An Episode of Remnants.

Content Warnings

• Mentions of blood, pain and injury
• Discussion of death
• Implications of sexual assault
• Implications of suicide
• Descriptions of corpses
• Discussions of war, including destroyed buildings and death on a large scale

Transcript

APPRENTICE
We’re somewhere different again. 

SIR
Yes. 

APPRENTICE
Did you do that? 

SIR
If I did, it was not on purpose. Was it you? 

APPRENTICE
What? No. Mmf. 

SIR
Are you alright? 

APPRENTICE
Yeah I… mm. 

My arm. The glass. It hurts. 

SIR
That’s not all, is it? 

APPRENTICE
I’m fine. 

SIR
If you insist. 

APPRENTICE
I do. 

[THE APPRENTICE GETS UP, TAKES A FEW STEPS]

SIR
What do you see? 

APPRENTICE
We’re in, like, a tunnel or a corridor or something. There’s no windows. And there are these… things. I remember once I saw inside a boiler room on this streamliner, and the boiler room, it had big furnaces like these. 

SIR
Are they all lit? 

APPRENTICE
No. Just some of them. Way down the corridor. Not the one’s we’re next to. 

SIR
Can you see a way out? 

APPRENTICE
No. What about you? What are you perceiving? 

SIR
Dust. 

APPRENTICE
Care to elaborate? 

SIR
Dust that cooperates, that twists itself into shapes. Dust that moves. Dust that comes and goes. 

APPRENTICE
Yeah, I’m not really sure why I expected a coherent answer to be honest. 

SIR
Just because it doesn’t make sense to you doesn’t mean it’s incoherent. 

APPRENTICE
Are you trying to say I’m stupid? 

SIR
No, simply that our perceptions of this place are vastly different. 

APPRENTICE
You see? I have to be right, don’t I? 

SIR
About what? 

APPRENTICE
We’re different sorts of things. 

SIR
We both look like dust to me. 

APPRENTICE
Yeah well, to me, you’re some kind of… thing, and I… 

SIR
What? 

APPRENTICE
I don’t know what I look like. 

SIR
Ah. 

APPRENTICE
You can see yourself but I can’t. 

SIR
We were just in a room of mirrors. 

APPRENTICE
Yeah but I didn’t— I wasn’t looking at me, was I? 

SIR
Why not? 

APPRENTICE
Because you…

I had a shard of glass sticking out of my arm!

SIR
You are not bleeding anymore. 

APPRENTICE
No. I’m not. I thought I never was, anyway, according to you. 

SIR
Not in the sense that living things bleed. But something hurt you, and some part of you was leaking out. It was not blood, but it was something. 

APPRENTICE
Am I supposed to feel vindicated, reassured, or upset by that, would you say? 

SIR
Your responses are your own. 

APPRENTICE
Well, that’s something at least. 

SIR
Aren’t you going to look for a way out? 

APPRENTICE
If there is one, it’ll be that way. 

SIR
Curious. 

APPRENTICE
Why? 

SIR
One way has fire, the other does not, and you assume the route with flames is the one which might yield an exit. 

APPRENTICE
I suppose, but also, that way is really fucking dark. The other way is light. And besides, it makes sense. 

SIR
How so? 

APPRENTICE
Well, if I had a big long tunnel of furnaces, I reckon I’d start lighting them according to which was closest to the door. 

SIR
You still think a door would be something that would get you out? 

APPRENTICE
That’s what doors do. 

SIR
And yet so recently you opened one and—

APPRENTICE
Got attacked by a flock of moths, yeah. I know. But maybe it’s like… you know in the pyramids? They have all those traps? 

SIR
You think this place is a riddle which you can solve and if you find the correct path, it will lead you to the exit? 

APPRENTICE
Well, what else am I supposed to do? 

SIR
I suppose I don’t know. 

APPRENTICE
Glad we can agree on that. Right. Let’s go, then. 

