Chapter One: A Glance in the Mirror

Watching her reflection assume a stranger’s appearance turned Clara’s dream into a nightmare.

It started with her hair, which was easy enough to stomach. In fact, Clara watched with fascination as her pale locks – bright even in the bathroom’s dim illumination – expanded like seedling tendrils seeking sunlight. Within moments, the silken strands brushed her shoulders. They assumed an orange tinge as they continued to cascade down her back, forming the sort of ringlets she had always admired. By the time the thick curls settled, they were as red as newly sparked fire.

By then, Clara was enraptured by her shifting face. The elegant edge of her jaw and the dignified jut of her cheeks seemed to round, becoming fuller and flatter, regaining much of the baby fat they had recently shed. She expected this to hurt, expected a scream to pass her lips at any moment. But she felt only a dull tingling sensation, as if her cheeks and jaw had fallen asleep. And her fears remained frozen in her throat.

She lifted her hands. Her fingers had grown awkwardly long and gangly, but she let them slide across her smooth, unblemished skin. Dots appeared on her cheeks, a line of freckles that soon resembled a star-studded midnight sky.

The transformation picked up speed, rippling across her lips and nose, re-shaping her ears and even shuffling her teeth. With panicked desperation, Clara clawed her face with the unfamiliar hands, hoping her fingers could halt the change.

At this rate, she would surely become a monster with misshapen bones, twisted flesh and wretched fangs.

That the differences didn’t extend that far seemed somehow worse. If she opened her mouth and growled into the mirror at the yawning darkness stretching beyond and behind her, she would know for certain she was dreaming. And that would allow her to wake. But the shift remained as subtle as if a special effects artist painted over her original face with a new one.

Her eyes changed last, clouds of brilliant emerald invading the more subtle sapphire until no trace of the original hue remained. She blinked twice, thinking each time she opened her eyes that she would return to normal. But the aberrations clung to her.

At last, Clara screamed. Her voice was raw and scratchy, as if she hadn’t spoken in months. The force of her terror shook the darkness and shattered the mirror, forcing the dream’s grip to release her.

She woke with a jolt that slapped her against the bed as if she had just fallen from some great height.

That should have been the end of the ordeal. She should have just rolled over and gone back to sleep, allowing a more gentle dream to carry her away.

But the effects of this nightmare were not easily dismissed. For several minutes, Clara lay shivering, trying to calm the rapid pounding of her heart and clear the incessant buzzing from her ears.

She didn’t recognize the room she occupied.

For a moment, she pushed all other thoughts from her brain, drowning both sound and sensation in the need to place her location. Often when she woke unexpectedly, the room she shared with her boyfriend felt strikingly unfamiliar. All she needed to do was look for the sliver of light beneath the curtains that represented the orange street lights outside. Surely the ever-present hum of background noise represented cars shooting across the street below; they lived on a major intersection, after all.

But the only crack of light her eyes detected was on the wrong side of the bed and low to the floor, as if it snaked beneath a door rather than thick curtains.

She must be in a hotel.

Clara forced a long, deep breath into her lungs and released it at a measured pace. She couldn’t recall checking in or why she had come, but everything else made sense. This explained Marshal’s absence, and why the mattress was rock hard while the pillows were woefully thin. This explained the awkward lighting and unfamiliar sounds. All she had to do was illuminate the bedside lamp to confirm her suspicions.

But that could wait. Now that she knew where she was supposed to be, she could work on dispelling the dream’s lingering images. Again, she filled her lungs until they felt as if they would burst and released the air slowly.

Two or three years ago, she had become convinced she had cancer. Perhaps because she read too many medical dramas. In any case, she dreamed she woke in the middle of the night and shuffled to the bathroom. Like the dream she just experienced, the house she moved through was her own. As she opened her robe in front of the small square of mirror set over the sink, a series of deep purple blotches appeared across her skin. With growing horror, she realized they covered her entire body, each a perfect circle, the purple so rich it seemed to glare.

