Ralph and the Pixie

But at once the poison in her system began to react, as though one had blithely reached into some dark place to retrieve something, only to have suddenly disturbed a nest of enraged, venomous snakes. The effect was a hideous dizziness as it began to writhe, seeking to maintain its hold in as sickening and intimate a manner as rape. She found herself unable to move, as though her limbs had turned to stone, and the room began to spin, leaving her drenched in sweat and breathing heavily. There was an ungentle and excruciating tearing sensation as though the poison were frantically and tenaciously trying to cling to the inside of her skull. She would have begun screaming, but mercifully felt herself instead spiralling downwards into unconsciousness.

Deborah awoke, staring upwards at the ceiling, the shadows of shrubs stirring irrhythmically before her eyes. She felt Éha shift beside her and sit up. Furrowing her brow, the Pixie put a hand to her temple and turned to Deborah.

‘What is it?’ Deborah asked her.

‘I thought it was a dream. But do you not feel it?’ she replied. ‘The voices . . . I think they are gone.’

Deborah, too, noticed that besides feeling drained, her thoughts were at once clear; her emotions themselves felt like a mirror newly cleaned of years of grime: everything seemed almost too sharp, too clearly defined. But this was tempered by a sort of certainty indistinguishable from relief. It was true then . . . the poison was gone. But that realization gave her little comfort, for she knew in the same breath that something fundamental within her had changed.