Nightmare (6 page)

“Let’s walk down to the beach,” Maxwell suggested.

Haley strained to look at her wristwatch. “There’s a curfew, doofus,” she said. “We’re supposed to be in our rooms in ten minutes. Besides, it’s too dark.”

“Sometimes I like to sit on the roof of our house in the dark after the whole world is asleep,” Maxwell said. “It’s the best time to think; nobody’s there to bother me.”

Haley looked interested. “Do you look up at the stars and meditate while you’re on your roof?”

“No,” he said. “I think about what it must be like to live in New York in an apartment overlooking Central Park and to take a limo to the theater where people applaud when they see me arriving.”

Haley sighed. “Come on, Em. Let’s get over to the dorm before we’re the only ones left outside.”

Emily threw a quick smile to Maxwell and hurried to follow Haley.

As soon as they were inside their room, with the door locked and lights bright, Haley leaned against the door and sighed with relief. “Whatever Loki warned about did not come to pass,” she said.

Braver now that the day was nearly over, Emily said, “That should prove that a little stone can’t foretell the future.”

Haley shook her head stubbornly, her dark hair flying. “You’re missing the point, Em. You were warned to take care, which means that Loki understood the evil that could be directed against you. Whoever was going to perform that evil, however, either changed his mind or was diverted in some way. Loki has no influence in that direction, so he can’t be held responsible for a change of plans.”

“Oh, honestly, Haley,” Emily said. “I can’t believe you’re giving so much power to a box full of stones.”

Haley flopped down on the bed and tossed her papers on the floor. “I told you, the stones are not important. It’s the Norse symbols that are painted on the stones. They could be painted on paper or clay or buttons or anything you can think of. Remember, this system of foretelling the future through runes is two thousand years old.”

As though she were speaking patiently to a child who had trouble paying attention, Haley added, “Tomorrow
we’ll pick our runes again. Whichever you draw, I’ll help you interpret it.”

“Okay,” Emily said, the easiest way of ending the conversation. Suddenly she was exhausted, ready for sleep. The sooner she finished filling out the forms and going over her schedule, the sooner she could get to bed. She chose one of the matching desks, sat down, and reached for a pen.

A short time later she was sound asleep, covers pulled over her head, while Haley was still banging drawers open and shut, trying to find her pajamas.

It was very late, with the thin moon unable to light the sky and the smothering darkness thick and heavy with summer heat, when the nightmare came. In the hush, broken only by the soft sound of breathing, Emily struggled through a tangle of damp vines, peeling from her arms and legs the wet, clinging, rotting leaves. She gasped for air as she climbed toward the opening, terrified at what she knew was coming. Unable to help herself, she screamed as she again stared into the dead eyes of the pale, bloody face.

With a gasp Emily sat up in bed, sweating, shaking, the face indelibly imprinted on her mind. Had she cried out?

In the twin bed Haley murmured and rolled over, her sleep seemingly uninterrupted.

Emily took a few deep breaths, puffing them out through open lips, willing her rapid heartbeat to slow. No one had come running, and she hadn’t awakened Haley, so the scream must have been only in her dream. She began to relax.

Through the dull glow that came through the window from the spotlights that surrounded the building,
shadows in the room began to take the familiar shapes of dresser, desks, and chairs. Emily climbed out of bed and made her way to the bathroom. Without turning on the light, she washed her face with cool water and rubbed it dry.

Now that she was fully awake, it was easier to think. Over the years the nightmare had reappeared, but not very often. Yet lately it had been hounding her. Why? she wondered. What did it mean? Who was the woman in her nightmare?

Emily rested her forehead against the cold hardness of the mirror, closed her eyes, and whispered aloud, “What do you want of me?”

There was only silence.

When the bell rang at six the next morning, Emily struggled from a sleep that clogged her brain like a thick fog and wouldn’t let go. As she brushed her hair, squinting toward the mirror, Haley squirmed past, strewing clothing to either side.

“Time to meditate and pick our runes before we go to breakfast,” she said.

“Not today,” Emily complained. “I’m not ready.”

“Of course you’re ready,” Haley said. She grasped Emily by the wrist and led her to the rumpled bed. “Sit,” she ordered.

