The Cadre of Embers

Chapter 6

The sun was bright even through her eyelids. At least she thought it was sunlight. However when she opened her eyes Althea realised it wasn't the light of the sun at all, or even candlelight for that matter, but a buzzing, unnatural, beaming light coming from the ceiling of the room she was in.

Ceiling... where was she?

The last thing she remembered was laying down on the forest floor, looking up at the sun peaking through the trees... and she had a terrible pain in her head... the pain was gone now, as was the pain in her feet and legs, and well the rest of her body really.

She attempted to reach her hand up to her head when she noticed she couldn't. Upon looking down, she could see that she was being held to the bed in which she laid, with thick, woven straps. Where was she? Oh god, had they found her? Found out what she did and placed her in an asylum? Althea began thrashing about, in an attempt to release herself from the restraints.

As she looked around, she noticed the bed frame and door were both made from metal. There was a pulling at her arm, she'd not noticed the tiny tube stuck into her skin. It led up to a bag full of clear liquid. What in god's name was this place? She'd never witnessed anything like it. Not even in the asylums she'd read about, had she heard of bright white lights not made of flame, or small incisions connected to tubes. Did she die and go to hell as Sir Herbert had told her she would? Was this her payback for all that had happened the night before?

Suddenly the large metal door opened and a woman strolled in. She looked surprised as she made eye contact with Althea. This woman had pale skin, and dark brown, almost black hair. She wore what looked to be a painting smock of some kind, it was all white with long sleeves.

"Why, you're awake!" the woman beamed. Her accent... it wasn't one Althea had ever come across, it wasn't Scottish or French or even Irish. "Now we can finally find out more about you."

"Where... where am I?" Althea asked, stuttering over her words.

"These are our medical quarters," the mysterious dark haired woman answered, unhelpfully.

"And I am your physician, Charlotte Rawlings. You're Althea right? Althea Lezant?"

Althea blinked, this bright light was beginning to hurt her eyes. Medical quarters? This did not look like any apothecary or place of medicine she'd ever witnessed.

"How do you know my name?"

The woman, Charlotte Rawlings, only smiled.

"Thank you for your patience Althea, I know you must have a lot of questions for us, and I assure you, we will answer them. Let me just get my assistant in here to examine you first."

Us? We? How many more people were here? Where was here? Althea had so many questions she didn't know which to ask first.

"Examine me?" she paused, "examine me for what exactly?"

"The magic within you, of course." She said the words as if it were obvious... as if a statement such as that were completely ordinary.

Althea's eyebrows furrowed together, but before she could get another word out Miss Rawlings walked out of the room, leaving nothing but silence to answer her many lingering questions.

Magic? It hadn't all been some wild dream then... maybe everything that took place in Sir Herberts manor had actually happened... she'd been silently praying that it was all just a horrendous nightmare... that she had drank too much wine with dinner and had imagined it all in her drunken slumber. But if it had all been real, if she had really... Sir Herbert's words echoed through her mind, witch.