wasn’t smiling anymore. “No, Mary. I can’t come with you. I have to stay here.”
Suddenly she was nose to nose with me at the open window, her hair floating around us like mist on the water. “Cut your strings, Jessica,” she whispered. “Cut your strings and fly!” Then she looked down at my feet and giggled.
I followed her gaze and screamed. There at my feet was my own body, crumpled on the floor, eyes glassy and empty. And then I was falling. Falling into the empty pools of those eyes, which widened into chasms, ready to swallow me whole. A door slammed shut behind me.
I woke up with a yelp as I felt my body hit the couch with that peculiar thump that starts you from a dream in which you are sure you are plummeting to your death. I looked around wildly. The room was dim with the pale, colorless light that precedes the dawn. Savvy was standing by the bathroom, one hand on the doorknob, looking sheepish.
“Sorry, mate. Closed it a little harder than I meant to.”
“I… that’s okay,” I said, a bit out of breath. I frantically patted my hands over my body. It was reassuringly solid, though clammy with cold sweat.
“You okay there?” Savvy asked, as she crossed back to the couch.
“Yeah. Just had a nightmare. A weird one. I’ll be fine,” I said.
Savvy shook her head. “It’s one nightmare after another around here, innit?”
“Truer words were never spoken, Sav,” I said. I laid back down, but sleep, a fickle friend in the best of times, did not revisit me.
§
Two days dragged by in agonizing slowness. There was never any more discussion of sending Lucida another message. In the first place, there was really nothing new to tell her; in the second place, I think my argument with Hannah about blind Summoners had shaken her confidence in using them, and though she speculated aloud what might be keeping Lucida, she never once suggested that we send one to go find out.
The knot of uneasiness in my own stomach grew by the hour, especially as the sense of health and energy I’d gained from the leeching began to fade away. Milo had taken to his own ghostly version of pacing, disappearing and reappearing over and over again in the same pattern of locations in the flat until Savvy, jumpy from her own highly-strung nerves, shouted at him to stop before she grabbed him by his hair and tossed him through the nearest open Gateway; after that, he contented himself with flickering feebly in and out of focus to channel his excess anxiety. Annabelle slept for a solid fourteen hours after she filled us in on her captivity, but her slumber was wracked with nightmares that caused her to cry out repeatedly, and she still looked drained even after she’d woken up and had her first real meal.
We were all teetering on the edge of freak out, but in no one was the stress more palpable than in Finn. He was wound so tightly I thought he might start pinging off the walls at any moment, like a little silver ball in a pinball machine. Every sound made him jump. Every movement, even from one of us, sent him springing from his chair, poised for an attack that didn’t come. He subsisted on adrenaline, a few half-hearted swallows of food, and the strongest coffee we could coax from Lyle’s battered old coffee pot. He couldn’t even write whatever he usually wrote in his shabby little black books, huddling over them for a few moments at a time before sighing loudly and shoving them back into the depths of his pockets. What he
could
do was be even more snappish and bad-tempered than usual.
It was at the very zenith of our tension, just after Finn had shouted at me for drumming my fingers on the table, and I had opened my mouth to literally release the Kraken on him, when the door to the flat burst open. Everyone screamed, and Finn leapt to action impossibly fast, which would have been impressive, except for the fact that “leaping to action” meant tackling me to the ground and shielding me with his body.
“What
Suddenly she was nose to nose with me at the open window, her hair floating around us like mist on the water. “Cut your strings, Jessica,” she whispered. “Cut your strings and fly!” Then she looked down at my feet and giggled.
I followed her gaze and screamed. There at my feet was my own body, crumpled on the floor, eyes glassy and empty. And then I was falling. Falling into the empty pools of those eyes, which widened into chasms, ready to swallow me whole. A door slammed shut behind me.
I woke up with a yelp as I felt my body hit the couch with that peculiar thump that starts you from a dream in which you are sure you are plummeting to your death. I looked around wildly. The room was dim with the pale, colorless light that precedes the dawn. Savvy was standing by the bathroom, one hand on the doorknob, looking sheepish.
“Sorry, mate. Closed it a little harder than I meant to.”
“I… that’s okay,” I said, a bit out of breath. I frantically patted my hands over my body. It was reassuringly solid, though clammy with cold sweat.
“You okay there?” Savvy asked, as she crossed back to the couch.
“Yeah. Just had a nightmare. A weird one. I’ll be fine,” I said.
Savvy shook her head. “It’s one nightmare after another around here, innit?”
“Truer words were never spoken, Sav,” I said. I laid back down, but sleep, a fickle friend in the best of times, did not revisit me.
§
Two days dragged by in agonizing slowness. There was never any more discussion of sending Lucida another message. In the first place, there was really nothing new to tell her; in the second place, I think my argument with Hannah about blind Summoners had shaken her confidence in using them, and though she speculated aloud what might be keeping Lucida, she never once suggested that we send one to go find out.
The knot of uneasiness in my own stomach grew by the hour, especially as the sense of health and energy I’d gained from the leeching began to fade away. Milo had taken to his own ghostly version of pacing, disappearing and reappearing over and over again in the same pattern of locations in the flat until Savvy, jumpy from her own highly-strung nerves, shouted at him to stop before she grabbed him by his hair and tossed him through the nearest open Gateway; after that, he contented himself with flickering feebly in and out of focus to channel his excess anxiety. Annabelle slept for a solid fourteen hours after she filled us in on her captivity, but her slumber was wracked with nightmares that caused her to cry out repeatedly, and she still looked drained even after she’d woken up and had her first real meal.
We were all teetering on the edge of freak out, but in no one was the stress more palpable than in Finn. He was wound so tightly I thought he might start pinging off the walls at any moment, like a little silver ball in a pinball machine. Every sound made him jump. Every movement, even from one of us, sent him springing from his chair, poised for an attack that didn’t come. He subsisted on adrenaline, a few half-hearted swallows of food, and the strongest coffee we could coax from Lyle’s battered old coffee pot. He couldn’t even write whatever he usually wrote in his shabby little black books, huddling over them for a few moments at a time before sighing loudly and shoving them back into the depths of his pockets. What he
could
do was be even more snappish and bad-tempered than usual.
It was at the very zenith of our tension, just after Finn had shouted at me for drumming my fingers on the table, and I had opened my mouth to literally release the Kraken on him, when the door to the flat burst open. Everyone screamed, and Finn leapt to action impossibly fast, which would have been impressive, except for the fact that “leaping to action” meant tackling me to the ground and shielding me with his body.
“What
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