p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"strongNotes/strong:/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"At this point, some of you may be wondering where I am going with this. The outline knows, folks./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"Oh! And more Cassian this chapter. Finally. The poor dude's transcended death—and this series's main antagonist, time—and it's taken almost 30k words before he gets to feature prominently. And I feel really sad for him now. Actually, if you add up the word count, it's something like 70k words. Poor dude./p
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p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px; text-align: center;"emJezabel/em/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"I have what I thought I wanted, together with the knowledge I was wrong to want it. That distance between Cain and me, safe and sterile, ensues again, and so my exile continues. My position is the only variable in the household: Mary is bonded, if not by blood, then under the law, which is more than I have. As the bastard child of a woman long dead, I inherit nothing, save the knowledge that I was never enough. Not enough of Father to be his in name, not enough of Mother to be protected by her family, not enough to be with Cain./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"I suppose the family must be behind this, but what do I care?/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"If Cain is so ready to acquiesce to the will of the family, his family, then he must have already grown weary of me. What pains me more than his betrayal is the absence that is left by it. I had put something akin to hope into my interactions with him, that for the first time since Snark, I wouldn't be alone. But I was wrong. Even with Snark, I was painfully alone. And nothing has changed: what left cannot return./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"(Can love, like selfhood, be measured only by loss? By the aching photographic negative of what used to be?)/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"My time with Cain is at an end, and it strikes me as sad, that I should be unwanted again. Unloved and unwanted./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"The pale light of the morning fails to comfort me, and only the impossible distance between the estate and the forest it borders catches my eye. The sense of space lingers throughout the mansion: from the maids who scurry from room to room, pretending not to exist, to the valets who only nod and agree. The patients who see only their reprieve from death in me, and the women who find an invitation to the notorious Hargreaves manor in my unmarried state./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"I may as well be in the underground laboratories at Delilah for all my isolation. But this is worse, somehow. There, I could hate the dregs of the earth alone, but here, I am forced to confront the realization that I am marked. Marked in a way that Cain will never be./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"He is indispensable to the family—and I am not./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"That strange terror comes over me again, that something horrific awaits me outside, but only the courtyard, empty and still in the morning air, greets me. Yet, the feeling does not subside. That dreadful anticipation that my mind fills with horrors. Father, half-dead. Skinned lambs, strung up to bleed out./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"(emParanoia. Keep that up/em, my inner voice begins, emand you'll be talking to people who aren't there next./em)/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"I brush it off, despite my unease, and if Neil notices that I linger a bit too long at the window, he says nothing on it. Cassian disappears under the tablecloth, to curl around a table leg, no doubt. The light casts a bleaching shadow across the room, and I find a seat near it, if only to warm myself with the memories of the forest with it./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"Cassian rests near me, placing a slight weight against my legs. It's strangely reassuring, and the unnameable dread lessens: I no longer consider checking the window again. Instead, I try to forget myself in my new, unpleasant task—breakfast./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"(emWhat a shame/em, it continuesem. To last this long under Father, almost twenty years under a coward and a fool, and then fall apart so quickly without him. But that's how you were made, right? Without him, what's left to define yourself by?/em)/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"Neil gives me a strange look, one I could almost mistake for worry, before returning to his newspaper. And then I realize what drew his attention: hot tea pools in the saucer, dripping onto my hand, darkening the tablecloth. I must have spilled it; it's so difficult to keep track of everything today. My insides are raw, as if my skin has been scraped away. Exposing my ugly secrets. I wipe the split tea away, but spots of reddened skin remain, infuriatingly. Reminding me of my inability to present a passable facade./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"(And if I cannot claim that, then what else do I have?)/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"Embarrassment burns at me, producing an unpleasant warmth in my face at my show of artlessness in front of Neil, my inability to blend into the strict world of the aristocracy. But then, again, I suppose that, as the resident bastard son, I will never be a part of that regardless./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"Another insurmountable distance./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"Neil, however, does not seem to take notice of me, perhaps thinking it tactful to let my show of ineptitude go unremarked upon. His decision, however, fails to alleviate any of my shame./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"(emDo you think Cain knows? He must. He knows that you're going mad. That's why he won't be around you. He knows. They all do./em)/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"I almost want to quit my task, to leave without breakfast, but then there would be emtalk/em. And I am so weary of talk. At my inaction, Cassian nudges me./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"(Go on, Doctor. You don't want to be here all day, now.)