Entangled Summer (11 page)

Before the offices had even opened I was waiting for Grace on the front steps. She didn’t greet me. In fact she didn’t even look surprised to see me. We weren’t scheduled to have our next session for another two days. Yet she calmly unlocked the door and opened it to let me in. It wasn’t until she’d turned on the lights, hung up her sweater and sat at her desk that she took a good look at me. A cloud passed over her eyes, the kind of fear you see in a mother’s eyes. One filled with worry and regret and panic. Then it passed.

I perched on the edge of the oak chair, and gripped the armrests. With a glance at my white knuckle hold she offered a rare understanding smile. It was as if our last encounter hadn’t even happened. She didn’t even look disappointed in me. And she always looked disappointed in me.

“Tell me what happened.”

“Why do I feel like you already know.”

“I have an inkling, but I’d like to hear it from you.”

I leaned back and washed my hands over my face, wincing as I brushed over the bruise. This whole camp experience was starting to mess with my sanity. First I’m hired to teach puppetry at Hogwarts camp for mystical rich kids, then I find out I’m just like them, and now... the guy I’ve been dreaming about since my freshman year, suddenly appears in front of me. In the forest. There was no amount of therapy on the planet that could undo that kind of trauma. Words completely failed me.

She pushed back her chair after my lengthy silence and headed for the table under the window. “Tea?” she held up a hand-painted pot.

I nodded absently.

Only once she’d returned and handed me a steaming cup of what smelled like chamomile did I finally look up at her.

“He’s here.” I said, my voice sounding gravelly and thick with emotion. I felt the loss of him as painfully as I felt it in my dreams. Like a hole had been dripped into my chest, a cavity no amount of counseling or distraction could possible hope to fill.

“Darcy,” she nodded. “Where did you see him?”

It struck me that she wasn’t even surprised by this fact. But then why would she be? She was the one who’d told me it would happen. She’d insisted he was real all along, while I’d insisted she was crazy. Apparently I was the crazy one for believing that dream guys were supposed to stay in your dreams, not stroll out into your waking world.

“What does this even mean?” I asked, before taking a sip. My hands trembled slightly as I set down the cup.

Settling into her leather chair, she leaned forward.

I waited all of half a second for her to say something before I started talking again. “I was attacked. By someone in my
dream
. How is that even possible? I know I know.
Everything
is possible, but how... why?” I shook my head. “Why would he do this? He’s not like my father. At least he never was before. Not once.” I finally stopped my caffeine fueled rant to take a breath. And realize what I’d just said. I had no memory of my father, and yet, I’d compared Darcy’s violence to his. I pressed my hand to my forehead and closed my eyes briefly.

I opened them to see her mouth drawn into a tight line. “I warned you this was possible. The man in your dreams is not what you think. Not who you see him to be. He’s dangerous. I needed for you see that for yourself Nora. My daughter used to wake with marks all over her body from their assaults. Before—”

“And she
went
with them?” My voice pitched higher. “She still chose, an eternity of dream abuse after waking up with real bruises?”

“They are skillful like that. They’ll play tricks with your mind. Lure you into believing what they want you to believe. If it suits their purpose. Sometimes though, they slip up. When they feel like your real world is breaking though. Which I suspect is what happened with you. Tell me,” she flipped on her tablet and tapped in the date. “What was different about this dream? Was anyone else there with you this time?”

I closed my eyes, at first not wanting to remember, but forcing myself to. Well there were flowers, a dozen red roses, which wasn’t so strange. But then we were in a cemetery, which was weird. Standing in front of my parent’s grave. I shuddered, recalling the dripping blood. Darcy was looking at me in the way he usually does. And then he wasn’t. And it was—” I looked up at Grace then looked away. “It was someone else.”

She angled her head, her stylus poised midair. “Someone else?”

“Yes, like his face morphed into another person’s.”

“Someone you know,” she nodded.

“Yes someone I know.” I bristled. Not being able to keep anything private anymore was still a sore point.

