Burn Bright

‘Retra, listen to me. I am Graselle. If you want to live you must be Enlightened.’

Retra heard the woman but couldn’t see her. She lay in the dark of a curtained recess and smelt the cavern’s incense around her still. Soft moans nearby. And, more distant than that, chanting.

Her heart moved in slow, lethargic beats. ‘Where – am – I?’

‘This is a secluded crib kept for those who ail, or are dying in a way that is not prescribed.’

‘Am I dying?’

‘If you’re lucky you will be,’ whispered a fever-pitched voice on her other side.

Retra turned her head on the pillow to see who spoke but the darkness was too thick for her barely open eyes.

‘Shut your loser’s mouth, Lottie. You did not heed our rules so you paid,’ said Graselle.

‘Beast-woman,’ whispered back Lottie. ‘Nothing more. Lenoir’s pet.’ She started to cough.

‘You ignored the rest rule and now your body has failed. You were greedy. You had your time and you burnt it too quickly.’

Neither said any more.

Slowly, Retra began to distinguish outlines. Graselle, she discovered, sat at the end of her bed in a high-backed chair, her pale face as grey as the moon behind clouds.

The sick girl, Lottie, lay across from her in another bed, her knees drawn up.

‘I feel strange,’ Retra said softly. ‘Heavy. And something is cutting my leg.’

‘It’s a tourniquet. Your body can’t stop the bleeding. It’s struggling to heal the wound because you can no longer sleep,’ said Graselle. ‘It drags all your energy for healing but it is not enough. Your mind must help it.’

Retra let Graselle’s words float and settle in her mind. ‘How do I do that?’

Graselle stood and began to rub her arm with a cool, scented lotion. ‘Your kind shouldn’t come here. The change is too great for Seals. Yet you have chosen it and rejected your society, so you must learn quickly or perish.’

Lottie thrashed her legs around. She moaned again, loudly this time. Damaged sounds. ‘Give me … something … it hurts, Graselle. Please …’

‘It is against our rules.’

‘Please help her,’ Retra begged. ‘She sounds –’

‘No! It’s forbidden.’

‘What if you were her?’ Retra begged. ‘What if you hurt like her?’

She sensed Graselle hesitate.

‘I’ll see what I can do.’ She disappeared between the curtains.

‘Thanks,’ Lottie panted. The unpleasant taint of her sweat drifted between them.

‘What happened to you? What’s wrong?’ asked Retra.

‘I burned too bright. I saw too much.’ She cried a little then.

Retra wanted to comfort her but as she tried to sit up blood trickled from her thigh wound and she lay down again, afraid. ‘What did you see?’

‘I saw what happens to us … I know where we go …’

‘You mean when we’re withdrawn? You know what it means?’

But Lottie rambled on then with words that made little sense: half-finished thoughts about her sisters and her home.

Eventually she fell to a kind of murmuring quiet that lulled Retra’s senses. Perhaps the girl was not as sick as Graselle had said. Perhaps she had just taken too much of the tonics and would recover.

But, suddenly, Lottie came upright. She stumbled across to Retra, grasping her with hot, shaky hands. She climbed onto the bed and fell across Retra’s chest. Her breath began to rasp. ‘Mama … I want Mama …’ Tremors wracked the girl.

Retra obeyed an instinct that ran deeper than her Seal training – deeper than anything she knew. She patted the girl’s back, soothing the distraught stranger.

After a while the tremors eased and Lottie sighed, nuzzling into Retra’s neck.

Then she became heavy and still.

Forever still.

Graselle came back too quickly and Retra knew she’d been waiting outside the curtains, listening.

‘I – can’t – breathe,’ Retra gasped.

Graselle pulled Lottie’s body roughly from Retra, levering it onto the other bed. ‘Knew it wouldn’t be long before she went. They get angry for a while before the end, and then they want their mama. They always want her.’

Retra couldn’t stop her tears. They poured down her face and slid around the nape of her neck.

Mother.

Graselle lit a small candle on the wall behind Lottie’s bed. ‘They’ll come and get her soon, while she’s still warm,’ she said almost to herself. ‘But we must prepare you. I’ll cover her or you may find her a distraction.’

She drew a cover from a large chest of drawers at the foot of the bed and laid it across the dead girl.

It did nothing to calm Retra. Her teeth chattered and the silent tears turned to sobs.

‘Shut up!’ Graselle slapped her once, across the cheek. ‘You don’t have much time yourself.’

Retra didn’t care. Not even the thought of Joel mattered right now. Even in Grave, Mama came when you called. Mama cared when you were dying.

Retra wanted to go home.

Graselle shook her arm. ‘Stop it! Lenoir will skin me if you die. He’s got a point to prove with Brand.’

When Retra didn’t stop, Graselle slapped again and again until the stinging and the force of it broke through her misery and replaced it with anger. The tears dried up and the Seal in her returned.

‘That’s better.’ Graselle stripped the last of her clothes and sponged her thigh with warm water. With each wipe, the sponge filled with blood. She muttered her disapproval in short harsh syllables as she re-packed the wound hard with clean white cloth. ‘Should – stem it – enough – give him – time.’

‘Time?’ Retra whispered. ‘What for?’ She felt drowsy, slowed by the efficient movements of Graselle’s hands, and the life seeping from her.

Graselle leaned her face in close. ‘Drink this!’

She lifted Retra’s head so she could pour cool drink into her mouth, dabbing the spills with her fingers. It tasted like honey and lemon.

Then she put the cup down and lifted Retra’s shoulders from the bed, sliding a black silk shift over her head and arms. ‘It’ll be hard for one like you but don’t fight it. Give in to it and all will be well. He’ll heal you.’

She laid Retra back down then and attended her feet and hands, rubbing them and then dabbing the toenails with something that Retra couldn’t see.

Lastly, she rubbed scent in the bend of her elbows and behind her ears. Then she dressed her hair as if she were pampering a favourite doll.

Panting with her efforts, she straightened and arranged the silk across Retra’s breasts. ‘There. You’re not beautiful, but something, sure enough,’ she said to herself.