Sleepwalker

Chapter Two: The Dreaming Winds

“What about my mother?” I queried anxiously. My heart raced as he might’ve exposed the information he’d so long withheld from me. I clenched my fists.

“Genevieve, this isn’t the time. Go back to bed.” He rolled over, hoping to sleep without the plague of night terrors. Soon after, his snores reverberated off the walls of the cellar. To ensure that his nightmares did not return, I watched his sleep for about an hour.

As I returned to my own bed, I stubbed my toe. When I peered down to inspect the object, I noticed that it was the book still open to the page I fell asleep over. I picked it up and stared at the page, a portrait of a woman. Her eyes were a vivid green, enhanced by the painter’s hand no doubt and her dark curls fell over her shoulder, a position perfected by the artist. The woman was nothing more than some supposed embodiment of a goddess. I rested my head back on my pillow after blowing out the lantern once more.

Bursts of color exploded in my face. Off balance from the popping sounds, I swayed back and forth. As I went to steady my feet, I was not on the ground, but on a cloud. The downy moisture swirled between my fingers. I giggled like I was a small girl again. The white fluff surrounding me turned smoke-like, black like charcoal, frozen like ice. My outstretched hands trembled with the cold. I crossed my arms over my chest, shivering. The wind violently swirled around me, messing my hair throwing it into my face. I found no ground beneath my feet. My body whipped around in the air and then slapped against the ground painfully. The vicious air flogged my face with strands of my hair. Staring up, the cloud funneled into the form of a cloaked man, long and spindly.

A hollow blackness replaced his face. A tobacco-stained smile was his only visible feature. “Hello, Genevieve.” His voice was soft lacking gentleness, a screechy pipe.

I wanted more than anything to run, to scream at least, but I said nothing.

His form elongated. His stretched body surrounded me. “Something wrong?” A thin white hand, bony and unnatural, dropped his hood.

“Jenny!” Papa shook me. When I opened my eyes, he sighed in relief. “You are never to scare me like that again!” There were bright red scratches up his arms.

Cool sweat stuck my nightgown to my back and plastered my hair to my forehead. “I’m sorry. It was a bad dream, Papa.”

“That I can see. Are you okay?” He smoothed down my hair. His hand made its way to my cheek. “It’s dawn now. I’ll wake you later. Go back to sleep.”

“I’m fine.” I pushed my blankets off. “I must learn to wake at dawn some day.” As he pushed me back onto my pillow and tucked me back in, he shushed my protests.

“That day is not today, Jenny. You will have many mornings to awake at dawn, but very few to sleep.” With a peck on my forehead, he clopped up the stairs.

My heart ached from its rapid beating. An uncomfortable throb settled in my head. Rubbing my temples, I sat up again. I stripped out of my nightgown and slipped into my daytime garments. I brushed my hair back into a braid. Hiking up the stairs into the kitchen, I spied at the bar Papa and Professor Lester at the bar. I ducked out of sight.

“I’m sorry about your husband.” Papa’s gruff voice was gentle.

“I’m sorry about your wife.”

Papa coughed, sputtering his coffee. “My wife?” He grabbed a cloth off the bar and wiped off the hot earthy drink.

“Yes, Jenny’s mother. She died, didn’t she? I thought perhaps childbirth…”

Papa swallowed hard, loud enough for me to hear. “We weren’t married. She had been staying at the inn for a few weeks…and I loved her. I probably didn’t even know her real name. After that night, she left. Less than a year later, she came back with Jenny in her arms, told me that she didn’t want her, couldn’t look at her.”