we have enacted our plan.  our trap for caliban and sycorax.

cheryl only really spoke to me in regards to our scheme.  i regret to say that my begging and pleading for her forgiveness was not limited to this blog....and neither were my references to her as "cordelia".

despite the difficulties of working with me, our trap was forged.  it required much skulduggery on our part.  it also required us to look several things up on the internet.  it is a wonder surpassing that of queen mab's court what one can find online these days.

it was decided that i would be the bait.  it was never really a question.  i am the preferential target.  they knew the depths of my hatred, and felt it in kind.

i was to stand, alone, with a makeshift torch and a molotov.  this was the simpler of tasks.

the more difficult, we found, was finding a suitable construction site, one with both the crux of our trap, and the means to deliver it.  sneaking in and operating the machinery in stealth--once the night watchman was carefully subdued--was much easier by comparison.

i stood alone, vulcan's lash in one hand and a vial of his wrath in the other.  mine was to wait.  to observe.

i waited for what felt to be hours before they finally arrived, came suddenly out of the night, the smell of ozone crackling the air, and there they were.  a mother and a child.  they looked so innocent, and i remembered the ice cream.  feeding and laughing and loving.

i wanted to burn them.  i wanted to burn them right then, but they weren't in the right spot.  it was not the plan.  i did not want to be like king ferdinand, all of my labours of hate drowned away.  not when i was so close.  not when i could claim my pound of flesh and any drops of blood i desired.

"so, the base creature and the witch have found me at last, have they?"  i called to them.  "it hast taken thou long enough.  is the murder and its birdhouses so easily avoided?"

"you see this, sweetie?"  sycorax said to her child.  "this is the coward from the diner.  you remember her, right?"

caliban nodded.  "yes, mommy.  i remember.  she left all those people behind."

"oh, she left more than just those people behind."

"still thy tongue!"  i called to them.  my torch approached the makeshift wick of the makeshift bomb.  "or else i shall have to still it myself."

"see how she blusters?  that's how you know she's a coward."  sycorax continued.  "she wasn't nearly this brave when she and her friend killed your aunt and uncle.  remember that, sweetie?"

the little boy tiny fiend nodded.  "she was all curled up and crying, mommy."

"very good, sweetie!  just like she was crying when her terrible, terrible murderer friend killed all our lovely masters."  sycorax locked eyes with me.  "if only you hadn't been so slow, maybe jessica would be alive today, wouldn't she, anya?"

"do not speak of cordelia to me, vermin!"  i growled, and nearly put the flame to wick.  i almost ruined our plan then and there, for surely they were prepared for this.  they would not have come here so brazenly, my weapons of choice in my hands, if they had not been prepared.

cheryl saved me.  she stopped me from ruining everything.

the clamshell excavator above the mother and child opened, and from it, a mass of still warm tar dropped.  they were not in the perfect position, but the shock of the attack, i think, prevented them from avoiding it as they were going to my fire.

when they did not move, under the thickening fluid, and cheryl hopped down from the controls of the machine and ran to me.  i was apologizing for almost ruining everything, and she was just relived i was fine...

...and the next moments are a blur.

sycorax moved from the tar.  she moaned and reached out and tried to stand, and i think cheryl turned, and she was startled and knocked the torch from my hands.

it rolled into the tar.

and they began to burn.

and they screamed, and as we watched, sycorax curled around caliban.  as though trying to protect him.

and cheryl could merely watch.  she watched in horror, and i began to laugh, laugh and laugh and i realized at some point that i wasn't laughing, that i was on my knees sobbing, sobbing until cheryl pulled me away, and sirens grew in the distance.

...there is more.  more, but i do not want to tell it....i think, i think cheryl wishes to, and i shall allow her to do such.  i think it would be best if she told it.

i feel...lost.  i do not....they are dead, and now i do not...

what does one live for, when revenge has been all?  when the lion's share has been taken...what is there left for such a person?

she is cold to me

i keep telling her i'm sorry

i don't want to be alone

please cordelia don't leave me alone again

i'll try better next time

please

please don't leave me alone

out, damn'd spot

i am sorry, cheryl.

i know, you will not forgive me.  perhaps, i should not be forgiven.

as soon as this is posted, i shall tell you the truth, in person.  why the hound is following us.  how we escaped.  we may not get another chance, after engaging sycorax and caliban.

i know.  in truth, i have always known.

lightning struck.  we were battling the monsters, in their home, and lightning struck, and in this lightning was a window.

we did not have long.  so i grabbed your hand and ran through the window, and into our world once more.

we left those people behind.  in the tempest.

we left them to die or worse.

no, that is not correct.

i left them to die, cheryl.  i left them.

