Visioness (7 page)

She ran the last few metres
to the door of the wing. She burst through the door and found Larraine,
screaming in apparent agony.

Her body struggled against
the fetters that bound her to the tabletop. Nurses and doctors worked hard to
keep her down, to settle her, and prevent her from damaging herself. Larraine’s
eyes were closed tight, yet she spoke between gasps with an uncanny clarity.

“Therron!” she screamed.
“Therron!”

The straps snapped against a
sudden thrash from Larraine. Crying appeared between those screams.

“Let me go! Don’t hurt me!”

“We won’t hurt you, miss,”
said a doctor, his arms currently resting over one of Larraine’s legs.

“Oh, God,” Adabelle said,
raising her hand to her lips, biting her thumb. She could not suppress the look
of terror, or the yelp that escaped her as Larraine’s body bowed suddenly
upwards, like a bridge over a river, back bent at an impossible angle. Adabelle
swore, at the sight before her, that the girl’s back would break in that
position.

“I’m sorry, but you have to
leave,” said one of the nurses, taking Adabelle by the shoulders.

“What’s happening…what’s….”

Through the spaces between
the nurses, Adabelle saw flashes of the event. Tableaus of the terror unfolded
before her. Creased into a frozen mask of terror and agony, Larraine’s face
shimmered with sweat, a vein bulging at the centre of her forehead. The mask
then cracked and then appeared a streak of red on her cheek. First a small dot,
and then it spread, her skin slicing open, cheek-to-cheek. Her screams grew louder,
more furious, reaching for an impossible pitch.

“ADABELLE!”

The nurse stepped back. A
single word amongst what was mostly nonsense. It struck Adabelle like a hammer
to the face.

“No, let me through,” Adabelle
said, fighting tears. “Let me through!”

“Please leave,” said the
nurse, voice firm, brow furrowed.

“No! She said my name!”

“Not the time! Please
leave.”

She was pushed far enough
out of the wing to have the doors closed in her face. She growled to herself,
frustrated at her helplessness. She could do more to help! She could do
something! Larraine needed her, and she was stuck outside, forced to listen.

In a fit of frightened rage,
she curled her hands into a fist and thumped it against the door. She shocked
herself, resting her head against the wood of the door. There, she lay, eyes
closed, mouth pursed tightly, angrily.

Her cousin…Larraine was
stuck in the dream. And she couldn’t help.

She paused. Larraine wasn’t
entirely
helpless.

Adabelle ran swiftly from
the hallway, and found a small, quiet alcove nearby. She sat herself down,
closing her eyes tightly, extending the tendrils of dream, before immersing
herself in the depths of the dream frequencies.

Soon, the darkness before
her faded…or rather, it blurred. Turned to mist. Thick, white and blinding it
hung. Adabelle hesitated before it. But this was just a dream.

No,
she thought.
Not just a
dream. Father might be here.

She took her first few cautious
steps towards her cousin’s. It was not hard to find her. The boundaries of her
own dream seemed to fuzz, at which point the mists returned. It was like she
was in tune with Larraine’s frequencies long before she had actually entered
them.

In the distance, there were
two figures. One was tied to a chair, her words muffled by distance. And the
man standing above her, in a top hat. His voice was muffled, too. No, he was
whispering.

She fought the part of her
that wanted to storm ahead. She hadn’t seen him in years—and even before then,
barely at all. For that reason, she stayed silent, observant, but prepared to
act should she need to.

She sniffed, her nose
picking up the scent that had been described to her. It was exactly how she had
imagined it. It was like shaving cream, but stronger. A cough tickled its way
up her throat. It took all her self-control to keep it down.

Something sat over this
scene.

A sound.

She listened carefully.

A tune. A soft, high-pitched
lullaby, like that from a music box. It tinkled, one note after the other, a
struggling tune, seeming entirely devoid of momentum. With every note that
played, Adabelle thought the tune might end, but then another note sounded, collapse
into the next.

A distant spark, a faintly
remembered childhood told her she knew the song.

The Dreamer’s Lullaby,
she thought. It was so familiar
to her now. It seemed to draw focus towards it, away from the figures. She
heard the words in her mind, sung them to herself.

The world of thought beckons
thee,

The tendrils of mind set her
free,

And then I call you back to
me,

Even when you die.

It was her favourite line. It
had also been her mother’s.

With that phrase she
remembered what she was here for. The notion had slipped her mind. She was here
to save Larraine. She looked up, wondering how much time had passed. The two
figures were gone, and Larraine’s screaming had ended. She did not have long to
think, though, for suddenly she felt herself tugged back to her own dream, and
then tugged again back to her space in the alcove. Someone had her by the
shoulders and was shaking her.

“Adabelle,” they said. She
faintly recognised the voice. “Adabelle, come back.”

Adabelle opened her eyes,
looking up into Mrs. Abeth’s worried expression. She hadn’t any time to be
caught in the dream buffer. She hadn’t been in the Frequencies long enough to
forget where she actually was.

“What are you doing?” Mrs.
Abeth asked, voice furious.

“Larraine was in trouble,”
Adabelle replied, unable to shake the sleepiness in her voice. “Is she okay?”

“She’s fine,” Mrs. Larraine
said. “She’ll need some stitches on her cheek, and some time to rest now. She
is rather shaken.”

“Did she say anything,
though?” Adabelle begged. “Anything about my father?”

Mrs. Abeth’s mouth opened as
if in a traitorous attempt to answer. For a moment, a sound came from her. She
stopped. Adabelle knew the answer.

“I want to speak to my cousin,”
said Adabelle furiously. “I
need
to speak with her!”

