With a Word

[PuzzleRaven]

May 15th 2011​

or that sea-beast
Leviathan, which God of all his works
Created hugest that swim th' ocean-stream.
Him, haply slumbering on the Norway foam,

Haply slumbering, I repeated, under my breath, but not quietly enough. Dad smiled wanly, said something about how nice it was, and that my mother…I ignored him, pressing my ear to the shelter wall. The rain wasn't slowing, the faint rumble that passed through the concrete still going. Why wasn't it working? I was being blunt! He should go away, to Norway, to sleep, if I actually had a power and I wasn't just mad.

Dad huddled closer, next to me by the shelter wall, saying something about how we'd be alright. We wouldn't be. I knew it. Our shelter, hundreds of people crammed within it, was by the Docks. Unless something could make Leviathan go away we'd be the first to drown. I twisted my fingers together, muttered the verse again under my breath, moving away from Dad so he wouldn't hear it. Milton's litany should have been the magic words, but they did nothing.

If Leviathan had gone away, the people in charge would still keep us in here, I told myself. They'd have to, until they could be sure he was really gone. The shelter personnel would be being informed right now that Leviathan had left, I was sure. I did have a power. I wasn't insane. February might just have been a co-incidence, a treacherous thought reminded me. I crushed it. January wasn't. The chances another cape did something like that right as I was speaking were – it was possible, I allowed, but very unlikely. And Sophia – but I had never found out exactly what happened to Sophia, and I hadn't been aiming it at her. Maybe it wasn't me at all?

No, I had to try anyway. I said Milton's litany again, not the only person to be repeating words under my breath over and over, not the only person staring at the door. The rain sounded louder somehow. Dad put his arm round me, comforting he thought but it was just an annoyance. If Milton failed, maybe Leviathan needed different words. I wracked my brain for anything else I could use:

It is leviathan
and we, in its belly… No! That wouldn't help!

I didn't say it out loud. If I didn't say it, it wouldn't happen. There had to be something else, some better words, but the only one that came to mind would make things worse, so much worse. I'd found it as a joke, back in February, when I was looking for something I could use against... I punched the wall. No one noticed. Stupid, I was stupid. I didn't have powers, I had been fooling myself, for months, and now I was going to die here, die here in this -

The lights went out.

The hum of the generators cut out. The dim emergency lights and night-glow paint was still showing as my eyes adjusted, barely showing the outline of the stairs and the wall signs. I heard screams and cries begin in the darkness as Dad grabbed me tight, pushed me against the wall behind him. Cellphones began to light up, patches of light in the darkness. It will be okay,he lied again and I barely heard him because his words were worthless. I gritted my teeth, pulling myself together, reminding me that probably so were mine.

"Please remain calm." The voice over the tannoy was falsely reassuring, but the crowd began to calm. "The generator is being-"

A green hand tore through the concrete as he was abruptly silenced. The shelter doors gave way and a wave of water higher than my head flooded in, pouring down the stairs. People screamed, pushing back, trying to get away from what stood there, framed in the entrance. Four eyes, a darting head, an impression of malformed disproportionate limbs.

It moved. One long limb lashed out, scything through the refugees as people panicked. I was knocked off my feet as someone pushed into me, grated my hands on the wall. Dad called my name, pushed me into a corner and crouched over me. Fluid spattered my face, warm and sticky. Under my hands, the water ran red. The cellphone lights drowned and died. The screams went on.

I looked up, saw above, well above, four green stars, in lines of three and one, flickering as they moved. Dad's weight slumped on me. I couldn't see anything. I was going to die here.

The bitterness was thick and choking. With it came fury. I knew the verse by heart: I had memorised it but been too afraid to say it, afraid of what it might call up. It was long, but long meant powerful; I'd learned that from Byron. A Poet Laureate might be his match. If I was going to die- If Brockton was going to die, then this bastard could die with it. From hell's heart I stab at thee... Let's see if my useless power was real. If I could do something truly legendary. This would kill me. So would Leviathan. I didn't care any more:

Behemot burns with anger
Dripping sleep and langour from his heavy haunches,
He turns from deep distain and launches
Himself upon the thickening air,
And, with weird cries of sickening despair,
Flies at Leviathan.

Leviathan moved. It was outlined in the broken shelter doorway, brightly lit as the lightning cracked before everything went dark again. The second flash showed me Dad's face, lined with blood, his glasses shattered and dug into his cheek. The water was still rising, and I couldn't stand. Something heavy pinned my legs as I struggled. For hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee... drew a hasty breath and kept talking. If I didn't finish this I'd just make things worse.

None can surmise the struggle that ensues-
The eyes lose sight of it and words refuse
To tell the story in its gory might.

The floor of the shelter was shaking. Water was pouring in faster now. I kept speaking, tilted my head to keep my mouth above the tide. If Leviathan was still there I didn't know. The screams had died to moans and whimpers, and I had to keep speaking.

Night passes after night,
And still the fight continues, still the sparks,
Fly from the iron sinews,... till the marks
Of fire and belching thunder fill the dark
And, almost torn asunder, one falls stark,
Hammering upon the other!
What clamour now is born, what crashings rise!

The tremors were continuous now, the sound of thunder from the ground drowning out the storm above. With a deafening crack, the concrete wall split, from the roof down, dust and rubble raining down. I couldn't hear my own words, but I said them anyway. My power would hear them anyway. It was working.

Hot Lightnings lash the skies and frightening cries
Clash with the hymns of saints and seraphim.
The bloody limbs thrash through a ruddy dusk,
Til one great tusk of Behemot has gored
Leviathan, restored to his full strength,
Who, dealing fiercer blows in those last throes,
Closes on reeling Behemot at length-
Piercing him with steel-pointed claws
Straight through the jaws to his disjointed head
And both lie dead!

The water topped my lips now, and I choked, struggling to get free. The tremors crescendoed, lumps of concrete falling. I covered my head, ducked, breathing bloody water. Leviathan crouched, whirled and was gone. The tremors ended suddenly. A single ominous thump rumbled through the shelter. The water rippled, stirred into waves. There were a few people moving in the twilight, running for the doorway to get out. Gladly! I saw his face, shouted for help as he looked back. He met my eyes for a second, and then he grabbed the woman with him and fled.

I forgot him, tearing at my leg trying to pry it out from under the concrete. The rubble shifted as there was another deafening, echoing, thud, and the entire shelter moved. Something speared into my foot and I screamed. The entire inside of the room was illuminated in a sick red light. Bodies floated on black water, hands clawed at the walls, and I didn't care. I had to get out. In the next flash of lightning, an image of people in the storm outside, screaming, burning, seared itself on my narrowing vision. When I blinked it clear, they were gone.