Grace leaned back. “Alright. Then that is actually good Nora. You’re forming a connection here in the real world. One that is stronger than the one you have in your dream world.”

I nodded blankly, not really understanding a word she was saying. I was tired, so tired. And I just wanted it all to end.
What do I have to do to end it?
Darcy had hit me, he was angry and violent and dangerous. Like my father had been. And this needed to end. I was at his mercy every time I fell asleep. It wasn’t like I could just stay away from him. By doing what exactly, gobbling uppers and Red Bulls. Eventually I’d fall asleep. Who knows what would happen when I did. Tears welled up behind my eyes.

“There is more you need to know Nora. Listen to me carefully. You wake up in your story before the end can reach you.”

“I know what the end is.” My voice escalated. “I’ve dreamed it a thousand agonizing times. It ends with the man I loved dying in my arms over and over again.” I couldn’t stop the tears this time— they streamed uncontrollably down my face. Tears for someone I didn’t believe was even real.

“No.” Grace stepped toward me but then stopped when she saw me flinch. “That's where you wake up each night. It ends with you lying dead next to him, in a pool of your own blood.”

I swiped my nose with the back of my hand with a pathetic sniffle. This was crazy. How can you possibly know this?

“I've seen it. Your story. My daughter's story. And so many others. How do you think we select the candidates we choose to come to this academy? They each have a story, a life from which they need saving.”

“And you are their savior,” I half laughed. I was lashing out and I didn't really know why, other than she'd forced me out of my comfortable numbness and I hated her for it. I hated them all right now.

“Nora. You're scared. And you're overwhelmed and you’re angry. I understand that, but you could not have come to us unless some small part of you was asking for help.”

“I don't need your help.”

“Yes you do. And you will continue to need it until one of two things occur.” She held up two fingers, her expression darkening. “You end your dream life with the monster you think you love, or it ends yours. There are no other outcomes here. I am offering you the first, if you'll allow it.”

I drew in a staggered breath. The tears stopped and I wiped both eyes with my palms, drying my hands on my thighs. I didn't believe any of it... didn't want to believe. But I also didn't want to die. Reflecting back, I'd woken up too many times with unexplainable bruises and wounds. Injuries I now know were caused by Darcy.  He wore a top hat and tails. A red ascot and carried a cane. He brought me flowers, wrote me sonnets and serenaded me under windows. And now he was trying to kill me? It made no sense. “How?” I whispered. “How can you save me?”

“As I said before. I have only the answers I've been given. My task—
our
task is to make sure you are safe. I wonder if you’d be willing to consider hypnosis. You mentioned your father. There are more memories locked inside you Nora. Releasing them just might free you from your dreams. And from this nightmare.”

“Why does my life matter so much?”

“Every life matters Nora. Yours happens to mater a great deal to many others.”

I squinted her, trying to decipher the meaning coded between her words, what she wasn't saying spoke more than what she actually said. “You mean my grandfather.”

“Among others. Yes. Let's just say we all have a vested interest in seeing you survive.”

A knot formed in my throat. She meant Troy. But why, when we'd only known each other for a short time? How could he possibly be that vested in what happened to me?

Grace almost smiled, and responded to words I hadn’t spoken out loud. “Sometimes it’s the most innocuous of encounters that entangle us the most.”

“It sounds like you’re really ready to let this go.” Grace said.

“Yes I’m ready. I don’t really care what’s in store for my future. As long as it doesn’t involve anything from my past.” I leaned forward, every inch of my body buzzing unanimously with my decision. “I need this to be over. Now. Tell me what I have to do to end this nightmare. Forever. When do we start hypnosis?”

“This didn’t just happen to you. The lives you remember, the dreams you’ve had with him, you’ve lived many lifetimes wit this man. He’s been your soul mate for centuries. But things always end the same way. In death and despair because you always choose your dream life with him. You have a connection that is so strong it defies logic reason and even love. Some call it purgatory, I call it hell. My daughter saw it as heaven, through her blood-stained glasses. I don’t want that to happen to you.”

