Chapter 9
CHAPTER NINE
In her Seattle bedroom, Lia woke covered in sweat with a pounding headache. She supposed there were worse ways to wake up in the morning. Until, after wrenching herself free from the tangled sheets, she found a lovely gift from Fiore beside the bed. The hairball squelched between her toes.
Gross. Thanks, whiny-baby.
Lia groaned, fumbling for her glasses. The journal fell with a thud, but it was beyond her noticing. Her vision blurred as she blinked hard. Perfect. Just what she needed—worsening vision. Still, she could make out the papers strewn about from last night’s jaunt down memory lane.
Her dream rushed in and sent her swaying.
That was the thing with escaping to Norenth.
It wasn’t real, no matter how surreal these dreams were lately.
And she hated it. A soft snarl curled her lips.
But Lia didn’t have time to deal with the rising tide inside her.
Not with her family rustling about downstairs, awake and grinding on with daily life.
Her eyes burned. Taking her glasses off, she blinked hard before storming to the bathroom to shower.
Under the water’s hot spray, her body remained clammy.
What on earth did she eat yesterday to encourage such vivid dreams? Maybe the funeral catering had been bad. Or those lilies really did ooze toxin.
Normally the dream’s edges would blur, details fading before she could even get pen to paper. But now, as the water did little to dull the ache beating between her brows, she could remember the inaugural ball with startling clarity. Almost as clear as the funeral.
Grief’s raging sea stole her breath, nearly driving Lia to her knees.
She had to be fine. She couldn’t give in.
Not a tear fell, even as dry sobs heaved through her.
Her hands itched. Her eyes burned. Lia held herself tighter, a sudden roughness against her arms. She lowered her hands, watching droplets trickle along a bed of raised calluses over her palms.
Lia was hardly one for manual labor—let alone working overnight. Frowning, she traced the calluses before looking at her right hand. Her breath caught.
A scarred, silver line cut through her palm.
In her dream, she and Kayce had just reminisced on it. But that was in Norenth, a world Lia had imagined entirely. So, why was it on her hand now when she was in Washington state, having never set a physical foot in her world of fiction?
She had to be sick. Crazy. Sleeping too much. Not sleeping enough. Coming down with something. A fever dream. That had to be it, her body shivering when she left the water’s warmth. Fumbling through the medicine cabinet, Lia found some Tylenol and took two.
But upon closing the door, the reflection made her pause. Lia wiped the condensation away. Her pale skin was wane, freckles stark with dark circles under her eyes.
Figures. Sleep was complicated these days.
She touched her hair. Was it darker? Lighter?
Maybe it was just wet, but it looked different.
Lia continued her assessment, hands wandering over her shoulders, down her arms to her torso and legs.
She was generous in the curve department, but not overly so considering that her walking habits balanced her penchant for statue-like immobilization when reading. Not to mention a ravenous sweet tooth.
But underneath the gentle swells of her body, there was a hardness that she didn’t recall. Not a bad thing, but she didn’t think puberty made muscles. Moreso just redistributed fat. She wasn’t that lucky. But that wasn’t the most startling piece of her assessment.
On her thighs, pink splotches remained like healing burns. Like from fires, courtesy of a pirate’s snare.
“Lia! It’s time for school,” her mom called from the foot of the stairs.
She rubbed her eyes. Her mind was playing tricks.
Education didn’t pause for grieving periods.
At least, her history teacher didn’t, jerk that he was.
Her email likely had yet another reminder that she had plenty of work to turn in.
But where the inner motivation to excel, to perform to the height of what everyone expected of her was, only an empty void remained.
Something had sucked all her energy elsewhere.
This fever was wreaking havoc on her entire being.
Shrugging on a pair of leggings and a sweater, Lia emerged from the bathroom.
She must have been a sight, because her mom was upstairs in an instant.
Her gray eyes bounced over Lia from head to toe, mouth pinched.
“Did you dye your hair? Something looks different. Have you been sleeping?” she questioned, bringing a cool hand to her daughter’s forehead. “You’re burning up.”
“It’s just a fever, Mom. It’s been going around school. All the stress, everything going on…my body couldn’t be bothered. So, no. No dye job.” She tried to smile, but her joke fell flat.
Mom’s frown deepened. “A fever?”
“And a killer headache. Some lucid dreams.”
No one would want to get pulled into your mess. Suck it up.
