Couldn’t surrender.
And the more I held onto that thought, the more it shifted through me, the more it dislodged something deep in the center of my chest.
A feeling. A memory. A path. Back to the past.
Back to the past.
Things started to go dim. Suddenly, out of nowhere, I felt ethereal hands wrap around me, start to pull me back towards some point.
It didn’t take me too long to realize what was happening. I was falling into a vision – I was falling back in time, wasn’t I? Back to Max.
I didn’t try to fight it. Didn’t try to hold on as I fought the Lonely King with my last scrap of breath. Instead, I let myself slide backward.
Soon I could feel it. The sunshine. I could hear the wind rustling through the trees, feel the soft grass beneath my feet.
When I’d fallen back into the past several weeks ago, I’d done so as myself, capable of movement and independent speech. Now it felt like I was a shadow, like I was coming along for the ride.
I was aware of a long dress around my legs, sturdy shoes over my feet. My hair was longer and scratched around my neck as it furled about my shoulders. My hands were rough from work, my nails short and covered in dirt.
There was some kind of basket hooked over my arm, and the rough weave of the reed dug against my skin.
The scene began to resolve around me, and I realized I was walking up some kind of winding, rough cobbled path towards a low, squat building on the rise of the hill above me. It had a thatch roof, hewn stone walls, and looked as if it were right out of the Middle Ages.
There was a marching breeze twisting down the hill, catching my skirt, buffeting my hair over my shoulder. My hand caught a bunch of my hair, and as I shifted my gaze down, I realized it was curly, red, and caught the sun with its copper strands.
I tried to reach that same hand up, tried to look at it, but I wasn’t in control.
Whoever’s body I was inhabiting, they reached the top of the hill, pushed a hand out, locked it over the rickety handle of the door, and walked in.
A fire was burning in a hearth off to my left, crackling dry wood sounding like someone crumpling bubble wrap.
The room smelt of earth, of fire, of nature.
I felt the body I was occupying move over to a roughly hewn table in the center of the room. She set her basket down, several strange leaves and flowers scattering onto the marked wood.
I had to keep reminding myself that this vision wasn’t real – that my body was still lying at the Lonely King’s feet, a sacred, glowing knife gripped in his hand.
Then again, maybe this was real. Maybe the Lonely King had already attacked, and this was now my afterlife – a never ending vision where I was trapped in someone else’s body from the past.
The longer I remained in this woman’s body, the more I became attuned to it until I could feel the steady beat of her heart and the gentle rhythm of her breath.
Her dress was long, the fabric scratchy as it swayed around her legs and ankles.
She kept tilting her head to the side, angling it towards the door.
It was almost as if she was waiting for someone.
Sure enough, I felt her heart begin to beat harder until I swore it rattled in her ribcage.
A fine, cold line of sweat picked up across her brow, between her shoulders, and along her palms.
She kept playing with the basket, arranging the leaves and flowers methodically, obsessively. Several times, I caught sight of something beneath them. A long edge of metal, the glint of a blade.
Suddenly, from outside, someone called a name in a powerful voice that could have easily been mistaken for thunder.
The woman’s heart quickened, raced like a fleeing horse.
She clutched hold of the basket with a shaking hand just in time.
The door was thrust open.
And in walked Max from the past. The same strapping body, the same clothes, the same sword swaying at his side, the same weather-beaten but handsome face.
I reeled, waiting for hatred to spark through his gaze, for violence to stiffen his face.
Instead, a broad, electrifying smile spread over his lips, pushing his cheeks hard against his eyes. He pushed around the table, clamped two hands on the woman’s waist, plucked her up, and spun with her.
I felt the fabric of the dress rumpled beneath his strong, rough fingers, felt the hard press of his hands on my hips as he turned me with true ease.
No, not me – the woman. I was only in her head, only connected to every one of her senses. But I still couldn’t move – only watch.
The woman let out a happy laugh. It was forced. I could feel how hard it was for her to open her lips, to let her breath shudder from her throat.
Max set her down, but he was close. And he kept his hands on her hips as he leaned closer. The smile never left his lips as he leaned in and tilted his head to the side. “Mary McLane, your cheeks are as red as an autumn apple.” He removed one of his hands from her hip, and she shivered as he brushed his thumb over her cheek.
Mary McLane? I was in her head? My forebear? The one who’d started the curse? The one who’d betrayed Max and set this whole mess off?
Though I’d traveled to this past before, last time I’d been in my own body. This time was different. Had to be. And, judging from the fact
