I was in the red bedroom again—his bedroom. Candles flickered, their light pooling like liquid gold across the velvet drapes, the carved mahogany bed, the mirrors that reflected nothing but shadows. The room was alive, breathing in time with the creak of the floorboards beneath my bare feet.
Familiar. Too familiar.
I ran my fingers over the vanity, its surface polished to a ghostly sheen. A hairbrush lay there, strands of dark hair still tangled in its bristles. Mine. The realisation slithered through me before I could stop it.
A voice, low and honeyed, seeped from the walls.
Open the door.
My breath hitched. Edmond.
The gilded knob was icy under my palm. The door swung open silently, revealing the nursery.
And the cradle.
It sat in the centre of the room, bathed in an unnatural glow—the same one from the east wing, but here, it looked new. Mahogany carved with serpents and roses, the canopy draped in lace yellowed with time. My legs moved without my permission, drawn to it like a moth to a killing flame.
Empty.
The moment my fingers brushed the wood, the vision struck—
A man’s laughter, rich and warm, his hands elegant, ringed lifting me, the baby, high into the air.
“My heir,” he murmured, pride thick in his voice.
A woman’s face, blurred but beloved, her touch feather-light on my cheek. “Our miracle,” she whispered. Love, thick and syrupy, filled the air—
Then—cold.
Darkness. Water rushing into tiny lungs. Tiny fists beating, useless, against the crushing weight. Screaming for them—for her—but the only answer was the darkness swallowing me whole.
I wrenched my hand back with a gasp, my throat raw as if I’d been the one drowning.
Behind me, the shadows moved.
“My son.”
Spindly fingers—too long, too wrong—slid around my waist, pressing against the swell of my belly. Edmond’s chest pressed against my back, his breath a corpse-cold whisper against my ear.
“You feel him now, don’t you?” His other hand stroked the cradle, a lover’s caress. “How he hungers. How he remembers.”
The baby pressed—hard—as if in answer.
Edmond’s grip tightened, his voice bleeding into a growl.
“It’s time to nourish him, sweeting.”
He dragged me into the bedroom and the nursery door slammed shut.
???
The next morning, my fingers fumbled at the skirt’s waistband. The zipper wouldn’t close. I forgot about catching the bus to work and stared at the mirror. The dream came flooding back to me. I blinked as flashes of the dream returned to me.
My stomach curved outward, smooth and round as a moonstone. Not bloating. Not weight gain. Showing.
Yesterday, a “tumour.” Overnight, a bulging pregnancy.
I pressed a hand to my swollen belly.
