Reflections of Stars

Midnight visits

"Alysha... Alysha... Nyx... child, listen to me. It's not over. It was never over. Be on your guard, things aren't always as they seem, but that makes them twice as dangerous. Be wary, child, it's only going to get harder from here on. I trust you to make the right choices, but once again I fear you must return to the Caves.
Be careful my child. A flower of beauty can easily hide the serpent beneath."

Nyx awoke with a gasp. Once again, Abby was crying.
She hopped out of bed, fishing for her slippers. She shivered from the cold night air pouring in the open window.

Open window?

She padded across the soft carpet. The window was thrown wide open, the rainbow curtains blowing in the breeze like some ghostly being of the beyond.
She peered out of the window, into the street below.
Everything looked perfectly normal, well, as normal as a deserted street at three in the morning could look.
She shrugged, pulling the window closed. Perhaps she hadn't shut it properly earlier and the wind had ripped it open again.
Something small and metallic collided with her elbow, pinging off the windowsill to land with a dull thud on the carpet.
She walked over to it and picked it up, her brows furrowing in confusion.

That wasn't possible. She'd lost that in the caves.

There, in her hand, rested her silver winged bracelet, the purple stone glittering slightly in the dull light of the street lamp outside.
Somehow, this unnerved her more than the dream.
After all dreams could be just that, dreams. Figments of her imagination.
This was real.

She puzzled over how it could have got there. Then the baby's cry brought her back to reality. Setting the bracelet down on the windowsill, she walked across the landing to Abby's room.

She could always worry about the bracelet in the morning.