Awareness comes slowly, oozing back into consciousness like a thick oil.

  At first, there is only darkness followed by a sensation of touch. Someone is holding my right hand. The hand holding mine is larger, rough, and warm. I am lying on what I presume to be a bed, but it is infinitely more comfortable than any hospital bed I have ever experienced. Something, most likely a blanket of some kind, is draped over me as I lie. It is heavy and warm; unlike the flimsy sheets they give you at the hospital.

  My mouth is dry, as if I have not had anything to drink for days and I smell the scent of burning wood. There is another smell nearby, a rich musky scent that is pleasant to my nose.

  I can tell my breathing is rhythmic and deep, no gasps for air like I would have expected, but no matter how hard I try, I cannot seem to move a muscle. I try to open my eyes, but if they open, I perceive only darkness.

  How long I lie here in darkness, unable to move, I don’t know. What I do know is that I am able to somewhat count the passage of time by the sensation of touch upon my skin. The man, for it must be a man due to how much larger the hand is from mine, will get up and leave the room I am in occasionally. When this happens, usually there is another hand that replaces his, smaller and soft, likely my mother. The musky scent also goes away when he leaves the room and the woman, which I assume is my mother, has a light floral scent. I hear no sounds though, nothing to clue me into the activity around me, just the trading of hands and the scents that accompany them. A couple of times, someone comes in and removes the weighty blanket from me. They take my pulse before poking and prodding as if testing my reflexes or feeling for potential internal swelling. Following the doctor, someone comes in, wipes me down with a damp cloth and dripples a little water into my dry mouth in what I assume is an effort to keep me hydrated but only serves to make the dryness even more noticeable. Most of the time, though, it is the man or the woman holding my hand that keeps me grounded.

  The passage of an unknown amount of time, while unable to see, hear, or move, is almost madding. It is a relief when finally, sound begins to slowly return to me. For the most part, it is quiet, other than the sounds of a crackling fire and the dull murmur of people talking as if in another room. There are none of the expected beeps of machinery, nor the drone of announcements over a PA system. Occasionally, I hear rustling as the hand holding mine shifts slightly, presumably as the person attached to that hand shifts in whatever seat they occupy beside my bed. Once, I thought I heard someone crying over their daughter, and asking if she would ever wake up. I guess I am not alone in this room, which is not surprising, my mother and Grandparents do not make enough money to have gotten me a private room, but the thought of a mixed sex room is surprising to me.

  I speculate on what the girl in the room with me must look like to pass the time in my sightless, motionless prison. She must be lucky, considering the number of visitors she has.

  One I assume is her mother, another her father. I base this off the familial tone in their voices. It makes me wish my mother would speak to me, assure me that everything will be ok instead of just sitting and holding my hand while she is there. I still have not figured out who the man is that comes in, I assume it must be a nurse or sitter that is paid to watch me when Mother cannot be around. When I hear her father speaking softly to her, it makes me miss my own father who died in a crash two years ago when a drunk driver hit him.

  Another set of voices I hear I assume are siblings, a brother and sister, based off how they talk to each other. The brother is clearly older considering the rich baritone of his voice, which is rather soothing. I deduce that this young man must be the girl in the room’s boyfriend, lucky her. His voice is so relaxing I feel I could float along on it is current until sleep claims me. The other voice, the sister, is very bubbly and peppy as she speaks. Her concern for the girl is audible as she speaks, even if she can get a bit loud from time-to-time which results in her brother shushing her. Clearly the girl is a friend of the sister and I want to grin at how expressive she can get in her dialog, not that I pay attention to what is being said, mind you.

  The sister does not always come with the brother but he is here as often, if not more than her parents. Oddly enough, the people visiting her tend to shift around the same time my mother and the sitter change out. Other than them, the staff that comes in to wipe my body down, and the occasional person adding wood to the fire, there is little else going on the pass time except attempt to focus on moving on my own. I know I am not paralyzed because I can feel when people are touching me, so I pick the most common point of contact I have had to this point, the hand holding mine.

  Gathering my will, I try to squeeze the hand holding mine, which at this point is the sitter’s hand, but I cannot even get a muscle to twitch. More time passes, as I curse internally, straining to simply squeeze. Eventually, the hands change. I give up for the time being and fall into a light sleep that would be restless, had I that ability.

  I wake up, not knowing how much time has passed. My hand is currently empty for the first time in what feels to be ages. Experimentally, I try to move my fingers, feeling my heart leap for joy and my breath quicken when I get the barest of twitches in response. I try again but this time I have little success. Resolved, I wait for one of the hands to return before I attempt to try again.

  My wait is not long, though. Soon the large, rough, hand accompanied by the musky scent falls onto mine and gives it a gentle squeeze as if to assure me that it is there. I muster all my willpower and squeeze with all my might, which is to say I manage to slightly twitch my fingers.

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  There is an audible gasp as the hand is snatched quickly away.

  “Beira?”

  Who is Beira, I wonder, that is not a name I am familiar with but it does have a ring to it as if I have heard it somewhere before.

  The hand returns, grasping a little tighter than before.

  “Squeeze my hand if you can hear me.”

  It is the voice of the brother from before, the boyfriend of the girl in the same room as me.

  Why is he talking to me? Has it been him all along? Perhaps he has been doing a favor for my mother while she is absent?

  “Squeeze my hand if you can hear me,” His voice repeats.

