Cassandra

XIII. Ripley's New Toy

The castle felt dull and lifeless without Lord and Lady Briarwood to give it vigor, not that the castle had ever been very lively even with them here. Compared to when my mother and father ruled it was as bustling as a graveyard. But the Briarwood's sway over this castle had affected it completely, and it felt utterly desolate without them.
It was not a pleasant place to live in. Haunted as it was by dead things, devoid of all life that had once occupied it, silent and lonely. In this silent place the sitting room had been my refuge, Delilah's tenderness my solace, her musical lessons my entertainment. Now I had no one. Anna Ripley and the Professor were the only two other living beings in this castle, and neither of them cared about me.
Ripley spent all of her time alone these days, appearing only briefly at meals, and spending the rest of her time locked in her room, broken only by visits to the garden where she set off more explosions. At meals she was abstracted, eating hurriedly in silence, deeply absorbed in her private thoughts. The experiments in the garden were more frequent now that the Briarwoods were gone, and after every one she always came in swearing profusely, clearly frustrated about something. She was completely unaware of what went on around her, wrapped up in this project that devoured all of her attention.
Even so, total indifference was better than animosity. Ripley cared nothing about me, beyond the inconvenience of my presence. Anders was different. In a spiteful way he cared very much about me, and even went out of his way to cause me some pain, to inflict some punishments that he felt I deserved. With the Briarwoods gone we were locked in a bitter rivalry, from which Anna was completely excluded, and which was mutually vicious on both sides. I hated him, and now that I was at last free to oppose him, I openly displayed my venom, doing everything in my power to hurt him in any way I could.
But the balance of power was far more heavily shifted in the Professor's favor than mine. His influence was far greater, and he had a far greater ability to hurt me. I could annoy him constantly, inconvenience him at every opportunity, and because of Mother's training I was even able to cause some physical damage, but the advantage was clearly on his side. I was maddening to him, using every tiny annoyance to hurt him, chewing loudly when he was at the table, making noise while he was trying to write, standing just slightly in his way when he had to pass me. But his skill with magic made it easy for him to hurt me far more than any slight inconvenience I gave him.
And he did hurt me. With Delilah gone Anders was once again my antagonistic guardian, and I spent all of my waking hours tethered to him, making our rivalry constant, and ongoing. Every day I was chained to him for hours, sitting in a corner of his study, watching him as he went about his business. Most of the time was spent in writing, sending letters to various people, or merely copying notes into ledgers of assorted sizes that he kept in his desk.
Several letters he received during our time together were similar, and he was careful to never read them in my presence, always locking them in a hidden compartment in his desk. I had no way to read what was within the letters, but I made the stealthily observations I could. He was very quick to hide them, but gradually I perceived that they were all written on very good paper, sealed on the outside with red wax. Clearly they were letters from somebody important.
Days had been passed in this fashion, without any sign of change, and I had lost interest in the Professor's mysterious correspondent by this point. There was never an opportunity to read the letters, and I had memorized their outer appearance. When one of the servants entered, bearing another of these letters, I hardly noticed. Anders took it, and waved the thing away impatiently, once again locking the letter away in a drawer. At that moment a rumbling explosion ran through the castle walls, shaking in the stones of the surrounding hallways.
"What now..." The Professor grumbled angrily looking up at the ceiling as if he expected it to fall. Then he cast a surly glance at me, adding, "Not some of your troublemaking associates I suppose? I assume they would have told you if they were going to attack."
I nodded my head. The truth was that I had stopped writing Archibald. As soon as Silas left I couldn't find it in myself to continue, so I had no real way of knowing if it might not indeed be an attack on the castle. But the explosion had sounded closer than that, and from what I knew of the city, I guessed most people had given up on thoughts of overthrowing the Briarwoods long ago. There just wasn't enough hope to keep people fighting anymore.
"Go and see what that is will you." The Professor snapped at the servant who was still standing at his side.
But before the creature could do his bidding Anna burst into the room. She angrily flung the door open, half supporting herself against the wall, and breathing hard. Her sleeve on one side was scorched, the arm underneath badly burned, and she had that hand clamped under her other arm.
"Anders," She ground out through clenched teeth, her voice grimly composed. "I need your assistance if you please, as soon as possible."
The Professor hastily rose, looking bewildered, and Ripley crossed the room to his desk. As she passed me I saw that her shirt was stained with blood underneath the left arm, spreading outward from the hand she had hidden in her armpit. The entirety of her left side was soaked with blood that was such a vivid crimson, it looked staged and fake, and I could see the stain rapidly spreading down her leg.
