Chapter 3

The Impossible Portrait

Cassandra Reed was dead.

Or in purgatory.

Or both, she supposed.

For surely there could be nowhere on earth so dull and yet utterly mindboggling as this.

The wire frame bed beneath her protested as she brought herself to a sitting position against plush pillows. From the pristine tiled walls to the pervasive smell of antiseptic, Cass knew this must be a hospital.

And yet it was unlike any hospital she had ever known. Where were the beeping machines or unflinchingly florescent lights?

That was not to mention the nurses.

They were the strangest thing. All dressed to the nines in uniforms that looked straight out of "Call the Midwife" and possessing the apparent opposite of bedside manners.

Cass had been awake long enough for two rounds of nurses to make their way through the private room. They would come in, check her vitals, and politely ask how she was feeling, taking voracious notes on a pristine little clipboard the entire time. But the second Cass dared to ask a simple, "where am I" or "who are you," the nurse's eyes would go wide, as though she did not know how to respond, before darting from the room like she thought Cass had caught the plague.

Maybe she had, Cass thought with a frown.

She had no idea where she was, let alone how she got there. All she knew was that her body ached worse than the time she had decided to run a marathon with less than a month's training.

And that had been pretty awful.

Cass rubbed at her temples, headache growing as she tried to concentrate. Her memories were fuzzy, like looking through an ocean's worth of murky water. She could only catch the barest shadows.

She had been running.

There was a crooked house.

She was nervous, but also excited? And afraid.

Then, very afraid.

A cloak, flapping in the wind.

Cass started as adrenaline cleared the fog from her mind. The thief! The one for her story. She had found him and…

The fog drew together again, a door snapped shut. It was almost as if she did not want to remember.

Gritting her teeth, Cass tossed her legs over the side of the bed. She had been patient enough. Now, it was time for some answers.

Cass stood, one hand reaching out to steady herself on the bedframe before she felt confident enough to take a step.

Shaky, but okay. She could do this.

After the first few tentative steps, her balance began to return. Her muscles were sore and slow to respond, as though experiencing the memory of pain. Cass took a moment to check herself over but could find no visible injury.

Except… she frowned, running a hand over a small spot on her chest just barely exposed under the buttoned shirt. There, just near her heart, was a subtle discoloration of pigmentation bursting outward in jagged lines.

If she squinted, she swore she could almost see figments of blue dancing beneath the skin.

Clearly, she was more exhausted than she thought.

She strode to the door, giving the brass handle a sharp tug.

Nothing. Was it stuck?

She tried again, pulling her weight against the door.

Cass stepped back, heart sinking to her toes.

What kind of hospital locked their patient in?

"You'd best take it easy, dear."

Cass nearly jumped out of her skin, turning toward the unexpected voice.

She could have sworn that she was alone and –

There was no one.

Lord above, she groaned. She was hearing voices. Locked in a strange hospital, hearing things, no memory…

Was this an asylum?

"Oh, over here, dear." The voice called again in a matronly voice that reminded Cass of her own grandmother. Her heart hurt at the thought, the feeling quickly tamped down.

"Who…?" Cass looked around the room, wondering what was worse, hearing voices or responding to them.

There was no one. Just the bed, the nightstand, and a single painting hanging above it.

"Just here, on the wall!"

Cass glanced up at the painting, taking a closer look at the cheery looking woman depicted with a plump cloud of gray hair frizzed about her head and rosy cheeks that spoke of happy days in the sun. Like the nurses that had come and gone, she wore an old-style pinafore gown as crisp as fresh winter snow.

It was just a painting. But did it just…

Move?!

Cass stumbled back, her heel tripping against the leg of the bed. She landed on the tiled floor with a painful thump.

"Oh my dear!" Exclaimed the portrait. "Are you quite all right? I saw you are hardly in any condition to be up and moving. You young things and your impossible energy, always stubbornly pushing through."

"I—" Cass stumbled for words as she stood. "And just what condition am I in?" She asked.

Great, she thought. I'm talking to paintings now. If this is an asylum, I'm right at home.

"The concerned kind!" The kindly woman huffed. "You've been lying there for two days, you know. Our good nurses were fair worried about you. They couldn't even get close that first day – oh what a situation that was! What with that curse of yours sparking about. And that handsome young man was in quit a tizzy, too. Is he your beau?"

Cass barely felt the bed sink beneath her as she sat, her breath coming in quick succession as the portrait's – a painting! – words began to blur.

A curse? A handsome man. And – her thoughts screeched to a halt.

Two days!

How could she have been unconscious for two days?!

