A Midwinter Fantasy - Leanna Renee Hieber [24]
Her young self rose, went to the window and dragged a finger across the glass, absently mollifying the bird. Then she walked out of the office, her elder self and Constance in silent pursuit.
The younger Rebecca descended and burst from the school into the cool London night. A host of spirits followed, curious, worried by her air of misery, and they turned to one another in consultation. Frederic was immediately upon her, squawking and swooping to get her attention, but she paid him no heed. The bird went so far as to pull on a lock of her hair, but this only caused her to whirl, batting at him and hissing in the language of The Guard, “Leave me be!” The bird offered one more gruff call before flying off.
Frederic, her stalwart companion. One couldn’t know how such a creature might be missed until he was gone. Rebecca suffered a pang watching the raven fly off. She wished to run forward and chide her younger self: how foolish it was to go out into the night unaccompanied, how it was begging for trouble. She remembered how this had crossed her mind, and how she hadn’t cared. In that moment she’d cared for nothing but finding a drastic solution to the unnecessary complication that was her heart.
Out into the dark London night she glided, in and out of the pooled light of gas lamps as if she were already a wraith, past clattering carriages, avoiding puddles of filth and ignoring the occasional inappropriate comment hurled from the safety of shadows, likely by gentlemen with wives awaiting them at home. Rebecca remembered how sickened she’d been by humanity as a whole, how she’d wondered why they even deserved any protection.
“To hell with them,” she heard her younger self hiss. “To hell with all of it. There is nothing here worth saving, not even myself.”
The hazy night held the buildings in a wet fog that rose from the riverbank, and young Rebecca moved through it to the crest of Westminster Bridge. She stared down at the deep black Thames, at the cargo ships and ferries so far below and at countless manner of traffic, all ringing bells and making noise. She stepped onto the ledge, grasping the parapet beside her. She pulled up her skirts as if preparing to climb, intending to pitch herself into the air, to hurl herself to freedom, to end it all.
Constance touched Rebecca’s sleeve. “You may think, Headmistress, that this is just a recollection, and will unfold just as you remember. But the Liminal is far greater than mere memory. It can change. So I beg you, beware your heart, right at this moment, lest it alter the outcome before you.”
Rebecca turned back to watch herself, her heart pounding in fear, terrified to speak lest the wrong words send her tumbling . . .
Her younger self trailed death in her wake, literally. The spirits that had followed her from the academy rushed close, trying to save her from her sorrow. They bobbed before her, making a barrier though they knew full well she could slip past and through their transparent bodies to her death if she tried. Still, they attempted to make her see, tried to make her pause and think. Rebecca remembered this scene as if it had happened yesterday. But, this time, she could hear what the spirits were saying.
“Headmistress, don’t!” the spirits cried. “Don’t you understand the balance hinges on all of you? It affects the whole city, everyone we love. Don’t you see you can’t just break rank, walk away and kill yourself? You mustn’t! And, Athens—what about Athens? And The Guard? Michael. What of poor Michael?”
As the spirits exclaimed, phantom images began to float through the air like reflections upon water. A shimmering picture of a dusty Athens came into view, its fine Romanesque windows shuttered and boarded. The scene included Rebecca’s friends, all in black, flowers hanging limply from their hands. They descended those formidable academy steps to never again enter its now-locked doors. Spirits were everywhere. Too many of them. The Work was