I expected to hear my parent leap from there beds and come running at the noise, but they did not move, as if the entire scene was frozen, an old film slowly unraveling that only I could hear. I was unafraid. I felt Cora there, she was no enemy to me. It was a relief almost, to finally see the necklace of my nightmares. It seemed less frightening, made human by it's entrance into the mortal world. I sense of control flew softly from my ankles to my head. My body, sure of itself, knew exactly what to do. I descended the stairs on legs that seemed to not be my own. I slipped my hands under the sheets of glass, fractured and fragmented like frost on a winter morning. I plucked the necklace from the rubble, feeling the pendant smooth and eerily warm in my hand. At first it felt like a hot stone, it's blistering temperature willing me to drop it. But in an instant it cooled to a gentle and comforting warmth. The large pendant, a flat polished oval about the size of my closed fist was made of a strange and unidentifiable material. It was hard and porous, a yellowing gray flecked white.It was set in a curling nest of copper backing. On he back of the smooth softened copper was carved a date. May 19, 1536.

My fingers shook, the strange sense of calm dissolving away. My birthday. Cora's birth and death. Now again it appeared, following me. It began to burn again. It fizzed on my skin, the white pendant smoking and sizzling. I could practically feel the bubbling and bursting of burning blisters. I tried to drop it but my finger felt clenched around it. Suddenly it was no longer attracted to my skin. I let it drop to the ground, but ware it fell a fire instantly flew up. I yelled and stepped back. My feet started moving towards it, not under my control. "No!!!!!!" I shouted.. but my legs continued to clumsily follow each other towards the fire. For a split second I thought I could see Cora's face in the flames. Smiling calmly and sweetly, as if to tell me not to be afraid. I was almost at the fire now, but instead of the flames radiating heat they seemed to radiate a pocket of ice cold air, some unearthly bonfire. My feet stopped for a second, flame tendrils inches from my face. After a few second I felt my knees bend low and I jumped into the flames.

I remember what they felt like for a split second. It was freezing, like slowly melting ice being rubbed all over my body. And then I looked next to me. I saw 11 year old Cora, completely real and smiling in a ruffled linen Victorian dressing gown. She reached over and kissed me on the cheek. Then everything went black