“Caught a lite sneeze / Dreamed a little dream / Made my own pretty hate machine.” – “Caught a Lite Sneeze,” Tori Amos

Quiet.

City-dark.

Fear.

Heartbeat.

Fury.

Love.

Awake.

Catherine’s eyes opened to the tan walls and forgettable furnishing that made her cell. It was still dark. Good. Dark would hide him. It would be their refuge.

Hope – A word like a whisper of spring on March’s wind. She felt it, like the ghost of a flavor long forgotten on her tongue, a memory of life. “Round the dark door that prayers nor dreams can ope.”*

It was almost over, the long days of waking to their silence, their contempt, to secrets and to fear. The fear was worst of all, fear that this day would be her last, that Vincent would never know, never know about the baby, never find them…fear that she would never get to say goodbye, the months of white forgetting of self, and it was all ending, soon.

Faith.

She had faith, in him.

“He’s coming,” she whispered, so quietly that anyone would have thought she was only whispering to herself.