[HE TAKES ONE STEP. STOPS.] 

SIR
What is it? 

APPRENTICE
Do you see that? 

SIR
No. 

APPRENTICE
Ugh, perceive it, then.

SIR
Ah. It is a remnant. 

APPRENTICE
Yeah. It is. 

It’s a canvas, like for painting on? Only. There’s nothing on it. Or… maybe there is. It—it’s blank but. It looks… wet. Like there’s white paint dripping off the edges. 

SIR
Perhaps you ought to read it. 

APPRENTICE
Why? 

SIR
If this place is a riddle, perhaps there are clues. 

APPRENTICE
Right. 

[A COUPLE MORE STEPS] 

APPRENTICE
The edges are pulled taut over a wooden frame. There’s a layer of white paint, it’s cold under my fingers, smooth, like— ah. 

[WHOOSH]

Nanny Elsie straightens the hem of Sisi’s dress. It’s itchy. She doesn’t like how the top button is right on her throat. 

‘You should do your best to smile,’ says Nanny Elsie. 

Sisi pouts. ‘I don’t want to go for tea at Claridge’s. It’s rubbish and they give you hardly any sandwiches.’ 

Nanny Elsie sighs. ‘I know. But it’s your birthday and your mother wants to treat you.’ 

‘The sandwiches aren’t even big enough for mouses.’ 

‘Mice,’ Nanny Elsie corrects. 

‘How come it’s house and houses, then?’ 

‘You know, I’ve got no idea,’ says Nanny Elsie. 

The door to the parlour bursts open. It’s Daddy, and he’s got a huge bouquet of flowers. 

‘For my precious birthday princess?’ he says. 

He sweeps Sisi into his arms like she weighs nothing more than a flower. Sisi buries her face in her father’s shoulder. 

‘I thought she hated this dress,’ he says. 

‘She does. But Victoria picked it out,’ says Nanny Elsie. 

Sisi’s father sets her down, smooths her collar. ‘Are you excited to go for tea?’ 

Sisi shakes her head. ‘Claridge’s sandwiches are only for mices.’ 

‘Goodness, I had no idea they had a rodent problem. We’ll have to ask cook if we can borrow Percy; he’ll take care of them for sure.’ 

‘Can we really take Percy to Claridge’s?’ 

‘No, Duckie. Honestly, that lazy old man would probably eat the sandwiches before the mice. And come to think of it, I can’t recall the last time I saw him even swat at something.’

‘He plays with strings with me and Nanny Elsie.’

‘Maybe that’s why he’s stopped hunting mice, then,’ says Sisi’s father. He ruffles her hair before he heads back into the hall. 

Sisi’s mother comes in next. She’s dressed beautifully, her hair in elegant twists at the back of her head. She almost smiles at Sisi but it’s not a proper smile. 

‘Would you like your present before we go to tea?’ she asks.

Sisi nods. 

‘Come then,’ says her mother. 

Sisi glances at Nanny Elsie to make sure it’s okay, then follows her mother out of the parlour, into the hall. Propped up on a chair at the bottom of the staircase is a large, rectangular package wrapped in pink paper. Sisi peers at it, frowning. It’s much too thin to be the dolls house she’d looked at the week before. 

‘Go on,’ says Sisi’s mother. 

Sisi makes a delicate tear in the corner of the wrapping. underneath, white canvas. 

Sisi frowns. She tears more of the paper away. 

‘What happened to the picture?’ Sisi asks, tilting her head at the empty canvas in front of her. 

Sisi’s mother laughs. ‘You’re yet to have it painted. That’s the present. I’ve commissioned an artist to paint a portrait of you. We can hang it next to the one of me.’ 

Sisi glances at her mother’s portrait. A dour-faced a serious little girl. She looks back at the canvas. 

‘Can I be smiling in mine?’ 