i could not grab them.  i could not bring them through the window.  i did not know how long the window provided by jupiter's terrible lash would last.  i could not take the chance there would be another.  i could not lose you, not after just having met you.  it would have been like losing cordelia all over again.

do not hate yourself, sweet cheryl. i made you do it.  it is my fault they died.  or worse.

it is all my fault.

as soon as i post this, i will tell you, in person.  this is a practice speech, of sorts.

i'm sorry, cheryl.  i'm sorry.  this is all my fault.

we just got back in.  my head is swimming.  i am not sure what to make of what i have seen.  i am not sure how to place it.  i am panicked, and thus am finding it a bit difficult to express myself with my typical verbosity.  now i know how hamlet felt on spying claudius, vulnerable and yet praying.  pity has stayed my hand and i must confess i loathe my weakness in observing it.

cheryl and i were out on a stroll.  i would like to say we were holding some ingenious reconnaissance, but in all veracity, we were simply getting some exercise.  i confess to be a bit of a homebody myself, my nigh-crippling ornithophobia being a chief factor in this.  she believed helios's brilliant flame would  bolster my constitution.

fortunately, the pleasant company and warm weather did not dull the edge of our vigilance, and we ducked into an alley before we could be spotted by our enemy.  caliban and sycorax.

they were not lurking, however.  not leading children to their doom.  converting and devouring the unwary.

they were eating ice cream.  they were smiling.  and laughing.  and i hate, i hate them so much for being able to laugh and smile with their loved ones they killed my cordelia they killed by parents and regan and goneril

but they were not killing.  as i watched, sycorax took a napkin and cleaned caliban's face.  with motherly love.  tenderness.  she lifted his spoon and fed him, with an earnest, loving expression.

but i must remember what they are, and they did well enough to remind me, for sycorax again lifted the spoon to caliban's lips and, just for a moment, a beaked head protruded from his mouth, long enough to get its own vile share of confection.

i must remember, even if their actions reach towards heaven, they themselves are below.

they are monsters.  the next i see them i must attempt to end them.

the appearance of love must merely be an affectation.  or perhaps it is a mechanism they use to obfuscate their own shame at what they are, what base creatures they are for allowing the holy temple of their corporeal form to be so desecrated by beasts.

but if it is true, if they are truly a mother and child, and behave thus...i think i hate them more.  i hate them for that purity they profess, when i have lost so much of my own heart, my own soul.  if they truly feel love....then i feel for them nothing but contempt.  if ever in my life i do a good deed on creatures such as they, no matter how they appear, i do repent it, on my very soul.

and whatsoever else shall hap to-night, give it an understanding but no tongue

i cannot fathom how i ever before permitted myself to abide loneliness.

my only companions before this were those i sought from clubs and shops, those who i could bring to my home for a night at best.  just enough to keep away the cold.

but now, now i have an ally.  a friend.  one who knows what i am pursued by.  it is a wondrous feeling, and i shan't give it up if i have any say in the matter.

that said, i saw the beast again today, on a trip to gather some ice.  it stared at me, disapproval obvious.  i froze in its gaze, terrified, for several minutes, before it vanished.  long enough for my companion to come looking for me.

i regret to say i broke down and sobbed when she found me.  i told her the beast was here, its judging eyes upon me.

what great injustice does it know of?  what tale of death and tragedy does it know that we do not?

why can it not let us live in what limited peace we have found?

of dire combustion and confused events, new hatch'd to this woeful time

we have acquired a different place with which to spend our respite, one with, perhaps, not quite so conspicuous a name attached to it.

i am grateful to have companionship after so long.  'tis almost enough to erode some of my trepidations about our current unfortunate predicament.

we do not remember what events may have transpired since our imprisonment in that accursed kitchen.  i appear to have my laptop, but at some point i exhausted my supply of molotov cocktails.  i only hope that what beauteous conflagration i inflicted somehow saw to the death of caliban or sycorax.

i do have doubts on that, now.  i am beginning to be in possession of a great many doubts, to be completely factual.

sheherezade and i performed an expedition to see if we could not, perhaps, acquire some bread with which to break or fast in our recently acquired, temporary abode.  our trip was most fortuitous, until i caught an unfortunate glimpse, an omen more ill than hamlet's father atop the battlements.

i do not wish to speak more of it.  i do not wish to know what it meant.  i am not a person of a duplicitous nature--i have not kept secrets.  all that would shame me i have been most forthright with.

but if this great ebon hound is at our heels...what did we do in that missing time to earn its gaze?

fortunately all it did was gaze, and i quickly lost sight of it.  perhaps it was the merest coincidence i observed it thus?  i know not.

i do not wish to, either.

how she saw this

'tis true

my name is indeed anya.  anya richardson.

in truth, those  who would do me ill already knew  that.

but if it is all the same.

i would prefer to be known as crocodile.