Adeline grew up not knowing much about her Nana other than the fact that she's loony. But is she really? What are the odds that her loony Nana is actually very much sane?
If you saw a key on your doorstep, would you pick it up? Adeline did just th...
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𝐂𝐡𝐚𝐩𝐭𝐞𝐫 𝟐𝟎 - 𝐈 𝐰𝐚𝐧𝐭𝐞𝐝 𝐭𝐨 𝐬𝐭𝐚𝐲
There he was. Standing right in front of me, holding a bunch of blankets in his arms. He looks at me as if he's been caught red-handed doing some sort of crime. He was standing still by the door, not moving a single muscle. Though his eyes were fixed on me, growing wide as panic flushed into them. Then it all stopped, his eyes became bare and empty. I could tell that he was shocked and embarrassed as I saw a shade of red colour his cheeks. He cleared his throat and looked away.
Despite how calm Nicholas portrayed himself, I found his eyes looking everywhere but at me. Preferably the wooden floor. Slowly he strolled in, stopping right in front of my bed before dropping the mountain of blankets, and heaping them on my bed.
For what felt like an eternity, we maintained eye contact and it stayed that way as if our eyes were glued together, unable to look away or honestly, not wanting to make any effort to look away. I wasn't going to glance away and it didn't seem like he minded. Even if he did, he was doing a horrible job to make me stop.
He opened his mouth as if to say something, and I waited, but then he thought better of it and shut it back, still keeping his eyes locked with mine. Then suddenly, without saying anything, he turned on his heel and walked away, shutting the door behind him.
I blinked a few times, staring at the door, drawing my eyes back to the blankets and to where he stood a few moments ago. The room still smelled like him. I wasn't quite certain if he even actually was in my room or if I was just tired, too tired that I had started to see things. Things like, Nicholas bringing me a heap of blankets that I might not use just because he was worried.
He's worried.
Just the thought of it sends warmth to my heart, making me grin like a fool, ear to ear. I fell back onto the bed and tried my best to sleep, shrugging everything off from my mind as I forced my eyes shut. Forcing Nicholas, forcing Pierre, forcing my nightmare to rush out of my mind. But, I couldn't sleep.
I peeled my eyes open, staring at the blank ceiling. I stared and stared as if it would change if I looked away. I haven't gotten my hands on the old hag's book yet. I have to meet Bernard soon. I have no way to ask Nicholas to come to retrieve the book with me, not with how he's always avoiding me at every possible chance.
That's just ridiculous. He promised. The thought of going alone feels eerie in my head. Walking alone in the big forest. Walking alone to where I was held captured and tortured. Walking alone to the witch's hut.
Without me wanting it to, my mind found itself playing a scene of my organs being pulled out of me and a scene of my body being cut bare, only to have it grow back. I shuddered at the memory of the endless pain. It was a moment in life I never want to go back to.
The loud cry of the wind, the taps on the window, the scratch on the walls, none of it could pull me back to the present. I felt the air being sucked out of me, leaving me with nothing but a rapidly beating heart. I felt like I'd been crushed, stomped on and splattered into a horrible mess. I gasped for air, my lungs feeling like they are closing on me. I tried and tried only to fail miserably.
