (and after that her father, lost in his sorrow)... It never happened. No one listened. There were no gods for Amara.
But now she can't help but hope, h-o-p-e, that maybe if she tries, they'll listen. She knows it is an innate need of humans—to feel like they are part of something bigger than themselves; when all fails, it's easier to just drop everything on the shoulders of some deity—when all seems lost and you realize nothing in your power can set it right, it's easier to imagine that maybe some deeper, primordial entity can grant you this one little wish, easier to believe in a fantasy when reality turns into a scum-black torment.
When does the heart exhaust itself of its capabilities? When do we stop being human? When does chaos turn into order?
She thinks this moment is as good as any for a final stop. She thinks now is the end of everything she knows, kneeling in front of the sterile white bed, lost in time and space and everything that makes reality palpable to her mind.
She stops praying.
There are no gods, no deeper meaning to life; everything and everyone dies. Everything is consumed by the infinite corpulent maggots of the earth. The cycle of life, the order of all things natural—death comes for everyone, sparing no one.
She thinks she'd like to befriend Death, that it would welcome her like a dear, long lost friend.
She wakes up to a soft knock at the door. Dragging herself from under the covers, she looks around, terribly confused. Oh. She's
there. When did she fall asleep? Who pulled the blanket over her? She knows none of her relatives would do such a thing. Perhaps Viorica, her maid; the young woman always did have a strange fondness for her-
No, not fondness, Amara knows pity, even with her emotional impairment.
She gets out of bed too fast for her tired body and she falls right back on it as her head spins into a dizzying vortex. "Intră"
[1] she says softly as she takes her hands to her temples and rubs in small soothing circles.
The door opens slightly with a deep, long creak and Viorica's golden hair peeks through the small opening. Speak of the devil. "Îmi cer scuze, domnișoară Amara. E pregătită pentru dumneavoastră. Vă așteaptă în sala de antrenament"
[2] the woman says in her small, quiet voice. She always envied her voice, so feminine, like small bells on a sunny spring day.
"Mulțumesc, Viorica. Poți să te întorci la treburile tale."
[3]As the door creaks shut, Amara lets a breath she didn't know she was holding escape her lips—and feels the hairs on the back of her creep up to a standing point. Ever since she was a child she had thought if the Devil ever walked the Earth, it was in the form of her great-grandmother, Loredana Báthory.
Wrinkled and reeking of old and decay, she was as old as the world. Nevertheless, at one hundred and three the woman had more power and vigor in the fingernail of her little finger than all the witches and wizards of the clan. And Amara was supposed to take her throne—surpass her, even. And into her great-granddaughter she had poured all her knowledge, ever since the girl was merely seven years old.
She always did it forcefully, leaving the girl drained and useless... feeling like the the most worthless of creatures at the mercy of the sole of her ancient shoes.
Pitifully Amara hugs herself, hoping to calm her trembling body. Breathing in shallow gulps of air, she stares at her shoes, trying to find the strength to get up and walk out of the comfort of her own strange and alien room in the manor. And yet her shoes, her high-heeled, black varnished shoes, only serve to remind her of her own impotence, of her puny little figure, fragile and cracked, like a forgotten and used porcelain doll.
She shudders.
Later Amara will remember how
she looked at that dinner. Smiling, laughing and talking of
her newest adventures in Gryffindor house. Of
her friends and
her house mates, how
she got into trouble every other week but always had a good laugh about it with
her band of trouble-makers. She'll remember how
she ate with so much joy, and certainly very unladylike, as Miss Richards kept pointing out. But all
she did was glare at their governess and tell her there's only one lady of the house, and that was Amara. And Amara would smile a sweet and sour smile, burning at the back of her mind, loving
her for her ignorance but also hating
her for
her freedom,
her strength,
her ability to go against everything the Báthorys stood for, and all without the smallest effort.
