starry eyes

SIXTEEN

September 17, 1862

I feel like I'm dying.

There is blood leaking from my pores where sweat should be, and I have only once mustered the strength to get out of bed since I awoke this morning. I think... No, I am resolute in the fact that this is the worst I have felt in decades. No ailment I have thus far experienced can hold so much as a candle to what I am enduring now.

As much as I am loath to admit it, I did attempt to reach out to Alice in the hopes that she would offer a sympathetic hand. I felt pathetic for it at the time, but it was nothing compared to the humiliation I feel now, weeks later, having not received so much as a friendly word in response. It could be that I'm merely overthinking things. It is entirely possible, after all, that my letter was lost in transition.

Then again, I would have to be a fool to think Alice above observing my destruction in safety and silence, waiting for the right moment to swoop in and reclaim what once was hers. A damn fool...

I write with little time at my disposal. As luck would have it, tonight is the dinner party which I have had planned for two months now. The Russians sailed in yesterday evening, they, along with Alfred, are due to arrive in a matter of hours. I

I really should make myself presentable. The blood isn't too terrible, but it's stained the entire backside of my pajamas, along with my thighs and bedsheets; and it trickles now in tiny streams down the back of my neck... I'll certainly need to bathe before they arrive.

Admittedly, I have no yearning at all to move from the warmth of my bed, even despite- or perhaps because of- the blood.

But I can not bring myself to allow the Russians to see me in this ill state. If I play my cards just right, they will see me as being just as healthy and as strong as they are...

This could take a while.

[ aAANND HERE IT IS. THE ABSOLUTELY ANTI-CLIMACTIC BATTLE OF ANTIETAM FROM AMELIA'S POINT OF VIEW. For those who don't know, the Battle of Antietam is the bloodiest single-day battle in American history, so I decided it would only be fitting to make Amelia bleed a little. At this point in the war, her mental state is greatly deteriorated, thus her conflicting, often vile, thoughts and emotions . ]