Pain. Sharp. Like an ax cleaving my skull. I lay silently, keeping my eyes closed. An icy draft raised goose bumps on my left side. Where was I? A walk-in freezer? A vision of a pale, long-haired Canadian lynx coat floated into my head. It was hanging in a closet somewhere far away. Light as a cloud, but so warm.
I was not only cold, but intensely uncomfortable. I was lying on my back. So why were my legs bent under me? Strange. Gingerly I straightened my top leg and lowered my hip to the floor. A sudden surge of nausea made me stop. I tried to breathe through it, but the pounding in my head was vicious, like a croquet mallet slamming a stake into the ground.
Something was wrong. I couldn’t feel my other leg. Fearfully, I slid my right hand down to where it should be. I touched fabric. Something smooth, with a little ridge, maybe a seam. All right. It was there but completely numb. I grasped my thigh and pulled it out from under me. As I did so, it began to tingle and burn. It must have buckled under the weight of my body--
Had I fallen? Another image surfaced. It was dark and bitterly cold. I had my eye to the glowing crack in the shutters. I could see papers all over the floor. In fact, I was lying on them now. Every time I moved they crackled. But why was I on the floor?
I had opened the door of the tree house and there was the scent of night blooming jasmine…and now I was lying on some papers and my head was splitting open. Odd. It was winter. Everything was dead or dormant. How had that exotic fragrance—
I forced my eyes open. All I could see was a diffuse light. I squeezed my eyes shut and blinked. It was morning, I guessed, since the light seemed to be coming through the shutters. I blinked again.
It looked as if there had been an earthquake. Books were jumbled on the shelves; some had fallen to the floor, others were lying open, face down, with broken spines. The floor was a morass of papers and clippings and hand-jotted notes. File boxes were tossed helter skelter. The old maps of the subcontinent had been ripped off the walls, their frames and glass shattered, backs sliced open…
It was then that I heard the floorboards creak ever so slightly. Someone was in the room with me. I froze, afraid to move even a centimeter. Whoever it was had been waiting, silently, watching me. I shivered and it had nothing to do with the cold. I held my breath.
There was a book lying on the floor by my hand. Carefully I stretched out my fingers to grasp it. I could slam it into…
The floor creaked again, closer to me. Through half-closed eyes I could see jeans and scuffed suede boots. Round toes. It had to be a man. I could hear him breathing, smell something clove-like…
“You’re back,” said a quiet voice. Male. Deep, with a familiar timbre. It almost sounded like Marco.
I opened my eyes.
It was Marco.
Except it wasn’t.