NOCTE (Nocte Trilogy #1)(10)

Tonight, after finally falling asleep, I dream of him.

The dark-eyed stranger.

He sits by the ocean, the breeze ruffling his hair. He lifts his hand to brush his hair out of his eyes, his silver ring glinting in the sun.

His eyes meet mine, and electricity stronger than a million lightning bolts connects us, holding us together.

His eyes crinkle a bit at the corners as he smiles at me.

His grin is for me, familiar and sexy. He reaches for me, his fingers knowing and familiar, and he knows just where to touch me, just where to set my skin on fire.

I wake with a start, sitting straight up in bed, my sheets clutched to my chest.

The moonlight pouring onto my bed looks blue, and I glance at the clock.

Three a.m.

Just a dream.

I curl back up, thinking of the stranger, and then condemn myself for my ridiculousness. He’s a stranger, for God’s sake. It’s stupid to be so fixated on him.

But that doesn’t stop me from dreaming about him again. He does different things in my dreams. He sails, he swims, he drinks coffee. His silver ring glints in the sun each time, his dark eyes pierce into my soul like he knows me. Like he knows all about me. I wake up breathless each time.

It’s a bit unnerving.

And a bit exciting.

After two such nights of fitful sleep, rain and strange dreams, Finn and I kneel in front of plastic storage boxes, sorting through stuff from my closet. Piles of folded clothes surround us, like mountains on the floor. Rain pelts the window, the morning sky dark and gray.

I hold up a white cardigan. “I don’t think I’ll need many sweaters in California, will I?”

Finn shakes his head. “Doubtful. But take a couple, just to be safe.”

I toss it into the Keep pile. As I do, I notice that Finn’s fingers are shaking.

“Why are your hands shaking?” I stare at him. He shrugs.

“Don’t know.”

I eye him doubtfully, so used to watching him for any sign for any sign of a problem. “Are you sure?”

He nods. “Quite positive.”

I let it go, even though it makes me uneasy. If I don’t shield Finn from distress, he could have an episode. Obviously I couldn’t shield him from losing mom, but I do my best to protect him from everything else. It’s a heavy thing to shoulder, but if Finn can carry his cross, I can certainly carry mine. I unfold another sweater, then toss it in the Goodwill pile.

“After mine, we’ll have to do yours,” I point out. He nods.

“Yeah. And then maybe we should do mom’s.”

I suck in a breath. While I would like nothing more, just in the name of moving forward, there’s no way.

“Dad would kill us,” I dismiss the idea.

“True,” Finn acknowledges, handing me a long sleeve t-shirt for the Keep pile. “But maybe he needs a nudge. It’s been two months. She doesn’t need her shoes by the backdoor anymore.”

He’s right. She doesn’t need them. Just like she doesn’t need her make-up laid out by her sink the way she left it, or her last book sitting face down to mark its page beside her reading chair. She’ll never finish that book. But to be fair to my dad, I don’t think I could throw her things out yet, either.

“Still,” I answer. “It’s his place to decide when it’s time. Not ours. We’re going away. He’s the one who will be here with the memories. Not us.”

“That’s why I’m worried,” Finn tells me. “He’s going to be here in this huge house alone. Well, not alone. Surrounded by dead bodies and mom’s memory. That’s even worse.”

Knowing how I hate to be alone, and how I especially hate to be alone in our big house, I shudder.

“Maybe that’s why he wants to rent out the Carriage House,” I offer. “So he’s not so alone up here.”

“Maybe.”

Finn reaches over and flips on some music, and I let the thumping bass fill the silence while we sort through my clothes. Usually, our silence is comfortable and we don’t need to fill it. But today, I feel unsettled. Tense. Anxious.

“Have you been writing lately?” I ask to make small-talk. He’s always scribbling in his journal. And even though I’m the one who’d gotten it for him for Christmas a couple years ago, he won’t let me read it. Not since he showed it to me one time and I’d freaked out.

“Of course.”

Of course. It’s pretty much all he does. Poems, Latin, nonsense… you name it, he writes it.

“Can I read any of it yet?”

“No.”

His answer is definite and firm.

“Ok.” I don’t argue with that tone of voice, because honestly, I’m a bit nervous to see what’s in there now anyway. But he does pause and turn to me.

“I don’t think I ever said thank you for not running to mom and dad. When you read it that one time, I mean. It’s just my outlet, Cal. It doesn’t mean anything.”

His blue eyes pierce me, straight into my soul. Because I know I probably should’ve gone to them. And I probably would’ve, if mom hadn’t died. But I didn’t, and everything has been fine since then.

Fine. If I think hard enough on that word, then it will be true.

“You’re welcome,” I say softly, trying not to think of the gibberish I’d read, the scary words, the scary thoughts, scribbled and crossed out, and scrawled again. Over and over. Out of all of it, though, one thing stood out as most troubling. One phrase. It wasn’t the odd sketches of people with their eyes and faces and mouths scratched out, it wasn’t the odd and dark poems, it was one phrase.