/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"I have half a mind to give him a sharp reminder that I am no child in need of his guidance, but some vestige of an old sadness silences me./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"(emThey're all waiting./em)/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;""Have you read the article on Yorkshire already? They're having a lamb show," Neil begins, never taking his gaze off the newspaper. "And there's another letter to the editor you might like."/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"It's almost thoughtful, the way he tries to engage me with something he thinks will interest me. Almost paternal. And I seize any chance to distract myself./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;""Oh?"/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;""Yes, it's the Hathaway fellow. Third letter printed this month. He keeps correcting the editor about the medical errors in the paper." He shakes his head a little. "Something on surgical techniques. It's all terribly complex."/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;""The editor was wrong to suggest that regular sewing needles could substitute for surgical ones." I pause, relishing his stunned stare. "Needles with eyes larger than the tip causes damage to the tissue as they're pulled though."/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"Neil opens his mouth, as if about to ask another question, but closes it again, faintly shaking his head. As if he has adjusted his impression of me. "Well," he says, shaking out the newspaper. "Well."/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"I smile to myself, strangely pleased that I am not so predictable. Somehow, breakfast does not seem so daunting any more. A peaceful silence falls between us, periodically broken by Cassian's sighs and the rattling of silver. I am almost sad that I will have to leave this, and as I pour another cup of tea, Neil, without glancing up from his newspaper, breaks off a piece of sausage and tosses it under the table. His hand shiny with grease./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"I almost laugh at his show of bad manners, and even more so, the thought that Neil, Cain's weary guardian, should indulge himself so! And under the amusement is the knowledge that this can be no more./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"It bothers me more than it should./p
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p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"Riff's replacement, the newly promoted underbutler, dolorously announces the arrival of the post. A small bundle of letters for Neil on the silver tray, likely more complaints from the family about the embastard son/em./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"I rarely get anything by post that is not love-stricken sonnets or locks of hair or promises to wed in spite of my relatively low status. Rarely anything from the family. Once I received a worried letter from a distant aunt who wanted to know why Father named his first-born son after ema woman of ill-repute/em. I quickly informed her that, as a man of science, I was ready to exhume his corpse and resurrect it—all to answer her question. It was less a joke, than a veiled suggestion of what I would do if I could only obtain Father's corpse (But anticipating this, Cain and Neil have concealed the location from me.)/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"I didn't get any more letters after that, but I did get "morbid" and "ill-bred" attached to my name in her subsequent frenzy of letters to Neil. And Neil told me, in a deeply frustrated, well-worn tone, to stop being so disagreeable and finding my sources of amusement in the family./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"To my surprise, the butler lowers the tray towards me, a single letter lying docilely beside the letter opener./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"It's from Scotland Yard./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"I doubt it's a summons to their headquarters, to answer for a dozen or so murders, some of them quite entertaining, but the butler regards me with a certain resolve that informs me that the minutiae of my reaction will be methodically analysed in the servants' quarters. Reminding me that, for all the blood that runs in my veins, I am still a stranger here./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"And so, I stare back at him, hardly caring how rude and crass it is of me to do so. I slit open the letter, never averting my gaze. Taking pleasure in the way he blanches, ever so slightly, from my quietly violent act. I bring the letter opener to my lips, pressing the flat side of the blade against my lower lip, carefully, slowly. Like a scalpel./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"Neil, absorbed in today's gossip, fortunately does not take note. (What do I care what Neil thinks of me? I was never his.)/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"With an air of nonchalance, I return the blade, a faint clang breaking the silence between us. There. Let them talk about that display. Let them spread their little rumors about my ill-bred nature./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"(Lord Hargreaves's bastard brother swallows knives. Mad as a loon. Talks to animals, wears his hair long—)/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"Cassian, however, sleepily lifts his head. (Goddamnit, Doctor. Quit bullying people.)/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"I roll my eyes, waiting for the butler to leave so that I can talk to Cassian emwithout/em being seen as the resident lunatic. Fortunately, he relents after a few minutes into today's struggle, and when the door closes, I eagerly unfold the letter, the lightness of anticipation in my head./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"This must be the response to my invitation to rehome the parrots with me. I try to suppress the rankling of anger within me—that the servants are so presumptuous as to remind me of my status—instead focusing on how pleasant it will to have two plump parrots to hold and love. (Since I am leaving, it hardly matters if Neil will let me keep them.) I'll feed them all the bread that they'd desire, and no more will they know blood and terror. No, not with me. Although I hold no claim to being a righteous man, I do care for the lives of the sinless. The stainless. I'll teach them words more fitting, soft words—not those murderous ones. They'll know peace with me./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"I wonder when the Yard'll want me to pick them up. As soon as possible, no doubt./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"Cassian places a paw on my leg, peeking at the letter, and without averting my gaze, I reply, "You can't even read."