Too tired to argue, Emily sat cross-legged on the bed.

Haley, clutching the box of runes, sat facing her. She gently shook the box, then opened it and laid it between them.

“Now close your eyes. Meditate on … um … I know. Meditate on what you hope to be someday.”

Emily closed her eyes. Her ambitions went no further at the moment than simply hoping to fully wake up, so
she didn’t even try to meditate. She allowed herself to slide off into a doze.

Her eyes flew open with a start as Haley rattled the box of stones near her nose. “I’ll go first again,” Haley said. “It’s much easier to take care of myself before I begin worrying about you.”

She drew a stone with two parallel lines slanted toward the right and seemed pleased. “Parjuk,” she announced. “He’s the rune of travel.”

“Does that mean you’re going somewhere?” Emily asked, hoping that Haley would.

“It can be interpreted in a number of ways,” Haley told her. “It might mean the shopping trip we’re taking into town this afternoon. Oh, I meant to tell you. I signed you up, too. On the other hand, it can symbolize following a new direction on the path of life.” Smugly, she added, “We’ll just see what comes about.”

She thrust the box over Emily’s head. “Draw your rune,” she ordered.

Emily raised her right hand and thrust her fingertips into the box. She pulled out the first stone she touched and held it toward Haley on her flattened palm.

Haley gasped as she stared at the stone. “Loki!” she whispered. “Not again. It’s never supposed to happen like that.”

Emily quickly dropped the stone back into the box, shaken in spite of her nonbelief. “It probably felt familiar and that’s why I chose it. It’s just silly coincidence,” she said.

“It’s not coincidence. It’s a grave warning.”

“It’s only a stone.”

“It’s a powerful rune.”

“It’s a stone.”

“It’s a warning that forces of evil are working to harm
you.” Haley hugged the box to her chest and stared wide-eyed at Emily. “We have to do something about this.”

Emily sighed. Although fortune-telling by means of little painted stones made no sense at all, she couldn’t help picking up Haley’s fear. “What can we do?” she asked.

Haley’s answer was immediate. “Find out if a
curandero
is in town.”

“What is a
curandero
?”

“It’s a person, a folk healer. Most live in the valley, but there are some in central Texas and in the Hill Country. I’ll find out. If there is a
curandero
in Lampley, I’ll know.”

Emily had no doubt about Haley’s ability to find out whatever it was she wanted to know, but she wasn’t going to allow her roommate to drag her to a folk healer without learning exactly what a folk healer might do. “What will this
curandero
do about Loki?” she asked.

“Not do about
Loki
,” Haley answered, “do about
you
.” She nodded, content with her answer. “He’ll find a way to protect you, maybe with a spell or maybe with something from his herb shop. It could be you need a purification rite or a protective charm.”

“Maybe I need to just forget your little stones and go on about my life the way it was before I heard about runes.”

Haley slid off the bed and tucked the box of runes away in the closet. “You can be as negative as you wish,” she said. “It doesn’t matter. It’s a nuisance for me, but I have vowed to protect you.”

The jangle of another electronic bell vibrated through the silence, and Emily stood, ready to leave for the dining room. The combination of the silly Loki stone and her recurring nightmare was enough to make anyone
jumpy, but Haley’s crazy idea about protection from a folk healer was too much to take. “Why can’t we just go sight-seeing and shopping in Lampley and forget about
curanderos
?” she asked.

Haley’s smile was that of someone used to getting her own way. “Let’s go to breakfast,” she responded.

First on Emily’s morning schedule of classes was a history elective with Mrs. Gail Comstock. Wary because of Mrs. Comstock’s repeated invitation to share confidences, Emily kept her distance and found a seat in the back row.

She was surprised when Taylor sat next to her and reached out a finger, twisting a flyaway tendril of Emily’s hair around it. “Did you comb it this morning?” she asked.

“Sort of,” Emily said. “I brushed it, at least.”

“Wow! It’s all over the place. It’s spectacular, actually,” Taylor said.

Maxwell stretched his long legs over both Taylor’s and Emily’s and managed to reach the seat on the other side of Emily. He plopped down, tugging his wool cap even farther over his ears. “History is a meaningless collection of dates,” he said. “Totally worthless. Does it matter if Columbus discovered America in 1492 or 1942? What matters is the present. We are here and now in the twenty-first century—what is taking place to enrich, protect, or ensure our lives today?”

