Flicker Blue 2: Jigsaw

by Brea Nicole Bond

Chapter IV

  The Dream Begins

  Lorena’s knees never stopped trembling, not even when the party said their goodbyes a quarter of an hour later in the foyer. “Thank you, Lorena. You have proven yourself a true friend by coming tonight,” Dr. Sylfaen assured her just before she walked out the front doors.

  “Of course, Dr. Sylfaen. God speed,” she replied through chattering teeth. She gave Jane a single, somber look before disappearing into the night.

  “One of my attendants will see her home safely,” Old Moll said and, as she snapped her fingers, a shadow moved outside. “Thank you for the invitation, Mederick. This evening has been…illuminating.” She reached for Dr. Sylfaen, and he drew his face close to her withered cheek. “My debt is repaid, Mederick. I do not expect to hear from you again soon,” she whispered into his ear. “I will, however, stay abreast of your exploits.” She pulled away from him and turned to Jane. “We will meet again, Jane Thomas Sylfaen.”

  The twisted old woman slipped into the darkness outside, leaving only Mr. Everword in the foyer with Jane and her godfather.

  “Thank you, Charles,” Dr. Sylfaen began, but Mr. Everword flashed him an angry, warning glance before turning his back to the old man and directing his goodbye to Jane.

  “It was a pleasure to see you again, Jane. Whatever your parentage, you seem to be a most capable young woman. I must admit that you have surprised me.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Everword,” she stammered, trying to ignore the comment about her parentage. Of course he would find a way to compliment her and express his prejudice in the same sentence.

  “If there is any way that I, or Evan, can be of service to you, you must let us know.” He produced a small silver box from an inside coat pocket and, from it, removed a parchment-colored card. “Even on your travels, you will be able to reach us at this number.”

  “Thank you,” she repeated as she took the card from him and turned it over in her hand.

  “Be on your guard, Jane. You will no doubt be making a great deal of new acquaintances in the days to come, and you must be cautious about choosing your friends.” He winced a little as he spoke, but his eyes never left hers.

  Jane nearly smiled as she answered, thinking that she would be wise to apply the warning to him. She could not, however, deny the truth of his words, for she had perceived the darkness that surrounded him as he spoke—he had taken the full force of the small attack himself so that he could convey the caution to her. “I will, Mr. Everword. Good night.”

  When he was gone, Dr. Sylfaen took a deep breath. “Are you alright, Jane?”

  “No,” she answered without looking at him. “But I will be. So, where do we find this Madame Antoinette person?”

  “You will find out soon enough,” her godfather said, and he walked out of the foyer in the direction of the staircase in the great room.

  “Well, awesome…at least things are back to normal, then,” Jane mused aloud into the empty foyer before heading upstairs to her own room. She had discovered a great many puzzle pieces this evening, more than she had ever expected to find in one go, but she had yet to put any of them together.

  Only one monster pursued her at first, a fiery red devil with a misshapen head, but it was followed by dozens more, all with the same glowing green eyes of the first. They lumbered toward her and the unconscious shape of her godfather, whom she pulled frantically behind her along a wooded path. Though the monsters shuffled and stumbled like zombies, Dr. Sylfaen was too heavy to move quickly—the distance between predators and prey was closing. With one arm locked under each of the old man’s armpits, Jane heaved and cursed in the moonlight. Her instinct told her that safety lay just past the next curve in the path, but she was losing too much ground. She had no hope of reaching the safe haven unless she left her godfather behind.

  Jane looked up at her pursuers. The full moon was reflected a hundred times over in their open emerald eyes, hungry and focused on their intended kill. No, they did not move swiftly, but Jane wasn’t convinced that they couldn’t if they so chose. Perhaps they were only teasing her, prolonging the hunt for the single purpose of terrorizing her. If the monsters were truly as slow as they seemed, she could afford to try pulling Dr. Sylfaen closer to safety for a minute or two longer. Jane doubted that she could make it, but she felt that she owed it to the old man to try. Only when the creatures were fully upon them would she abandon her guardian. Then again, if they were feigning, they might catch her anyway. If she left him on the path now, Jane felt fairly certain that she could outrun them, but her window of confidence was narrowing with every yard the monsters gained.

