Eulogy For America

Ever since I was four, my guardian has governed my life, from the big things, like my education, down to the things as insignificant as what I eat for breakfast. She has molded me to be the best that I can be—in exactly the right way: hers. “You must be the best you can be,” she reminds me, often and sternly. Sometimes it’s when I 'm bent over my studies, sometimes it’s when I’m pinning back my hair, sometimes it’s when I 'm fixing myself supper—no matter where, she wants me to remember; she wants my every waking hour to be filled with that realization. It seems that my every action must be linked to my regal status. “You must look beautiful, but not misleading,” Lady Karielle says of my wardrobe. She says that “must eat well, but not be a glutton,” and that I need to maintain a healthy body but not let it become my main

Certainly they know Stella Tísison, the supposedly shy girl with the long hair, and they know of Karrie Alras, the unfortunately young widow who inherited a gigantic sum from her late husband. They know them. But those people are not us, not really. We’re not from here. We’re from out of the state; we’re not from another country. We’re not even from anywhere in this galaxy; this universe. “You are the one who will inherit the throne of Tísis,” Lady Karielle says. “You know your duty. You know how you were wronged. You know that you need to claim what truly belongs to you.” I sit on the padded window seat in my room, looking over our property and the wooded area that encompasses it. My back aches from being kept straight, my eyes itch to look somewhere other than out onto the dim yard, and my hands have become stiff from being clasped, but I don’t dare move. Even though I know that Karielle’s body is not in the room, she is present, with phantom eyes watching me. This sitting still is a sort of endurance training, apparently, and I still must sit for a tad bit over than fifteen minutes