Page 8 of A Memory Not Mine (Sanguis Amantium #1)
Chapter eight
Mira
I boarded my flight to Edinburgh and settled into my business class seat, my tote bag tucked at my feet and packed with all my favorite in-flight comforts: popcorn, books loaded on my iPad, and the goose-down travel pillow my mom made for me.
She’d found a bolt of cabbage rose chintz fabric at an estate sale in Maine years ago and sewed me half a dozen pillowcases to fit the oddly shaped cushion—just the right size to wedge between my head and the airplane window.
As I thumbed the edge of the pillowcase, memories surfaced of Mom sitting at her sewing table, cutting and stitching the fabric with quiet focus.
That familiar ache returned, the one I felt every time I came across something she made for me and realized I probably never thanked her enough.
All those quiet acts of service, hours spent doing small things to show her love.
The ache was sharper than usual tonight.
With dinner, I had a couple glasses of red wine—one during the meal, one after.
I took an Ambien with the last few sips, hoping to squeeze in a few hours of sleep before landing.
I read a couple chapters of Wuthering Heights , the words swimming as my eyelids grew heavy, and I finally drifted into a restless sleep.
I’m sitting on a settee in a room filled with dappled sunlight and tropical plants, orchids, and palms, the scent of orange blossoms filling the thick air.
An artist stands at an easel, face partially obscured to me, gracefully placing thick strokes in charcoal on the canvas to capture a rough study of my image.
His slim body moves like a dancer from one side of the easel to the other.
My upper body is angled toward him, and he speaks in French-accented English, directing me to turn my head this way or that so he can capture the light.
Nothing in his voice registers malice, yet my heart begins to pound, and I feel the hair on my arms rise.
My palms go clammy, and I feel the sudden urge to run, but my body is held tight against the settee by an invisible force.
The artist seems not to notice my growing distress, and when I try to speak, the voice is not my own.
“What do you want from me?” the strange woman’s voice asks.
I hear none of the distress I expect, only a soft, tremulous question from my own lips, more sensual than afraid, and terror floods my body.
Somehow, I am trapped inside her, this woman who looks so much like me, and surrounded by danger.
The artist takes a small step to his left, and I can see more of his body.
Sunlight shining through the greenhouse windows makes it hard to get a full picture of this man, but I see delicate facial features, almost feminine, curly black hair that falls to his collar, perfect white teeth in a mouth twisted in a smile that seems to turn cruel, and then I see his eyes; silver-lit from within, like moonlight on a clear night.
Pulled to him by an invisible force, I get up from the settee and walk toward the man, everything in my brain screaming to stop, but my feet continue forward against my will.
My perspective changes suddenly, as if I am now floating above the scene, twisting without gravity, spinning over and over again in a starless black sky, and when I look down, finally I see a woman—or is it me?
I’m not sure… She’s motionless on a stone floor, blood pooled under her up per body, and a man’s harrowing screams come from the corner of the room, his pain stabbing my own heart like a dagger.