NOCTE (Nocte Trilogy #1) (5 page)

QUINQUE

The
rain might make Oregon beautiful, but at times, it’s gray and dismal.
 
The sound of it hitting the windows
makes me sleepy, and itch to wrap up in a sweater and curl up with a book by
the window.
 
At night, when it
storms, I dream. I don’t know why. It might be the electricity of the lightning
in the air, or the boom of the thunder, but it never fails to trigger my mind
to create.
 

Tonight, after finally falling asleep, I
dream of
him.

The dark-eyed stranger.

He sits by the ocean, the breeze ruffling
his hair.
 
He lifts his hand to
brush his hair out of his eyes, his silver ring glinting in the sun.
 

His eyes meet mine, and electricity
stronger than a million lightning bolts connects us, holding us together.
 

His eyes crinkle a bit at the corners as
he smiles at me.
 

His grin is for me, familiar and
sexy.
 
He reaches
for
me, his fingers knowing and familiar,
and he knows just where to touch
me, just where to set my skin on fire.
 

I wake with a start, sitting straight up
in bed, my sheets clutched to my chest.
 

The moonlight pouring onto my bed looks
blue, and I glance at the clock.
 

Three a.m.

Just
a dream.

I curl back up, thinking of the stranger,
and then condemn myself for my ridiculousness.
 
He’s a stranger, for God’s sake.
 
It’s stupid to be so fixated on him.

But that doesn’t stop me from dreaming
about him again.
 
He does different
things in my dreams.
 
He sails, he
swims,
he
drinks coffee.
 
His silver ring glints in the sun each
time, his dark eyes pierce into my soul like he knows me.
 
Like
he knows all about me.
I wake up breathless each time.
 

It’s a bit unnerving.

And
a bit exciting
.

After two such nights of fitful sleep,
rain and strange dreams, Finn and I kneel in front of plastic storage boxes,
sorting through stuff from my closet.
 
Piles of folded clothes surround us, like mountains on the floor.
 
Rain pelts the window, the morning sky
dark and gray.
 
 

I hold up a white cardigan.
 
“I don’t think I’ll need many sweaters
in California, will I?”

Finn shakes his head. “Doubtful. But take
a couple, just to be safe.”

I toss it into the Keep pile.
 
As I do, I notice that Finn’s fingers
are shaking.
 

“Why are your hands shaking?” I stare at
him.
 
He shrugs.

“Don’t know.”

I eye him doubtfully, so used to watching
him for any sign for any sign of a problem.
 
“Are you sure?”
 

He nods.
 
“Quite positive.”

I let it go, even though it makes me
uneasy.
 
If I don’t shield Finn from
distress, he could have an episode.
 
Obviously I couldn’t shield him from
losing mom, but I do my best to protect him from everything else.
 
It’s a heavy thing to shoulder, but if
Finn can carry his cross, I can certainly carry mine.
 
I unfold another sweater,
then
toss it in the Goodwill pile.
 

“After mine, we’ll have to do yours,” I
point out.
 
He nods.

“Yeah. And then maybe we should do
mom’s.”

I suck in a breath.
 
While I would like nothing more, just in
the name of moving forward, there’s no way.
 

“Dad would kill us,” I dismiss the idea.

“True,” Finn acknowledges, handing me a
long sleeve t-shirt for the Keep pile.
 
“But maybe he needs a nudge.
 
It’s been two months.
 
She
doesn’t need her shoes by the backdoor anymore.”

He’s right.
 
She doesn’t need them.
 
Just like she doesn’t need her make-up
laid out by her sink the way she left it, or her last book sitting face down to
mark its page beside her reading chair.
 
She’ll never finish that book.
 
But to be fair to my dad, I don’t think I could throw her things out
yet, either.
 

“Still,” I answer.
 
“It’s his place to decide when it’s
time.
 
Not ours.
 
We’re going away.
 
He’s the one who will be here with the
memories.
 
Not us.”

“That’s why I’m worried,” Finn tells me.
“He’s going to be here in this huge house alone.
 
Well, not alone.
 
Surrounded by dead bodies and mom’s
memory.
 
That’s even worse.”

Knowing how I hate to be alone, and how I
especially hate to be alone in our big house, I shudder.

“Maybe that’s why he wants to rent out
the Carriage House,” I offer.
 
“So
he’s not so alone up here.”

“Maybe.”

Finn reaches over and flips on some
music, and I let the thumping bass fill the silence while we sort through my
clothes.
 
Usually, our silence is
comfortable and we don’t need to fill it.
 
But today, I feel unsettled. Tense. Anxious.

“Have you been writing lately?” I ask to
make
small-talk
.
 
He’s always scribbling in his journal.
 
And even though I’m the one who’d gotten
it for him for Christmas a couple years ago, he won’t let me read it. Not since
he showed it to me one time and I’d freaked out.
 

“Of course.”

Of
course.
It’s
pretty much all he does.
 
Poems,
Latin, nonsense…
you name it
,
he
writes it
.
 

“Can I read any of it yet?”

