Seven in the evening. Woodstock, Oxfordshire. England.
Setting

Essence of Sleep
Take once a day, after a meal.
1 tbspn.

Raine Almasy sat on the bed in her room, examining the glass bottle in her hand. The label was parchment yellow, worn from years of sitting on Governess McGregor's shelf of remedies. Merlin knew where she got these cures or whether it was still legal to keep half of the things that woman had in her possession. The words blurred. Raine looked up at the white panelled walls, blinking and breathing in deeply. That's what the Healer said. Long, deep breaths. One after another after another and then she felt the clenching sensation in her stomach relax, relieved. She did not want to go to sleep.

"Raine! Raine darling, if you see my lace gloves, pass them on to the house elf, won't you?" Mama's voice reached gratingly from the ground floor, shrill and foreign in a house that had been nothing but silent since the funeral. Raine didn't answer because she knew her mother was already halfway out the front door, going to meet papa at the evening cafe just around the corner- the only one that opened until midnight. They were going there to see the family solicitor from Moscow, who wished to discuss the amendments of several wills. Something about conditional bequeaths. Red tape nonsense.

The front door slammed close and the house shook, which was saying something. The Almasy residence was a large home-- a square structure that went around a tiny courtyard in the center. Every corridor had a window that overlooked the courtyard but Raine's quarters opened out onto the street and a stone wall across. Her lights were dimmed. In the dark evening, this bedroom look melancholy. She exhaled heavily and uncorked the bottle while she brought her legs up onto the bed. Sleep was not preferable but the dark circles under her eyes were causing concern.

"No tablespoon..." Raine murmured, looking back down at the bottle-- wondering what would happen if she took more than required. A swig or two. "Would I die?" She wondered out loud in a monotone and nearly dropped the elixir when a reply come from the doorway.

"Would you please?" The response was uttered in her own voice and she felt a contracting pain in her chest, squeezing her hammering heart. But of course that wasn't her voice. Raine looked up to see the unruffled, slender form of her twin sister standing there with a subdued smile and her Ravenclaw robes.
 
"I'm waiting, you know. All you have to do is die." Sanya Almasy's timbre was pleasant, as though she were inviting you down to the Great Hall for Christmas lunch. Raine only stared. She found that she could not move. Could not push herself back or stand up or even scream because the pain in her chest had moved to the rest of the body, strangling the air back into her lungs.

The house was so quiet and an autumn nip had settled in. Cold. Sanya tilted her head with characteristic poise as their eyes locked in an identical and intense gaze. "Please, Raine?"

Raine shook her head with a sudden jerk. She forced a word: "No." It came out a whisper.

Almost on cue, Raine shut her eyelids tightly. Her sister's light and airy footsteps moved away into the outside corridor. Further, further-- fading. They were imaginary. Hallucinatory. She knew this. When Raine opened her eyes again, there was nothing in the room but the faint smell of peaches and an unnatural chill. Her shoulders were shaking; her insides felt odd, wintry.

The young witch glanced down at the sleeping elixir and then hurled it towards the wall, where it shattered with a powerful crash. An amber, syrupy liquid trickled to the wooden floor. Sleep could be worse than illusion. In dreams the question never changed but her answers always did. None of that tonight.

Raine rose from her bed and left the room in a daze, wondering if they still had any coffee beans left in the kitchen cupboard.