I stood up and paced to the window and back. The early morning sun streamed in, reminding me of the day I was missing outside. But I wasn’t ready to go back, not until I had some answers.

I sat back down and leaned in. “You know, you’ve never told me how you knew this was happening to me?”

“I have a gift. A sort of physic connection to certain individuals,” she said. “I can see into their dreams and help them unravel the hold they have over their lives.”

Grace rose from her seat and moved around to my side of the desk. She perched on the edge, her legs stretched out in front of her.

“What you have witnessed time and time again in your mind isn’t your lost lover dying in your arms. It’s the demise of your former-lover after he attempted to take your life.”

One full minute went by, or at least it felt that way, before I could respond. “You’re telling me, that I have spent most of my life grieving for a man who tried to kill me in another life?” I frowned at how plausible it actually sounded, after everything that had happened. Clearly I was losing my mind if all of this was beginning to make sense. My eyes narrowed. “Why didn’t you mention that part before? It’s the kind of info you lead with, don’t you think.”

“Would it have changed anything? I doubt it. You were not ready to believe me at first Nora. Sometimes we need all of our senses in play before we accept the truths they are telling us.”

I nibbled my lip. She had a point. How many times had I felt in my gut things weren’t right with Granddad. He wasn’t eating or sleeping. Coughing late into the night, and brushing it all off as a simple cold. But I knew it was more serious, even before the test results indicated it was. I almost smelled the cancer as it started to take hold. If I hadn’t been so deep in denial, maybe I could have pushed him harder. Insisted he get treatment sooner, before things got to where they were. But... now, with this, I couldn’t ignore my feelings again.

A cold shudder rattled my insides. “But he loves me. And I used to love him.”

Her gaze softened as she saw what I wasn’t saying. “I don’t know. It was quite possibly true, that you loved one another very deeply. But there is a fine line between love and obsession. Between passion and rage. And whatever else may be true of your history, he has crossed that line.”

“Why wouldn’t I remember that he had tried to hurt me, or who stopped him.”

“Not
hurt
you Nora.” He voice sharpened to a razored point. “
Kill
you. There is a grave distinction. And I do not know why. Unfortunately there are no answers written anywhere to all of this. Each of us must unravel out own mysteries for ourselves. All I know is the information I was given. We cater toward special children, not necessarily adults, but I was told to hire you despite all signs to the contrary. Despite your obvious lack of knowledge, skill and experience, and despite your liaison with Troy.”

My face flushed. “You knew about that?”

Grace rolled her eyes. “Oh please. It was as obvious as daylight. Clearly you’d been intimate.”

I opened my mouth but she held up a hand. “I am not interested in the sordid details. Suffice to say, were you any other candidate, you would not have made it to a second interview. But here you are.”

I slumped back in my chair and briefly closed my eyes. “Yes. Here I am.”

“I no longer question how or why, only what I can do next. I learned that with my daughter and with Troy.”

Something tightened in my stomach at being reminded of her daughter and Troy. I stole a glimpse of Celeste’s photo, and noticed there was another one next to it. A duplicate of the one I’d seen in Troy’s room last year.  A crazy irrational pang of jealously sparked in me as Grace’s words filtered back into my awareness.

“You can give a parched man water, but cannot make him drink. Not even if it will save his soul. And that is ultimately what we’re battling for Nora. Make no mistake, this demon is coming for it. Stake your hold on this world and refuse to let go, no matter what.”

“No matter what.” I closed my eyes and immediately pictured Troy. He was as good an anchor as any. He was real and we had a genuine mutual connection. I loved Granddad and Kenzie, of course, and I couldn’t imagine ever willingly leaving them behind—but I could offer Troy something I’d once only trust to Darcy. My heart.

***

Those were the thoughts I left Grace’s office with, but somehow the closer I got to the theater, the more distant they became. Instead of feeling calmed by her words, I felt agitated, and stressed.