I couldn't get enough air. My nose was only just above the water now; my shouts came out as bubbles. I slammed my fist on the wall; trying to draw attention, help. There was a thunderous crash and the remaining door tore itself free of its hinge and collapsed. A black shape strode forward, another echoing thud sending waves through the water and a surge of it down the steps. My head went under. Through the rippling surface I saw a shape, nearly twice the height of Leviathan, black as pitch. A single, burning, red, eye looked down on me, turned away from me as it took another thunderous stride forward.

Then....darkness.

--
Poems quoted are: "Paradise Lost" by John Milton, "The Ache of Marriage" by Denise Levertov and "Roast Leviathan" by Louis Untermeyer

 

[PuzzleRaven]

February 12th, 2011​

I tried to pick myself up at the bottom of the stairs, but my foot skidded, not taking my weight. Something cracked as I fell on my backpack. My project had saved my head at the expense of my grade.

Sophia was laughing, Emma giggling behind her.

"Learn your place, worm." I gritted my teeth, pushed myself upon hands and knees to the lowest step ass the bell rung for class. Their little group broke up as they went for class, Julia snatching my English paper from my bag and throwing the backpack down out of my reach. I struggled upwards and gave up, sitting on the stairs. My grade was ruined. My leg was slowly beginning to tell me that actually it hurt, and it wanted to make sure I knew it. There was no point in rushing to class. The teacher might notice the class was short a pupil or several, but they wouldn't care. They weren't going to tell my Dad, and he wouldn't do anything anyway.

No one would notice if I wasn't there at all. The old rhyme rose in memory, one I'd heard from my mother as a child and loved for its nonsense, now bitterly appropriate. They could take the flute, but not her words. Giggling softly, I said them to myself.

"As I was tripped upon the stairs
I met a girl who wasn't there
She wasn't there again today
Oh how I wish she'd go away."

Nothing happened. I could still see myself, still see my legs. Maybe no one else could, but I wasn't going to bet on it. A child's rhyme wouldn't make things better, not when nothing else had. Grabbing the banisterI picked myself up, leaning heavily on it. My foot was at a bad angle, couldn't take my weight. "Mother Mary..." wouldn't cut it for this one, and I'd already said it today. Oh well. There was no one else around so I risked it..

"Today the colleges are drunk with spring,
My black hoodie is a little funeral
It shows I am serious
The books I carry wedge into my side
I had an old wound once, but it is healing"

Tweaking the words lessened the effect, but I risked it to make sure it focused on me. It worked: I sighed with relief as it took effect. My foot wasn't quite right but I could walk on it, and it was healing faster than it should. Thank you, Sylvia Plath, and time would heal the rest by lunch. The look on Emma's face when I walked into class undamaged would be funny, but then she'd out me as a cape if she guessed or just because she was being spiteful, and the gang recruiters here might come for me if she didn't. Ah, screw the rest of the day. I'd go to the Boardwalk, fix myself up and take a day off. My grade was screwed anyway without my homework.

As I pushed my way into the corridor towards the door, I was nearly knocked over by Julia running the other way. She didn't even look at me, bolting for the Principal's office as fast as she could. Catching myself on the wall, I heard shouts, screaming from the direction of the classroom. What the hell? Another stabbing? I knew they didn't react like that. Maybe someone had stabbed Mr. Gladly. That hope died quickly as Julia threw the door to the Principal's office open, dodging the secretary and screamed.

"Principal Blackwell, it's Sophia...." I didn't give a damn what happened to Sophia, but I could hope it was permanent. After what she'd pulled with those boys, screw her.

"What happened?" Blackwell was standing up, her chair pushed back. The door swung shut on them, and I missed whatever had happened. I'd find out from the rumour mill whenever, and the town library was calling. There I'd actually learn something useful.

"Ms Hebert, what are you doing?" Blackwell was out of her office, Julia in tow, her harsh, blonde, bob bobbing as she hurried back towards the classroom.

"I fell down the stairs." I didn't mention Sophia's help, there was no point.

"Then go to the nurse." The Principal barely acknowledged me as she hurried off after Julia. Typical. When I'm hurt she doesn't care but Sophia mattered. I ignored her demand and limped my way to the school door. Outside, by the bus stop, I breathed a sigh of relief as my bruises faded and my ankle healed. The bus pulled up, and I jumped on, skipping out as Ms. Militia's motorcycle came screaming passed and into Winslow's car park. I didn't know if it had anything to do with Sophia, but I was glad I was skipping. I wasn't ready to talk to the Protectorate, not yet. As the bus pulled away, I craned my neck like everyone else. I watched the heroine jump off, kicking the stand out on the bike, striding into the school. I imagined her taking effortless command of the scene as she walked in.

One day that would be me.

#​

Window-shopping round the Boardwalk mall was my fallback for when the library was closed. I'd read all of mom's old books, but I needed to read more. There were enough bookshops there that I might find some inspiration, even if I couldn't afford the books. Goodwill had the classics sometimes, and they didn't mind me browsing like the expensive stores. One of the Enforcers was looking at me, and I picked up my pace, pulling my head down inside my hoodie and tucking my hands into my pockets. The man nudged his companion and nodded towards me. Hurrying, I walked for the escalators, going up. The two mall cops followed. Guess I didn't look rich enough to shop here. I wasn't on the right floor for Goodwill, but I carried on, hoping they'd lose interest and go bother someone else.

Wait, was that Sparky? What was Sparky doing on the TV? I looked round, distracted by the high-end TVs in the shop window, and stopped dead. Winslow High was pictured, the students filling the car park in the background. Standard evacuation drills, we did them regularly for bomb threats, although it was Winslow so half the students were skipping anyway. Sparky's face filled the screen, stoned out of his mind, before he was corralled by Mr. Gladly with a "No comment" I didn't have to hear to understand. His hand across the camera said enough. The scroll went by again: "Winslow High student vanishes in class." I peered at it again, saw the scroll update: "Vanished student identified as Sophia Hess."

Had I made Sophia invisible instead of me? How? I was the girl who wasn't there, the one who everyone overlooked. "We called her name and she didn't answer, and her seat was empty." Had I actually exploded her? I could never be a hero now, it was just like when I... A PRT officer was talking to the camera now, and I strained to hear. Sparky was back on channel 2, blearing at the camera. Whatever he said was more interesting than the PRT guy because the others were cutting across to him now.

"Yeah, she was just, like, sitting there and then she was just gone. Like when Destructor..." That stupid name they'd landed me with. Yes, it had been an accident, but it was a good thing. Why couldn't they understand that? The PRT had cordoned the area off and just made everything worse. "Look, can I go for a smoke now, man?" I ignored Sparky proving he was the dumbest guy in Winslow by pulling out a blunt on live TV. My thoughts were racing.

"Are you looking for something?" I jumped, as the voice blared in my ear. The Enforcer was right behind me, hands resting on his belt and jelly belly like he thought he was a tough guy.

