A Season of Sinister Dreams by Tracy Banghart

Author:Tracy Banghart [Banghart, Tracy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Published: 2021-06-22T00:00:00+00:00

I’m in a room as substantial as the one I left. There’s no giant wolf, and no prince either. Just a small hearth, fire burning steadily, with a bed pushed near. A woman kneels beside it. She’s praying or working a spell. By the tension in her shoulders, perhaps the spell is a prayer. A loud thudding interrupts the quiet scene. She turns her head toward the sound and I see her face—and recognize her. Dark brown hair, soft features. My vision with the child. The woman singing “My Lady Lost.”

In the other vision she was happy, but this time loss tightens her face into a gaunt mask. She ignores the knocking. Her whispers over the bed become urgent. Desperate.

Behind me, a crash.

I whirl. A pair of soldiers have broken down the door. The woman doesn’t look up.

“You’ve ignored a summons from the king,” one of the soldiers says.

“I cannot do what he has asked,” the woman responds, still bent over the bed by the fire.

“King Alder believes you can.” The voice is implacable. I can’t see the soldiers’ faces—they never remove their helmets—but I can tell as easily as this woman can that they will not leave without her.

And still she doesn’t move.

“My daughter has just died,” she whispers. “I couldn’t save her. What makes you think I can save the crown prince?”

“The king is desperate. He will have you killed.” The soldiers hesitate. I know why—they don’t want to get close to the body.

The woman turns to the soldiers at last. Tears stream down her cheeks, but her eyes are hard. “Let him. My daughter is waiting for me.”

For another moment, the soldiers stand there. I wait for them to yank her up by her arms or perhaps argue more. But at last they leave and she falls sobbing against the bed. I step toward her, as if somehow I can soothe her agony. And that’s when I see her daughter’s face, still and pale. The girl is a child no longer, but a young woman, with fine brown hair, a pointed chin, and thin lips now purple in death.

How can the woman’s daughter look exactly like Lady Annalise?

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