Blood Rose

by Jacquelynn Gagne

  Again, from unseen pockets she pulled a set of keys and unlocked the back door, this time however she turned back to it once we’d entered the hall. “Sometimes the customers get nosey and try to follow.” She explained as she relocked it.

  With an absent nod to her remark, I followed Adélia into the office area and sat as she shut the door. Like before, you could hear the music hear clearly but it was much softer. It was quite obvious she had expected me. On the table there was a trey with a tea set and a cup of steaming tea waiting for me. Guess it just runs in the family.

  “So, you knew I was coming. Do you also know why?” My hands were shaking too much from anxiety, or I would have been more polite and drank the tea. Plus I had a huge frappe in the car.

  “Only that it has something to do with your last reading. Even if you don’t believe so, you’re not as easy to read as some people are. You hide a great deal of things not just from others but yourself as well.” Adélia sat across from me in a chair perched easily in the seat like a dainty little bird. She was as petite as Neesa.

  “Yes, you said that last time. I’m not so much concerned with the reading though.” Clearly this surprised her. “This is about before the reading. The meditation thing we did? With the rocks?”

  “Alright. What can I help you with my dear?” She seemed completely at ease still. For some reason that frustrated me. How could she be at ease when I was the exact opposite? “Drink your tea, dear Lianna. It will ease your body and mind both.”

  Sometimes I hate formalities but I needed her help- I needed to know what was wrong with me. So as she directed I drank the tea down in one single gulp. “Thank you. It’s great. Now, about the meditation thing.”

  “Trance meditation.” She corrected with a simple nod. Her gentle loving expression didn’t falter at my abruptness nor did she comment about how I drank my tea.

  “Yes, the trance meditation. Well, to get to the point. What did you do to me?” My hands were still shaking. They had been for the last couple days now.

  “Can you explain the question a little more thoroughly my dear?” Her brow furrowed just slightly in wonder as she took another sip of tea. Always so calm.

  “I mean during the meditation I dunno if I was supposed to have a vision or just go blank or what. Honestly though, I think I fell asleep and the dream was really weird. And, well-” I hesitated a moment. No part of me wanted to be here. “from then on my nightmares have been like a million times worse and now… Well you see me. I can’t sleep. I have no appetite. When I do sleep, I wake up covered in blood. It’s way worse than it ever was before and I just feel like I am going abs-”

  “Wait. Covered in blood how, Lianna?” Now granted, most people would find such a fact quite odd so it relieved me slightly that she was paying enough attention for it to make her take pause but she still looked so composed about all of this.

  Either way I had to pause a moment to explain thoroughly. “It’s hard to explain. I get stress nosebleeds while I sleep. My eyes may bleed. Sometimes I bite my lips open. I somehow get cut in my sleep in weird places. But now, it’s way worse than it ever has been before.

  “And what I was trying to say, it feels like I am going crazy. It’s been so long since I have even gotten more than three hours of sleep in a single night and it’s not even all at once now.” I took a moment to breath but she still let me continue.

  My hands ran through my hair, which was down and barely brushed, in an attempt to collect myself. “Last night was worse though. The dream changed.”

  “Changed how exactly?” Her eyes were narrowed slightly as she listened closely to everything I had to say.

  “There is this guy I know from work and we’re sort of seeing each other. I guess. Well it’s really complicated.” My hands were now moving along with my words as if I needed them to talk. “But, anyways, he - he was in the dream.” I shook my head in disbelief. I couldn’t believe I was saying this. Thinking it. Dreaming it!

  “Lianna- Honey, please slow down. Breathe. Start from the beginning so that I may understand better. Please, my dear.”

  So I did. I told her everything, even more than I had explained to Damien. I needed help, I was desperate to understand what they meant. What they were trying to tell me. I left out my family’s reaction but walked her through every dream from my childhood and then taking more detail with the one about Damien.

  “Nothing like this has ever happened.”