“You give me a headache,” Taylor told him.

“Better me than our illustrious teacher,” Maxwell said. He looked at Emily beseechingly. “You understand, don’t you?” he asked. “How can we care—really care—about a date or a battle or a treaty? They’re meaningless moments, lost in a time we are well rid of.”

At that moment Mrs. Comstock strode into the room, her short brown hair bouncing on her neck. “Come to order, please,” she said. She took a silent roll, looking up and down the rows to find the students, then laid her roll book on a nearby chair. Emily was surprised to realize that no teacher’s desk was in the room.

“This class is not going to be a testing ground in which we see how many dates we can memorize,” Mrs. Comstock said. “Dates are convenient hooks on which we can hang our memories of events. But history is all about people—people like you and me who did things to change the world, sometimes for better, sometimes for worse. We’re going to spend six weeks learning about people and why they did the things they did. That’s history.”

Maxwell raised one eyebrow as he glanced at Emily. “This class may have potential,” he said, “
if
she means it.”

“The Longhorn Cavern is not far from here. It’s a state park that’s open to the public,” Mrs. Comstock continued. “The cavern is part of a series of caves that may stretch for hundreds of miles underground through the Hill Country and central Texas. Tomorrow we’re going on a field trip to visit the cave, but today we’re going to talk about the people who used it for their own benefit. Many years ago Comanche Indians used one of the large rooms for their council meetings. During the Civil War the Confederate army set up a manufacturing plant for gunpowder in the same large room, and later the cave was a hideout for a pretty wicked Texas outlaw named Sam Bass, who also used the cave to hide the gold he stole in train and bank robberies.”

Taylor spoke up, and Emily could hear the tremor in
her voice. “Do we really have to go down into a hole in the ground?”

“There are stairs and handrails,” Mrs. Comstock answered. “And you can walk upright for most of the way. There’s just one low stretch called Lumbago Alley.”

She laughed, but Taylor shuddered and whispered to Emily, “I don’t want to go underground. It’s like being buried alive.”

“No, it’s not,” Emily whispered back, but she could tell that Taylor wasn’t listening.

Someone in the front row raised a hand. “I’ve never been in a cave,” she said. “Will we have to fight off bats?”

Mrs. Comstock smiled. “There are a few bats and some tiny cave mice, but either they’re in hibernation or they’ll stay out of your way. There are well-defined paths and electric lighting.”

The girl gave a sigh of relief. “So the cave is perfectly safe,” she said.

“I didn’t say that,” Mrs. Comstock answered. “There are deep drops and danger spots if you stray off the paths, and slippery places you’ll be told to avoid. Follow the rules, and nothing should go wrong.”

Only if Loki stays away
, Emily thought. Startled, she scolded herself mentally for even thinking of Haley’s silly rune stones. Were the warnings going to color everything she did at this camp? Not if she could help it.

During the rest of the morning Emily attended an English course taught by Arthur Weil, who rhapsodized about the joys of diagramming sentences.

“Gross,” Haley whispered to Emily, and Emily at first agreed, but by the time Dr. Weil had begun diagramming sentences from bad movie dialogue, looking for hilarious flaws, everyone in the class was laughing.

After a couple of lines from low-budget films, he went into dialogue they’d recognize from some blockbusters. On the board he wrote, “Ben Affleck in
Armageddon
: ‘Well, we all gotta die, right? I’m the guy who gets to do it saving the world.’ ”

“He may be a star,” Haley said, “but his dialogue isn’t.”

“The writer is responsible for the dialogue in the script, not the stars,” Dr. Weil answered. “They just say the words. I’m betting that each of you can write better than many writers for movie actors do.”

He cleared his throat, then said, “I want each of you to come up with an original creative writing project. You may write a poem, a play, a detailed book report … something that is of your own creation.”

“How many words?” someone asked.

“It doesn’t matter. It just must be original and as creative and interesting as you can make it. Everyone understand?”

There was a general murmur of agreement; then Dr. Weil went on to another topic.