Screaming. Petrified screaming that didn’t need words to be a cry for help. Vera whirled around, and all breath left her body, for there was her mother. Allison knelt in the field, clutching her stomach below her naval, and as she wailed, blood gushed between her fingers.
Vera tore over to her mother. Allison’s face flitted through a range of emotions from the fear she must have felt to being appalled that Vera was here and then to a stalwart reassurance that only a mother could manage, and then—her face shimmered like it was under water. It wasn’t Allison anymore. For a moment, Vera stared into the mirror image of herself. Another shimmer.
The new woman was a stranger, though her expression hadn’t changed across the three iterations. But she was just as real. Vera’s sobs joined hers, her heart just as wrecked as when it had been Allison. There was so much blood pumping from the gaping wound. She hadn’t known that freely flowing blood was so thick and, as it congealed, it was nearly purple.
Vera pressed her hands to the wound, but they were too small, or the wound was too big. Her fingers slid through the slick mess of blood. Her hands were covered in it after seconds, and the sharp smell of rust overwhelmed her. All she could see and smell and feel was blood, and the only sound was screaming, though now it was her own, for the woman was silent.
Vera’s eyes shot open, and she rose from the tub with a gasp. There was a hand clutching her wrist and another on her shoulder.
“You can’t touch her!” Merlin scolded.
She ripped the blindfold free. The hands on her were Lancelot’s. His breath came in heaves. “You were screaming,” he said.
She couldn’t spare a moment to reassure him. Vera grabbed Merlin by the wrist. “It’s my mum—I saw her dying. I have to go back. I have to—”
Merlin cupped her face in his hand. “Guinevere,” he said sternly but not unkindly. “Allison is fine. Nothing has happened to her. You were dreaming. It is not uncommon to fall asleep during this process.”
She was shaking her head to protest even as she remembered the way Allison’s face had morphed. It had all been real except for that.
“Her face turned into mine, too. Do you think … was I remembering Guinevere’s death—Viviane’s attack from before?” Vera asked.
Lancelot’s hand tightened on her shoulder as Merlin cocked his head thoughtfully to the side. “Where was the wound?”
Vera pointed to the spot on her stomach.
Merlin shook his head. “No. No, that’s not it.” His eyes glazed like he saw nothing in front of him. He was quiet so long that Vera was surprised when he spoke. “Your previous injury was to the heart. You were dreaming. That was a nightmare.”
It had felt like more than that. Vera dropped her forehead onto the tub’s edge, and Lancelot rubbed the back of her neck. She took a slow and rattling breath. Put it away, she instructed herself. Another deep breath, this one steadier as the memory of what she saw receded. One more breath, smooth and deep. She lifted her head to meet Lancelot’s wary gaze.
“I’m okay,” she said.
“Shall we try again?” Merlin asked.
Vera said “Yes,” as Lancelot barked a hard “No.”
“This feels dangerous. I do not like it,” he said through gritted teeth.
“I was asleep,” she insisted. “I’m fine.”
He pressed his lips together and shook his head.
“I have to do this,” she said. “After the last few days, you must understand that.”
She thought he wanted to argue. If he did, he might convince her to change her mind. She didn’t want to do it again, but she had to.
Vera grabbed both of his hands to peel them off of her and firmly placed them on the tub’s wall. “I’ll be fine.”
“We’ll have to do a bit more potion,” Merlin said, “to get you back under.”
Fear lurched in her stomach. “Can we try without it?”
Merlin pressed a second vial into her hand as he answered. “It won’t work. You’ve been touched.”
It was a pointed jab that landed how he’d meant. Lancelot cast his eyes down. She didn’t want him to feel guilty.
“I don’t mind.” Vera drank the second vial’s contents. This time, she didn’t remember lying back and the blindfold was barely over her eyes before the words came. In the final seconds before her consciousness fully evaporated, she felt a swell of trepidation. This was wrong.
She was back in the field. The dying woman only bore the third face: the woman Vera recognized in one breath and felt certain was a stranger in the next. This time, she found herself squinting into the morning sun. Too bright. As she walked toward the woman like before, the grass beneath her feet that before only gently scratched her weathered soles felt sharp as shards of glass.