Later Amara will think white suited
her. Unlike Amara,
she never wore dresses, but Miss Richards was persuasive, and it was Yule. That pretty little white dress, simple and delicate, made
her look like an angel.
But white soon leads to red and that pure glistening red on the faded white of the bed was the harshest contrast, the most terrifying combination of colors Amara would remember for the rest of her life.
She breathes heavily, her lungs ache with every intake of air and drops of sweat fall from her eyebrows onto her eyelashes. Her eyes sting. Her beige cotton dress clings to her body, soaked with sweat and blood. The deep, long gashes in the material expose her battered, bruised skin, but she doesn't feel the cold. Her legs are about to give out, she doesn't want to kneel in her presence. She grinds her teeth and squeezes the handle of the dagger in her hand. She looks at the woman, watching over the entire thing like its a spectacle, like those sick twisted bastards that gathered at the boundaries of the war to watch, to entertain themselves over the massacres, the blood gushing out, the agonizing screams of the wounded. She just sits there, towering like a Queen over her puny subjects, her eyes full of spite and hate. She abhors Amara's weakness. She knows she'll never rise to the standards of the old hag, but she'll never stop trying.
The poor man in front of her turns his head towards her grand grandmother begging -
begging her with his eyes to stop, to give the girl a break. The ancient woman doesn't even look at him, she merely purses her lips. He looks at Amara with pity, insurmountable pity, and guilt. But she doesn't blame him, he's only doing his job.
"Mă dezguști. Pauza s-a terminat. Începeți"
[4] Loredana says in a voice so devoid of humanity that even Amara feels a cold fear slashing at her body like a thousand needles. She takes a deep breath and straightens her body as best as her muscles allow her. She nods at the trainer, trying to let him know that it's okay, she's been through worse, he shouldn't worry. He gives her one last look of pity and maybe admiration. She can't tell.
She anchors her feet to the ground and raises her dagger hand in front of her. She doesn't watch him, she completely blocks out the image of the man. She focuses on the cold red gleam of the dagger. The dagger is a separate entity. He's not her opponent, the dagger is. And it's moving fast towards her. For a split second she thinks it would be so easy to just
not avoid it. To just stay there and take it—welcome the blade into her body. What good would it do? They'd heal her, punish her and start the training again. She ducks at the last possible moment, but too late. Blood starts pouring out of her shoulder, a warm satisfying tingle as it trickles down her arm. It feels almost pleasant, but pain in her sadistic, miserable way hits like a thunder only seconds later.
She's fourteen, going on fifteen. She's just a child. She'll be alright, the books say children are resilient. But is she? Is she still a child? Does she still have her innocence, did she ever have it? She doesn't think she'll get over this in once piece, she doesn't really know what happened.
She doesn't remember
her face. Gods, it's been a few hours, and she doesn't remember
her face.
It's just colors. A swirl of colors. There's bright red on old white. Dirty, rusted red on earthy brown. Viscous, tainted red on bright short strands of gold. Screaming red on fading pink. And two wide open blue eyes. infinite blue. Cold blue. Calm blue. Opaque blue. Dead blue. Dead.
"Du-te și spală-te. Mănânci de prânz în camera ta și la trei fix vii înapoi, aici. Ai înțeles?"
[5] the crone says to the barely standing girl. Amara nods and mutters her acknowledgement, praying she'll leave faster so she can collapse on her knees and lay there. When the woman finally does exit, her knees buck and she crumples to the floor in a heap of bruised and bloody limbs. Her dagger slips through her fingers and falls to the floor with a series of loud
clangs. She has seconds to see her young bearded trainer rush towards her, screaming something unintelligible before the world spins into darkness.
She curls in a pathetic ball in the bathtub. Her wounds sting every time the water ripples around her but she's too tired, just too tired to get out and grab the Dittany. The water's cold and bloody and stinks of that sharp iron smell. She stares at the tiny strands of viscous blood floating from her wounds through the water. She thinks it's almost beautiful—the way they slowly expand and dissipate. Almost like a lethargic tenebrous dance.