[WHOOSH]

Sisi wakes. Her head feels as though it’s been stuffed with cotton wool. She’s curled up on the window seat in her old nursery. She’d fallen asleep in her father’s lap, but he’s gone, leaving her with a wool blanket. She pulls it around her shoulders. 

‘Daddy?’ she calls out, getting to her feet. 

The hallway is dark. Nobody has turned on the little lamps. In the dark, the house feels vast. The floorboards are cold through Sisi’s socks. She calls for her father again. 

Nobody answers. 

When Sisi gets to the bottom of the stairs, she hears a sound. It’s strange, almost like a growl. She’d heard a story at school that sometimes foxes can sneak in through open windows and eat all the food right out of your kitchen. 

If Nanny Elsie was still here, Sisi would have run right back up the stairs to get her. She’d have been angry to be woken so late in the night, but she’d have lit them a candle and they’d have gone downstairs to check the kitchen together. 

But Nanny Elsie is gone. Mummy threw her out on the street yesterday morning. Nanny Elsie hadn’t even had time to dress. Mummy had thrown all of Nanny Elsie’s things, right out of the window, even her suitcase and her shoes, even her winter boots. 

Sisi imagines Nanny Elsie is holding her hand and telling her to be brave. She creeps down the hallway very carefully. The kitchen door is closed, but there’s a soft, warm glow coming from the parlour. Sisi can’t image how a fox might’ve got in there, but she supposes anything is possible. 

Sisi stops before she gets to the parlour door. Now she’s close, she can hear other sounds, little movements. Fear is tight in her throat, holding her breath before she even thinks to do it herself. She squeezes her eyes shut as she cranes her neck around the doorframe. 

When she opens her eyes, what she sees is like a painting in a museum. The only light is coming from the fireplace; it’s making everything glow. And museum paintings are the only place she’s seen naked people before. Of course, the people in museum paintings usually aren’t her parents, and they’re not usually on the floor like that. 

‘You’ll put another child in me,’ Sisi’s mother hisses at her father. ‘You’ll do it.’ 

‘I can’t.’ 

The sound of Sisi’s mother’s hand against her father’s face feels louder than it should be. 

Sisi pulls her head back from the doorway flattens herself against the wall. She blinks and blinks. She creeps back up the stairs and gets into her bed. 

[WHOOSH]

Sisi chews the end of her paintbrush. It makes her tongue sour, but that’s alright. It helps her concentrate. 

 Sisi’s father’s voice breaks her concentration . ‘What a beautiful painting.’

She looks up from the canvas. ‘I thought you’d already left.’

‘Sorry, I startled you,’ he says.

‘It’s okay.’ Sisi turns back to the painting, adding texture to the slope of the horse’s neck. ‘Mother said you were going away again.’ 

‘I am, but I wanted to give you a proper goodbye.’ 

‘Oh.’ 

‘You know I hate leaving you.’ 

Sisi inhales sharply. ‘It’s alright.’ 

‘Things are difficult, with your mother.’ 

Sisi glances at her father; he looks tired. He always looks so tired. 

‘So, who is this you’re painting?’ he asks. 

‘It’s one of King Arthur’s knights,’ Sisi explains. She turns her paintbrush in her hand. ‘I know it’s a bit childish, but—‘ 

‘No. It’s good. Which knight is this? Sir Gawain?’ 

‘No, it’s Lancelot. Can’t you tell by his heraldry?’

‘How foolish of me, of course. Three bends on his shield, showing the strength of three men.’ 

‘Exactly.’ 

‘His horse looks just like yours.’ 

‘Hmm, not really. Wilf’s much stockier than this horse, but a Palamino felt right for Lancelot; golden fur to match Lancelot’s golden heart.’ 

‘You think Lancelot has a heart of gold?’ 

‘Well, yes. He loves Lady Guinevere a lot, but he loves Arthur too, and he does his best to love them both even though it’s hard. What’s more pure than that?’ 

Sisi’s father purses his lips. ‘I suppose.’ 

