She had dreamed of them before, beaches and waves and the feeling of sand between her fingers. Sometimes she'd even wake with the taste of salt-sea air on her tongue, a feeling made all the more peculiar by the knowledge that that the vague wisps of memory swimming around inside her head weren't her own.
But this - whatever this is - ain't a dream.
She knows this straight away when she wakes up choking, coughing up more water than she ever thought her lungs could hold. It's a horrible feeling, like drowning but worse and it's made none the easier by the harsh sting of grit in her eyes and mouth. She crawls her way out of the water, one arm dragging herself forward while the other scrubs across her eyes and mouth in an effort to clear away the sand.
She hacks and wheezes all the while, and it's not until she's finally caught her breath that she dares to open her eyes, which are red and weeping and altogether uncooperative.
She blinks hard, her eyes still stinging from the sand, and spits off to the side. Her mouth still feels gritty, but she's not about to go rinse it out with more salt water.
It takes her eyes a moment to adjust, and once they do she can scarcely believe what they see. She doesn't know what this place is, but she knows one thing for certain - it ain't Harrow.
2
It's strange, meeting one group of folks who are hospitable as can be then immediately running into another that mean to do her harm, but Emmy supposes she can't rightly complain. She's used to strange, and people turning on her besides. Still, she wishes she at least knew the reason these folks were looking to fix her head up on a pike.
"Listen here." She says carefully, her hands raised in a placating manner as though to calm a frightened animal rather than an angry mob.
"I don't know what all you think I've done but I'm telling you now, you don't want this to get ugly."
4
Oh sweet baby Jesus, it hurts. It hurts worse than any one thing she can remember, worse even than when Pa found her out in the woods and tried to -
No, no, she ain't gonna think about that, she ain't gonna think about things that are gonna make the pain she's in feel more strongly than it already does. Last thing she needs to do is add more fuel to that fire.
It takes an age for the whole mess to be done and over with, and once it is Emmy can't do much more than shake and wipe the sweat from off her forehead with the back of her hand.
Emmy | Harrow County
She had dreamed of them before, beaches and waves and the feeling of sand between her fingers. Sometimes she'd even wake with the taste of salt-sea air on her tongue, a feeling made all the more peculiar by the knowledge that that the vague wisps of memory swimming around inside her head weren't her own.
But this - whatever this is - ain't a dream.
She knows this straight away when she wakes up choking, coughing up more water than she ever thought her lungs could hold. It's a horrible feeling, like drowning but worse and it's made none the easier by the harsh sting of grit in her eyes and mouth. She crawls her way out of the water, one arm dragging herself forward while the other scrubs across her eyes and mouth in an effort to clear away the sand.
She hacks and wheezes all the while, and it's not until she's finally caught her breath that she dares to open her eyes, which are red and weeping and altogether uncooperative.
She blinks hard, her eyes still stinging from the sand, and spits off to the side. Her mouth still feels gritty, but she's not about to go rinse it out with more salt water.
It takes her eyes a moment to adjust, and once they do she can scarcely believe what they see. She doesn't know what this place is, but she knows one thing for certain - it ain't Harrow.
2
It's strange, meeting one group of folks who are hospitable as can be then immediately running into another that mean to do her harm, but Emmy supposes she can't rightly complain. She's used to strange, and people turning on her besides. Still, she wishes she at least knew the reason these folks were looking to fix her head up on a pike.
"Listen here." She says carefully, her hands raised in a placating manner as though to calm a frightened animal rather than an angry mob.
"I don't know what all you think I've done but I'm telling you now, you don't want this to get ugly."
4
Oh sweet baby Jesus, it hurts. It hurts worse than any one thing she can remember, worse even than when Pa found her out in the woods and tried to -
No, no, she ain't gonna think about that, she ain't gonna think about things that are gonna make the pain she's in feel more strongly than it already does. Last thing she needs to do is add more fuel to that fire.
It takes an age for the whole mess to be done and over with, and once it is Emmy can't do much more than shake and wipe the sweat from off her forehead with the back of her hand.
"...Can't say I cared much for that at all."