When the water gets so cold her skin starts to turn purple she lazily rises out of the water, like some deplorable water nymph. She doesn't bother with a towel, the mansion is so old the cold is deeply seated into the marrow of the house. Her skin instantly reacts to the temperature and soon every tiny hair on her body stands out, outraged, and the angry gashes on her body respond immediately with jolts of sharp, piercing pain. She gasps and grunts through her clasped teeth.
One bottle of Dittany later, her skin looks flawless and she's ready to get dressed. She chooses her most shoddy dress, the most dismal piece of clothing in the entire wardrobe. The rag that used to be her most comfortable cotton dress lies in a heap at the foot of the bed, muddied and bloody, a remnant of her sweet days of peace at Hogwarts. This family paints everything in blood and dirt. Everything.
She remembers when they were little -still a family. She remembers how
she used to crawl on the floor, barely able to walk. She remembers
her wide blue eyes and her cooing, how
she burst into a peal of laughter whenever
she saw their mother. How they both used to fall asleep curled around Otilia, while she sung or read to them. She vaguely even remembers Victor and how he doted on both
her and herself, how he used to laugh whenever
she tried to climb his legs and how Amara herself always pouted and demanded some of the attention. They were happy. She was happy, she was so blissfully happy that what came after made those beautiful moments seem surreal. A dream she dreams on one of those nights when she falls asleep imagining what life could be if she was still alive. Surely not reality.
When do we get so jaded and worn-out that we no longer function? When do we embrace and at the same time succumb to ataxia? Forfeit to entropy? When do we adopt bedlam as a standard of reality?
She's panting and rubbing at the drops of sweat forming at her upper lip. Her head's pounding, her body feels like it's centuries old and she can't help but feel sorry for the poor boy. At this point he'd jump in front of an
Avada just to see her satisfied. She hates her charm, she hates using it, she hates making these poor sods into pathetic little puppets. But she craves their warmth, their induced feelings—she
relishes in their idiotic adoration.
Just as she's about to push herself over her limits and make him completely infatuated to the point where there isn't a single bone in his body that doesn't belong to her, Viorica barges through the door, panting like she just ran the Bucharest marathon. Amara feels panic creeping up her spine. The kind doe-eyed maid would never, ever interrupt her training, much less with her grand grandmother present. Just as she expects, the ancient hag immediately starts to shout, but Viorica keeps running across the vast room to Amara. She stares at her wide-eyed, seeing the kind mind as if she's moving in slow-motion and a hundred of thoughts pass through her silver haired head, each worse than the other.
But nothing—not her family, not her education, not her past experiences,
nothing prepared her for this.
She lays on the cold marble floor in the hallway. They say Kensington's one of the happiest neighborhoods in London. That it's full of joy and peace and everything's full of grandeur and Paradise.
There's peace, indeed. All mausoleums are peaceful.
She'd like to be able to move and hug one of the piles of small clothes that surround her on all sides. But she can't. She wonders when was the last time she blinked. She's certainly been staring at the ceiling long enough. Her eyes feel dry, they burn. She'd like to cry, to wash their surface. She can't do that either.
Freija and Freyr are curled up on each side of her head. She can hear them breathing. They're not purring, they're not sleeping. They can't, either—they know, they certainly
know. Freyr has finally calmed down; Freija calmed him, for he was wailing and searching up and down desperately. But Freija -the big sister by a few minutes- takes her duty seriously; she had calmed him.
Amara finally closes her eyes. What about her? Who would she calm now?
She rolls on her side and hugs a pile of clothes with such force the two felines jump away, and inhales them deeply -taking in the sweet vanilla and lemongrass scent- and opens her eyes wide, horrified as lucidity hits her again. She throws the clothes away with little force, and grabs her head between her hands. Raising her knees to her chest, she feels her tears dripping at an awkward angle across her face—and the serenity of the quiet, happy neighborhood of Kensington is cut through by a long, pathetic wailing.
