Young Adult — Jenna Wallace
I eyed my pillow like an enemy. It beckoned, white and smooth, the promise of oblivion. And yet I dreaded sleep. The fear that it could happen again, that I might wake up wandering somewhere in the house, or even worse, down in the field by the canal, kept me from closing my eyes.
Unable to force myself to lie down, I sat on the window seat, nodding into the book on my lap. Though it was well past eleven, the last threads of light lingered on the gardens and the flat green lawn surrounding Heraldsgreen House. In Virginia, it would have been dark by this time, but June nights in Scotland were so short. As I stared out into the fading day, a restless wind stirred the towering chestnuts and the leaves murmured with secrets, sending twitches of anxiety into the depths of my stomach.
Five nights of interrupted sleep. My head, heavy and leaden, dropped against the window and I rolled my forehead on the cool glass. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stay awake forever. Too tired to put off it off anymore, I unfolded the massive wooden shutters across the window, struggling against hinges gummed up by centuries of paint. The light was reduced to strips of brightness around the edges.
The bed was cold, the sheets slightly clammy. The glow from my laptop screen lit my room, which still looked wrong and unfinished. I stretched out, lying rigid with my hands clenched. But exhaustion won in the end. With the darkness pressing against me, I drifted.
The sound of screaming woke me from a deep sleep. And then I realized I was the one making that terrible noise.
“Abby! What are you doing?” My father’s frantic voice cut through my screams.
“What?” I cast around, trying to get my bearings. I stood next to the window by the fireplace in the great room. The room was still and eerie in the moonlight. Shadows hid the high ceiling and distant corners. Darkness pressed against the rippled glass panes and the lawn beyond was a washed-out gray.
The dusty blue velvet curtains were bunched in my hands and crumpled at my feet. Above me, the heavy wooden curtain rod dangled from one screw, the rest ripped out of the wall. My shirt and face were gritty with plaster and the taste of chalk was in my mouth.
“Daddy?” I pleaded for an explanation in a raspy voice.
My father stood in the half-light coming from the tall, bare window.
“I woke up because I heard screaming,” he said. The waver in his voice freaked me out because he was the calm one in our family. “I got down here and you just grabbed the curtains and ripped them out of the wall.”
“Why did I do that?” I asked, my throat so tight I had a hard time getting the words out.
“I have no idea, Abby. Are you OK?” he asked, panic bumping around the edges of his words.
A draft swirled dust and debris around my bare, icy toes. My jaw ached with the effort of stopping my teeth from chattering and tears pricked at the corners of my eyes. I had just ripped the curtains down in my sleep. I was most definitely not OK.
“Yeah.” I didn’t trust myself to say anything more.
Dropping the curtains to the floor, I brushed the dust from my shirt and shook out my hair. Dad took me by the shoulders and blew some plaster out of my ear. My answering laugh was small and shaky. I breathed deeply, trying to get my heart to stop tripping in my chest. Tremors shook me.
“I think we need a drink,” my father said, steering me through the massive oak door to the kitchen. He gently pushed me toward a chair and then went to the sink. The rush of water, the clink of glass, and the rasp of a cap unscrewing from a bottle all sounded loud in the silent room. He joined me at the table, sliding a tumbler of water toward me. His own glass contained a pale, amber-tinted liquid, telling me there was some whisky in his water.
“I really freaked you out, I guess,” I said, nodding at his drink, before cooling my raw throat with my own.
“You could say that.” Dad was giving me one of his scientific looks, usually reserved for crime scenes. He took another big swig of his drink.
“But, hey, out of five nights of sleepwalking, this is the first property damage,” I said. “So I guess that’s something, right?”
He just grunted and studied me some more.
Last night, the sound of my father calling my name had awakened me. When I’d tried to get up from my place on the cold floor of the great room, I was so stiff Dad had to help me. The night before, he’d managed to catch me before I made it out of the bedroom. And the night before that, I had gotten as far as the kitchen door. Each time, we’d gone back upstairs in silence, neither of us knowing what to say. In the morning, we’d laughed a little bit about it, made a few jokes. Now it wasn’t funny anymore.
“Do you think I’m going crazy?” I asked.
“No, of course not. Stress makes people do funny things. You’re in a new house, a new country, you miss Mom. It’s a lot to handle all at once.”
“I suppose.”
“I think we should make an appointment with a doctor.”
That was the last thing I needed, being poked, prodded, analyzed. I took a huge gulp of water and concentrated on looking unconcerned. “Nope, totally not necessary.”
“Abby…”
“I’m fine, Dad. It’s just sleepwalking.”
“Well, there’s something else,” Dad said in a weird kind of voice that stopped me dead. “You were talking in your sleep earlier.”
“What did I say?”
“It was truly bizarre,” Dad said. “I came in to check on you—“
“You still check on me? Dad, I’m seventeen.”
“Parental privilege. Anyway, I came in and you were speaking out loud. I could understand every word. Does the name Giles Fielding mean anything to you?” Dad asked.
“Don’t think so. Why?”
“According to you, he’s the younger son and a painter. Is this a boyfriend I should know about?”
“I’m sure I’d remember if it was. You know I only date musicians anyway.” I was trying for jokey, but the funny got lost in the strangeness of the moment. “What else did I say?”
“You mentioned a place called Ormidale House. You sounded a bit strange, talking in full sentences.”
“OK, yeah, that’s weird.”
“Do you remember dreaming any of that?” he asked.
“Nope, not a thing. But I don’t usually remember my dreams.” Most of the time, I slept like a rock, hard and heavy.
Dad drained his drink and then yawned so wide his jaw cracked. “It’s late,” he said. “Back to bed. But we’ll talk about the doctor in the morning.”
Even though I had no intention of talking about the doctor in the morning, I nodded and followed him up the stairs. When we got to my room, he turned and looked at me with concern and something else I didn’t quite understand. I was too tired to try to figure it out.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” he asked, taking my arm and helping me to my bed like I was an invalid. Normally that would have annoyed me, but not tonight.
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
He stared at me for a few more seconds before squeezing my hand and going back to the door. He kept it open a crack and left on the hall light, just as he had when I was a little girl. There was something about the gesture that made me want to cry. After he left, I lay in bed and couldn’t stop thinking about what my father had told me. Who the hell was Giles Fielding and why was I talking about him?
