Miss Toulouse is trapped between the then and now .....

Everything is white, blinding white that burns at your eyes as if you have stared at the sun for to long.

The thin veil that is memories wraps around me like a dark cloudy menacing fog, penetrating every nook and cranny of my mind, I struggle to breath. Try as I might to break free - the grip just gets tighter with every futile attempt to break the connection, it becomes stronger, pulling me further into Evelyn's past.

Like a viper it snakes around my body, slithering around me until every inch of me is consumed by the darkness of her memories.

It wraps around my neck and squeezes, as if it wishes to snap my neck, my mouth gapes open but only empty silent scream gurgles out of me, there is no one to hear me here even if I could make myself heard, I feel my body weaken, the fight to survive drip out of me as it drags me down to the ground and pins me to the floor.

My legs and arms held down by the icy grip of the fog, I arch my back - trying to push against the inevitable hoping for some kind of miracle, my breaths now ragged from its coiled grasp around my throat, my head becomes fuzzy as this alter reality begins to spin in front of my eyes.

I'm going to be taken to the darkest crevices of her memories and there nothing I can do.

Then everything becomes black.

Howls of a baby awakens my mind, I'm laying in the long moist grass that tickles at my face and surrounds me like a protective nest. The dewy smell of the woods floods my senses and washes over me like a mothers hug.

Gingerly I open my eyes to gather some understanding of where I've found myself, the moon shines down on me as its companions - the stars sparkle, as they silently watch over the earth and all its creations.

Clambering to my feet, I follow the cries of the baby that pulls at my heart. Stumbling through the darkness, my skin is scratched and whipped by overgrown bushes and trees as if they are trying to push me back from proceeding forward.
Ivy that is woven around the trees like spider webs links around my arms as it desperately tries to stop me in my tracks, I push on forward, mercilessly ripping it away.

Heartbreaking howls of this baby now has its claws on my heart and nothing will stop me.

I start to run, as the screams become more desperate. My frail old body will not fail me today because here I do not have the restrictions I do in reality. After all I was never really here, I'm simply a intruder within Evelyn past - her dark memories she scurried away deep, centuries ago.

The comfortable dewy scent of the woods is becoming masked with the heavy choking scent of a fire, it clings in the air, penetrating deep within my lungs. It stings my eyes as I've absorbing all the moisture in the air.

I push forward until I see her - Evelyn is stood in front of the wicked flames that dance enticingly beneath her feet. My good sense tells me to run, and hide within the sanctuary of the woods until I hear the desperate cries of the baby that brought me here,  the scream cuts the air like a frantic siren, I creep quietly closer.

Evelyn's tear-stained face does not look down at the newborn that squirms within her grasp. I step forward so I can hear the broken words that slip from her quivering lips.

"Please forgive me for what I'm about to do, this world is a cruel place that devours the good and innocent especially women - it did my mother, we are kept down in the dirt, told never to rise up, I won't let that happen to me and by me doing this to you, it won't ever happen to you, so maybe I'm doing you a service - goodbye my love, when you reach my mother please tell her .... I love her".

With that last word she unwraps the bonny baby from its perfectly placed blanket, gently kisses it upon the forehead then throws the innocent child into the fire for the flames to greedily devour.

The earth pulls me down as I fall to my knees, how could she sacrifice her first love, her child - how broken is her mind, evil must race through her veins instead of blood.
My heart breaks for Evelyn's first victim, her own child.

Defiantly she watches the flames roar and rise up, as her child howls for mercy  "You have what you asked for, I've done as you requested, now you must give me what is rightly owed to me".
The coldness in her voice sends shivers down my spine, and the hairs upon my arms to raise.

She turns on her heels and walks away, never turning back, never glancing as the howls of her child slowly die out.

I know there is nothing I can do to help this child, this is the past - it's already been but still cuts at my soul, her depraved, cruel memories. If I thought I could have saved that child I'd have run into those flames but I'm nothing more than a spectator.

"I'm so sorry little one, I'm so sorry" I sob for the little life that should have been.

Out from the flames the black fog appears again, swirling around the flames and embers like a tornado of despair, growing stronger by the second.

But I'm not longer afraid, I'd gladly have it consume me or remove me from this moment in time. But it doesn't approach me, it circles around the flames, growing thicker, faster, denser as it spins around like a blanket of blackness until I'm no longer able to see the fire.

All mighty crack, like a whip breaks through the dead air. The fog instantly falls to the ground like confetti as the flames from this unforgiving fire are once again revealed but what was once bright orange with hints of blood red is now ice blue. Deep within those flames the sacrificed innocent child that had perished due to Evelyn's cruelty had gone.

In its place there was someone else, she was controlling the fire that burnt so strong - it could destroy this whole woods within seconds and kill all living things for miles. She was not at one with the fire, she was the fire.

I know this face, that looks out at me from the flames, this face is etched on my mind and soul like all of my girls - it's my beautiful Phoenix, she was and is Evelyn's daughter reincarnated, thrown to blaze to be devoured as a innocent baby, then reborn into the flames. Daughter of the combustion of the savage fire and that treacherous whore.

This was what I was meant to see.

I've got to get back to Phoenix before Evelyn realises.