Then, like now, she woke in a panic, panting and trembling. It was only after her alarm drove her from the comfort of her blankets that she shuffled to the real bathroom and eyed herself nervously in the small square of mirror. Though she knew exactly what she would find, she still peeled her robe slowly away from her shoulders, wincing all the while.

But there had been no blemishes on her skin beyond a pair of old bruises on her leg that she recognized. Seeing the truth banished the dream. She had breathed a sigh of relief, hopped into the shower and forgotten the whole sorry mess until this moment.

That was all she needed – a reminder that life was normal. A glance in the mirror would do it.

Clara sat up slowly. Her heart rate had returned to normal, and she felt less dizzy than when she first woke. She drew the thin hotel sheets aside and discovered the air in her room was shockingly cold. She must have turned up the AC before going to sleep, a habit Marshal always complained about at home. She’d have to turn it down on her way back.

With more care than necessary, Clara eased her feet over the edge of the bed. It was higher than she anticipated, requiring a sharp drop to reach the floor. Instead of worn carpet, her feet struck cold tile, sending a chill through her limbs. What kind of cheap place didn’t even have area rugs on either side of the bed?

Shaking her head to clear it, she focused on remembering the hotel’s layout. Since she was alone, she could have switched on a lamp and drenched the world in warm illumination. But Marshal hated when she did that at home, and cultivated habits didn’t die just because she went away for a couple days. If she gave her eyes time to adjust to the light seeping beneath the door, she’d be able to navigate just fine.

After three deep breaths, her toes had gone numb, but her eyes could easily trace the contours of the walls. To the left of the main door, a dark rectangle protruded from the shadows. The outline of the bathroom, no doubt. The door would be cater-corner to the exit, as these things always were. That light, she would flip on. She’d only need a minute, then she could go back to bed.

Clara shuffled forward. She only made it two steps before something tugged against her arm. She recognized the sensation, a dull sense of pressure followed by a warning tingle, but she hadn’t experienced it for a long time. Blinking, she looked down, but she couldn’t see even with dark-adjusted eyes. So she traced the fingers of her left hand carefully up her right arm until they rested on a protrusion near the crook of her elbow.

An IV line.

Instantly, Clara’s heart began to race again. She wasn’t in a hotel. She was in a hospital. But why?

The cancer dream flashed through her mind again, the angry purple blotches almost screaming at her. But she shook her head forcefully, summoning a dizzy sensation that forced her to lean against the bed to keep her footing.

She didn’t have cancer. She was pretty sure she’d remember that.

Had she been in an accident? Was Marshal waiting down the hall for news about her condition? How long had she been here? And how long had she been out?

No wonder her mind was playing spectacular tricks on her!

She should lie back down, look for a call button and summon a nurse. She should ask for Marshal and let him know she was okay. But that unpleasant sinking sensation still lurked in her gut, twisting her insides with uncertainty.

Mirror first. Then nurses. Then Marshal.

Clara groped along the side of the bed with her left hand, trying to trace the IV line without tugging against it. If jerking forward had dislodged it, it would have set off an alarm and a nurse would already have come running. Since that hadn’t happened, she assumed it was still serving its diligent duty.

It took far longer than it should have but, finally, her middle and index fingers looped around a sturdy metal pole. More confident now that she found what she was looking for, Clara closed a fist around the metal stand and jerked it toward her.

With a creak of protest, the IV stand flowed across the floor. It was on wheels, just as she hoped.

Clara guided the IV stand across the cool tile, sometimes leaning against it for support. That she had been unconscious long enough to require an IV might explain why her head felt so hazy and why her legs felt like jelly.

Four shuffling steps utterly exhausted her. But the bathroom door was within reach. She could see the yawning rectangle of darkness that indicated its opening. She reached for the wall with her free hand and spent several seconds leaning against it before she continued her journey.

Inch by agonizing inch, she shuffled into the bathroom. She paused in the darkness with the fingers of her right hand clutching the IV stand as if it were a lifeline and her heart fluttering nervously.

It was just like the robe. Peel back the veil, blink into the mirror and she would see that everything was fine. She might even remember how she ended up in the hospital.

Bracing and chiding herself for foolishness at the same time, Clara extended her left hand and flicked the light switch.