/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"An exasperated exhale is my only answer. Neil shuffles some letters around, pointedly ignoring my conversations with Cassian. He's come to an uneasy acceptance of them, seeing them as a benign manifestation of my emunfortunate nature/em, as his preferred euphemism goes./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"Noting the short reply, I quickly read it:/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"emWe have received your inquiry, as to the parrots./em/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"emThey are to be put down as dangerous beasts, in accordance with the Animal Act of 1798./em/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"It ends with a careless signature, the mark of one who answers letters all day long.I read it again, and then again, desperately hoping that my eyes have deceived me. Nothing changes. And with that, I sink into the chair, suddenly numb to the rest of the world, save the unbearable weight of the letter./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"Time skips in leaps, like a stone thrown against the water's surface: Mary and Oscar roam the garden one moment, and the next, Neil is receiving a caller. It's disjointed, and not even the weight of Cassian's body against mine can return time to how it was. Neil returns to shuffle through his letters, returning to a particularly lengthy one. He taps at it, deep in thought, unhappiness on his features./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"And then the stone sinks./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;""You were missing for several hours at the hospital a few days ago." A statement with no room for denial./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"This is not what I want to discuss right now. "Was I?" I reply, irritably, trying to conceal the stilling of my heart. All I can focus on are his words; the rest of the world is a searing white, a bloodless blankness./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"Neil pauses slightly, weighing his words. "There's been some concern about whether or not you are working yourself too hard."/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"I can sense what lies beneath his words: I'm too broken to live as people do. I've heard how he speaks about me to Cain. Fragile, mercurial, broken. He would prefer I live as an invalid, dependent on others. And I've already lived a life of suffocating dependence. I can't return to that, and if the price is the last vestige of my sanity, then that is fair./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;""I am not," I reply./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;""You could take fewer hours, and stay here more."/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"I give him one of my colder stares. I refuse to take him up on his offer; I am achingly aware of my status as outsider here. "I am quite fond of my independence, and I see no reason for change."/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"Something akin to disappointment moves across his face, and I am livid, and a little afraid, that he should try to draw me back, to find some middle ground between what is and what has been decided. Could even Neil have his doubts, now that he has to face the consequences? (And under that is the more terrifying revelation: that he has developed some fondness for me. And that never ends well.)/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"If he wanted this closeness, then he ought not to have pushed me aside, to focus on the only son who matters. Jealousy comes too easily to me, all too well./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"Neil considers his letter again. "Will you be happy there? In Manchester?"/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"The past flares up again. How dare he speak to me of happiness, knowing what Father was like. Knowing and doing nothing. "My happiness has never been a concern of mine nor anyone else's."/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"And with that, I move to leave, but Neil cannot let this go./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;""It is my concern."/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"For a moment, a hurricane of a moment, I want to scream and throw the letter from the Yard at him. Rage at the injustices of the world, that innocents should suffer for the will of a weak woman. That some things are without sense and without God, in all His infinite glory and wisdom, always shows up too late. But the words don't come, and in their place, a dangerous stillness claims me instead./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;""Has it been?" I say quietly, my hand at the door. The syllables of the closing door, the final say in the matter. And with that, I leave him to his true family and his true son. And unlike Lot's wife, I do not glance back./p
