by Lincoln Law
“Tell me what’s happening,” Charlotte pressed. “Tell me so I can understand. I don’t get how dreams work, or what’s bad and what’s not. I don’t really know why you scream or why you talk in your sleep. I really just can’t wrap my head around it. But I know when something’s wrong, or out of the ordinary, and this is one of those. And until you tell me I won’t know what’s happening; won’t really be able to help should you need me to.”
“You don’t have to worry,” Adabelle replied. You’re being a coward. Tell her! She’s old enough. “You can’t dream, so you don’t have to worry.” She’s not a child anymore. She needs to know.
These two parts of her mind warred against one-another madly in her head. Charlotte still didn’t look convinced. Not even slightly.
“I do worry, about you,” Charlotte sighed. “I don’t care if it’s going to affect me directly or not. The main thing is that I need to know so I can understand and help. I want to help.”
She only wants to help. She’s looking after you.
But Adabelle was meant to look after her sister, not the other way around. She was the older one. She had promised her mother she would care and protect her sister, and by keeping her ignorant, she was better off. Parent’s lied all the time for the sake of their children’s safety; how was this any different?
But then again, she deserved something, didn’t she? Adabelle owed her that tiny mercy, even if it was an insignificant throwaway fact.
“Until I have all of the answers, I do not want to tell you anything,” Adabelle said. “There is something wrong, but I still don’t know all of the details. Until then, I cannot tell you anything for fear of misinformation. I’m still waiting for answers. There is so much that doesn’t make sense right now, and until everything is confirmed…” Until I get brave enough to visit the Oen’Aerei Halls... “I cannot give you anything. I promise the moment I know everything for certain, I will tell you, okay?”
Charlotte seemed not entirely sated, but it was enough for now.
“Very well.”
“Thank you,” Adabelle said. “Now go back to sleep. I don’t want you worrying.”
“I will worry,” Charlotte said. “I’ll worry as much as I please. But you’ve given me something. Thank you, for trusting me.”
“And that will do for now?”
“It will. For now.”
Her tone suggested that ‘now’ would not last very long at all.
The nightmares continued the moment she’d rolled over to sleep. Her father with a knife, hilted with a glowing emerald. Her mother, throat slit, blood dribbling down, dying the cream coloured shift she wore crimson. Her sister, in the Dream Frequencies, running through between the boundaries of other dreams. And then came the music box, each note chiming gently to the tune of the Dreamer’s Lullaby. The music box, as big as a house, appeared before her, opening. With a roaring rush of air and dust and the stink of Therron’s cologne, her father appeared within the box, standing atop the rim, cane in hand, hat donned.
“No!” she screamed.
But the music continued, and so did the smell. It choked her with its musky stink, and the music deafened her from all else. The stench and the music worsened with each passing second, and then the music and the scent became the world. Her world. All-consuming and encompassing.
“Get away from me,” Adabelle screamed, turning to run. But as she turned, she found Therron there, too.
“No, go away!” She turned, and he was there.
She screamed. She spun. He was there, emerald-hilted dagger sparkling in the light that came from everywhere.
“You will not escape me.”
A scream echoed through the realms of the dream. It was not her own. But it was distant and frightened and so real.
“You will never escape me.”
The scream grew louder. Higher. Broader.
“You won’t ever take me,” she retorted defiantly.
“I will, before the end.” His voice like a deep, rumbling prophecy. He said, “You will assist me.”
The scream now took over the music. It was one of agony and fear, and then it broke, and it became a scream of desperation. It shook Adabelle’s heart, for that scream was so familiar. So recognisable.
It was Larraine’s.
Torn from the dream, as a splinter is torn from a wound, she sat up in bed, aching all over and fighting the overwhelming need to vomit. She held down the bile that burnt her throat like fire, but the screaming still echoed in her mind.
No, not in her mind.
She could hear the screams. Larraine’s screams. But how? She was so far away, in the hospital ward.
