Elva Rackthorn and the Tears of Azrael

The Tears of Azrael, Part 2

[Content Warning for a panic attack/sensory meltdown and self-harm. Starts with "The closer they grew to home, the sicker Elva grew" and ends at the first ***, three paragraphs before the italics.] 

When Silas returned, Elva and Henri were signing drawings to leave for Mother.

"He's mastered abstract essentialism," Elva offered as Silas examined Henri's line-and-blob rendition of Reggie.

Elva had wondered whether to leave one of her carriage sketches of Silas and Henri, but she couldn't bear the thought of Mother looking at it and not recognizing them. So she left instead her sketch of nightroot flowers and thought it appropriate— something beautiful whose divided nature made it capable of hurting or healing.

They got no answer knocking on their Mother's bedroom door; when they entered, she was still and asleep like a fairytale princess, so they whispered goodbyes and left the drawings on her nightstand. Reggie nodded as they did, seeming to promise he'd make sure she got them.

The journey home was supposed to be a more peaceful affair. As they descended from the mountains, the unreality of the Institute was usually replaced by the drab certainties of the everyday. But this time Elva's blood was noisy in her veins and her lungs kept turning shallow when she focused on breathing. In the closeness of the carriage and their shared rooms at the inns, she had no chance to examine her secret gifts, and every hour without opening the bag, reading the letter, was like another band of fabric wrapped around her chest. But she couldn't risk her father seeing them.

Keep them secret, keep them safe—that's what Mother had said, right? Already the episode was blurring in Elva's mind, and reading the letter seemed more and more vital.

But letters from Mother were complicated. Sentences rarely started and ended the same way. Elva feared she would end up with more questions than answers when she finally read the pages she passed, furtively, from pocket to pocket when she changed at the inns. And she didn't dare open the warded bag until she was home and could replicate the warding in a larger space. All these worries and wonderings gathered in the bottom of her stomach and fermented, the fumes making her lightheaded and jittery as the carriage headed back down familiar roads.

The closer they grew to home, the sicker Elva grew, her skin sweaty and stomach roiling. Even her father noticed, and gave her leave to retire to her room as soon as they arrived. The last few minutes before Rackthorn Manor took them down the Wishing Way, the otherworldly tunnel of ancient oaks. A lively breeze set their leaves to dancing, and each passing shard of sunshine that hit Elva through the carriage window felt like a firebrand against her skin.

Barely seconds after the carriage stopped, Elva stumbled out of it, gasping for air and afraid she was about to vomit. Her father seemed to think she was carriage-sick, but that made it all worse; Mother had helped design the specs for the carriage herself, and to get sick from it would be an insult to her intellect.

Elva fumbled for her travel bag, and as she did, Henry got underfoot and shoved his Reggie doll in her face. She wanted to scream at him for getting in her way, until she realized he was offering up his beloved new pet in some gesture of comfort. She squeezed the cloth paw with a trembling hand and smiled like it gave her great strength. "Thanks, Henry. Thanks, Reggie."

Then, somehow, Elva was in the manor, up the stairs, down the hall, and into her room. It wasn't a great distance, and she hadn't gone that fast, but when she closed her door, her lungs were aching for air and her blouse felt like a tourniquet blocking off oxygen.

It took her a few tries to get the buttons of her blouse undone, but even with it torn off and tossed on the floor, her chest still felt constricted. She managed to slip out of her skirt and toss it onto her desk's chair before she half fell, half crawled onto her bed, shaking but not particularly cold. All the ugliness of the two day trip home was surfacing in her, every emotion she hadn't given herself room to feel was forcing itself out through her skin.