"Goodwill." I was still watching the screen.

"Down a floor." I nodded and walked back to the stairs. My power was so unpredictable. I couldn't trust it and I couldn't go to the PRT like this. If one wrong word made Armsmaster go away, they'd jail me. I had to have more practice, and more self-control. I needed respect before I went there. I wasn't going to be treated like I was at Winslow. When I joined the Wards I was going to be someone, someone they would respect. Someone who'd proved themselves. Someone the other Wards wouldn't pick on. Someone they wouldn't dare to.

--
Poems are "Antigonish" by William Hughes Means, and part of a stanza from "Three Woman" by Sylvia Plath

 

[PuzzleRaven]

Chapter 3 – May 21st​

It was still dark when I woke. My eyes were crusty. My lips were cracked and dry, and my throat was parched. I tried to open my mouth, struggling to force my lips apart, and gagged on a greasy taste. Lipsil? I didn't wear lipsil. There was an annoying continuous beep by my head. Something had malfunctioned in the shelter. The shelter! I had to get out.

I forced my eyes open, flinched from the bright, white, blaze and tried to throw up my arm to shield my face. Pain shot through my elbow and my hand. I couldn't move it more than a fraction. Something had me pinned, something that dug into my elbow. The rebar from the concrete? I gritted my teeth and pulled upwards. The beep became a continuous alarm. A door opened and someone ran in. Gladly had come back, no, Gladly was dead. I forced my eyes open, tried to shout but nothing came out. Straining, I tried to wave my arms, to let someone know I was here.

It was painfully bright. A dark shape leaned over me, haloed in the blaze behind it. There was a new and heavy pressure on my arm, and I felt a hand gripping mine.

"You're awake?" It was a woman's voice, and she sounded relieved. I tried to open my mouth, to ask where I was, but all that came out was a croak. "Don't move. You've torn your cannula." The shape moved, picking something up. I heard the crinkle of plastic, and felt a cotton ball pressing on my elbow. Colours were coming back slowly as my eyes adapted. Green clothes. Scrubs. A dark face under a dark green hat. I craned my neck to see, squinting to try to focus. She tutted, soothingly. "Don't raise your head. I'll just keep the pressure on until the bleeding has stopped, and then put a bandage on." She sounded rehearsed, like the nurses after the locker. She must have said this a hundred times. After a few minutes, she whipped the cotton ball on and as quickly swapped it for a large white square that she slapped on my arm. "Would you like some water?"

"-" I failed to speak, and nodded. My neck was stiff, but moveable. I tried to move my legs. They were fine. I could feel them, and I couldn't feel the hole where the rebar had impaled me. My arms were both usable; the right arm was fine, the left fine apart from the dull pain from the elbow. She held the glass up for me, supporting my head as I took a sip. After everything I felt fine.

"Where am I?" I croaked, unintelligibly to me but she understood.

"In Brockton General," the nurse said. I stared at her name-tag but it resolutely refused to become readable. "Neurology Care. Can you tell me what year it is?"

"2011." Neurology was familiar, too familiar. I'd been in here after the locker, after those bitches... A horrible thought struck me, that I'd never left in the first place, that this was me waking for the first time. After the locker. The beeping elevated, high-pitched and louder "What month is it?"

"Please try to stay calm," Nurse Blurry Nameless said, resting a hand on my shoulder when I tried to move. "You're safe now. What is the last thing you remember?"

"I was in the shelter," I said. If this was after the locker then maybe I could get some extra time off school. Maybe I could warn people about Leviathan, no that hadn't happened yet. "Leviathan tore the side open. He-" I swallowed, trying to clear my mouth and reached for the water again. "I thought..." I choked, drinking too fast, and she helped me through the coughs. I set the glass down. I had to speak. "I thought I saw Behemoth."

"You did," she said. I tried to sit up, refused to lie down as she tried to calm me. "Its okay. They're dead." I saw nothing. Blood thundered in my ears. The words made no sense.

"Dead?" I said, stupidly. My power couldn't have, surely I couldn't have. Had I killed an Endbringer?

"Yes." She sounded tired but happier than any nurse should in the aftermath of an Endbringer attack. "Both of them."

"How?" I knew, but I couldn't believe it.

"Careful. You mustn't overstress yourself. I'll get the doctor-" I grabbed her arm.

"Tell me!" My voice cracked and I moderated my tone with effort. "I have to know." She looked at the monitors, and pursed her lips.

"Do you promise you will stay calm?" I nodded, not meaning it. "Leviathan attacked the Bay. When he tore into the shelter Behemoth came to the surface and attacked him. The heroes didn't have time to react; they scrambled to evacuate everyone out of the city while the Endbringers fought offshore. They fought for the next two days. It was incredible. We had heroes in from all over, but the Endbringers ignored them and just tore into each other. Eventually, Behemoth gored Leviathan on its spikes. Leviathan tore into it with its claws, and they both died. They killed each other."

"Are they really...?" I didn't know what to think. There had been three Endbringers as long as I was alive, and now at a stroke we had one to deal with. I had just saved more lives than anyone in history, and no one knew I did it. I smiled to myself.

"Yes." She didn't let me finish, smiling back. "The PRT took the bodies for dissection. They confirmed it." I sank back into the pillows, staring at the ceiling. I knew how the rest of the poem went: Roast Leviathan, the army of people swarming over the corpse, I could imagine it. "There have been celebrations for days." I could imagine it, but it sounded like I'd missed it all. There was something more important to ask.

"Does anyone know why?" It mattered. "Why they fought?" If I had done this, if people found out, I would be famous. Rich. I'd never be allowed to live my own life. I'd be under other people's thumbs for all of it.

"There's a lot of theories, but no one's sure," the nurse said. "The PRT are theorisingit might have been territorial. We've never had to Endbringers in the same place before. How do you feel?

"I feel fine." It was true.

"Good. If you can sit up, I'll take the IV out." I tried out sitting up. It wasn't bad, not with her help and a pile of pillows behind me. The nurse started to untangle the wires and tubes on and in my arm as I watched.

"How long was I in the water for?"

"If you were in there when Behemoth surfaced, about eighteen hours or so before Hellhound brought you in."

"Hellhound?" I think she was one of the Undersiders. She'd robbed a bank, or something similar and worked with giant dogs. "Was she on search and rescue?" The nurse had picked up the alarm button by my bed, pressed it twice, and dropped it. She was signalling someone, and I wasn't sure what to expect.

"I don't know. She arrived in the ambulance bay on one of her dogs, dropped you and said you needed food. Then she took off. The news copters caught her on camera digging you out of the shelter." I frowned, not sure I liked the idea of being on the news. I'd never met her, so I couldn't understand why she'd go so far to help me if it wasn't a job.

