Day 11: Shaky Replacement
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You are Katerina Saburova.
You came to the Town years ago, a young woman, enamored with your gentle and stoic husband Alexander. He returned to take the Governor's position from his own father who passed.
He believes in you. And for now, that is enough.
Women from the Capital speak and have congress with each other, even if they despise each other. To do otherwise would invite the worst kind of gossip. But here, no such rules apply.
The Town adores Radiant Victoria, it fears Sinister Nina. Neither they nor the Town has a care for you.
You have the gall to say hello to Nina Kaina on the street, and she looms before you, all six feet of her stature imposing, her eyes scarlet fire.
She says not a word, but rumor spreads faster than you can run, and Alexander laughs as he claims his aide heard that Nina had hexed you dead in the street not an hour ago.
Victoria, you hear, is the kindest soul to yet join the mortal coil. But speaking to her is even worse, because you know you have no hope of compare to her. She serves you tea in her rooms, and you give a sigh of relief when she does not claim interest in a return of her hospitality at yours.
Your husband believes in you. For now, that will have to be enough.
Alexander is worked harder each day, though he refuses to say what occupies his energy. But he is warm and attentive in your bed, and though the pressure is growing for you to give him a baby - to bear him a Kaspar or a Vladislav - you feel nothing more than the worry that has already wormed its way into your heart.
You find your days filled with unbearable quiet. This house is not meant for you. Not meant to be alone in.
Nina's eyes torment you from high windows with no conceivable function. Victoria's placid smile haunts you from the grandfather clock. Isidor Burakh visits at your wish, and promises you an infusion of steppe herbs that will have you pregnant in days, he assures. You steal an ampoule of morphine from his bag when his back is turned, and you spend the evening in a drooling daze.
Your first vision comes the night of Nina's death. She is interred in the dead of night, and a swarm of rats dig up her corpse and consume until there is nothing left. You wake screaming, but the news comes that Nina was cremated after her death last night.
You are Katerina Saburova, and Nina has left you her shadow.
You know you are an oracle, but you have no more luck interpreting your dreams than any other pilgrim. The Oracle of Delphi had interpreters. Pharaoh had Joseph to tell him what his dreams meant, did he not?
You dress in funereal blacks, you straighten your spine, you hide the marks on your arm from your husband as you attempt to assume the role of the Dark Mistress.
You're wearing a dress that is too lose. The shoes do not fit. You cannot read the script.
Victoria dies rather than entreat with you, and the town knows it's your fault. Your hands cannot stop shaking - but you are the last clairvoyant Mistress in town, and this is your duty. You ache with the withdrawals - but your husband believes in you, and you must persevere.
The rats that devoured Nina now crawl into your bed at night when your husband works late, and they leave you with bites that disappear in morning light. Victoria steals away your dreams until you can only have them with morphine.
And in your darkest hour, at the nadir of your agony, in a morphine haze -
The Earth speaks.