“Dreams?” Mom pressed further, her eyes a fraction wider. What was with her?
Lia nodded with clamped lips, padding back to her room for her glasses. Slipping them only made the blurred vision worse. She threw them onto the bed with a sigh. “And not even my glasses are working right.”
Overnight workout, hair appointment, and vision correction. Totally signs of a second wave of puberty. Grief-induced, to be certain. Lia rubbed her face, hating the look of wary concern from her mom. Where was Nurse Mom to the rescue? Jumping into action, knowing exactly what to do?
She just looked lost. Unprepared. Losing Papa must have rocked her worse than Lia feared.
“Lia—” Mom began.
“I’ll be fine, I just need a day.” Lia took one look at the rumpled sheets and scrunched her nose. “I can stay home, right?”
Her mom bit her lip, looking like she needed to question more before letting the issue drop with a nod.
Gathering the tangled sheets from the bed, Mom headed back downstairs with Lia trailing behind.
Marcus sat at the kitchen table, a fluorescent yellow cereal box with an elderly sailor smiling in uniform before him.
Captain Luddeck would never smile over breakfast like that, especially after the last time she saw him. His tanned cheeks had reddened to the point that Lia thought the blood vessels in his eyes would burst—
Lia stopped short. That was a random mental tangent. Since when did she reminisce about her fictional adventures like they’d happened yesterday? She needed to get her head on straight.
“There’s more casserole in the fridge, chicken and broccoli, I think? There’s a couple frozen ones, too. Mirel brought a lasagna.” Their mom was bustling around the kitchen, her blue scrubs crisp.
“What is it about funerals that make people want to give casseroles?” Lia muttered, brushing off her wayward memories and taking the laundry from Mom to toss into the washer.
“It’s a thoughtful gesture. People don’t want to cook when they’re grieving. Or after giving birth, ironically.”
“What a grim combination,” Lia said.
The television was on in the next room, the news anchor’s voice filtering in. “In other breaking news, a rabid animal escaped from a local research facility. The public is asked to remain alert, and if anyone sees an animal exhibiting signs of rabies, please call the animal control hotline.”
Their mom paused. She headed for the living room, abandoning her morning routine.
Lia hardly paid attention, peering into the freezer. “Nice of the bingo league to give us some food. Think it’ll take long to defrost?”
“In market news, the stock market shares for ImaginX have doubled since last week as their newest product, the MemoryBank, hits the shelves just in time for the pre-holiday—”
The television cut off.
“Mom, can I get a MemoryBank?” Marcus asked, putting his bowl in the sink.
She came back into the kitchen and snatched her bag from the counter. “Absolutely not.”
“Aw, come on! Everyone will be getting one soon.”
“What does it even do?” Lia asked, fixing herself a bowl of cereal.
Marcus bounced on his toes as he shouldered his backpack. “It’s like a tablet, but instead of games and stuff, you can record your dreams.”
“So it’s like a diary?”
His face scrunched. “Kind of. Apparently it can sense emotions while you sleep, so it’ll help you remember them. Then you can write them down and use the MemoryBank to turn them into a movie—”
“That’s enough.” Mom’s tone sharpened. “I’m not having any ImaginX nonsense in this house. Especially not one that watches you sleep.”
“I’m with Mom on this one. Sounds creepy to me.” Even as Lia said it, the prospect tickled the corner of her mind that held onto Norenth so vividly. “Though, if I’m going to be a hot mess, it might not be bad to escape into dreams of pirate heists and dragons.”
“Are there even dragons in Norenth?” Marcus piped in.
“No, it’s got more of a coastal vibe.”
Their mom pulled open the door. “Lia, these tales you weave—” She chewed her lip, and her shoulders turned inward before dropping with a sigh. “Just focus on catching up with school. Let that be the escape.”
Everything and everyone else comes first.
The thoughts crept in as they always did for Lia, low and quiet, like a serpent slithering through tall grasses. Unseen until right under her.
Lia nodded, a false smile slipping into place as the door closed on Marcus and her mom’s heels. Her head still ached and felt overly warm, but thankfully, the medicine had done its job. Or, some of it.
Glancing down at her palm, Lia frowned at the new scar there.
It was a small mercy that a pharmacy was about a mile away.
Lia knew a walk would do her good after a day of nothing but casserole eating, reading, and ignoring schoolwork she’d have to make up.
Granted, those activities seemed to do wonders for her body, the headache gone and her temperature back to normal.