This man had pale skin and a jutting, defiant jaw. But he looked just as terrified as Mr. Ramsey had in her dream, the dream in which she'd reached for him with skeleton hands. And he'd shouted something, a name, but it hadn't quite made any sense, and his voice had sounded far away, as if the wind in her vision were carrying it away from her.
She and the man were standing on the deck of a steamship at sea. And in one of the large stateroom windows beside them, she glimpsed a reflection that was not her own. The same dark-skinned woman with perfectly proportioned features she'd glimpsed in her dreams. The woman's great mane of raven-colored hair had been coming lose from its braid.
And then the vision broke, and now, here she was, the porter guiding her back to her compartment by one arm as if she were an aged invalid.
"You're motion sick, Miss Parker. That's all. We'll get you some water and you'll be just fine. There's time for rest before we reach New York. Plenty of time for rest. Yes, ma'am."
Lucy had heard the commotion and came rushing down the hall, her face a mask of alarm. She took Sibyl
from the man's grip and guided her back to their compartment.
Once they were alone, Sibyl's breathing returned to normal. Lucy crouched before her, reached up, and took Sibyl's face tenderly in her hand. Her lady's maid had never touched her like this before; it was a testament to how thoroughly undone she was.
"Just a spell," Sibyl whispered. "That's all. It was just a spell."
"I'll fetch a doctor," Lucy whispered.
She stood quickly. Sibyl grabbed her hand. "No. No, there is nothing a doctor can do for this."
"But, madam..."
"Please, Lucy. Coffee. Just coffee. If you can fetch me some coffee, I'll be quite all right."
With a piteous expression, Lucy nodded and quickly departed.
To not share the extent of her condition with her lady's maid pained Sibyl greatly. Perhaps it was reckless, dangerous. But Sibyl had become convinced the most reckless thing would be to not make this journey at all. To not seek some form of answer.
She was not going mad. She could not be. For the handsome, dark-skinned man in her dreams existed. He was real, and she had never seen him before. This was proof of something so extraordinary her lady's maid might drive herself mad trying to understand it. And she needed sanity at her side, at least.
The bright countryside flying past outside seemed a universe away from her frightening vision. And yet, the ship's windswept deck had felt as real as the seat underneath her now, a vision she could not blame on the mysteries of her sleeping mind. It had taken hold with the force of an epileptic seizure.
It's getting worse, she thought. No longer just nightmares, but something more powerful. But so far, the fear is the most dangerous part of it. If I can endure the fear, I will survive this.
And whenever fear had threatened to deprive Sibyl of all reason and self-regard, she could rely on one thing to protect her soul--her pen.
She grabbed her diary and began to write the details of her vision as fast as she could, as if each quick pen stroke had the power to steady her heart. She'd brought so many of these hardbound journals on her journey they made her suitcase almost impossible to carry. But there was no analyzing what had taken hold of her without once again studying the dreams of Egypt she'd had as a little girl. They were all connected; she was sure of it. All she had were her journals and the desperate hope that a mysterious man she'd only glimpsed in a news clipping might be able to unlock the secret of her new condition.
Once finished, she closed the diary, savoring its weighty feel in her hands.
Writing had sustained her, had carried her through every storm: the loss of her parents, her indigent brothers, and the critics who called her work fanciful nonsense. They were liars, these critics. Stories of romance and adventure and magic helped us to imagine a better world into being, however gradually. In the telling of every fairy tale, the listener and the teller took another step towards nobility. But would her stories protect her soul if this mysterious Egyptian man, this Mr. Ramsey, turned out to be just another bewildering piece of this great mystery and not its ultimate solution?
The thought filled her with a sense of dread that, while painful, was still preferable to the panic that had filled her when the vision took hold. With it came sudden drowsiness.
As her mind relaxed, she heard once again the name the man on the ship's deck had called her.
This time, she could decipher its unfamiliar syllables.
Her eyes shot open. She reached for the diary and wrote the name down as if she were in danger of forgetting it.
For a while, she just sat there, dumbfounded, watching the ink dry as the sunlit trees and rolling hills flew by outside.
Cleopatra, she had written.
But the other pieces of the vision had been distinctly modern. The deck of the steamship; the large stateroom window. These were props of her own time, and yet someone in the vision had clearly and distinctly called the woman Cleopatra.
Had she simply filled in one of the blanks in her visions with a name plucked from so many in her obsessions?
These were questions to which she did not have answers.