by Cege Smith
“Are they all right upstairs?” she asked. "Shouldn't we check on them?"
“Jenny is in very good hands with David,” Linda assured her. “Randall is keeping an eye on things. He’ll let us know if there is anything we need to be concerned about, but I just know that our David has everything under control. We are so lucky to have him here.”
Ellie felt odd listening to the intimate way that Linda was talking about David. She made it sound like she had known him for a long time. She felt anxious about the whole situation, but there was nothing that could be done but wait for the ambulance. She didn’t want to get in David’s way.
“I guess we’ll just have to wait then,” Ellie said out loud, sipping her coffee. Her words earned an approving nod from Linda.
“Yes, dear. I’m sure all will be well,” Linda agreed.
“Where have you been, Linda? I admit that with the way you left, I didn’t expect to see you back so soon,” Ellie said, wanting to deflect the conversation away from having to explain her story again. She was almost sick of it herself.
“We got to London, and had the most wonderful time there,” Linda said, apparently sensing Ellie’s reluctance to talk about anything at that moment. “Randall was so sweet, after he saw how upset I was after the party. I really feel quite silly now. Just an old lady who got a little depressed, and probably worried everyone around her,” she said, shaking her head.
Ellie absently patted her hand and encouraged her to continue. She felt surreal, after the wildness of her dream, and now the heavy snows. She sipped her coffee again and made a deliberate effort to keep her attention focused on Linda and what she was saying, although a large part of her just wanted to stare into the fire and try to digest the message that her dream had tried to tell her.
“But you really can’t cry over spilled milk, can you? So I found myself in London. Randall had it all planned out. We were going to go to Paris, Amsterdam, Barcelona, and maybe even over to Rome and Venice.”
“That sounds like it would have been nice,” Ellie said vaguely.
“Yes, it does, doesn’t it?” Linda agreed. “But after a few days, I told Randall in no uncertain terms that as wonderful as that all was and as marvelous as it all sounded, I had responsibilities here that could not be ignored.”
“We would have managed, Linda,” Ellie said. “I hope you didn’t rush back for that. I would have taken good care of the house, and Jeffrey was doing a fantastic job at the shop, at least, while the shop was open this week.”
“That is one thing that is very good about Randall,” Linda said, standing up. “He is very good with the details. He always says that I’m the emotional one, but in all actuality I don't know how he'd get anything done without me.”
Linda went over to the fire and threw a few more pieces of wood into it. Ellie watched the flames climb higher before adjusting to the new fuel and coming back down to their original size.
Ellie was starting to feel sleepy again. “Man, I don’t know what this is all about,” she said out loud.
“What, dear?” Linda asked.
“It is so crazy. I’ve just been falling asleep lately without even trying. That’s what happened earlier. David told me to shut my eyes for a few minutes, and I fell into such a deep sleep that I didn’t even hear him and Jenny leave the room, or you and Randall coming back,” she said. She tried to keep her mouth shut, but it opened in a yawn despite her efforts.
“From the sounds of things, you’ve been through quite an ordeal over the last few days,” Linda said sympathetically.
“Yeah, but I can’t believe how tired I feel again. You would think that my body would recognize that I just had some good sleep. I feel like I could just drift off again right now.” Ellie stood and immediately sat back down again as she felt an uncomfortable head rush.
The effort of standing seemed too great at that moment, and she had wavered ever so slightly. “What’s the matter with me?” she said. Then she frowned. There was something behind Linda. She squinted to try to make it out.
Linda returned to her side and stroked her hair. “You shouldn’t fight it, Ellie. That doesn’t help anything.”
Ellie heard something new in Linda’s voice. It was…expectation. She looked up at Linda. “Linda?”
“You will be asleep in a few moments, and that is good,” Linda said. Ellie looked at her coffee cup in mortification, and then back at Linda, who nodded. “We can’t have you up and about, accidentally stepping into something that you wouldn’t understand.”
