I’m losing it…I’m finally starting to lose my mind.

“Get her some water,” Isaac demands the servant, but I object.

“I don’t need any water; I’ll be alright.”

I’ll never be alright.

I see Isaac nod intently at the servant and she bows and heads down the stairs anyway.

“We’ll stay here tonight, okay?” he says, moving the loose hair out of my face and tucking it behind my ear.

I raise my eyes to his and don’t hold back the reluctant expression. “I don’t know, Isaac…” I glance over at Aramei as she lies quietly on her side in the comfort of her bed.

Isaac puts my face in his hands. “I’ll make you a bed. Right now. And you can sleep this off and we’ll go home in the morning.” He kisses my forehead, letting his lips sit pressed against it for a long moment and then he looks at me again.

“I want to stay up here with you.”

“No,” he says resolutely. “You’re going to bed.”

“But where will you be?”

“I’m not going anywhere. I’ll go to bed with you down there on the couch. Eva can stay up here with Aramei.”

I’m not going to argue with him about staying. I knew when we came here that we’d probably be here for a few hours and that as late as it already was when he picked me up, that spending the night here was likely anyway.

I just wasn’t prepared for it.

Seeing Aramei the way she is, seeing again firsthand exactly how I’m going to be, is one thing. But spending more than a couple of hours in her presence, trying to sleep with her practically in the same room, that’s not exactly what I had in mind.

I’m assuming the auburn-haired servant is Eva. She comes back up the stairs with a glass of water and hands it to me. I thank her and she waits for Isaac’s nod of approval before she goes back over to Aramei.

It was a good idea. I drink the water down so fast that I feel like I just can’t drink enough.

Isaac has a few more words with Eva before he takes me with him downstairs and makes us a bed on the couch. There are plenty of fresh pillows and clean linen that the servants had for Aramei’s use, so sleeping on the old, dusty couch isn’t so bad. Isaac orders all of the servants to sleep upstairs and I’m glad for this because it would be weird lying on a couch with about a dozen people scattered about in pallets on the floor all around us.

The couch is small, but Isaac and I lay comfortably with me facing him, curled up against his chest with my head tucked underneath his chin. All of the lanterns have been snuffed out leaving the cabin dark and it’s so incredibly quiet that I can hear the insects outside and the sound of that rushing water nearby falling relentlessly over rocks. It’s almost too quiet; if I didn’t already know they were everywhere, I never would have guessed that there were so many servants and guards inside and around this cabin.

The steady sound of Isaac’s breathing lulls me to sleep. And I know I’m dreaming now because I’m partially aware of this urgency to wake up. I lift away from Isaac’s arms to see the front door of the cabin close softly and from the window I watch a figure with quiet, silky movements glide down the steps. I get up to follow, leaving Isaac in a deep sleep on the couch. I’m only dreaming. Nothing about this feels real, all except for that part of my subconscious that tells me I should push forward.

I slip outside into the night. The forest landscape is bathed by moonlight and a dark blue hue. There isn’t a sign of a werewolf anywhere and in this dream I look behind me at the old cabin to see that it’s no longer a cabin, but the entrance to a cave. But I don’t think any more about it and I follow Aramei’s angelic figure making its way through the trees out ahead; the thin, white gown that covers her is blowing against the trees as she passes between them.

She’s standing at the edge of the river. A waterfall rolls and tumbles into the river below, but it sounds so soft, softer than it should sound if any of this were real.

I walk toward Aramei and she keeps her back to me. The wind combs gently through her hair and pushes the see-through fabric of her gown against her petite, hourglass form.

She turns only her head and the silky light-colored hair blows against the side of her cheek. She is so hauntingly beautiful.

“You see me,” she says in a whisper, yet it sounds as though she’s standing right next to me. “Don’t shut your eyes.”

I wake up with a jolt, hearing the sound of Eva’s voice coming down the stairs.

“She’s gone, Milord!”

Isaac stirs awake behind me and I’m still trying to get my head together.

Eva rushes around the couch and stops dead cold, looking down at me and toward the floor. Her eyes look to and from me and Aramei, who is asleep sitting up on the floor next to me with her head lying against the couch.

“Milord….”

Isaac rises up fully and helps me over to one side of the couch without waking Aramei up. He and Eva look at one another as if some kind of miracle has been performed.

“How did she get down here?”

Isaac goes into a stand, but I stay where I’m at, completely dazed by what’s happened.

“I-I don’t know, Milord,” Eva says nervously and I can tell that she’s no stranger to certain kinds of punishments where Aramei’s safety is concerned.

But Isaac is not Trajan and he easily reminds her of this.

“It’s okay, Eva,” he says and looks back at me and then down at Aramei who still hasn’t stirred. There’s so much going on inside his mind right now that it shows all over his face.

