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“Sure, come here Claire, the fire is warm,” I tell her, and she rushes over plopping down on the mat.

“Where do you want me?” Pluto asks.

“Anywhere, plenty of rooms on the bottom floor just pick one, the last one is where Elora is though,” I tell him. He nods, walking off. Claire watches our exchange. Getting up I grab the throw blanket off the couch before wrapping it around her.

“Better?” I ask and she nods.

“You scare her,” she says, making me look at her.

“Who?” I ask, wondering who she is talking about. Abbie didn’t seem scared; she was used to me now.

“Aunty Elora,” Claire says. I sigh, I know I scared Elora. Can feel her fear, so that I did know already.

“How is your grandma?” I ask, changing the topic. Her eyes glaze over for a second.

“I can show you,” she says, and I furrow my brows. Claire is five now but watching her, her eyes are that of someone much older, almost ancient. Wise and knowing, it creeps me out, but I know she doesn’t mean it.

“Show me what?”

“Why she is scared?”

“I know why she is scared,” I tell her, and she nods.

“Aunty Elora is scared you will take your son away from her; she will leave and she will swing from the roof,” Claire says.

“What do you mean?” I ask. Did she say son?

“I can show you,” she says, getting up and walking toward me. “She swings so high,” Claire says, making my heart skip a beat.

“Let me show you what scares her so you can stop her from swinging from the roof. It makes mommy cry. I don’t like it when mommy cries,” she says looking down.

“Is this what you dream about?” I ask her.

“Yes, but if you know, it will change, you won’t make my mommy cry.”

“And if I don’t see?” I ask not wanting to know what tortures this poor child’s mind. She is blessed with sight but also cursed with it too, I would hate to see the things she probably does.

“You live in the castle, but I don’t get to see Aunty Elora again. Uncle Dragus and Matitus and mommy cries.”

“Can you show me something else?”

“I can show you lots, mommy is having a girl, you’re having a boy.”

“I’m having a boy?” I ask her.

“Yep, he is different.”

“Different how?”

“He is special,” she says.

“So, what do you want to show me then?”

“Everything, all of it so you don’t make Aunty Lora swing from the roof. I like Dakari but not even he can stop making mommy cry, but you can, so please don’t make mommy cry,” she says, her little hand reaching toward my face. She places her hand on my cheek, I place mine over hers, the room disappears, disintegrating around me.

“First you must see how it started,” I hear her whimsical voice echo around me as the room shifts. I find myself in a house I have never seen before. It is dark. I walk through it, stopping when I walk past a mirror. I gasp, I am not me but my father, living in his body, trapped in his memory. I continue, a hallway, a brown door appearing as he looks over his shoulder and I recognize the man instantly as my father’s best friend Alfred, who died in the war.

They stop. cracking the door open wider and peering into the room. A man and woman are sleeping in a bed together. My father walks around one side of the bed. He reaches down and lighting a candle illuminating the room. I notice my father’s friend on the other side next to the woman. Alfred grabs the woman by her hair, waking her up. She screams clutching at his hands, and I realize the woman is Maira, the Queen Zena.