She'd had the dream before — many times before. So frequent had the dream become over the years she had ceased to think of it as a dream at all; more of an unconscious yearning. A simple wish that ebbed within her only to fully come alive at night when the worries of the day were neatly tidied up and put away and she could sleep through her heartache.
Resisting the urge to stumble out of slumber, she closed her eyes tighter. Unlike some dreams that had returned to her again and again, this one wasn't the least bit nightmarish. It was instead an almost-memory — the recalling of the dream itself having imprinted in her mind, taking up space just as her actual memories might.
It always began the same:
Cozied up in a large four-post bed, more luxurious than anything she'd ever laid her head upon, sun streaming in through the bedroom window. Something stirs in her arms. She looks down and the sweet weight against her breast is a bairn—not just anyone's—but hers. The little girl (she knows it's a girl somehow) begins to wake, punching tiny fists up into the air. A yawn escapes her — the tiniest little mewl. She leans down and touches her nose ever so gently to the baby's — inhaling her tiny, faintly milky, breaths. Elsie thinks it strange that the baby is so new from her womb she could probably count the breaths she'd taken — a life measured by life.
Something is different — Elsie thinks, her brows furrowing in her half-sleep, — I feel different. I'm sore.
She lets herself blink awake. The sun has begun to come up and her bedroom is bathed in amber light. There's a slight chill in the air and she pulls the blankets over her shoulder, reluctant to get up just yet.
The baby awakens slowly then all at once, looking up at her mother's face. With a peculiar recognition, the little one stirs in her arms, knowing instinctually these are the arms to which she belongs indefinitely. Gazing into her child's eyes, she sees her own staring back.
The child's face, something about it, is already familiar to her in another way. Not in the way it reflects her looks — but someone else's. The curve of her little nose, perhaps. She pushes the blanket aside and strokes the child's pink cheek lovingly. She's awarded with a contented coo.
"Little dove," she whispers, rocking her slightly. This is where the dream will end, the child falls back asleep, at peace in her arms. She'll let her head fall back against the headboard, sighing in thanks—
but the dream does not end. Suddenly, as though he's been dropped into the scene like a child presiding over their doll's house, he appears at the foot of the bed.
Even in the privacy of her dream, her breath hitches. He reaches a hand up to pet the little foot that has escaped the swaddling. Smiling, he tucks it back beneath the warmth of the blanket, his gaze rising to meet hers.
"Mother and child are feeling well, I trust?" he says, reaching up to flip a fallen strand of hair behind her ear. He lets his finger graze her cheek as he lowers it down, resting it atop the bundle in her arms.
She smiles without finding her words. He holds his arms out asking, and she lowers the bundle into them. If the baby had been small in her arms, she was infinitesimal in his.
"Hello, Rebecca." he says, the low and rumbling timbre of his voice moving through her dream like a roll of thunder.
Her eyes fly open and she feels a tugging in her chest, almost as though she can't breath.
She sits up, pressing her hand against her bosom, taking a deep slow breath. The maid knocks at her door. Her day has begun.
How will she face him over toast at breakfast?