“I will take her back upstairs,” Eva says approaching Aramei.

Isaac stops her and lifts Aramei into his arms and carries her up instead. Eva scurries closely behind him, glancing back at me with that look in her eyes; that stunned, mystified look.

When Isaac comes back down he takes my hand.

“We need to go,” he says, though his voice is distant.

We leave within minutes. The early morning sun has risen fully and it’s a beautiful, perfect day, but I can’t think of anything on the drive home but what happened.

And Isaac and I hardly speak.

I can’t bring myself to tell him my thoughts, and maybe Isaac is just as afraid of his. We both settle with Aramei must ‘like’ me, which I guess doesn’t seem so impossible. She may be oblivious to this world, but she sometimes seems to recognize Trajan, so maybe it’s not so unbelievable that something like this could happen.

Of course, I’m not totally buying it, either.

21

ISAAC DROPS ME OFF at home and I sleep a few hours longer before heading to work with Beverlee at Finch’s Grocery. And when I get home later in the afternoon, I find myself desperate for something to do. Something normal.

So, I spend the next twenty minutes unpacking my stuff from Portland and then I take a shower. I gather all of my dirty laundry and take it in the laundry room to start a load. Pushing up on my toes to reach the shelf over the washing machine where Beverlee keeps the detergent, I notice a small folded stack of my sister’s clothes, covered by a thick layer of dust and dryer lint from sitting there so long. I think of Alex for a moment, lost in glimpses of her smiling face that only manages to depress me. I jerk the detergent down and fill up the cap, pouring it into the washing machine. After I twist the cap back on, I shove the container against Alex’s clothes, pushing them farther back onto the shelf and out of sight.

While cleaning the lint catcher from the dryer so I can start the load Beverlee had left in the washer, I hear Uncle Carl’s wheelchair moving across the porch and back into the house, the screen door closing hard against the back of his chair.

“Who is it?” I hear him say to Beverlee and I start the dryer and walk back out into the hall.

But as I get closer to the kitchen, I slow my steps because something about Uncle Carl’s voice seems different and I want to listen.

“It’s about Rhonda,” I hear Beverlee say my mother’s name and I stand off to the side, hidden by the shadows of the hallway. Beverlee hands the cordless phone to Uncle Carl. “Yes,” he nods listening to the person on the other end of the phone. “Yes, thank you for calling to let us know.”

My heart is beating really fast and my face is getting hotter, but it has nothing to do with my episodes—what’s happened to my mom?

I hear the phone beep off as Beverlee places it back inside the charger.

I fly the rest of the way around the corner, staring at them both with a look of total desperation. “What’s wrong with my mom?”

Uncle Carl looks at Beverlee first and then back at me. “She’s in the hospital,” he says to both of us. “Some kind of accident—that was some friend of hers, Janice Bentley, on the phone.”

Janice Bentley was our next-door neighbor who has about a hundred cats.

I move into the kitchen. “Well is she okay?”

“She was hurt pretty bad but they expect her to make a full recovery. Mrs. Bentley said she would be in the hospital for several more days.”

“I’m going,” I say as if it’s final and start toward the stairs.

“Adria!” Beverlee says running out of the kitchen. She stops me before I make it up the first step. “What do you mean?”

I suck in a deep breath. “I have to see her, Aunt Bev. My mom wasn’t in an accident. Jeff did this to her. I can guarantee it.”

“You’re not going to Georgia,” Uncle Carl says from the kitchen. “I don’t want you anywhere near that man. He’s the reason you’re here, remember?”

I move away from the steps and back into the kitchen light. Beverlee places her hand on my shoulder from behind.

“Please Uncle Carl,” I say, looking down at his worried face from the wheelchair. “I’m old enough to be able to handle things on my own. This is my mom!” I’m not trying to yell at him, I’m just distraught and he knows this.

Beverlee’s hand gently squeezes my shoulder.

“Let her go,” Beverlee says standing beside me now. “I think she’ll be fine. She’s very responsible.”

“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” Uncle Carl says and at this point I feel like I’m going to have to pull an Alex and just leave. “Why don’t you go with her?” he says, looking hopefully at Beverlee.

“No—look, Uncle Carl,” I say, stepping up, holding out my hands, “Aunt Bev needs to hang around here. You haven’t been home long. I can handle myself, I’m not twelve.” I didn’t mean for that last part to sound so snippy, but it came out that way. I’m just really apprehensive. My face falls and I try to fix it. “I’ll only go to the hospital. Not like Jeff will risk doing anything to me there in front of people. Besides, he’s a coward and to be honest, I’m not the slightest bit afraid of him and he knows it.”

Uncle Carl sighs and looks off toward the den.

“Maybe get Isaac to go with you,” Beverlee suggests, hoping that might help ease Uncle Carl’s mind. “Or even Harry.”