by Amy Cross
***
“No!” Kate shouted, sitting up suddenly.
She stared straight ahead, shocked to see that the long, lazy light of sunrise was already spreading across the horizon and flooding the room. For a moment, she struggled to remember where she was or what had happened to her, and she half-expected to find that she was still in London. She waited for the sound of buses and people, but all she heard was the distant lapping of a morning tide against the beach. Blinking a couple of times, she reached up and wiped sweat from her brow, and it was at that moment that she felt a strong sense of soreness in her ribs.
“What the hell?” she muttered, looking down at her arms and seeing that her flesh was zig-zagged with cuts and scratches.
She took a deep breath as thoughts of London faded away. Thaxos. She was on Thaxos. That much, at least, she could remember. But the rest... She stayed completely still, convinced that the memories would flood back into her mind, but it felt as if there was some kind of barrier. Blinking a couple of times, she tried holding her breath in the hope that somehow she might start to remember, but -
“Ms. Langley?” asked a frail voice nearby.
At first, the voice barely penetrated her thoughts.
“Ms. Langley? Are you okay?”
Turning, Kate saw that Edgar's manservant Jacob was approaching, carrying a silver tray upon which there rested a small white cup,from which a little steam was rising. It was one of the more surreal sights that Kate had seen for a while, and all she could do was stare as Jacob shuffled closer and then, finally, placed the cup on a table next to the sofa. The whole situation felt bizarre and normal at the same time.
“His Lordship instructed me to have a cup of tea ready for you when you woke,” Jacob explained, “and to cater to any requests that you might have.”
Pausing for a moment, Kate tried to make sense of the muddled thoughts in her head. She felt as if she should get back to work in Edgar's archive, but there was something else in her mind, some kind of dark memory that seemed to be hiding in the shadows with its wings wrapped tightly around its dark body.
“What happened?” she asked eventually. “How did I... Why am I on the sofa? What happened to my arms?”
“His Lordship was worried that you might struggle to remember,” Jacob replied. “He told me to assure you that he will be along to answer your questions shortly, although I fear that after such a dramatic night he might be rather late to rise from bed this morning. He did, however, tell me to insist that you take the day off in order to rest. I believe Doctor Burns will be coming back up later to take another look at you.”
“Another look at me?” Kate asked, pulling up the sleeves of her shirt to find more scratches. She was trying not to panic, but at the same time she felt as if something huge and awful had happened. It was as if, between this moment and the night before, her life had been ripped apart, and now the two edges didn't match. “Why the hell am I all cut up like this?” she continued, starting to fill with panic. “Tell me what happened!”
“His Lordship will be -”
“Tell me!”
Jacob paused for a moment.
“I am not at liberty, M'am,” he said finally. “It is not my place, but please, just rest and His Lordship will be along shortly. You have suffered quite an ordeal, and you must allow yourself time to recover.”
As Jacob made his way from the room, Kate sat and stared at her torn arms. She knew that something was terribly wrong, but it felt as if the dark memory was still brooding in the shadows of her mind, watching her lazily with one eye closed and the other half-open. No matter how hard she tried to focus, she couldn't manage to make her mind's eye turn to see whatever troubled her, and she couldn't shake the feeling that some kind of mental block was preventing her from remembering what had really happened.