Heroes of Dreamland Rewritten, Book 2: Stars in Far Places

Chapter 15

Blossom | ブロッソム

Another crash of thunder cascades through the sky, rattling all the windows in the library for the fifth or sixth time tonight. I sigh heavily and turn over in bed, flipping on the lamp just long enough to check what time it is. The storm has basically made it impossible for me to sleep.

The light stays on just long enough for me to see that it's already half past two, but then flicks off on its own. Since it didn't make the popping noise that lets me know the bulb has died, I assume that the power has gone out. Unsurprising, given the severity of the storm, I guess, but if it's even gone out here, then that means that it's out in the whole town, since I'm directly connected to the main line here and all.

Fishing out a flashlight from the drawer of the bedside table, I click it on and reposition my pillows so I can sit up and lean against them. Another flash of lightning and a rather-noisy (even if not quite as much so) rumble of thunder goes off, sending an unwilling shiver up my back. I have a bit of a phobia of thunderstorms, especially the more severe ones. I can never remember why this phobia of mine exists; all I know is that I hate it.

I contemplate reading a book or digging through some more of Doctor Healmore's papers that I've found over the years, but another louder crash of thunder reassures me that I wouldn't really be able to calm down enough to focus on anything like that.

Then again, I've felt a bit jumpy lately in general. Ever since I went to the village a few months ago to see what the alarm bell going off was about, the number of the visitors to the library has gone down quite a bit among all but the teenagers who use the place as a study spot. Kids don't come much anymore, whether alone or with their parents. Even my most faithful regulars seem to have either quit coming, or only come by to drop off the occasional gift of food or other staples I can't really get from anywhere out here. Everyone seems to have grown colder, and I'm not sure why.

It's not like I saw anything amiss while I was in town, or really saw much of anything at all, at that. I just rushed to where the crowd was gathered (the clinic, as it turned out), pushed my way in to check on Meta when I realized it was the clinic—his parents call him Curador, but I call him by his real name—and ended up spending the evening sitting close to him and making sure he was doing okay after whatever transpired that day. His mom eventually convinced him to go home for the night, and I just left town and returned to the library. I haven't been back in the village since then.

We're still not sure what happened that day; my guess is we never will be sure. His father and the secretary have both healed up fine, thankfully. Meta was fairly absent for a few weeks while they cleaned up the clinic, but then resumed his now-normal schedule of coming to the library early in the morning for sparring practice, spending the morning and early afternoon with his father at the clinic, and coming to the library to take his other lessons in the late afternoon. Then he usually spends the evenings with me, whether reading or chatting or eating my cooking, and heads home a little while after dark. I get the feeling he'd stay even longer, except his mother has started telling him not to stay the night here anymore. I'm not really sure why; he still shows up on occasion and spends the night on the couch just like he always has. It just happens a lot more rarely, now.

I sigh heavily, staring up at the ceiling. Honestly, I miss the days when he'd be here almost constantly. I get that people grow up and all, and I get that the main reason he's not here as often anymore is because his parents don't want him to be, but what with his being here so much less and nobody else ever really coming for more than a few minutes (other than the teens who are too busy/grumpy to be much for company), I've been getting really lonely and bored out here. I've finished reading all of the Fluffy Romance Novels that old Doctor Healmore had collected, and I don't exactly have a way to access a bookstore. We occasionally get new books for the stacks here when people make donations from their personal collections, but never of that particular series. I read other books too, of course, but...