Page 3 of The Shadow of Polaris

Now, here I stood, one year older.

I turned the faucet all the way to the left and splashed a palm full of water across my face. A crisp numbness webbed over my cheeks from the harsh cold. With my eyes still closed, I blotted away adhered beads of water with a scratchy, faded towel. Not until slight tingles poked beneath the surface of my numbed brow did I open my eyes and look in the dirty mirror. The reflection staring back at me was a monstrosity. Dark circles were bruised under dull eyes that had once glinted like sunlight dancing atop a crashing wave. Cheeks bones, sharply geometric, but never entirely skeletal, reached high on my face.

“Lady Elpis,” Hela scowled behind me. She stood in the door frame, hands on her hips, a dribble of saliva glistened on her chin. “You know the rules. Never walk away from me while I’m speaking to you.”

I sighed, throwing the towel on the counter beside me. “Sorry Hela, I’m not really in the mood for conversation today.”

“I simply don’t care what you’re in the mood for. Rules are to be followed no matter how we’re feeling. Would you kill someone if you were simply feeling angry?” She unclasped the belt around her waist, letting the rolls of her rounded midsection free.

“I guess it depends on the person,” I smirked, brushing by her. Sweaty fingers gripped around my biceps, pulling me back into the bathing chamber.

Hela’s eyes lit up, fire blazing behind her pupils. “Did you just back talk to me?”

The moment she pulled the belt from its straps across her overcoat, I knew what was about to happen. It was so frequent these days. When you’re constantly shrouded in self hate, inflicted pain grows tiresome. These daily lashings were more of a chore than they were a punishment now.

“I’ve grown bored with your constant nagging, Hela. If you’re going to hurt me, just get on with it. I can assure you that nothing you do feels worse than what I’ve already done to myself,” I hissed.

She tsked and shook her head, motioning to kneel before her. “A rule breaker must always be reprimanded. How else will they learn?”

I stared at the wooden hair brush resting on a rickety table beside the bathtub. Hela moved as fast as a slug. I’d reach it before she could straighten the leather against my back. My palms itched at the thought of beating her bloody with its blunt wooden handle. I could kill her where she stood, bash her skull in and dispose of the evidence out the hundredth story window. She would be unrecognizable by the time I finished.

“No, Lady Elpis. You know the punishment.” She snapped her fingers, sweat beading beneath her armpits.

If I killed her, the Elders would send another. Someone worse, I was sure. The hair brush called my name, beckoning me toward the violence it held. I sighed again and dropped to my knees. As horrible as Hela was, I couldn’t kill her. As much as the voice in my head screamed her battle cries, I wouldn’t follow through. Aside from the lashings, Hela was harmless. A broken woman with a taste of control. Given her appearance, I assumed she’d had a harsh upbringing. Dealing out punishments was her way of coping with whatever monsters appeared when she closed her eyes at night.

She’d answer for her cruelty one day. Today, I was tired. I was sick of existing. Sick of fighting to live. I’d long ago given up, and as pathetic as I felt, as disgusted as I was, I couldn’t find the energy to perform the deliciously violent acts that played out in my mind. So, I knelt before her and let her expose the flesh of my back to the cruel morning air.

Her breathing was ragged as she stepped back, readying the leather belt in her right hand. I shut my eyes and pictured my home. Vikar’s round jade eyes looked through thick ivy as he crouched around the castle’s courtyard, searching for winter mice.

When the first crack of her whip seared across my back, I began counting down from fifty. Losing myself in Vikar’s joyous laughter as he discovered a nest of young mice huddled and warm around their mother.

Forty-nine. Crack!

Vikar stroked the pelt of the mother mouse, her squeaking babies rolling and nuzzling into the warmth of her belly.

Forty-eight. Crack!

I knelt beside him, watching the toothless grin widen as the mice sniffed at his finger.

Forty-seven. Crack!

The memory shimmered, throwing me back into a glimpse of reality.

Forty-six. Crack!

My body jerked forward on impact, skin howling against the cool air. I bit my lower lip, refusing to expel the agonizing pain from my body. I wouldn’t let her hear me cry. Hela could feel powerful, inflicting pain across my back, but I wouldn’t allow her satisfaction along with it.

Forty-five. Crack!

A tear rolled down my cheek, across my lips, and dripped from my chin. I watched it splatter against the tile, the water dispersing. What once was a perfect, spherical bead in the corner of my eye now scattered across the floor. I lost count as the whizz of the whip struck my back, then retreated and struck, then retreated over and over again. My flesh was moist as blood oozed from the open wounds and mixed with the salty tears now pooling at my knees.

“Have you learned your lesson?” Hela asked through shallow gasps. I imagined movement was hard with a body like a globe. It always surprised me how forceful her lashings were.

“Yes,” I said, my voice a mere whisper.

Hela’s heels clicked across the tile as she stopped before me and knelt to meet my lowered gaze. “It pains me to have to do that, dear. I wish you’d simply just follow the rules. It would make our lives much easier.”

I looked up at the monstrosity disguised as a woman and nodded, unsure how to respond. Nothing would make it easier, because I didn’t live. I existed. I floated through time in the palm of my jailers, helpless to their will.

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