  I gather all my strength and try to squeeze. This time I am rewarded with all the fingers on my right hand attempting to clasp onto his larger hand before going limp, my strength gone. Around me there is a flurry of activity that I can hear but all the sounds all fade together as darkness swallows me.

  Upon my awakening, I notice that it is quiet again with only the sound of the fire to keep me company. Slowly I try to open my eyes but only darkness greets my sight as the lids obey my commands.

  Am I blind?

  I lift my right hand, weakness and gravity dragging it down, threatening to foil my effort. After what seems to be an eternity my hand reaches my face and I promptly poke myself in my unseeing right eye. Choking out a gasp of pain, I let my hand fall onto the pillow beside my head where it pulls at my long curling hair.

  Wait, long curling hair?

  I flip my hand over and grasp at the curling locks the pulling lightly. The hair on my head responds with pain as I feel the tugging sensation on my scalp. I let go and try to trace the path my hair follows to see how long it is has gotten and its length ends when I nearly have my arm fully outstretched with the curls going its whole length.

  Something isn’t right.

  My hair has never been this long, the closest time being when it came down to my shoulders in early middle school and it was never ever curly, only straight.

  Slowly I move my right hand to my face and bring my left one up, making sure I close my eyes to avoid poking them again. Tenderly, I feel over my face, noticing first how soft my skin is. I move them down to my jaw and notice the light stubble that should have been there is gone, replaced with only soft, smooth skin.

  Pulling my hands away I try to lift myself into a sitting position as I hear the door of my room open, followed by a crash and a woman shouting “Milord! She is awake!” as she ran away.

  She? My mother is the only person who knew how I felt and, given her reaction to me telling her, she would not have told anyone else.

  Within less than a minute, the thunderous thud of feet come into the and stop suddenly as I struggle into a half sitting position.

  “Beira! You are awake!” says the deep soothing voice of the older brother.

  I hear two other voices filled with concern from the same part of the room repeat the girl’s name as I turn my head towards them, opening my unseeing eyes while attempting to say, “Who?” but, it comes out more as more than a painful dry croak that resembles nothing of the voice that I know to be mine.

  I hear the three people rush over to where I lay. One sits on the side of the bed, one, the brother by the feel of the hands grabs me by my shoulders and helps me sit up when the last one goes to what must be a table beside my bed because I hear them pouring liquid into a container, presumably a cup or glass.

  “Here lass, some water to help with your dry throat and mouth,” says the gruff voice I have come to know as the girl’s father, twinged with concern.

  I twist toward the voice and reach out clumsily, unable to find the drink.

  “Alastair?” Asks the voice I have come to recognize as the girl’s mother, her voice trembling slightly.

  “Beira?” The brother asks softly. “The duke is holding a glass of water right in front of you but your eyes aren't focusing on it. Can you not see it?”

  By now I know he is addressing me, there is no one else it could be at the point. I am beginning to suspect that the reason why they keep calling me Beira, as well as why things feel a little off and my hair is so long, is because somehow, I am the girl I thought was in the room with me. It is the only explanation that makes any sense.

  I shake my head no, my hair bouncing lightly, before biting my bottom lip to stop me from trying to respond with speech which will just hurt my throat further. I hear the woman, the girl’s, or rather, my, mother choke back a slight sob in response.

  The gruff voice of the man who must be my father responds. “Here, lass. Hold out your hand and I’ll put the glass in it.”

  I do as instructed, holding out my right hand obediently and the glass is placed in it. I try to lift it too my mouth to drink but bump it into my chin instead, spilling some on my chest, causing the cloth covering it to cling.

  “Here, Beira, let me.” I hear the brother, I wish I knew his name, say as the glass is gently lifted out of my hand before I can spill more on myself.

  I feel it press gently to my lips and tilt, spilling water into my dry mouth. I reach up and grasp his hand with both of mine, resisting the urge to tip the glass further so that I can drink faster, but I do hold his tighter when I feel him start to move the glass away so that I can continue to drink. When I have had enough, I loosen my grip and he removes the glass, setting it on the table beside the bed, based off the sound.

  “T-thank you,” I say, surprised at how soft and feminine my voice is, despite the roughness in my throat. The sound of my voice further confirming my suspicions as to who Beira is. I must be dreaming. There is no way this could be happening. I am a girl. A real girl. I struggle to keep my face plain and hide the excitement I feel budding within.

  “You can have some more in a few minutes. I do not want you to make yourself sick from drinking too fast.” The brother says with a gentle edge in his voice. “Duke Braemar, can you go check on your maid? She should have been back with the doctor by now.’

  I hear a throat clear before the duke responds gruffly, “I’ll go check.”

  I reach out in the general direction of the brother and when I come into contact with him, on his chest I think, I move my hand to where his shoulder should be and tap.

  “Yes? He replies.

  I motion for him to come closer and I know he complies by the sound of him shifting and the intensity of his scent doubling.

  I reach up feeling the stubble on his jaw and slid my hand up to his ear, cupping around it to make my intent known.

  He leans in closer.

  “H-hi,” I say in a soft but rough whisper, annoyed at my stutter. “I am whispering because I don’t want to upset the woman who I think is my mother. I have figured out that when you call me Beira, you are talking to me, but…”

  I pause to take a deep breath, hearing his breath catch as well, and I ask the question that has been on my mind since he helped me sit up. “Who are you?”