31st May, 1888 — Miriam and Cassie's House
Miriam Trelawney

It had begun at dawn when, upon waking from a most peculiar dream that evaporated like mist from her mind the moment she woke, but she knew had been unnerving, Cassie had glanced in the mirror and nearly broke her neck looking over her shoulder rapidly for something that simply wasn't there. She had turned back to the mirror, only to see her own tired face looking back and, frowning, moved on.

The thing in the mirror she could ignore, the clump of tea leaves at the bottom of her cup that she looked at habitually and usually gave her a clue as to something mundane that was due to happen to her, made her drop the cup in fright.

"Miriam!" She screamed, running to the kitchen cupboard as she called for her sister again, knowing her son would sleep through anything in his small bed next to hers. "Miriam! Wake up!"

She rummaged through their cupboards, sparse though they were usually there seemed to be a plethora of things blocking her way and she pushed aside a number of things that had no business being there - a few bottles of whiskey probably stolen from Abe, a folded up tablecloth that needed airing after it's long sojourn inside, a few candles, a bottle of rose water and- ah! there!

Cassie pulled out her emergency sage and immediately raced back to the kitchen table, grabbing her wand to light a fire despite the warm weather outdoors. Upstairs she could hear movement and immediately fell to her knees, only just coming short of singeing her hand as she thrust the sage into the flame to let it take then pulled it towards her face, puffing out the flame and blowing the ember steadily, watching the smoke that rose off it with watering, intent eyes.

  

That was the tone that Cassandra used when she Saw something and, more specifically, when she Saw something bad. MT was out of bed and thundering down the stairs before her brain caught up to her body. When your sister was the most powerful seer of their age - and MT had heard whispers that Cassandra was one of the most powerful seers ever - you didn't wait around when she shouted your name.

"What?" Meer asked, breathless, as soon as she reached the kitchen, "Cassie, what did you see?"

Maybe it was nothing. The reluctant early-morning sun streamed through their windows, Theo wasn't up yet, and Cassandra was burning sage in the kitchen. It wasn't nothing; MT just wished that it was.

---

  

The smoke that stung her eyes clouded her vision with tears but the strange images swimming in her head were of an entirely different beast. And yet, they were still unclear. A dense wall of slate grey dominated her sight, a thing not entirely different to the thinner swirls of smoke that rose from the sage, and with the grey the overwhelming feeling of fear and despair, but what did it all mean?

Surely her sight wasn’t supplying her with a weather forecast? There was nothing to fear in fog and yet she curled her body into a ball, tears rolling down her cheeks that were not entirely born of the sage.

“I…I don’t know. It’s so dark Meer,” she let out a sob, her head aching from the pungent smoke, her body beginning to shake.

  

"Oh, no, Cass," Meer said. She stepped into Cassandra's cloud of smoke and wrapped her arms around her sister's middle. Gently, Miriam started to guide Cassandra towards the well-worn sofa. There was nothing good in the sage; no further answers. This was enough.

"You're sure it was a vision?"

She knew Cassandra was sure; Cassandra was always sure. Whichever higher power spoke through her sister did not put on airs, at least not about what it was doing - this was a vision, and it was not a good one.

---

  

Had she not been gripped by a fear greater than any she had ever felt before Cassie might have laughed at the question, though she guessed that Miriam knew it was false hope to think this could be anything other than a vision. It might well be the worse she had ever experienced and she curled closer to Miriam as her body shook. #

“Believe me,” she said, a tremor to her voice that could have been a small laugh or just her general shakiness. “I’d much rather it was all dark because I was going blind.”

  

Meer ran her fingers through Cassie's hair. "Do you know where you were?" she asked. This was bad. This was bad.

---

  

It had been…dark. That was all she could think of that was entirely concrete but something about the place she had been in her mind had been horribly familiar, sickeningly so.

“Here,” she replied quietly, as though whispering it would make it less real.