he was a victim of the of the part that loved, the part that was mortal
I wish she had looked betrayed.
That is what haunts me the most; the almost serene acceptance. I had not been there when she had been arrested, but I heard, later, through the streets. Our friends would not stop for days. “They said that she only nodded when they came knocking on the door, after her father’s funeral. They said that she went without any kind of struggle at all, almost as if she had been waiting for them.”
There had never been much gossip on Oresziah. Boudika the Betrayer had been the first large scandal in our lifetimes. I could not escape whispers of her arrest, of the way she had gone so quietly—
(I think a part of me had hoped, desperately hoped, that she would have fought: that they would have killed her on spot).
(It would have saved me the trials; the confessions; the telling and retelling of how she had confessed her love for me and, in the same breath, shared her lifelong secret).
How terribly brave, Vercingtorix.
How terribly brave, to enforce the standard of the people. How terribly brave, to turn in one you held in such esteem. How terribly brave, to sentence your companion to death.
Those were things the people said, too.
I am dreaming of the staircase.
The prison, built into the cliffside, had to be descended via a treacherous staircase. Half was built into the prison itself; but pieces of it were exposed to the elements, to the wind and the rain and the sea. The descent always felt as if one were descending into the mouth of Death, the Old God least spoken of on Oresziah.
I am dreaming of the staircase and the last time I saw her.
I am dreaming of the way the wind howled in my ears; voracious as a winter wolf in the last leg of the season, gaunt with hunger. It filled me up with emptiness, with the contradiction of being full of nothing. The dream is half memory and half imagined.
In it, I fall to my knees before her and cry out for forgiveness.
(I didn’t: in reality I stood before her and said nothing. In reality, I had stood there and attempted to ingrain each feature of her face to memory; each delicate arch; each sharp angle; the redness of her face; the crimson of her eyes, like blood, like a bleeding sunset. In reality, I thought in cruel repetition: betrayer, betrayer, betrayer).
But in the dream, my face is full of tears.
It was me, I say.
I was the betrayer, not you.
But she turns away and looks out the sea. When I blink, she has already become salt and sand.
——
Somewhere outside of my body I become aware of a useless string of facts.
The air is humid and cool. I can taste metal on my tongue.
My head pounds with the beat of unheard drums. (I realize, after a moment, it is my own thundering heartbeat).
I can smell the sea. My old leg injury is aching with particular fierceness.
My eyes are closed; but I am aware of a wood floor beneath me, and the rustling of fabric in a breeze. There is a part of me that does not want to open them, in fear of where I am, in fear of what I might see; it is almost easier to remain in the darkness, with my aching head, the smell of the sea.
(It is easy to be anywhere I wish, with these useless facts).
But then, I do open my eyes.
The cottage is small and unfamiliar; but in its unfamiliarity it reminds me sharply of someone I know. My legs are curled gracelessly beneath me; I begin to rise, but when I do so my stomach pitches like a boat in a storm. I think better of it and run my tongue over my teeth, trying to clear the metallic taste from my mouth. I am not successful. I hear, outside, the deep rumbling of Damascus’s breathing and remember through, as one remembers something that might have been a dream, the castle and the monster and the breaking window.
It occurs to me, at once, where Damascus had taken us. My voice, when I speak, cracks. “Elena?” I am not panicked, I am not afraid: but when I speak, I can only remember the eyes in the darkness, monstrous and cold.
If there is one thing I could change, I think, it would be the way that she had turned away from me when I spoke into the prison.
Boudika?
It had been the only time I said her real name aloud.
But she had turned her face away, toward the slatted window of her cell, the one that overlooked the slate gray sea.
Now, I snap my head toward the rustling fabric: the curtains are flowing in the breeze. Outside, I can see a storm out at sea. It is in the far distant, with soundless lightening and white-capped waves. Damascus's scythe-like tail gleams in the surreal light. It feels as if we have been taken from one nightmare to another and the effects of his yellow vapor continue to fog my mind.
