Forsaken Dreamscape (Nevermor #2)

Chapter Three

“This Scourge is a dark and evil man – an enemy.  Didn't you say that the Rifter cut off his hand?  No, what you're thinking of is something else.  I believe this man is a mixture of your own father and another man that you were afraid of.  Do you remember that day at the factory?”

Of course Wren remembered it.  They had been young workers at the cotton mill to bring in money for Miss Nora, and they were supervised there by a wicked, balding hawk named Reynald Worthy.  They’d called him the Devil behind his back.  On her last day there, Wren had pushed him into the machine to save her brother Henry from being beaten to death.  Because of her actions, the machine had torn off several of the man's fingers.  His blood had fed the fibers.  Wren was not sorry for that, but yet there was something else that she was in agony for.

Henry…  Even after four years, the pain of what had happened to him still lingered.  She had been alone with it for so long.  Wren frowned.  Her lips quivered, but she did not cry.

“That fairy wisp called Whisper is your own jealousy.  She is all your old memories that you put away from yourself,” Witherspoon continued.  “You have thrown the blame off on a creature of fantasy, but Wren, it is you!”

She almost pitied him for his theories, but she had never told him so.  She knew what had happened.  There was one thing, however, that he could not explain away.  Perhaps he had forgotten it, but Wren knew what it was.

“If what you say is true,” Wren said quietly, “then what of this?”

She brushed back her hair alongside her temple, revealing a white scar in the shape of a tiny handprint.  The outline of it was so perfect that it could hardly be disputed – unless of course one did not believe in fairies, as clearly he did not.

 “You were born with that scar, Wren,” Witherspoon said after a pause.  “That's the only explanation.”

He claimed it was a birthmark, and while there was no one to verify that or otherwise, Wren knew that she had gotten it when Whisper had burned Rifter’s lost memories across her mind.  Wren could not remember what those had been, but she knew that they were horrible.  She never wanted to see them again.

Briefly, Wren weighed her options.  If she gave him what he wanted to hear, she might avoid those extreme measures he had mentioned in the journal, but yet she would be revealing herself to be false.  The decision quickly made her head hurt, and she refused to dwell on it.  In this moment, she only wanted to be honest with herself.

“You're wrong, doctor,” she said calmly, meeting his eyes again, her own filled with shimmering sadness, “and I can't give up now.  I've waited so long.  If my time in Nevermor taught me anything, it’s that it’s important to fight, and whether one does it with swords or words or strength of mind, I have to stand up for myself.  I can't stop believing that he'll come for me.  If I do, then what do I have left?”

Witherspoon stared at her as if a new woman had suddenly come out to sit before him.  Wren was not willing to turn away from her truth.  It was the only thing she had to cling to.  She had done nothing wrong, except perhaps been too young for a dark world and yet too old for a boy who hadn’t been able to love her like she’d needed.

“Wren,” the doctor said gently, looking into her eyes, “somewhere inside, you must not believe it yourself–”

She didn’t let him get further than that.

“I haven't been sleeping again,” she confessed abruptly.  “Could you please give me something so that I can sleep?”

Wren didn’t look at him as she made her request.  She was not normally hurt by the things he said, or anyone else for that matter, but this time felt different. This time, perhaps she had begun to truly feel that first hint of hopelessness.