Chapter Twenty-Six
Natalia
When I opened my eyes, a blinding white assailed my vision, so bright that I thought maybe I was in the hospital, being operated on.
I closed my eyes quickly and listened, and let my memories seep up the way they did, like water in a well, until I was full again of the past events, and my anger and sadness had returned.
I was on a soft surface now, and I could hear the crash of the waves and the sound of gulls. I could not imagine why the air was chilly, and the tropical smell I had become so used to was gone.
I twisted my wrists and ankles, and discovered I didn’t appear to be restrained.
I opened my eyes again and sat up.
A dizziness brought on by disorientation made me almost fall over again, but I braced myself against the pillows and stared at my surroundings, feeling like I did sometimes when I woke up from a nap in the evening and thought it was morning. There had to be an explanation for what I was seeing, but I couldn’t think of it.
Instead of glass and cool white stucco, the walls that surrounded me were a bright, cheerful yellow, and the windows were framed by solid dark wood. Bright sun poured in through them, but a grayish blue lurked outside of them.
I tumbled out of the bed, looking behind me at the large wood four-poster with white sheets and blankets on it, racking my brains for some memory of where I was. Or why.
I stumbled to the window.
I smelled smoke, and the air was crisp and woody, instead of tropical. I stared out the window.
A green carpet of grass stretched out in front of me, a blue-black sea beyond it. Everything seemed to shine with wetness and sunlight. I wiped my eyes and stared, and then I heard the sound of splitting wood. I guessed... I’d only ever heard the sound in a movie.
I found a door and stepped into a hallway of expensive wood and brightly colored walls. I passed a small kitchen, with an iron stove and a kettle on it. A large, pretty table took up most of the space, and a big window let out to a set of stone steps that led to the ground level.
The cold swept up from the floor when I opened the door and walked up the steps; not freezing cold, just colder than Orel Island, colder than I had been used to. The scent of burning wood grew stronger. I rounded the corner of the house—a large, stone house, beautiful, but completely different than the modern fortress on Orel Island.
My breath was taken away by a hillside, rolling away from the ocean view, to a lake, framed on all sides by breathtaking, snow-capped mountains. Everything was black or green, cool and stunning.
I was pretty sure I was in a dream. In a dream, where my feet were cold because in real life my feet were cold.
My breath moved in front of me as a mist.
There was a small house down the hillside, with a plume of smoke coming from its narrow chimney. Movement by it caught my eye.
And that’s when I knew I was dreaming, because she emerged from inside of it. Her long black hair was loose, and she was wrapped in a red shawl. A woman in white had her by the arm, and a strange, lyrical language came from where they were.
My heart did that same thing again, and I started to cry. This was just a dream, I thought bitterly. Lucy was dead and I was dreaming again.
I closed my eyes and tried to stay there, though, when I felt a hot, solid body against my back. The familiar movement of his fingers, as they pulled my hair from my neck and his lips landed on my skin.
