There were birds, chirping just outside her open windows; the wind softly caressed her skin and warm rays of sun, like a gentle hand shaking her, tried to wake her up. She didn't want to, too comfortable in her plush bed, her silken bed sheets soft against her skin. She burrowed further into the warm cocoon of blankets she had made, enjoying a rare moment of complete relaxation, already dreading the grating sound of her alarm, reminding her of her duties and forcing her into a grey morning of work. Just when she had managed to fall asleep again she heard a soft female voice.
"Lady Juliana, it's time to wake up." In her sleepy haze, Janice didn't think much of it; she just wanted to do was sleep and she didn't care if this Lady Juliana woke up or not. It was not of her business. She rubbed her cheek on her pillow, inhaling the sweet perfume of lavender and she promptly sneezed; she never used lavender, being probably the only person in the world who had developed an allergy to it. And yet. That was lavender. And now that she thought about it her attic was far too high up in the sky for birds who chirped like that: in fact, it was too high for any bird at all. The same voice of before laughed lightly, a sweet sound full of fondness and almost childlike joy: it would have been endearing if it wasn't for the fact that Janice lived alone. And who was Lady Juliana?!
She shut her eyes open and she was met with an unfamiliar and rather disconcerting view; trees. From the window just above the bed (which was wrong because her windows were on the opposite side of the room) all she could see were trees. Trees and grass. There were so many trees it could be considered a thicket, a small forest. Again, this was wrong: all Janice could see from her windows (that were in front of her bed!) were clouds and sometimes, when she was lucky, an infinite clear blue sky.
Since she was a little girl Janice had been taught about the wonders of science and rational thinking and the cornerstone of those two disciplines; the scientific method. To consider something true you had to make sure of its credibility; you had to make a hypothesis, conduct experiments to verify said hypothesis, collect the results of those experiments, and elaborate them. And only then you could declare a theory a fact.
Janice's hypothesis was that she had been kidnapped; it wasn't that unlikely, really. Unlike common folks, rich people like her were at constant risk of being abducted, their hefty fortunes far too tempting to criminals. She tried to recall the last thing she remembered; it was very vague but she knew she had been in her car, talking to her dear niece, and then… something appended. She wasn't sure what. Anyway, back to her hypothesis, her experiments were rather simple; she opened her eyes and yet again she was met with an unfamiliar sight, she sniffed delicately and she sneezed, her nose assaulted by that hateful scent. Examining all her data one could only come to one conclusion: that her theory was, tragically, a cold, harsh truth.
Her thoughts were interrupted by the voice. "Lady Juliana I know that you are not asleep. We made fruit parfait for breakfast, your favorite: let's start this day." And there was that, that title. She was not Juliana nor she had ever been a lady, so either there was another woman in the room or she had been kidnapped by a complete maniac. (One could argue that whoever kidnapped someone could be called a maniac but that wasn't completely true; some maniacs were more maniacs than other maniacs). She tentatively opened her eyes again, preparing herself to face her captor but what she found was… confusing to say the least. There was a young girl in front of her, a teenager even, dressed in a very peculiar way; a lacy bonnet covered her hair, some rebel brown locks framing her face, and she wore a black dress that could be defined as a slightly more modest version of a maid costume. Janice didn't know what to make of that.
"There you are, Your Grace. Isn't it such a beautiful day of spring? We could go horse-riding today!" Janice remained silent for a beat too long, trying to decide what was the best course of action; she didn't know where she was but by the scenery outside the window she deduced she was far away from a city, or any type of civilization, and it would have been unreasonable to try and run now, in a territory her captors supposedly knew well.
Her best option was to comply and try to get some more information on her whereabouts and her kidnapper's motivation. She got up, her bare feet touching warm wood and she let the… maid? herd her towards the adjacent room, where an enormous bathtub dominated the space. She could see steam rising from it and a feeling of dread took over her; did the woman want to bathe her? Janice just stood near the bathtub, not wanting to appease her captor with any move, and waited for further instructions. The woman returned her gaze, tilting her head. "The water is still hot, Your Grace. The way you like it." And then, leaving Janice in shock, the woman just left the room. Had she figured out that Janice wasn't going to try to escape? Or was she just that confident that she would have never made it? Nevertheless, she obeyed, quickly stripping and letting out a sigh when the hot water touched her skin. She did like her water steaming hot and the fact that her captor knew was… creepy.
In the relative privacy of the bathroom, she allowed herself a moment of fear: she had been kidnapped, abducted by someone who clearly had studied her enough to know her most intimate preferences. This was… something; it made it less likely that they wanted to blackmail her family and therefore it made her return home less likely. She resolutely shoved these feelings aside, she had no use for them; the goal now was to obtain new information.
Janice let the maid dry her and help her wearing an intricate dress, that, she had to admit, was gorgeous; the beautiful gold details were accentuated by the deep green of the soft fabric (she tried not to think about how it fitted her perfectly). She was then escorted to a spacious room, tastefully furnished and decorated, where, on a round table, was laid out a frankly incredible amount of delicacies.
It was when Janice was eating her delicious fruit parfait that she heard another maid call out to her escort and felt her brain do the equivalent of a screeching halt. Annette. She knew this name, it felt like the last remains of an echo, something she could touch but never grasp. And Juliana... a noblewoman named Juliana who looked like her and had her same preferences, and lived in a beautiful mansion that seemed to belong to another era.
An astonishing idea started to make its way into Janice's brain, memories of thousands of pages she had read flickering in front of her eyes. It had been just a joke, a secondary character with almost no value, just a background actor who only had a few scenes and then was promptly forgotten. Haley had just added her in, as a way to thank her for all the time and effort she put into her project.
It's not possible
It wasn't, it was just a stupid feeling, fabricated by her brain to avoid handling the stress of being kidnapped, it had to be. And yet. It was just a hypothesis waiting to be confirmed or denied. She took a deep breath.
"Annette" She called out weakly. "Is my Lord husband going to join me for lunch today?"
The maid's expression darkened a little as if the question had upset her (no one had ever liked the Duke, Janice thought faintly.)
"Yes, Your Grace. This morning he ordered roasted lamb for lunch but..." It felt like someone had punched the breath out of her, her heart beat so loud in her ears that she didn't listen to the rest of the answer. Her first instinct was to deny the obvious conclusion that immediately came to her mind but how could she deny the evidence? Only she and Haley knew about her story, no one could have staged all of that. She was in a novel, in a novel she knew very well, a story she had helped create and shape.
"My Lady, you look unwell." Judging by the concerned look in Annette's eyes, Janice must've looked particularly bad. She stood up abruptly, almost knocking down the table and the fine china she was holding and, without answering the maid, she returned swiftly to her chambers, in severe need of privacy and silence. She threw herself on the bed, burying her head in the soft covers, trying not to be drowned by the unstoppable flux of thought that flooded her brain. This was someone else's bedroom, she didn't pick up the flowers now prettily displayed on the nightstand nor did she use the finely decorated brush on the toilette table. The perfume in the bed was wrong and so was the color of the curtains, a pale pink that Janice herself would have never chosen.
And then, like lighting, a thought crossed her mind; if she was her where was Juliana? She knew that if she was here it was because she must have died in her real life, probably in a car crash if her blurry memories were reliable, so had the duchess died too? Had her conscience been transferred into Janice's dead body? She knew she would never get an answer to her questions.
She sneezed again and, in a fit of irritation, threw away her pillow. A paper, tucked into the pillowcase floated to the ground. It was folded into two halves and on the front, with a flowery handwriting, there was written a name.