She screams her throat sore, rolling on the floor—hands at her eyes, rubbing futilely at the never-ending stream of tears.
Freyr joins her with the most excruciating caterwauling a cat could ever manage, creating a cacophony of horrible, agonizing sound. Freija sits stoically, a few paces away from them and looks between the girl and her brother, as if trying to reign herself in and be strong for the both of them.
"E o urgență! Trebuie să mergeți imediat la Londra! Domnul din șemineu a spus că trebuie să veniți de urgență la spitalul Sfântul Mungo unde-"
[6] Amara is almost as in a trance listening to the maid, she can't understand a single word she's saying—but then her entire world crumbles around her:
"-Emilia a avut un accident-"
[7]She doesn't wait for Viorica to finish talking. Later, when she understands, she'll regret her decision. She should've known better than to rush into something without having all the information needed—should have been prepared before she walked in
there.
She spares no second look or thought for anybody in this room or house as she dashes for Nea Marin
[8], the caretaker. It seems like forever until she finds him, and she starts screaming at him "St. Mungo's! St. Mungo's! London! Now! NOW!" She can't repeat herself, she can't, just can't. She lets out a huff as the man finally grabs her arm, befuddled and side-alongs her to the hospital.
"It's been two days. Please, please... I beg you, Miss Amara. You have to eat something, anything! Please-"
She registers Miss Richards pleading with her, but she can't react; she barely registers the smell of putrefaction and dried blood on her old and ragged dress.
She can't believe it's been two days. It can't be, it feels like an eternity. It's been two days.
Miss Richards is still talking—begging her, then threatening her, then begging again. She stares at Freija and Freyr curled up around each other, only a few centimeters away from her. Freyr's sleeping. Finally. Poor boy, he deserves some sleep. Freija's staring right into her eyes. She and her - a perfect mirror of Majorelle blue eyes.
"Please, Miss Amara! Please! I don't know what to do anymore! Your father's still missing, your relatives in Romania can't be reached. What do I do?! PLEASE!" Miss Richards stomps her foot like a petulant child, wiping at the tears and whimpering. Emi always stomped her foot like that... She'd like to scream, and scream, and scream, and tear the hair off her head and blast everything around her. But only one single, miserable tear falls from her eye, across the bridge of her nose and onto her cheek, before it disappears in the mass of her silver curls.
"At least move! PLEASE MOVE! You haven't moved a muscle in two days, please. Oh God, please..." The pillar of stoicism and propriety, their governess Miss Richards, crumbles to the floor on her knees. She's slowly rocking back and forth, her hands clutching at her face while she's shaking her head left and right in rhythm.
She arrives on the stairs of St. Mungo's with a pop and she can't even grasp the queasiness overcoming her from the apparition. Dashing to the entrance, she leaves a confused Nea Marin on the steps and kicks the doors open, walking assuredly to the reception. "Báthory," she says to the thin, smiling witch at the reception.
As soon as she gets her instructions, she makes a run for the salon she was pointed to. She cuts the corner to enter the corridor and—she
knows.
Gradually, she stops running.
Miss Richards is crying on a mediwitch's shoulder; the mediwitch is also crying. But she realizes the moment she looks at Victor. Victor -her father, the broken, soulless monster- is sitting on the floor, back to the wall, arms and legs splayed around his body like they're boneless. He's staring at the wall in front and banging his head softly against the wall supporting his body. A mediwizard is crouched next to him, shaking his shoulder but he doesn't seem to realize it.
Her hands start to tremble; she balls her hands into fists to still them. She's meters away from them, from
her, from
it—the epicenter of her life—and it feels like she'll never be able to reach it. Swallowing hard -and with a sudden loud wail of Miss Richards- she tunes everyone, everything out. Slowly, heavily, she advances through the corridor. It feels like sand, like quicksand, like a swamp; each time she raises her leg to make another step, it feels as if she has to pull it from the depths of some mucilaginous substance that wants to trap her, cover her completely and erase all traces of her existence.
