Lydia

<center>LYDIA <img src="https://i.imgur.com/rAv1eNy.png" width="400"> [[Begin.->1]]</center>

<img src="https://i.imgur.com/SL3LAiL.png" width="400"> You are born, a healthy girl. [[Find a way out.->Out]] [[Accept your fate.->2]] <audio src="https://www.myinstants.com/media/sounds/asdasd_xyorzJ8.mp3" type="audio/mpeg" autoplay></audio> (if:visits is 1)[{ (track: 'LYDIA', 'loop', true) (track: 'LYDIA', 'playwhenpossible') }]

<img src="https://i.imgur.com/cxbXMCv.png" width="400"> It isn't ideal, but you decide to make the best of it. "Lydia is a pretty name," says your sister. Her name is Emily, and her face is very big above yours--but pretty. She touches your soft newborn palm. The words are nice as she says them but there is something in her eyes you don't like. [[If I have to be a girl, I don't want to be a baby.->3]]

There is no way out. [[Continue.->2]]

<img src="https://i.imgur.com/1gqzysi.png" width="400"> Of course, Lydia. You are twelve now. Are you happy? [[Not yet... soon, I think.->Soon]]

<img src="https://i.imgur.com/so8spAT.png" width="400"> You screw your face and pinch your forearm as hard as you can. [[Ouch!->5]]

Feel better? [[I can't tell. Let me see.->6]]

<img src="https://i.imgur.com/CvzJgX4.png" width="400"> You turn your face this way and that in your looking-glass, watching the unbrushed hair, the spotted arms and legs emerging from the cream bulk of your nightclothes. [[Continue.->7]]

"Time enough for looks later,” you decide sensibly, tying the afternoon's pinafore over your nightgown. You look at your own pale and moonlit reflection while you speak--but both Lydias know that you direct your voice to the coconspirator in your lap. [[Continue.->8]]

“Shall we?” You take the [[iron key->iron key]] from the envelope and drop it into the pocket of your pinafore, running a finger along the smooth thing already lodging there. It flexes responsively. [[Continue.->9]]

<img src="https://i.imgur.com/AYFTFoq.png" width="400"> The key was in an envelope, tucked in the book you weren't supposed to know about. Now you know. And you know what it opens, too. [[Continue->8]]

<img src="https://i.imgur.com/gQSIDND.png" width="400"> Your stockinged feet are silent as you make your way out of your bedroom and down the corridor. You pass the grand staircase and its carved oak balustrade; your sister's room, now quite empty; the schoolroom and its little antechamber with the glass fish tank and oil lamp; the second set of stairs that lead down--or up, depending on where you begin. [[Continue.->Governess]]

<img src="https://i.imgur.com/eqCFhbj.png" width="400"> The library is at the very end of the hall. Its door is old, seems older even than the archaic stone walls of this wing of the house. You cannot remember having ever seen inside it though certainly you had read enough of its [[books->book]] to know it still functioned as a library should. [[Fish for the key and turn it in the lock as slowly as you dare.->11]]

<img src="https://i.imgur.com/WrMsUOp.png" width="400"> No, not that one. You will never admit you read that one. [[I forgot.->10]]

<img src="https://i.imgur.com/BZmf118.png" width="400"> The door opens, revealing a room lined with bookcases and furnished with leather sofas that gleam in the moonlight from the uncurtained windows. The rest of the room is in near darkness. The creature in your pinafore uncoils, snaking a languid head over the hem of your pocket. [[Lift it up to see.->12]] <audio src="https://www.myinstants.com/media/sounds/door-creaking-sound.mp3" type="audio/mpeg" autoplay></audio>

<img src="https://i.imgur.com/ysD7GHL.png" width="400"> You collect it in your hand. “There it is, see?” you murmur, indicating the expanse of wall where a square outline of light squats, suspended in the masonry. A black tongue flicks back at you by answer, tasting the dark of the air. [[Continue.->13]]

You return your pet to the warmth of your pocket. Kneeling beside the wall, you... [[Begin to pull at stone and mortar until it gives way.->14]] [[Clasp your hands together in prayer.->Prayer]]

You pull at the bricks. Your hands are small and the night is cold, but with some effort they come free. Behind the brick is the vial, just as Emily had said it would be. It's not too late to end this, you know. [[Reach for the vial, like a stubborn child.->15]] <audio src="https://audio.jukehost.co.uk/FnaFaWEX8VXCwKsZr7gXqgkpevRZnzSv" type="audio/mpeg" autoplay></audio>