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p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"Dead./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"They're dead./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"I held them less than a fortnight ago, and now they're dead. The letter was postmarked for Tuesday, which means they'll have died this week. I should have anticipated this: an animal shown to have caused the death of a filthy person would never have been allowed to live. And I was so foolish as to appeal to the kindness of the Yard./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"I've been so foolish lately. Nothing lasts. And what I have made will never endure./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"There's nothing that remains. Not love, not words, not memories. Everything goes. Everyone goes. The curse and the promise of time. Even though Cassian has returned to me, I can see only the minutes pass without remorse and without end; seconds that cannot be taken back and hoarded for a rainy day. No, all I see is what is lost—and what will be lost. And it was lost by my hand, though not willingly. I thought, I hoped Cain would see through my words and return to how it used to be. That we could have that moment of warmth eternally./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"Cassian waits for me in the doorway, stubborn as always, and I, I push him away, as always. He bounds after me—and I run from him. I can almost hear him calling after me, but the door separates us, again. Insurmountable. In this distance, a safety and a sadness. A scrabbling at the door, and then the silence that holds all his annoyance with me./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"(Goddamnit, Doctor.)/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"I lean against the door, listening, waiting for something I cannot name. My hand pressed against the smooth wood./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"A thump, as he lies down, unwilling to surrender./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"(You'll have to come out sometime.)/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;""You're wrong," I whisper. "I won't." And that I know with a strange certainty. There are sharp lines in my life, delineating just how much one may be loved, and trusted, and allowed in. Laws handed down to me by my God and my lamb. And every time I consider transgressing, a terror comes over me; a terror and a hatred that have always co-existed, because they sprung from the same source—the unabiding, undulating grief that has never left me./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"It's lodged there, that little piece of glass that tore through my center and left me aimless and angry and alone. Poisoning me for all these years. And yet, I cannot remove it—that I know—nor can I make peace with it, because I am ashamed. Ashamed and afraid./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"And here am I, imagining Cassian's voice, if only to alleviate my guilt. I'm the one who stole his voice, after all. Part of him has been irrevocably lost./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"No, that's not it. Or, at least, not wholly it. With him, I have also lost part of myself. The dream I so briefly permitted myself. Perhaps that is why grief stings so deeply. It's a double mourning: once for the deceased and the promise of what could have been, and then for oneself, for the part that can never be again. We tuck away parts of ourselves into others: a hope, a dream, a hatred. It's why I could never bring myself to kill Father consciously, even when it was within my power to do so; by being the source of my loving hatred, he preserved the dream of the forest. I didn't have to let go of Snark and what I had before the Fall. There was still a chance that he might return to the Father I loved with every cell of my dying body./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"But I can never embe/em again. And that I cannot come to terms with. It tears at me, what could have been. (If only I were whole.)/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"Oh, there's tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow—a ceaseless parade of tomorrows, at once too long and too short. I don't want it anymore. I won't change. Nothing will ever surpass the love I had for Father. He's in my bones, soaked deep in my bones, and I can't be rid of him because I don't want to be. No one can change that, not Cassian and certainly not Cain./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"But, no matter how many times I try to solve the impossible riddle, the impossible love, I cannot change anything. I'm soiled and ...and too broken, I suppose. Isn't that what Neil meant? Too broken. There's no value in broken things; sometimes, they're even dangerous. Damaged beakers, cracked vials can shatter unexpectedly. That was impressed upon me at the beginning of my studies. Always check for the hair-thin cracks./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"(But at that time, I had stopped caring about danger. That was a concern of those without glass in their heart.)/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"I survey my office, overwhelmed by what must be packed and what must still be completed; tests still left to be run. Life, in a steady, implacable movement towards death. Leaving behind trifles that we cling to, trifles that time distorts and fades and, at last, claims. The birds are trifles too, plump, cooing fragments that slowly fade from me. And nothing remains of them. I cannot change anything, because I am too broken to change./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"Stopped clocks are worthless./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"And I repeat my actions, because that's all I can do. I can't break any cycle, that I know. This is comforting and familiar and defeating: the skeleton—all wires and glue and plaster bones—collapses onto the floor. Petri dishes, each with a sample to be tested, scatter into sharp dust. The agar of their insides collecting debris. Jars and beakers and an unlucky teapot all fall victim to my rage. Papers with notes and test results and hypotheses and idle drawings flutter from my hand, as I divide them into uneven strips. Blood falls from somewhere, circling my path. Something rips my sleeve, opening my arm, and I hardly care; the pain hardly registers under the surge of adrenaline./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"Along the river of glass is blood, uneven patches of bright, bright warmth. A pinprick here, and a thimbleful there. I don't care who it belongs to. If anyone comes in here now, their life is forfeit. This is my true nature. I am not an Ophelia, to drag half-dead from the river, as Cassandra so wrongly thought./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"I am broken, hideously broken. And that cannot be changed./p