That is what haunts me the most; the almost serene acceptance. I had not been there when she had been arrested, but I heard, later, through the streets. Our friends would not stop for days. “They said that she only nodded when they came knocking on the door, after her father’s funeral. They said that she went without any kind of struggle at all, almost as if she had been waiting for them.”
There had never been much gossip on Oresziah. Boudika the Betrayer had been the first large scandal in our lifetimes. I could not escape whispers of her arrest, of the way she had gone so quietly—
(I think a part of me had hoped, desperately hoped, that she would have fought: that they would have killed her on spot).
(It would have saved me the trials; the confessions; the telling and retelling of how she had confessed her love for me and, in the same breath, shared her lifelong secret).
How terribly brave, Vercingtorix.
How terribly brave, to enforce the standard of the people. How terribly brave, to turn in one you held in such esteem. How terribly brave, to sentence your companion to death.
Those were things the people said, too.
I am dreaming of the staircase.
The prison, built into the cliffside, had to be descended via a treacherous staircase. Half was built into the prison itself; but pieces of it were exposed to the elements, to the wind and the rain and the sea. The descent always felt as if one were descending into the mouth of Death, the Old God least spoken of on Oresziah.
I am dreaming of the staircase and the last time I saw her.
I am dreaming of the way the wind howled in my ears; voracious as a winter wolf in the last leg of the season, gaunt with hunger. It filled me up with emptiness, with the contradiction of being full of nothing. The dream is half memory and half imagined.
In it, I fall to my knees before her and cry out for forgiveness.
(I didn’t: in reality I stood before her and said nothing. In reality, I had stood there and attempted to ingrain each feature of her face to memory; each delicate arch; each sharp angle; the redness of her face; the crimson of her eyes, like blood, like a bleeding sunset. In reality, I thought in cruel repetition: betrayer, betrayer, betrayer).
But in the dream, my face is full of tears.
It was me, I say.
I was the betrayer, not you.
But she turns away and looks out the sea. When I blink, she has already become salt and sand.
Somewhere outside of my body I become aware of a useless string of facts.
The air is humid and cool. I can taste metal on my tongue.
My head pounds with the beat of unheard drums. (I realize, after a moment, it is my own thundering heartbeat).
I can smell the sea. My old leg injury is aching with particular fierceness.
My eyes are closed; but I am aware of a wood floor beneath me, and the rustling of fabric in a breeze. There is a part of me that does not want to open them, in fear of where I am, in fear of what I might see; it is almost easier to remain in the darkness, with my aching head, the smell of the sea.
(It is easy to be anywhere I wish, with these useless facts).
But then, I do open my eyes.
The cottage is small and unfamiliar; but in its unfamiliarity it reminds me sharply of someone I know. My legs are curled gracelessly beneath me; I begin to rise, but when I do so my stomach pitches like a boat in a storm. I think better of it and run my tongue over my teeth, trying to clear the metallic taste from my mouth. I am not successful. I hear, outside, the deep rumbling of Damascus’s breathing and remember through, as one remembers something that might have been a dream, the castle and the monster and the breaking window.
It occurs to me, at once, where Damascus had taken us. My voice, when I speak, cracks. “Elena?” I am not panicked, I am not afraid: but when I speak, I can only remember the eyes in the darkness, monstrous and cold.
If there is one thing I could change, I think, it would be the way that she had turned away from me when I spoke into the prison.
Boudika?
It had been the only time I said her real name aloud.
But she had turned her face away, toward the slatted window of her cell, the one that overlooked the slate gray sea.
Now, I snap my head toward the rustling fabric: the curtains are flowing in the breeze. Outside, I can see a storm out at sea. It is in the far distant, with soundless lightening and white-capped waves. Damascus's scythe-like tail gleams in the surreal light. It feels as if we have been taken from one nightmare to another and the effects of his yellow vapor continue to fog my mind.
