A Tale Of Water

Chapter 4

Fitz and I shared two classes, 1st and 3rd period - Physics and honors English. I had hoped he would try to talk to me, somehow, but it didn't happen.

We passed the days silently. He walked around, his face hidden in his phone.

I had other friends, others to share lunches with, pass notes, take stupid photos with, but none of them were Fitz.

I thought we'd never speak again, and had settled on graduating, leaving this city forever, never speaking to him again.

But in March, the dreams started.

It wasn't obvious at first. My dreams were normal, except for a soft voice calling my name in the background. Saying my name over and over . . .

It took me days to realize that these weren't normal dreams, and that wasn't a normal voice.

---

Each night it was the same.

Normal dream, normal situations, but a constant call in the background. Repeating my name, over and over. A desperate sound that filled me with a strange longing.

It was him. It. That thing. It had found me, hundreds of miles away. I still wasn't sure what it was.

I'd tried researching it when we'd gotten back, but nothing conclusive showed up in Google, and it wasn't something I wanted to try and explain to the school's librarian.

So, whatever it was, it was back.

Once I realized what was happening, my first instinct was to try and talk to Fitz. But that wasn't going to happen. I sent him a Facebook message of "hey" that he read but didn't respond to, and his number changed because when I texted him it went undelivered.

Steve still ran from me in the hallway, and Vivian still looked like she hadn't slept in years.

That left Marnie.

---

She ran student council meetings on Tuesdays, so that seemed like the best time to approach her. She's have less of a following, and be easier to talk to one-on-one. This wasn't a conversation I wanted to have online.

I waited outside of the library conference room for what seemed like hours. Trying to act nonchalant on my phone. I had a cornucopia of excuses ready should anyone ask me, but no one stopped and asked why I was waiting outside of a room in a near empty school.

When Marnie finally appeared, her eyes went wide when she saw me.

"What are you doing here?" She hissed.

She quickly waved goodbye to her fellow councilmen and pulled me into the conference room.

"What?" She snapped.

The whole thing had caught me off-guard, and I started to stammer.

"Look," Marnie held up her hand to silence me. "You can tell Fitz that if he keeps trying to talk to me, I'm going to call the cops. I already blocked his number, blocked him on Facebook, but the letters he's mailing me have got to stop. And this too, the whole sending friends after me thing."

She crossed her arms and looked me over.

"Oh," I muttered, "This isn't about that." I let out a laugh. "I haven't actually spoken to Fitz in probably 5 weeks."

"Oh," Marnie dropped her arms. "So, what do you need?"

"This is going to sound weird, but are you having strange dreams?"

"Dreams?"

"Dreams."

Marnie cocked her head, "No, why?"

"Not even about Scotland?"

"No." She crossed her arms again.

"Oh, because -" 

"Look, Olive," she rubbed her forehead. "What happened out there was terrifying. We got chased by a bear - "

"A sea man creature stole us -"

"Bear. And then we inhaled some hallucinogenic moss or something."

"We got pulled into a lake by a lake monster thing."

"I don't want to talk about this." Marnie turned to leave.

"Marnie," She looked back at me. "Just so you know, there aren't any bears in Scotland."

Her face didn't register anything as she turned back to leave, shutting the lights off as she went, leaving me in darkness. But she stopped mentioned the bear in the future versions of the story she told.