Bright light flooded the small bathroom. She glimpsed a toilet in one corner and a compact standing shower in another before she was forced to close her eyes and rest her face in the bend of her left elbow.

It took forever for her eyes to accept the radiance. She kept blinking and drawing her head a few inches away from her arm, testing her vision against the floor. For awhile, the bright light bounced off every white surface, surrounding Clara in an impenetrable haze of brilliance. But slowly, the effect faded. Her gaze traced the lines of grout between the tiles, then she lifted her head.

Green eyes blinked at her from the mirror. A dark line of freckles speckled her nose and cheeks. Matted red tangles clung to the sides of her face and neck.

Clara’s jaw fell open. This simply couldn’t be!

Her hands flew to her face just as they had in the dream. At first, her fingers traced the unfamiliar flesh as if that would peel away the mask and reveal soft sapphire irises, prominent cheek bones and hair so pale it was almost white. When that didn’t work, she dug her nails into the stranger’s face, shocked when the savage appendages sent ripples of pain through her skull.

Most people thought it was impossible to experience pain in dreams. That was why pinching became a common test of the wakeful state. But once, Clara awakened with agonizing hand spasms after dreaming a scorpion dug its barbed tail into her palm. The pain had radiated from the exact location of the sting. It hadn’t lasted long, but that didn’t erase its reality.

So the tiny ripples of fire caused by her longer than anticipated nails when she dragged them across her face didn’t daunt her. If anything, she needed one more sharp jolt to wake her up.

But this wasn’t like the first time. Her fear and anger didn’t seem to affect her surroundings. The face in the mirror, twisted with outrage and anguish, remained unchanged. And though the sting of tears blurred Clara’s vision, the mirror remained steadfast, unbroken and undaunted by her growing cries of horror.

When she screamed, her throat felt as raw and unused as it had in the nightmare. Perhaps she had been screaming for several minutes and simply didn’t realize it. Any moment now, Marshal would shake her awake and she would find herself in their shared bedroom after all.

But when commotion came, it was outside her room. Heavy footsteps pounded the floor accompanied by shouts.

The door to the hallway burst open, and three women poured into the room. One by one, they stumbled into the bathroom, mere smudges to Clara’s blurred vision. The first grasped her arms and forced them away from her face while the second grabbed her shoulder and gasped as she examined the situation.

Three fine lines of blood streaked Clara’s right cheek, though the left bore only the red haze of heavy scratching.

“Jennifer?” The third woman barked. She had an odd accent Clara couldn’t place.

Jennifer? Who the hell is Jennifer?

“Are you all right, Jennifer?” the second woman insisted, shaking her gently.

Clara ignored them. She tried instead to break her hands free of the first woman’s grip so she could claw at her face some more. She should have been able to control this dream, to send the intruders away.

“What’s happening?” the third woman demanded, her eyes darting between her companions in the mirror.

“Couldn’t say.” The second woman shook her head. “How could she even wake up?”

“Calm down now, darling,” the first woman insisted, tightening her grip on Clara’s wrists. “You shouldn’t be wandering around when you’ve been asleep for so long. You’ll hurt yourself.”

“What’s happening?” Clara shrieked, realizing only when the words struck her ears that even her voice sounded wrong. “Let me go! This is wrong! All wrong!”

The women exchanged glances over Clara’s shoulders.

Clara tried to shrug them off, but the second woman was also restraining her now, and the nurses tightened their grip every time she increased the frenzy of her movements.

She had to wake up. Why the hell couldn’t she wake up?

“Hold her still for a moment,” the third woman commanded, her voice grim.

Panic exploded in Clara’s chest. Something bad was about to happen. Something worse than being unable to wake up and return to her proper body. But she only had a moment to contemplate it before she felt a sharp prick near the base of her neck.

Clara gasped. Her vision grew blurry. The haze in her head grew stronger, making her brain feel like clouds and her tongue feel like cotton. Her legs turned to jelly, and her knees gave out. She was only dimly aware of three sets of arms catching her as she fell deep into oblivion.

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