She needed to get back home. She had missed two days of work with no explanation. Would she be fired? She couldn't get fired – this was the only thing she had. How could she make rent? She needed to leave. She needed to go. She needed –

Her breath was coming quick now. Too quick, as the world began to blur at the edges of her vision. A tingling started in the tips of her fingers, snaking its way up her hands and through her arms.

"My dear, you need to breathe." The portrait tried to sound calm, but the sharp edge of worry was impossible to miss.

Cass looked down at the where her arms had begun to tingle. "Oh, oh god!"

Specks of blue danced around her fingers, twining their way up around her arms and toward her chest. She jolted up from the bed, swatting at the flecks of color as though they were flies, to no avail.

As if from a distance, the portrait's calm voice pierced her rising panic. "With me now. One breath in – there you go. One more out. Close your eyes. Yes, close them. Another breath –"

Cass took a deep breath. Then another. As her heart rate slowed, the tingling began to fade. Soon, the sparks had dissipated into the air.

"What," Cass pushed through the lump lodged in her throat. "What was that?"

The woman paused before replying, her face grave. "We aren't sure. Some side effect of the curse, it would seem. Far more controlled now than it was before, at least."

"What was it like before?" Cass was not sure she wanted to know.

"Dangerous." The portrait replied. "Dangerous to you, as much to anyone who tried to get too close. It will take an expert to know for sure, but the nurses believe whatever strange magic it is pulls not our normal magic, but from you and only from you."

The woman's lips pursed, as though puzzled as much as concerned.

"Every spark, every flare, every bit of that magic brings you a hair closer to death."

"Death?" Cass ran a hand through her hair. "Magic? I really have gone insane. All of this is absolute insanity. I'm talking to a portrait for god's sake!"

Cass faded into the bed, energy draining from her. Suddenly, she felt so, so tired.

And so very, very alone.

"I bet Sarah already signed the paperwork to have me fired." She sighed, placing her head on her hands. "They must think I just up and quit."

Would anyone have even tried to check in on her? Would anyone be worried if they rang her home and found her gone?

Who would look, she wondered? It was not like she had any friends in London anymore. They had all grown up and moved on to new places, new families, new goals. She had been so busy with her work that she did not have time to build any real friendships outside of the perfunctory hellos.

The closest she had was Emma. As kind of a coworker as Emma was, she was always busy flitting between task to task. Even if she noticed Cass had not shown up at work, she would have assumed that Cass had it handled and forgotten about it before moving on to the next pressing concern.

"Oh, don't worry dear." The woman gave her a gentle wave of the hand, as though she would be comforting her if she could reach out and help. "Ministry deals with this kind of thing all the time. No one will know you've gone."

Cass's shoulders sank even deeper.

She tried to focus on her breathing. One in. One out.

Slowly, excruciatingly slowly, she felt her pulse settle, though a coil of anxiety continued to snake its way through her gut.

Too many unanswered questions. Too much she did not understand.

Too much that felt so real, even when she knew, logically, that it was impossible.

"Where am I?" She asked. If the nurse would not answer, perhaps she could ask an inanimate…animate object.

"Why, St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries, of course!" The portrait responded, pride lifting her to the tips of her toes. "Finest care in all the wizarding world. You are in good hands here, I promise."

"St. Mungo's?" Cass's brow furrowed. Perhaps she should have paid attention when her grandmother had tried to make her memorize all the saints and their feast days, way back when. "So, not an asylum."

She certainly hoped that "magical maladies" was not just a polite way of saying "completely and utterly cracked in the head."

The woman in the portrait blinked. "Oh of course, my apologies dear. I'd forgotten you were a muggle. Quite an odd thing. We don't get many muggles in our wards."

She continued, sensing the question in Cass's silence. Or perhaps seeing the way Cass's nails had begun to dig into the flesh of her wrist in an attempt to remind herself to keep calm.

"A muggle is a non-magical person, like yourself." She gave a soft smile. "Or was like yourself. This is the first time I've witnessed a muggle with magic they weren't born with. If I were still alive, I might have dedicated a full thesis to the study."

"You were alive once?" The question escaped before she could think better. The question felt oddly rude, if a portrait could feel emotions. "Who are – were – you?"

"Oh, yes and no." The portrait laughed. "I'm Sister Agnes. I was the Head Nurse here a few generations back. Loved it here so much in life, I suppose they decided to let me stick around."

"I…see." Cass replied, though she truly did not.

"You mentioned magic." Cass hesitated, not entirely sure where to begin. "What do you mean?"

Sister Agnes did not get a chance to respond as the door creaked open and a new voice entered the room.

"That is, perhaps, a question best answered with a demonstration."

Thank you for reading! Let me know what you think in the reviews.

Next up: Cass is offered an opportunity to learn more about the curse plaguing her, but it comes at a cost. Plus, a special appearance by an author-favorite canon character.