Paper Confines

xxxv. A First Anniversary

PAPER CONFINES.
35. / A First Anniversary

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       If anyone heard her, they didn't answer.

The end of the world left her with a sore writing wrist and more questions from Tom than she cared to riposte—but he rarely sought her thoughts if it wasn't for practice, and this wasn't her first unanswered prayer. Amoret wouldn't call her perseverance optimism more than she would say it was simply all she knew.

It was a dangerous balancing act trying to sparse her energy in all the places she needed it. On Sundays, she nodded vaguely along to Tom's healing studies, a reasonably terrible teacher. Mondays and Thursdays she dedicated to writing Nadya and Colette in what—without Myrtle's light—she was now calling the margin, which left Tuesdays and Fridays to recover from the walk. Wednesday was garden-heavy but herbivicus duo and charmed sprinklers kept the greenhouse healthy through the week, and by the end of October, Amoret predicted she'd never have to touch porridge again.

On Saturdays she visited the hospital wing with Tom. She didn't know if it was better or worse that Myrtle's health was ostensibly unchanging, but she saw the thinness shaping her uniform, sunken on the bed in places it had once fit.

Amoret had no choice but to keep her medically frozen so she wouldn't starve. She'd tried to think of a magical alternative to a feeding tube—which she was certifiably not equipped to implant, and couldn't get close enough to if she wanted to—but all she could conceive was controlling Myrtle's body through the Imperius curse to force digestion. It seemed too complex. Tom appeared repulsed at the prospect.

Finally, in late September, Amoret cast the spell and had Tom inject Myrtle with Dreamless Sleep to assure nightmares wouldn't plague her.

Checking on Myrtle in the weeks that followed exhausted Amoret more than journeys to the margin or days weeding the garden. Sometimes she'd meander elsewhere in pauses of study and hear the call of the meadow like her first days, and pinch herself awake to shed the voices. Sometimes, her eyes would blink shut in the hospital chair and she'd wake in her bed with a blanket draped haphazardly over her torso, well aware that not even she could sleep through being Apparated. Tom must have been carrying her.

And Tom, still not offering an answer to where he had been sleeping prior to Amoret's condition worsening, resided permanently in the dormitory beside hers. It was because, in his words: if Amoret was to succumb to the Horcrux, he might have a better chance of convincing her to kill Myrtle if he was close by.

She awoke this Sunday morning to the glow of fish negotiating the deep waters of the lake, more like moonlight than sun. The days would have blurred together regardless.

"Happy anniversary," Tom said upon her sluggish entry into the common room, half-glancing up from a book.

"What?"

"It's the nineteenth of October. We've been here for a year."

Oh. She'd forgotten. Amoret froze for a moment. They'd been here a year and she'd forgotten; the sting of that knowledge took different shapes despite her best efforts not to let it. Mostly she urged her thoughts to pondering why Tom had taken it upon himself to remember.

"I hope you didn't plan a celebration," she said sourly.

He flipped a page. "Should I have?"

"No."

"Good."

The book snapped shut. A silver tea kettle poured her a cup, and a seat pushed free at the nod of Tom's head.