Wandering Eye - Tumblr Posts

“you could live a hundred lives and still never deserve that boy”

the way he single handedly raised all of my standards should be criminal

It was just a flash, a strange shimmer in her vision and Milli stopped in the act of rubbing her eyes. She’d just taken off her eyepiece for the evening and put it on her bedside table. The strange combination of clarity and lack of focus in her unaltered sight was familiar more than ten years on, but she hadn’t ever seen anything blur past her like that. She blinked again and there was nothing. Chalking it up to fatigue and loneliness, she settled into her bed alone, missing her husband more than ever.

In the morning, the manor physician could find nothing more wrong with her eye than usual.

“It is enchanted, ma’am. I can say that much. But other than that, I can see no deterioration,” he said after looking at it under a light. He checked her good eye, too, but nothing was amiss there, either.

A curiosity, easily shrugged off in the course of running a large household and caring for her two small daughters. For though Zahra was her niece, the girl called her Mama, now. It hurt to hear that, to think that she’d forgotten Tsuu, but Milli wouldn’t deny the girl the right to a mother. She wouldn’t hear of her being treated differently from her own daughter. Taliyah, having never known anything else, called Zahra Sissy, and followed her doggedly.

Her sight, though, suffered oddly throughout the next few weeks. She had moments of utter blindness, the dead eye going completely dark. The incidents left her shaken and miserable. After all, she was worthless without two nominally functional eyes. Instead of consulting again with the physician, she kept it to herself. Waiting for the moment when darkness engulfed that eye and the light never returned.

Dread dogged her steps until even the children noticed it, the two girls resolving to pick her flowers and make her breakfast. It was an understated meal with much help from the kitchen staff, but Milli couldn’t help but smile at her daughters and hug them both tight. She did her best to hide what she felt after that.

The second time it happened was also in bed, just before sleeping. Only this time, she lay staring up at the ceiling. Months of not seeing her husband for more than a few days at a time wore on her, wore on the children, and those few moments that Valec could steal away to spend with them were all the more precious for it. He said it was necessary, but Milli couldn’t help but wonder if the responsibility of a wife and children had scared him away. Made him take on more work so he wouldn’t be burdened with them.

Between one blink and the next it was there. A white, misty figure floating above her on the bed. Milli froze, wincing away and closing her eyes. When nothing touched her, she opened her good eye.

The space above the bed was empty.

Letting out a sigh of relief, she opened both eyes.

The figure was back, closer, and seemed to have a face.

Horrified, Milli screamed and threw herself to the floor, rolling away until her back was against the wall. The thing continued to hover there for a few moments before disappearing. It stayed long enough to determine one very important thing: the apparition only appeared to her dead eye.

The girls’ nurse, Mrs. Aster, came rushing in at the noise. She enfolded Milli in her soft, doughy arms and cooed soft nonsense words meant to soothe as Milli’s mind raced. “It’s just a dream, lovey,” Mrs. Aster murmured. “Just a dream.”

If only it was a dream instead of the start of a nightmare.

Time for tinkering was hard to find nowadays. She spent most of her time dealing with correspondence, maintenance on the manor, and keeping a steady supply of everything necessary for the house to keep running. It wasn’t just a matter of going to the market. She was feeding a dozen people, including the servants, for whom room and board were part of their employment. Add to that necessary bolts of fabric, feed for animals, oils and polish for keeping the manor beautiful, and a myriad of other items. Valec’s departure had forced her to learn many things very quickly, but now she was able to handle it all, though it still took all her concentration.

She sat down at her desk after breakfast, the girls heading to the gardens with their nanny for a morning picnic with their dolls. The letters received by the manor lay in a neat pile before her. But one in particular lay on top. The envelope was stained with dirt, but she could see printed on the front, To My Girls. A grin spread across her face as Milli tore into it with excitement.

To my love,

I am happy to say that my work is coming to a finish out here. No more paperwork, no more sitting through lectures, touring estates, mills, factories, sucking up. It’s such a relief to have all of that end and knowing that this is likely one of the last letters I’ll be sending you before I return home.

