by Temple West
I crawled between the cool sheets, switched the lamp off next to the bed, and nestled into the mound of pillows. I was asleep in seconds.
The first thing I noticed was a gentle rocking motion. It seemed vaguely familiar, like stepping into someone’s house you haven’t been to in years and remembering the smell of it. Blue sky and green tree branches waved above me in a friendly, lazy sort of way. As I looked around, more details settled into place, like graphics loading in a video game. I realized, finally, that I was sitting on the floor of a fishing boat. And with sudden clarity, I knew exactly where I was. In fact, I’d been here many times.
And I absolutely didn’t want to be here now.
My throat was already tight with tears as I looked up. And there he was, sitting on an old folding chair in a flannel shirt and jeans, looking out over the water. He noticed I was awake and looked over at me with a wide smile.
“Hey, care bear, how was your nap?”
I blinked my way past the tears to look at his face.
“Dad?”
The smile disappeared. “Hey, what’s wrong?” He stood up and came over to me. “Why are you crying, honey?” He knelt down and wiped a tear off my cheek. Then his expression cleared and he smiled sadly. “You’re a little bit surprised to see me, I bet.”
I nodded, not trusting my voice.
“You grew up so beautiful. That’s all your mother’s doing, of course.” He turned to look back the way he’d come, and I looked with him. There, at the end of the boat, I saw my mother, sitting in a chair with a book and a cold soda. She looked over at us, sliding her sunglasses down the bridge of her nose.
“Is she awake?”
“Yep,” he called to her.
She set down her things and picked her way over to us, looking young, thin—beautiful, even. Like they’d been frozen in time from when I was five years old.
“What’s going on?” I asked, waiting for them to keel over dead or start talking in demonic voices. They looked at each other and back at me.
“We’re going fishing,” my dad said. “Like we do always do.”
“Mom never came with us.”
“I came a few times, when you were younger,” she explained. “You two always seemed to enjoy it more than I did.”
I looked at my dad. He was thirty, maybe thirty-five, with laugh lines and boyishly tousled hair. He looked so … alive.
“Come on, Cait; let’s fish.”
He grabbed my hands and pulled me up. My mom smiled encouragingly and went back to her chair and her book. Still somewhat bewildered, I followed him over to the rail where two chairs were set with fishing poles.
“It’s so good to see you, sweetheart,” he said quietly. “Did you miss me?”
I took in a shaky breath. “Yes.”
He looked out over the water and swallowed. “I’m sorry about the way I left. There was nothing I could have done, but still, I’m sorry.”
I couldn’t take it anymore; I let my pole drop against the deck and flung myself onto his lap. He wrapped his arms tightly around me.
“It’s okay, Caitlin,” he murmured as I cried into his shirt.
“No, it’s not,” I sobbed. “I grew up without you.”
He didn’t reply, just tightened his hold on me as the sun played in golden waves over the lake. I felt exhausted and heavy, like all my mass had settled to one side of my body, pinning me with gravity.
“Caitlin,” he said quietly, “I wanted more than anything to live. To be with you and your mom and see you grow up, because I love you more than I’ve ever loved anything in my life. But it doesn’t work that way. I couldn’t come back.”
My lips trembled as a few more tears trailed down my cheek. “Why not?”
He kissed my forehead, but didn’t say anything.
I closed my eyes and listened to the steady beat of my father’s heart. He seemed so real.
“You’re exhausted,” he said finally. “Why don’t you sleep?” I started to protest, but he hushed me. “I’m right here. It’s okay.”
He smiled, so I smiled and laid my head down again and closed my eyes, and soon the sun and the waves rocked me to sleep.
When I woke up (which was a weird thing to do in a dream), the sun was gone, and the stars were out. I stretched and murmured incoherently.
“What time is it?” I asked with a little yawn.
“Almost midnight.”
I froze.
No.
I looked up slowly and saw that the arms that were holding me did not belong to my dad. They belonged to Adrian.
“No,” I whimpered.
