#out here writing prisoner-length chapters like a SUCKER

[superfluouskeys]

wip whenever (s'unfinished sunday ♥)

thank you so much to @myreia AND @thevikingwoman for the tags!!

I haven't written anything that wasn't for school/work in awhile and unfortunately I'm still on the verge of burned out so it will prob be a bit. so here is more original thing from the nano times! it is once again a long segment (4.8k words LOL) bc i very much want to inflict it on ppl. part one is here

i'm doing the cop-out and saying i'm tagging anyone who wants to share!! but frfr! do it and tag me! merry crisis-eve everyone!!

slight general content warning, but i think part 1 sets the tone

--

Blissfully, a hard knock at the door comes to her rescue, and she promptly excuses herself from any further discussion on the matter of her many failings.

“Tamsin, I’m so glad I caught you!”  It is Penelope at the door, who always seems to know what’s going on with everyone in Godsplace.  Penelope has a round, pleasant face like that of Mrs. Burkow, and although she is not of noble birth, she has a similar freckled complexion and strawberry blonde hair, done up in a proper, fashionable style.

“What’s got you so worked up?” Tamsin wonders, smiling fondly.  She imagines she’d have been relieved to see just about anyone right now, but Penelope holds a special place in her heart.  Penelope is the kind of person who can change the whole mood of a room just by walking into it.

Penelope takes her by the hands, positively trembling with excitement.  “You’ll never believe it���there’s a Keeper in town!”

“A Keeper,” Tamsin echoes slowly.  The term is familiar, but it’s not the sort of thing one hears every day.  “Not a Memory-keeper?”

“Just so!” Penelope shakes her hands, and is already halfway to tugging her out the door.  “Someone just spotted her going into the tavern—oh, I wonder if she’ll stay the night?  Come on, we’ve got to—“

“Tamsin?”

Mrs. Burkow doesn’t like Penelope.  Which makes her just about the only one, by Tamsin’s estimation.

“Oh.  Hello, Penelope,” Mrs. Burkow smiles thinly.  “What’s this I hear about a Memory-keeper?”

Penelope tenses her shoulders a little.  She is acutely attuned to other people, their moods and peculiarities, which is one of the reasons Tamsin likes her so much.

“Yes, ma’am,” says Penelope, with a small nod of respect.  “May I please steal Tamsin away from you, just for a little while?  Why, the last time a Memory-keeper came to Godsplace must have been…”

“I’m afraid not, Penelope,” says Mrs. Burkow, wielding the brunt of her kindly features with a note of sorrow in her warm voice.  “Tamsin has just come home, after all, and here it’s almost time for supper.  Lots to do for the big day, you know!”

“Oh, of course!  Of course, well,” Penelope has not quite let go of Tamsin’s hands.  She is still trying, and Tamsin loves her for that.  “Well, maybe just a quick peek?  The tavern’s not far, and we’ll come right back, and I’ll even—“

“Penelope,” Mrs. Burkow cuts her off with a note of motherly disapproval.  “Don’t you have something better to do than going to that dreadful tavern to gawk at some…person we know nothing about?”

Penelope falters under Mrs. Burkow’s steadfast disapproval.  She knows it is unwise to speak too fondly of a Memory-keeper, particularly when someone has just cast doubt upon the woman’s scruples.  As far as the people of Godsplace are concerned, there’s only so much difference between a Memory-keeper who deserves respect and a common witch who deserves to burn.

“Yes, I suppose you’re right, Mrs. Burkow,” says Penelope with a sigh.  She squeezes Tamsin’s hands in a silent apology before she lets go.  “You know me,” she continues with a self-effacing shrug, “I can’t help getting all excited when something new happens.  Sorry to disturb you both.”

Tamsin watches her go, feeling just shy of hopeless.  On the one hand, her mother is probably right.  With the way things are in Godsplace, it’s probably better not to go within a stone’s toss of anything magical.  On the other hand, she’s never seen a real Memory-keeper before.  Stories paint them as wizened old crones, backs bent low from an impossibly long life, but the last time a Memory-keeper came to Godsplace was long before Tamsin or Penelope were alive.

As she closes the front door, Tamsin wonders with a twinge of annoyance if Bryce knew about this and didn’t tell her, if this was the source of his strange comment about her being careful.  It makes more sense than anything else she can think of.  She suppresses a sigh and sets about preparing dinner.  It’s unlikely she’ll see him before the wedding, and she’d very much like to give him a piece of her mind.