I hope the girls miss me, because I surely do miss them. I’m bringing home some presents for bribery, for all three of you. Stay safe for me and please don’t blow up our home, I know you haven’t done so yet, but in your excitement at this news, who can tell what might happen. A thousand kisses from me and a promise that I’ll never let you go once I have you in my arms again.

I love you and the girls with all my heart. I’ll see you all soon, really soon.

Valec

He was coming home. Finally. Relief washed over her. The loneliness was crushing. She loved her daughters, enjoyed time with the kind servants, but to be without the man she loved...it was isolating. She wondered, usually in the dead of night, if he’d found another woman. If he was sated and happy far from the stresses of home and family. If his letters, while sent often and full of love, were simply a necessary step in keeping her appeased so he could dally with any maid who caught his eye. She did her best to stifle such thoughts. They didn’t lead to anything productive.

This would mean the household would need all the items necessary to make his homecoming an enjoyable one. A feast, at least. Maybe new sheets and comforter for their bed. Bring out any furniture from storage that the maids remembered Valec preferred. Contact his parents and invite them. More things to do.

Milli brought a hand to her head, resting it against her eye. The dead eye that felt like more and more of a weight. She’d taken to wearing an eyepatch instead of her eyepiece to try and reduce the oddities she saw. She didn’t want to have to explain it to Valec. The servants accepted her excuse that she was modifying it, but he would know better. He knew her better.

So she pulled out a piece of parchment. She’d inquired with the steward about noble houses who dealt in necromancy. For an experiment with poisons, she said. But truly, she needed to find out what was wrong with her eye. And find someone who could fix it, reenchant it. Stop the visions of horrid dead faces that popped up at her when she least expected.

Her hand was, as always, neat and precise when she wrote:

To Count and Countess Nightenveil,

While I have never made your acquaintance, I have heard good things about you both in your willingness to help others and build the community. I am relatively new to noble circles and it sounds like you are both people who it would behoove me to be acquainted with, if only once. I would like to extend an invitation to a light lunch at the Nemesir Manor in Beetletun at your earliest convenience.

I have also heard you are both masters of the necromantic arts. I am certain this is a fascinating endeavor. I have no magical ability myself, but I was gifted with a necromantically enchanted eye that has served me well for years. Perhaps you can help me understand how this works. I am an engineer through and through and my lack of knowledge on this subject continues to irk me. If you would agree to a consultation on this matter, I would gladly pay any price. Perhaps an exchange of services if you require anything mechanical built?

Please let me know when you can attend the luncheon, regardless of your willingness to consult with me on the eye. Thank you again and I look forward to meeting you in person.

~Millicent Bowyen, Lady Nemesir

She sat back, sealing the letter with the dark blue wax and the Nemesir crest. Milli sighed. She didn’t like going behind her husband’s back, but she didn’t want him to know she was flawed. Or insane. Either option was unappealing. She would handle this on her own. As she had everything else for the last year.

Nodding sharply, Milli went about reading the other correspondence and making out the list of necessities for Valec’s homecoming.

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After Rorshak left, it got worse. 

The dark spirit didn’t return. At least not the same one. But Milli slept, tired to her bones from the pain and magic he’d fed into her dead eye to try to restore it. The gentle creaking of her workshop around her lulled her, provided a sense of safety and security. 

It shouldn’t have.

She woke up and the room was dark. Blindly, she reached for the lamp and the lighter, sparking the one to light the other. As the flame flickered to life, she glanced up. 

Someone stood just beyond the doorway of her small bedroom in the upstairs section of the cottage. Milli gasped, realizing that it wasn’t a person, but a spirit. This did not help. 

Seeming to sense that she was awake and aware, the spirit lunged at her, moving across the room faster than the eye could follow, one clawed arm reaching for the engineer. 

She screamed, threw herself back against the wall. As the ghost’s hand touched her, the pendant at her throat flared and the Foefire blue shroud fell around her, blocking the spirit’s touch. 

Milli trembled, eyes closed, for a long minute. Slowly, she opened her eyes. The spirit was gone. She let out a harsh breath as the protection faded. 

Of course, that was when she realized it. Going to sleep she’d put on an eyepatch to cover her dead eye. The ghosts were appearing to her in both eyes, now.

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