<img src="https://i.imgur.com/l9J5nsP.png" width="400"> //O you, the wisest and fairest of the Angels, God betrayed by destiny and deprived of praise O Satan, take pity on my misery Make good on your contract; show me the way// [[Good girl.->14]]

You tilt the vial and watch the glowing, honeyed legs roll down the inside of the crystal, behind the filigree. Watch the light escape between your fingers. [[Continue.->Vial]]

Liquid spreads through your veins, warming your insides like a bedpan beneath new sheets. Well then. It is done. [[I want to see.->17]] <audio src="https://audio.jukehost.co.uk/8lhLe1sNwVGCUO4lYVIdnOAxoC2q0H1D" type="audio/mpeg" autoplay></audio>

To tomorrow, then, but no further. [[Tomorrow, then.->18]]

<img src="https://i.imgur.com/BLWP3eu.png" width="400"> At luncheon they are none the wiser. They sit around the table, all dressed in black, and clink silverware, and make polite chit-chat. [[Your mother enters the room.->Mother]] <audio src="https://audio.jukehost.co.uk/g6r3IT0wADLOzAZeZMWhv8N3ryGI5mJ7 " type="audio/mpeg" autoplay></audio>

You wriggle in your chair, restless and excited at once. Your mother sits across from you and gazes into her teacup. She seems very far away. You think.. yes. You are sure you sense the change coming upon you. Little by little, as difficult to catch by watching as water drying up in a glass. [[I know all about the life of water from my governess!->Water]]

<img src="https://i.imgur.com/fHDWJhd.png" width="400"> “Take it off the table please,” your mother sighs, interrupting your thoughts, and you obediently collect your serpent from the tablecloth. The chastising is so familiar that it is difficult to remember: everything has changed already. [[I don't care. I'm going to go and play with Jacob.->21]]

<img src="https://i.imgur.com/so7Awhb.png" width="400"> “Do you want to hear a secret?” you ask Jacob. You find him sitting on the grass by the pond in your family's garden, where he had once found your little snake. His eyes are red and raw, and underneath them is all puffy as if he was hanging upside down and gravity was making his skin go the wrong way. [[I know about gravity from my governess.->22]]

That's right, good girl. “No,” he said. "I don't want a secret." “Good. I wasn't going to tell you anyway.” You hug your knees with one hand and begin to pull up grass with the other. “Do you think she'll be a ghost now?” he asks. “No,” you say. Jacob makes an ugly face as if he was trying not to cry again. [[Feel triumphant.->23]]

“If she comes and sees me as a ghost I won't be afraid,” you announce. “I'm not afraid of anything.” He gives you another funny look and you get up. You had buried the vial last night, of course. Gummed up the hole in the wall with peat tar, too. The secret warm centre of yourself you decide to also keep hidden. [[Jacob doesn't have to know everything.->Jacob]]

<img src="https://i.imgur.com/fvTsW73.png" width="400"> Once, when you had been much younger, Emily had shown you how to break a heart by lighting and dimming the oil lamp in the music room. [[Continue.->Heart]]

Emily had grinned at you and continued to play with the wick, making the flame grow larger and then shrink. “There. Now father doesn't love mother anymore.” “Undo it! Undo it!” “I can't,” Emily had said gravely. But when you had begun to cry, she had. [[I remember.->Father]]

<img src="https://i.imgur.com/AgsGYmd.png" width="400"> Very well. Turning love on and off was a nice trick if it were true, and certainly Emily had received her first spate of admirers that year, hadn't she? Look: there's the book, in her hand. [[Look out the window instead.->Window]]

As you wish. [[Please, just show me it. You promised.->28]]

<img src="https://i.imgur.com/XAAIeWf.png" width="400"> It begins. The day after the funeral your fingernails drop, one by one. [[Hide the smooth round fingertips beneath gloves.->29]]

Alone at night, they feel warm in your mouth. [[What else?->30]]

<img src="https://i.imgur.com/mGEqpLa.png" width="400"> Sometimes, now, when you open your mouth to talk, instead of words, light comes out. [[Speak behind gloved hands, offering thin-lipped smiles as answers.->31]]

Each time you lock eyes with somebody else in the house, they can see. Maybe it's the change. Or maybe they know what you did. [[Cast your eyes downward each time you are addressed.->32]]

<img src="https://i.imgur.com/gmdT3gF.png" width="400"> You sit in the servants' stairwell and listened to the talk: “Young Lydia has become ever so withdrawn.” “Yes, but so well-mannered. Notice how she doesn't slouch anymore!” “She was always a little queer, keeping that snake upstairs--” “Yes, and remember when she hid that bird in the parlour?” “--But one could hardly blame her for being queer now, the poor dear.” [[They don't know.->33]]

