The goddess did not appear in her dreams.

Sara refused to get out of bed the next morning. Nanny poked, prodded, threatened and cajoled, but Sara could not summon the energy to lift the covers and continue her performance.

Her lower legs ached and burned, though the steward hadn’t broken the skin. Her left arm was swollen at the shoulder and bruised. The scab forming on her forearm was itchy.

It felt right to wallow in her misery for the moment.

Sara didn’t understand why she had to suffer public humiliation and physical torment in the place of Liliana. The goddess seemed to have the strange idea that Sara was tough enough to handle the abuse.

What a bitch, thought Sara. She grumbled to herself as she drank water brought by one of the maids. She was also refusing to eat, though she wondered how long that would last.

She didn’t wish the events of the past few days on anyone, let alone Lily. She seemed like a sweet girl from her diary. However, Sara would have preferred them both to be in their original places.

She wasn’t a martyr or a masochist. She didn’t want to sacrifice herself for another’s sake.

After Nanny gave up trying to rouse her every fifteen minutes, Sara could finally relax. She reached over to the bedside table and picked up the diary.

It felt odd to realize that she had last opened the handsome cover only a day ago. Between the tea party, the prince’s assault, and the whipping, it felt like a month had passed. Sara had only been possessing Liliana for a few days.

She flipped through the pages hopefully, searching for any information that could help her escape the nightmare in the Harrington estate. Instead, she grew sad as she realized that many entries were coded accounts of Lily’s suffering:

Father sent me to the steward for more lessons today. I’m trying very hard but I still make mistakes sometimes.

The diary was carefully written so that a prying eye could not tell Liliana was being outright abused. It made Sara wonder if someone was still spying on the diary, even now.

The pages from the future would certainly be bizarre fiction to anyone else. In her apathy, she simply didn’t care enough to hide them or the diary. Let them accuse her of insanity. Maybe she could just say she was a creative soul.

She felt disconnected from her surroundings. The servants who came to convince Liliana to get up from bed were ignored. The day dragged on, punctuated only by Nanny’s nagging. Sara wondered how long it would take for them to drag her out of bed physically.

Boredom made her tired. When she fell asleep that afternoon, she found herself once again floating in a formless abyss.

Finally, thought Sara. Where has she been? The drugs might have prevented Sara from venting her frustration the night before, but she was ready to yell at the divine being who had gotten her whipped.

She expected to remain mostly insubstantial like before. To her surprise, her golden dream-body formed out of the ether much more quickly. It was even a little brighter and more solid.

The golden figure of the goddess swirled and writhed in the distance. Sara sighed. It was like waiting for a web browser to load.

The goddess finished rendering and drifted closer. She was already admonishing Sara for lying in bed, sounding terribly like Nanny. Sara’s desire to yell diminished; this was just irritating.

Sara ignored the nagging and examined her own body.

She knew it was her original body by the shape of the limbs and musculature. She was a semi-sedentary office administrator, but Sara enjoyed biking to work and hiking on the weekends. Lily had been limited to horseback riding; she was toned and tall, but certainly not muscular like Sara was.

She looked at her own hands. She was surprised that she missed the look of them as much as she did. The dream-world’s shimmer hid the difference in skin tone; Sara knew she was several shades darker than Lily’s porcelain coloring.

She could even feel her short bob as it hung around her face. It felt good to be in her own body again. It reassured her that it still existed.

“Are you listening to me?” demanded the goddess.

“No,” Sara replied in a curt tone. The goddess appeared to puff up like an irritated cat at this response. Sparks of light seemed to dance in the darkness around the divine being. It took a moment for the play of light to settle down.

“Will you at least tell me why you are lying in bed?” The goddess was now speaking more gently, as if Sara would be convinced by sweet words. When her tone changed, the space around them seemed to be flooded with the goddess’s intent.

“Because I have no reason to pretend to be another woman in a fantasy world,” snapped Sara.

She was getting tired of having waves of forced emotion poured into her head every time the goddess changed tact. It was a physical and emotional sensation that made Sara feel unlike herself.

“Please,” said the goddess. “For Liliana, you-”

Sara laughed harshly. “I couldn’t care less. I’m sorry, but I won’t let myself be whipped and beaten just so you can fulfill someone else’s wish!”

In her anger, Sara stamped her foot down. To her surprise, the darkness around her began to crack. Her stomach lurched as the unseen ground beneath her feet fell away.

“Wait!” Sara cried into the darkness. She wasn’t done yelling at the goddess. She hadn’t even asked to go home yet. Even the goddess had an expression of shock as Sara began to fade away.

Sara held her hands out in front of her and watched as they grew transparent and dim. She could see her own feet through her palms.

In a flash, she was lying in Lily’s bed once again. She slammed her fists into the sheets and cried out in frustration.