6

I felt a cool breeze on my face. Somewhere, a window was open. I took a long inhale, and the smell of clover mixed with fresh air filled my nose.

I could hear the tinkling of distant birdsong, light and bright like so many small bells—a simple melody that gently tugged me from sleep. I opened my eyes, disoriented. I was staring at a tall ceiling framed in wide, exquisite molding, and I was lying on… a bed? Confusion rippled down through my stiff muscles. I flexed my fingers beside me and felt the cotton fibers of the bedclothes beneath me.

My hair was loose. The soft curls tendriled around my face and fanned out into long waves, consuming the pillow in the way that Matthew hated. He always insisted I wear it in tight braids before going to sleep—even though we hadn’t shared a bed in three years. Surely I wouldn’t have forgotten to plait it before falling asleep?

I looked down at myself and saw that I was still fully dressed. Aside from my jacket, which hung on one of the bed posts, the skirts of my dress spread out beautifully over the bed linens. They were not crushed or wrinkled at all, as they would have been if I had slept on them.

I would never have slept fully clothed. My thoughts shifted to Aisling and dread filled me. Tangled with the memories of our evening rituals, she would prepare my room for sleep, hang my dress for the morning, and stoke the fire carefully. Her sweet voice so soft against the crackling wood as she repeated back what she had learned from any spare knowledge I shared with her that day. My sweet, inquisitive Aisling …Aisling. My memory was drenched in fog so thick it suffocated my rational thoughts. Where had she gone…

“Where am I?” My voice was raspy from sleep and my throat constricted sorely as if I had been screaming—s creaming ? My eyes scanned around the room as a vague memory gripped me, raising the hairs on the back of my neck and arms.

“You belong to the house now.” I remembered Agatha’s voice in the back of my mind.

I shot off the bed and my legs wobbled uneasily beneath me.

How long had I been sleeping? How did I get to this room? This bed?

I shook my legs as they were flooded with the sensation of being pricked by needles and, again, I wondered how long had I been unconscious? Unsteadily, I made my way to the large bay window. One of the side panes was open and I stuck my head out and saw no signs of the birds I heard moments before. Instead I saw the labyrinth and the gardens, and fully remembered where I was and, more importantly, how I came to be here.

“Agatha,” I whispered.

Despite the comfortable temperature in the room the blood in my veins turned ice cold; upon quick inspection it was clear I was no longer in the room where I had found Agatha Warren before—I shuddered. My brain turned over the events slowly as I explored my surroundings in greater detail.

I’d come to the Manor on the hill in the early afternoon.

I glanced out the window again and saw that the sun was high in the sky and, despite the cover of some clouds, it appeared to be morning.

Had I spent the night in the Manor? Matthew would be outraged.

Though the thought was tinged with a familiar fear of having to deal with his ire eventually, a small part of me—no matter how beaten down—was pleased to anger him.

I came to the Manor to meet with Agatha, but then that gruesome thing happened to her and… I ran…and… there was a fire?

The memory of thick smoke and the sensation of choking made me cough. The movement caused my attention to be pulled by my reflection in an oval mirror framed in a beautiful freestanding walnut frame on the other side of the window. I took a moment to look myself over.

My head tilted to the side as I took in my complexion. Curious. My jacket was still hanging on the end of the bed so my arms were completely bare—something they seldom were due to the need to cover the constant array of dark purple and yellow fingerprint—sized bruises that peppered my pale flesh. Only, they weren’t there. I stepped closer to the mirror to inspect my porcelain skin. Unmarred by any scar or scratch—no sign at all of the violence I had so often seen.

“How is that possible?” I whispered to my reflection.

I had spent years with bruises and knew intimately how long they stained my skin. The darkest of them would not have entirely faded for at least a week or longer. I stepped closer and pushed back the auburn curls that fell over my right eye to inspect the split brow Matthew had given me. The once painful laceration was gone entirely as if it were never there to begin with.

“What kind of magic…” I trailed off as I heard a creak, and the door to the room opened slowly in my direction.

“H—hello?” I stammered.

I waited as the door fully opened into the hall but, much like when I first arrived in this place, no one answered.

I had arrived. The door opened and I came inside. Agatha…died? Was... destroyed?

I shivered again at being unable, and frankly unwilling to fully describe the thought.

The shadowy claws of an invisible threat loomed, peeling back my logic and replacing it with illusions.

I ran. There was... Fire.

The heat and the smoke. The feeling of being pursued by the flames. It all came rushing back to me. I hit the sideboard and broke a lamp. The carpet caught ablaze and burnt the Manor around me as I tried to escape. The doors all locked tight against my efforts, the windows impenetrably strong.

My hand went to the base of my throat, I could almost feel the suffocating smoke in my chest. I could remember all those things, yet it felt as though it had happened to someone else entirely.

I walked cautiously towards the door and looked out into the hallway. It was long, with high ceilings that had the same intricately detailed molding as the room I awoke in. To the left of me, at one end of the hall, was an impossibly tall window, inset with iron in starburst and diamond shapes along the top that refracted the light into beautiful prisms onto the dark carpet. The window was framed with long, heavy drapes, held open with a corded gold rope that looped around itself and ended in an elegant tassel.

