Splendors and Glooms

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The witch burned. She tossed in a sea of blankets, dizzy with heat. It was fever, not fire, that tormented her, fever and the nightmares that came with it.

She opened her eyes, breathing hard. There was no smell of smoke, no crackle of flame. Her doom had not yet come.

A brass monkey with a hideous face hung on a cord above her head. She curled her fingers around the monkey’s body and jerked. The bed curtains opened. Outside them, the candles in the wall brackets burned steadily. Cassandra was glad of that. Now that she had reached the end of her life, she was a child again and feared the dark.

She heaved herself out of bed and stumbled to the washstand. She splashed herself with cold water, drenching the front of her nightdress. Her fingers went to the filigree locket and the gold chain around her neck. She wished she could take the locket off and cool it in the water.

But the clasp of the chain was tiny and her fingers were swollen. Cassandra heaved a great sigh and sank onto the stool beside her dressing table.

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