"I guess I was lucky. I thought I'd broken my back."

"You did. Panacea gave you a tune up, but she can't do brains. She fixed everything else." Too bad she couldn't fix my eyes while she was at it. I wiped at my eyes again.

"Where are my glasses?"

"Oh, we didn't know you needed glasses. I'm sorry, they weren't brought in with you." I blinked. I had a spare pair at home. If home was still standing. Dad could-

"Where's my Dad?" He'd been covering me, then he wasn't. I remembered his glasses, broken, sticking out of his cheek-

"Easy, try to breathe" she said, as the treacherous beeping picked up again. She picked up a clipboard. "We don't have any details for you. What's your name?" I sat back in the cushions. After an Endbringer attack, records were in chaos. They must be absolutely swamped. I'd seen the pictures on TV, people sitting in corridors, burned or bloodied, car parks turned into field hospitals.

"Taylor Hebert." She wrote it down. Something was bugging me, and I couldn't quite put my finger on it.

"And how old are you?"

"Fifteen."

"Any family?"

"Da - Daniel Hebert. My Dad. He was in the shelter." The nurse bit her lip. I knew what that meant, but it didn't matter, not for now. He hadn't really been my Dad for years, not since Mom died.

"Anyone else?" I frowned. Not Emma, that was for certain. There was no one at school, no one we were still in touch with from middle school. Mum's friends had all dropped away when Dad collapsed into the bottle.

"Kurt and Lacey. They're Dad's friends." Co-workers more than friends, but anything was better than Emma. Maybe there was a poem for that. I giggled to myself. There was a poem to deal with Endbringers, there had to be one to deal with Emma.
"Now up the sides of the giant corpse we swarm
with knives and purpose."

"I'm sorry?" The nurse was looking at me in concern, and I shuffled. I shouldn't have said it outloud.

"It's a poem. 'Roast Leviathan' by Untermeyer." I shouldn't have said that. If someone looked it up they might trace it back to me, might link it to what had killed Leviathan. I needed time to think.

"You like poetry?"

"My mother was an English professor. She died two years ago." She nodded and offered muttered condolences. I brushed them off, because I had a more important question. I had to know. "How bad was the attack?"

"Not good," she said, "I should really be getting the doctor to have a look at you."

"He'll have a lot of other patients," I wheedled. "How much of the city is still standing?"

"Most of it," the nurse said, with what should have been a reassuring smile. "Leviathan didn't hit the aquifer, and we're getting supplies in from all over. And the Doctor has time for you. You're a priority patient." She said it as if I should be proud. A prickling ran down my spine. Why, in the aftermath of an Endbringer attack would a doctor make time for one patient unless he knew what I had done?

"Why?" I was immediately on guard, searching my brains for couplets to do with escape.

"Taylor," she sat down by my bed. "You were the last survivor pulled out of any of the shelters. They couldn't evacuate them with the Endbringers fighting so close. The untouched shelters were emptied afterwards, but it was too late for the damaged ones. The search was called off eight hours before Hellhound brought you in." I blinked.

"How long have I been out for?"

"Nearly a week," she said, and settled a reassuring hand on my arm as I tried to sit up. "We weren't sure you'd wake up,"

"The medical bills-" I'd be bankrupt.

"Covered by the city. They're calling you Brockton's miracle girl in the press, you know." I blinked again. "City Hall will probably want you to say something to the press, but you don't have to do anything until you're ready. Get well first, press later." I wasn't listening to her, turning it over in my mind. I didn't understand how I could have survived. The nurse stood up brusquely. "And now I will be getting the doctor."

"When I was brought in, did I say anything?" I said quickly, catching her at the door.

"You were delirious," she said, "Don't worry about it."

"Please."

"You were quoting something about 'unarming sharks' and 'birds sailing with sheathed beaks'." She smiled, and left to get the doctor. I flopped back staring that the ceiling. It had been one of my mother's favourite books. I knew the ending so very, very, well. And then I slumped, because for those words to have worked, I knew what Hellhound must have lost. And I knew what I had lost.

She was the Rachel, that in her retracing search for her missing children, found only another orphan.

 

[PuzzleRaven]

February 24th, 2011​

"Broken step now mended be,
straight and strong
like as a tree."

Nothing happened. I stared at the step, which sat there still resolutely broken. My book bag was getting heavy, so I gave up, trudged inside, and dumped it down by the door with a thump. Officially, my power didn't think I was a poet.

Dad was still at work, even though I was home late from the library. Without him around to tell me to put my books away, I could take some time on more poetry research for anything useful. I'd given up on online searches; Top Ten lists were pretty much always the same, and without already knowing the phrases I was searching for, I was seeking blind. The library wasn't just my retreat now, it was my weapon shop, or it would be if I could find anything useful!

The great poets spent far too much time writing about flowers and the human condition - with one blasted exception - and far too little time writing about fixing broken steps, washing up, or throwing thunderbolts. There weren't any about mass-healing cancer, Sylvia Plath or Louise M. Alcott patching me up once a week was about it for healing, if that was actually happening and I wasn't just a fast healer. Writing my own didn't work, as I'd just proved again. My power was a picky critic, and not a helpful one. Was constructive criticism too much to ask for?

It was funny: Principal Blackwell had been worried about me bringing a gun to school, but if I really had the power I thought, my textbooks were more dangerous. I had my notepad, marked up with stickies and folded corners, slowly filling up with the poetry excerpts I thought might work.

I pulled out the new set of books, setting them on the sofa to read. More Emily Dickinson, a collected works of Byron that I set down gently like an unexploded bomb, and a collection of Keats that might have a few useful bits I hadn't read in mom's. I couldn't think of any capes who had to resort to hours of library research, or speak their spells. It was more like being a traditional wizard, memorising his spells to speak at the start of the day...No, I remembered, there was one cape like that, and he was up there with the Triuvirate. No one mocked Myrrdin, for his robes maybe, but his power was undoubted. He spoke his spells too, I thought. Maybe that staff and spellbook weren't just for PR, but for all the things he couldn't memorise or in case he forgot. If I could get a handle on my power maybe I would be just as powerful, if I could just memorise enough excerpts!

It was like a gunfighter practicing his quickdraw, almost. I couldn't exactly rehearse, there might be accidents but I wanted them on the tip of my tongue. After Sophia's trick a couple of weeks ago, I wasn't being caught unprepared again. Wilfred Owen might have saved me, or maybe the boys got tired, but I wasn't taking the chance.

Getting chased by a baying pack of boys with duct-tape screaming cat-calls at me about what Sophia said I'd do for guys - I nearly snarled, and looked at the Byron book, flipping the pages open randomly. Where were you when I needed you?

"I had a dream which was not a dream,
The bright sun was extinguishe'd and the stars - "

I shut the book. Still mad, bad, and far too dangerous to know.