Venturing further into the hallway I noticed no sign that anything was out of place or amiss, let alone had been set ablaze the night before.

Surely I hadn’t dreamed it all? Had I fallen and cracked my head open before arriving? Was I dead?

The thought forced me to still.

Could I be? I felt alive .

I always thought if I were to die young, it would be due to one of Matthew’s raging episodes. Dark thoughts, produced from dark realities.

I mused over the speculation as I inspected the sideboard. It was made from wood similar to most of the furniture I had seen so far. The fine piece held two oil lanterns that were lit and emitted a low glow, and neither one of them was broken. There was a large ornate frame that hung above it. Inside it was an oil painting of pink and red roses in a white and blue vase, delicate against the rich wallpaper and dark wood.

I love flowers .

The thought surprised me at its absurd timing and made me snort quietly. I briefly wondered if anyone was around to witness such silly, un-lady-like behavior. But I heard nothing but the sounds of my own footsteps on the carpet.

I turned to the right of the hallway, which led me to the mezzanine, the balcony that opened out to the curved twin stairs that led down into the foyer. Again, nothing was amiss.

I bolstered my courage to raise my voice louder .

“Hello?” I waited for a moment and received no response. “Hello! Is anyone here?” I shouted.

I descended the stairs, one hand holding my skirts and the other loosely sliding down the smooth curve of the banister. The staircases mirror each other and made a beautiful frame for the lavish chandelier that hung high in the space’s middle. Hazy flickering lights danced across the rich floral baroque wallpaper like stars. The imagery filled my chest with a lonely, longing feeling. Were this a different circumstance, I could easily get lost in daydreams of long grass tickling my skin as I stared at the stars back home.

I rolled my eyes at myself. Another absurd thought when one was trying to figure out why they had woken up in a strange place with strange memories. When I reached the end of the stairs, I walked straight to the door. My hand clasped the handle and it was cool to the touch. I took a deep breath and straightened my back. I turned the handle, and the door opened. I scoffed.

What did you think would happen, Florence? I scolded myself.

But still, I recalled pounding against this door as though my life had depended on it— because it had . Hadn’t it?

I stepped out of the Manor to the entrance under the terrace. The air was fresh and slightly damp and I could hear the rustling of the wind and the smell of the clover… but something was different. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what. I walked further out and away from the house, and the gravel crunched under my boots.

Was the garden quite this unruly yesterday?

The collection of foxgloves by the fountain I had noted when I arrived seemed to have grown three times in volume overnight, and a creeping vine completely covered the stone woman bathing in the pool of water in the center. In all my years of living in the countryside, I’d never known a single plant to be able to grow that quickly… the hairs at the back of my neck began to stand on end again.

I surveyed the expanse of the property in front of me and quickly began to notice more and more differences. The grass was waist-high now, where it had barely reached my ankles before. The shrubs surrounding the iron gate had been uniform and clean but now they stood out in all directions and disguised the fence entirely. I turned around and gasped.

Orchid Manor–once bright and polished, a building of untold extravagance, was hidden beneath a legion of ivy. The once-white shutters that framed the windows hung askew, some gone entirely, and the remaining ones were peeling and covered in grime. The windows were covered in a film of dust so deep they were no longer translucent. It looked as though the Manor had aged a hundred years.

“How is this possible?” I whispered as I wrapped my trembling hands around myself.

Everything was the same, yet so completely different. The Manor appeared abandoned, and yet how could it be? I arrived at the grand building only yesterday… I scanned my surroundings and looked for someone, anyone , who could explain to me what was happening. The sound of my heartbeat picked up to a thunderous drumming in my ears.

“ Hello?” I cried out. There were no sounds besides the scattering of dried leaves in the breeze.

No birdsong as I had heard before. There were no human or animal noises, nothing but my voice echoing back solemnly from the Manor. I turned to face the large iron gate and rushed to it, my shoes skidded against the gravel as my body connected. It groaned but opened enough that I could fit myself through. I tried to squeeze through it when I was lifted violently, gripped by an invisible hand and thrown back several feet from the gate.

The air was shot from my lungs as I hit the ground. I took a moment to painfully regain my breath and reach an uneasy stand. I looked around desperately for the unseen force that had propelled me back—and saw nothing but the Manor and the surrounding grounds. My head swimming with panic, confusion, and pain… My only clear thought was to try to escape. I lifted my skirts and ran with what effort I could manage.

I grabbed the decorative curling bars of the iron gate, clinging desperately. This time, I noticed the feeling of being wrenched before my feet left the ground. My grasp slipped from the gate, pulling the vines that wrapped around it with me. They snapped and remained in my fists as I was yanked through the air and hit the ground at the base of the Manor’s entrance.

I tried to orient myself enough to stand, but the invisible pulling did not stop. I fisted the loose gravel beneath me, looking for any kind of purchase, to no avail. My nails bent back painfully as I was snatched from the grounds and thrown inside the Manor. The heavy door slammed hard enough that it felt as though the stone walls shuddered around me. They seemed to almost breathe .

Mine.