SLEEP OF DEATH
The Charlotte Westing Chronicles: Book Two
by Aprilynne Pike
Also by Aprilynne Pike
Life After Theft
One Day More: A Life After Theft Prequel
The Wings Series
Wings
Spells
Illusions
Destined
The Earthbound Series
Earthbound
Earthquake
The Charlotte Westing Chronicles
Sleep No More
Sleep of Death
Anthologies
Dear Bully
Defy the Dark
Altered Perceptions
Visit Aprilynne online at AprilynnePike.com
For Kristan, Ben, and Jamie. Thanks, guys.
SLEEP OF DEATH
Copyright © 2014 by Aprilynne Pike
All rights reserved.
Cover design by Saundra Mitchell / SaundraMitchell.com
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author or as permitted by law.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is purely coincidental.
Written in the United States of America.
ISBN-13
978-1-941855-00-3
Six Years Earlier
“What about when people are trying to do the right thing? What if it’s just a mistake?”
Sierra’s expression is stern. “The world is full of mistakes, Charlotte.”
“But—”
“No ‘but’s. We’ve been over this.”
“I don’t want to change anything,” I argue, following her around the room as she re-shelves the books I’m not allowed to touch.
“Fixing a mistake is changing,” she says simply. “You have to follow the rules.”
The rules. I scrunch my eyes shut and recite them to myself. I’m old enough that I don’t have to repeat them to Sierra every day—word-for-word—anymore. But they’re still there. They run through my brain like elevator music, playing softly in the background of my life, a single track stuck on repeat—forever.
Never reveal that you are an Oracle to anyone except another Oracle.
Fight your visions with all your strength. Never surrender. Never give up. Don’t close your eyes.
Never, under any circumstances, change the future.
They’ve been drilled into my head so thoroughly I can recite them in my sleep. I know; sometimes I do.
I work the toe of my shoe into the dull, beige carpet. “He’s my favorite teacher,” I say, unable to suppress the quaver in my voice; unable to keep the tears from my eyes.
Sierra walks over and, after a quick glance down the hall, closes her bedroom door. She crouches beside me and takes my hands gently in hers to draw me near. She doesn’t sit me on her lap the way she used to; I’m getting too big for that. But she gathers me into her arms and I push my face against the softness of her cashmere sweater, nuzzling against her shoulder, seeking a warmth against the chill of the future.
“I’m sorry it’s so hard,” she whispers. “This is why we work so strenuously to block the visions in the first place. So you don’t have to know the future at all. So you don’t have to suffer twice.” She pulls back, still crouched so we’re eye to eye. “Seeing this kind of thing is always worse than not seeing it.”
I nod, because at that moment it feels so very true.
She reaches into her desk drawer and pulls out a tin of Lindt truffles—little treats to help us through hard days. I pick a white chocolate one, but don’t unwrap it. Even though I know having something sweet in my mouth will help me stop crying, I don’t think I could swallow without throwing up.
Essentially dismissed, I wander to the overstuffed beige couch that’s always been in this room, just under the window. Even before Dad died, the couch was here. For no particular reason, at least none I can recall, it reminds me of him. Of life before. I sit there and cry quietly, clutching the chocolate in my hand. By the time I manage to stop the tears, syrupy liquid is oozing out of the foil wrapper, puddling in my palm.
I leave the bedroom without another word to my aunt. In the kitchen I throw the messy wrapper in the trash and wash the sticky remains from my hand without so much as a taste.
I don’t want comfort.
Every day for the next two weeks I’ll be sent to the school nurse for bursting into tears in the middle of class.
Then Mr. Richards will go out to the bar for a night of drinking, the first in a long time. He’ll be responsible, but his designated driver will hook up with an ex-girlfriend and be more committed to making amends to her than keeping a promise to his friend. Mr. Richards will consider driving home, but even intoxicated he’s smarter than that. It’s not that cold and a mile isn’t so far, he’ll think.
But halfway home he’ll slip on the ice, fall, and hit his head. And because of the alcohol in his system, his blood will be a little thinner and will pour from the gash more freely than it normally would. His body temperature will drop and by the time someone finds him his heartbeat will be faint. Six minutes later, when the ambulance arrives, he’ll be dead.
The school counselor won’t tell my fifth grade class that story because no one knows it except me. And Sierra. But she does tell us he “passed.” She has to; it’s her job. And in a classroom full of sobbing ten- and eleven-year-olds, I’ll sit in the center of the room, silent and dry-eyed.
Because I’ve already been crying for weeks.
Chapter One
I’m slowly growing accustomed to hating school. It’s funny, since school used to be my escape from home—a place packed so tightly with secrets there was scarcely room to breathe. But now school is little better than a daily reminder of the death and sorrow I brought to my town.
Sierra says I need to watch my language—even in my own thoughts. That it’s not my fault.
But I brought the monster here. And he killed people solely to get my attention. How is that not my fault?
Sierra says I’m merely responsible. A cause—not a fault.