My problems were more prosaic. Running around that corner with the boys on my heels as I gasped the lines of Strange Meeting, seeing the subway before me stinking of piss and full of merchant tags, and running down there anyway. I'd heard the boys above falter, come round looking for me, and then give up and wander off bored. They probably hadn't wanted to dare what might be in a Brockton subway. Nor had I, but I was still frustrated with myself two weeks later.

It seemed that out of battle I escaped
Down some profound tunnel, long since scooped,
Through granite which titanic walls had groined.

Who remembers Strange Meeting? If I'd used Dulce est Decorum est, I could have found out pretty quick whether I actually had powers. I wouldn't still be second guessing myself. No, I reminded myself, I did the right thing. Unleashing chlorine gas on a bunch of the Winslow Track Team would have been investigated. I wanted to be a hero, and I wasn't letting Sophia or Emma take that away from me.

I knocked the TV on for some noise and went to make dinner. I couldn't go to the PRT like this. I wasn't even sure I had powers, and I was too scared to really try using them. What if I made the Rig vanish or exploded the power testers? And if I didn't, they'd just force me into the Wards, and my power wasn't good for patrols or fighting at all. If it really existed. Standing in the basement yelling Cast Fireball hadn't worked after all. I'd thought rap would be great for rapid fire lyrics, but nothing happened. But no, mutter a nursery rhyme by a kindergarten and every child in the playground falls over. I was nearly certain that wasn't co-incidence..

It did exist, I was sure. A couple of slices of bacon in a pan, nicely frying for a pair of sandwiches, and I'd eat while I worked. Food, news, and I'd be free to curl up with a book that wasn't Byron-

"on Canberra. The Simurgh-" I ran into the lounge, staring at the screen. She was attacking at night, no, it was Australia, there was a time difference. The feed wasn't live from the attack area. They didn't report live on Simurgh attacks. It was considered too much of a risk that she might get her scream transmitted through the broadcast. We just got a succession of talking heads covering it, various channels with older and injured PRT folk and survivors of the attack.

I stared at the screen, twining my fingers tightly. It was impossible, I told myself again. I was stupid, I was making things up. The new shoreline of Brockton Bay was not my doing. The scroll along the bottom of the screen continued, casualty figure estimates. The heroes were fighting and dying over there to stop the Simurgh. If I wanted to be a hero, could I do any less?

The camera cut to a reporter in Sydney, detailing the attack on Canberra with a feed from the staging grounds for the heroes just outside the city. In a heartbeat a white wing swept the camera. The reporter was gone. There were screams as the feed cut. I had seen it. I had seen it. I didn't have any words that were right or ready for this, just the one I had hoped, had scrawled down the instant I had seen it, though it was impossible. It couldn't work. I yanked up my notepad, flicked the pages to S, and drew a breath.

So, as though stepping to a funeral march,
She passed defeated homewards whence she came,
Ragged with tattered canvas white as starch
A wild bird that misfortune had made tame.

The reports kept coming in. No sign of Scion. People were dying, going mad. I repeated the words again, to no effect. A city was being wiped out. Come on, if I had a power it had to work now! A third time. Nothing. In frustration, I stood up and shouted at the screen:

"She passed defeated homewards whence she came, Dammit!"

I panted, glad Dad wasn't home and feeling very stupid screaming at the television. If the neighbours had heard me, dad would tease me for weeks. The reports kept coming, now featuring our local Brockton Bay news and then a sudden cut-in on the channel:
"Breaking news from Canberra. The Simurgh has been driven off! Alexandria and Eidolon victory!" I blinked, sat down. I hadn't done anything, I knew. It was like a child shouting at traffic lights to magically change them. People all round the world were praying for that thing to lift away. My poem wouldn't have done anything. I shivered. Maybe it had. Maybe. Maybe I was giving myself the credit for the sacrifices of the capes who had fought and died to stop her. The signal cut to the Australian news broadcast, what must have been the hospital or the staging ground. Capes were everywhere, capes and civilians lying in rows on the ground as healers moved quickly among them. Alexandria was in close-up on screen, and the attack must be over or they wouldn't have a reporter that close.

"...abandoning her device half-built and retreated," the heroine said.

"Is this the first time Simurgh-tech has been captured?" The reporter pushed the microphone in her face. He might as well had shoved it at a brick wall. Alexandria didn't even react, simply continued her statement.

"Importantly for all of Australia, it appears that she was driven off before the city must be quarantined. Canberra can and will be rebuilt." I heard the cheers through the television, and faint applause from outside our windows, other people watching the same broadcast. "Now I have to return to the rescue efforts. Casualties number in the tens of thousands among the civilians and heroes."

"And villains?"

"Everyone who fights the Endbringers is a hero," Alexandria said in a tone that shut down any further comment. She turned, her heavy clock swirling behind her, and was gone in a blur as she flew off.

"Canberra has been saved. But at what cost?" the reporter continued, recovering quickly from the rebuke. "Though this has been a short attack, our hearts and prayers must be with those who gave their lives defending our city..." I wasn't paying attention any more. There wouldn't be any real news until later anyway, when the chaos had died down.

Our web connection was poor at best. I needed to get to back to the library, to check if this really was a short Simurgh attack. I needed to know exactly when she fled, and if she had ever left technology behind before. Maybe my power had....no. I sat back down. I'd check tomorrow. I didn't want to know yet, because I wasn't ready to. I'd wait until the details came out, and find out when everyone else did. Just in case. Because of Thinkers. Because if it really was a short Endbringer attack, then people might be looking for...people like me who were looking for details like this. Because if my power really did affect Endbringers, everyone would want me. And if that was going to happen, I had to be ready.

--
Poems quoted:
"Fix my step" by T. Hebert age 15. "Strange Meeting" by Wilfred Owen, (Mention of "Dulce est Decorum Est"), "Darkness" by Byron, and "The Wanderer" by John Masefield.

 

[PuzzleRaven]

Chapter 5 - May 23rd​

If I should meet thee
After long years,
How should I greet thee?—
With silence and tears.
Not that one. That meant I wouldn't see him for years. I read it again and scowled, but it was better than some of the alternatives. I didn't want to think about how my power would handle "A fusion of hearts and minds, rekinlding a forgotten flame". Why were so many reunion poems all about true lovers anyway? There weren't any to bring a missing father home. (He hadn't been Dad since Mom died, part of me whispered, and I ignored it. I'd been fixing that ever since I got my power. I had made him better.) Propped up in my hospital bed, I flipped the page, looking for another quote when there was a knock at the door. I closed the book, putting my book mark in to keep my place.

"Come in," I called. The nurse stuck her head round cautiously, and I beckoned. She smiled, closing the door behind her as she entered.

