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I woke up to the smell of lavender and old books, which was the first wrong thing.
My alarm should have been the sharp ping of my phonesome upbeat synth track I’d set to “motivational asshole mode.” Instead there was silence, thick hotel-room silence, broken only by the faint ticking of a wall clock I didn’t remember owning. My body felt… heavy. Not gym-sore heavy. Not even post-night-out heavy. It felt like someone had poured concrete into my joints and then politely asked them to creak.
I opened my eyes.
The ceiling was wrong. Too high, too ornate, crown molding that belonged in a period drama. The bed was wrong toosoft in that way old mattresses are soft, like they’ve given up fighting gravity decades ago. I tried to sit up and my back immediately lodged a formal complaint. A dull ache bloomed behind my knees. My handswhen I lifted them to rub my facewere not mine.
They were smaller. Knotted at the knuckles. Liver spots scattered like spilled coffee across the backs. Thin gold wedding band on the left ring finger, worn smooth from years. Nails short, unpainted, practical.
I stared at them for what felt like ten full seconds.
Then I screamed.
It came out wrong. Higher, raspier, an older woman’s startled yelp instead of my usual baritone bark. I clapped a hand over my mouthmy new, unfamiliar mouthand tasted lipstick. Not gloss. Actual matte lipstick, the kind that feels like wax and smells faintly of roses.
I scrambled out of bed (or tried to; the knees locked halfway and I nearly face-planted into a floral rug). There was a full-length mirror on the wardrobe door. I didn’t want to look. I looked anyway.
Margaret stared back at me.
Not some random old lady. Margaret. The Margaret. Sophie’s family friend, the retired principal who once told mein front of twenty people at the engagement partythat “youth is wasted on the young and charm is wasted on the cocky.” Gray hair pulled into a neat chignon. Wire-rimmed glasses hanging from a chain around myherneck. A silk dressing gown the color of weak tea. And behind the glasses, my own wide, panicked eyes.
I whispered, “No. No no no no.”
The voice was hers. Dry, precise, faintly British even though she was born in Ohio. I hated how authoritative it sounded even when I was the one panicking.
Phone. I …