I don’t really see the difference.
I shoulder my way through the crowd of students, no longer unhappy that no one pays attention to me. I wish I could actually be invisible. As supernatural powers go, invisibility would be a definite improvement. If anyone here knew what I’d brought down on them, I’d be more than a social Ronin; I’d be shunned, hated, and probably run out of town. And rightly so.
I glance up from the faded, cracked linoleum and meet a pair of light-green eyes.
Oh yes, that too. To add proverbial insult to injury, when I’m at school, I have to see Linden. Every single day. We don’t wander through life like orphaned satellites anymore. I used to hate that we did. Now I wish I could have that detachment back.
He has a special smile for me, sent over the heads of the other students whenever our eyes meet. A smile that would have sent me into acrobatics of joy three months ago. It’s a sad smile. Wistful, I guess. But intimate—the smile of a shared secret. Secrets like that often bind people together. Ours tears us apart.
I force myself to look away.
Every morning I force myself to look away. Seeing him in the halls used to make me giddy, and a glimpse of him in class would be the highlight of my day. But that was before Smith. Before the murders. Before Linden was manipulated—forced, really—into falling for me. Before I discovered just how powerful I really am. How dangerous I really am, to everyone around me.
One year and three months. It’s hard for everyone at William Tell High. They all lost friends, crushes, even enemies. It still hurts. But to the other students here, it was a random act of violence by a madman who died in prison. I know the truth. It was all because of me. One year and three months. Then I can leave and go to college—and Linden will go somewhere else. Probably to a fancy university, far away. It’ll be better that way. For both of us.
No, I’m lying to myself again. It’ll be better for him. And that has to be worth it. Worth the way I stumble numbly through my day, forcing myself not to look at him too much. And certainly not to talk to him. He has a chance to get over this and move on. I’m stuck here, in Coldwater. Frozen like the skating pond at Hunter Park. Frozen all the way to the bottom.
Stepping into the art room serves as a much-needed distraction. Mr. Fredrickson is a big believer in displaying students’ work; every possible surface is covered with colorful projects, from paintings on the walls and mobiles hanging from pock-marked ceiling tiles, to pottery on his desk and even sculptures crowding in the corners. He changes them regularly, so there’s always something new to look at. I spot a brightly-colored mobile made from painted leaves hanging just above the door and try to focus on its rainbow hues instead of my own dark thoughts.
It helps a little.
I’m making my way down the aisle toward my usual seat at the front when a couple of big guys on the other side start shoving each other—good naturedly, I think, but they’re still big guys. One of them stumbles against the table, jostling it; a girl I don’t recognize has a set of pastels out and the bump knocks the black one onto the floor, where it shatters into about twenty pieces.
Then disappears.
My eyes widen as I watch the shove happen again, my stomach twisting with the sort of déjà vu I normally feel when I’m forced to watch one of my visions come true.
But I don’t remember having a vision of art class.
This time, right as the table wobbles, the girl’s thin hand reaches out and catches the pastel before it can hit the floor.
I stand still and stare at that spot where I saw the pastel break into pieces, black chips skittering three feet in every direction.
It happened. I watched it.
And then everything backed up like a skipping record—a literal do-over.
The boys go on shoving and the girl continues sorting her pastels; no one seems to have noticed but me.
“Hey! Earth to Charlotte,” a voice calls from behind me.
Great. I’m holding up traffic. My cheeks burn as I duck my head and let my hair fall around my shoulders, rushing to my usual stool at the front of the room. I’ve long since resigned myself to being the school space-case, but somehow every new confirmation comes with a fresh batch of embarrassment.
Fortunately—fortunately?—everyday embarrassment is no match for the panic, the terror, scrabbling for purchase at the back of my head. What was that? The mental curtain I keep drawn over my second sight seems dormant and secure, no visions trying to force their way through, no headaches threatening to grow into migraines. I can’t eliminate the possibility that something is tampering with my powers again—could Smith have survived the death of his body, somehow?—but I doubt it. Other than the déjà vu, this didn’t feel like having a vision of the future so much as seeing the present twice.
And if there were someone tampering with my powers, why would it use them to save a black pastel? Or, for that matter, how? Even if I did have some kind of weird flash-forward vision, I certainly wasn’t the one who reached out to alter events as they unfolded. But if nothing was tampering with my powers, what did I just witness? The only person who benefitted even slightly from the outcome was the girl—
The girl I didn’t recognize.
Out with the old panic, in with the new. What little I know of the Sisters of Delphi—and their legendary strictness—goes rampaging through my head. Would they send someone to spy on me? Did I just witness another Oracle changing the future somehow? Everything I know about my second sight tells me it shouldn’t be possible, but I don’t know everything.
Actually, what I don’t know about being an Oracle could fill a small library at least. That much I do know, because I’ve seen the size of Aunt Sierra’s library on Oracles. It’s no longer off-limits to me as it used to be, but reading it all is going to take a lot of time.