Bursting out of bed, she shot to the door, heading out into the halls of the University. The screams continued down the hall. She didn’t have far to go, for she found Larraine in the middle of one of the main hallways, dressed only in her hospital clothes, knife in one hand. She screamed in defiance as she took each laboured, painful step, her eyes filled with conflicted struggle.
“Larraine?” Adabelle asked.
“Adabelle,” she replied, in a voice that was not her own.
Larraine charged at Adabelle, Adabelle running in the opposite direction.
Her cousin screamed, and a heavy weight against her back knocked Adabelle to the ground. Adrenaline kicked in, and Adabelle found strength within she had not felt before. She felt the tendrils of the dream buffer affecting her thought, but it seemed she was able to fight it at present, however hard it tried to push against her. She threw up her arms, in the hopes of fighting off the girl. She was strong, but Adabelle was stronger, and she was able to throw Larraine off her with a mighty push.
“What are you doing?” Adabelle cried. She picked herself up off the ground, with shaking arms.
Larraine only screamed in response, thrusting the knife at Adabelle again and again. Each jab missed, but they came increasingly close.
Adabelle’s heart raced. Doors opened up and down the hall. Sleepy students emerged to check the commotion. All of them hesitated on the threshold, unsure whether it wise to join the fray.
“Therron is coming!” Larraine screamed. “He’s coming!”
Adabelle’s heart skipped a beat, her stomach seeming to drop to the pit of her body.
Larraine suddenly stopped fighting, apparently gaining a moment of lucidity. She stepped back, strangely calm, knife her hand, and began to cry. Tears rolled down her face in waves, a pool gathering at her knees when she dropped. It was so sudden.
“I am so sorry, Adabelle.” She threw the knife aside, the metal clapping against the hardwood floors. “I’m so sorry.”
“You have no control over this,” Adabelle whispered. The commotion apparently passed, people emerged from their rooms, checking to see if everyone was safe, that none had been harmed.
“It’ll be okay,” Adabelle whispered. A handful of students came out, one with a glass of water, one with a damp cloth to dab Larraine’s sweat-streaked head. She was hot; burning, even. She sat on the carpeted floor, her head drooping, exhausted. Adabelle dropped to her knees, placing an arm around Larraine. Her skin burned hot; her face continued to pour sweat.
“We need help if we’re going to fight him,” Larraine whispered. “We’re going to need a lot of help. And he wants you.” She sobbed loudly. “Oh, he needs you so badly.”
Larraine fell quiet.
Adabelle frowned, confused, for Larraine’s ragged breathing had suddenly stopped. She’d slumped slightly.
“Larraine?” Adabelle whispered. She dipped her head down, looking up into her cousin’s face. Her eyes were open, yet they saw nothing. Her mouth drooped slightly, her entire visage struck by some kind of sullen stillness. Adabelle took a moment to collect her thoughts before reacting to the sudden stillness. She lowered her hand slowly towards Larraine’s wrist, touching it with her index and middle fingers.
And she felt nothing.
“I she okay?” asked someone amongst the students gathered.
“No,” Adabelle whispered. “She’s…” she fought her emotion. “She’s dead.”
There was silence in the hall as the gravity of Adabelle’s words sunk in. Adabelle released Larraine, letting her arms free of the burden. Larraine stayed slumped, unmoving, and unseeing. Charlotte came down the hallway slowly, still dressed in her pyjamas herself.
“Go back to the room, Charlotte,” Adabelle said.
“No,” Charlotte said, walking further forward, looking both confused and sad. Her eyes were glistening with tears; her hands balled together near her mouth as if in silent prayer. But she wasn’t praying. She was whispering. “No, no, no,” she muttered with each step.
“Go back. Go back to your room,” Adabelle repeated. “You don’t need to see this.” Her open arms wrapped themselves around Larraine.
“What has happened?” Charlotte asked.
“Charlotte. Go back.”
Charlotte stopped, a deep intake of breath marking the moment of her realisation.
“You don’t need to see this.” Adabelle struggled to maintain composure through her crying.
