Cadoville (unfinished)

Chapter II

"The doctor says you're healing nicely...."

That was the crispest thing I had heard in a good while. Uncle Stefano's voice, his hand squeezing mine, even his tobacco wafting up my nose too, were like the relief one feels when waking from a bad dream.... It did precious little to take my mind off the apparent pounds of hot lead resting on my temple, keeping me immobile and my eyes shut.

"I feel sick...," I said, my voice little more than a frazzled squeak.

"So would anyone who's been on as much laudanum as you these past two weeks.... Just lie quiet.... I'll have the maid bring you some ginger tea."

He squeezed my hand again, stroking it with his thumb. ..., Two weeks? I thought. Where had I been for two weeks? My eyes opened, like two heavy shutters opening for the first time in years, their seams all rusted over.... A tall, charcoal smudge loomed over me, swaying left and right and blowing smoke in my face.... Two pulsating amber blobs flickered and flashed behind it, and another hovered by my head. Everything else was just black. I knew the smell though, underneath the fumes of uncle Stefano's tobacco, a good smell, old books....

"Hello there...." said the smudge with a strong whiff of pipe smoke. "Don't speak if it hurts."

Crackles and murmurs seeped in from outside – clip-clops, trundling over cobbles, sharp words and muffled conversations, and the constant pitter-patter of little pellets on glass. A sharp pain resonated through my head as I lifted it from the pillow, as though I had fallen asleep with my face resting on a hot stove.

"Where am I?" I asked.

"I'm surprised you don't recognize it, you spend enough time up here...."

Uncle Stefano placed a hard object with a flat surface in my hand. I ran my fingers over its pointed corners, flicked the pages by my ear and even smelled it. The painful but attempted smile on my face must have told him I knew instantly where I was – the library in uncle Stefano's townhouse. He wrapped his fingers around something curved and cool and told me to drink – fresh water. I took two sips and pressed it against my cheek, only then feeling the crusty bandages tightly wrapped around my head – a discovery that turned my fingertips ice-cold....

"Why can't I see?" I asked, following the bandages over my nose and around the back of my head.

"There's nothing worth seeing at the moment, Paoletta.... It's been pouring down all day," he said, sitting on the end of the bed. Noisily licking his lips, he took a deep breath and said, "some would say you've been very lucky, I suppose.... Do you remember what happened?"

'Yes' and 'no' would have been perfectly truthful answers to that question....

"I remember the flash..., and the heat...," I began. "I know there're other things I remember..., but I can't see them..., like a bad dream that just keeps getting further and further away...."

I hope my memories would crystalise once the pain started to wear off.... Uncle Stefano got nearer, blowing a mouthful of smoke into my face. He didn't say anything though. I heard him stall a few times, like he wanted to say something but couldn't bring himself to utter the words, rolling them back and forth over his tongue.

"Do you know you're the only survivor?"

I nodded, without a single tear trickling down my face.... No one had told me I was the only – arguably fortunate – person to survive that blast, but I somehow just knew..., as though someone had been whispering it in my ear while I floated in and out of consciousness.... The news was waiting for me when I woke up – a ball of lead swirling in my belly and finally lifting like a heavy fog when uncle Stefano confirmed it with his question....

"Can I have a mirror?" I asked.

"Why? Have you forgotten what you look like?" He joked, so I could only guess what he didn't want me to see.

The doctor came back a few moments later, unwrapping my head and dabbing my skin with a sweet-smelling oil that stung like a cluster of little knives bouncing up and down on my face. He was still there when I drifted back off to sleep but was gone when morning came....

As one day slithered into another, the gloopy oil-painting before my eyes gradually morphed into detail, and the blobs became things. The pain had softened, but my vision still had a piece missing. The burning down my cheek and arm had diluted to itching. The pain engulfing my face cooled and I began to feel more like me. I never seemed to fully absorb my family's death, not every last drop. Everyone is different but I had always assumed that the normal reaction was to sob wildly and uncontrollably, like I had seen people do – so why wasn't I? Uncle Stefano sobbed his heart out, I heard him, but he always pulled himself together when he came to see me. It was like the flash had bleached me of colour and feelings. I used to blame laudanum – the doctor said it could leave you feeling a bit flat, but I could still feel pain.

Uncle Stefano eventually let me have a mirror. I remember I had butterflies, and actually wanted to put something nice on but uncle Stefano was rather apprehensive and made me down a shot of rum before removing my bandages, good thing too in hindsight.... I got up close to the mirror to get a good look at myself. I knew I had taken a hit, but nothing could've prepared me for what was staring back.

"Your left side took most of the blast," said uncle Stefano. "Do you remember where you were?"

The flesh covering my cheek bone, surrounding my eye and touching my hair was charred and blackened like burnt beef.... A thick patch of my long brunette locks had vanished along with my eyebrow too.... Uncle Stefano began taking the bandages off my arm.

"It's better than it was," he said, screwing up his face. Angry red sores peppered my arm – I remember thinking it looked like a dragon had sneezed on me. Uncle Stefano looked at me tentatively in the mirror and began slowly unravelling the cloth around my head, telling me, "the doctor had to clear it out..." At first, I didn't know what he talking about – I couldn't see what he was talking about.... Somehow, the biggest horror was the hardest to see..., the horror that frizzled my saliva to ashes and curdled the contents of my belly into a chilling mass. Stepping forward, looking harder into the mirror, staring deep into the dark void of my vacant eye socket.... I screamed silently, slamming my hands over my mouth. Unseen hands wrestled me into uncle Stefano's arms, shaking and sputtering. I looked like a monster out of my own nightmares....

I asked uncle Stefano to take the mirror away. I didn't ask for it again. Now I knew what the strange feelings were when the doctor dabbed my wounds with vinegar and salt water, why his fingers could scrape and scratch the inside of my skull....