Mrs. Abeth said nothing of
worth, murmuring under her breath. “Not now. She is not in any state to talk
for the time. For now, I need you to go to your room and sleep. You have a
meeting with Professor Oakley this afternoon, and I want you ready to ask all
that you can. Until then, I don’t want you speaking to Larraine. I need you to
promise you won’t.”

“I won’t promise anything,”
Adabelle said. She rose up, staring into Mrs. Abeth’s eyes for a time, glaring
with all the fervour she could muster. Despite her steadfastness to stay angry,
her expression quickly melted into one of sorrow. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Abeth.”

Mrs. Abeth extended her
arms, wrapping them around Adabelle. “It’s okay,” she whispered, stroking a
hand through Adabelle’s hair. “You’re frustrated. I understand.”

Adabelle swallowed the tears
attempting to ascend.

“What you have to do is see
Berne. He’ll be able to help. I will not let you speak to Larraine till then.” Mrs.
Abeth pushed Adabelle out of the hug, keeping her hands on her shoulders,
holding her at arms’ length. “It’s for your own good. I promise. Better you
have the tools you need, than the information that could frighten any hope of
freedom out of you.”

Adabelle nodded, wiping away
a stray tear that had forced its way to the surface.

“I’ll do that, then,” she
whispered.

“Very good, now go and rest.
You’ll need it before your meeting this afternoon.”

It didn’t make sense for her
to need sleep, but she did. She felt it in the aching of her bones, and in the
weight of her eyelids. She had only just woken up a few hours ago. Why was she
so tired suddenly? Why had only a short trip into the Dream Frequencies caused
her so much trouble?

Slowly, methodically, she
made her way back to her bedroom, set an alarm for herself on the alarm clock
beside her bed.

She closed her eyes and
slept soundly.

She awoke minutes before her
alarm went off, allowing her a small while to enjoy the softness of her bed.
She had undressed into her small clothes before laying down atop the blankets
to shut her eyes, so it was only a matter of pulling on her dress once more to
be ready.

Crossing the university’s
grounds, she passed through the Smeth Memorial Courtyard. It was a small square
of grassed area, with picnic benches and a handful of statues. Professor
Oakley’s office sat across the courtyard.

The door was open when she
arrived, so she knocked and quietly waited. He stepped out from a pile of
books, calling out, “Yes’m?”

Professor Berne Oakley was
an unusual sort of man. He was stunted, nearly a head shorter than Adabelle—and
she wasn’t very tall to begin with—with a crescent of greying-brown hair
circling the back of his head, closing with a few small wisps at the front. He
had no neck of which to speak, nor a chin for that matter, as it seemed his
head simply merged with his chest in a smooth, sweeping flap of skin. His teeth
were crooked and brown from too much coffee, but his face suggested someone who
had been much more handsome in his younger years.

He stood before her in a
grey shirt and waistcoat, his tie pulled down slightly as it could not wrap entirely
around his not-neck. He smiled pulling the door a few more inches open to allow
her in.

“Good afternoon, Adabelle,”
he said. “You’re right on time. Excellent. Please take a seat.”

He indicated to a single
lounge chair. Velvety crimson-patterned upholstery covered what appeared to be
the most indulgent chair she had ever seen. She made her way over, Professor Oakley
leaving the door open. Dust danced slowly in the beams of golden afternoon
sunlight falling through the open door, drifting on cushions of air.

“Righty-oh,” said the
professor, who seemed somewhat distracted, like his body was here in the
moment, yet his mind had wandered elsewhere and was presently distracted with
other matters. “Tell me about what troubles you, girl, and I’ll see what I can
do.” He settled down in his own seat, which looked equally as soft as her own,
and took a pen and paper from the stack beside.

She kept her eyes on the
dust as it danced about, explaining the troubles with her father. She needn’t
go into much detail of his life, as most people already knew what he was
infamous for. She did, however, have to explain in full detail what had
happened to him after he had been sealed away in the sphere. As her mind
recounted events, she looked about the room.

The desk in the corner of
the room was piled high with papers for marking, and books filled with scrawl.
Pens and nibs and jars of ink splattered the stained wood in places with black
and blue splotches. Behind that desk was a bookshelf, without an inch of space
left. Every book looked well used, and messy with marker notes, their spines
broken from constant opening and closing. From that shelf came the scent of old
books and older knowledge.

She then went on to explain
how Larraine saw Therron in her dreams, and of how she had warned her that his
precursor was the scent of his cologne. She had a theory that the song from the
music box—
The Dreamer’s Lullaby
—was a part of the precursor, too.

After she finished
explaining, Professor Berne Oakley leaned back in his chair, one hand resting
on his knee, the other rubbing his not-neck. His lips were pursed in thoughts,
his eyes glancing about the room as if the walls themselves held answers.

“Theoretically, your father
breaching the Oen’Aerei’s security is impossible. Dreams spheres were invented
to store dreams, and nightmares, so they couldn’t wander freely about the
frequencies. That place is a mess of ideas all bunched one on top of the other,
so all the horrors of people’s nightmares dwell within. The dream spheres came
from the need to store those nightmares. They’re unbreakable, unless opened
from the outside. It shouldn’t even be considered that he has escaped at all.
The only way to well and truly check would be to visit the Halls of the
Oen’Aerei and see whether the sphere that sealed him is still there. I’m sure
Lady Morphier would have every security in place to keep Count Therron sealed
away for good. But…the spheres.” For a moment he seemed to talk only to himself.
“There’s always a first time for everything. When dreams are involved,
nothing
is impossible.”

Adabelle considered his
point. It was true; the dream spheres were meant to be unbreakable. But as he
said, that was only theory. Nothing could be proven entirely until put into
practice, and no Oen’Aerei would have a desire to test the unbreakable theory
with a sphere filled with Nhyxes or nightmares.