motivated, and ready to take on the world.
Oh, sorry, that’s coffee.
Coffee does that.
—Meme
It took me a solid ten minutes to pry open my lids. When I slept, I slept hard, but this was ridiculous. For some reason, I’d dreamed of salt and ships, of wood cracking and bodies sinking as seawater swallowed men whole. They were helpless against the currents and the cold and the crashing waves, but when it came time for me to surface—out of the bone-chilling water and the soul-crushing dream—I couldn’t quite manage it. I fought and fought to shake off the gremlins of sleep, but they kept pulling me back into the frigid oblivion of slumber, even with someone knocking on my door.
Then a knock registered in my unconscious mind. A slow, persistent thing. One tap after another. Not meant to rouse me so much as make me aware of its presence. Its insistence that I take note.
After an eternity of fighting the lids that had somehow morphed into anvils as I slept, I managed to lift them just enough to reveal my surroundings. Darkness enveloped me, so it was still night, but that was hardly unusual. What was unusual was the wood beneath my feet.
Alarm shot through me, and my lids flew open, but I stayed motionless as my mind clawed desperately for my bearings. Salt and brine assaulted my nostrils, the scent so strong it made my eyes water. The floor was as cold as the seawater I’d dreamed about, and my bones ached from it as icy tendrils crept up my ankles and curled around my calves.
I stood there afraid to move. Mostly because, again, I was standing. I’d been sound asleep seconds earlier, and now I was standing in a frigid, suffocating darkness like a black ocean at night.
And the knocking continued. Not hard. Not soft. Just… there, barely two feet in front of my face, as though I were standing in front of a wall or a door.
After realizing my eyes would not adjust, the darkness was so complete, I lifted my hand and drew an illumination spell on the air. The room burst bright around me, light bathing every nook and cranny.
Blinking against the brilliance, I glanced around in surprise. I was in the attic, a hexagon-shaped room, completely empty save a few spiderwebs floating down from a single fixture on the ceiling. Six small doors surrounded me, like they’d been created for a child’s playhouse. Each door should have led to a small cathedral room, hence the six gables that formed Percy’s circular roof. But when I first found the attic a few days ago, I’d sent my magics inside to find a vast, dark chasm that went on for what seemed like miles. I’d also found something that grabbed hold of my light. Sunk its teeth in. Wouldn’t let go.
I stood in front of the door I’d tried to open earlier. The one in which I felt a presence, dark and angry, though admittedly, I hadn’t tried the others. No one knew what the rooms held. No one knew why I’d created them when I was a child, including me. Ruthie had told me they’d just appeared one day, and when she asked me about them, I’d said they were for someone, or something, called Bead-uh.
I was three.
To this day, I had no idea how I did it, why I did it, or who Bead-uh was, though I couldn’t help but wonder if it was Bead-uh knocking on the door now.
The knocking continued at the same pace, but it was slowly growing louder and louder. Last time, the entity inside almost broke down the door, it hit it so hard. This time it was being less aggressive but more persistent. I longed to know what was inside. Even more so now. Had it somehow summoned me here? In my sleep?
Even if it had, the doors could not be opened. Roane had told me they’d tried everything to open them over the years. They’d even bought some kind of explosive. One of the doors, scarred with black burn marks, held the evidence of their efforts. The fragile-looking things were simply impenetrable, so whatever lurked inside was SOL.
“Sorry,” I said to the being, stepping away, and the knocking stopped.
I turned back, wondering again how I’d gotten here. The only way into the attic was via a secret passageway, one that even Percy couldn’t infiltrate due to the salt-soaked shiplap the walls had been created from.
And here I stood. I hadn’t sleepwalked in years. Decades, according to my dads. So why now?
When I gave up and started toward the stairs, the knocking started again. Harder this time. And much faster.
Whatever Bead-uh was would just have to deal. It had apparently been locked in that room for over forty years. It could take another forty to get it out. Then again, I’d obvs put it in there for a reason. I wasn’t terribly keen on trying to get it out, and that fact seemed to upset it.
The knocking grew several decibels as I descended the narrow staircase. It was going to wake everyone in the house. Or demolish it trying.
I turned back and yelled, “Stop!”
The pounding ceased instantly.
I waited a moment, then continued down the stairs. The knocking started back up. Louder this time. Harder. Faster. A rapid succession so close together they made a continuous sound, like a boxer’s punching bag.
I picked up the pace, almost falling down the stairs to get away from whatever lurked behind that door. Whatever I’d locked inside. It was clearly none too happy about its circumstances.
Once I hit the second floor and entered the passageway, the sound grew muffled, but apprehension prickled along my skin. Adrenaline rushed through me in tidal wave after tidal wave. I hurried to the secret entrance to my room and pushed on the shelves that opened into my bathroom, only then noticing the black ash along the threshold.
Concern quickened my pulse even more. Percy was waiting for me when I stepped inside. He’d filled my entire room with vines. I couldn’t have walked from one end to another without getting a face full of razor wire, his thorns were so sharp.
Once across the threshold, he guided several vines around my back and urged me farther inside before closing the shelves behind me. Then he slid around me in what I could only perceive as a hug.
I crossed my arms over my chest and hugged the supple, thornless vines to me. “I’m sorry, Percy. I don’t know what happened. I was asleep.” I looked at the closed shelves and remembered what happened the last time I’d dragged part of him into the passageway. The vines had been turned to ash, just like the black powder on the floor. “Percy, did you try to stop me?”
I opened my palm. He curled into it and produced a black rose, meaning yes.
Dread filled my chest. “Did I… did I hurt you?”
He closed the rose and squeezed my hand, but I didn’t believe him.
“I’m sorry,” I said softly, hugging him to me again.
His hold tightened briefly, then he let go and shrank back into the walls. Guilt assailed me. Did it hurt when that happened? Did he feel pain?
I walked into my now vine-free room. Judging by the dim light, it was still early morning. The sun was just making an appearance, cresting over a sparkling ocean in the distance.
Three hours of sleep would just have to do. I hit the showers, pulled my hair into a ponytail, and went downstairs, ready to work. Working would at least take my mind off Roane for, like, five minutes. Seven if I was lucky.
The kitchen would need a thorough cleaning, possibly new paint as well, and then we’d have to see about getting a new oven. As a former restaurateur, I knew exactly how much an industrial oven cost. That knowledge caused an alarmingly sharp pain in my temporal lobe.