  She nodded as she finished her tea and set the cup to the table. “And you’ve never had a dream about anyone you know in real life until now. Correct?” I nodded quietly for answer.

  “You said you had only dreamed about one person in particular and the people who lived around her. And you could only see their detailed features a little while before they died. But this man in the dream last night, Damien, he came in clearly. Yet you say you know him in real life. So you’re afraid he’s going to die in real life. That’s very interesting… I can understand why you’re so obviously upset though.”

  While she spoke, she moved to sit beside me on the couch. Her hands clasped over mine. “You poor child, having to see such horrible things night after night. And those horrific injuries. I’m sure there is something we can do to bring us some understanding and hopefully put an end to this chaos for you.”

  “Well I wasn’t afraid he was going to die until you said it just now.” Just great. Add a new worry to my life please. “But mostly I want to know what they mean. What is she trying to tell me? Why is she doing this to me? What does Damien have to do with her?”

  “Anna, you sound like you think these dreams are real. Sweetheart, dreams are our subconscious interpretations of our fears and desires but they’re not real. It may be strange for you to only dream about one place but they are not real however vivid they may be. I interpret your dream about Damien as fear. Fear to let yourself love him child. Fear he will leave you. Fear he will betray you.”

  The ping fired synapses through my temporal lobes wildly. Not right. Time to go. I couldn’t tell you why but it was a finite decision. It took a moment for me to be able to move.

  It was the first time I had said anything like this out loud in such explicit detail in ten years. The first time was to my mom and father. Then to a therapist, who suddenly suggested I see a psychoanalyst to my mother and father.

  The memories were so vague I had pushed them back so forcefully. My brother had no idea. He couldn’t know, they said. He wouldn’t understand. He was military and it could hurt his career. Keep it secret. No one can know.

  They said I was sick. There were tests. I spent the next ten years in and out of hospitals.

  There was a fight with screaming and then another stay at the hospital. I hadn’t spoken to my mom and father since then. I got emancipated and moved to my grandmothers. When she died, I moved to the loft. When I finally told my brother why I moved out he stopped talking to me. I haven’t seen any of them since.

  Thinking about these things for a few moments and my past on this subject, I looked up to Adélia with a calm understanding smile.

  “I apologize for wasting both your time and my own. Goodbye, Adélia.” Standing up, I walked out of the room while Adélia sat there confused and obviously insulted. Before I made it to the second door in the hall, she was behind me taking a hold of my arm.

  “Lianna, don’t leave like this. I’m certain that I can help you if you will give me the chance. We can find a resolution.”

  Releasing the door handle, I turned to face her. Carefully and slowly annunciating my movements, I removed her hand from my arm. “Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s going to happen. I was wrong to come here like this. Thank you again for your time, Adélia.” So I left. I forgot to tell her to keep our conversation private and eventually I would regret it.

  Adélia had followed me out to the parking lot and to Rachel’s car all the while attempting to argue once persuasion failed. It may have been rude but I never said another word t
o her. The lump in my throat was simply too big to speak around.

  I know it was Rachel’s car but driving was relaxing so I took my time on the way back. Inevitably, I turned a thirty-minute drive into two hours.

  Eventually I found myself in the parking lot at Riads texting Rachel to come grab her keys so I didn’t have to see Neesa. As promised I left her with a full tank despite the fact when I picked it up it was nearly on empty. She said I should keep it until she was off work so she could drive me home but I really didn’t feel like being around people much so I declined.

  In fact, just as I had taken the long drive home I planned on walking a little extra that night as well. As it turned out, I probably should have listened to Rachel. My life would have turned out a lot different for sure.

  IV

  “LOVE THE WAY YOU LIE”

  The night air was dank with humidity, creating a thick steaming fog on the ground. The golden streetlamps could barely light anything outside a couple feet of the bulbs themselves. The wooden planks were grey in the dusk. The amber lighting failed to reach them. The wood groaned from the weight of a slow moving tide sloshing in slow steady rhythms.