He looked sad. “I’m sorry, Caitlin. Your dad had to go.”
“Please bring him back,” I begged.
“He told me to look after you. I promised him I would.”
The whole world tilted upside down, the stars rocked wildly in the sky, and I felt dizzy and nauseous. Slowly, everything stopped spinning, and I realized I was lying back in bed. A large, dark shape was half sitting and half lying next to me.
“Caitlin?”
I didn’t answer, just closed my eyes and let the hot, miserable tears trickle down my face in silence. I could feel the sheets and blankets rustle as Adrian slid into bed beside me. Large arms wrapped around my shoulders and I turned and buried my face in his chest, misery winning out over embarrassment.
“I’m sorry,” Adrian said after a moment. “I couldn’t wake you up.”
I rubbed enough tears out of my eyes to look up at him. “What?”
“You slept fine for a few hours—then I could tell.” He sounded concerned. “I tried to wake you up, but I couldn’t.”
I didn’t say anything, just held on to him as tightly as I could, the dream still vivid in my mind.
“Do you want me to take it away?”
I thought about it. “No. Not this time.” I didn’t know if that meant he’d leave, but I hoped he’d stay.
He tucked me against his side, drew the covers up, and wrapped his arms around me like he wasn’t ever going to let go. And I let him, because it was him, and because I was tired, and because, in the middle of everything, being next to him felt like the safest place in the world.
* * *
“How was quality time with Mr. Man over there?” Trish asked lightly as I closed the door to her truck. Ahead of us, Adrian pulled back onto the road. I’d wanted to show up at school in Trish’s car just in case Norah saw me and reported back to her parents that I’d come to school with the wrong person.
“It was nice.”
Trish rolled her eyes as she pulled onto the road and headed for school. “I said it once and I’ll say it again: You are the worst storyteller on the face of this planet.”
“What do you want to know?” I asked, settling back into the seat, feeling more rested than I had in days.
“Oh, I dunno; how about did you sleep with him?”
I chewed my lip thoughtfully. “Yes.”
Trish’s eyes popped open wide before she noticed the grin on my face. Her eyes narrowed. “Let me rephrase: Were you sexually active with one Adrian de la Mara on the night of the eighteenth of December?”
I smiled at her. “Nope.”
“You’re such a killjoy,” she muttered at me.
“You know, what I don’t understand is why everyone’s so interested in whether or not I have sex with Adrian. It’s not like we’re not the only couple in Stony Creek.”
Trish gave me a dry look. “Mystic, it’s Stony Creek. There’s literally nothing else to talk about.” She turned left. “Besides, I don’t think you understand how much of a thing Adrian is here. I mean, first his aunt and uncle show up out of nowhere about ten years ago and hole themselves up on the mountain and hardly ever talk to anyone in town, and then Adrian shows up out of nowhere about two years later and gets chauffeured to fifth grade in a brand-new Mercedes, and he’s this awkward, cute kid that never talks to anybody, and then high school hits and that boy turned from cute to fo
rest-fire-in-the-middle-of-a-dry-July hot and didn’t give a single girl the time of day, and then you show up and suddenly wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am, you’re together twenty-four/seven and not trying to lick each other’s faces off every five seconds—which you should be because you’re both too hot not to—so you understand if we’re all a little curious as to why.”
I stared at her. That was the longest sentence I’d ever heard in my life.
She saw the look on my face and sighed. “Let me make this simple: You and Adrian are magical strangers in the land of Stony Creek. All the dull little woodland creatures want to understand the smallest details about the magical strangers, but the magical strangers keep to themselves, thus building up their own mystery and allure. That curiosity built and built until everyone imploded, creating a black hole that sucked the entire universe into the size of an eyeball, which burned a hole right through space and dropped straight down into hell, where it was incinerated. You basically just killed everybody, Caitlin; are you happy now?”
I just kept staring at her. “I … don’t think so? But it was fun to listen to you talk. I just thought you should know that.”
