Chapter 8
A week came and went in a blur thanks to my new friend trazodone claiming my nights.
And, to my surprise and utter befuddlement, the nightmares just …
stopped. Sue made sure to have it on the ready each night.
It’d never happened like that before, not with a single medication I’d been prescribed.
I didn’t argue though—it was a dream come true, literally.
I hadn’t slept so well in my entire life.
Mornings, afternoons, and every other stolen moment belonged to the studying chokehold, the pressure to excel or say goodbye to my future weighing on my sanity as midterms crept closer.
In regard to Cillian, he’d grown distant seemingly overnight.
Aside from our brief exchanges in his and Miss Celine’s class—save for that Friday when he hadn’t shown up at all—he mostly kept to himself.
I tried not to take it personally, but I knew why.
He’d backed off after our night in the library.
Really, I had no right to be upset. Roxie had warned me from the start about Cillian’s reputation for getting to know someone only to ghost soon after.
I knew what I’d gotten myself into before it even started. So … why did it still hurt?
Friday after midterms proved hectic, even more than usual with all the weekend hustle and bustle.
Students flitted about the main foyer, backpacks and duffle bags hung over their shoulders in anticipation of their weekend trips home.
Those with cars on school grounds had already cleared out earlier, while others awaited public transportation arranged by the institute.
The excitement was thick enough I could almost smell it leaching from their happy faces, but none more than Roxie.
“You sure you won’t come?” she asked, brown eyes lit up. “My family would love you!”
I waved a hand, attempting to look more secure than I felt. “Nah, I’ll just hang here and wait for you. I want to take a look at the new syllabi anyway, and get ahead for next semester. This learning curve …” I feigned vomiting.
“Yeah, yeah, Miss Overachiever.”
“Me? Why, I think you might have me confused with our fabulous resident assistant.”
“Ha, right.” She dove into my arms—nearly knocking my book and sketchpad from my elbow—and hesitated there.
Despite what I’d expected, I … didn’t hate it: the physical touch.
We’d grown closer than I’d anticipated in such a short time, despite my continued, yet feeble attempts to keep our interactions brief.
But I wasn’t under the delusion that we’d end up forever friends. I didn’t have those. Wouldn’t.
Rudy barreled through the front door, hands clasped around his frayed mustache. “Last call to Humboldt! Anybody who’s anybody better park their rears on that bus. I repeat, last call, folks!”
Roxie’s brow creased. “Crap, that’s me. You’re sure you’ll be okay? This place is going to be a ghost town, you know.”
“I’ll be just fine. Go, have fun for me, alright?”
She wrapped me in another hug, released a final sigh, and fell in line with Samantha Barnes—our occasional breakfast buddy—as the last group of students flooded out like a tidal wave.
All at once, the halls sat eerily still. The same silence I’d been greeted with the morning I’d arrived. Shadows crept through my mind: beast-shaped shadows covered in blood.
“Fey.” Celine’s warm voice shook me. “I didn’t realize you’d be staying behind this weekend.”
I spun about. “Yeah. Not much to go home to.”
Damn word vomit … I cringed.
Her lips tightened. “I’m sorry to hear that. But hey, we can still have some fun this weekend, right?”
“Uh, sure … I mean, I was mostly going to read, but …”
Celine’s grin faltered, the crystal hung around her neck rising and falling with her breath.
Clear quartz, for sure. Also known as the stone of power, it’s said to amplify and project a person’s intentions while also protecting them against negative energetic attack and promote healing.
Arguably the most versatile stone in the crystal kingdom.
Not that Celine would care about that sort of thing when she picked out her jewelry, I’m sure.
Ms. Celine cleared her throat, tearing me from my stare.
“Right, of course,” she said. “I’ll let you get to it then. If you should need me, you can find me in the great room. I’ve got a date with a good book myself.”
She winked and started up the stairs.
“Thanks.” A loose teal curl bounced along with my head nod.
She disappeared over the second-story landing, and I scanned the foyer.
Now to find the back door. Ultimately, I settled on the hall adjacent to the library.
Seemed about right. I turned corners, wound through corridors I’d never seen before, until I stumbled on a door siphoning in afternoon light.
Bingo. One good push and it swooshed open.
A grand veranda greeted me, its short, dual staircases rounding down to the garden below.
