XXXVI
The next morning feels like stepping into a world that remembers me only halfway.
After the stately lady doctor finishes her thorough physical. She had my joints tested, reflexes checked, muscles prodded like fragile artifacts. It seemed like hours before I was done, charted as weak due atrophy of muscles, but overall fine. I'm finally allowed outside. My legs wobble beneath me, stiff and unreliable, but they hold. Barely. I felt like a Halloween skeleton, joints held together by pins and glue.
I step outside. The air hits me like a blessing. End of summer‑scented, touched with the faint sweetness of green trees turning toward fall oranges and reds. I breathe it in greedily, my lungs protesting but opening anyway. The mansion looms behind me, its Victorian angles sharp against the sky, its windows full of mirrors that seem to watch me leave.
I walk slowly down the path, each step a negotiation with my body. The IV port in my arm aches where it was removed, and my muscles feel like they've been replaced with thin wires. But I keep going.
The town is exactly as I remember. Not one patch of grayness, no rolling fog, no deadly mutant spirits. It was small, quiet, shaped entirely by the presence of the state college at its center. Every storefront, every café, every rental house seems to orbit that sprawling campus like planets around a sun.
Students in late summer classes wander past with backpacks slung over one shoulder. Professors in linen shirts sip coffee outside the café. Delivery trucks unload crates of supplies stamped with the college's crest.
Every cent in this town comes from two sources, The state college and the farms. Wheat, chicken, and milk predominantly. The wheat farms stretch beyond the town like endless golden blankets, swaying in the breeze, whispering against each other. They feed the state. The college feeds the town. And my great‑aunt's mansion sits at the edge of it all like a relic from a different century.
I passed the bakery. They had the best gooey cinnamon rolls I used to buy on Sundays. A bookstore with a pile of older, more affordable textbooks, and a fat orange cat that entertained the passing visitor, the crooked sign had faded a little more. People glance at me, some with recognition, some with curiosity. I had lived here with my great-aunt, who was a local celebrity for her eccentricity, and they had recognized me. I must look like a ghost walking in daylight now, thin and pale and newly returned.
My legs tremble, but I keep moving, trying to rebuild muscle with a little exercise.
The world feels both familiar and wrong, like I've stepped back into a life that continued without me. The doctor said rehabilitation would help. Stretching, walking, and light resistance exercise was key in rebuilding strength, but right now even breathing feels like an accomplishment.
I stop at the edge of the college green, watching students laugh under the shade of old oaks.
For a moment, I wondered how long I was gone.
Not just in the coma, but in the mirrors, and on the ship.
In the withered shadowed world. My soul remembers everything.
The crumbs of the pain au chocolat I snacked on during my walk still dusts my windbreaker when I step into the parlor, and for a moment I feel absurdly out of place, like someone who wandered in from a bakery into a courtroom.
Everyone is already gathered.
Three lawyers stand near the fireplace, each in immaculate suits, each holding a leather folio stamped with my great‑aunt's initials. They look carved from the same block of professionalism despite being three different people, polished shoes, crisp ties, expressions that reveal nothing.
My family sits opposite them.
My uncle straightens when he sees me, relief flickering across his face. His wife's frown deepens, her gaze sweeping over my thin frame, the windbreaker, the crumbs. A few cousins hover near the doorway, whispering behind hands, their eyes darting between me and the lawyers.
The room hushes as I enter.
The mirrors on the walls catch the afternoon light, throwing fractured reflections across the velvet furniture. The stuffed beasts wait on the mansion walls foxes, owls, a wolf with glass eyes. All seem to watch from their perches, as if judging the proceedings.
The eldest lawyer steps forward, his voice smooth and resonant.
"We're pleased to see you well enough to join us. He states"
I nod, though my legs still tremble from the walk earlier. I sink into a chair, the royal‑blue upholstery scratching faintly against my windbreaker.
He opens the folio.
"As per your great‑aunt's instructions, we are here to begin the formal execution of her will."
A ripple moves through the room. Undisguised tension tightening shoulders, breaths held.
"She left you several personal effects," he continues, "a number of financial assets, and most notably… the mansion."
My uncle's wife stiffens. My uncle exhales softly.
The cousins whisper again, debating the necessity of their presence.
I brush a crumb from my sleeve, suddenly aware of how fragile I must look. I am a newly awakened heir in a faded windbreaker, sitting in a room full of velvet, pinstripe suits, and judgment.
The lawyer adds, "There are additional clauses we will need to review with you privately. Your great‑aunt was… thorough."
Of course she was, and now her house, and her legacy, is mine.
The room waits for me to speak, but I'm still absorbing the weight of it all, taking it a deep breath.
I plop myself into a chaise. I fold my hands in my lap, crumbs falling like tiny punctuation marks.
"I'm ready," I say, voice thin but steady.
The lawyers nod.
And the reading begins.
And somewhere behind me, the Victorian mansion waits. I face the sky, empty of mirrors. I had to walk back to another lifetime in another world full of mirrors, secrets, and a will that has suddenly made me its heir.