Forsaken Dreamscape (Nevermor #2)

Chapter Two

Seeing that she was being focused on, Wren tried to appease the girl with a short smile before averting her eyes, but she had known it would not work to send Adele away.

“You talk to the fairies,” Adele said, chirping as happily as the birds.  “I saw a fairy.”

Wren didn’t respond, unsure how she felt about the comment.  She had already talked about this once today for the sake of appearances, and she didn’t want to go into it again, yet Adele kept staring at her relentlessly with large, hollow eyes.

“It was in my room, the fairy was,” Adele went on, nodding furiously to confirm her tale. “It was black like a shadow, but it wasn’t.  It moved on its own.  It was a boy!”

She giggled deliriously at that, covering her mouth and looking about to see if a nurse had heard her, but Wren only wanted to tell her that it wasn’t a fairy she had seen.  She wanted to turn her face away and ignore the other girl, annoyed that she was being mocked.

But wait…  A shadow?  A boy?  Could Adele’s conversation be more than a cry for attention?  If she did see what she claimed, then…

“What did it look like exactly?” Wren asked lowly.  Adele seemed nearly overwhelmed to have gotten a reaction.  She was positively quivering with excitement.

“It was a boy,” Adele confirmed again, sticking a finger in her ear absently.  “He was hovering over my bed.  I watched him for a long time, but he didn’t move much.  Eventually, he went away.”

Wren rose up, interested now.  She moved closer to Adele, lowering her voice to a whisper in hopes that the nurses would not hear their conversation.

“And it was like a shadow?” Wren asked quietly, her heart beating faster.  “Did he say anything to you – this fairy?”

“No,” Adele said hesitantly, ashamed that she had to admit it, but she perked up again directly after, “but it did remind me of my dream!”

Wren felt her face grow hot, wondering what had brought on the flare until she realized that she was feeling the heat of jealousy.  Did this girl deserve to dream more than she did?  Was it possible that Adele had seen Nevermor when Wren could not find it?

“What dream?” she asked firmly, trying to keep her focus on the girl’s darting eyes.

Adele’s face lit with pleasure.  “I saw an ocean – it was a black ocean! – and I was walking along the shore.  I was alone, but then I saw someone and I went toward him…”

Adele hesitated, looking past Wren as a distant look came into her eyes.  Her chest began to heave with short, rapid breaths as she recalled it.

“He looked at me,” she said, shuddering.  “His eyes were on fire!  They were on fire!”

The girl had become irate, a look of horror in her eyes as she professed this truth.  Before Wren could step away, Adele had gripped her arms, shaking her as if to punish her lack of understanding.

“Burning!” she screamed, her eyes like deep pools.  “They were burning!”

Wren tried to push Adele away from her, but the girl’s grip was viselike, her jagged nails scraping her flesh.  She did not find relief until a nurse and orderly came forward, taking the girl by the arms, talking her down.  Their voices managed to soothe her enough that Adele simply reverted to a state of bewilderment, as if she’d not remembered her outburst.  Wren, however, wanted no part of it.

She slipped away behind the cage, waiting for her heart to slow as Adele was led back to her cell.  What the girl had said troubled Wren more than the violent outburst.  Had she truly seen a shadow that was not attached to anything?  Was it the truth, or could she cast it off as the ranting of a lunatic?  Sadly, there was no way to know.  There never was here, but today Wren was left with a feeling that she’d never been willing to accommodate before.