Free The Foreshadowing by Marcus Sedgwick Page B

Paris?”
    “Your recollection of the classics is admirable,” said Miss Garrett, with false jollity. She misread Father’s tone entirely.
    “And Cassandra, too?” he said, his voice loud. “Is that it?”
    I could see what he thought, but I didn’t know what I could say. As usual, his mind was made up.
    I shrugged.
    There was silence for a long time.

63

    Miss Garrett left shortly after that, making some embarrassed excuse and hurrying out into the evening with Mother fretting at her heels, pushing the copy of Greek Myths back into her hands as she went.
    I really don’t think she meant to get me into such trouble. She’s not a strict tutor, and she means well. I think she was probably genuinely worried about me.
    Mother dithered in the doorway, but Father wouldn’t let her back in, telling her to find Cook and that he wanted his dinner soon. She saw the look on his face and went off to the kitchen.
    “Father,” I said. “I haven’t done anything wrong.”
    “Be quiet!” he shouted.
    I sat down and felt myself shaking.
    “Why do my children insist on making a fool of me?” he said, but I knew it was not a question I should reply to.
    “What did you talk about?” he snapped.
    “I . . . Do you mean with Miss Garrett?” I asked.
    “No, I do not, and you know I do not!”
    I didn’t understand, I really didn’t.
    “The patient,” he seethed. “The Welshman.”
    “Father,” I said, pleading, “nothing. I said nothing. He talked to me, I asked him how he was. That was all!”
    “It was not all.”
    “I swear it,” I said.
    “You talked about his treatment. About me! Admit it!”
    “No, Father, no,” I said, tears running down my face.
    “You talked about the tests and the electrical stimulations. About the déjà vu he claimed to experience. Well, it’s all nonsense.”
    I said nothing. It was clear someone had told Father and there was no point denying it anymore.
    “You have been living a fantasy life, Alexandra, a fantasy. You have been idolizing the neurasthenic patients like Evans, and filling your head with wild myths from books!”
    He paused then, as if I was supposed to say something, but there was nothing I could say.
    “You are nearly a woman now, Alexandra. Did you ever stop to think what effect your childish imaginings would have on someone who’d lost a relative? Pretending you knew it was going to happen? How distasteful! How disrespectful! To make a game from their suffering!”
    “No, Father!” I cried. “That’s not fair. It’s not true. I haven’t hurt anyone.”
    “Maybe not,” he said. “But I’m not going to give you the chance. You are not to go back to the hospital.”
    “Father . . . ?”
    “You heard me. I forbid you to continue nursing. That’s over now. You will go back to studying properly and conduct yourself in a manner more fitting to a young lady of your class. And that is all.”
    He left the room, and a few moments later, I heard him leave the house, heedless that dinner was on the way.
    I don’t think he will change his mind.

62

    A generation of men is like the leaves on the trees. When the winter winds blow, the leaves are scattered to the ground, but with spring, a new generation of men bursts into bud, to replace those that went before. But this is a harsh winter, the likes of which has never been seen before.
    I think of the words from my dream, croaked to me by that evil bird on the battlefield.
    You alone saw the horror of war, and wept when we did not believe you.
    I don’t fully understand what it is that I have done in Father’s eyes. I don’t understand what is so terrible, but I have been punished anyway. Not just with words, but with deeds, too. I am not to be allowed to continue nursing.
    And all for something I did not wish for. A power which has been given to me, to see endings, but to be unable to prevent them, or even to make others believe what I have seen. In idle fantasy you might think that to see the future would