The following night a strange smell woke me up. It smelled burnt. Nothing unusual in the Middle Ages. After all, an open fire was the only cooking and heating option back then. But this smell was too pungent to come from one of the surrounding houses. I slowly got out of bed. Quasimodo, who had one arm wrapped around me, had just turned to his other side. I followed the smell to the door and when I opened it, flames greeted me. But those flames weren't hot, which made me pause. I even put my hand in one of the flames. But she didn't burn me.
What's going on here?! I wondered.
But the smell of the smoke made me cough. Suddenly Quasimodo stood behind me and asked, a little sleepily, "What's wrong?"
"Are you seriously asking me that? Don't you see the fire?" I asked.
"No," said Quasimodo. He looked at me like I had lost my mind.
I decided to follow the flames and Quasimodo followed me. Until we came to the door that led into the attic. Everything here was ablaze.
"The roof truss... the whole roof truss is on fire!" I shouted in panic.
"Regina, you're just dreaming," Quasimodo said, "let's go back to bed."
"No... if the fire isn't really here then... oh no!", I really panicked because I knew I was wide awake. That wasn't a dream. It was a vision. A vision from the future. I grabbed Quasimodo's arm: "Something terrible is happening in my era," I said, shaking.
Quasimodo picked me up in his arms and carried me back to our cell. It frustrated me that he hadn't seen the flames or smelled the smoke. He only got up to follow me.
After he put me back in bed, I had a hard time getting back to sleep. The flames had scared me so much... when I finally fell asleep, I dreamed of the flames separating me from Quasimodo and the crackling of the flames merging with Brother Martin's insane laughter...
The next morning, when I woke up, a strange face leaned over me. A doctor dabbed my forehead.
"She has an infection. That's why she has a fever," he said.
"Oh, that would explain your talk about the fire last night..." Quasimodo said.
"A fire?"
"Yeah, she said the roof was on fire," Quasimodo said.
"Well, she's now got everything to relieve the fever. Tomorrow the whole thing will be forgotten," said the doctor before he left.
The doctor could say whatever he wanted... I would never be able to forget this fever dream... I just didn't know it yet.
I was still recovering from my infection while Quasimodo went back to doing most of his work. If I needed something, all I had to do was pull the rope of the bell hanging next to the bed and the bell ringer would be with me in a short time. It had been stupid of us to think that I would take Raphael's attack so easily... I had to be more careful, so I stayed in bed for a few weeks before I could go back to work. In the meantime, a monk named Pierre had taken over. Because the church should still look neat even after Easter. I was relieved when I was able to take over again because I didn't like being a burden to anyone.
Everyday life in Notre Dame was slowly coming back to me and yet... I had the uneasy feeling that my time here was almost up...
When I came back up to the bell tower in the evening, Quasimodo had put a candle and a vase of flowers on his table, where his model of the city of Paris that he had carved over the years actually stood. I smiled at this lovingly simply prepared candlelight dinner. I sat down at the table and Quasimodo, almost like a butler, served me a delicious soup with vegetables and a few pieces of meat in it. There was also some bread. We talked about how our day was, since we worked relatively separately from each other. After dinner, Quasimodo led me to bed to begin the second phase of his romantic evening.