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p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"strongNotes/strong:/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"Also I wanted to give thanks for my lovely readers, who offer the best of feedback. I'm so lucky to have you all./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"At this point, some of you may be wondering where I am going with this. The outline knows, folks./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"Oh! And more Cassian this chapter. Finally. The poor dude's transcended death—and this series's main antagonist, time—and it's taken almost 30k words before he gets to feature prominently. And I feel really sad for him now. Actually, if you add up the word count, it's something like 70k words. Poor dude./p
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p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px; text-align: center;"emJezabel/em/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"I have what I thought I wanted, together with the knowledge I was wrong to want it. That distance between Cain and me, safe and sterile, ensues again, and so my exile continues. My position is the only variable in the household: Mary is bonded, if not by blood, then under the law, which is more than I have. As the bastard child of a woman long dead, I inherit nothing, save the knowledge that I was never enough. Not enough of Father to be his in name, not enough of Mother to be protected by her family, not enough to be with Cain./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"I suppose the family must be behind this, but what do I care?/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"If Cain is so ready to acquiesce to the will of the family, his family, then he must have already grown weary of me. What pains me more than his betrayal is the absence that is left by it. I had put something akin to hope into my interactions with him, that for the first time since Snark, I wouldn't be alone. But I was wrong. Even with Snark, I was painfully alone. And nothing has changed: what left cannot return./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"(Can love, like selfhood, be measured only by loss? By the aching photographic negative of what used to be?)/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"My time with Cain is at an end, and it strikes me as sad, that I should be unwanted again. Unloved and unwanted./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"The pale light of the morning fails to comfort me, and only the impossible distance between the estate and the forest it borders catches my eye. The sense of space lingers throughout the mansion: from the maids who scurry from room to room, pretending not to exist, to the valets who only nod and agree. The patients who see only their reprieve from death in me, and the women who find an invitation to the notorious Hargreaves manor in my unmarried state./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"I may as well be in the underground laboratories at Delilah for all my isolation. But this is worse, somehow. There, I could hate the dregs of the earth alone, but here, I am forced to confront the realization that I am marked. Marked in a way that Cain will never be./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"He is indispensable to the family—and I am not./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"That strange terror comes over me again, that something horrific awaits me outside, but only the courtyard, empty and still in the morning air, greets me. Yet, the feeling does not subside. That dreadful anticipation that my mind fills with horrors. Father, half-dead. Skinned lambs, strung up to bleed out./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"(emParanoia. Keep that up/em, my inner voice begins, emand you'll be talking to people who aren't there next./em)/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"I brush it off, despite my unease, and if Neil notices that I linger a bit too long at the window, he says nothing on it. Cassian disappears under the tablecloth, to curl around a table leg, no doubt. The light casts a bleaching shadow across the room, and I find a seat near it, if only to warm myself with the memories of the forest with it./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"Cassian rests near me, placing a slight weight against my legs. It's strangely reassuring, and the unnameable dread lessens: I no longer consider checking the window again. Instead, I try to forget myself in my new, unpleasant task—breakfast./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"(emWhat a shame/em, it continuesem. To last this long under Father, almost twenty years under a coward and a fool, and then fall apart so quickly without him. But that's how you were made, right? Without him, what's left to define yourself by?/em)/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"Neil gives me a strange look, one I could almost mistake for worry, before returning to his newspaper. And then I realize what drew his attention: hot tea pools in the saucer, dripping onto my hand, darkening the tablecloth. I must have spilled it; it's so difficult to keep track of everything today. My insides are raw, as if my skin has been scraped away. Exposing my ugly secrets. I wipe the split tea away, but spots of reddened skin remain, infuriatingly. Reminding me of my inability to present a passable facade./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"(And if I cannot claim that, then what else do I have?)/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"Embarrassment burns at me, producing an unpleasant warmth in my face at my show of artlessness in front of Neil, my inability to blend into the strict world of the aristocracy. But then, again, I suppose that, as the resident bastard son, I will never be a part of that regardless./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"Another insurmountable distance./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"Neil, however, does not seem to take notice of me, perhaps thinking it tactful to let my show of ineptitude go unremarked upon. His decision, however, fails to alleviate any of my shame./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"(emDo you think Cain knows? He must. He knows that you're going mad. That's why he won't be around you. He knows. They all do./em)/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"I almost want to quit my task, to leave without breakfast, but then there would be emtalk/em. And I am so weary of talk. At my inaction, Cassian nudges me./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"(Go on, Doctor. You don't want to be here all day, now.)