A guy named Alex, who I’m reasonably friendly with, slides onto the seat beside me and I take a soothing breath, struggling to rein in my fear. Once he’s settled I lean over and whisper, “Who’s that girl back there?”
He twists around to the back of the art room to stare straight at the girl and I want to cover my face with my hands in embarrassment. “Oh, that’s Sophie,” he says, and not in a whisper. “She’s new. This is her first day.”
“Thank you, Alex, for that very subtle assistance,” I mutter. He just shrugs. Alex is at least as nerdy and awkward as I am, but he embraces it and doesn’t give a damn what anyone thinks of him. I, on the other hand, have spent my entire life trying to be invisible and have redoubled those efforts since learning just how deadly it can be to be noticed.
I don’t chance another look at Sophie until half an hour later, when Mr. Fredickson has finished his lesson and we’ve been set free to work on our own projects. I dig into my backpack—pretending to need something—and peek at her through my hair.
She’s leaning over her paper, her tongue clasped between her front teeth like she’s actually trying. Most of the kids in here don’t bother, though they regret it when they find out that, unlike some art teachers, Fredrickson doesn’t just hand out A’s to everyone who bothers to show up.
Sophie’s hair is black and curly and goes down to about her shoulders; she looks fairly tall, though I’m not great at judging height when someone’s sitting down. Is anyone? She’s wearing jeans and a long-sleeved gray shirt with a scoop neck, revealing a bright purple layer-tank beneath. Totally normal.
Well, she is unusually thin. Like, ballerina thin. Or maybe even eating-issues thin. I keep watching her and, on closer inspection, I observe the way the bones at her wrists protrude, how chiseled her collarbones and cheekbones are. I look again at her face and realize she looks tired. Unhealthy. Not a lot, but enough that if I were to sketch her, I’d notice and put it in the picture.
Would I say she looks haunted? I’d be tempted. Is that how I look from the outside?
She lifts her head and I spin back toward the front of the classroom.
This whole thing is kind of creeping me out. I know—I know—I saw that pastel fall and break. Having grown up an Oracle, I’m not questioning my sanity.
I just hope it’s not crazy to be suspicious of her.
There are only ten minutes left in class when I feel a tingling start in my temples. A vision. Not a big deal. Last year I would have instantly braced myself to fight it, but that’s not necessarily the default anymore. At home I generally just let them come, but at school it depends on what I’m doing. Of necessity, I’m always on guard for another creature like Smith—that plays a part in my choice. I don’t want anyone who might recognize what’s happening to see me having a vision. It’s not about avoiding the actual visions anymore, but I still have to hide my abilities from monsters who might prey on me. Or others through me.
But the truth is, it’s nice to be able to analyze my surroundings and make an informed decision. It makes me feel so much more in control of an ability that has controlled me my entire life. Yes, when I’m at school I generally just fight them—it’s easier and faster—but the choice feels downright momentous.
The tingling continues to grow—spreading, painfully, to my entire skull. A strong one then. Usually, the harder they are to resist, the bigger the event. For a strong vision to come along here, now, seems awfully coincidental; it reinforces my suspicions and banishes the worry that I might be jumping at shadows. But now I have to make the choice. The vision might reveal useful information,
but it might just reveal an especially grisly car accident twenty miles out of town. Either way, if there’s someone or something watching me—something like Smith—going into a trance in the middle of art class might tip my hand.
My fingers are starting to shake with the effort of holding this foretelling back while waffling over whether I should, and the pain is starting to make my stomach churn. The admission rises in my head that maybe I don’t actually have a choice with this one. Another consequence of letting visions come a lot these days; it’s harder to resist them. Like exercising a muscle, the more frequently I hold my visions at bay, the easier they are to fight. But the last time I found it totally impossible to prevent a vision, I was being stalked by a parasite who murdered children to get to me.
This day just keeps getting better.
The conversation buzz in the classroom is rising as lunch break draws near, and I hope no one will notice as I lay my head on my arms on the desktop, close my eyes, and surrender to the vision.
The storm in my head abates for a moment when I stop resisting, but abruptly it’s growing again, rising, a tornado in my skull, sucking the wind out of me and pummeling my brain, causing every muscle in my body to tense.
The last vision I had that was this strong was—
Was …
Was.
The curtain over my second sight—the lid of my third eye—feels heavy and my vision-self blinks as if waking from a very deep sleep. I’m standing in the foyer of a nice house. A really nice house—like Linden’s, I think, then scold myself. This is not Linden’s house. Focus. A dull throb reverberates through my head as I try to get my bearings. I turn and look behind me at the front door of the house. Or front doors, rather. Beautiful French doors, eight or nine feet tall with a circular glass design and wrought-iron swirls and curlicues covering every inch. The ceilings vault high above me and the walls are painted in complementary shades of taupe. The curved staircase is totally gorgeous, with a honey-brown wooden handrail winding up to the second floor, with intricately beveled railings wrapped with fake ivy.
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