"It was cauterized to a certain extent." She hissed as she brought her right hand out from under her arm. "But it's still bad."
I felt my stomach curl into a knot as she brought her hand out, and gagged instinctively. Anna cast me a resentful look, but said nothing, and stoically waited for Anders to do something. Her hand was gone. There was nothing left but a bloody burned stump, some trailing strings of left over flesh, and part of the white shattered bone exposed. It was a sickening spectacle.
Strangely enough Anna hardly reacted at all, beyond the obvious physical pain it caused her. While I could see clearly that the stump was painful, it was difficult to tell if she even mourned the entire loss of a limb. She looked down at her own mangled arm completely unaffected by any aversion to the sight, as detached as she would have been if the wound belonged to someone else, and she even watched the bleeding with a kind of sterile curiosity.
The professor reached out and shrinkingly clasped her arm, and Ripley flinched as his fingers touched the tender skin, letting out a sour hiss, as if she was annoyed at herself for showing the pain. Wrapping his hands completely around her wound, Anders drew in a long deep breath. I could almost feel the air warping as he drew it in, as if he was pulling the air around him into himself, leaving a hollow negative space. Then, shifting his hands so that there was a small hole between them, he breathed on Ripley's arm through the gap in his hands.
With an impatient jerk, Anna ripped her arm away, looking down at what was left. Most of the stump had healed, leaving lumpy twisted scar tissue, but the burns were still fresh and irritated. Once again the Professor reached out to take her arm, but Ripley pulled away, giving him a forbidding look.
"I deal with burns all the time," She said coldly. "This is nothing. Give me some bandages, and I can take care of it myself."
Doubtfully Anders gave her the supplies he had, and she threw herself in a chair by the fire, setting the roll of linen on one of the two small tables in the room, within arms reach of her. Out of a pocket somewhere she drew a small flask, which was filled with some kind of personal salve that she kept with her. Applying this to herself, she began to bind her arm, very neatly, and with obvious experience.
"The experiment went badly then, I take it?" Anders said sarcastically, crossing his arms. Anna made no reply, and finished binding her arm mechanically, then sat staring blindly down into the fire for a moment.
"DAMMIT!!!" She burst out suddenly, seizing the leftover roll of bandage and flinging it across the room. Being nothing more than a roll of soft fabric, it didn't have quite the destructive effect intended, and only bounced harmlessly against the wall. Not satisfied with this lack luster conclusion, Ripley started out of her chair and upended the table with a loud crash.
"I'm so close!!!" She exclaimed angrily. "I can feel it! I'm almost there, it's on the tip of my tongue, I just can't grasp it! How the hell am I supposed to harness the explosion, without making it ineffective?!? It's fucking maddening!"
She subsided, breathing heavily, and she reached up to run her hand through her hair, before realizing that her hand was gone. Remembering it she swore again, kicking at the table furiously.
"Are you really as close as all that?" The Professor said skeptically. "You just blew your own arm off."
"That was nothing. Experiments are hazardous, I'm aquatinted with the dangers, and fully resigned to the possible consequences. This was a stupid mistake. I was careless." She said, brushing his comment aside impatiently. "And I am almost there. I have all the mechanisms, everything works smoothly, but this final problem just will not go away! I need a final piece, something thats missing."
Turning back to his desk, Anders drew out the letter he had received. He broke the seal, thumbing though the pages, and plucked out one. I caught a brief glimpse of several sketches and some writing, then he rolled it up and tossed it to Ripley.
"You can take a look at that, and see if it helps." He said carelessly as she unrolled it. "There are some descriptions in it, eye witness accounts, you might possibly find something useful. In all likely-hood it's just rubbish like the last ones..."
The Professor's voice trailed away, looking doubtfully at Anna. She had frozen, staring at the paper. There was a half smile lingering at the corner of her mouth, and she had gone very white, her eyes eagerly devouring the paper's contents. She looked as shocked as if she had just read the secret to immortality.
"That's brilliant..." She breathed. "Why didn't I think of that? He's fucking brilliant..."
"Found something then?"
Ripley made no answer, and only laughed haltingly, as if she were still in shock. Moving clumsily, without the dominant hand at her disposal, she rolled up the parchment again, still laughing helplessly. Forgetful of Anders and everything else around her, she rose from her seat, blindly making her way out of the room. Once again leaving the Professor and I alone, with no sound breaking the silence but the crackling of the fire.