/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"I have half a mind to give him a sharp reminder that I am no child in need of his guidance, but some vestige of an old sadness silences me./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"(emThey're all waiting./em)/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;""Have you read the article on Yorkshire already? They're having a lamb show," Neil begins, never taking his gaze off the newspaper. "And there's another letter to the editor you might like."/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"It's almost thoughtful, the way he tries to engage me with something he thinks will interest me. Almost paternal. And I seize any chance to distract myself./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;""Oh?"/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;""Yes, it's the Hathaway fellow. Third letter printed this month. He keeps correcting the editor about the medical errors in the paper." He shakes his head a little. "Something on surgical techniques. It's all terribly complex."/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;""The editor was wrong to suggest that regular sewing needles could substitute for surgical ones." I pause, relishing his stunned stare. "Needles with eyes larger than the tip causes damage to the tissue as they're pulled though."/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"Neil opens his mouth, as if about to ask another question, but closes it again, faintly shaking his head. As if he has adjusted his impression of me. "Well," he says, shaking out the newspaper. "Well."/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"I smile to myself, strangely pleased that I am not so predictable. Somehow, breakfast does not seem so daunting any more. A peaceful silence falls between us, periodically broken by Cassian's sighs and the rattling of silver. I am almost sad that I will have to leave this, and as I pour another cup of tea, Neil, without glancing up from his newspaper, breaks off a piece of sausage and tosses it under the table. His hand shiny with grease./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"I almost laugh at his show of bad manners, and even more so, the thought that Neil, Cain's weary guardian, should indulge himself so! And under the amusement is the knowledge that this can be no more./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"It bothers me more than it should./p
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p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"Riff's replacement, the newly promoted underbutler, dolorously announces the arrival of the post. A small bundle of letters for Neil on the silver tray, likely more complaints from the family about the embastard son/em./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"I rarely get anything by post that is not love-stricken sonnets or locks of hair or promises to wed in spite of my relatively low status. Rarely anything from the family. Once I received a worried letter from a distant aunt who wanted to know why Father named his first-born son after ema woman of ill-repute/em. I quickly informed her that, as a man of science, I was ready to exhume his corpse and resurrect it—all to answer her question. It was less a joke, than a veiled suggestion of what I would do if I could only obtain Father's corpse (But anticipating this, Cain and Neil have concealed the location from me.)/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"I didn't get any more letters after that, but I did get "morbid" and "ill-bred" attached to my name in her subsequent frenzy of letters to Neil. And Neil told me, in a deeply frustrated, well-worn tone, to stop being so disagreeable and finding my sources of amusement in the family./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"To my surprise, the butler lowers the tray towards me, a single letter lying docilely beside the letter opener./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"It's from Scotland Yard./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"I doubt it's a summons to their headquarters, to answer for a dozen or so murders, some of them quite entertaining, but the butler regards me with a certain resolve that informs me that the minutiae of my reaction will be methodically analysed in the servants' quarters. Reminding me that, for all the blood that runs in my veins, I am still a stranger here./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"And so, I stare back at him, hardly caring how rude and crass it is of me to do so. I slit open the letter, never averting my gaze. Taking pleasure in the way he blanches, ever so slightly, from my quietly violent act. I bring the letter opener to my lips, pressing the flat side of the blade against my lower lip, carefully, slowly. Like a scalpel./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"Neil, absorbed in today's gossip, fortunately does not take note. (What do I care what Neil thinks of me? I was never his.)/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"With an air of nonchalance, I return the blade, a faint clang breaking the silence between us. There. Let them talk about that display. Let them spread their little rumors about my ill-bred nature./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"(Lord Hargreaves's bastard brother swallows knives. Mad as a loon. Talks to animals, wears his hair long—)/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"Cassian, however, sleepily lifts his head. (Goddamnit, Doctor. Quit bullying people.)/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"I roll my eyes, waiting for the butler to leave so that I can talk to Cassian emwithout/em being seen as the resident lunatic. Fortunately, he relents after a few minutes into today's struggle, and when the door closes, I eagerly unfold the letter, the lightness of anticipation in my head./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"This must be the response to my invitation to rehome the parrots with me. I try to suppress the rankling of anger within me—that the servants are so presumptuous as to remind me of my status—instead focusing on how pleasant it will to have two plump parrots to hold and love. (Since I am leaving, it hardly matters if Neil will let me keep them.) I'll feed them all the bread that they'd desire, and no more will they know blood and terror. No, not with me. Although I hold no claim to being a righteous man, I do care for the lives of the sinless. The stainless. I'll teach them words more fitting, soft words—not those murderous ones. They'll know peace with me./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"I wonder when the Yard'll want me to pick them up. As soon as possible, no doubt./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"Cassian places a paw on my leg, peeking at the letter, and without averting my gaze, I reply, "You can't even read."