Letting out a loud sob, Charlotte turned away from the tragic scene and ran.
You cannot hide it any longer, Adabelle thought to herself, gaze dropping away from her younger sister to her cousin. And you cannot avoid the Halls any more. Larraine was still and silent. It was odd to think those lips would never breathe another breath again, never speak another word. You owe it to her. On the fringes of her thoughts, she felt a deep, impossible shadow where Larraine’s mind had once been. She was so used to sensing people’s minds that she had not noticed Larraine’s. Yet it was gone now, just a deep, dim void in its place; and oh how she noticed it! Like a moment of silence amidst a string of screaming, it was obvious and incongruous, and yet it was there; the silence of a deadened mind, the blackness of an ended life.
She didn’t move from Larraine’s side until some of the professors arrived, and then the police, who quickly wired off the crime scene. The coroners took Larraine’s body away in a black bag. She wondered whether her mother would be informed, if there were even a need to tell her. Aunt Marie’s mind was lost so deeply to the dreams, would there be a response from the woman with the news of her daughter’s death? Would anyone aside from Adabelle and Charlotte attend the funeral? What of Larraine’s father? After Larraine’s mother had lost her mind, her father left. Did he even love his children any more? Did he know what was happening to his daughter? Would he even care?
After a while in the privacy of her room, she made her way to the dining room to eat lunch. She hadn’t seen Charlotte for much of the day, and it had her worried. Where had she run? Or as a more terrifyingly specific possibility, whom had she run to?
I have to keep her safe, she thought, and part of keeping her safe is finding out the truth.
A visit to the Halls of the Oen’Aerei drew ever closer, and inevitable. Her greatest fear was chasing her now, and it was inescapable. It would catch up soon.
Larraine is dead. I owe her this to her memory. She daren’t consider the alternative, if she had been brave enough to face her fear. She couldn’t let her regrets affect her too deeply. She had to live in the now, not concern herself with impossibilities. Larraine couldn’t come back as surely as her mother couldn’t. As surely as Aunt Marie’s mind was gone beyond any return.
Yet she couldn’t fight feeling sick about it all. She had been a coward; that was the only word for it. She had been a coward and evaded the one thing that could have provided some certainty through all this murky confusion. She would allow herself this single regret.
And now Larraine was gone.
She wondered whether Charlotte would hate her now, for hiding so much. Whether she’d ever speak again. She supposed she’d find out later that night when bedtime came around. In all honesty, she wouldn’t blame her if Charlotte never spoke to her again.
She couldn’t be thinking like this at the time. She had to think only of what lay ahead for herself. The Halls of the Oen’Aerei. She had to go there. If not for herself, then for Larraine.
Larraine is dead, she thought, and the fact suddenly sank in. Her face turned hot, her breath shallow. Suddenly a weight—one that she felt deeply bound to her inner self—rushed up. Like bile from her stomach, the weight ascended within her, a palpable force of sadness and grief. It manifested itself bodily as a stomachache, her mouth drying out, and her mind suddenly unable to see anything but Larraine’s own face. And then her eyes saw nothing but her own tears, obscuring her view, creating a brilliant, painful glare.
“You okay?” asked someone, but Adabelle didn’t know who. Her breathing heaved in her chest, ragged and heavy. She rushed from the dining room, through the halls, and to her dormitory. Once inside, where she had some privacy, she collapsed onto her bed, for as long as she could, till her pain was expelled and her throat too dry to cry any more.
Chapter Six
The Halls of the Oen’Aerei
Mrs. Abeth came to visit Adabelle this time around. She knocked on the door and announced herself before entering her dormitory room. Adabelle lay on the bed when she entered, listless and quiet, curled up with a pillow in her arms. She had spent most of the afternoon there, unable to move or think for the weight of mourning that pressed on her heart.
“I haven’t seen you all day,” Mrs. Abeth said, as she crept in quietly, closing the door behind her with a soft click.
“I haven’t wanted to be seen,” Adabelle replied, rather flatly. She kept her eyes fixed on a dust speck on the wall.
