Petra, the Great - (Book One)

"Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't."

Chapter Ten

"Though this be madness, yet there is method in 't."

- Hamlet Act II, Scene II.

I AM THROWN FROM THE damp warmth I have resigned my fate to, and into the freezing air. My body hits the ground with such bone rattling impact that I am forced to take a breath - but it hurts, for I am drowning outside of water. Every breath I take compels me into a fit of painful coughing.

         I hit a fit so strenuous that I am forced to open my eyes and confront the darkness that I know surrounds me. Gasping, I grasp at the ground; one of my hands finds another and I hold on to it as the coughs rake my body. After a painful eternity, I quiet down, but I can make no sense of what surrounds me. I can however make out an outline of a man kneeling beside me.

         I blink a few relieved tears away. My lungs hurt, my body hurts from being thrown so violently. Everything hurts. My vision clears some more and I can make out details from the outlines. I know the man studying me cannot be no mere human, for I am dead, of that I am certain. Surely he must be some sort of angel, an angel of death and from the annoyed sigh he lets out, not a very happy one.

         I had expected a monster of sorts to pull me to the afterlife, not a man with black hair in damp curls that fall just short of his eyes; eyes that are as sharp as metal and bright as the stars above him. He blinks and little droplets fall from his eyelashes down his face, combine with the water there and trail down to his mouth. His mouth ... his scowling mouth and his impeccably shaved goatee.

        Goatee? 

        My vision has cleared up completely with the realization that I am indeed alive.

        Giovanni de Luca.

        Disappointment and relief shroud me in cold while a slight Florentian breeze sets me into uncontrollable shivers. I feel arms lift me and a welcomed warmth envelopes me.

        "Is she alive signore?" Alberto whimpers. "Please say yes. I do not want the Mad Queen to execute me, signore." When Giovanni does not answer him, he sings pitifully, "Noooo! Nooo! I do not wish to die!"

        "Dios mio, man! She lives. But I must get her someplace warm."

        I am delirious and I let his warmth flow around me, covering me in a sense of security. Exhaustion from my near death experience finally sets in, seeping into my marrow and I can no longer hold onto the bits of fleeting consciousness.

***

        I DREAM of rolling green fields, a clear sky and a rainbow peeking from behind distant mountains. I dream of fresh air and serenity unlike anything I have felt. I walk bare foot through the fields to a wagon far off in the open. But the more I walk towards it the farther away it gets. In my panic I run. I run towards the wagon for I have recognized it as my Gram's.