Sisi looks back at the painting. ‘You think I’m being silly. Mother would prefer I paint portraits, and Madame Bedeau only likes landscapes.’ 

‘Well, they’re both idiots then.’ 

Sisi laughs. ‘Father!’

Her father chuckles. ‘What I mean to say is that I’m very impressed. There’s such movement here. I don’t know how you’ve managed to capture it.’ 

‘Practise,’ says Sisi, with a shrug. ‘It’s not finished yet, anyway.’ 

‘So when will you be done?’ 

‘Maybe tomorrow, I don’t know yet.’ 

‘A proper little artist. Where is our golden-hearted knight riding to with such vigour, then?’ 

‘He’s going to try to help Arthur at Avalon,’ says Sisi. ‘Even though Arthur has cast him out, he knows he’ll need help.’ 

There is a long quiet. Sisi starts to mix a new colour to deepen the shadows on Lancelot’s horse. He’s too flat, somehow. 

‘Sisi. You must promise me something.’ 

‘What?’ 

‘Promise you will never ride to war.’ 

Sisi laughs. ‘What are you talking about, father?’ 

‘If war comes, you must promise me you’ll never go. Promise me, Sisi.’ He says this with such fervour that it’s almost frightening.

‘Alright, I promise.’ 

Sisi’s father sighs. He pets Sisi’s arm. ‘You’re a good girl. You’ll grow up into a fine woman. Don’t listen to your mother or Madame Bedeau. Paint what your heart tells you to paint. Alright?’ 

Sisi nods.

[WHOOSH]

Sisi is struggling to put in her earrings. It’d be fine if it weren’t for her wretched dress; she can hardly raise her arms. She can’t deny the thing is beautiful. It’s over-dyed velvet, blue so lustrous that it almost seems to sap the light unless caught at the right angle, when it glitters. 

There’s some kind of ruckus happening in the hall, but the house has been full of ruckus all day. It’s Sisi’s mother’s birthday and she always likes to put on a big event, so they’ve got extra workers in the kitchen, people darting in and out of the guest rooms. There’s been clattering, shouting, and thundering footsteps all day long.

The whole thing feels in rather poor taste to Sisi. Her father is convinced Britain will be going to war any day now, so they’ve stayed in Cornwall instead of going home to London at the end of the summer. Everyone thought he was a bit mad, but now Germany has invaded Poland. There’s no fighting here in England, all the same, and it seems ridiculous to have stayed out of the city. Especially as it means Sisi can’t go back to school. She misses her friends.

Worst of all, her father refused to take her to Paris over the summer like he’d been promising for years. Turning sixteen made her a young woman, that’s what he always said, and she should be able to see the city of love if that’s what she wants, even if her mother despises it. 

Now she’s not going to Paris, and she’s not going to school, and it all seems absurd, and she can’t get in her ridiculous pearl earrings.

In the hallway, there’s a thud, followed by an awful quiet. 

Out of the mire, her mother’s voice: ‘Selfish, spoiled brat. He’s spoilt it. He’s spoilt everything.’ 

Sisi frowns. Oddly, she finds herself thinking of foxes and broken crockery, but she’s not sure why. She gives up on her earrings and goes to her door, stockinged feet be damned. 

Across the hall from Sisi’s bedroom is the room which was once her nursery. There is a glut of maids outside it, and one of Sisi’s mother’s friends, Charlotte, is standing by the doorway, a hand over her mouth. 

‘What’s going on?’ says Sisi. 

Charlotte shakes her head. ‘No, dear. You want to go back into your bedroom.’ 

Sisi frowns. ‘Why? What’s happened?’ 

‘Close the door!’ says Charlotte. 

‘No.’ Sisi’s mother’s voice isn’t loud, but it cuts through all the others. ‘Sisi. Come here at once.’ 

The clot of maids breaks, making a pathway for Sisi to walk through. They all stare at her, wide eyed. 

‘Mother?’