When you sit on the hearthstone before your fireplace and put your bare feet in the flames they do not burn, but lick your freckles away. Your ankles are so clean and slender you now understand why Emily had always hated hiding hers under skirts. [[Regret the blood on her ivory dress.->34]]

At night you feel the ridges of your shoulder blades with soft fingertips for any sign of what you were promised. You cry as you searched for the hollow needle of a feather pushing through flesh. The slightest eyelash of plume. Nothing is there. Nothing breaks free. [[What? No...->35]]

Beneath the ground the empty vial sits like a cherry in a cake, a pocket of air in the cold earth. //<h2>[[YOU PROMISED ME.->Begging]]</h2>//

<img src="https://i.imgur.com/FQd5nJT.png" width="400"> You grow into an ordinary young woman, and though it's not a fulfillment of the pact--not the change you were promised--you... [[Continue?->37]]

Her dresses fit you so well.

You hold your breath as you pass the room in which your governess sleeps, but you needn't bother. You can hear her snoring. The only other sound is the occasional rustle of your nightgown. [[Reach your destination.->10]] <audio src="https://www.myinstants.com/media/sounds/dragon_sleeping.mp3" type="audio/mpeg" autoplay></audio>

<img src="https://i.imgur.com/CttLDRt.png" width="500"> [[Unstopper the bottle and drink.->16]]

<img src="https://i.imgur.com/WIjahk7.png" width="400"> Jacob always teases that you have no bones in your face, that you're all puppy fat and round cheeks, not at all sculpted and artful like Emily. Emily was fair and clear-skinned, too; while your complexion is like tea to which someone had added too much milk, and sprinkled cinnamon over. [[Don't think about Emily.->4]]

<img src="https://i.imgur.com/v3d4gfj.png" width="400"> Your mother hugs you without a word, and holds you for a very long time. Today you will let her, as you know she is sad. [[Is it happening? Can I feel it?->19]]

<img src="https://i.imgur.com/5mPvKXw.png" width="400"> That's right, Lydia. Evaporation, condensation, precipitation. Soon, the first of the change will show itself in a little droplet, barely noticeable. Then another, and another, until there will come such a torrent you will wonder how you ever thought yourself dry. [[Ponder.->20]]

<img src="https://i.imgur.com/ye7pp0M.png" width="400"> [[I wonder if they'll cut it down.->Cut]]

<img src="https://i.imgur.com/ye7pp0M.png" width="400"> [[....->Longing]]

<img src="https://i.imgur.com/hIyXb7X.png" width="400"> “You can't really break something that doesn't have any bones or cartilage,” you had said to your sister. "It's not like an arm." You had learned a little anatomy from your governess. [['Ventricle' is one of my favourite words...->25]]

<img src="https://i.imgur.com/38ut8Kk.png" width="400"> Do you? And you remember how he left? [[Stop.->26]]

<img src="https://i.imgur.com/ye7pp0M.png" width="400"> Always contrary, aren't you. [[I changed my mind. I don't want to be back here..->Tree again]]

<img src="https://i.imgur.com/Bodq8Kc.png" width="400"> Very well. It is five days before the funeral. You and Emily are-- <h2>[[NO.->27]]</h2> <audio src="https://www.myinstants.com/media/sounds/female-giggles_1NsUgxf.mp3" type="audio/mpeg" autoplay></audio>

“You'll see,” you say, picturing his face when he sees you: lit from within and radiant. You rub your hands on your pinafore, turn, and begin to walk back across the garden. [[I forgot I had to walk past the tree to get here.->Tree]]

<img src="https://i.imgur.com/xZrUXbA.png" width="400"> <h1>(text-colour:red)[I lied. ]</h1> THE END.

<img src="https://i.imgur.com/ye7pp0M.png" width="400"> [[I want to go back.->24]]

//<h2>[[I WAS TO BE THE SPECIAL ONE. YOU PROMISED!->End]]</h2>//

As time passes, and long after the contents of the vial will pass through you and back into the atmosphere, you will grow into a very ordinary woman. Dull and unremarkable, and dimmed by grief. They will remember Emily just as she was. //<h2>[[I WAS TO BE THE ANGEL!->Angel]]</h2>//

LYDIA: https://audio.jukehost.co.uk/PwBGOm9fJNFo1N7ZNuyYFwAAQISa3bci.mp3