does it feel like a trial? | tag Jim

“I’m not a witch!”

“I don’t care what you are, you’re not being it in my shop!”

“Oh come on, I just want to-“

“Out!”

Thunder rattled the panes of her nightmares, shaking the cracked memories in their worn old frames and seeping into a storm building on the outside, the towering pillars blotting out the spring day as a fine rain drifted over the sedate landscape. Back in the ugly depths of the teacher’s nightmares, faces and voices shrieked in a nightmare world of bad memories and hurt, voices as twisted and howling as the wind in the dim scenes. Accusations flew in volleys between her and Roger, coming to blows, his silken voice somehow talking it round into a redemption, a voice he shared with the author of the magazine. Unstable. Unsafe. Then somehow she sunk lower, away from the fiery anger, dipping into cooler currents as flurries of bitter misery blew into her dreams, rain that wasn’t blue teardrops like in cartoons but gray formless mist that seeped forlornly into every nook and cranny in her crooked soul, as she staggered through a formless icy world, hearing whispers through the fog, Silver and Miguel and even her father calling to her, just another corner, not too far now, then another and another until her fingers were frozen from groping blindly through the vapor. So close, so far, so cold. The ground opened up. She fell, back into the stranglehold of pain and bitterness that Silver had managed to ward off.

Anita woke with a stifled yelp, wincing as the scabs on her right hand cracked and bled, her fingers like claws on the blanket. Breathing heavily, she swallowed and grimaced. Her throat was raw - she must have been screaming in her sleep. Always so normal. She took a few sips of water and then ran a shaking hand through her hair, grateful for the curtain around her bed, because she surely must look as unstable as the article had painted her. She lent her head back and dripped some water on the back of her neck, which was damp with sweat and matted with tangles. As much as she didn’t want to dwell on the nightmares, she reflected briefly on it, because god forbid she could examine her emotions in a normal fashion. Taking stock of her own mental state, she could only assume that she was mentally preparing herself to be taken advantage of. That concept in itself threw her into conflict. Her rational mind told her that the situation was completely different, but the thought alone was enough to send the damaged, emotional side of her skittering in fear, curling away from any kind of helpful comfort. She pressed her hands to her face and closed her eyes, taking deep breaths and focusing on the weather, teasing out every individual rhythm of the rain creeping into the school and finding the ebbs and flows of air forming the breezes, taking the subtle complexity of the seemingly amiable British weather and making it her own, part and one with herself, until the tremors dissipated and her own selfish panic was a small part, insignificant to the great swathes of air and water billowing out around her. If she could only stay like this forever, it would almost be bliss.