The Hub clock had struck midnight, calling dedicates to prayers and others to dorm. A few quiet breaths were barely taken before the first screams came.
Rosethorn resignedly swung her bare feet onto the packed-earth floor and through the open doorway to the kitchen. She supposed she was the only one in the house Tris hadn't woken.
First Sandry's blonde head poked out from the dark bedroom, then Briar's shorn one, lingering, unsure whether to rush up the stairs, or try to sleep to the lullaby of their foster-sister's screams, or just stand there lamely. Lark came out of her room, tugging her habit into place and hurriedly rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. Rosethorn bent to the hearth and filled a cup with steaming water, managing to avoid everyone's eyes. As Lark motioned the two children back to bed, gathering her skirts in one hand and pulling down the steps to the attic, she ducked into her workroom and spooned out a cup of strong herbs, taking a moment to breathe in the heady, bracing steam. Sandry had refused to go back to bed and was standing with arms folded on breast and lips between her teeth by the stair. As she passed she ruffled Briar's inch crop of hair, jerking her head at the bramble of sheets and quilts on the straw tick visible through his bedroom door. Sandry followed his lead, not willing to draw the dedicate's eye. Rosethorn knew she would lie awake a long while yet, and would not sleep easy. The girl was like Lark that way.
Bear had taken to sleeping at the foot of Tris's bed, and was already there, whining, pacing. The mug was warm against her cupped hands, the vapor breaking against her throat warm and soothing against her skinned nerves. If she looked into the candle-light, she would see the candle-light alone, so resolvedly her eyes sought out the flames, and stayed there.
Lark sat on the bed, her long fingers hovering above the girl's head, reluctant to stroke the lighting-shot curls. She looked up and met the younger woman's eyes, and Rosethorn saw but could not answer the slightly panicked helplessness there. There wasn't really anything to be done but let her cry it out. She refused touch or kind words, screaming and screaming, harried and blind. She knew not the faces around her; saw only the faces of those drowned dead. The faces of those she had killed.
Rosethorn approached the bedside, the tangled sheets damp with sweat and tears, the quilt on the floor. Setting the mug of strong tea on the nightstand where the lone, guttering candle burned, she had to push her way passed the dog that would not be consoled, had to close her face against Lark's slightly astonished expression when she made to sit beside the girl on the bed.
"Go back to sleep, love." She looked at Lark, but was not sure if that was to whom she spoke. "I'll do it tonight." Just then she asked no questions, but rose and retreated from the attic bedroom, pausing a moment on the landing to usher Daja back to bed.
Rosethorn moved closer to Tris on the bed, sitting in the half-darkness with her hands clasped between her knees. Her brown eyes were fixed on the floorboards, but her sight was far away. While the twilight hours wound their lingering way down towards dawn, Tris sobbed quiet repentances to the sodden nadir of her pillow, unable to find her own forgiveness, unable to forget. Rosethorn sat close enough to feel the tremors, offering the simple comfort of the presence of another human being. And took that same solace, and the masochistic penitence in the electric shock of those small lightnings so near. Little Bear had lain down on the floor, his head resting on his shaggy paws; the only belie to his own weariness the redness in his black eyes, the gusty sigh of reprieve. The screams were curbed only to low sobbing. For hers were not the only penitent tears shed this night.
In the dark before the dawn, when time seemed to slew to a halt, merging into an indecipherable stream, all the nightmares came to bear and were paid their due in the dark pool of tears on the wood of the floor.