Chapter 2: The Darkest Light Before the Dawn

It was two o'clock in the morning when Will awoke from a dreamless sleep. He came to after hearing something he could not identify. At first, feeling someone else on his bed was strange, but he soon recalled Augustus was staying here now. He heard a sniffle and turned over.

Augustus was huddled on the edge of the bed with tear-stained cheeks and faded eyes.

"Are you all right?" Will asked, sitting up and pushing his covers back, so he could sit closer to Augustus.

"I'm sorry I woke you up." he quivered, tears seeping into his voice. "It's my sister. For the past few weeks, I haven't eaten or slept well at all. Any time I ever do sleep, I keep having dreams about her coming back or waking up, and...I know it's not true." he avoided Will's gaze.

"I'm so sorry, I should have asked. I was going to, but then I wasn't sure if I should mention..." he trailed off.

"Shall I get your parents again? Maybe you'd like some water?" Will scanned his room for a fresh pitcher.

"No, no that's all right. I don't want to burden them further." he replied, shaking his head slowly.

"Well, if you're sure..." Will edged closer to him and thought. "Isn't there anything I can do?"

"Having you here makes it easier, being alone is always worse." Augustus whispered.

"Here," Will said, handing him a glass of water he'd just spotted on his nightstand.

"Maybe we could talk for a while until you get tired." he suggested, sitting up straight as Augustus sipped. "You don't have to talk about it, but it won't...burden me if you do."

"Thanks." he whispered, turning to face Will. He looked down at the glass for a moment.

Will thought quickly. He needed to refocus Augustus. "We haven't seen each other for three years. I'm sure all kinds of interesting things have happened. Go on, tell me."

"Well, my parents have been working a lot lately. My father's done labor work, they were trying to save up a little money. I..." Augustus trailed off, and looked up to stare out the window.

It seemed even darker and colder at 2 AM. The world outside looked...lonely.

He turned back and looked right at Will. "I have to talk about it!" he pleaded, in a sweeping breath. "We never thought she'd get it, she was only four! I think she ate something, or..." he shook his head and handed the glass back.

He took a deep, shuddering breath. He didn't really want to relive this again. His nightmares had gotten worse lately.

But Augustus realized he had two choices. He could tell Will nothing and suffer, or talk and possibly get it off his mind.

He sighed and went on: "So, in a week's time, she went from being a normal, happy little girl to someone who was just wasting away. It started so oddly. She was coughing at dinner, and then we noticed she was coughing up blood."

He re-pictured it: the small girl with brown hair and round cheeks sat coughing at the dinner table beside her mother. Once the rufescent drops had stained her tiny hands, her black eyes went wide with alarm and confusion. Her outstretched fingers splayed for her mother to examine, and Caroline gasped in disbelief.

"It started slowly the first day and then it moved so fast. She had fevers, she'd hardly eat, and after only three days she had to stay in bed all the time because she was too weak!" he sniffled again. He stared down at the floor. There was no escaping his memories now.

"I really wanted to play games with her, and make her feel better; forget being sick for a while. I did that before, when she was ill. She had a bad spell last year, but I got to cheer her up. I couldn't do it this time, though. I begged my mother, but she wouldn't let me."

"What?" Will exclaimed. "Why not?" That didn't sound like Caroline at all.

"Mother said we could catch it from her, so we could only see her for a few minutes each time. We tried to make her happy, we gave her all her favorite toys and brought her food, but if she was bored, or crying, we could only do so much."

"That sounds horrible." Will said softly. "Children can get scared when they're sick. I can't imagine being scared and sick and alone."

"That's the first thing I thought of. I argued with my mother about it."

"You? And your mother?" Will's eyes widened. He couldn't imagine either Augustus or Caroline arguing, least of all with each other.

"I felt I had to. But," he paused sheepishly. "I'm pretty sure I just made everything worse..."

"I want to help her." He had argued to Caroline, pacing around the room. He felt the bare plaster walls pushing ever closer to him. They were trapped in an untenable situation, through no fault of their own.

"I know you want to help," she replied patiently from her seat at the table, taking hold of his arm as he walked past, "but that isn't the right way. A few minutes each. Morning, noon and night. That's all. All any of us can safely do."

"So what?" Augustus shot back, gaping at her. "We just leave her there, scared and alone? I can't even hold her hand, or play a game with her? Anything?" his voice broke on the last word, as it was his last hope.

"You don't think I want to do that? I'm her mother!" Caroline had yelped, rising to her feet. "It's my responsibility to care for her as much as I can. Don't you imagine my first concern is making her feel better?"

"But leaving her alone, for almost an entire day feels wrong!" he'd cried, stamping his foot.

Caroline sprang to action in a way her son had never seen. She seized his shoulders and looked at him sternly. Her usually pleasant face had hardened, stressing every inch of skin, tight and unflinching.

"Do you think I want to lose two of you?" she hissed in a sharp, guttural tone.

"Oh, my God..." Will softly marveled.

"Didn't anyone try to help you?" he looked at his friend wistfully.

"Well, we had a doctor come 'round, but he was just there for charity cases like us." Augustus said resentfully.