“Wouldn’t understand?” The words managed to escape Ellie’s lips with great effort.
“Don’t worry, dear. Slight change of plans, but you are still in them. That is a wonderful thing for you, don’t you think? I've grown somewhat fond of you, and it would have been a shame to have to toss away the planning that has been going on for the last several months, don’t you think?”
It was like all of her muscles were frozen. Ellie was unable to respond to Linda’s question, although she suspected it was rhetorical anyway. Linda tossed Ellie’s legs onto the couch and then pulled so that Ellie slid back down on the couch. Linda was surprisingly strong.
Then she knelt in front of Ellie, her face filling Ellie's entire view. “The sleep is coming. It should be pleasant. No more dreams,” she whispered as if talking to a confidante.
Ellie’s eyes widened. She finally could see who was standing behind Linda. It was Emma. And Emma was watching her and slowing shaking her head, as if in disappointment. Then she was gone.
Linda nodded. “I know about the dreams, yes. I know about everything. Poor Ellie, with all of your loneliness and all of your pain.” Linda’s words were tinged with a sarcasm that Ellie had never heard before. “Until I met you, I thought I was self-involved.” Linda laughed at her own joke.
“Darling?” Ellie heard Randall’s voice coming from the hallway, and then he appeared over Linda's shoulder in the space that Emma had just vacated. Ellie was terrified. She didn’t know what had come over her friend, and now she was frightened for David and Jenny as well. “Everything taken care of in here?”
Ellie definitely had hoped for a different reaction than the one she saw on Randall’s face. Not shock or outrage, but instead he looked…satisfied.
“Everything is fine here,” Linda said, standing up and turning to greet him. She put her arms around his waist and then they both looked down at Ellie. “It was actually easier than I expected. I believe she just came out of one of those dreams again, so I had no idea how she’d react.”
The emphasis on the word “those” confirmed that Linda knew the dreams that Ellie had been having were out of the ordinary. Ellie wondered how much they actually knew about her dreams.
“I thought she’d be asleep by now,” Randall commented, pointing at her open eyes.
“She will be,” Linda purred. As if Linda’s words were the reason, Ellie felt her eyes starting to shut. She screamed in her head that she needed to stay awake. She needed to understand. She was in hell. But the blackness overtook her, and Ellie had no choice but to surrender.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Ellie woke up to screaming. At first she believed it was her own, but then she realized that her mouth was closed. She was groggy; the effects of whatever drug Linda had given her were starting to wear off. She was lying on a hard surface, and she was in darkness. She felt it pressing in on her and within seconds she felt like she was starting to hyperventilate.
The screams were close by. She heard metal clanking and she jumped with a yelp.
“Ellie?” She heard David’s voice through the darkness and she sagged with relief.
“David!” she said a bit loudly, because David shooshed her immediately.
“Not too loud, Ellie. You don’t want to draw their attention,” he said.
“Where are you, David? I can’t see anything,” Ellie said. She tried not to panic as she felt the darkness close in on her. She sat up and felt heavy weights on he
r wrists, and an identical clanking to what she had just heard. She had metal handcuffs on.
“Don’t bother trying to move too far. These things have a pretty short tether,” David sighed. “I can’t see you either.”
“What’s going on, David?” she asked.
“Something bad, that’s about all I can tell you,” he said.
Ellie heard the slight tremor in his voice, and that scared her badly. David was afraid. “When I woke up, you were gone,” Ellie said.
“You were out like a light,” David said. “I knew you were exhausted, so you obviously needed it. A short while after you fell asleep, I could see Jenny starting to twist around. I didn’t know if she was in distress, or coming to. When I got up to check, I heard the back door open. Like I said, you were out. I thought for sure that you’d wake up, but you didn’t, although you were kind of moaning in your sleep.”
“I was having one of those crazy dreams again,” Ellie confirmed. “I don’t know if I would have woken up if you had tried.”
