Visioness (3 page)

Adabelle took those dreams
that she had tugged from her aunt, holding onto the tendrils with her mind as a
child holds onto balloons filled with helium. Only these thoughts were not
drawn to the sky—they were drawn back to her aunt, back to the source. Adabelle
bound the dreams to her own mind, and then threw them away, watching them
dissipate, like mists on a wind, like memories into oblivion.

Aunt Marie shifted in her
sleep, her eyes blinking for what appeared to be the first time since Adabelle
and Charlotte entered.

“Release me!” Aunt Marie
cried. “Release me!”

Her voice was hoarse.
Adabelle’s heart leaped in her chest. Charlotte was already hovering above her
chair.

“No! I daren’t! No! I
Mustn’t!”

Then she fell still again,
her momentary spell of sleep-talking subsiding.

“She’s not doing too well
today,” Adabelle said, answering the question that she was sure Charlotte would
ask. “Those nightmares today…ugh….” She hated prying into the woman’s thoughts,
but if it helped, she would do so. “That dark figure was in them again.”

“You can call him papa, you
know,” said Charlotte.

“That one,” Adabelle
replied. In many respects, she was glad Charlotte couldn’t dream. She would
never have to suffer seeing the dark man in the top hat. Conversely, though,
she wished Charlotte could see him, that she could show her somehow, so that
she knew what he looked like. So she knew when to run. People dreamt to deal
with problems and thoughts, and the constant appearance of this man suggested
that there was something in Aunt Marie’s past involving him. Of course,
whatever problems she faced in these nightmares were entirely her own. It
wasn’t up to Adabelle to pry and solve, or share. These were private moments
some of these, and that was how they would stay.

“Let’s just be thankful he’s
dead. He used to be a Sturding you know?” Adabelle said, sighing. “He has done
some horrible things in those nightmares of hers.”

Charlotte turned, confused.
“Have you ever faced a Sturding?” she asked.

“No,” Adabelle replied, “and
I hope I never have to. Given what happened to our mother, I hope to never have
anything to do with the Sturdings or the Oen’Aerei or even a run in with Lady
Morphier. She’s weird, she is, and I would hate to ever meet her in a
nightmare.”

Charlotte shrugged, much of
what she said surely lost on her, but in a way, speaking the words out loud
helped Adabelle think more clearly. After dealing with her Aunt’s dreams, she
needed to clear her thoughts herself. She waited in that seat for another
fifteen minutes, just to be safe and sure that she was clear of the dream
buffer, before she told Charlotte it was time to go. It was only a short visit
today, as most of them were, but it gave Adabelle some peace to know she was
doing some small good. She may not have enjoyed toying with her aunt’s thoughts,
but so long as she did that, she was keeping her clear of the Oen’Aerei that
would be called in otherwise, and, by extension, their Nhyx.

She locked the door as she
left, putting the key in her pocket and nodding farewell to the nurses.

As they wandered the halls,
Charlotte asked an odd question.

“Do you ever wonder what
happened to mama?”

Adabelle, taken by shock,
stoped walking and looked down at Charlotte.

“What ever do you mean?” she
asked. “She’s dead. I’ve explained this before. Remember?”

Charlotte shook her head. “
No!
I don’t mean that. I mean, what do you think happened to her after she died?
She was like you, right? An Oen’Aerei?”

“Don’t use that word on me,”
Adabelle snapped, and then said nothing more.

“You know what I mean,”
Charlotte replied, somewhat apologetic. “Do you reckon her thoughts might still
be out there?”

“She’s only a memory now,
Charlotte,” Adabelle said. It pained her, but she was old enough to hear the
truth. It still felt odd to speak so openly with her; she seemed still only a
child in Adabelle’s mind.

You’re going to
underestimate her one day,
Adabelle thought,
and she will shock you.

“But those spheres the
Oen’Aerei use hold nightmares,” Charlotte replied. “Surely that means there’s a
chance she’s still—”

But Adabelle cut her off.
“That’s something completely different. Nightmares and people are different.
You can’t drag a memory into the real world; I can’t even drag an object out of
the Frequencies. Only Sturdings can do that, and even then there are rules.”
She didn’t mean to sound as frustrated as she did; it just seemed to slip
through.

Charlotte just shrugged,
somewhat defeated. “I was just asking.” She bowed her head and continued in
silence. She didn’t show that she was hurt at all though. That was where the
differences between them really shone. Whereas Adabelle could be fierce and
strong and occasionally selfish, Charlotte was gentle and kind and forgiving,
selfless sometimes to a fault. Despite everything that had happened to them;
despite not having parents, and having the horrible father they had learnt of,
Adabelle was still amazed at how much of a beautiful person Charlotte had grown
to become.

When the pair arrived at the
University, she was shocked to see the Oen’Aerei’s car out the front—and
judging from the sign on the door of the car, and the footman that waited
beside it, puffing a pipe, it was someone important. Adabelle paused outside
for a spell, deciding whether to avoid going inside, or whether she ought to
just face it. She quickly agreed with herself that facing her fears was
always
better than running, and charged in.

She found the entry mostly
empty, part from the receptionist, who seemed entirely caught up in the pulp
novel she was reading.

“Excuse me,” said Adabelle,
“I was just wondering what the Oen’Aerei are doing here?”

She lowered the thin novel
slightly so as to look at Adabelle.

“I don’t know,” she replied,
before raising her novel once more, returning to its pages.

Adabelle hummed and pursed
her lips out of annoyance, eyebrow raised. “Well thank you for your help,” she
said, walking away.

I don’t know why they still
have her here,
she thought.
So unhelpful.
She took that as a sign not to
pry and went about her business.