Trish rolled her eyes and parked. We got out of the truck to head to first period—as usual, I sat on Trish’s left and Ben sat on her right. He was a foot taller than both of us, with short brown hair, huge arms and shoulders, and the kind of face that would look stern if it wasn’t constantly lit up with a smile. When I’d met him that first day of school, he’d looked kind of caveman-ish. As I was observing him discreetly, he reached out and took Trish’s hand in his own; neither of them looking at each other, intent on the lecture Mr. Warren was giving. They were absolutely adorable, and I felt a strange surge of happiness.
“Miss Holte?”
I jerked and looked at Mr. Warren. “Uh—transcendentalism?”
He smiled dryly. “Try ‘manifest destiny.’”
I nodded, embarrassed, and promised to pay attention the rest of class.
* * *
After that one night at Adrian’s house, I never dreamed of my dad again, although my mother was a frequent visitor in her various forms of decay. Adrian told me neither Mariana nor Dominic had ever heard of something like this, but if it was connected to their father, it must mean two things: He had, at some point, touched me, and he was currently nearby. The only thing I could think of that made sense was that the shopper dude at the mall that I’d bumped into had been him—which scared the shit out of me, because he’d seemed so normal. With the nightmares coming night after night, and with me unable to fall asleep again afterward, the lack of sleep became a consistent exhaustion that rode around with me like a second skin. Adrian couldn’t stop them, I couldn’t stop them, and there was no way to avoid them besides not sleeping in the first place, which, well, really wasn’t an option.
It was the last day of school before Christmas vacation. I jerked awake when my boots slipped off the bookshelf in the school library and I just about fell off my chair. Adrian automatically reached out a hand to catch me, and I grabbed it, heart racing, startled from the abrupt end to my nap.
He cleared his throat and released my hand. “You okay?”
“Yeah.” I felt the fatigue wash over me all over again as I laid my head on the table to stare blankly at the wall. “Just tired.”
On the opposite side of our ridiculously tiny table, Adrian lay down so he could be eye level with me. We lay in silence for almost a full minute before he finally said, “Hey.”
I responded with a monotone “yo.”
We both smiled.
He traced a scar in the table for a moment before letting his hand drop to his side. “I guess now would be a good time to tell you we’ve come up with a temporary solution, to help with the nightmares.”
I blinked at him, unable to dredge up the energy to show more enthusiasm than a sleepy “yay.” At least I smiled while I said it.
He was beginning to blush a little, so I perked up. It was always adorable when Adrian got flustered. It also usually meant something really awkward was about to happen.
“So—when you stayed at our place, I couldn’t stop the nightmare,” he began. “But you slept fine the rest of the night?”
I nodded horizontally at him, since my cheek was still glued to the table.
“We think that physical proximity to us helps sever, or at least interrupt, the connection between you and the source of the nightmares. The Council has decreed that one of us should, uh … stay with you, at night. In your room.”
I couldn’t help but let a short burst of laughter escape. Then I realized he was serious. “Wait—really?”
“Yeah,” he said, looking amazingly uncomfortable. “As far as the Council is concerned, it could be any one of my family. I convinced them I was the best choice.” He looked at me quickly. “I mean, I thought Mariana or Dominic wouldn’t exactly promote peaceful sleeping. But if you want one of them instead, or Julian, that can be arranged.”
“No,” I shook my head vigorously at him. “But how will you get in?”
He waved a dismissive hand. “Getting in isn’t a problem. Although theoretically I could be outside the house and still be effective.”
“That’s dumb—you’re not sitting outside the house.”
Adrian smiled at me softly, and it lit up his face in a way that was entirely too endearing.
“Well,” I continued, “this sounds like a recipe for amazing levels of awkwardness, but a full night’s sleep sounds fantastic.”
“Should we try tonight?”
I nodded, heart suddenly jumping into overdrive. Adrian sat up, as though he could hear it—which, I remembered, he could. I buried my face in my arm, embarrassed, but within moments I fell back asleep.