They don't notice her; people in their grief are egotistical. The mediwizard finally sees her approaching, but he's too late. Before he has time to touch her, she shoulders him and rounds the corner to the salon.
She looks ahead of her, but...
doesn't, really. She takes a few unsure steps, and only makes it to the middle of the room before she has time to take one single gasp of rotten, bloodied air. She falls to her knees slowly—not as if her legs had bucked, but as if her body is slowly shutting down, refusing to cooperate any longer.
She feels someone, a woman kneeling behind her, putting trembling arms around her, unsure whether to calm her or to drag her back to her feet. "Miss Amara, please, please, you don't have to see this-" It's Miss Richards. "Oh dear, poor you. Why are the Gods so cruel to you," she cries into Amara's ear.
She shakes the heavy arms off with what little strength she has left. When she's out of her governess' clutches, she drags herself across the floor closer to the bed, closer to
her.
Is this where it all collapses? When everything we've imagined about our world falls in on itself and rebuilds itself crooked and twisted and insufficient? Is this where we drag the line between childhood and adulthood? Is this it?
The governess regains composure quickly—
too quickly. Amara wants to antagonize her, tell her she's not feeling enough, not suffering enough, not bloody
doing enough! Why wasn't she paralyzed on the floor? Why was she picking herself up so easily? What gave her the right to brush it off so soon?
As Freija rubs her nose to her cheek, Amara closes her eyes. She'd like to hug the feline, pass her hands through her soft fur—to reassure her and let herself be reassured in return. But she can't...
"I understand, Miss Amara, I understand. But you have to be strong, you have to piece your life back together. She wouldn't want this..." the governess says. Amara's eyes grow big and she almost,
almost raises her head to stare incredulously at the witch. What the hell does she know about what
she would or wouldn't want. How
dare she?
"That's it. I'm dragging the mediwizards here, this is-"
Be it as she likes. They can't do anything for her.
Amara hears the woman shuffling closer, and her black sensible shoes come into view. Amara doesn't know what she's doing, but before she knows it, the governess is leaning down, grabbing at the heap of clothes in her arms. Amara doesn't think (
will she ever think again?) and whips out her wand so fast, the girl wonders how her muscles could be this efficient after two days of apathy, after two days of no sleep, no food, no water. Survival instincts and possessiveness are wondrous, indeed.
She thinks she stupefied her, but she can't be sure because her lips never moved and her mind was a vacuum. Whatever it was, it was either Rósza acting on its own again, or just intent. Pure, simple, unadulterated intent. Stilling her wand in the air, she watches as the crumpled body of her governess slowly slip down the wall, until it lies still.
A small wound appears on the woman's temple; promptly it begins to bleed.
Amara's brows furrow. Slowly, she pushes herself up; it feels like forever before she manages to get into a sitting position, and another eternity before she manages to stand.
Curiously, she steps toward the limp form of her governess. She crouches. Jabbing at her with her wand, Amara inspects her coldly.
She's alive. A pity.
Her eyes lock on her face, and—she is
fascinated by the blood. Did she always look this pathetic? So small and fragile... She had always seen the woman as a sort of foundation, a being that demanded respect by presence alone.
She reaches a hand to Miss Richards' face, and for just a moment—a single, last moment of humanity—Amara gently brushes her cheek. But then she drags her index finger across that face, and wipes at the trickle of blood. She pulls her hand away, examines the finger with scientific curiosity. Her head cocks to the right, noting the way the liquid catches the light, and then-
In a single second, everything she had been taught is wiped clean from her mind.
