New snow had fallen overnight, heavy with spring moisture, but fortunately not too deeply. As she trudged up the path to the cottage, her feet left dark prints in the moist earth. It felt symbolic of something, but Thorn didn’t know what.
She went to check on Nessie and the chickens. With a startled strike of her heart, she at first thought she was wrong and they were all dead, lying limply in their beds, boneless as wilted lettuce. A sob escaped her before she caught herself.
But no, they hadn’t all died from neglect; they were asleep, rendered that way by the spell. Rooted to the spot in fascinated horror, she wondered if she looked like this trapped in the amber of the Sleep of Ages, a scrap of flesh, emptied of life.
She might not be able to change her own fate, but she could help her animal friends. Going to the library, without the least qualm, she helped herself to a book on oneiromancy and sleep induction. Finding the correct section, she studied how to break an enchanted sleep cast upon another, then marched back out to the chicken coop. Practicing on the oldest hen, just in case, Thorn found it surprisingly easy to unravel Jada’s rather simple enchantment and waken all the animals. They all sprang to healthy life, to Thorn’s vast relief, clamoring for food.
Even Nessie, bumping Thorn’s hip with a nubbly head, seemed no worse for wear, which made her feel ever so slightly better. She briefly held her breath, thinking Moriah might appear—something she hoped for, though she dreaded the black cat’s further censure—but no.
Thorn spent the rest of the short afternoon settling back in. She put away all the things Sebastien had given her and set bread dough to rise. She made herself a simple supper, happy to have the cottage to herself, but unable to fully relish it. She updated her makeshift journal with all that had happened, then went to her own quiet bed. Before falling asleep, she tried some of the exercises she’d found in her books to keep her dreams from spilling into the real world. Hopefully, if that failed to work, the cottage wards would contain whatever she made happen. Keeping the world safe from her.
Still, she didn’t sleep well, tossing and turning, afraid to dream. At first light, she went to turn loose Nessie and the chickens, then spent time in the garden, clearing out the winter detritus, a still-hungry Nessie helpfully nibbling up much of it. Digging her fingers into the chilly earth gave her a sense of being real, of being grounded and connected to the waking world. She marveled atthe regular miracle of green shoots appearing from nothing and the starry glory of the snow blossoms studding purple through the otherwise barren soil.
Thorn could wish to be like those resilient blossoms, able to endure what other, more fragile flowers could not, but she had to face that she lacked much in the way of toughness or endurance. She was an indoor blossom, better confined to the heated confines of the cottage where she couldn’t hurt anyone.
Or be hurt.
Because, even though she didn’t have even the easily dismissed flesh wound, shehadbeen wounded, she slowly discovered, deep inside where no bleeding showed and no bandage or salve could reach. She’d been the death of that innocent dog. Maybe more animals and people had perished and Sebastien had protected her from knowing about them.
And, though it made no sense, she missed Sebastien fiercely. Remembering her promise, she went to the pond and spotted an early hummingbird on a tree branch. She often spoke to the animals, wild and domestic, so she didn’t feel too odd describing Sebastien to the jewellike bird and asking the little one to tell him that she was doing fine. It took off with a streaming whistle and Thorn went back to her weeding. Tears fell unheeded from her eyes, dropping into the soil and vanishing as seamlessly as her hopes. Her heart throbbed with pain and she didn’t know how to heal it. Moriah might know, but the cat likely would never visit again.
Then someone else did visit.
Kneeling there in the garden, the chill of the moist soil soaking through the knees of her rough pants, Thorn lifted her head at the trill of foreign magic, her nose twitching in the air like the little gray foxes that sometimes traipsed through. The sense of the Dream, imminent and billowing, resolved with brutal clarity, and Thorn flinched in visceral reaction. A portal opened, the silver-blue light of oneiromancy tracing a perfect rectangle like adoor. The Dream appeared within before Thorn remembered to look to the side. She didn’t need to erode any more of her sanity than she already had.
For no good reason, she wasn’t afraid. Probably she should be, but a hopeful, girlish part of her heart half expected the glamorous Oneira to step through. Though Thorn knew her fancy to be a silly one, she imagined Oneira and she could be friends, that the infamous sorceress might want to have a cup of tea. Or maybe not, if she was a ghost. But they could talk about books. Thorn could ask her many questions and Oneira would teach her everything Jada had not, like how to keep her dreams from becoming real. The fantasy was as short-lived as it was foolish; the woman stepping through the portal looked nothing like the apparition Thorn had witnessed that firelit night in the library.
Instead of crimson hair, this woman had shining black waves, the same glossy color as the canes of the rose hedge around the cottage. They framed her striking face in a cut that fell to her lower back. But most arresting was that face itself.
It was her own.
Her own face, but unblurred by rippling water or the shiny bend of a pan. This must be her other self.Rose.It hurt to think of her as the bearer of that name which had been so briefly Thorn’s, a name she’d thought he’d given to her out of affection, from the love she’d hoped they’d share.
She was beautiful, Thorn realized with dull surprise, this same and other self. Far more sophisticated, which was no surprise at all. Though they shared the same hair, her other self wore hers styled in perfect, glossy waves, held back from her face with a headband decorated with clusters of jewels in the shape of roses that shifted through a spectrum of deep colors. Another large, lovely rose sat in the hollow of her throat, held there by a black velvet band. Matching jeweled roses dangled from her earlobes. High cheekbones graced an oval face, her brown skin smooth as rose petals, her eyes dark as night, ruby paint glossingher lips. Eyebrows like raven’s wings arched in surprise as her other self stared at her in turn.
Thorn slowly rose to her feet, aware of her grubbiness, the soaked knees of her baggy gardening pants, her hair frizzy and falling out of the braid she’d put it in to sleep and hadn’t bothered to brush out yet. Her other self wore a black velvet gown, the skirt studded here and there with more clusters of those incredible, glittering roses that looked like something you’d see in the Dream. Her bosom rose with enviable fullness above the low neckline. Thorn had to stop herself from glancing down at her own chest, hidden thoroughly under several layers of shirts, but she felt sure her breasts had never looked like that.
Then, shocking her, a lump on her other self’s shoulder moved, and a small raptor poked its head through the veil of hair. Like another jewel, the bird—was it a very small hawk?—shimmered in the morning light, giving off the glow of a magic Thorn had never before encountered. The bird launched itself at Thorn, startling her so that she reflexively threw up a forearm to guard her face—and the bird landed there, digging talons into her thick wool sweater.
“So much for loyalty,” her other self said in Thorn’s voice, her perfectly painted lips twisting in a wry grimace. “Or perhaps it doesn’t count when you are also me.”
“Hello Rose,” Thorn said, watching the echo of her voice—their voice—register with her other self.
Rose covered her discomfort quickly, narrowing her lushly lashed eyes at Thorn. “Hello, Lily. You know who I am.” She sounded disappointed. “Well, I suppose that answers one question.”
The little raptor gave a cry that sounded satisfied, spread its glimmering wings, and launched itself to land on a bare-limbed apple tree.
“Sebastien said your name.” Thorn considered explaining further. She also wondered if Rose was making fun of her bycalling her another flower name. She settled for simply adding, “He thought I was you.”
“I’m aware,” Rose replied in that very dry tone. Thorn didn’t think she could replicate it, at least, not without practice. Rose managed to communicate a world of cynicism, weariness, and acute intelligence in that short phrase. “Was it deliberate?”
“Was what deliberate?”
“You masquerading as me, in order to… do whatever it was you were trying to do. Did you trick Sebastien on purpose?”
“No, it was an accident.”
“An accident.”
