Two Clocks Past Midnight Part 5 (25)

  POV: Jessica Black

  The first thing I saw was light blinding me. As the pain in my eyes receded I could see past it and at the face of the caretaker of the boarding house Lady Helena.

  Her ghost pale face glowed in the light of her lantern. “Are you well, little one?”

  “I'm fine. Ma'am.” I rubbed my temples and sat up.

  “I was told you were having a spasm.” Lady Helena swept her light over on Melissa who was also awakening.

  “I saw something between them,” Jennifer said. She was standing beside Lady Helena and being dwarfed by her. “They were tossing and turning. Enough to wake me up.”

  That was a surprise to me. I didn't know if that was a bad thing or not. Would we have been able to move if we were under a real psychic threat?

  Before I could think of anything further a thought came to me. I lunged over my bed rail to see Jesse below. She was still fast asleep.

  “Jesse!” I climbed over and dropped down. I shook her. “Jesse! Jesse! Wake up!”

  She did. She blinked her eyes opened and yawned, “What's going on?”

  “There was an alarm?” Lady Helena scanned her lantern over Jesse, “Are you well?”

  “I think so,” she sat up and stretched, “I was having such a nice dream.” She put a finger to her chin and thought for a moment, “I can't remember it now though.”

  “That's to be expected,” Lady Helena looked out the window where the sky was starting to lighten with dawn, “If you want, you could spend these early moments helping. Breakfast will be soon enough.”

  “That sounds nice,” Jennifer volunteered herself and by proxy us.

  We headed to the sizable cafeteria. It was a mixture of old style appliances and less old style appliances. Elizabeth's House was over two hundred years old, and I think Helena had been here for most of it. It was hard to tell with people like her.

  As Helena started the stone oven she gave us all instructions. Melissa and I were put on potato duty.

  “I sharpen these blades myself,” Lady Helena handed both of us a short knife, “Be careful. They do not discriminate against any flesh, and are well suited to their task.”

  “Thanks.” I said examining the blade. Looking it over I could tell what she met. Using them I appreciated the warning. Cutting the potatoes was like cutting through butter. We worked our way through multiple spuds until Melissa spoke up.

  “So are we going to be running from shadows everytime we take a nap?”

  I huffed, “No. Or at least I don't think so.” I set my knife and spud down to rub my face, “I can't think of any reason why a dream eater would come after us.”

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  “Dream eater,” Melissa repeated, “What is that?”

  “Dream eating is the act of taking or otherwise harming psychic energy through a target's slumbering state.” I said matter of factly, “It's not a rare crime among magic users, but it's taken very seriously.”

  “So what are you going to do about it?” Melissa asked.

  “I don't know.” I answered honestly. I didn't know what I was going to do, but someone or something had attacked Melissa and I didn't know why. Natural creatures of fae or demonic origin could be dream eaters. Just foraging for food like a deer in the wood, except their meal were the thoughts and memories of sentient beings. I hoped it was a natural thing, because if it wasn't that meant someone was actively hurting people.

  I sighed a deep sigh and reached down to continue my work only to have pain fly up my arm. As I sweared loudly I looked to see I had somehow reached my right hand down on top of the blade and it slit my palm wide open.

  Before Melissa and others could say anything Lady Helena was behind me. She grabbed my hand and quickly wrapped a cloth bandage around it. “I told thee to be cautious.”

  “Jessica, are you okay?” Jesse came over with a batter bowl in hand. Her and Jennifer were making flatcakes.

  “Yeah, I'm fine.” I kept the bandage tight as the too red blood soaked through. I could feel the wound healing underneath. Whether it was by something in Lady Helena's cloth or in own nature, I didn't know.

  I hated not knowing things.

  ***

  Lady Helena had taken my bowl of potatoes and threw them into the fire to burn the blood I had spilled. So we all had to cut extra potatoes and served butter grilled potatoes and flatcakes to the rest of Elizabeth House as they woke up. This included our classmate Kevin the Hothead.

  “Old Hag Helena has you on kitchen duty?” He scoffed with a chuckle, “Hell you do to earn that.”

  “Volunteered out of the kindness of my heart.”

  “You what kindness is?”

  I slapped a scoop of potatoes down with a reasonable amount of spiteful aggression. A bit of grease landed on his school coat.

  He tsked, “Some of the boys said they had really bad sue?os, nightmares. What about the girls?”

  My eyes widened, “What all do you know.”

  “Nothing. I told you. Some of the boys had nightmares. Heard the girls did too.”

  I thought to myself as the boy behind Kevin said something. Kevin shouted for him to just go around. As he did I leaned in and almost whispered, “Do the boys who had nightmares have anything in common?”

  “What?” Kevin focused back and thought, “I don't know. I think they're not very strong. A few otherkin with thin blood, weak magic users, and a mutant boy. But I'm not really sure. Most of them are younger too.”

  So whatever this was was going after weaker minds. Which explains why Melissa was attacked. Being mundane nothing at all was protecting her.

  Except for the shadow I spoke to, I thought to myself. The one that worked with The Black Book.

  That was another set of questions I didn’t have answer to. Why did Melissa have a shadow in her mind and how did it talk to The Black Book. A cold shock jolted me as I remember the dream. I spoke to The Black Book. The Black Book spoke to me. It spoke.

  My hands were shaking. Rattling the scoop into a racket on the pot which covered the chatter of my teeth.

  “Jessica? Are you okay?” Jesse asked me. I didn’t see her come up and it startled me.

  I threw the scoop into the pot and turned away, “I need a smoke.”

  I beelined to the back door into the back lot of Elizabeth House. Nearly dropping the pack I got the cigarette to my mouth and fumbled with my lighter. It took too many tries, but fire came to it and to the cigarette itself. The smoke burned away my worries and allowed me to resharpen my thoughts. Giving me the ability to review all the questions I had no answers to.

  I took in the final bit of the sweet poison and held it in for the full buzz. I released the smoke with in a annoyed, “Fuck.”