Briefly, she slips the bloodied digit into her mouth and sucks on it, before releasing it with a soft
pop. She chuckles, a sinister smile gathering at the corners of her lips—and then she's kicking her head back and
laughing, laughing and whimpering at the same time. A completely unnatural sound comes out from her bruised throat-
-and she stills, her mouth still open, frozen between a snarl and a laugh. She's gone—
everything is gone. No more. On all fours -a whimper crawling up her throat- she inches back to the clothes and gathers them all in one place. She throws herself over them, rolling and writhing and wailing—wailing, like a demented banshee.
Her lamenting would be heard throughout the entire night and until the New Year.
She can't look at
her. Not yet, not just yet. She needs another moment of blissful oblivion. But she looks at
her hand, her small, bruised hand, and she tentatively touches it with the tips of her fingers. And then it hits her. Clasping the delicate, bluish-tinged hand between her own and slowly leaning forward, resting her forehead on it, the tears start pouring from her eyes.
"This is too cruel—too damned cruel..." she hears the governess through the white noise in her head.
Ever so slowly Amara rises to her feet, still holding onto the small hand tightly. She looks at
her, just...
looking.
Bright red on old white -a big stain of blood on the crisp, white hospital sheet, just right under her head; dirty, rusted red on earthy brown -the simple, ordinary brown sweater is burned and shredded, and the blood only makes it look dirtier.
Desecrated.
"There was an accident. A terrible, horrible accident. She was going to stay with a schoolmate until New Year's. She-she didn't do well in muggle London, you know -you know that—"
Viscous, tainted red on bright short strands of gold—perfect golden curls, muddied and caked in blood. Violent, screaming red on fading pink -her pure porcelain skin fades to blue, bruised and stained with splatters of blood. Amara thinks she might've been able to cope if it weren't for
her eyes... Those beautiful, beautiful azure eyes, that are still open wide, terrible fear still etched in them, the blood and dirt on her face still streaked with
tears. They were lonely,
she had died alone and scared, and Amara knew it —and it's shattering her heart. She opens her mouth, to scream —
scream like her limbs were being ripped away from her body, but nothing, nothing at all comes from her throat.
"She wasn't paying attention, she was looking the other way -she was always so excited... A car came from the left and it was speeding -Gods, I can't—"
Another voice, a male voice. "The car hit her fully, but her body was thrown on the other lane, where another car was passing. The driver steered and... she was caught between two vehicles. I am so sorry, Miss—"
She tucks her in lovingly and brushes
her matted, bloody hair out of
her face. Mindlessly she climbs on the bed, and settles herself between the body and the wall. She puts her face on
her bloody chest and wraps her arms around
her."It was muggle London, and she was unaccompanied, so she was taken to a muggle hospital. She'd already suffered severe blood loss, and there wasn't much muggle medicine could've done for her. When they eventually got through to your family, she was prepped and ready to be transferred to our care, but it was too late—"
She shuts her eyes tight and rocks
her slowly in her arms. Alone, completely alone. What had she been doing? Why had she not been with
her? How could she have left
her alone? She can't remember anything...
"She passed on her way here. There was nothing we could've done—"
"Sweet Nimue" Miss Richards is shrieking "I am so sorry, so unforgivably sorry, Miss Amara. Your father was in a meeting and they couldn't reach him until a few moments before you arrived. She was still alive when they got to me... They told me to come to St. Mungo's, that they're transferring her here, and I sent for you immediately and made my way here. I am so sorry, so sorry—"
She buries her head in the crook of her neck and whimpers, a horrible, keening sound that grows until-
It
erupts out of her. Her sobs turn into agonizing screams, and she's wailing into
her hair, rocking back and forth with the light of her life, with her little sister, her precious little sister bereft of life in her arms.
When do we stop being human? When do we turn into monsters?
For Amara, it stops now—and starts right here.
There are not enough words in the world to thank Sly for her amazing beta work. <3
[Winter break 2009-2010] One of these days the sky's gonna break (Snapshot, M)