The Curse of Thelonious [✓]

ten

CHAPTER TEN

Lera knew she wouldn’t be able to sleep, plagued with nightmares of her sisters mangled body, so she offered her bed to Atlas. She wasn’t quite sure why he had been sleeping on the wet dirt of the forest instead of his bed but knew it had something to do with his vile father.

He felt really awkward about accepting but in the end his exhaustion won. When he agreed to help Lera find out what was really going on, he hadn’t planned on bunking in her room but he knew her offer was more out of the goodness of her heart than pity – something he wouldn’t be able to stand. As Atlas lay on her bed, the scent of cocoa butter invading his nose, he tried to think about how he would explain what he knew to Lera.

He had known about Anya’s death moments before it happened, just as he had predicted Mrs Hudson’s and Callum David’s.

He clenched his fists as tight as possible, reveling in the slight pain. How could he tell Lera? He hadn’t done anything to prevent Anya’s murder; she would blame him. Trying not to let the helplessness smother him, he allowed his inky eyes to flicker shut as he fell into a deep slumber.

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It started off innocently enough, they always did. He was lost in some fog, trying to wade his way through the street he was on. First it was just a humming but it grew louder until the high pitch threatened to burst his eardrums. And then she appeared.

It was different this time – she was rushing, clearly transmitting her urgency. Instead of a slow explanation of an event not yet occurred, she was warning him of something else. This wasn’t another death, it was something different.

Her face was blurry and her high voice barely louder than a whisper but somehow it was enough. Atlas screamed in fear, his arms and legs thrashing about as he tried to force himself to wake. It was no use though, the unknown woman kept warning him. “Walho,” she tried to convey. “Walho.” Her powder blue eyes were wide in urgency as she pushed herself through the fog in his mind. “Please Atlas, listen to me. Walho. Please… before it’s too late. Please.”

He didn’t understand what she was warning him about however and every time he tried to ask, the words wouldn’t come out. He tried to run, struggling to reach her but it wouldn’t work. The wind whipped in his eyes, causing her auburn hair to fly in the air. He wanted to see her face; her presence felt like familiarity and comfort wrapped together, like someone he should have recognised. She was trying him to warn him, he was sure of it but Atlas didn’t understand her message this time.

With a final flail of his limbs, he woke. His heart was hammering and he could feel every bead of perspiration trickle down his flushed face. Lera was kneeling in front of him, her eyes watering in fear with her soft hands against his chest.

“I– I was trying to wake you up,” she whimpered, clearly terrified from the nightmare he had just awoken from. He pushed himself up and tried to catch his breath, using the bottom of his t-shirt to wipe the sweat from his face.

He had never told a soul of his strange dreams before but this felt too important to keep to himself. He was determined to understand what was happening in the town to prove his innocence and working with Lera was the only way. He opened his mouth, wincing as it pulled his bitten lips apart and spoke for the very first time since he was a child. He was downright terrified but if there was anyone he could trust with his voice, it was the girl in front of him.

“Walho,” he said, his voice slightly croaky from barely being used. “She was– she was warning me of something completely different this time… trying to tell me a message with the word Walho in it.”

Lera stared at him, her slightly curly eyebrows twisted in confusion. She was astonished that he had spoken, his voice deeper than she had expected. Trying not to think about it too much however, in case he felt awkward and stopped, she focused on his words instead. His voice was slightly gravelly but his words somehow soft and flowing smoothly; she wanted to hear more.

“Who was?” she asked, not understanding what he was talking about. She had tried to wake him up from the nightmare that caused him to cry out in pain and shake uncontrollably but it hadn’t been enough. She was terrified of what he was clearly going through in his sleep and had felt entirely helpless.

“The woman in my dreams. I– I dream about her a lot, she tells me things. She– I know it sounds crazy but she warns me of things around me. She warned me of–,” his voice trailed.

Lera almost took a step back in fear. She had never been, well, scared of Atlas Sinclair before unlike the rest of the town but this was on a whole new level. He was dreaming of some psychic lady? “Warned you of what?” she whispered, as though she was too afraid to hear the answer.

“Of your sisters murder. I– I was hoping I could stop it but– I dunno to be honest, I couldn’t stop any of them although I knew when and where they were gonna happen. I don’t think it’s physically possible for me to interfere because I tried. I swear Lera, I swear I tried.”

Lera shivered at his words and a whimper tumbled out of her lips. It couldn’t be true but she knew without a doubt he wasn’t lying – his dark eyes were solemn and his face serious. This was the creepiest thing that had ever happened but there was no doubt about it, something strange was going on. It seemed as though the town was hexed.

She didn’t reply to that but instead thought about what he had initially told her. “Walho?” she murmured, confusion clearly spreading across her heart-shaped face. “I’ve never heard of that. Do you think that’s a place?”

Atlas rubbed the back of his head and answered the girl whose bedroom he was in. It was hard for him to talk so much; his tongue wasn’t used to it and his mouth felt dry but he persevered. Being able to communicate properly with Lera would make their mission of uncovering the truth much easier. “Or– or maybe it means something, like in another language or something?” he suggested.

Lera nodded thoughtfully and swiftly grabbed her laptop from her desk. She climbed onto the bed beside him and turned it on, not noticing Atlas squirming from the close contact. He had never been so near to someone before other than when Manning beat him and he tried not to flinch against Lera’s skin. In school everyone was always trying to avoid him as though his fucked up life was contagious and it was different being thought of as just Atlas instead of Atlas Sinclair, son of Mad Manning. It felt, well, nice.

Lera hummed softly as she waited for Google Chrome to load and typed Walho in the search bar. They peered at the results that had come up, most in a foreign language. “What language is that?” he asked, his mouth close enough that she felt his soft breath against her cheek.

With her lips slightly pursed, she pointed at all the Facebook profiles that had popped up. “It seems to be part of a name,” she replied. Amending her search to ‘Walho name meaning’ she clicked on the first decent link that came up.

“The pre eighth century Saxon name Walho was an aphetic form of Waltheof meaning the wealthy one.” Lera listened to Atlas read out loud, his voice lilting harmoniously. He paused as he skimmed the rest of the page, nothing else standing out to him.

“Do you trust her?” Lera asked quietly, worried he would take offence to her question. “The woman in your dreams, I mean.”

He didn’t know how to answer that. It wasn’t normal to consistently dream of an unknown blurry woman with a melodious voice but to him, he couldn’t imagine not believing her. She had told him about the deaths and they had taken place in the exact time and place predicted. There really wasn’t a way he couldn’t have trusted her really. But more than that, she radiated something akin to affection that warmed him to the depths of his soul.

“Yeah,” he finally replied, knowing it was true. “Yeah, I do.”