She left Charlotte to her
own devices for the remainder of the morning to keep herself busy. For the time
being, she settled herself down in one of the music rooms, taking up her
violin, and spent the middle of the day up until lunchtime practising.

The violin had been her
favourite pastime since she was only 8. She’d struggled at the start, her
fingers too thin and weak to reach the strings, but over time she had improved,
eventually taking lessons with one of the professors at the University.
According to most people, she was rather good at playing. She usually found herself
disagreeing with them, but deep down she knew she had enough ability to be able
to play most songs with a single look at the page of music. Reading it was as
easy as reading words—sometimes easier—the musical notation as familiar as the
alphabet.

The piece she played today
was an old one called
The Dreamer’s Lullaby.
It was her favourite, and
when in the mood, she would have Charlotte sing, too. Out of the two of them,
Charlotte was most definitely the one born with the singing voice. Adabelle
knew she had some small ability, but she could never sing and play at the same
time.

As she played it thought,
she thought the words.

The Dreamer lays down into
bed,

The quiet sleeper rests her
head,

The darkness guides, the Dreamer
led,

And then she finds she flies.

Through the clouds, she
drifts, she floats,

Free as dancing, high as
hopes,

The fetters appear,
reality’s ropes,

A world so full of lies.

The words went on like that
for some time, each verse from there revealing another part of this Dreamer’s
dream, falling into the minor key when she fell into the world of nightmares.

The monsters creeping in the
dark,

The Darkler Nhyx, the
Dreading Thark,

They close in tight; they
make their mark,

And then, the bright dawn’s
rise.

As she played she found her
frustrations and worries slip away, like the tide of a vast ocean.

She finished the piece, the
final note of the coda a whisper on the violin, the note rich and deep. Mostly,
she liked that song for its variations of major and minor key—it was so rare to
find a lullaby that dipped into the melancholy—but she also liked how similar
it was to Dreaming. When in the mind of another, one would never have true
control. At any moment, the dream could go bad, the monsters caught in a
person’s mind’s deepest recesses suddenly unleashed. It was a way to experience
the dream, for her, without having to actually enter the risk of the event.

Once finished practice, she
locked up her violin again, heading down for lunch, where she found Mrs. Abeth.
The Oen’Aerei were gone, thankfully.

“I saw the Oen’Aerei were
here earlier,” said Adabelle, whispering just in case people weren’t meant to
know. “What were they doing?”

Mrs. Abeth patted her lips
with her napkin, dapping away the sauce from the sandwiches. “I’m not really
meant to tell students,” she paused, “but then you’re not really enrolled now,
are you.”

“No I’m not,” said Adabelle,
chuckling quietly to herself.

“Well in that case I’ll tell
you, but you’re not allowed to pass it on. Okay?”

Adabelle nodded. “I promise,
not a soul.” She sat her own sandwich down on the plate, taking a sip from her
water glass.

“Very well,” Mrs. Abeth
said. “It seems to me that there was a Nhyx attack last night.”

Adabelle was suddenly very
glad she hadn’t any sandwich or water in her mouth now, for she would have spat
it out for the shock that shook her just then. “Are they sure?” she asked. It
didn’t seem entirely surprising, really, what with those nightmares last night.
But Nhyxes normally didn’t attack in dormitories. They kept to lonely old widows,
or children left alone in the house, simply because it was easier attacking a
lonely, unprotected mind. When many people were asleep, they could pass from
mind-to-mind, but usually the good dreams of those within the vicinity of the
Nhyx would be enough to fight it off before it could do anything.

“Did it cause any…err…
damage?” asked Adabelle.

“Not really,” Mrs. Abeth
said, “but the poor girl was quiet shaken. Seems to me like there’s no
permanent mental damage, she seems a little shocked. The Oen’Aerei were quick
to be notified and the nightmare removed by one of the Dreamers. But she will
be in respite for about a week.”

Adabelle bit her lip. “A
week? That hardly seems like a
mild
attack.” She didn’t mean to sound so
cynical, but it was, in truth, quite a long while to be in convalescence.

“It’s mild in comparison to
what could have happened,” Mrs. Abeth replied rather bluntly. “I mean, when we
consider how it
could
have ended….”

“True,” Adabelle replied,
dipping her head slightly, ashamed of what she said. “Do we know who it was?”

The woman hesitated a
little, taking in a deep breath before answering. “It was Larraine,” said Mrs.
Abeth. “Your cousin.”

“Larraine?” she asked.

“Indeed,” she replied.

Larraine was Aunt Marie’s
daughter, and Aunt Marie was Adabelle’s mother’s sister. People sometimes
confused Larraine for Adabelle’s sister, which was not entirely surprising
given how much Adabelle thought they looked alike. If Charlotte were only a
little older, a little taller, then she was sure they’d look like triplets.
Larraine was technically a member of the Oen’Aerei, thought not an extremist,
which made it even more shocking that she could have been attacked by a Nhyx,
considering how good Dreamers were at protecting themselves. She only dabbled
in the dreaming arts, occasionally going to classes at the Halls of the
Oen’Aerei. It wasn’t complete immersion, but it was enough that Adabelle was
nearly always concerned about her cousin’s safety.

And now she had been
attacked.

She would have to tell
Charlotte sometime soon, not that she worried. Never being able to dream meant Charlotte
was safe from Nhyxes, so long as they stayed within the frequency of the
dreams. It was odd that Charlotte couldn’t dream, considering the rest of her
family were Dreamers. Even odder was that she never had nightmares either. Her
sleeping was always silent and dark and peaceful. Adabelle often envied her
sister for this odd gift. With all the nightmares she suffered though, some of
those dreams that came were heaven. Dreams where she met with her mother and
talked life, dreams where she and her sister were able to live happy. Dreams
where she’d had a different father to the one with which she’d had to suffer.