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“You said her.”
“I did?”
“Mmhmm.” He nods expectantly.
“I guess it felt like a woman crying. I felt her pain, the fear. Maybe it was mixed with my own.” I instinctively rub my hands together, looking for marks, remembering how when I woke up, they felt bruised. But there is nothing there. This was different—something is different. Something isn’t right.
He sets down his pad. I know the look he is trying to hide. Concern. He’s looked at me like that most of my life.
“Should I be worried?” My weak attempt at humor earns me only a sympathetic smile but no real answers.
“Adelaide, you’ve had an unusual life. It’s bound to have left some lingering questions and residual traumas locked away in your mind. That’s nothing to be worried or ashamed of. That’s why we do these sessions, so you can free these thoughts and let them go. Don’t give them power over you.”
He pulls a key from a long chain around his neck and uses it to unlock an ornate box I’ve never seen before.
“Let’s try something new. Remember how a couple times before, we tried hypnosis? This is similar, but I’m using a very special stone, mined from my birthplace, one that’s been known to have healing properties.”
“Can I see—” Doc hasn’t told me much about his own past, but I know he and his brothers were themselves, and it’s part of why he does what he does.
“Later. Right now, I need you to focus.” He holds the aged chain in his hand, and his voice sounds so serious.
I do as he asks. Doc is more than my therapist—he’s basically my father, but I call him Uncle at his insistence. He once told me it didn’t feel right accepting a title he didn’t earn, but he’s wrong.
He saved me when I was a child. Found me wandering with no memory, in a red velvet cape during a snowstorm. No one for miles had any records of a missing child, no accident reports, nothing.
The only thing to identify me was the heart-shaped ruby locket around my neck, engraved with my name and the date: December 21st. They gave me the last name Snow because I seemed to have appeared out of the thin, glittery air. I subconsciously rub the locket between my thumb and index finger.
If he thinks this will help, I’ll try anything to get answers and make the dreams stop.
But if they stop… will he?
“Count backwards from thirty.” He hangs an ornate oval pendant in front of my face. The milky glass encased inside gold catches the light as it swings back and forth rhythmically.
I don’t have time to overthink this. The hunter just a figment of my imagination—or desires, at best. Lying back, I take a deep breath, keeping my eyes fixed on the necklace, and begin counting.
“Thirty, twenty-nine, twenty-eight, twenty-seven, twenty-six, twenty-five, twenty-four, twenty-three, twenty-two…” My breathing softens as the fuzzy edges of dreams pull me in, and the light dancing from the pendant changes to a bright, blinding white sunlight.
Snow.
As sleep tugs at the corners of my mind, I hear Doc’s voice somewhere in the distance.
“Clear your mind. Take deep, even breaths.”
“Fifteen, fourteen…”
“That’s it.”
I’m back at spiraling steps, but this time when I reach the top, it’s quiet. My shaking hand reaches toward the knob on the rose-covered door, afraid of the pain from before or of what I might find. Taking a deep breath, I twist, and this time, the door opens, and when I step inside, it feels like my body turns inside out.
“The door—it opened.”
When the dizziness passes, I see a beautiful woman with ebony hair lying on a bed of red roses and people frantically rushing around the room. It’s complete chaos but totally silent. Her skin is so pale, the sheets are white, the walls are white, everything is white… there is snow dusting everything. The window is open. It’s freezing, but no one shuts the window! The candlelight is more silver than golden, and it flickers as the wind blows more snow in, building up on the windowsill.
“There’s a woman… in a bed. Everything is white.”
The scene moves fast and slow all at once. It’s then I realize I’m witnessing a birth. There’s a roaring fire, but the room feels cold. The woman cries silent tears. A man dressed in fine silks and furs enters the room, and not even seeing me, he walks right through me. But when he passes, he feels warm, familiar.
“There’s a baby coming. But something’s wrong.”
