My shivered bones
Until the panic's out
20th July, 1893 — Darrow House, The Sanditon
After day one of the healing conference, he’d bowed out of the cards and drinks, and accepted Zelda’s invitation to visit instead. He hadn’t decided whether he would regret it, but after a day in the company of long-standing colleagues, with everyone in convivial high spirits and everyone far too nice, he had badly needed an escape.
Never mind that he had been doing his best to avoid his family, too. Particularly Zelda, who was friends with Dionisia, and particularly Alfred, because Alfred had helped him one night in London, and Ari only had a hazy recollection of the night, and of how drunk and senseless he had been, and what he might have done or said. But it had been months, and he couldn’t avoid everyone and everything, so perhaps he would get through this visit with a brave face.
Well, he wasn’t getting through it.
He’d made an excuse to leave the room. And now a moment’s respite of splashing his face in the bathroom had turned into standing there blankly to compose himself, and that moment of facing himself in the mirror had surfaced the self-loathing again, the need to hurt himself. Maybe it was a good idea – it would get him through the rest of the evening at Zelda’s, and maybe even tomorrow.
He had only meant to be gone a minute. More fool him, then, for using one of the new severing charms they’d discussed in the lectures today to cut himself. It had worked well, so well, and he’d closed up the wounds on his left arm again with magic, rolled down his sleeves again and unlocked the door –
But these cuts hadn’t closed like all the others. There was a thin line of red bleeding through his shirt sleeve – he tried again, watched the skin knit itself back together and then steadily reopen again. He tried again. The cuts didn’t disappear. If anything, they were deeper. He felt a pang of panic.
And now there were footsteps outside, and a knock at the door.
Never mind that he had been doing his best to avoid his family, too. Particularly Zelda, who was friends with Dionisia, and particularly Alfred, because Alfred had helped him one night in London, and Ari only had a hazy recollection of the night, and of how drunk and senseless he had been, and what he might have done or said. But it had been months, and he couldn’t avoid everyone and everything, so perhaps he would get through this visit with a brave face.
Well, he wasn’t getting through it.
He’d made an excuse to leave the room. And now a moment’s respite of splashing his face in the bathroom had turned into standing there blankly to compose himself, and that moment of facing himself in the mirror had surfaced the self-loathing again, the need to hurt himself. Maybe it was a good idea – it would get him through the rest of the evening at Zelda’s, and maybe even tomorrow.
He had only meant to be gone a minute. More fool him, then, for using one of the new severing charms they’d discussed in the lectures today to cut himself. It had worked well, so well, and he’d closed up the wounds on his left arm again with magic, rolled down his sleeves again and unlocked the door –
But these cuts hadn’t closed like all the others. There was a thin line of red bleeding through his shirt sleeve – he tried again, watched the skin knit itself back together and then steadily reopen again. He tried again. The cuts didn’t disappear. If anything, they were deeper. He felt a pang of panic.
And now there were footsteps outside, and a knock at the door.
