“Emily, you have a visitor!” A plump woman in scrubs almost singed with wide smile on her round face.

The girl didn’t move.

The nurse cooed: “Emily, my dear, let’s sit at the table, okay? I’ll bring some tea and your favourite cookies, how does it sound?”

The girl said nothing.

“I’m sorry,” the nurse turned to the visitor at the door. “Emily is catatonic. She never shows any sort of reaction to external irritants.”

“You said she has favourite cookies, though,” the visitor commented. He was holding a package wrapped in a glittery paper. It looked a bit heavy.

“Well, yes, it’s not really the truth, you see.” The woman sighed. “I’m just trying to give her some personality, some traits. Sometimes it helps. For example, Mrs. Oswald, our other patient, shouted at me. Turnes out, she hates sweets. I was so happy!”

“Happy?”

“She demonstrated a reaction! For the first time in two years! She’s gotten a lot better since then. But Emily…” The nurse looked at the girl, tears in her eyes. “Poor soul. I’ll be outside if you need me, but please, be gentle with her. She already struggled so much.”

“I have no intention to hurt her. I just brought her a small present, that’s all. I’ll be careful,” the visitor promised.

“Sure. Let me bring some tea, and I’ll leave you alone.”

“Sounds good.”

The visitor was a slim young man with ginger hair and boyish face features. It looked like he desperately tried to grow a beard for a long time, but hadn’t succeeded yet. His big, green eyes were wide and clever.

The nurse brought a silver tray with a ceramic pot, a sugar bowl with small silver tongs, a bowl full of speculoos and thin mint cookies, a pitcher full of cream, and two small teacups and saucers in floral pattern. She put the tray on the table beside a window, then wheeled Emily’s chair to the table and left.

The man sat on the chair across the table.

“Hi, Emily.” His eyes crinkled at the corners.

The girl didn’t acknowledge his greeting.

The visitor poured some tea from a steaming pot to both teacups and put one in front of Emily. The tea smelled nicely of bergamot and lavender.

“Sorry, I don’t know if you now prefer it with cream or sugar,” he said and sipped his tea.

The girl didn’t reply. Her hands with thin, long fingers and bitten nails kept lying on her knees, motionless. Her lips were also bitten and chapped. The skin looked paper-white and lifeless. You wouldn’t be able to tell when she was taking a breath, that still she was. She could’ve been easily taken for a marble sculpture, for some unknown reason dressed into a beige soft sweats.

“I have a gift for you,” the man said. “I’ll unwrap it for you, okay?”

He carefully unfolded the parchment, holding the present close to his chest, as if he was afraid it’d disappear or get stolen by some unseen forces. He sat closer to Emily.

“It’s for you,” he whispered. “It’s your dress, remember?”

He stood up, the dress fabric falling down, reaching the floor. It was a black velvet dress with a beautiful skirt, swirling around. On the ends, it was heavily decorated with pearls and laces.

The girl didn’t look. The man’s smile faded.

“Listen to me. Listen to what I’m telling you now.” The visitor spoke as if in a rush. “You were a queen once. You had a castle, and a king, and you were a queen, the best queen we could’ve ever wished for.”

The girl sat still.

“You were a queen. Your name was different back then, and you were happy, and smiling, and laughing, and playing. You grew up, but you kept being our queen. Then, you died of old age, and you reincarnated, and we waited for you patiently, and you came back and reigned once again. You grew up, you died of old age, you reincarnated, you came back, you became our queen again. But then, one day you didn’t appear in Nightland. And the next day, and the day after. We became worried, and we were looking for years. I was looking for you for years, my lady.”

His eyes blistered with tears.

“This was your dress,” he continued in shaking voice. “Please accept it.”

The man reached out for Emily’s hand and put it softly over the dress.

“Please, my queen,” he whispered. “Come back to Nightland once again. We’ll heal your wounds, we’ll end your sufferings.”

He closed his eyes. They betrayed him nevertheless, displayed moist marks on his young cheeks, barely touched with stubble. Suddenly, he heard a sob that wasn’t his own.

“My queen!..”

Emily began twitching slightly in her wheelchair, her eyes rolled up into her hear, showing the ivory color of the white. Her hands grabbed the velvet of the dress tightly, holding tight as if she was on some kind of a roller coaster. She kept jerking, short of breath.

The man considered calling for the nurse when he heard her raspy voice:

“They all died.”

He looked at her tenderly, his hands covering hers on her knees. Her twitching calmed down a little bit.

Emily looked at him weakly.

She saw it so vivedly. She recalled her family being hungry and poor. She remembered how she dreamed of Nightland the first time, and escaped there every night ever since. Her life in Nightland, although she could reach it only when sleeping in the real world, was the happiest part of her life. She saw The Great Hall of her marble castle, bright with chandeliers. She saw all of her people dancing in summer, playing in autumn, holding hands in winter, celebrating in spring. She saw her king-consort, sitting beside her, supportive and kind. She saw her visitor being her trusted protector, her Royal Knight. She saw that, at the beginning, her name was Alice, and then Celeste, and then Emily.

She saw her real world getting in flames.

She saw her parents and sisters burning alive while she was in Nightland.

She saw getting brought to the hospital seven years ago and never living its walls. Her weakness infuriated her.

“Cheshire?"

The man beamed, hearing his name again. “Yes, my queen?”

“We’re going back.” Emily clenched her fists. “And get me out of this wheelchair.”