“Have you ever seen one?” Tamsin wonders cautiously as she chops vegetables.

Mrs. Burkow perches herself at the table to continue her knitting while Tamsin cooks.  “What, a Memory-keeper?”

“Mhm.”

“Goodness, no.  And why would I want to?”

“I don’t know,” says Tamsin, as casually as she can manage.  “It’s just interesting, is all.”

Mrs. Burkow scoffs.  “It’s only interesting because you think you’ve never seen it before.  But that business in the Square you hate so much?  It’s the same thing.  No sense in putting some old bat on a pedestal just because, what?”  She chuckles derisively.  “She got a fancy education in witchcraft?  The whole thing is ridiculous, and I expect anyone with more brains than young Penelope won’t be shy in telling this ‘Keeper’ exactly that.”

 Tamsin knows better than to argue.  Still, the idea sits uncomfortably at the back of her mind while she cooks.  Memory-keepers are women who wield magic, and they’re supposed to have a special place in society wherever they roam.  Tamsin has heard that in some places it’s a punishable crime to deny basic aid to a Keeper.  If she asks for a bed to sleep in or something to eat or a sip of water, one is expected to give it to her.

Most places, though, don’t need laws to enforce such things, at least as far as Tamsin has heard.  The fear of magic is more than enough to elicit compliance.

It’s something Tamsin has thought in passing, and something her mother has just explicitly said—that a Keeper’s magic is the same as what makes the people of Godsplace gather in the Square to put overgrown children to the flame.  Maybe Tamsin wanted to go and see so that she could know whether it’s different or not, as though a person could know just by looking.  What makes this Keeper so very different from the little girl in the Square?

Tamsin stokes the fire and watches the water boil in silence.  She imagines Mrs. Burkow would be happy if she brought up the wedding, but the idea turns her stomach.  Particularly now, when she’s angry with Bryce just in case he’s lied to her.  Anyway, what is there to say?  She’ll go over to the Davensay estate to get ready, they’ll go and have the ceremony, and then it will be over and done with.

Mrs. Burkow will probably try to sell this little house.  Tamsin wonders if she’ll start trying to dress the way the older noble ladies do, with heavy skirts and extravagant furs.  It would suit Mrs. Burkow, in a way.

Tamsin serves them both a hefty portion of stew, her mind still on magic and burning and lingering screams.  When Mrs. Burkow stifles a yawn, Tamsin wonders if perhaps she can sneak out.  She’s got a lot to attend to, after all, and there’s no telling whether she’ll be too late by tomorrow.  The Memory-keeper may be run out of town by then, and Bryce will be busy doing gods-know-what all day.  If she’s smart about it, perhaps she can catch a glimpse of the Keeper and make her way over to Bryce’s to demand an explanation.

It would be better if she could engage in conversation, but she just can’t bring herself to do it.  This is exactly why she’ll make such a poor noblewoman.  How is she supposed to make small talk when there’s only one thing she could possibly want to talk about?

“Goodness me, but it’s been a long day,” says Mrs. Burkow with another yawn.  “I hope you won’t mind if I leave you with the dishes?”

“Of course not,” says Tamsin.  Mrs. Burkow always leaves her with the dishes.  Mrs. Burkow always leaves her with everything.  Then, because it is the only ingratiating thing she can bring herself to say, she amends, “Honestly, I like doing them.”

“Ah, there’s our Tamsin,” Mrs. Burkow drawls happily.  She stands with a stretch and collects her knitting.  “Enjoy it while it lasts, then.  Soon you won’t have to trouble yourself with such things any longer.”

Tamsin scoffs.  She collects the bowls.  “You really think I won’t have to do my own dishes?”

“Of course not!” says Mrs. Burkow, delighted to have landed at last upon her favorite subject.  “You’ll have maids and servants and whatnot to attend to all that.”

“And what will I do?” Tamsin wonders genuinely.

“Why, relax and enjoy yourself, Tamsin!  What else?”  Mrs. Burkow yawns again.  “Oh, my, but it has been a long day.  You’re sure you don’t mind?”

“Not at all,” says Tamsin, as plainly as she can manage.  “Get some rest.”

“See that you get some rest, yourself!” Mrs. Burkow points at her.  “It won’t do to have you looking all worn out on your big day!”

Tamsin forces a shadow of a smile.  “I’ll try,” she says.