  My body had reached the point of exhaustion. Every fiber of my being had become extremely sensitive. While my mind was whirling in on itself, my mental senses were dulling as my physical senses were becoming painfully acute.

  Thoughts swirled through my mind so quick and chaotic they crashed into one another. Neesa would be angry of course but would she hate me now? Why the intense ping off my id to leave the Wildflower in the way that I had? What was Damien doing in my dream? Who is Damien D’Tera?

  At times he didn’t feel any more real than my dreams. This line of thought led back to thoughts about Adélia from earlier. Each thought circled the other like a record stuck on repeat. The dream. Adélia. Damien. Neesa. All of it circled over and over again.

  When I was younger, I was convinced the dreams were real. It was a fact to me that somehow I had gotten a window into this little girl’s life. It was obvious she was some kind of witch. It was so entrancing to watch her create little dragons out of fire and play with them like they were friends. So entrancing that I began to try it myself.

  I didn’t understand her unfortunately so I would repeat the steps I saw her do and make up the rest as I went along. Needless to say, mother and father were not happy. Not to mention totally freaked out about the fire in the backyard.

  Soon after I was in therapy and TV became nonexistent in my life because they thought that was where I got the idea. Never did make a fire dragon friend either. Still to this day I have yet to own a TV. I have a laptop for webflix. Why bother I figure?

  I remembered the day I had decided to leave more clearly now. There had been a fight. Not with me and my parents. Between the two of them. I went to the doctor for more testing. When I came home the next day, my mother had gone. She could handle it no longer. Neither could I. I was fourteen. My brother was a young Marine stationed in California. It was almost a year before he heard any of this.

  None of this meant my dreams were real. And that wasn’t why I moved out. I’m not crazy. I just hated that they tried to make me think I was. That I was a freak my own brother had to be protected from. A freak my own mother could not tolerate.

  The emotions left inside of me were still raw and bitter- More hatred for my brother for agreeing with them. I don’t say his name now, nor do I say theirs. Outside of the people I grew up with, no one knows about my family. I sighed. Forcing myself to banish those memories as my eyes began to feel tight and a knot threatened my vocal cords in my throat.

  As far as why I believed so avidly it was more than just a dream, it was just a gut feeling. Something in my head always said she couldn’t be imaginary. So maybe I was half and half on it. Part of me couldn’t deny the dreams. Part of me couldn’t accept it any more than they could.

  After the first mirror dream as I had come to call it, I was thinking about it more and more and I now felt strongly as ever this was no simple dream. These dreams were showing me something. Showing me something vitally important I just couldn’t grasp an understanding of. Like the realization was just out of reach. Maybe they weren’t real but maybe they were sending me a message.

  So the question was still, what was Damien doing in the dream? It wasn’t like I could ask him obviously. He was gone, left to see his brother in Florida suddenly. Not to mention he might think I was crazy- though the part of my brain still functioning also knew damn well that he had lied. Not that it mattered. Lies or no lies, I loved him and trusted him far more than what was natural. But why did he lie? Why leave so abruptly?

  How can I love someone who could lie? Has anyone ever been in love with a person you’ve lied to? Even a tiny one? It goes both ways you know.

  In the end, I am just not the realist I believe myself to be- I am just a cynic.

  He may have confused me, even made me nervous if I was being honest with myself. Yet somehow, Damien was the only one I felt close to at all anymore. Not that I didn’t care for Neesa. Of course I did. But she was too afraid of me now to even stand to be near me. Despite her begging me to talk to her again, the main reason I couldn’t was the horrible look of dread every time our eyes caught.

  With Damien though, I knew if I wanted to I could explain the dream and he wouldn’t get the horrible nervous look that made me feel like someone thought I was a nut job. At least I hoped not. So that’s just what I told myself.

  There was no doubt in my mind I was safe with him and could depend on him. What else mattered? My heart and mind both agreed on this. It was my gut that said otherwise. Warning me instinctively I didn’t have all the pieces to the puzzle and the big picture might be more disturbing than I realized. This time I couldn’t deny that warning ping in the back of my mind. As if there was something popping off my id and alerting me to some admonition. Why wouldn’t it just come through?

