Effy had once read, in one of those ancient tomes on the sixth floor of the library, about a method of torture practiced in the south, in the pre-Drowning days. The victims were strapped down and forced to drink and drink and drink, until their stomachs burst, until their bodies gave out from the weight of it all. The water cure, it was called. For days after she could not stop imagining all those swollen bodies. Sometimes, she had read, the victim was forced to vomit up all the water and then drink it down again.