Sisi’s mother does not reply with words, only a glare. Sisi can practically smell her fury. It’s so intense that for a moment, Sisi does not see her father lying on the bed. 

Sisi’s favourite painting of the Saint Sebastian is not any of the ones which depict the miracle, where Sebastian was tied to a tree and pierced with dozens of arrows and did not die. Sisi’s favourite was a painting of its aftermath. 

Sebastian lay on his back, under the hands of two women. The women are wearing heavy clothing, every inch of their bodies covered save their faces and hands. Two naked cherubim fly in from the corner of the painting, reaching down to Sebastian, bearing a crown and a frond of palms. 

Sebastian is a mirror of them, naked but for a strategically placed blanket, scrunched over his most intimate parts. Whilst the cherubim reach down, Sebastian reaches up, but not towards them. His arm, supernaturally long, stretches up skyward. His empty gaze looks beyond, as though he grasping for the hand of God himself to clutch his outstretched fingers. 

Sisi’s father is not naked, but his coat is hanging open. There’s a damp sheen on his bared chest. Sisi cannot tell if it is sweat or vomit. His arm reaches up, fingers resting under the headboard of the bed, like he might’ve been grasping at it. His eyes are open and glassy, staring at the ceiling. Sisi wonders what he sees, there. Is it God, or the plasterwork? 

Sisi steps closer. In her father’s hand there is a scrap of paper. It’s not a note; it’s torn from a book of poetry. Dulce et Decorum Est. 

[WHOOSH]

Sisi sits on the beach, her tiny easel propped up in the sand. She plucks shapes from the gloomy grey-violet she’s spread over her canvas. The paint is still wet, the fresh stuff on her brush melts into it. Counter intuitive that this makes it easier to define the edges of the twisted man she sees emerging from the clouds. 

Last summer she read a book written by a man name Freud. It had been awfully scandalous, but fascinating. She wonders if when she paints like this, with no plan or direction, what she’s doing is connecting with those hidden parts of the mind Freud is so concerned with. Especially so today, as the shape of the man she plucks from the gloom looks more and more like her father. 

‘Excuse me,’ a voice calls over the sand. Sisi looks up. There’s a girl standing there, about her age, maybe a few years younger. She looks alarmed. ‘Is that your pony?’ she asks. 

Sisi follows the girl’s gaze. Her pony, Wilf, has somehow slipped out of his halter and is cantering along the waterline. 

‘Oh my god.’ Sisi throws down her brush and palette and leaps to her feet, sprinting across the sand. She and the girl corral Wilf; Sisi manages to grab a fistful of his mane. ‘I didn’t think to bring the rope!’ 

The girl, laughing, pulls her small satchel over her head, loops the strap around Wilf’s neck. Together, they lead him back up the beach, laughing. 

‘I’m so sorry,’ says Sisi. 

‘It’s alright,’ says the girl. ‘I thought I’d better say something. You was so absorbed in your painting there that he might’ve made it all the way to the Scilly Islands before you noticed.’ 

‘Well, thank you.’ 

The girl shrugs. ‘You’re Elisabeth Ronson, aren’t you?’ 

Sisi feels herself blush. ‘Yes. But please. Everyone calls me Sisi.’ 

‘I was sorry to hear about your dad them years ago. Everyone says he was a nice sort of man.’ 

Sisi looks at the sand. ‘Right.’ 

‘I’m Queenie, by the way. Victoria, properly, but everyone calls me Queenie.’ 

‘That’s my mother’s name.’ 

‘Huh,’ says Queenie, tilting her head sidewards. ‘My mother’s name was Elizabeth. But folks called her Elsie, not Sisi. Funny old world isn’t it?!’

‘Almost like fate,’ says Sisi.

Queenie raises a brow. ‘If you like, I suppose. I’d better be getting on; I was supposed to be going up to the post office and I’ve already been out too long. My dad frets, and he’s got a bad heart. I don’t like to worry him.’ 

