The Poet and The Soldier

Two.

Isadora sits alone in the corner of the private bar room Gregson hired for the publicity meeting. Well, he called it a meeting; it's more like a party - just not the sort Isadora is interested in.

Employees of her publishing company are getting tipsy on cheap champagne, the sandwiches being offered around on platters are soggy and sad and Isadora is fighting down the urge to go throttle Gregson.

She takes a deep breath. No. Isadora wants to do this, she has to get this right for Anna; it's the least she can do. It's not Gregson's fault that she'd spent all of yesterday and today popping Panadol for the pain in her chest that refuses to go away, then struggling with the hurt of Anna vanishing and failing to reappear. Isadora keeps expecting to hear the click of a kettle she didn't put on, footsteps apart from her own, a voice that laughs and curses and nags her to look after herself. It never comes.

Even if she didn't want to do the reading, she might have ended up coming out anyway just to escape the oppressive atmosphere her flat has developed, as well as the quiet ringing that had started up in her ears.

But if anything, it's worsened.

"Hello everyone," Gregson speaks into the microphone up on the small stage by the bar, smiling as the conversation in the room winds down. "Thank you all for coming out to celebrate the return of Isadora Heroux, as well as to hear one of her poems from her new collection, The Soldier, which we are hoping to publish within the year. But no shop talk tonight - I know I didn't come out for that." He chuckles, and his audience obligingly laughs in response.

"I have a very exciting treat for you," he continues, eyes flicking to Isadora's hunched form. "Isadora Heroux herself has volunteered to do the reading tonight." The room doesn't erupt into whispers, but Isadora stubbornly weathers the surprised glances. She's been getting them all night, but now it's like they have permission to stare. The ringing in her ears swells.

"Isadora?" She looks over to where Gregson stands, hand outstretched. "If you would do us the honour?"

She rises, one hand to the wall to steady herself as the ringing abruptly increases in volume. Her heart is beating too fast, each thump prompting a corresponding flash of pain.

She walks slowly up onto the stage and Gregson hands her a copy of one of her poems, the clean black lettering stark and disconcerting.

Isadora lowers the microphone and clears her throat, concentrating on the words in front of her. The ringing stabilises, becoming clearer, closer. Swaying, she opens her mouth to say the first word, when she's hit by a wave of nausea so powerful she almost retches. It feels like her stomach is trying to climb out of her mouth, only it can't get past her burning chest, and the ringing in her ears finally resolves.

She's deaf to the concerned muttering of the crowd, doesn't feel it when Gregson takes her elbow because she's confronted with the absolute, bone-deep certainty that all the poems she's written are wrong.

She shakes her head, staggering slightly, the ringing painful in a different way to the agony of her chest. It's familiar, it's so familiar that she would pierce her own eardrums if she could, because it's not just ringing in her ears.

It's screaming. And she knows who it is.

The poems are all wrong. Fundamentally wrong. Wrong because Anna is not in them, because they come nowhere near capturing her, and the truth of it is almost as torturous as the sound of Anna's unearthly, inhuman screaming.

Wrong wrong wrong wrong she wrenches herself from Gregson's grasp wrong wrong get out wrong just get out now wrong and get home wrong wrong wrong it'll all be fine if you just get wrong wrong home wrong you can fix it if you find Anna and wrong wrong Anna stop it wrong wrong wrong stop wrong wrong wrong screaming-

Gregson, along with the rest of the crowd, can only watch on helplessly as Isadora bolts towards the door with wild eyes, like she's being pursued by demons.