“I had a feeling,” David said. “But I didn’t even have a chance to try waking you up. Suddenly Randall and Linda were just there. I was shocked to see them. I thought at the time that they were just as shocked to see me. I quickly gave them an outline of what was going on with Jenny, and that’s when she started showing obvious signs of distress. I told them to call an ambulance, but Randall said that it might take a while for it to get there since the snow had started coming down really thick. He suggested we move her up to your room so that it would be more comfortable for her there if something was going to happen. It made sense at the time, so he helped me.”
At that point Ellie could hear metal clanking again and realized it was coming from David’s cuffs as he moved around. She wondered if David was running his hands through his hair.
“We got her up to the bedroom, and Jenny just started going into convulsions. Then I saw that her water had broken. Linda had returned by that point, and said that the ambulance was on its way, but they didn’t expect to be able to get here for at least an hour. They asked what they could do, so I told them my plan in case the ambulance didn’t make it in time. I guess after I explained to them what to do, I was no longer useful,” David said ruefully.
“What do you mean?” Ellie said.
“I thought I had Jenny stabilized for the moment, but she was in labor. There was no doubt about that. She was already dilated. I knew that if the ambulance didn’t show up soon, I was going to be delivering a baby. So I rolled up my sleeves, and tried to get all the supplies I could think of that were readily available here to assist her and make her as comfortable as possible. I had just checked her pulse one more time when Randall came back in the room. I asked about you, if you had woken up yet. He said that Linda was looking after you.”
At that statement, Ellie laughed a short, bitter chuckle. “Oh, she looked after me, all right.”
David paused to see if she was going to say anything else. She didn’t, so he continued.
“Jenny still hadn’t regained consciousness and that was the thing that worried me the most. I wasn’t sure if I was going to have to deliver the baby and then worry about Jenny fading away on me or not. I was constantly moving back and forth, monitoring the baby’s progress, and then her vital signs. Randall was watching, but he stayed out of my way. Finally, Jenny’s eyes opened, and I could see that she was able to focus on me.
“I calmed her as best as I could and explained the situation to her. She seemed more satisfied when I told her the ambulance was on its way. She didn’t remember the attack, so I reminded her where she was. I don’t know how much she actually heard, because the contractions came again. Then her eyes rolled back into her head and she passed out. I assume it was from the pain.” David’s voice was pained now.
“Randall was right there then, asking if he could do anything else. I told him that there was nothing more to do other than wait, and try to keep Jenny comfortable. I had no idea if there were going to be any additional complications that we had to worry about or not.
“He told me that women have been having babies since the beginning of time so he was sure it’d all work out okay.”
A chill went down Ellie’s spine as David repeated the exact words that she remembered Lillian saying in her dream.
“Then what happened?” she asked.
“That is the last thing I remember. Judging from the knot on the back of my head, he must have clubbed me and then I was out,” he said. “When I woke up, I was in here with these handcuffs on my wrists. I tried standing up, but there is only so much slack on them. Any idea where we are?”
“I think we are in the room across from where you left Jenny,” Ellie said. She quickly explained to David about the black walls and covered windows.
“That would make sense,” he agreed. “Every few minutes I can hear yelling. I had told Randall that it would be dangerous to move Jenny, and no doubt by now she’s close.”
“Close to giving birth or just close to us in general?” Ellie said.
“Both,” David replied. “I just woke up a few minutes ago. I didn’t know that there was anyone else in this room with me.”
“You didn’t hear me breathing?” Ellie asked.
“Given the circumstances I need a little slack here, Ellie,” he replied, and she felt bad. “I actually woke up to Jenny’s screams. I think that has been ringing in my ears ever since. I would say that her contractions are just a few minutes apart now.”
As if confirming David’s hypothesis, they heard Jenny screaming again. “There has to be neighbors close by that can hear this,” Ellie said.
“I hope so, Ellie,” David said. “Do you have any idea why your friends are doing this to us?”
