Demeter Serraffield was having a peculiar night.
That was the only real way it could properly be described: peculiar.
Demi could still recall having read into the early hours of the morning, cozy in her own bed, in her own house, on her family’s securely guarded country estate, Forest Home.
She had gotten to the end of her favorite book, completing a journey she had already undertaken dozens and dozens of times, and clasped it to her chest as she let out a sigh of absolute contentment. Then she had giggled, then wriggled, rolling from side to side in the tangle of blankets, books, and pillows that were strewed across the surface of her massive canopy bed. Her heart had been sparkling with pleasure and nostalgia, so much so that it felt as if it would be impossible to contain it all inside of her body.
So she had rolled around for a while, wriggled some more, giggled some more, and at last fallen asleep with her arms around her beloved Miracle Lacey dakimakura.
It had been worth it to stay up late to finish her book, even though such a decision would surely make the next day exhausting. It didn’t matter how many times she had read it or how excruciating staying up extra late might make the next day’s schedule. It would always be worth it to stay up and finish reading it. That was a true fact of nature.
And she had gone to sleep.
She felt relatively certain that she had gone to sleep in her bed in a relatively ordinary way.
(Ordinary for her, at least.)
And yet now—she was not in her bed.
She was not in her bedroom.
She was not in the manor house nor on the estate, which was surrounded on three sides by a vast and eldritch forest. The view from the window nearest to her seemed to look out upon a whimsical Arcadian glen, not on the gardens and park of the estate nor the labyrinthine forest.
But even more confounding than the inexplicable environs was the person sharing the space with her.
There, sitting directly across from her at the painted farmhouse table was the most peculiar thing of all.