Soul (Chaos #1)

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Eleven

I awoke to see him standing over me with a pillow in his hand. I was frozen in the dark, choking on any words I might have used.

He smiled, but there was something terrifying about it. When he moved the pillow close to my face, scratching sounds at the window distracted him.

I screamed long and loud, not stopping until my mother ran into the room.

"What's going on?" she asked my father.

He held out his empty hands. "Nightmare."

She sat on the edge of the bed and brushed the hair from my face. "Lie down, baby. Go back to sleep. There's nothing to be afraid-"

"She's too old to be babied," he said, pulling her to her feet. "Come on. Let's have a drink."

She glanced back at me but let him pull her away from me. I hadn't said a word.

I looked at the window, but there was nothing there except a shadow passing the frame. I stayed awake that night until I heard my father snoring.

Sweat poured down my back as I lay there in the dark, trembling all over.

"...so many nightmares," Grim was saying. "I wish we could-"

"We can't," Realtín whispered. "He'll have our heads. We'll be free someday, Grim. We will. We just have to be good for a while. Do what he says."

The fact that I wasn't alone was sort of comforting, and I quickly fell asleep again.

***

My course wasn't quite the relief I thought it would be. I couldn't concentrate on the lectures, on anything really, apart from my dreams and the fae. They were slowly taking over my life.

I felt a little twisted high whenever Brendan and Drake appeared. I felt low and down when a day passed without speaking to either of them. I had begun to jumble both souls together in my head, and I wasn't sure who either of them was - not really.

In my classes, Realtín had fun pulling hair and knocking things over. Her gleeful giggles made it even harder to concentrate. Grim, on the other hand, seemed to be enjoying the experience.

"I've learned such things," he exclaimed as I walked to a different class. "The way humans see the world is amazing. Is it like this everyday?"

"Pretty much," I said under my breath. If anybody saw me talking to myself, I'd be mortally embarrassed. I checked my watch and made a decision. "Come on. I'm going to show you something a little different."

The three of us slipped into the back of an Irish Folklore lecture. In my first year, I had taken the course on impulse, but my father had freaked out, and I dropped it when I had to narrow down subjects in my second year. But I occasionally snuck back in. I found the course matter comforting, and I was curious to hear what Grim thought.

The lecturer removed her sunglasses and stared at me for so long that I swallowed hard, thinking she might kick me out. After an awkward moment, she carried on, and I let out the breath I had been holding.

"They discuss us?" Grim whispered. "This is a part of your learning? I thought we were all but forgotten in your world."

"You're a story," I explained. "A part of our heritage that we try to rationalise."

A smile spread across his face. "This will certainly be interesting."

"I thought you might enjoy it."