/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"An exasperated exhale is my only answer. Neil shuffles some letters around, pointedly ignoring my conversations with Cassian. He's come to an uneasy acceptance of them, seeing them as a benign manifestation of my emunfortunate nature/em, as his preferred euphemism goes./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"Noting the short reply, I quickly read it:/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"emWe have received your inquiry, as to the parrots./em/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"emThey are to be put down as dangerous beasts, in accordance with the Animal Act of 1798./em/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"It ends with a careless signature, the mark of one who answers letters all day long.I read it again, and then again, desperately hoping that my eyes have deceived me. Nothing changes. And with that, I sink into the chair, suddenly numb to the rest of the world, save the unbearable weight of the letter./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"Time skips in leaps, like a stone thrown against the water's surface: Mary and Oscar roam the garden one moment, and the next, Neil is receiving a caller. It's disjointed, and not even the weight of Cassian's body against mine can return time to how it was. Neil returns to shuffle through his letters, returning to a particularly lengthy one. He taps at it, deep in thought, unhappiness on his features./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"And then the stone sinks./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;""You were missing for several hours at the hospital a few days ago." A statement with no room for denial./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"This is not what I want to discuss right now. "Was I?" I reply, irritably, trying to conceal the stilling of my heart. All I can focus on are his words; the rest of the world is a searing white, a bloodless blankness./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"Neil pauses slightly, weighing his words. "There's been some concern about whether or not you are working yourself too hard."/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"I can sense what lies beneath his words: I'm too broken to live as people do. I've heard how he speaks about me to Cain. Fragile, mercurial, broken. He would prefer I live as an invalid, dependent on others. And I've already lived a life of suffocating dependence. I can't return to that, and if the price is the last vestige of my sanity, then that is fair./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;""I am not," I reply./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;""You could take fewer hours, and stay here more."/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"I give him one of my colder stares. I refuse to take him up on his offer; I am achingly aware of my status as outsider here. "I am quite fond of my independence, and I see no reason for change."/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"Something akin to disappointment moves across his face, and I am livid, and a little afraid, that he should try to draw me back, to find some middle ground between what is and what has been decided. Could even Neil have his doubts, now that he has to face the consequences? (And under that is the more terrifying revelation: that he has developed some fondness for me. And that never ends well.)/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"If he wanted this closeness, then he ought not to have pushed me aside, to focus on the only son who matters. Jealousy comes too easily to me, all too well./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"Neil considers his letter again. "Will you be happy there? In Manchester?"/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"The past flares up again. How dare he speak to me of happiness, knowing what Father was like. Knowing and doing nothing. "My happiness has never been a concern of mine nor anyone else's."/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"And with that, I move to leave, but Neil cannot let this go./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;""It is my concern."/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"For a moment, a hurricane of a moment, I want to scream and throw the letter from the Yard at him. Rage at the injustices of the world, that innocents should suffer for the will of a weak woman. That some things are without sense and without God, in all His infinite glory and wisdom, always shows up too late. But the words don't come, and in their place, a dangerous stillness claims me instead./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;""Has it been?" I say quietly, my hand at the door. The syllables of the closing door, the final say in the matter. And with that, I leave him to his true family and his true son. And unlike Lot's wife, I do not glance back./p