Majestic to say the least. I paused on the last step and soaked it all in: rose bushes in all colors, a cobblestone path lined in staggered maple trees, their leaves tinged in early autumn yellows and oranges.
But the most awe-inspiring feature? The vine-covered gazebo just shy of the river.
I moseyed down the path and set myself in its shade, allowing my gaze to drift across Saint Peter’s herself.
While my previous campus had buildings left and right, it paled in comparison to the height of the institute’s solitary dwelling.
A mass of carved stone, the hunched gargoyles overhead looked as though they could take flight at any second, even from stories below.
Their chiseled wings melted into the overcast sky.
This was no school. This was a goddamned work of art.
A masterpiece. I tucked my feet up under me with a contented sigh. Perfection.
Since dreams had been non-existent the past week, I’d decided to leave well enough alone and instead doodle away on my tablet to my heart’s content. At least that was the plan anyway, until the little demonology book called my name.
I flipped to the table of contents and discovered a chapter titled “Demonic Dreams: A Study of Nightmares.” I suppose I should have considered it a coincidence at best, but having turned to the precise topic I could never escape from?
It felt more like fate. I began to soak in the garish images and descriptions: sinister historical paintings, teeth falling from a person’s mouth, but the last one …
a person dropping from a second-story window.
My breath caught. Below, in bold lettering, it read:
“Falling: common association to anxieties, danger, personal turmoil, or internal chaos. Such dreams fall under the influence of malevolent forces.”
Broken glass and shocked screams washed over my memory. Tears pushed their way to the surface, hot and blurry. God, I never meant for anyone to see me like that, but things—they got out of hand. And I’d been stupid. Careless!
“Nope.” I slammed the book shut. Absolutely not.
I wasn’t ready to dive into those memories again.
To hell with that black pit of despair. All it did was paralyze me, stick me in a corner of shame and misery.
The very place I aimed to escape. I wiped my eyes with my sleeve and tossed the book on the ground without a second thought.
I’d just—I’d draw. Yeah, I’d draw. Screw this weird-ass book.
Half-full, crookedly bound sketchbook in hand, I reached into my pocket to dig out my charcoal pencil worn down to a stub and went to it.
No rhyme or reason to my strokes, I let my subconscious take over, to boil my thoughts down to their simplest point like my last therapist had told me to.
By the time my hand stilled, the sun had crept below the horizon, the redwood skyline casting shade across the garden.
I held my sketch up, arm’s length from my face.
My lips pursed. Certainly not my best work—a whole riddled crystal I’d never seen before and doubted even existed in real life—but it’d done its job in distracting me. And for that, I was thankful.
I collected my stuff, book and all, and clomped down the sidewalk to the back entrance.
The hall’s deafening quiet damn near smacked me upside the head.
Devoid of students, Saint Peter’s felt hollow and eerie.
I picked up my pace toward the kitchen. It should have been about dinner time, if the grumble in my stomach was to be believed.
I found Miss Celine in near darkness, perched before the stove, hair askew and pan smoky.
I felt along the entrance wall until I found the main switches, flicking each on to shine some light on the chaos.
“Uh … everything alright in here?”
“Oh, heavens.” She jumped, the egg in her hand falling to its death on the tile floor. “You scared me half to death, Fey!”
“Sorry, sorry, I didn’t mean to.”
I dashed around the corner, snatched a dishtowel, and started to mop up the yoke disaster at her feet.
As I stooped down, a shadow flitted by in the corner of my eye, straight toward a strange unlit entryway in the room’s back corner.
Chills ran up my spine as Roxie’s ghost story panged my memory.
Maybe this place truly was haunted. Or maybe I needed some sleep, per usual.
“It’s all right,” she breathed behind frazzled bangs. “I just, I don’t know how Sue does it. She makes it look so simple, and I—shit.”
The curse sounded foreign coming from her as she fussed with a burnt something on the back burner. A pancake maybe? Hard to tell through all the char.
“Here, let me help.” I tossed the burnt pan into the sink, rummaged for a new one on the dish rack overhead, and placed it on the burner. “Butter?”
“Of course.”
“Breakfast for dinner, huh? I like your style.”
“Pancakes are the only thing I know how to make,” she admitted.