Chapter 3
I had nightmares when I was little. Horrible nightmares, almost every night.
Driving cars that sped out of my control.
Getting dragged under water by something huge I couldn’t see.
My dad sitting quietly in a chair and ignoring me, and then he would disappear and Mom would be the one ignoring me, shoving me out of the way as she searched for him.
In those dreams there were usually also giant vultures that circled the house, and animated suits of armor that wanted to catch me and shove me inside themselves to trap me.
Reading the opening of the first Children of Hypnos book, I start to remember why I didn’t get very far before.
It reminded me of being small, having those nightmares, waking up in a cold sweat and wandering into Mom’s room so I could sleep on the floor next to her bed.
You’d think sleeping on the floor in a dark room would make a kid more scared, but knowing that Mom was there, listening to her quiet breathing, turned the room into a safe space.
There was nothing coming through the doorway, or out from under the bed, or through the dark windows. Not while she was there.
It’s been a long time since I’ve had one of those nightmares, and an even longer time since Mom was okay with me sleeping on her bedroom floor. Reading this book just reminds me of being a scared little kid.
But I keep reading, for Alissa. I’m in control of my own emotions. I can make it through.
I read for the rest of the day, using her riddle note as a bookmark. Mom brings home pizza for a late dinner, and while we eat, I say, “I’m going back to school tomorrow.”
“Okay,” she says. I expected her to push back, say something like, You need more time, it’s too soon, you’re not ready. “Let me know if you need more money to add to your lunch account. Do you have practice tomorrow?”
After dinner, I retreat to my room and read for the rest of the night.
I finish the first CoH book at three in the morning.
Dreamhunter Emery Ashworth and her dreamhunting partner, Wes, have escaped Emery’s murderous doppelg?nger—though not unscathed—and uncovered some sinister truths about their world.
The thing I like the most about the story is the idea that the things that frighten us, haunt us, can be destroyed. Dreamhunters have that power.
I get three hours of sleep. I have one dream I remember, and in it I have a giant hammer, like Wes, and I’m running after Alissa, who carries Emery’s Peacemakers.
We are fighting nameless, faceless enemies.
I revel in the physical exertion and the clarity of purpose.
I am made to hunt, and Alissa is the perfect partner.
Then I wake up to an obnoxious alarm jingle from my phone, and I am once again a regular person, held down to the earth by the limits of my body.
Mom is in the kitchen drinking coffee. I grab a bowl of dry cereal for breakfast, the only kind of food I can stomach this early in the morning. The smell of the coffee makes me gag.
“How are you feeling this morning?” Mom asks.
“Fine,” I say, but I am not. I feel heavy.
I notice everything. Normally I go through my day by routine, everything in its place, happening at its time.
And even though only one thing has changed—Alissa will not be where I expect her to be—everything seems to be different in a way that makes me pay too much attention.
The cereal bowl is slick. The light over the kitchen table is very bright and very yellow.
I walk into the living room, smelling the stagnant air and watching dust motes swirl near the window, and forget why I’m here until I see my sneakers by the couch.
Yes. I need shoes.
I listen to music on my way to school, but songs I’ve loved for years sound all wrong. Empty. They’re just noise. I slam the stereo off and drive the rest of the way in silence for the first time since I got my own car.
I know Alissa won’t be there, but it’s still strange to go to my locker before first period and see she is not there, waiting for me. I forget my combination for a moment, then forget how to spin the dial properly to open it.
I make it all the way to first period, counting to fifty-three steps before I realize everyone is pointedly not looking at me.
It’s not the normal disinterest, and I can tell.
They’re pretending to ignore me. My classmates, people in the hallway who know who I am and know my relation to Alissa, and especially the teachers; they are all hyperaware of me, their combined attentions like laser sights trained on my head.
It’s worse than if they were looking at me.
If they were looking, I could address the issue.
Because they aren’t, bringing it up will only give them the opportunity to deny the truth.
I dig a dark line into my blank notebook page until the bell rings.
I try to do what I’m supposed to, what normally comes easily to me, and pay attention to chemistry.
I’m doing well until Ms. Lane says, “. . . on page one hundred seventy-two of your books.” The word “books” makes me think of the second Children of Hypnos book, waiting for me at home.
I wish I’d brought it with me so I could read it.
I would so much rather be reading than sitting here, being purposefully ignored.
My pen tears through the notebook page. I shift my hand and start another line.
The rest of the day is more of the same.
Mr. Dean in English asks me if I’m okay.
I say yes. Mrs. Lopez in calc asks if there’s anything she can do.
I want to say Stop talking to me, but instead I only say no.
