#edelmir

DRAMATIS PERSONAE: vol. i-iii

notes for the editor: by no means the full cast of characters, as you will come to know when you read further, but a thorough enough survey of the most important ones. –m.

MATHILDE: THE BELOVED SISTER CONRAD: THE ABSENT FATHER IOANNA: THE WICKED STEPMOTHER MISCHA: THE RIVAL

EDELMIR: THE BEAST ISABELA: THE WITCH

Chapter Three

I have always been prone to nightmares. Genius, I have often felt, comes necessarily hand-in-hand with madness. In those days, what plagued me was simpler than it is today: dreams filled with danger and ill omens. I had become something of an insomniac, especially after Ioanna's arrival. For all I liked the woman, I feared the change that she brought with her. My dreams were filled with death, and fire, and patterns of birds. On one particular night, however, I dreamed a true omen - I dreamed about Edelmir.

This was long before I made his official acquaintance, but even now, so many years later, I am certain it was him.

I stood in a clearing, or perhaps a field, surrounded by plumes of flame. Though I saw no buildings around me, I was certain that France itself was burning, a great collapse, like the shifting of logs in a fire. Before me loomed a warped, inhuman figure, the solid black of shadow against the fire.

"I come with a warning, if you will hear it," the beast stated. It spoke not in a true voice, but in a voice I heard only within my head. Around us, the fire roared, deafening and distracting. I could feel no heat, though I felt the smoke begin to gather in my throat.

"What is it?" I asked.

"I am coming."

I did not fear it, at first. I was fascinated with the supernatural. Fairy-tales and old-fashioned Bestiae were my favorite things to read, and Ophelie and Mathilde made a game of searching our house for restless spirits, and dismissing them back to their realm.

"Coming to where?" I was nervous, I remember the feeling of my heart beating, the burn of the dream-smoke on my throat. The best swept forward, shadowy hands clasped onto my shoulders. It seemed to melt into the darkness around me, its form growing indistinct in the coal-black of the night.

"Only one has to die. Protect each other. It is the only way."

"Who's going to die? Who do I have to protect? What are you?" The beast pressed down on my shoulders, forcing me onto my knees. Though it had no face - not this time - I felt as if I could hear it smile.

"You will find me in Rome." Was all it said, before the shadow-smoke dissipated, and I was left alone, surrounded by the burning grasslands.

I awoke abruptly, startled out of my fretful sleep by the pounding of my own heart. It was the middle of the night. My sisters slept around me. I was greeted for once with the absolute stillness of a house at rest. Peace and quiet. But I was unable to appreciate it, the rabbit-thump of my pulse drowning out any sense of silence I could feel. I looked desperately over to Ophelie, hoping despite our dislike for one another that she would be awake, that she might comfort me, or explain my dream as she was so fond of doing.

I couldn't see her face, but her form had the stillness of sleep. I didn't have it in me to wake her.