She cleans the kitchen quietly and with care, and listens for signs that Mrs. Burkow has fallen asleep.  For a mercy, she is a heavy sleeper, and won’t likely rouse so long as Tamsin is careful.

Tamsin slips on her shoes and her coat, and waits in perfect silence at the front door for several more minutes before she dares to turn the handle.  The house answers her with an easy silence, and so she sets forth with a short-lived sense of victory.

Her confidence falters as soon as she closes the door behind her, and she is shrouded in darkness.  She wishes she could have gone to the tavern when it was still light out, and with Penelope for company.  Now that she thinks about it, it’s mostly men who go there, usually much older, plus the odd traveler in need of a room.

And anyway, she doesn’t even know if the Keeper will still be there.  It’s been hours since Penelope came by, and the way things are going, the tavern-keeper could easily have thrown her out on lofty accusations of witchcraft.  Indeed, Tamsin coming around asking about her could be viewed with great suspicion, particularly if whatever happened earlier didn’t go over well.

Just like her mother said, she doesn’t know anything about this woman.  She barely knows anything about the Memory-keepers in general.

Not so long ago, she’d have gone over to Bryce’s and he’d have joined her.  But she doesn’t know whether he knew already and chose to keep the information from her, and if that is the case, she doesn’t know what it means.  Is it just because they’re on such uncertain terms now?  Or is this the way it’s always going to be, now that she’s to be his wife?

“Hey, Tamsin.”

Tamsin is so lost in her thoughts that she startles at the sound.  The streets are mostly dark but for a few lights in windows, and the dim glow from a lantern hung over Teddy Page’s small, open barn.  Teddy himself is cast in shadow against the doorframe, leaning back with arms crossed.

“What are you doing out here?” she asks him.

Teddy Page is a quiet sort, somewhat nondescript in looks, and Tamsin doesn’t know much about him.  She knows that his family lost their animals in the last Season of Frost, and since then they’ve gotten by selling excess feed and cut grass, which is all the small barn now holds.  She has heard other rumors about Teddy and his family, but she doesn’t put much stock in such things.  There are plenty of rumors about her, too.

“Same as you, I guess,” he says.

“You heard about the Memory-keeper at the tavern?” Tamsin wonders skeptically.  Little as she knows about Teddy, she’d have guessed he held an opinion similar to Mrs. Burkow’s.

“Oh, is that it, then?” Teddy drawls, in a tone that makes Tamsin’s skin crawl.  She wishes she hadn’t said anything.

“Don’t tell me you’re not the slightest bit curious,” Tamsin tries.

“Your new husband know you’re out at night?” Teddy wonders sourly.

Tamsin averts her gaze.  “He’s not my husband yet.  And anyway, it’s none of his business where I go.”

Teddy chuckles mirthlessly.  He moves from leaning on the doorframe to standing upright.  “He’s in for a nasty surprise.  You’d think a girl like you would be a little more grateful.”

Although the words set her nerves on edge, she tries to laugh it off.  “You sound just like my mother.”

“Your mother has a good point, then,” says Teddy.  He approaches, his shadow slowly eclipsing the dim glow from his lantern.  “Come on, what’s a girl like you doing going to the tavern at this hour?”

“What’s that supposed to mean, a girl like me?” Tamsin asks him, but she is trying with all her might not to retreat from him on pure instinct.

“Nice, respectable girl,” says Teddy.  “Girl with a future.  Girl who doesn’t want people getting the wrong idea.”

Teddy is standing too close now, close enough that she can see the vague outline of his features even in near-darkness, but Tamsin is too proud to take a step back.  “The wrong idea about what?” she asks, and hears her own voice tremble.

Teddy grabs her by the arm.  It’s not a rough grip, but his hand is large and strong, and Tamsin almost flinches.

“About what she’s there for,” he says darkly.

Tamsin tries to swallow, but her throat has gone dry.  “I don’t understand,” she says.  “What do you mean?” 

Part of her is screaming that she should run.  She doesn’t even know where.  It hardly matters.  Just away.  But the sensible part of her is telling her that she knows Teddy, even if she doesn’t know much about him.  Surely there is simply something she is failing to understand.

Teddy lets out a soft huff of air.  He is so close now that Tamsin can feel his breath on her face.  Revulsion courses through her, and she tries at last to free herself from his grip.  It doesn’t even seem to faze him.  He grabs onto her other arm, and she is trapped.