"Taylor, I have some news on your treatment," she said, and I sat up. "Your CT scan was clear. We'd like to keep you for one more night for observation, and discharge you tomorrow." Great. I could go home, if home was still standing.

"Did you find my Dad?"

"I'm so sorry, Taylor." My eyes stung. I'd known it, or guessed when I heard the words that saved me. That confirmation killed hope that I shouldn't have held, but I did. My power mastered Endbringers. Surely it could make my Dad not dead.

"I'll go home. He'll go there if anywhere. I can manage-"

"There's no water in the area, so I'm afraid staying at your house isn't possible." I rolled my eyes. I'd been taking care of myself since mum died. I could manage.

"I can get a place in a hostel, I guess."

"Taylor, the hostels are-"

"So a refugee camp?" I interrupted her, because I knew I wasn't going to like what she was going to say.

"Taylor, you are a minor. We have to discharge you into the care of an adult." She sounded exasperated.

"Kurt and Lacey?" I barely knew them, just as Dad's friends, but I'd make it work somehow. There were worse options, and as long as I could work out how to get to the library I could keep working on my power.

"We haven't been able to contact them. The Docks were hit hard, so that doesn't mean the worst has happened-" she said, and paused for an instant before her professional mask dropped back into place "- but for now we've had to find an alternative." I nodded. A government guardian would make things awkward but I could work my power round them. It just meant being a bookworm.

"Foster care?"

"Actually your father's will made arrangements, and we've found the guardians he appointed." I frowned. There was no one I could think of, aside Kurt and Lacey. I vaguely remembered Alexander.

"Dad never mentioned that."

"It's been in place since you were eight." Eight? I froze, staring at her. Oh no. No, no, no...

"Do you remember the Barnes family?" she said. Jerkily I nodded. "Good. They're outside, and they'd love to see you." She made it sound like good news. It was for her. She'd get an empty bed. I swallowed, unable to speak as she prattled on. "Their house survived unscathed, and they've got a spare bedroom all ready for you." I kill two Endbringers, I lose my house and my Dad but Alan Barnes and Emma Barnes come through it fine? I nearly snarled. "Taylor? Shall I send them in?"

"Sure." Like she actually cared what I wanted. She looked at me as she stood up, resting a very unwelcome hand on my arm.

"Taylor, is everything okay?" Like she'd do anything if it wasn't. I scowled at her.

"Just send them in." Her forehead creased, like she was actually worried.

"Taylor," She wasn't smiling any more "You don't have to see them if you don't want to." I didn't say anything, and she lowered her voice. "If you feel at risk from these people, you need to tell us."

"Why? I've told people and no one ever does anything!" Her face went grey. She bent over the bed, taking my hand in hers

"Taylor, has this man been hurting you?" Show me where on the bear...I laughed bitterly. She made it sound like I was six.

"No." It was the truth. I'd barely seen him since the mess at school.

"One of the family members then?" She probed. I said nothing. "Taylor-"

"If they were, you wouldn't believe me anyway." The school didn't. Dad had, but he'd been steam-rolled by Allen Barnes.

"It's my job to listen."

"But not to do anything. You'll just hand me over anyway."

"Say the word, and you won't go anywhere."

"Then what?"

"There'll be an investigation-" I stopped listening. It would be like last time, like Blackwell all over again, except it would be my word against Emma's entire family, and no one would believe me. I slumped, pulling my hand out of hers.

"Forget it. Just send them in." She straightened up, looking unhappy. Good, that was two of us.

"Taylor, this is your alert button. If you feel tired, under stress, or if you want me to kick someone out, press it." I didn't bother taking it. I knew she didn't mean it. "Taylor, you are our patient. Until you are discharged you are under our care. Let me be the heavy if you need it." She pressed the button firmly into my hand, closing my fingers round it, and fiddled with a white box on the rail at the side of my bed. "Don't forget your intercom. The green button here, if anyone else wants to signal us. It goes to the switchboard."

I snuggled my hand down under the covers, gripping the button firmly, as she left. It might help, if I could get someone to throw them out. The nurse was back a few minutes later, sadly not alone.

"Mr. Barnes, Mrs. Barnes, please go in. Remember, Taylor's had a tough time so please be gentle with her." She made it sound like I was an invalid. Zoë came round to the bed, pulling the nurse's chair up, and sat down in it without asking. She looked drawn and pale, but her clothes were expensive as ever and she wasn't hurt.

"Could you get us another chair?" Alan asked, and the nurse obligingly obeyed, leaving me alone with them.

"Taylor-" Zoë reached for my right hand, and I pulled it back. Alan folded his arms.

"Taylor, we understand that this situation isn't ideal," he said, sounding like he was presenting a case. "After your allegations against my daughter-" I just glared at him.

"They weren't allegations, they're true, and you know it!"

"-it is very hard for us to take you in. However we can overlook this." He didn't even break stride when I objected.

"You can!" I snapped, outraged. "You asshole!"

"Taylor!" Ex-Aunt Zoë exclaimed, as if she had any right to.

"Your daughter made my life hell!"

"Oh, not this again." Zoë sat back, re-arranging her coat. Alan put his hand on her shoulder as the nurse came back with a chair. He took it, put it by the bed and shut the door without sitting down.

"Taylor, despite your allegations, Danny wanted us to take you in." He sounded so condescending. "So, despite your troubled behaviour, we have a spare room you can stay in."

"I'd rather be homeless!" I'd rather be dead.

"The streets aren't safe for a girl your age," he said. Nor was his house.

"This is why you need a guardian." Zoë looked at me with distaste. "We should never have sent you back to Danny. You've been spoiled." My jaw dropped. I barely saw my father. We were on the breadline because of Emma.

"How the hell was I spoiled?"

"Danny let you get away with far too much." Zoë said. "He wasn't paying enough attention, of course you acted out..." I wasn't paying attention to her any more. Behind her Emma had entered, shown in by the nurse. She was smiling at me. My blood boiled.

"Your daughter tried to kill me!"

"See what I said, Dad?" Emma said. The nurse had gone, vanished like Gladly, the door shut to. I should have known I couldn't trust her.

"Can you put up with this?" Alan asked.

"Yes." She had the nerve to look put upon. "If she tells any more lies about me, you've got my back, Dad?"

"Yes, Emma," Alan said, putting his arm round her shoulders protectively. He looked at me severely, his eyes narrowing. "You will be staying with us, Taylor. Despite your problems."

"Doesn't anyone care what I want?" I yelled, and saw Emma mouth 'no'.

"Don't be silly, Taylor," Zoë said, shaking her head as she stood up. "We want what's best for you, for Annette's sake." She had the fucking nerve-? The mention of my mother stunned me long enough for Alan to usher Zoë out, telling the nurse something about paperwork. Emma lingered, waiting until the door was closed and sat down.

