I saw Sofia kneeling as she gently wiped the blood from my hands. Her eyes looked up at me with a grave and pity. "That is the question I was hoping you could answer, my lady," she asked me with a soft voice as her hands trembled.
My mind was still disoriented, struggling to deal with what was happening with her question. "But… it wasn't a vase," I stammered, as the words felt frail in her ears. I shook my head, a desperate attempt for me to navigate the room. "It was a doll. A bear, it was so soft…" Slowly, I felt my voice become so desperate. "And the room… It wasn't the boutique… It was so different. Plain white walls… Yet so bright…"
Their faces stared back at me, filled with confusion and concern. I needed them to believe me. I grabbed Sofia's hand, pulling her, as I said, "I'll show you," I insisted with desperation in my voice. I led her out of the room, my parents following behind with anxious masks of pale worry on their faces.
We moved through the familiar halls, yet my nervous words formed an otherworldly view over the gilded reality. "No paintings here," I explained, gesturing to all the paintings of my ancestors and family. "No ornaments! It was so simpler and cleaner than this…" Down the grand staircase, "This stair felt like glass, smooth and cool…" and into the vast dining room. "The table wasn't this rectangle. It was round. Glass." I looked above and pointed at the chandelier. "That chandelier wasn't there; it was small, like white balls, brighter than anything." I looked at them as I told them I recounted the strange people, the unfamiliar man who carried me, and the woman in white robes speaking gibberish.
As I finished, the room fell silent. The silence in the dining room felt so heavy with their disbelief. My parents exchanged a long, unreadable look. Sofia slowly walked towards me and gently took my arm. "Come, my lady," she murmured, guiding me back towards my room. As we were walking towards my room, I felt unease in my mind even around my parents.
Once we arrived at my room, somehow the evidence of the break, the shattered vase, was already cleared away. Sofia settled me onto the edge of the bed as her eyes immediately went into mine. "My lady," she began, her voice soft but firm, "the mind can create vivid illusions under stress. What you experienced…it strongly resembles a halluc—-"
"NO, IT WAS REAL."
Sofia's eyes widened slightly at my outburst, but she remained calm. "I understand, my lady," she said gently. "But sometimes our minds can play tricks on us, especially in times of distress."
"I felt the man's grip, the doll's softness…" My voice trailed off as I struggled to find the right words. "Tell me, Sofia! If it's a hallucination, I should not be feeling everything in there."
The question hung in the room as the silence followed after it. Sofia's expression softened as she reached out to place a reassuring hand on my shoulder. "My lady," she said gently, "might you recall the nightmare you described to me? The one that started in the ballroom?"
I nodded as a shiver passed through me.
"My lady told me you felt the animals biting, the terror, and the agonising as you drowned. Her voice was so soft. "You woke screaming, your heart pounding with a terror that was absolutely real. However… you were safe in your bed. You were not wet. You were not harmed.
Her eyes met mine, filled with concern and compassion. "The feeling was real, but the source was your mind. This…accident…was the same, my lady. It was a waking dream. Your mind, in its distress, fabricated the feeling of a doll's softness, like it fabricated the feeling of the cold river."
She lowered her hands from my shoulder to grab both my hands. "My lady, allow me to reiterate what we witnessed. His Grace, your father, who is right there, carried you here, distraught after you collapsed at the boutique. The young master and lady were present and deeply distressed. As the object in your hands, which unfortunately broke, was the bedside vase over there… And the woman in white robes you recall…is your mother, my lady…" Her words and certainty were as solid as a wall. "Things like glowing boxes," she added softly as she caressed my hands, "simply do not exist…"
I disbelieved what she had said. "So I was mad…" I murmured quietly, yet my mother's ears caught it.
"NO, darling… You weren't mad," my mother interjected instantly as she pulled my head onto her shoulder. "You were just unwell. Overwhelmed, your mind has endured everything."
My father, who had been standing silently, his face a mask of grim concern, finally spoke. "So Sofia, what is the cause? And why?"
Sofia hesitated. "Defining the precise cause is difficult, Your Grace… There are several factors that could contribute. The significant loss of blood can induce temporary imbalances which affect perception…" Her tone grew cautious. "Furthermore…profound trauma, like the complete memory loss that my lady experienced, can leave the mind vulnerable. In rare instances… external spiritual disturbances might manifest what had happened to my lady."
"Disturbances?" My mother's voice was cold as ice. "You are suggesting something unnatural happen to my daughter?"
"Merely a theoretical possibility, Madam," As Sofia clarified quickly, "when physical causes seem insufficient. For now, we could just observe, my lady… She just needs rest, and we need to be careful…"
My father nodded slowly.
"Aurelia, you just need to take a rest, darling…" My mother's voice was so soft, "You just don't overthink it too much, darling…" Somehow her eyes were watchful.