Lack of sleep can make people do crazy things. Act out in irrational ways. That’s what the small sensible voice in my head told me, as I stomped my way toward the theater where Troy was setting up.

He looked up, as though he sensed me coming, the way animals sense an impending storm. Then he dismissed the two guys working alongside him—saving them from my Bermuda triangle scale mood, and climbed to his feet.

I stormed up the steps of the stage, stopped dead in front of him and planted my fists on my hips.

I pressed my hands to my face, hiding my eyes.

“Hey, what? What’s wrong?”

I shook my head, angry words strangled in my throat.

“Don’t tell me it’s nothing.” His voice dropped to a frigid temperature. “Hey. Look at me.” Grabbing my arms, he pulled them from my face. Then he drew back with a puckered brow, when he spotted my bruise. “What the hell happened?”

Alarm rang in his words. But I was too deep in my sleep-deprived fury.

“So did Celeste like s’mores too, or was she more of a meat n’potatoes first, kind of girl.” I spat the words at him. I didn’t mean for it to come out the way it did. But visions of that picture of her in his arms had been simmering under my skin ever since I remembered it. I couldn’t hold it back.

He sucked in a sharp breath as he dropped his hands. His jaw clenched. “What did you say?” Derision dripped from his words.

“Celeste. You dated right? Engaged? You must remember
something
about her likes and dislikes before she off and jumped into her dream world. Before you pushed her into it.”

His face blanched and his hands clenched into fists at his side.

I took a step back as the full weight of what I’d said hit me like a cold slap in the face.

“Why would you say that?” His nostrils flared, and his hands tightened at his sides
.

My anger burned like I was sunbathing in hell. “I saw her picture. The one in your room remember, same as the one in Grace’s office? She told me all about why her daughter went missing. Maybe if you’d loved her more she wouldn’t have gone with her monster.”
And maybe if you loved me more you could save me from my monster.

I saw his eyes narrow, then darken with pain, and I immediately regretted everything my sleepless rant was implying. I was as good as saying I was jealous over his relationship with a girl who’d gone missing.
What is wrong with you Nora?

I clenched both hands in my hair, squeezing my eyes shut. “You know what, let’s drop it. Forget I brought it up.”

He grabbed onto my arm as I walked past him. “Nora...”

It was all he said. He let go of my arm, but it was evident he wasn’t going to drop it.

I sighed, “We don’t have to do this right now. It’s cool.” I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror backstage. Hair sticking out in every direction. My baby blue Hello Kitty jammies were inside out, and I had one pant-leg tucked into my boot and one out. I looked like someone who should be locked in a rubber room and fed through a tube. I don't even know why I’d come here really, except, everything that had happened had caused a pain in my chest that I didn’t understand, and the need to lash out and cause him pain in return. I was an absolute mess. No wonder they’d signed me up for counseling.

Troy laced his fingers on top of his head. “You have to believe I had nothing to do with her disappearance Nora.”

I nodded quickly. “I know, it’s just...”
Just what,
I laughed to myself,
just that a guy in a dream hit me and blamed you for taking his imaginary life night after night. Cause that doesn't sound crazy at all
. “I guess I didn’t like knowing she was the girl you dreamed about night after night.” I stared at the floor, kind of hoping it would open up and swallow me whole. How had I been reduced to this insecure, needy, jealous wreck? In spite of everything, I was acutely aware of how intimately entangled we’d become. Our ten week relationship had the depth and seriousness of years.

“Hey,” he lifted my chin gently, forcing me to meet his gaze. “I have never. Ever. Felt more connected to anyone than I do with you. Celeste was never the girl of my dreams. That was the problem—she wasn’t you.
”

I frowned a little. “You mean—”

“I mean I’ve been dreaming of you for years Nora. It’s like I’ve known you long before we met. And I couldn’t marry her because I knew I had to find you.” He leaned in peering deep into my eyes as my heart beat faster in my chest. His hands shifted to my shoulders and he pulled me close.

“Do you hear me Nora?” he said, giving me a slight shake.

“It. Was. You.”