"You're going to be staying with us, Taylor, won't it be fun? Just like last time." She leaned back, letting the chair creak as she rocked it. "When you got your mother killed. How does it feel? Now you've got both your parents killed?"

"Leviathan killed my father," I snapped at her. Her words hurt, even when they shouldn't.

"And you're going to cry yourself to sleep for a week again?" It was the second time she'd used that against me, and the sting was muted this time.

"There really isn't any depth you won't sink to is there, Emma?" Words stirred in my mind and I tried to forget them. "How do you look at yourself in the mirror?"

"Easily." She stretched, showing off her figure. "I like what I see. Better than being a cheap, worthless, slut like you."

"Shut up, Emma," I spat.

"Truth hurts?" She sat forward. "No one likes you-"

"Because of you, Emma!" I yelled, and I was crying and hated it. "You lie about me, you spread rumours. I haven't done anything to you-"

"Because you're too weak." Emma's confidence was boundless. "You never even fought back."

"I went to the teachers-"

"And they believed me." The malice in her voice was scary. "Who'd believe a loser like you? And that's how it's going to stay, Taylor. My family, my friends, my school. I win."

"I'll fight you." My voice sounded broken.

"What with? Your Dad was broke. You're worthless, Taylor."

"There's money-"

"Dad's going to be in control of it 'til you're eighteen." She leaned back, smirking. "Not sure there'll be any left by then. You'll want to cover the costs of taking you in, won't you Taylor? Even generous enough to get me set up in LA. It's not like a loser like you needs a college fund. I'm sure Medicaid can cover your stays in the mental wards."

"There's nothing wrong with me!"

"All those lies you keep telling-"

"They're true," I yelled. "I wrote it all down! I've folders full of your emails-"

"In your house?" she said, sweetly. My heart fell. "Have you forgotten? I guess you have memory issues as well. It must be all the drugs."

"I don't take drugs!" How did she get me on the backfoot so fast? She smiled sweetly, compassionately.

"But you can't remember things? There must be something wrong with your head." Her voice dripped with false sympathy. "You'll have to go back to the looney bin."

"I was in there because you filled my locker with mum's papers, Emma!" She didn't say anything, just sneered."You burned them. You shoved me into it. You tried to lock me in. Why? Why the locker?" My voice cracked as I shouted. I coughed, feeling something in my throat tear. Emma leaned forward, full of vindictive spite.

"Because we could!" she said, victorious.

The door slammed open, knocking the medical trolley over. Medical instruments scattered across the floor as Alan Barnes charged in, panting. He couldn't stop in time, hitting the end of the bed with his midriff and doubling over.

"Emma, stop talking!" he yelled. Behind him a nurse, my nurse, ran in followed by a large security guard and another woman I did not know, in a suit skirt and cardigan.

"Mr. Barnes, you and your family will leave this room immediately. Security-" My nurse was absolutely incandescent. Barnes rounded on her.

"I am Taylor's guardian-"

"Not until we discharge her into your care." The nurse was not cowed at all, pushing forward to get between Alan and myself. The woman behind her stayed by the doorway, scowling, arms folded, lips pursed.

"After what I have heard, that will not be happening." She sounded like Blackwell, but the disapproval was aimed entirely at Alan. He pulled himself up, glaring at me round the nurse.

"Taylor," he snapped, furiously. "None of this is admissible in court. It's hearsay!"

"Security, please remove him now." My nurse was having none of it, and the security guard gripped Alan Barnes by the arm.

"I'm an attorney," Alan blustered, yelling. "If you release any of that, I will sue!" The guard wasn't impressed, hustling him back towards the door. Forced into the corridor, Alan pulled his arm away, straightening his jacket. He glared at me, and then the nurse. Neither of us cared. "Come on, Emma."

"I'll be seeing you all to the door now, Mr. Barnes," the woman in the cardigan said. "And writing my report. Gerry, would you come with us?" The big security guard grinned and shut the door behind them.

"Zoë's still here," I said, stupidly and the nurse tutted reassuringly, straightening my sheets for me.

"You won't be seeing her again." She looked at the monitors and down to me. "Taylor, are you okay?"

"Fine." I guessed. "What the hell? You were listening?" We hadn't been that loud, I was sure.

"The intercom was - " The nurse trailed off. "No, I won't lie to you. Medical staff are mandated reporters, Taylor. I was concerned about what you said, so I left the intercom on and called our CPS office. Your conversation was witnessed by our child protection officer and patient advocate. I stayed in the corridor, in case my patient needed me." She hadn't intervened. She'd let Emma say all those things and she hadn't done anything.

"She'll get out of it, I said. "She always does."

"Two legal officers and three mandated reporters as witnesses?" She smiled. She'd sat through all that and she smiled. "I don't think so. If it goes to court, I'd feel obliged to repeat all of it." And humiliate me further. "I don't think Alan Barnes would like that. Nor would the State Bar."

"He said it's hearsay," I said, and she shook her head.

"Our legal department will handle it," she said. "Trust me, it isn't our first rodeo. But you won't be going home with them tomorrow, which is the main thing. Is there anyone else we could contact on your behalf?" Not that I could think of. There was Shadow Stalker, but I didn't know if she was still alive or where I stood with her.

"No." She paused, looked at me with what had to be pity.

"Oh Taylor." She sighed, pulled herself together. "You're sure you are okay? Is there anything I can get you?"

"I'm just tired."

"Well, dinner is at five, so if you want to make your choice?" Hospital food, hospital, food or hospital food. I went to take the form and saw my hands were shaking. Emma had got to me again. She'd get away with it, again. The pen scratched a wandering trail over the form, and the nurse had to mark the crosses for me.

"I'd like to get some sleep," I really didn't want company. What had happened to turn Emma into such a monster? My eyes stung and I grabbed a tissue. I wouldn't cry. "Could you turn the intercom off?"

"Sure." She did something and the lights on it went out. "You're safe, Taylor. They won't ever be allowed near you again." That was true, I'd make sure of it, but I just nodded as she smiled. "Sleep well."

Once she was gone I reached out. The intercom was just in reach and I went for the main switch and turned the power off. I didn't want to be overheard. Even as she walked out the door, Emma had taken the time to glare at me, to mouth silently "I win." That wasn't my friend. That wasn't even a person any more. She wouldn't stop. She wouldn't ever stop. Not until she killed someone. Oh Mom... I'd wanted to be a hero. I'd killed two Endbringers, surely I was allowed this? It would be self-defense, I told myself. The image of Emma mouthing 'I win' returned, with that strange tightness in my chest. The monitors were spiking high. What had turned my friend into a monster? I drew a breath. I was better than this. I was going to be a hero.

And heroes killed monsters.