“You really don’t know?” he wonders.  He is too close, too close, and still getting closer.  “I can show you.”

“Teddy, what are you doing?” Tamsin squirms, and his wet, open-mouthed kiss lands somewhere around the line of her jaw.  It is a sickening sensation, and so shocking that Tamsin stops struggling.  “What are you—?” she asks again, but panic runs like ice through her veins, and she’s not sure she can even trust her legs to hold her anymore.

This whole thing was a mistake.  Perhaps the worst mistake Tamsin has ever made.  Bryce was right.  Her mother was right.  Even Teddy himself was right.  What does Tamsin care for some strange old woman in a tavern?  Tamsin should only be so lucky as to marry someone kind and decent, should only be so lucky as to have a home with a mother who looks out for her.  Tamsin is a nothing, a nobody.  She has no family name, no past, and without her mother’s perseverance and Bryce’s kindness, she would have no future.

“Teddy, stop, enough,” Tamsin murmurs, but her arms and legs have gone numb, and she can barely bring herself to move.

Teddy is kissing her neck in that same wet, uncomfortable manner, and she thinks he is saying something, too, but her head is spinning, and she thinks she’ll be sick.  She can’t see anything, and she has no idea what to do.  Could she scream if she tried?  Would it make any difference?  In the back of her mind, she still hears the high, thin scream of the little girl in the Square as the flames met her skin.  That little girl will never stop screaming, and it doesn’t make any difference at all.

Apropos of nothing, Tamsin starts to feel angry again.  Will she be put to the flame now, too, if the truth comes out?  Bryce is already marrying well below his station.  A nameless peasant girl without even her virtue is surely a step too far, even for him.  Even if it’s her.

It doesn’t make any sense, but Tamsin can’t help but wonder if this was that little girl’s crime—not actual witchcraft, but the misfortune of being in the wrong place at the wrong time, such that a man she’d previously thought very little about had suddenly decided he could resist her wicked wiles no longer.

Did Bryce know?  Another thought that makes no sense, and yet Bryce was so cagey earlier that Tamsin cannot shake the certainty that there is something he wasn’t telling her.  Did Bryce know why the girl was burned?  Is that why he warned Tamsin to be careful, practically begged her to come to him if she needed anything?

She is so furious with Bryce that she momentarily forgets the precariousness of her circumstances.  “Enough!” she cries, in a voice barely her own, and with inhuman strength throws the hulking Teddy off of her and onto the straw-covered floor of his barn.

Teddy is staring up at her, now fully illuminated by the lantern, pure loathing etched into his unremarkable features.  Reality crashes back into her, and she nearly staggers from the force of the impact.

“You little—“ he starts to stagger to his feet.

There is a…sound.  Like a whistle of wind, barely even perceptible.  Except that Teddy stops speaking abruptly, as though the air were rent from his lungs.  Then, it’s like something is constricting him, like an invisible rope wraps itself around his body and pulls, tighter and tighter, until he is gasping for breath, and his feet aren’t quite touching the floor.

“I think that’s quite enough out of you, wouldn’t you say?”

An unfamiliar voice, sharp and commanding, comes from just over Tamsin’s shoulder, and Tamsin whirls around to face its owner.  The stranger is barely illuminated by Teddy’s lantern, and the hood of her cloak obscures the precise shape of her face.  But her eyes are…glowing, almost, as though they were their own source of light.

To Tamsin, she is an angel and a savior.

But the cloaked woman ignores her, strange, glowing gaze fixed upon Teddy, who is now fully suspended in midair.

“Disgraceful behavior from a young man,” says the woman.  As she approaches Teddy, Tamsin notices that she is holding her hands at her waist in a very peculiar manner.  It’s like she is controlling something, like the invisible rope that constrains Teddy is coming from her.

“Tell me.  Isn’t it a crime in this Gods place to force oneself upon a young lady?”  She speaks the name, Godsplace, like it is two separate words, and with such derision that it sounds like bitter sarcasm, the same way some people will mutter Gods-forsaken-place, or Place-the-gods-forgot.

Teddy sputters a disjointed reply, which contains the phrase “—asking for it.”

“Really?” the cloaked woman wonders, as though genuinely considering this.  “Because, you know, I was just passing by, and I’m sure I heard the lady tell you to stop.”

To punctuate her judgment, the woman…flicks her hands forward, and in doing so, throws Teddy hard against the wall of the barn.  He lands in a sputtering heap, just as enraged as before, but now at a distinct disadvantage. 

