The Sorcerer's Gate

eight

Aster slept over at Heronswood Castle for two whole nights and on both nights, strange things were happening to Alyx.

The first night, after their talk at the dinner table, Aster headed off to bed. She slept quite soundly in her bedroom for a few hours at least, before she awoke to a noise.

No, not a noise. Screaming. She removed the covers from her bed and slipped her feet into her slippers that were beside the dresser. Tiptoeing up to the door of her room, she quietly listened.

Screaming.

Aster realized just then that Jean and Elouise lived in the cottage behind Heronswood Castle and they were nowhere near her if she needed their help. 

Creeping out into the hallway, she followed the noise down the hall to the Master bedroom. Again, the screaming continued. Terrified and thinking that Alyx was in trouble, Aster opened the door to the Master bedroom.

There in his room, lay Alyx, sound asleep but screaming in his sleep. His body was moving, convulsing around. He was having a nightmare. Something was haunting him.

Aster went over to the bed and gently attempted to wake him up. When he felt her hand on his arm, he awoke jumping up from the bed. His breath work came out haggard. His white, billowy shirt was opened at the collar revealing a thin silver necklace. Sweat gleamed all over his chest and his forehead. He looked up at Aster horrified in his state of consciousness.

Aster insisted he take a breath and count to six before letting it out, nice and easy. He followed her instructions keeping constant eye contact. There was nothing casual about the way they looked at one another. Once he calmed down a bit, Aster realized how inappropriate this all looked.

"I'm so sorry to have barged in. I shouldn't have invaded your space this way," she said as she got up and made her way towards the door to exit the room.

"It's alright," he said perhaps embarrassed, "I woke you, didn't I? I'm sorry."

"It's okay. I thought you were in trouble. I'll let you get back to sleep," Aster said.

"I was dreaming about my wife."

Aster paused at the door and was at a loss for what to say.

"She's dead. I still have nightmares about her sometimes."

Aster turned around, facing him now and felt incredibly sad for the man in front of her. She looked at him now full of concern. As his eyes reached her own, she sensed his fear and sorrow. No wonder he told her the story about the two lovers from The Sorcerer's Gate. In a way, the same thing happened to him. He lost his love.

"I'm so sorry. Do you want to talk about it?"

Alyx blinked then and shut his eyes. He ran his fingers through his hair until it was out of his face.

"No," he said, "Goodnight, Aster."

With that, she left his room and went back to her bedroom. She found it difficult to fall back asleep that night. Aster stayed up till the morning and she wondered if both her and Alyx were wide awake in this big castle until first light.

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Aster didn't see him that morning or in the afternoon at lunch or come dinner time. Alyx was missing again. She felt awkward about how they left things last night and the entire event as a whole. She didn't feel the need to mention this to Elouise or Jean. In fact, they seemed quite unaware of Alyx's behavior being strange at all. His absence was normal to them.

Maybe he hadn't mentioned what had happened last night to Elouise or Jean. Regardless, Aster didn't think she was ready to know what they would have to say about Alyx's nightmares over his dead wife. During that following night, Aster found it difficult to drift off into sleep. Suddenly, she heard loud bangings on the walls in the hall. 

Terrified that someone broke into the castle, she picked up the fire poker near the fireplace in her bedroom and exited out into the hall. Her nightgown swayed in the wind. The hall was freezing. The wind howled into the castle from outside and Aster realized that every window was left wide open. The murderers of Telarm have finally come to catch me, she thought. What she found was not what she expected. Alyx was stumbling around the halls, traveling downstairs. She put the fire poker down in the hallway and followed after him.

Sleepwalking, she thought. He's a sleepwalker? She followed him all the way to the front of the property in the open fields. He planted himself down and stared off into the vast distance.

"Alyx?" Aster said from a few feet away.

When he didn't answer her, she walked over to him. He was seated in the grass looking forward, seemingly in a trance.

"Alyx, are you okay?" She asked.

"I'm waiting," he said.

Aster got on her knees and then sat down onto the grass beside him. She looked to the direction he was staring off into. She could hear the crickets and cicadas around them. The air was misty. The sky was blackish blue. It was so very still.

"Waiting for what?" She asked.

Alyx took a breath, inhaling once and then exhaling. She stared off into the distance, squinting to see if she could spot anything that was supposedly expecting him.

As she turned her face back to him, he still wasn't facing her. His concentration was terrifying to watch. He's mad, she thought. He's a crazy, mad man.

"Waiting for what, Alyx?" She asked one more time.

"The sun," he answered.

At this response, she laughed. It was her laugh that made him finally look at her, snapping him out of that sheepish trance. She immediately halted her giggle, but her lips still formed a smile, she couldn't help herself.

"You've got a long time away from that, Alyx. It's nowhere near dawn. Come on, let's go inside," Aster said.

Aster stood up and held out her hand to him. The way he looked up at her was that same boyish look again or perhaps a man that simply missed his wife. It made her feel sorry for him. He wasn't someone to be afraid of or intimidated by. He was Human.

Alyx took her hand and she led him back into the house without a word. They stopped out front of Aster's door and she let go of his hand.

"This is me," she said with a forced laugh.

Alyx scanned into the bedroom then spotted the fire poker on the floor. He looked up at her raising an eyebrow.

"What? I thought someone was breaking into the house. You were banging around on the walls."

He smiled at her then, his eyes lighting up very slightly for how black they were. Then his dark eyes drifted down to her lips.

Aster held her breath.

"Goodnight, Aster," he said, lifting them back up to her eyes.

"Goodnight, Alyx," she said.

He snapped out of his eye contact with her quickly and mechanically. He turned his body slowly around and started walking towards his bedroom. He looked back at her once. She watched him enter his bedroom. Once she heard his door shut, she entered her bedroom and shut the door behind her. 

Aster would spend the rest of the night wide awake, alike the last, wondering about him and why he made her feel something just then. Something that Jaxtyn had never been able to.