* * *
That night, the whole family watched a movie together to celebrate the start of Christmas vacation. We had hot spiced cider and gingerbread cookies and watched It’s a Wonderful Life, which I’d somehow never seen before. I fell asleep twenty minutes before the end and only woke up when Norah threw a gingerbread man’s foot at me. I ate it and announced I was going to bed.
Once I was upstairs, however, I realized that Adrian was going to appear at some point during the night. He’d said he’d come over after everyone was asleep and that I shouldn’t wait up for him, although how he’d know when everyone was asleep I wasn’t sure—another freaky vampire mind thing probably. My room wasn’t a total disaster, but I spent a good twenty minutes picking things up and spraying Febreze around the room. It didn’t smell bad in the first place, but I was paranoid. I also usually took a shower in the mornings, but I hopped in and washed my hair and double-brushed my teeth to be on the safe side. He probably wouldn’t be anywhere near me, but I had no desire to smell like anything but mint and sunshine, just in case.
I sent a text off to Adrian saying that I was going to bed, then crawled under my covers and immediately fell asleep.
And entered into one of the more horrendous dreams I’d had yet.
I was in the woods at dusk. I couldn’t see myself, but I knew I was naked and barefoot, since rocks and thorns were digging sharply into my feet. Someone was chasing me, but I didn’t know who. I didn’t know where I was going, or where I had come from, only that I had to get away, and I had to get away now.
There was a presence behind me, I could feel it, though I somehow knew—in that way you know certain things in dreams—that even if I turned around, I wouldn’t see anyone. The world strobed, like a glitching movie, information lagging. By the time my eyes caught up to my momentum, it was too late to avoid the gully that seemed to stutter into place out of nowhere. I flew out over the ledge, tumbling down the ravine. When I came to a stop at the bottom, I sat up slowly, even though my brain was urging me to run, run, for God’s sake, run! and pushed the hair out of my eyes with my hand—then screamed.
Half the flesh on my palm was gone.
I glanced down and discovered that huge rolls of skin were simpl
y missing from various parts of my body. I looked back up the hill and saw little globs of flesh sticking to the rocks that I’d hit on my way down. As revolting as it was, I didn’t actually feel any pain, and I had to move. I scrambled up the opposite bank, the soles of my feet growing bloodier with each step, losing skin, as I fought a rising tide of panic. The light was fading. But if I could reach the top before the sun was gone, I’d somehow be okay.
Of course, I didn’t.
With mere feet to go, the light abruptly shrunk back into total darkness, and the monster was upon me.
I woke up to find a hand covering my mouth, so I reacted pretty naturally—I punched the owner of the hand in the face.
There was a soft “ow,” and then, “Caitlin, it’s me.”
I stopped struggling and sat up. Adrian let go of me, perched on the edge of my bed.
“Sorry about the face thing,” he whispered. “You were starting to scream, and I didn’t want you to wake up your family.”
My racing heart didn’t seem like it was going to calm down anytime soon, so I leaned my head back against the wall and closed my eyes, trying to breathe.
“Was it bad?”
I nodded.
It was too dark in the room for me to make out anything more than his vague silhouette, but I knew it was him—it sounded like him, like what he would say. Part of me remembered the Green Thing nightmare and urged me to verify his identity, but the rest of me was too tired. Adrian settled onto a pile of throw pillows on the floor by my fireplace and waited. Knowing he was right there, I immediately dozed off.
And woke a half hour later from a second nightmare, shaking uncontrollably.
“Sh-shit,” I gasped, looking wildly around the room. “Shit.”
Adrian was instantly at my side. “What happened?”
“Another n-nightmare,” I said, teeth chattering. “What do you t-think happened?”
I was being short with him, but I was scared out of my mind. Adrian was there—I wasn’t supposed to have another nightmare if he was there. Right?
“Why didn’t it work?” I asked, clutching my arms to my chest. It was so cold. I couldn’t remember the dream at all, but I think it had something to do with hypothermia.