  My feet pulled me in the direction of the docks. The sounds of the inky water slapping against the wooden planks in slow steady movements was peaceful. It gave me a bass rhythm that steadied my body and mind and gave me order back to my life. It was my favorite place to be in all of Vermont. They were not the nicest in Vermont, not by a long shot. That’s why I came here though. It gave them an advantage of not being too crowded.

  The closer I got, the further away I felt. Of course, I was still very much inside the city but it was so much quieter here. That night the silence had taken on an eerie quality.

  Dew from the fog clung to my skin in a second coat. My stomach twisted almost painfully as I reached the top of the slope that led to the docks. Had I eaten today? No but I wasn’t hungry. The worry scratched at the back of my mind like a giant firefly buzzing around in my head lighting up when it was too far out of reach to be caught on to.

  The air was chilly. Every one of my breaths added to the thick fog. Never had I felt such an ache of dread course through my body. Unfortunately, no stock was placed into my unease and I kept walking. If I couldn’t identify it then I was probably imagining it or just so eaten up with stress that it was making me paranoid and crazy.

  “Crazy? I was crazy once…” I laughed bitterly at myself over the stupid childhood game- I hadn’t thought of that in years. Low and behold, look how I turned out.

  It was early evening and really shouldn’t be as dark as it was being just after six in the evening. I assumed there was a storm rolling in, which wasn’t entirely unusual. This was the rainiest spring Vermont had seen in a while.

  Apparently, I wasn’t the only one crazy enough to walk around in the dark on such a creepy night. Down at the very end of the pier stood someone leaning against the railing. Just as I noticed him, the fog swallowed the man out of view.

  A surge of longing rippled through me as I walked up to the bench Damien and I occupied just the day before. The stone was colder than before as I sat down. It gave me a chill that raised goose bumps on my exposed flesh.

>   “Pretty girls like you shouldn’t go out at night alone. It’s not wise to do so. It’s not safe.” Not expecting the company I nearly jumped out of my skin when the man spoke from behind me. His voice was of a young man with old New Englanders twang. An east coast accent you only heard in old movies. He caught me off guard but his voice wasn’t callus, it was smooth as heavy cream.

  “Um, thank you but I’m alright. Just out for a short walk.” I could be polite but I wasn’t exactly in the mood for company. As I waked, I didn’t so much as glance back at him.

  “Mmm. You do smell divine in the rain,” his voice rang with longing. A hunger so sinister my stomach twisted into a tight ball and urged me to stand to my feet, turning me to face him.

  Something about him was wrong. His skin was pale in the dusk light. His eyes gleamed yellow from an overhead post. The effect reminded me of a distant memory.

  Paul’s cat hiding under the staircase. Her eyes gleaming yellow from the faint light behind me in the pitch black of the staircase closet. Her name was Molly. My eyes narrowed. Weird thought to have. Shaking my head, I forced a bitter smile. Bitter smiles were all that I had in me.

  “Well I need to get going. It was nice meeting you.” With a slight nod, I backed to the sidewalk that ran right along the docks by the water. It would have been preferable to go back up the hill but it would have meant circling the bench and getting closer to him. More than likely, he was harmless but my feet were moving with or without me.

  “Where do you think you’re going? You didn’t look like you were in a hurry a minute ago.” Rudeness to perfect strangers wasn’t my usual persona but nothing felt usual about this- especially considering he was following literally right behind me, despite my swift pace.

  Giving him no answer I broke into a dead run. In the back of my head, I was really grateful I had ripped the strap of my purse and had yet to replace it. Everything I had with me was in pockets. Foremost my thought was run. Run hard and run fast. Though at the time it wasn’t as much of a thought, as a whisper, someone screaming inside of my head for me to pay attention and to get the hell out of there before it was too late. Was it already too late?