I was done. I wasn't trying to save her any more. I was not interested in making her a better person. Much better people had died in the shelter. Emma could not be reasoned with. She did not want to be saved. She was just going to keep going, one step at a time, one word at a time, making the world a worse place with every single act. And she was proud of it.

I had memorised Auden's words the first time I read them. I knew exactly what I was doing as I looked at the door, as memories of all her betrayals rose and I drowned myself in them. The emails. The flute. My mother's books. The locker. My voice did not shake.

"...blow the cobwebs from the mirror,
see yourself at last."

"Put your hand behind the mirror,
You have done your part
Find the penknife there and plunge it
Into your false heart."

The stress fell away. It was done. I lay my head on the pillow and slept easily.

--
Poems quoted:
"When we two parted" by Byron, "The Meeting" by Rumi (translated) and the last stanzas of "Lady Weeping at the Crossroads" by W.H.Auden

 

[PuzzleRaven]

January 18th, 2011​

The match sparked.

The fire arced passed me in slow motion.

I tried to catch it. My hands were moving so slowly.

The match floated passed serenely, falling onto the paper.

I tried to raise my hands to cover my face. They wouldn't move.

Fire. There was fire everywhere.

I fell forward...

Pain.

I yerked awake, trying to scream. This was wrong, it never happened, I got my hands up in time.

Blinking, I felt the hospital bed under me, saw the white blurs round the head of my bed that were the curtains. After days of absolute darkness, it was strange to see light, instead of feeling it. I'd never known people could feel light on their skin before, and I wish I'd never learned it. In the dim light I lay back, letting my eyes drift to the only light in the ward, the ceiling mounted television. I prefered books.

My mother's books. They'd filled my locker with them, torn the pages out to crumple them, and when I opened it - I'd smelt the petrol a second before I heard the match. The last thing I saw was the locker going up like an inferno, feeling the blast of heat into my face, the taste of it, breathing fire, and my eyes...

I'd screamed.

My shriek had brought the teachers running, too slowly. Lying on the ground in darkness as someone kicked my in the stomach - Sophia, I guessed - someone pulled my hands from my face and hesitated. I'd thought they would help me. "No more books, Taylor," Emma's voice by my ear. "No scholarship. No way out. You're going to stay here in your place like the worm you are." My mother's writing, her life's work, my scholarship essay, all up in ashes, no way out, no way out of this goddamn hellish place -

I'd awakened in this bed days later, my eyes bandaged. My hand was handcuffed to the bed, and it took another day for it all to sink in.

Dad had gone after the school for my injuries, but Emma had got there first. He was faced with the police coming after me: it was my locker, my papers, where the petrol had been. The school's lawyer claimed I had obviously been planning to burn the school down and mishandled accelerants. They'd pointed out that I was the only one who could have got to mom's books in our locked attic, and when I said I hadn't no one believed me. The boxes were still locked, but the books were all gone. Emma must have stolen them somehow. The school had Emma's testimony, and Sophia's and Julia's and Madison and the rest. The police tore our house apart and found my bullying journal. Dad was distraught, tried to claim it was proof someone else did it and that I was being framed. The school claimed it was motive.

I had visitors, mostly angry shouting men, or calm ones in suits, or white coats that all blurred together. Alan coming in with Emma, my best friend sanctimoniously saying she'd pulled me back when I dropped the match and to tell me I should be grateful. I couldn't get away, I couldn't even see her, but I could hear her smirking as she spoke. I'd screamed at her to get out, refused visitors until they kicked her out. Aunt Zoe coming in, being so dreadfully kind and supportive. I'd trusted her, cried on her shoulder and told her everything and she'd told me it would be alright: that we were alone, that I could be honest. She kept asking me if I was sure, if there was anything else and each time there was because I could finally tell someone about the bullying and everything her daughter had done. I'd felt so good when she hugged me and left and then I heard her outside to someone, doctors or police: 'I'm sorry, you heard. I've done everything I can but she still won't admit it,' and them, assuring her she had done her best to make me take responsibility.

The world had spun. When I woke, I just couldn't talk. I wouldn't. Not to anyone. Not after that. I'd spent time in the psych ward, for what they said was a nervous breakdown, before they released me back to the ward because they weren't equipped for my injuries. Not talking was apparently a psych matter, but there was no point. My words did nothing. I meant nothing. Things got better, I guessed. I didn't get the details, but suddenly the parade of visits from shouting men and angry women went away. So did the charges, something about inconclusive evidence and finally the handcuffs came off.

Five more days for the burns to heal, five days for the sluicing and extraction of ash and dust from under my eyelids and on my corneas. I'd been lucky, my hands had been up. I still had a face and eyes. Barely.

And finally, finally, last night the bandages came off.

It was so nice to be able to see something, even if all I could see was hospital white for the most part. My glasses hadn't been replaced yet. My sight might change, and it had to wait until my eyes healed. Where I went from here I didn't know. If I didn't talk at all, maybe they'd put me back in the psych ward. Maybe prison was still an option. It would be better than Winslow.

The faint murmur in the background drew my attention. Just another news report, on the TV mounted in the ward to entertain us, without access to turn it off, or change the channel or show something actually interesting. The sound was down to not disturb the late sleepers, but enough I could hear it even if the picture itself was blurry. I stared at it anyway, enjoying the flickering colours and squinting to make out the scrolling text.

The journalist was standing on the shore just beyond the wrecks, nicely framed by the damaged boats, giving another so-very-earnest live report on yet another attempt to revitalise the area around Boat Graveyard. It was boring as hell, and twice as pointless. He droned on, telling us about a new initiative to curb criminal endeavours at the Boat Graveyard by sealing the largest ships so vagrants couldn't enter. Stop crime? They might as well ask the tide to turn back, be a modern day Canute. The container ship was, he claimed, planned to be removed, City Hall had applied for environmental grants... I laughed silently as the camera panned across the bay. It was election year again. When Brockton was ruins, that huge container ship would still be there. A quote came to mind, one of my mother's favourites, and I whispered it mockingly.

"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away."

There was a shout from behind the camera. The reporter looked behind him and panicked. The BBPD cops in the background, guarding the tape-line around the latest murder in the Graveyard ,turned to look and then ran. The camera shot went crazy as the cameraman fled, running up the beach to throw himself up onto the seafront road. The reporter was bundled over the barrier by a BBPD cop who pushed them to huddle down. Water splashed over them and then the camera raised shakily to the reporter's grey face as he peered over. He said nothing.

The long shot said it all. The long stretch of empty, pristine, sands along the entire curve of the bay. The water that had rushed in to fill the voids of the boats and splashed against the tidal defences, now trickling gently back out to sea. The huge cargo ship still lay at the entrance to the harbour. Of the rest? No sign.

My mouth opened slightly and all I could think to say was:

"Shit."

--
Poem quoted is "Ozymandius" by Percy Bysse Shelley