“Foul, cursed witch,” he blusters.  “What’ll you do, turn me in?  You can’t hurt me.”

“Can’t?” the woman repeats, again like she is considering this proposition seriously.  “Hmm.  No, you must be mistaken.  It’s not that I can’t hurt you, not at all.”  She looms over him now, like some kind of ancient hero just before he strikes the killing blow.  “More precisely, I have sworn not to harm the likes of you.  But vows can be broken, you see.  And so I suppose it depends upon whether you believe my word means anything to me.”

This seems to strike genuine terror into Teddy.  Tamsin would never admit it out loud, but it is somewhat gratifying to witness.

“You can’t!” he stammers, petulant.  “You can’t do anything to me!”  And then, so quiet Tamsin thinks she imagines it, he amends, “Please.”

“Oh,” the woman drawls, “now we’re getting somewhere.  I suggest you run along, and quickly.  I won’t ask twice.”

Teddy does not take long to weigh his options.  He scrambles to his feet and staggers through the barn, knocking Tamsin to the ground with the full weight of his body as he goes.  “You’ll pay for this,” he snarls, but he does not stop moving.  He runs clumsily all the way back to the front door of his house, slamming it behind him without a care for the lateness of the hour.

The cloaked woman approaches, and offers her a hand.  “Are you all right?” she asks.

Tamsin is stricken by the stark difference in her tone.  Although there is still a certain sharpness to the way she speaks, all the coldness, all the malice is gone.  She takes the woman’s hand, and the woman easily pulls her to her feet.

“Fine,” Tamsin stammers belatedly.  “I’m fine.  Thank you.  Really, I can’t thank you enough.”

“I pray you forgive me my lateness,” says the woman with a small bow of her head.  “I would have intervened a moment sooner, but your casting caught me off my guard.”

“Casting?” Tamsin echoes blankly.

The woman’s head inclines by a fraction, a quick, minuscule motion.  “When you pushed the boy away.  Did you not see it?  Feel it, perhaps?”

Tamsin shivers involuntarily.  “All I felt was angry.”

The woman nods slowly.  “Of course,” she says curtly.  “No matter.  Shall I walk you home?  There’s something I must discuss with you.”

“With me?”  Tamsin’s mind reels.

The woman nods again.  “You’ll need training, of course.”

“Training?”

“For the magic.”

For a moment, Tamsin thinks she really must be dreaming, or else she’s surely about to faint.  Nothing about this moment feels remotely real, or even possible.  “Magic?”

“As I just mentioned, before, when you pushed the boy away?” the woman clarifies patiently.

“But—“ Tamsin flounders.  “That can’t be possible.  I can’t.  I couldn’t—“

“Oh, but you can,” says the woman.  It is a kind statement.  Her severe expression softens into a subtle smile.  “I’ve just seen it.”

When Tamsin doesn’t respond, the woman’s smile disappears, and she gestures that Tamsin should lead the way out.  “But you cannot stay here,” she continues.  “Not with the Gift.  You know perfectly well what happens to young ladies who try to hide their talents.  You bore witness just this afternoon.”

“The girl in the Square,” Tamsin murmurs, without entirely meaning to speak.  She looks up.  “Was she really—?  I mean, were you there?  Could you…I don’t know, tell?”

She has accepted, because she wants to, and because there is no other reasonable explanation, that this woman is the Memory-keeper Penelope spoke of.  She still cannot quite fathom why this legendary figure would have any interest in talking with a nameless peasant girl, and so she thinks that she ought to ask every question she can think of while she has the chance.

“I saw…traces,” says the woman.  “It’s difficult to tell with certainty, however.  Many who possess the Gift never even know it.”

“Never know it?” Tamsin echoes.  “How could that be?”

The woman hums thoughtfully.  “How shall I put this?  The Gift manifests itself on…a spectrum, shall we say?  Some are so weak in the Gift that none would ever notice, while some are so strong that they couldn’t possibly deny it.  And of course the vast majority are not magical at all.”

Tamsin considers this.  This seems somehow more acceptable to her.  “So…you think I am…I mean, that I do have the Gift?  But if it’s only a little bit, then maybe—“

“Oh, do not mistake me, uh—“  The woman stops short.  “Forgive me, I’ve forgotten to ask your name.”

“Tamsin.  And…yours?  If I may ask.”