She felt the weight of Mrs. Abeth sit down on the end of the bed, as the springs creaked beneath.
“Come now, you can’t go about blaming yourself for this.”
“I can and I will,” Adabelle retorted. “She’s dead because I wasn’t brave enough to act. She’s dead because I hadn’t the heart to do what needed to be done. I didn’t want to go to the halls of the Oen’Aerei because they frightened me. Frightened! She was my cousin and I couldn’t even go and visit the Dreamers Guild because of my own idiocy.”
“Not idiocy,” Mrs. Abeth said, placing a comforting hand on Adabelle’s shoulder, patting softly. “Fears are never idiocy. Some of them are irrational, but most of them have legitimacy behind them. I’m terrified of spiders, because they’re venomous. You don’t like the Oen’Aerei because of how it’s affected your family. It’s left your aunt mad, your mother dead, and your father, being who he is, is associated with the group by no small degree. So no, there’s no idiocy in your fear, and don’t you even think for a second that there is.”
Adabelle looked up to Mrs. Abeth, unable to hide the small, thankful smile that bubbled to the surface. For the first time that day, she loosened her hold on the pillow.
“So have you decided what you’re going to do with what’s happened? Larraine’s funeral isn’t for a week. The doctors are still checking to find out the cause of death. They haven’t been able to find anything of use all day. The University has stayed in contact with the hospital in order to know what we need to put on our records. Also, we’ve had to get in contact with Larraine’s father.” She paused, biting her lip. “It hasn’t been easy so far.”
“Why?” Adabelle asked.
“He hasn’t kept his records up-to-date. We’re basically using skills normally reserved for detectives to find her father. We’re getting somewhere, but it doesn’t look like we’ll be able to find him too easily if we are to notify him of what’s happened. We might have to rely on a newspaper obituary.”
Everything seemed to be moving so quickly considering Larraine had only died that morning. She supposed that since the circumstances around the death were so confusing, that a swift response was the only way to act. To delay would only lead to fewer answers.
“But her father is incredibly difficult to find, so for the time, we want to just focus on finding out exactly what happened. Tomorrow the police will be visiting to interview some of the stud
ents present at her death, and then in the next few days they’ll interview you. I’m sorry, but they have to. Be thankful I was able to get them to delay it a little. They wanted to interview you today. I told them not to.”
“Thank you,” Adabelle said.
“It’s the least I can do.”
For a time, there was mostly silence between the pair. It was Mrs. Abeth who broke it.
“Have you decided what you’re going to do with your sister?”
“Well I’ll have to tell her, won’t I? But I have to visit the Oen’Aerei halls first. I have to be certain.”
She knew the truth doubtlessly now. Her father had spoken through Larraine, and attacked her. Her father wanted her scared, or dead, though she knew not why. What purpose could she pose to her father? What was so important that he’d kill so freely? But she still needed to go to the halls. She didn’t know why, but going there served a purpose and a meaning. Perhaps it would satiate the guilt she held over Larraine’s death, at her own hatred of herself for the fear she’d held over the place. Perhaps after she went there she would finally know something with certainty.
“And when will you go there?” asked Mrs. Abeth.
“Tomorrow,” Adabelle replied. “No use delaying it. I need to go now. If the police come they’ll just have to wait. I need to do this.” In her head, she added, for me and for Larraine.
“Can I ask a favour of you?” asked Adabelle.
“Of course you can?”
“I want you to speak to Charlotte, if you can. Tell her I’ll talk to her about everything tomorrow after my visit to the Oen’Aerei. After that, she’ll know everything I know. But don’t tell her of Therron yet. I just need her to know that answers are coming soon enough. That should make it easier for me.”
“I’d be happy to do that for you. And I will not tell her any more than what you wish me to tell her.”
“Thank you,” Adabelle said. “And if Therron is really out, I need to decide what I’m going to do. With Larraine gone, he’ll choose another mind to haunt. I need protection of some kind.”