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p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"Dead./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"They're dead./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"I held them less than a fortnight ago, and now they're dead. The letter was postmarked for Tuesday, which means they'll have died this week. I should have anticipated this: an animal shown to have caused the death of a filthy person would never have been allowed to live. And I was so foolish as to appeal to the kindness of the Yard./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"I've been so foolish lately. Nothing lasts. And what I have made will never endure./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"There's nothing that remains. Not love, not words, not memories. Everything goes. Everyone goes. The curse and the promise of time. Even though Cassian has returned to me, I can see only the minutes pass without remorse and without end; seconds that cannot be taken back and hoarded for a rainy day. No, all I see is what is lost—and what will be lost. And it was lost by my hand, though not willingly. I thought, I hoped Cain would see through my words and return to how it used to be. That we could have that moment of warmth eternally./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"Cassian waits for me in the doorway, stubborn as always, and I, I push him away, as always. He bounds after me—and I run from him. I can almost hear him calling after me, but the door separates us, again. Insurmountable. In this distance, a safety and a sadness. A scrabbling at the door, and then the silence that holds all his annoyance with me./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"(Goddamnit, Doctor.)/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"I lean against the door, listening, waiting for something I cannot name. My hand pressed against the smooth wood./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"A thump, as he lies down, unwilling to surrender./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"(You'll have to come out sometime.)/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;""You're wrong," I whisper. "I won't." And that I know with a strange certainty. There are sharp lines in my life, delineating just how much one may be loved, and trusted, and allowed in. Laws handed down to me by my God and my lamb. And every time I consider transgressing, a terror comes over me; a terror and a hatred that have always co-existed, because they sprung from the same source—the unabiding, undulating grief that has never left me./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"It's lodged there, that little piece of glass that tore through my center and left me aimless and angry and alone. Poisoning me for all these years. And yet, I cannot remove it—that I know—nor can I make peace with it, because I am ashamed. Ashamed and afraid./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"And here am I, imagining Cassian's voice, if only to alleviate my guilt. I'm the one who stole his voice, after all. Part of him has been irrevocably lost./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"No, that's not it. Or, at least, not wholly it. With him, I have also lost part of myself. The dream I so briefly permitted myself. Perhaps that is why grief stings so deeply. It's a double mourning: once for the deceased and the promise of what could have been, and then for oneself, for the part that can never be again. We tuck away parts of ourselves into others: a hope, a dream, a hatred. It's why I could never bring myself to kill Father consciously, even when it was within my power to do so; by being the source of my loving hatred, he preserved the dream of the forest. I didn't have to let go of Snark and what I had before the Fall. There was still a chance that he might return to the Father I loved with every cell of my dying body./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"But I can never embe/em again. And that I cannot come to terms with. It tears at me, what could have been. (If only I were whole.)/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"Oh, there's tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow—a ceaseless parade of tomorrows, at once too long and too short. I don't want it anymore. I won't change. Nothing will ever surpass the love I had for Father. He's in my bones, soaked deep in my bones, and I can't be rid of him because I don't want to be. No one can change that, not Cassian and certainly not Cain./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"But, no matter how many times I try to solve the impossible riddle, the impossible love, I cannot change anything. I'm soiled and ...and too broken, I suppose. Isn't that what Neil meant? Too broken. There's no value in broken things; sometimes, they're even dangerous. Damaged beakers, cracked vials can shatter unexpectedly. That was impressed upon me at the beginning of my studies. Always check for the hair-thin cracks./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"(But at that time, I had stopped caring about danger. That was a concern of those without glass in their heart.)/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"I survey my office, overwhelmed by what must be packed and what must still be completed; tests still left to be run. Life, in a steady, implacable movement towards death. Leaving behind trifles that we cling to, trifles that time distorts and fades and, at last, claims. The birds are trifles too, plump, cooing fragments that slowly fade from me. And nothing remains of them. I cannot change anything, because I am too broken to change./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"Stopped clocks are worthless./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"And I repeat my actions, because that's all I can do. I can't break any cycle, that I know. This is comforting and familiar and defeating: the skeleton—all wires and glue and plaster bones—collapses onto the floor. Petri dishes, each with a sample to be tested, scatter into sharp dust. The agar of their insides collecting debris. Jars and beakers and an unlucky teapot all fall victim to my rage. Papers with notes and test results and hypotheses and idle drawings flutter from my hand, as I divide them into uneven strips. Blood falls from somewhere, circling my path. Something rips my sleeve, opening my arm, and I hardly care; the pain hardly registers under the surge of adrenaline./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"Along the river of glass is blood, uneven patches of bright, bright warmth. A pinprick here, and a thimbleful there. I don't care who it belongs to. If anyone comes in here now, their life is forfeit. This is my true nature. I am not an Ophelia, to drag half-dead from the river, as Cassandra so wrongly thought./p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"I am broken, hideously broken. And that cannot be changed./p
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p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"strongNotes/strong:/p
p style="max-height: 999999px; font-family: Verdana, Verdana, Arial; font-size: 13px;"Also I wanted to give thanks for my lovely readers, who offer the best of feedback. I'm so lucky to have you all./p