‘I should likely head back too. Before Wilf decides to make another bid for freedom.’ 

‘Alright. It was a pleasure meeting you, Sisi. I know you like to keep to yourself, but if you ever need help wrangling your pony or anything again, I’m around.’ 

[WHOOSH]

Sisi stands in the doorway of Queenie’s kitchen. She’s been cleaning the sink for almost ten minutes. 

They’ve been friends for two years now, despite Sisi’s mother’s distaste for Sisi spending so much time with a commoner. She’s always going on about how they much have nothing to talk about, how she can’t imagine it could be interesting to spend such time with someone so uneducated and dull. 

But Queenie isn’t dull at all. She’s clever, sharp and witty. It’s almost funny, how much they have in common. They both love to paint; they both love to ride. They love Cornwall despite its slow pace, especially now, knowing there’s a war raging elsewhere that neither of them can be part of. 

They’ve each done what they can, but there’s a limit to it. Sisi convinced her mother to take three children in from London and has been teaching at the local school. Queenie helps out at the post office. They both head up to the military base at the weekend to help with post and deliveries. People know them about the town; people have taken to calling them the Twin Princesses, and they joke about not being able to tell them apart despite Sisi’s long curls and Queenie’s neat, tidy bob. 

Now and then, they talk about leaving. Signing up to do administrative work for the army or going to help work the land like so many other women have been doing. But Queenie’s father is ill, in bed most days, so she can’t offer her services more permanently, and Sisi promised her own father that she’d never get involved with war, no matter what. 

Queenie’s hand slips on the ceramic of the sink and she gasps. She freezes in place for a moment. 

‘Are you sure there’s nothing I can—‘ 

‘It’s fine,’ Queenie insists, sniffing hard. ‘It’s fine.’ 

‘It isn’t. You don’t have to pretend.’ 

‘Well, it has to be, doesn’t it? Jimmy’s gone now. Left me here to look after dad all on my own. You know they’re talking about sending them all into France. France!’ 

‘I know. I heard it on the radio.’ 

‘He thinks it’s all going to be noble and honourable. He wants to be a part of it. I would be a part of it too, but I can’t, because I have to think about other people instead of just myself.’ 

‘I’m sure he was thinking of others, too.’ 

‘Not me, though! Not his own sister. Not his father either! Poor dad, he acts like he’s proud but he’s hardly been out of bed since Jimmy left. What am I supposed to do?’ Queenie shakes her head. ‘What’s he thinking? When he gets back, what’s he going to do with himself? He’d not even finished school!’ 

‘I know.’ 

‘What if he doesn’t come back, Sisi?’ 

‘You can’t talk like that.’ 

‘But he might not! Plenty of boys don’t, older boys with more sense than our Jimmy has. He likes reading, he’s not a soldier! Suppose he doesn’t come back, what then? All I’ll have is father, and who knows how— who knows?!’ 

‘You won’t be alone. You’ll have me.’

Queenie presses her eyes shut. ‘Things’ll be different when the wars over.’ 

‘Not us, though. You’re my friend and I care about you.’ 

‘But the war is going to end some day, isn’t it? And when it does you’ll go back to London and you’ll be married off to some rich man, and you’ll forget all about me.’ 

‘I could never do that.’ 

‘You will! It’s what’s right, it’s what’s proper.’ 

‘I don’t care, if it’s proper, it’s not what I’m going to do. You’re as good as a sister to me, and I need you to care about me, too. Because otherwise all I’ve got is my mother. And I can’t, Queenie. I can’t.’ 

Queenie’s hands are shaking too badly for her to keep cleaning. Sisi gently pries the cloth from her fingers, wraps Queenie into her arms. ‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispers into her shoulder. 

A sound rips out of Queenie, somewhere between a sob and a bark. She clings back, her fingers knotting into Sisi’s shawl. 

