Amalia
She does not know how she got here, only that she is tired, more tired than she has ever been in her brief and eventful life. She has no way of knowing the cause of this: that her brain and body were deprived of oxygen and frozen, and even now her neurons are struggling to warm up and awaken. Her memory is cloudy, fragmented, unsure. There is red there, and fire, and family, and loss. She thinks she has forgotten something.
She cannot remember what.
It is not her mother who answers; of course it is not, it never is. The voice which speaks her name is male, soothing and gentle in the darkness, and deeply, horribly familiar. Amalia half-turns but stops, held back by something tight in her stomach, her chest. Looking at him suddenly feels like a terrible idea; the thought of it makes her nauseous and ill, heavy with doubt and confusion and guilt. She does not want him, she wants her mother. She is not ready to stop being a child.
A shiver courses down her spine, visible beneath the thin nightgown in which she has been dressed. Cold, she is so very cold, starved for life and light. She remembers a dark night with a darker sky, and the scales of a silver fish. The man behind is an answer, but she fears the question she has to ask, the knowledge she needs to solve this puzzle, the picture that it will paint in her drowsy mind.
Mostly, she fears her own part in the tableau.
So she does not turn to him, does not say his name. "My mother worked here," she says instead, speaking to the silence, to the stone. "She delivered babies. Helped the sick. Eased the dying."
Everything is not alright, she wants to say, to sob, to scream. I am alive, and they're still dead.
A heavy sigh; her arms shake slightly, trembling with the effort of keeping her upright. "I have always hated this place."
She cannot remember what.
It is not her mother who answers; of course it is not, it never is. The voice which speaks her name is male, soothing and gentle in the darkness, and deeply, horribly familiar. Amalia half-turns but stops, held back by something tight in her stomach, her chest. Looking at him suddenly feels like a terrible idea; the thought of it makes her nauseous and ill, heavy with doubt and confusion and guilt. She does not want him, she wants her mother. She is not ready to stop being a child.
A shiver courses down her spine, visible beneath the thin nightgown in which she has been dressed. Cold, she is so very cold, starved for life and light. She remembers a dark night with a darker sky, and the scales of a silver fish. The man behind is an answer, but she fears the question she has to ask, the knowledge she needs to solve this puzzle, the picture that it will paint in her drowsy mind.
Mostly, she fears her own part in the tableau.
So she does not turn to him, does not say his name. "My mother worked here," she says instead, speaking to the silence, to the stone. "She delivered babies. Helped the sick. Eased the dying."
Everything is not alright, she wants to say, to sob, to scream. I am alive, and they're still dead.
A heavy sigh; her arms shake slightly, trembling with the effort of keeping her upright. "I have always hated this place."
