The vision with Nicolette slipped away faster than the previous one, but the thought that I was her was firmly ingrained in my mind. As if she had been there all along.

  A premise befitting those countless books about girls ending up in other worlds. This couldn’t be real... I had to be delirious.

  My hand instinctively darted to touch my forehead. I wasn’t running a fever—well, except for a slight chill when the thread on my wrist brushed against my face. The sensation was not pleasant, and it instantly banished all thoughts of illness and delirium.

  I looked at my hands. Thin, tiny scratches from digging in the earth stood out like scarlet streaks against my pale skin. My hands had never been particulary bulky of clumsy before, but these fingers clearly weren’t mine. Too graceful... fragile. But most importantly, I couldn't find the small spot just above my wrist—the burn mark from boiling water that had been with me since my teenage years. The skin there was smooth, though my memory told me otherwise.

  A seemingly alien name pounded in my head like a pulse. And each time I wanted more and more to turn around, like that girl in the vision, because her name was... mine?

  Well, it's exactly like the plot of some typical book about girls in other worlds.

  But... that can't be true, can it?...

  The thread on my wrist twitched again and didn't stop, beckoning me to follow. My legs simply went numb. Then the thread pulled me forward with all its might—I nearly fell over, not expecting it.

  Somehow, I stayed on my feet and even managed to follow the thread. It's not like I had a choice... But as soon as I did, gaps in the fog began to appear more frequently, revealing different events. But in all of them there was the same girl with long, dark, slightly wavy hair - Nicolette. Somewhere, she looked older, with a more icy gaze in her light-blue eyes, and seemed like a different person, but there were also visions of a timid, young Nicolette.

  One of the gaps in the fog opened right in front of me and in it was the same garden again. Nicolette was a younger again, maybe seventeen... Only this time she was sitting in the middle of the path, looking around fearfully. Something in her movements seemed familiar, and then I suddenly realized: this was the very moment I woke up in the garden. Her torn nightgown, her dirty and scratched hands and feet, the dirt smeared across her face... I could practically hear her thoughts. My own, that is.

  Who are you?

  A faint, feminine voice suddenly emerged from the fog—at once near and yet far away. I was too immersed in the scene I'd seen in the fog, and this brief phrase threw me off balance. I glanced around, but didn't immediately notice the speaker. Slightly obscured by the whitish haze, Nicolette looked at me confused, clutching the hem of her dress tightly. She, like in the last fragment, looked seventeen.

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  Time seemed to drag on incredibly long. I stared at this girl, as stunned as she stared at me. Then I managed to glance at my hands again and saw the familiar burn mark… it seemed to blur on my skin, fading. But then it would become clear again. And this happened several times.

  Nicolette lowered her head somewhat meekly, and then suddenly extended her arms toward me. The thread on my wrist was raging, darting in all directions. In an instant, the girl before me had disappeared, and I was overwhelmed by moments similar to those that had appeared in the fog before. Only this one was like a whirlwind.

  Young Nicolette gazes sadly out the carriage window at the landscape; a mansion can be seen in the distance. Adult Nicolette touches rosebuds, some of which are strangely black. The memory in the garden returns, when I came to my senses. Isaac, in the guise of a teenager, leads Nicolette, again a young girl, down a corridor hung with paintings, and seems to be explaining something.

  Next comes an open book, full of drawings of strange creatures and words unfamiliar to me. Isaac, a boy, is by the bed, holding someone's thin, wrinkled hand. I look closer and see an older Nicolette, but for some reason with a burned face. In the next sight, she's younger again, hugging a woman and a man... her parents, I realize. And Nicolette is crying in this scene.

  And many, many other moments with the same girl in different years; it all seems to fill me, but at the same time, I feel like so much is immediately slipping away.

  At the end, Nicolette reappeared, a mature woman with an icy gaze and a certain hardness to her face. Before her, Isaac appeared as a grown man with a short mustache, very similar to the one I'd seen in the garden. For some reason, he was kneeling on the floor, his wrists and neck entwined with silver threads—exactly the same as the one on my wrist.

  The ends of the threads led to a small glass sphere in Nicolette's hands. Inside was a tangle of glowing material, and its glow made the woman's face appear unnatural, like a wax mask. This made her seem even less like the young woman from the previous visions.

  Nicolette ran her fingers over the surface of the sphere and looked at Isaac with a somewhat haughty expression. More threads emerged from the tangled ball through the glass, beginning to entangle the woman's hands as she spoke:

  “Serve me faithfully and truly, and be my beacon in your world, as I am for you in mine...”

  Isaac bowed his head, the thread around his neck cutting into his skin. But he still quietly replied:

  “Yes, my lady...”

  Nicolette's fingers tightened their grip on the sphere, as if it could slip away at any moment. The threads around her hands, under the glass, and on Isaac began to tremble. My thread began to do the same. I definitely didn't like this. It felt like something bad was about to happen. Isaac stared blankly, the silvery shackles—that was the word that came to mind—tightening their grip on his neck and wrists.

  Close your eyes.

  The quiet voice sounded again, as if it were both nearby and far away. Because of my premonition, I mindlessly submitted to it. As soon as I closed my eyes, I heard a sharp, either whistling or trembling sound. Like a string being plucked. Several objects fell to the floor with a dull thud. I resisted the urge and didn't open my eyes, but even so, there was only one image in my head now. Which made me feel sick.

  My thread jerked upward, and I couldn't help but scream, thinking it would happen to me now. But it was as if unseen arms were grabbing me and lifting me up... higher and higher...