As they left, Sofia's thoughts of possibilities fell hollow into my mind. However, was it really a hollow? It may be hollow to my parents, but I heard external spiritual disturbances from Sofia. It only made sense to one thing, dianoia… The only person who I had told about that night and accepted its impossibility was Adel. It may be the best way to confront this with her…
Gennaia's secret visit and her impossible touch – they were real. I saw my parents, with their worried glances, and Sofia, with her gentle rationalisations; were they the ones living in a world of illusion, or was I? As they saw me, a sick, overwhelmed girl. My parents' concern, with Sofia's alarming theories, turned into constant, vigilant supervision of me. However, in these two weeks, I wasn't alone…
Lady Octavi resumed her duties; her presence now became different than usual. She was relentlessly... kind. She would sit for hours near the balcony while I pretended to read, her presence strong and dutiful, her conversation light. It seemed it wasn't from her words, like a wall had been created after my hallucination had started. My illness did not need to be concealed; it announced itself.
Once, during a lesson, the edges of my vision began to blur. The familiar, sterile white of the other room flickered at the edges of the tapestry-lined walls. I tasted the metallic of copper at the back of my throat. I pressed a hand to my mouth, a wave of dizziness washing over me.
"My lady?" Lady Octavi's voice was full of genuine concern. I looked at my palm. A small, bright smear of blood-red. A warm trickle suddenly escaped my nose.
"My lady!" Lady Octavi was at my side in an instant, her kind, strong face pale with alarm. "You're bleeding!" She gently tilted my head back, pressing her own handkerchief to my nose, her touch firm but careful. "Adel!" she called, her voice sharp with worry. "Call, Sofia! Quickly! Lady Aurelia isn't well."
This became the pattern. The visions grew more frequent, striking randomly. Sometimes I would simply lose time, dissociating in the middle of a conversation, only to be brought back by Lady Octavi's worried voice asking if I was alright.
Lady Octavi saw it all, and her response was always one of gentle, suffocating concern. She treated me like I was a child, a fragile patient recovering from a terrible shock. Her kindness was a frustrating wall I couldn't get past; either she was really kind towards me, or it was the order from my mother.
After these incidents, Sofia would be summoned. I would dutifully recount what I 'saw' (the white room, the bear), and she would dutifully note it, her brow furrowed, still convinced it was a trauma response. Adel would stand silently in the background, the only one in the room who knew why the bleeding started, the only one who knew the 'dianoia' was the true culprit.
The hallucinations, when they came, remained fragmented—sometimes the plush bear doll was there, sometimes not; sometimes the glowing box was open, sometimes closed. The three children—Aelia, Alicia, and Alecia—who attended me during the day were never present in these visions.
Until the third major moment. It happened deep in the night, hours after Lady Octavi had gone and Adel had bid me goodnight. I was alone, truly alone, staring at the ceiling, my mind racing. When the familiar shift began, the world dissolving into the sterile white of the hallucinated room, I didn't fight it. I focused. The plush bear was on the desk. The glowing box was dark. But beside them, something new. A book.
My heart was pounding. This was different. My hand trembling within the vision, I reached out and opened it. The script was initially otherworldly, elegant but unreadable loops and lines. But as I focused, concentrating, the strange characters glowed, shifted, and merged into words I understood.
Diary.
January 20th, 2005.
The entry spoke of receiving the diary, a gift from a father. As I read these mundane thoughts from a life utterly separate from mine, I noticed mentions of school, friends, and unfamiliar customs. The hallucinated room around me seemed to gain substance, solidifying. I turned a page mentioning an uncle's gift, a 'teddy bear'. Instantly, the plush bear reappeared beside the diary, looking clean and untouched. An entry about a 'racket' – the strange, netted object shimmered into existence against the wall.
This diary wasn't mine. It belonged to whom? Was this room a realm of a goddess? Was this Gennaia's room? I read on, my hands shaking...
Then, as my gaze flickered from the diary back to the desk, another book suddenly appeared beside it.
It simply…looked less like a personal journal and more like a formal chronicle, a book meant for many to read. The cover had some words in it, but I couldn't read all of it. It felt like this book forbade me to read the words on the cover, as it was covered by a dark cloud. However, I opened the book.
My eyes gazed at the first few lines, and a cold fear began to seep into my bones.
It began not with a date, but with a description: Aurelia Aurelia, the only daughter of the Duke of Florence, was known for two things: her startling, snow-white beauty and the cold, jealous shadow in her heart...
No. It couldn't be.
My fingers struggled with turning pages, skipping past chapters of lavish balls and political intrigues, my heart pounding. I was driven by a horrifying, strong pull toward the end. I found the final chapter. I read the words detailing her downfall: the accusation of treason, the public shame, the cold rejection from the blonde prince. And then, the final, brutal sentence describing her execution: ...sealed in the sack with the serpent, the monkey, the dog, and the cock, and cast into the river's cold embrace.
It was from a nightmare…
My stomach cramped, and I scrambled back from the desk, a cough rising in my throat. It was the book. The dreadful chronicle I somehow knew, the one that foretold my end. The 'dianoia' hadn't just shown me this world; it forced me to read the story for my own execution.
"I am going to die like that. They wrote it down…"
My thought was like a silent scream; every word was swirling in my mind. The white room, the diary, the bear and the terrifying book… they glowed, unable to hold against the intensity of my mind and emotional rejection of my body.
The vision shattered.
I sighed, finding myself back on my own bed. I was holding my bedsheet tight, my nightgown soaked with my cold sweat as I was scared, trembling with fear. The diary, the white room, and the book of mine are all one, leaving only the memory of absolute terror in my mind.
My life is just a story in a book.