As though directly counter to Tamsin’s lackluster introduction, the cloaked woman brings a hand to her heart and offers a regal curtsey.  “I am Althea Blackthorne,” she says.  “Althea, if you please.  Keeper Althea, if you’re inclined toward formality.”

Tamsin takes in a shuddering breath.  “You really are a Memory-keeper,” she murmurs.

Again Althea’s severe features soften into a smile.  Tamsin only now notices that her eyes are a shade of grayish-blue, striking but decidedly ordinary, and no longer glowing.  Although her smile wrinkles her eyes faintly, she is far from a wizened old crone.  Indeed, Tamsin thinks Althea can’t even be as old as Mrs. Burkow.

Althea inclines her head toward the road.  “Shall we keep going?  There’s much I have to tell you, and very little time to prepare.”

Tamsin nods mutely and turns to lead the way back home.  Although, now that she thinks of it, she doesn’t have the faintest idea what she’s going to do when she gets there.  Wake up Mrs. Burkow to tell her that not only did Tamsin sneak out of the house, but she’s brought back the very Memory-keeper Mrs. Burkow would call a common witch?

“Right, as I was saying,” Althea continues, “while some people are so weak in the Gift that no one would ever take any notice, such is decidedly not the case for you, Tamsin.”

Tamsin almost trips over her own feet.  She can feel her heart hammering in her chest.  It’s simply not possible.

But Althea keeps talking, either ignorant or indifferent to Tamsin’s internal turmoil.  “And while it is true that someone weaker in the Gift might never discover her talent, even she could not deny it once it made itself known to her.  The Gift wants to be used, you see.”

Althea makes a sweeping gesture toward Tamsin.  There is something particular about the way she holds her hands, even when she is only talking.  Like she could reach out and pluck at the threads of the universe with little more than a thought.

“Magic is not merely contained within the Gifted,” says Althea, gesturing toward Tamsin.  “Magic is in you, but it is also all around you.  You are a source, but you are also a conduit.”

Tamsin averts her gaze.  She wraps her arms about herself.  “You’ll understand if this is still a bit…hard to believe.”

Althea hums.  “Yes, I suppose it would be.  You said you didn’t…see anything?”

Tamsin thinks back.  Although she hardly noticed anything before Althea’s intervention, she imagines she will remember that for the rest of her days.  “It looked like…like Teddy was being held by an invisible rope.  And I saw the way your hands looked, so I could guess you were controlling it.  But that’s all I saw.”  Then, ashamed, she amends, “I’m sorry.”

“No need for an apology,” Althea shakes her head.  “It’s not unusual.  I expect you’ll meet many sisters who struggled to see the Gift at first.”

“Sisters?” Tamsin echoes.

“At the Academy,” Althea clarifies.  “It’s not so much a familial term as it is a term of respect.  All the Forgotten will be your fellow sisters.”

This, like Memory-keeper, is a term Tamsin recognizes only vaguely.  When Keepers first enter into training, they must cast off all their worldly bonds, foreswear home and family, friends and loved ones, and their loved ones are supposed to do the same.  They become Forgotten.

Althea glances toward Tamsin, and tries to interpret her uneasy silence.  “Perhaps the terms sound harsh to you, but in practice it’s not nearly so dire.  You’ll be quite busy during your training, and you may freely reconnect with your family once it’s complete.”

Contrary to Althea’s perception, Tamsin is still trying to wrap her head around the very idea that she could possess any kind of Gift.  What does she care for the idea of becoming Forgotten?  She is a nothing, a nobody.  Who would even bother to remember her?

They’re getting close to Tamsin’s home, but Tamsin is no closer to a solution on how to proceed.  “My mother won’t be happy to see you,” she says, for lack of any better way to start.  “That’s…a bit of an understatement, actually.”

To her surprise, Althea laughs.  It is a gentle sound, and unexpectedly warm.  “Yes, I’ve been getting that reaction quite a lot today.”

Tamsin lingers uncertainly.  “She won’t want me to go.”

“Of course not,” says Althea.  “But staying isn’t an option.  Surely you see that?”

Tamsin opens her mouth, but words catch in the back of her throat.  This has to be the moment she wakes up, right?  She sat down for a moment when she was finished cleaning the kitchen, and she fell asleep.  And now she’ll wake up, gasping for breath and with a dreadful pain in her neck, and this whole thing will be one strange, vivid, terrible, wonderful dream.