“No.”

His answer is definite and firm.
 

“Ok.” I don’t argue with that tone of
voice, because honestly, I’m a bit nervous to see what’s in there now anyway.
 
But he does pause and turn to me.

“I don’t think I ever said thank you for
not running to mom and dad.
 
When
you read it that one time, I mean.
 
It’s just my outlet, Cal. It doesn’t mean anything.”

His blue eyes pierce me, straight into my
soul.
 
Because I know I probably
should’ve
gone to them. And I probably
would’ve, if mom hadn’t died.
 
But I
didn’t, and everything has been fine since then.
 

Fine.
 
If I think hard enough on that word, then it will be true.
 

“You’re welcome,” I say softly, trying
not to think of the gibberish I’d read, the scary words, the scary thoughts,
scribbled and crossed out, and scrawled again.
Over and over.
 
Out of all of it, though, one thing
stood out as most troubling. One phrase.
 
It wasn’t the odd sketches of people with
their eyes and faces and mouths scratched out, it wasn’t the odd and dark
poems, it was one phrase.
 

Put
me out of my misery.
 

Scrawled over and over, filling up two
complete pages.
 
I’ve watched him
like a hawk ever since.
 
He smiles
now, encouraging me to forget it, like it’s just his outlet.
 
He’s fine now.
 
He’s
fine.
 
If I had a journal, I’d
scrawl
that
on the pages, over and
over, to make it true.
 

“Hey, I’m going to go to Group again
today.
 
Do you want to come
with?
 
If not, I can go myself.”

This startles me.
 
He normally only goes twice a week.
 
Have I missed something?
 
Is he worse?
 
Is he slipping?
 
I fight to keep my voice casual.
 

“Again?
 
Why?”

He shrugs, like
it’s
no big deal, but his hands are still shaking.
 

“I dunno.
 
I think it’s all the change.
 
It makes me feel antsy.”

And shaky?
 
I don’t ask that though.
 
Instead, I just nod, like I’m not at all freaked out.
 
“Of course I’ll go.”

Of course, because he needs me.
 

An hour later, we’ve walked down the
hallways filled with our mother’s pictures, past her bedroom filled with her
clothes, and are driving to town in the car she bought us.
 
We both pointedly avoid looking at the
place where she plunged over the side of the mountain.
 
We don’t need to see it again.
 
 

Our mother is still all around us.
 
Everywhere.
 
Yet nowhere.
 
Not really.
 

It’s enough to drive the sanest person
mad.
 
No wonder Finn wants extra
therapy.

I leave him in front of his Group room,
and watch him disappear inside.

I take my book to the café today for a
cup of coffee. I’ve grown accustomed to the rain making me sleepy since I’ve
lived in Astoria all my life. But I’ve also learned that caffeine is an
effective Band-Aid.
  

I grab my cup and head to the back,
slumping into a booth, prepared to bury my nose in my book.
 

I’m just opening the cover when I feel
him.
 

I
feel
him.

Again.
 
  

Before I even look up, I know it’s
him.
 
I recognize the feel in the air, the
very palpable energy.
 
I felt the
same thing in my dreams, this impossible pull.
 
What the hell?
 
Why do I keep bumping into him?

When I look up, I find that he’s seen me,
too.
 

His eyes are frozen on me as he waits in
line, so dark, so fathomless.
 
This
energy between us… I don’t know what it is.
 
Attraction?
 
Chemistry?
 
All I know is, it steals my breath and
speeds up my heart.
 
The fact that
he’s invading my dreams makes me crave this feeling even more. It brings me out
of my reality and into something new and
exciting,
into something that has hope and life.

I watch as he pays for his coffee and
sweet roll, and as his every step leads him to my back booth.
 
There are ten other tables, all vacant,
but he chooses mine.
 

His black boots stop next to me, and I
skim up his denim-clad legs, over his hips, up to his startlingly handsome
face.
 
He still hasn’t shaved, so
his stubble is more pronounced today.
 
It makes him seem even more mature, even more of a man.
 
As if he needs the help.

I can’t help but notice the way his soft
blue shirt hugs his solid chest, the way his waist narrows as it slips into his
jeans, the way he seems lean and lithe and powerful.
 
Gah.
 
I yank my eyes up to meet his.
 
I find amusement there.
 

“Is this seat taken?”

Sweet
Lord.
 
He’s got a British accent. There’s
nothing sexier in the entire world, which makes that old tired pick-up line
forgivable. I smile up at him, my heart racing.
 

“No.”

He doesn’t move.
 
“Can I take it, then? I’ll share my
breakfast with you.”

He slightly gestures with his gooey,
pecan-crusted roll.
 

“Sure,” I answer casually, expertly
hiding the fact that my heart is racing fast enough to explode. “But I’ll pass
on the breakfast.
 
I’m allergic to
nuts.”

“More for me, then,” he grins, as he
slides into the booth across from me, ever so casually, as though he sits with
strange girls in hospitals all of the time.
 
I can’t help but notice that his eyes
are so dark they’re almost black.