[WHOOSH]

Sisi cannot tell if she likes the sculpture of a prancing horse that she’s staring at. There’s a beauty to it, yes, but an awkwardness too. It rears on its hind legs, kicking its forelegs out, a stance that should convey power and grace, but it stands supported by a pillar of odd, abstract stones. Its expression is strangely serene, its limbs just slightly too loose to feel real. 

‘It looks like something from the fair,’ says Queenie. ‘You know, like off a carousel. Suppose the curators will let us sit on it if we give them ten pence?’ 

Sisi snorts. They move on, arm in arm, looking at other sculptures and paintings. 

It’s been a dizzyingly strange trip. Europe is still scarred by the war that ended years ago, now. They stopped by to visit the place where Queenie’s younger brother has been buried. He was only seventeen when he hit the beach on D-Day. Nobody seems to know how he died, only that he did. They call him a hero; they call all the dead soldiers heroes. 

They visited museums in France and hear of heroic efforts to protect art from the Nazis. They hear stories of heroes who helped people out of the city in times of crisis, and traitors who traded with the fascist occupiers who were then shamed in the streets. Everywhere they walked in Paris, the crowds were peppered with scarred faces and haunted eyes, people for whom the war didn’t end. Not really. 

Now they’ve come to Italy, things are different. For France, the end of the war was a triumph, and a relief. Everywhere they’d gone there was a sense of reclamation of the land, the place. But here, there is something else. A quiet sense of disquiet. They do not call dead soldiers heroes, here. 

Yesterday, they were shown around Florence by a guide who went to great lengths to explain the damage still visible on many buildings, and what to return some of the art to the museums and galleries that litter the city, like the one they’re wondering around now. 

They stop at a Monet. It’s a painting of the Charing Cross Bridge. Sisi has seen other works in this series, begins to rail off some information about them to Queenie, who cuts her off. 

‘Something’s weird about this, don’t you think?’ 

‘Really? What?’ 

‘I don’t know. Just something.’ 

Sisi frowns at the painting. The more she looks, the more she wonders if Queenie is right. It looks almost perfect. Perhaps even too perfect. 

‘This is one which was returned after Nazi raids?’ 

‘Suppose it was switched, at some point?’ Queenie asks.

SIR
Wait. 

[WHOOSH, WIND]

APPRENTICE
(Strained)
Sir— what are you doing?! Please, I need— I need to—

SIR
No. 

APPRENTICE
Please, please, I— 

SIR
No! 

[WHOOSH] 

[THE APPRENTICE IS PANTING]

APPRENTICE
Don’t make me forget! 

SIR
I need to warn you. 

APPRENTICE
Warn me?!

SIR
Yes. 

APPRENTICE
About what?!

SIR
What she is about to do. Who she is about to see. 

APPRENTICE
What?

SIR
You. 

APPRENTICE
I— I have to keep going, Sir. I have to get to the end of it. 

SIR
What if you don’t like what you see? 

APPRENTICE
It doesn’t matter!

SIR
You didn’t look at yourself in the mirrors. 

APPRENTICE
So?! 

SIR
Look. 

APPRENTICE
At what?

SIR
The furnaces!

APPRENTICE
There are more of them. More of them are burning. 

SIR
Yes. 

APPRENTICE
What does it mean?

SIR
I don’t know. 

APPRENTICE
You’re afraid. 

SIR
Yes. I am afraid. 

APPRENTICE
I can’t just— I’m supposed to read it. It’s what they’re for, and I— I read them. Different to the way you do. I need to do this.

SIR
Why?

APPRENTICE
Because what if you’re right?! It’s a clue? Maybe I’m wrong and it’s not some riddle that needs solving, but I don’t know what else to do. I— there’s no other way out! We can’t stay here. I’m sorry. We can’t. 

SIR
We? 

APPRENTICE
There’s a way out. I know you don’t believe me. But there has to be. 

SIR
Alright. 

APPRENTICE
You’ll let me finish. 

SIR
Yes. I will. 

[WHOOSH]

[END]