That was the question that Ellie had been dreading ever since she had woken up and realized that she and David were bound, in the darkness, and Jenny was in labor. “I think they want Jenny’s baby,” she said. “And Linda said something to me right before she drugged me that they had been planning something that involved me basically ever since she’s known me.”
“Do you have any idea what this plan is? Why are they holding us prisoner? Do you think they want to hurt us?” David asked anxiously.
“They wouldn’t do that,” Ellie said. For as insane as all of this was, she still couldn’t believe that either Linda or Randall would be capable of murder.
“There’s no way they’d be able to trust that we’d keep their secret if that was the case.” David’s logic was frightening, and Ellie didn’t want to admit that he was right.
“I don’t know, David,” she said.
“You’ve known Linda for what, a few months?” he asked.
“Yes,” Ellie confirmed.
“During this entire time, you never saw anything out of the ordinary? She never gave any indication of any kind of malicious intent?” he asked.
“No,” Ellie answered. “But there is something, different, about her,” she said reluctantly. “Both her and Randall.”
“What?”
Ellie wasn’t sure if it was because she couldn’t actually see David that she was thinking of letting go of her secret, or that she realized that it was time that she just let it all out.
She took a deep breath. “They don’t give off any auras.”
There was a short silence. Ellie was afraid she had lost him.
“Auras?” he finally asked. “I’m not sure I understand what that means.”
“Everyone, all the time, gives off an aura that’s says how they are thinking or feeling at any given moment. It’s really hard to lie or be deceitful when your aura shows the exact opposite emotion,” Ellie said.
“And you can...see these auras?” David said.
“Yes,” Ellie said softly. “I've been able to ever since my parents died. It’s something stupid and silly, but something that makes me just weird enough that most people wouldn’t want to be around me, or I wouldn’t want to be around them. My foster families
always acted so nice, but I could see that they hated having me around.”
“This is a lot to process, Ellie,” David said. “But I’m sorry you had a rough childhood. You never said anything about your parents.”
Ellie shrugged as if he could see her. They were entering territory that she had no desire to reminiscence about. That single event had changed her life forever. “It’s the past. No sense dwelling on it.”
David plunged ahead. “Okay, so Linda and Randall don’t give off these auras. What does that mean?”
Ellie was relieved that even if he didn’t believe her, he was still playing along. “Well, it would have made it really easy for them to get close to me. I wouldn’t have had any idea of their true intentions.”
“Have you ever met anyone else before that didn’t have these auras?”
Ellie chewed on her lip. “No, and I guess I should probably have spent a little bit more time thinking about that. Maybe all of this could have been avoided.”
“It’s not your fault, Ellie. These two are up to no good. But we have to figure out what they are planning. Why do you think that they are after Jenny’s baby?”
Ellie realized that David was unaware of her latest dream, or memory, or whatever she wanted to call it. She quickly recounted it to him.
He whistled softly. “Damn, Ellie. That gets crazier by the minute. So not only do you see auras, but now you are seeing ghosts too?”
David's words clicked two puzzle pieces together in her head, and Ellie felt like she had been punched in the stomach. The memory was so vivid and she wondered why she hadn’t questioned it before. “It wasn’t me that saw ghosts.” Her voice quivered. “It was Jake. My dreams got really vivid after Jake died and earlier tonight I actually saw Emma while I was awake. That last day, when I saw him I don’t know why but I hugged him before he left and I felt like this, shock wave, pass between us. What if Jake passed something to me so that I could see ghosts too? What do you think that could mean?”
David was quiet for a long time. “I’m a calm, rational person. This kind of thing belongs in movies, books, or fairy tales. But I’m going to take a leap of faith because I don’t' think you are crazy. You said that the dreams were coming more frequently and becoming more vivid. You say that Linda and Randall are different and that they seem to be focused on you for some reason. You say that Jake had some kind of insight into all of this and that is why he died. I don’t know what it means, Ellie, but we’ll figure it out together.”
