“There was a smell?” Twyla asked as she sat upon the bed in Pilar’s new room.

It hadn’t been difficult to get them to allow her to move. The woman in charge of such things had narrowed her eyes when Pilar explained there was something wrong–some kind of leak perhaps–that made the room inhabitable. The coordinator had taken a deep breath, ready to explain that that’s not how it works, when Pilar noticed the woman’s eyes fall upon the wedding ring she still wore, and she paused. The coordinator’s gaze turned from suspicious to pitying, and with a few taps of her manicured nails on the holographic screen in front of her, Pilar was granted a new room.

“A horrible smell. It kept me up at night,” Pilar lied as she sat upon the floor, sorting through her clothes, readying them to fill the new wardrobe.

“I never noticed a–”

“It really only came at night,” she interrupted shortly.

Twyla fingered the blanket, casting a questioning glare with furrowed brows at the woman. “Odd.”

“Isn’t it?” Pilar said, looking away, focusing again on the clothes–though she was only moving them back and forth between the same two piles. “Anyway, shouldn’t be an issue now.”

“You never mentioned it. Maybe I could have tried something…” The girl trailed off as she snapped her fingers, the scent of lilacs filling the air.

Pilar wiped at her nose. “Well, if it happens again, I’ll be sure to.” She offered the girl a smile. “Why don’t you whip up that puppy again?”

“She knows you’re lying.”

The shirt in Pilar’s hands fell into a puddle of fabric on the floor.

So slowly, she turned her attention to the girl. “What did you say?” Each word came out in a slow, deliberate hiss.

Twyla’s hand was poised ready to snap her fingers, but it stilled, and she tilted her head. “I said, Let’s try a cat this time. But if you really want the dog again, I can do it.”

The girl didn’t move, waiting for Pilar’s request. But the woman only stared.

“That’s not what you said.”

The girl’s hand dropped into her lap. “It is. But really, I can do the dog again. I didn’t know you didn’t like cats.” She didn’t wait for a response this time, snapping her fingers and producing the same curly-haired dog as yesterday.

Pilar watched as the dog bounded toward her. In her sitting position, the dog didn’t have to stretch to place its paws upon her legs. It simply hopped into her lap. Today, she didn’t offer the mutt enthusiastic pets as she had yesterday, and it whimpered slightly, prodding her with its snout.

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“It remembers me. How can something that’s not real remember me?”

The apprentice hex unfolded her legs and jumped off the bed only to join the woman on the floor. Reaching over, she began providing the scratches Pilar refused to. “I still don’t get what you mean by real.”

Accepting Pilar’s disinterest, the puppy flopped itself into the girl’s lap instead. The woman followed it with her eyes. “But you created it. It wasn’t born, it’s not alive. It didn’t exist. And then it did. And then it didn’t again. How can it have a memory?”

Twyla didn’t answer, too busy fighting off an assault of puppy tongue. Her giggles drowned out the woman’s words anyway.

“Real. Alive. Exist.” Each word floated around as if coming from everywhere at once, loud yet breathy. Pilar instinctively thrust her palms over her ears, curling her spine until her head was practically in her lap.

It only took her a moment to realize what she’d done, and she quickly straightened. Looking at the apprentice, she knew it was too late. Twyla’s mouth stood ajar, her hands slack, ignoring the puppy’s requests for attention.

“What happened?” the girl breathed.

Pilar rubbed her temple, sighing. “Headache. It just came out of nowhere.”

Twyla snapped her fingers and the puppy vanished. “It’s time for my lesson but I don’t want to leave you if you’re…sick.”

The girl’s face was limned with worry.

Or was that…

Fear?

“She knows.”

Pilar had been studying the girl’s face when the words came that time. If she’d had any doubt at all, it would have been erased in that moment. Twyla’s lips didn’t move.

“I’m fine,” she said too loudly. Clearing her throat, she added more softly, “Really, I’m fine. Thanks, though.” She forced a smile that didn’t ease the uncertainty in the girl’s eyes. Still, the apprentice nodded and snapped her fingers, and she too was gone.

The room was silent outside of Pilar’s ragged breathing.

“Who are you?”

The silence remained.

“Who,” Pilar asked again, raising her voice, “are you?”

A noise caught her attention, forcing her neck to twist so quickly it hurt.

A single ice cube fell into the receptacle of the sustenance generator.

Pilar breathed a laugh. “Funny,” she said aloud. “Hilarious.”

It was only mid-afternoon, but she began to consider a deep sleep may just be what she needed. She pushed herself off the floor, leaving the piles of clothes as they were, and approached the generator.

She eyed the ice cube, then gingerly picked it up and placed it in the palm of her hand. Feeling the sting of the cold, she watched as it began to lazily drift in the slickness its melting created upon her flesh. After several moments, she squeezed it, the sharp edges uncomfortable as they dug into her fingers, hastening its voyage from existing to…not.

The water dripped from her fingertips as she tapped the console, ordering a sleeping pill.

“Lights off.”

Pilar stared at the ceiling as she lay in bed. The pill was taking longer than usual to take effect. She turned on her side, facing the v-screen.

“Current view.”

The screen blinked to life, revealing an inky blackness with a smattering of pinpricks of light that would mimic what she would see if it were an actual window. As she looked at them, her vision becoming hazy, she wondered if stars could speak. And if they could, would they be friend or foe?

The voice had said the girl knew Pilar lied.

A foe, sowing seeds of suspicion and malcontent?

A friend, offering a warning?

“What do you want?” she said, more of a mumble as sleep overtook her.

Her eyelids became too heavy to open, even as she wished she could look at the stars for just a few minutes more.

“Dreams,” the voice whispered, the last bit of reality she perceived before unconsciousness claimed her wholly.