At lunch, I sit with a few track teammates who do their best not to linger on anything serious, but Alissa’s empty seat beside me is a black hole.
Haley, our best girls’ high jumper, is the first person to address the elephant.
Lunch is almost over, and conversation has died down, most everyone checking their phones or looking over their homework for the next class.
Haley’s eyes linger too long on Alissa’s seat, and she catches me watching her.
“I miss her,” Haley says. “It’s not the same.”
A round of agreement echoes across the table. I pick my hamburger bun into pieces and say nothing. As we get up to dump our trays, I keep thinking about how saying nothing makes me seem despondent. Is that what I am? Is that what I have become?
I’ve heard that when someone important dies, you get surprised every time you turn to find them and they’re not there.
My awareness of Alissa’s absence is so stark, there’s no way I could forget that’s she’s not there long enough to be surprised.
I was wrong—it is not one thing that is different, but everything.
I will never spot her raven hair down the hallway as she talks to Ms. Cross outside the newspaper classroom.
I won’t smell strawberry lip balm as she stretches over her desk in chemistry and rests her chin on my shoulder to count down the seconds until the bell rings.
I won’t ever make another joke about her long, long legs when I help her stretch in practice.
There will be no more notes hidden in my locker with my name printed neatly on the front.
By the end of seventh period, I’ve amassed a pile of homework that would have sent me into a panic before, but now I am strangely numb to it.
I get back to my locker and kind of wish I had a mound of physical textbooks to carry home, the kind Mom says she used to use, so I could feel the weight of them. They’re all online now.
A couple of the track girls, Haley and Micah, walk with me to the locker rooms. They’re talking about the upcoming spring break trip a lot of the team is taking, and I try to participate, but even I can tell how forced I am.
I stop trying. Haley and Micah, bless them, restructure the conversation so that I am included without having to join in.
We walk in on a conversation in the locker room.
“—they really are having an assembly?” This is Kylie, one of the girls I sat behind at the funeral. She’s talking to the other girl who was there, Bethany. “To tell us suicide is bad?”
“Mr. Marks said it’s more of a memorial thing,” says Bethany as she puts her hair up. “We’ll get out of calc, but you know it’s going to be depressing.”
Kylie says hi, then does a double take, seeing me with Haley and Micah. She prods Bethany with her elbow, and both of them look away quickly, faces red.
“They’re having an assembly because of Alissa?” I ask.
“Uh, yeah,” Bethany says eagerly, looking relieved that I didn’t snap at her. “I don’t know when. He said they might ask students to speak at it.”
They all wait for me to reply to this, but instead I go to my locker and start getting changed. I don’t have anything else to say. I’m too busy wondering if they’ll ask me, and if I say yes, what would come out of my mouth.
It’s forty degrees and rainy today, so we have practice on the indoor track. We start with two warm-up laps running clockwise, a ritual that on any other day would pass by in a blink and drain the day’s stresses out of me. I count my steps, losing myself to the hypnotizing drumbeat of my feet.
Because of track and cross country, I count my steps all day, every day, sometimes without noticing I’m doing it.
I know it takes ten steps to get from the kitchen doorway to the refrigerator.
Eighteen to get down the stairs. Fifty steps from my Spanish class to my locker.
Seventy-seven from my assigned parking space to Alissa’s.
Today, every step jars my legs, my hips, my stomach, my heart.
My count is off—I lose track two, three, four times, and have to start over.
It makes my brain feel tight in my head, like there’s a vise that screws tight whenever I try to think.
I suspect the sprinting, distance, and head coaches are all watching me from the center of the track.
Alissa is a phantom running on my right.
I treat her like Schrodinger’s cat: as long as I don’t turn to look at her, she could be there or not be there. Schrodinger’s Alissa.
By the second lap, I’ve fallen behind the others. My legs are heavy, my feet dragging. My count is a repeating one one one one one. The drumbeat skews irregular. I try to push myself faster, but I can’t.
I don’t want to.
I slow, then come to a complete stop. Our fastest runners lap me. Haley, Aiden, and a bunch of the boys. A few look back, questioning. Aiden laughs and says, “You’re slower than usual! Something happen?” I don’t care; this isn’t about them.
This all seems very silly now.
“Evie, you good?” Coach Deemer calls. He, Coach Black, and Coach Russell openly watch me now, it’s not just my suspicions anymore.
I look toward them, unsure what to say, what to do.
I know that standing in the middle of the track and staring at them is weird.
I know I should try to seem normal. Yeah, I’m good.
Just tired. I think I need another day off.
And they would understand, and I could leave.
But that’s just so much work. And I don’t want to explain.
“I have to go,” I say, and I collect my bags and leave the gym.
No one stops me.