"I will say he tried, and I was grateful, but we all knew the Apothecaries would have more treatments, or something. You can't get their help unless you pay. And it's not cheap." Augustus huffed with a sigh.

"One person doesn't deserve more help because he's got more pounds in his pocket." he scoffed.

But Augustus tried to temper himself. This was about helping the needy, not resenting things he couldn't change.

"Aren't we supposed to help the helpless first? I suppose he did the best he could. It only took him ten minutes."

Augustus let out a long, slow sigh, like a cheerful balloon deflating into rubbish on cold pavement. "He said it was a type of the Plague that was in her lungs, and that he's never seen anyone survive it. After that, I asked if there was anything we could do. He just shook his head and said: 'it's up to God now.'"

Augustus paused and stared at the floor once again.

As the silence stretched gloomily between them, Will felt uneasy.

He busied himself with the pitcher and handed Augustus a fresh glass of water. He drank it all down without a second thought.

"I--I believe in God, but I have to be honest: I don't think hurting a little girl is God's will."

He looked at the glass in his hands, and suddenly wanted nothing more than to smash it onto the floor.

"I think," he said, his voice rising as his resentment returned, like the ebb and flow of the tide, "that's from living someplace dangerous. That's from having no money for real care.

These doctors don't even understand what they're fighting! I've heard arguments all over the city with doctors and people who study Natural Philosophy. But apparently even the expensive doctors don't listen to them! Why can't everyone work together to save more people, children like my sister? Do they honestly not care enough?" his voice was as sharp as the angry flash in his eyes.

"I imagine they care; their work is about helping people." Will reasoned. "Maybe they just aren't ready to get rid of their old ideas yet. It's not right, but it's the truth right now."

Augustus glared at Will as he spoke.

"Hanging on to their old ideas because they're too scared of new ones is costing lives." his voice nearly rose to mockery. "That's the truth right now, too."

He stopped short, seeing how uncomfortable Will looked.

Augustus's cheeks burned as his eyelids flickered down to stare at the glass in his hand. Had he gone too far? He usually didn't talk like that, especially not to his best friend.

"I--I'm sorry; I know that's--I mean, I just..." he closed his eyes and sighed.

It was then Will was sure he had no role to play, no way to make it better. He wasn't strong enough. It seemed like the only thing he could do was listen, although he felt like he was letting him down.

Why can't I do better? Why can't I help him? he mentally lectured himself.

"I think--" Augustus's voice waved, tears filling his eyes again, "--I think we all knew it was going to happen that night. My mother didn't even go to bed. Stayed with her until the end. She came to me and said, 'Come say goodnight to your sister'. I replied quietly so no one else would hear me, but I had to say it. I looked right at my mother and said 'I think you mean good-bye.' I finally got more than a few moments with her, but by then, everything was too late. I did what I could to make her happy, but I was so distracted. She looked awful. She was all pale, and bruised. She didn't look like a child. But..."

He had to cling to something, anything that could be recalled fondly. "I made her smile, just for a moment. It's all I have left now."

His hand trembled and the cup slipped to the floor, thankfully landing in one piece on the carpet below. Augustus bent to retrieve it.

"She was too young for that kind of burden." Augustus said solemnly.

"When I turned and looked back at her one last time," he slowly recalled, "all I could think was...if I could have gone in her place," he paused, as silent tears stained his face like loose

raindrops. "I would've, and she could still be here."

Will froze with utter shock.

That was why Augustus had been so sullen and quiet all evening! That was why he barely ate at dinner! He was contemplating a want to sacrifice his life for someone else!

Will barely knew how to handle Augustus in such a state. Through all the years he'd known him, he had never seen a side of him like this before.

Clearly, the desperation had pushed Augustus. What he really valued had surged through the entire ordeal. Augustus was devoted to others to the point of accepting a deadly fate to save someone he loved.

"That's....awful. I truly don't know what to say." Will shifted as he moved back when Augustus returned to his spot on the bed.

"That's fine...it was just a relief to say it. I..." he paused, finally holding eye contact for a short moment. "I just told you something no one else in the world knows." he murmured unhappily, staring at the glass in his hands again.

"I'd never tell any of that to Mary and of course not to my parents. I knew I could tell you because I trust you." he handed the glass back.

"I've been thinking that for weeks, over and over but I couldn't tell anyone. Now I almost...feel better."

His eyes suddenly fluttered up to meet Will's.

"Is that selfish?" he asked, nervously twisting a handful of sheets.

Will had to think quickly; Augustus was searching for comfort.

"No, you have to speak your mind when something like this happens." he reassured him, putting a hand on his shoulder.

"Maybe now that you've said it, you don't have to think about it all the time. You're here now, and you and Mary will be safe. And you don't need to torture yourself about this. It's not as though you had a choice. Take care of yourself. Eat something, try to get some sleep. You need it, you deserve it."

"I am getting tired." Augustus agreed. Going over every anxiety and bad memory from the past month had left him tired and weak.

Will paused, and his voice softened as he spoke.

"If you want anything else, just tell me. Anything at all; it's yours."

"Thank you." he weakly smiled at Will, then laid back. He yawned, and curled up under the lush, warm blankets he still wasn't used to.

They bid each other goodnight, and Augustus finally fell asleep.