  She focused her breath and tried not to panic as she considered the two options, all the while heaving desperately at the dead weight of Dr. Sylfaen. She had to make a choice, and her time was running short. Already, she could make out the groping claws of the moonlit monsters….

  Jane sat up with a start. Beads of sweat stood out on her forehead, and her sheets were tangled into a massive knot at the center of her bed. I must have been tossing all night, she thought as she attempted to steady her pulse, and no wonder after a nightmare like that. The details of the dream were already fading into the haze of her subconscious, but the fear remained acute. It had all seemed important, somehow. I should go talk to Uncle Mederick—now, before I forget anything else about it.

  Not bothering with her robe, Jane descended the staircase wearing only a heather gray camisole and a pair of too-large pajama pants that she’d borrowed from her father long ago. She knocked on the wooden double doors that led into the library, but she did not wait for a response before pulling on the handle and entering.

  “Uncle Mederick? Are you in here?”

  The room was empty. And, though it had been unusually tidy just hours earlier, the typical stacks of books and papers littered the table and desk once more. He’s probably been up all night working, Jane concluded. If that was the case, he might be not be awake yet. What time is it, anyway? She hadn’t checked the clock on her bedside table before charging downstairs, but she decided that it didn’t really matter. Her memory of the nightmare was becoming blurrier by the second, and she knew that Dr. Sylfaen would want to know all about it. She crossed the library floor and approached the door on the opposite side, the one that led into his private chambers.

  “Uncle Mederick? It’s me, Jane. I really need to talk to you.”

  While she waited for a response, Jane glanced over at Dr. Sylfaen’s desk, which stood against the back wall beside the file cabinet from which he had produced the cell phone he’d given her on her birthday. The desk matched the great oak table in the center of the library, but it was far smaller and crowded by an open laptop computer and a sprawl of papers—apparently, this surface had been the center of operations for whatever her godfather had been working on in the hours that had transpired between the dinner party and now. A glossy hardcover book set atop the jumbled papers caught Jane’s eye, and she stepped closer to the desk to get a better look at its cover.

  A Traveler’s Guide to Paris. Jane’s breath caught as the pieces began to fall into place. Her new passport, Madame Antoinette…surely this was the place she was going to find the Book. She had read a great deal about the famous city in some of her books—a few of them novels she’d studied the previous semester in English class, in fact—but she’d never been there before. She’d only ever traveled out of the state a couple of times, and never out of the country.

  Gripped by a sudden desire to confirm her assumption, Jane tapped a random key on the laptop keyboard. The computer hummed out of hibernation, and the monitor screen revealed an airline website. There, she read the itinerary information for a booked and purchased first-class flight to Paris, France, leaving at noon on Sunday, June first.

  Holy crap, that’s tomorrow! Uncle Mederick wasn’t kidding about not wanting to waste any time. She read over the information on the screen again, sure that she had misunderstood. Two tickets, booked for tomorrow, firs
t-class. They were scheduled to arrive in Paris in the late afternoon on Monday. A nervous giggle escaped from Jane’s lips. She was going to Paris, and she only had one day to get packed and ready for her trip; the list of necessities that she’d need was already forming in her mind. How long will we be there? Jane wondered as she considered what she should pack for the journey. The screen did not show information for a return flight. And what will the weather be like there?

  That much, at least, she could figure out on her own. Jane seated herself in the chair behind her godfather’s desk and commenced a little research session of her own. Between the travel book and the internet, she had plenty of resources at hand to answer many of her own questions about the impending trip. She even borrowed a yellow legal pad from one of the desk drawers in order to make some notes and begin a packing list. The task was enough to keep the fresh chunks of information that she’d gleaned from the dinner party at bay for a little longer—it was certainly enough to make her forget why she had come to the library in the first place.

  Meanwhile, the door to Dr. Sylfaen’s chambers had cracked open on silent hinges. The old man stood behind it and spied through the narrow opening at his goddaughter, who was far too absorbed in her own thoughts to realize that she was no longer alone. He watched for several minutes with an affectionate smile fixed across his face, then pulled the door closed as quietly as he had opened it, leaving her to it.